Cyclic Voltammetric Experiment - Simulation. Comparisons of the Complex Mechanism Associated with Electrochemical Reduction of Zr4+ in LiCl-KCl Eutectic Molten Salt

Nuclear energy increasingly represents an important option for generating largely clean CO2-free electricity and zirconium is a fission product that is expected to be present in irradiated fuels. The present investigation addresses the electrochemical reduction of Zr4+ to Zro in LiCl - KCl eutectic molten salt in the temperature range 425–550◦C using cyclic voltammetry (CV), square-wave voltammetry (SWV) and bulk electrolysis. Simulations of the CV data indicate that the initial reduction proceeds through surface confined steps: Zr4+* + 2e− ↔Zr2+* and Zr2+* + 2e− ↔Zr* processes (* adsorbed species) followed by a peak-shaped complex diffusion controlled step that consists of a combination of closely spaced processes associated with the reactions Zr4+ + 4e− →Zr and Zr4+ + 3e− →Zr+*. Zr+*, probably in the form of ZrCl* is then further reduced to Zro* at even more negative potentials. The simulations provide the first quantitative analysis of the thermodynamics and kinetics of the Zr4+ reduction in the LiCl-KCl eutectic

Pharmacy Refill Adherence Compared with CD4 Count Changes for Monitoring HIV-Infected Adults on Antiretroviral Therapy

Analyzing pharmacy and laboratory records from 1,982 patients beginning HIV therapy in southern Africa, Gregory Bisson and colleagues find medication adherence superior to CD4 count changes in identifying treatment failure

Construction of an almond linkage map in an Australian population Nonpareil × Lauranne

Background: Despite a high genetic similarity to peach, almonds (Prunus dulcis) have a fleshless fruit and edible kernel, produced as a crop for human consumption. While the release of peach genome v1.0 provides an excellent opportunity for almond genetic and genomic studies, well-assessed segregating populations and the respective saturated genetic linkage maps lay the foundation for such studies to be completed in almond. Results: Using an almond intraspecific cross between ‘Nonpareil’ and ‘Lauranne’ (N × L), we constructed a moderately saturated map with SSRs, SNPs, ISSRs and RAPDs. The N × L map covered 591.4 cM of the genome with 157 loci. The average marker distance of the map was 4.0 cM. The map displayed high synteny and colinearity with the Prunus T × E reference map in all eight linkage groups (G1-G8). The positions of 14 mapped gene-anchored SNPs corresponded approximately with the positions of homologous sequences in the peach genome v1.0. Analysis of Mendelian segregation ratios showed that 17.9% of markers had significantly skewed genotype ratios at the level of P < 0.05. Due to the large number of skewed markers in the linkage group 7, the potential existence of deleterious gene(s) was assessed in the group. Integrated maps produced by two different mapping methods using JoinMap® 3 were compared, and their high degree of similarity was evident despite the positional inconsistency of a few markers. Conclusions: We presented a moderately saturated Australian almond map, which is highly syntenic and collinear with the Prunus reference map and peach genome V1.0. Therefore, the well-assessed almond population reported here can be used to investigate the traits of interest under Australian growing conditions, and provides more information on the almond genome for the international community.Iraj Tavassolian, Gholmereza Rabiei, Davina Gregory, Mourad Mnejja, Michelle G Wirthensohn, Peter W Hunt, John P Gibson, Christopher M Ford, Margaret Sedgley, and Shu-Biao W

The impact of incident vertebral and non-vertebral fractures on health related quality of life in postmenopausal women

BACKGROUND: Little empirical research has examined the multiple consequences of osteoporosis on quality of life. METHODS: Health related quality of life (HRQL) was examined in relationship to incident fractures in 2009 postmenopausal women 50 years and older who were seen in consultation at our tertiary care, university teaching hospital-affiliated office and who were registered in the Canadian Database of Osteoporosis and Osteopenia (CANDOO) patients. Patients were divided into three study groups according to incident fracture status: vertebral fractures, non-vertebral fractures and no fractures. Baseline assessments of anthropometric data, medical history, therapeutic drug use, and prevalent fracture status were obtained from all participants. The disease-targeted mini-Osteoporosis Quality of Life Questionnaire (mini-OQLQ) was used to measure HRQL. RESULTS: Multiple regression analyses revealed that subjects who had experienced an incident vertebral fracture had lower HRQL difference scores as compared with non-fractured participants in total score (-0.86; 95% confidence intervals (CI): -1.30, -0.43) and the symptoms (-0.76; 95% CI: -1.23, -0.30), physical functioning (-1.12; 95% CI: -1.57, -0.67), emotional functioning (-1.06; 95% CI: -1.44, -0.68), activities of daily living (-1.47; 95% CI: -1.97, -0.96), and leisure (-0.92; 95% CI: -1.37, -0.47) domains of the mini-OQLQ. Patients who experienced an incident non-vertebral fracture had lower HRQL difference scores as compared with non-fractured participants in total score (-0.47; 95% CI: -0.70, -0.25), and the symptoms (-0.25; 95% CI: -0.49, -0.01), physical functioning (-0.39; 95% CI: -0.65, -0.14), emotional functioning (-0.97; 95% CI: -1.20, -0.75) and the activities of daily living (-0.47; 95% CI: -0.73, -0.21) domains. CONCLUSION: Quality of life decreased in patients who sustained incident vertebral and non-vertebral fractures

