An overview of the current status of CMB observations

In this paper we briefly review the current status of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) observations, summarising the latest results obtained from CMB experiments, both in intensity and polarization, and the constraints imposed on the cosmological parameters. We also present a summary of current and future CMB experiments, with a special focus on the quest for the CMB B-mode polarization.Comment: Latest CMB results have been included. References added. To appear in "Highlights of Spanish Astrophysics V", Proceedings of the VIII Scientific Meeting of the Spanish Astronomical Society (SEA) held in Santander, 7-11 July, 200

Use of ecstasy and other psychoactive substances among school-attending adolescents in Taiwan: national surveys 2004–2006

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>With the backdrop of a global ecstasy epidemic, this study sought to examine the trend, correlates, and onset sequence of ecstasy use among adolescents in Taiwan, where a well-established gateway drug such as marijuana is much less popular.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A multistage probability survey of school-attending adolescents in grades 7, 9, 10, and 12, aged 11–19 years, was conducted in 2004, 2005, and 2006. A self-administered anonymous questionnaire elicited response rates ranging from 94.3% to 96.6%. The sample sizes were 18232 respondents in 2004, 17986 in 2005, and 17864 in 2006.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>In terms of lifetime prevalence and incidence, ecstasy and ketamine by and large appeared as the first and second commonly used illegal drugs, respectively, among middle (grades 7 and 9) and high school students (grades 10 and 12) during the 3-year survey period; however, this order was reversed in the middle school-aged students starting in 2006. Having sexual experience, tobacco use, and betel nut use were factors consistently associated with the onset of ecstasy use across years. The majority of ecstasy users had been involved in polydrug use, such as the use of ketamine (41.4%–53.5%), marijuana (12.7%–18.7%), and methamphetamine (4.2%–9.5%).</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>From 2004 to 2006, a decline was noted in the prevalence and incidence rate of ecstasy, a leading illegal drug used by school-attending adolescents in Taiwan since the early 2000s. The emerging ketamine use trend may warrant more attention in the future.</p

Copy number variation of microRNA genes in the human genome

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are important genetic elements that regulate the expression of thousands of human genes. Polymorphisms affecting miRNA biogenesis, dosage and target recognition may represent potentially functional variants. The functional consequences of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) within critical miRNA sequences and outside of miRNA genes were previously demonstrated using both experimental and computational methods. However, little is known about how copy number variations (CNVs) affect miRNA genes.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>In this study, we analyzed the co-localization of all miRNA <it>loci </it>with known CNV regions. Using bioinformatic tools we identified and validated 209 copy number variable miRNA genes (CNV-miRNAs) in CNV regions deposited in Database of Genomic Variations (DGV) and 11 CNV-miRNAs in two sets of CNVs defined as highly polymorphic. We propose potential mechanisms of CNV-mediated variation of functional copies of miRNAs (dosage) for different types of CNVs overlapping miRNA genes. We also showed that, consistent with their essential biological functions, miRNA <it>loci </it>are underrepresented in highly polymorphic and well-validated CNV regions.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>We postulate that CNV-miRNAs are potential functional variants and should be considered high priority candidate variants in genotype-phenotype association studies.</p

Toward estimating the impact of changes in immigrants' insurance eligibility on hospital expenditures for uncompensated care

BACKGROUND: The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) of 1996 gave states the option to withdraw Medicaid coverage of nonemergency care from most legal immigrants. Our goal was to assess the effect of PRWORA on hospital uncompensated care in the United States. METHODS: We collected the following state-level data for the period from 1994 through 1999: foreign-born, noncitizen population and health uninsurance rates (US Census Current Population Survey); percentage of teaching hospitals (American Hospital Association Annual Survey of Hospitals); and each state's decision whether to implement the PRWORA Medicaid bar for legal permanent residents or to continue offering nonemergency Medicaid coverage using state-only funds (Urban Institute). We modeled uncompensated care expenditures by state (also from the Annual Survey of Hospitals) in both univariate and multivariable regression analyses. RESULTS: When measured at the state level, there was no significant relationship between uncompensated care expenditures and states' percentage of noncitizen immigrants. Uninsurance rates were the only significant factor in predicting uncompensated hospital care expenditures by state. CONCLUSIONS: Reducing the number of uninsured patients would most surely reduce hospital expenditures for uncompensated care. However, data limitations hampered our efforts to obtain a monetary estimate of hospitals' financial losses due specifically to the immigrant eligibility changes in PRWORA. Quantifying the impact of these provisions on hospitals will require better data sources

Essential Medicines at the National Level : The Global Asthma Network's Essential Asthma Medicines Survey 2014

Patients with asthma need uninterrupted supplies of affordable, quality-assured essential medicines. However, access in many low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) is limited. The World Health Organization (WHO) Non-Communicable Disease (NCD) Global Action Plan 2013-2020 sets an 80% target for essential NCD medicines' availability. Poor access is partly due to medicines not being included on the national Essential Medicines Lists (EML) and/or National Reimbursement Lists (NRL) which guide the provision of free/subsidised medicines. We aimed to determine how many countries have essential asthma medicines on their EML and NRL, which essential asthma medicines, and whether surveys might monitor progress. A cross-sectional survey in 2013-2015 of Global Asthma Network principal investigators generated 111/120 (93%) responses41 high-income countries and territories (HICs); 70 LMICs. Patients in HICs with NRL are best served (91% HICs included ICS (inhaled corticosteroids) and salbutamol). Patients in the 24 (34%) LMICs with no NRL and the 14 (30%) LMICs with an NRL, however no ICS are likely to have very poor access to affordable, quality-assured ICS. Many LMICs do not have essential asthma medicines on their EML or NRL. Technical guidance and advocacy for policy change is required. Improving access to these medicines will improve the health system's capacity to address NCDs.Peer reviewe