Red Blood Cell Fatty Acid Patterns and Acute Coronary Syndrome

BACKGROUND:Assessment of coronary heart disease (CHD) risk is typically based on a weighted combination of standard risk factors. We sought to determine the extent to which a lipidomic approach based on red blood cell fatty acid (RBC-FA) profiles could discriminate acute coronary syndrome (ACS) cases from controls, and to compare RBC-FA discrimination with that based on standard risk factors. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS:RBC-FA profiles were measured in 668 ACS cases and 680 age-, race- and gender-matched controls. Multivariable logistic regression models based on FA profiles (FA) and standard risk factors (SRF) were developed on a random 2/3(rds) derivation set and validated on the remaining 1/3(rd). The area under receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves (c-statistics), misclassification rates, and model calibrations were used to evaluate the individual and combined models. The FA discriminated cases from controls better than the SRF (c = 0.85 vs. 0.77, p = 0.003) and the FA profile added significantly to the standard model (c = 0.88 vs. 0.77, p<0.0001). Hosmer-Lemeshow calibration was poor for the FA model alone (p = 0.01), but acceptable for both the SRF (p = 0.30) and combined models (p = 0.22). Misclassification rates were 23%, 29% and 20% for FA, the SRF, and the combined models, respectively. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE:RBC-FA profiles contribute significantly to the discrimination of ACS cases, especially when combined with standard risk factors. The utility of FA patterns in risk prediction warrants further investigation

Diabetes Health, Residence & Metabolism in Asians: the DHRMA study, research into foods from the Indian subcontinent - a blinded, randomised, placebo controlled trial

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Coronary heart disease (CHD) is highly prevalent amongst the South Asian communities in Britain. The reasons for this excess CHD risk are multifactorial, but in part relate to a susceptibility to diabetes mellitus - where the aberrant metabolism of non-esterified fatty acids (NEFA) and glucose are likely to underpin vascular disease in this population. Dietary intervention is an important and first line approach to manage increased CHD risk. However, there is limited information on the impact of the South Asian diet on CHD risk.</p> <p>Methods/Design</p> <p>The Diabetes Health, Residence & Metabolism in Asians (DHRMA) study is a blinded, randomised, placebo controlled trial that analyses the efficacy of reduced glycaemic index (GI) staples of the South Asian diet, in relation to cardio-metabolic risk factors that are commonly perturbed amongst South Asian populations - primarily glucose, fatty acid and lipoprotein metabolism and central adiposity. Using a 10-week dietary intervention study, 50 healthy South Asians will be randomised to receive either a DHRMA (reduced GI) supply of chapatti (bread), stone ground, high protein wheat flour and white basmati rice (high bran, unpolished) or commercially available (leading brand) versions chapatti wheat flour and basmati rice. Volunteers will be asked to complete a 75g oral glucose tolerance test at baseline and at 10-weeks follow-up, where blood metabolites and hormones, blood pressure and anthropometry will also be assessed in a standardised manner.</p> <p>Discussion</p> <p>It is anticipated that the information collected from this study help develop healthy diet options specific (but not exclusive) for South Asian ethnic communities.</p> <p>Trial registration</p> <p>Current Controlled Trials <a href="http://www.trialregister.nl/trialreg/admin/rctview.asp?TC=ISRCTN02839188">ISRCTN02839188</a></p

Compensatory T Cell Responses in IRG-Deficient Mice Prevent Sustained Chlamydia trachomatis Infections

The obligate intracellular pathogen Chlamydia trachomatis is the most common cause of bacterial sexually transmitted diseases in the United States. In women C. trachomatis can establish persistent genital infections that lead to pelvic inflammatory disease and sterility. In contrast to natural infections in humans, experimentally induced infections with C. trachomatis in mice are rapidly cleared. The cytokine interferon-γ (IFNγ) plays a critical role in the clearance of C. trachomatis infections in mice. Because IFNγ induces an antimicrobial defense system in mice but not in humans that is composed of a large family of Immunity Related GTPases (IRGs), we questioned whether mice deficient in IRG immunity would develop persistent infections with C. trachomatis as observed in human patients. We found that IRG-deficient Irgm1/m3(-/-) mice transiently develop high bacterial burden post intrauterine infection, but subsequently clear the infection more efficiently than wildtype mice. We show that the delayed but highly effective clearance of intrauterine C. trachomatis infections in Irgm1/m3(-/-) mice is dependent on an exacerbated CD4+ T cell response. These findings indicate that the absence of the predominant murine innate effector mechanism restricting C. trachomatis growth inside epithelial cells results in a compensatory adaptive immune response, which is at least in part driven by CD4+ T cells and prevents the establishment of a persistent infection in mice

Evaluation of midkine and anterior gradient 2 in a multimarker panel for the detection of ovarian cancer

The aims of this study were: to characterise and compare plasma concentrations of midkine (MDK) in normal healthy women with concentrations observed in women with ovarian cancer; and to establish and compare the performance of MDK with that of anterior gradient 2 protein (AGR2) and CA125 in the development of multi-analyte classification algorithms for ovarian cancer. Median plasma concentrations of immunoreactive MDK, AGR2 and CA125 were significantly greater in the case cohort (909 pg/ml, 765 pg/ml and 502 U/ml, respectively n = 46) than in the control cohort (383 pg/ml, 188 pg/ml and 13 U/ml, respectively n = 61) (p < 0.001). The area under the receiver operator characteristic curve (AUC) for MDK and AGR2 was not significantly different (0.734 ± 0.046 and 0.784 ± 0.049, respectively, mean ± SE) but were both significantly less than the AUC for CA125 (0.934 ± 0.030, p < 0.003). When subjected to stochastic gradient boosted logistic regression modelling, the AUC of the multi-analyte panel (MDK, AGR2 and CA125, 0.988 ± 0.010) was significantly greater than that of CA125 alone (0.934 ± 0.030, p = 0.035). The sensitivity and specificity of the multi-analyte algorithm were 95.2 and 97.7%, respectively. Within the study cohort, CA125 displayed a sensitivity and specificity of 87.0 and 94.6%, respectively. The data obtained in this study confirm that both MDK and AGR2 individually display utility as biomarkers for ovarian cancer and that in a multi-analyte panel significantly improve the diagnostic utility of CA125 in symptomatic women

Using Combined Morphological, Allometric and Molecular Approaches to Identify Species of the Genus Raillietiella (Pentastomida)

Taxonomic studies of parasites can be severely compromised if the host species affects parasite morphology; an uncritical analysis might recognize multiple taxa simply because of phenotypically plastic responses of parasite morphology to host physiology. Pentastomids of the genus Raillietiella are endoparasitic crustaceans primarily infecting the respiratory system of carnivorous reptiles, but also recorded from bufonid anurans. The delineation of pentastomids at the generic level is clear, but the taxonomic status of many species is not. We collected raillietiellids from lungs of the invasive cane toad (Rhinella marina), the invasive Asian house gecko (Hemidactylus frenatus), and a native tree frog (Litoria caerulea) in tropical Australia, and employed a combination of genetic analyses, and traditional and novel morphological methods to clarify their identity. Conventional analyses of parasite morphology (which focus on raw values of morphological traits) revealed two discrete clusters in terms of pentastome hook size, implying two different species of pentastomes: one from toads and a tree frog (Raillietiella indica) and another from lizards (Raillietiella frenatus). However, these clusters disappeared in allometric analyses that took pentastome body size into account, suggesting that only a single pentastome taxon may be involved. Our molecular data revealed no genetic differences between parasites in toads versus lizards, confirming that there was only one species: R. frenatus. This pentastome (previously known only from lizards) clearly is also capable of maturing in anurans. Our analyses show that the morphological features used in pentastomid taxonomy change as the parasite transitions through developmental stages in the definitive host. To facilitate valid descriptions of new species of pentastomes, future taxonomic work should include both morphological measurements (incorporating quantitative measures of body size and hook bluntness) and molecular data

How to do an evaluation: pitfalls and traps

The recent literature is replete with papers evaluating computational tools (often those operating on 3D structures) for their performance in a certain set of tasks. Most commonly these papers compare a number of docking tools for their performance in cognate re-docking (pose prediction) and/or virtual screening. Related papers have been published on ligand-based tools: pose prediction by conformer generators and virtual screening using a variety of ligand-based approaches. The reliability of these comparisons is critically affected by a number of factors usually ignored by the authors, including bias in the datasets used in virtual screening, the metrics used to assess performance in virtual screening and pose prediction and errors in crystal structures used