Population Recovery of Nicobar Long-Tailed Macaque Macaca fascicularis umbrosus following a Tsunami in the Nicobar Islands, India

Natural disasters pose a threat to isolated populations of species with restricted distributions, especially those inhabiting islands. The Nicobar long tailed macaque.Macaca fascicularis umbrosus, is one such species found in the three southernmost islands (viz. Great Nicobar, Little Nicobar and Katchal) of the Andaman and Nicobar archipelago, India. These islands were hit by a massive tsunami (Indian Ocean tsunami, 26 December 2004) after a 9.2 magnitude earthquake. Earlier studies [Umapathy et al. 2003; Sivakumar, 2004] reported a sharp decline in the population of M. f. umbrosus after thetsunami. We studied the distribution and population status of M. f. umbrosus on thethree Nicobar Islands and compared our results with those of the previous studies. We carried out trail surveys on existing paths and trails on three islands to get encounter rate as measure of abundance. We also checked the degree of inundation due to tsunami by using Normalized Difference Water Index (NDWI) on landsat imageries of the study area before and after tsunami. Theencounter rate of groups per kilometre of M. f. umbrosus in Great Nicobar, Little Nicobar and Katchal was 0.30, 0.35 and 0.48 respectively with the mean group size of 39 in Great Nicobar and 43 in Katchal following the tsunami. This was higher than that reported in the two earlier studies conducted before and after the tsunami. Post tsunami, there was a significant change in the proportion of adult males, adult females and immatures, but mean group size did not differ as compared to pre tsunami. The results show that population has recovered from a drastic decline caused by tsunami, but it cannot be ascertained whether it has reached stability because of the altered group structure. This study demonstrates the effect of natural disasters on island occurring species

Microfluidics: reframing biological enquiry

The underlying physical properties of microfluidic tools have led to new biological insights through the development of microsystems that can manipulate, mimic and measure biology at a resolution that has not been possible with macroscale tools. Microsystems readily handle sub-microlitre volumes, precisely route predictable laminar fluid flows and match both perturbations and measurements to the length scales and timescales of biological systems. The advent of fabrication techniques that do not require highly specialized engineering facilities is fuelling the broad dissemination of microfluidic systems and their adaptation to specific biological questions. We describe how our understanding of molecular and cell biology is being and will continue to be advanced by precision microfluidic approaches and posit that microfluidic tools - in conjunction with advanced imaging, bioinformatics and molecular biology approaches - will transform biology into a precision science

Planck 2015 results XX. Constraints on inflation

We present the implications for cosmic inflation of the Planck measurements of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropies in both temperature and polarization based on the full Planck survey, which includes more than twice the integration time of the nominal survey used for the 2013 release papers. The Planck full mission temperature data and a first release of polarization data on large angular scales measure the spectral index of curvature perturbations to be ns = 0.968 ± 0.006 and tightly constrain its scale dependence to dns/ dlnk = −0.003 ± 0.007 when combined with the Planck lensing likelihood. When the Planck high-ℓ polarization data are included, the results are consistent and uncertainties are further reduced. The upper bound on the tensor-to-scalar ratio is r0.002< 0.11 (95% CL). This upper limit is consistent with the B-mode polarization constraint r< 0.12 (95% CL) obtained from a joint analysis of the BICEP2/Keck Array and Planck data. These results imply that V(φ) ∝ φ2 and natural inflation are now disfavoured compared to models predicting a smaller tensor-to-scalar ratio, such as R2 inflation. We search for several physically motivated deviations from a simple power-law spectrum of curvature perturbations, including those motivated by a reconstruction of the inflaton potential not relying on the slow-roll approximation. We find that such models are not preferred, either according to a Bayesian model comparison or according to a frequentist simulation-based analysis. Three independent methods reconstructing the primordial power spectrum consistently recover a featureless and smooth over the range of scales 0.008 Mpc-1 ≲ k ≲ 0.1 Mpc-1. At large scales, each method finds deviations from a power law, connected to a deficit at multipoles ℓ ≈ 20−40 in the temperature power spectrum, but at an uncompelling statistical significance owing to the large cosmic variance present at these multipoles. By combining power spectrum and non-Gaussianity bounds, we constrain models with generalized Lagrangians, including Galileon models and axion monodromy models. The Planck data are consistent with adiabatic primordial perturbations, and the estimated values for the parameters of the base Λ cold dark matter (ΛCDM) model are not significantly altered when more general initial conditions are admitted. In correlated mixed adiabatic and isocurvature models, the 95% CL upper bound for the non-adiabatic contribution to the observed CMB temperature variance is | αnon - adi | < 1.9%, 4.0%, and 2.9% for CDM, neutrino density, and neutrino velocity isocurvature modes, respectively. We have tested inflationary models producing an anisotropic modulation of the primordial curvature power spectrum findingthat the dipolar modulation in the CMB temperature field induced by a CDM isocurvature perturbation is not preferred at a statistically significant level. We also establish tight constraints on a possible quadrupolar modulation of the curvature perturbation. These results are consistent with the Planck 2013 analysis based on the nominal mission data and further constrain slow-roll single-field inflationary models, as expected from the increased precision of Planck data using the full set of observations