Modern seawater acidification: The response of foraminifera to high-CO<inf>2</inf> conditions in the Mediterranean Sea

The seas around the island of Ischia (Italy) have a lowered pH as a result of volcanic gas vents that emit carbon dioxide from the sea floor at ambient seawater temperatures. These areas of acidified seawater provide natural laboratories in which to study the long-term biological response to rising CO2 levels. Benthic foraminifera (single-celled protists) are particularly interesting as they have short life histories, are environmentally sensitive and have an excellent fossil record. Here, we examine changes in foraminiferal assemblages along pH gradients at CO2 vents on the coast of Ischia and show that the foraminiferal distribution, diversity and nature of the fauna change markedly in the living assemblages as pH decreases. © 2010 Geological Society of London

Magnetic monopoles from gauge theory phase transitions

Thermal fluctuations of the gauge field lead to monopole formation at the grand unified phase transition in the early Universe, even if the transition is merely a smooth crossover. The dependence of the produced monopole density on various parameters is qualitatively different from theories with global symmetries, and the monopoles have a positive correlation at short distances. The number density of monopoles may be suppressed if the grand unified symmetry is only restored for a short time by, for instance, nonthermal symmetry restoration after preheating.Comment: 5 pages, updated to match the version published in PRD (http://link.aps.org/abstract/PRD/v68/e021301) on 11 July 200

Performance of risk assessment models for prevalent or undiagnosed type 2 diabetes mellitus in a multi-ethnic population: the Helius study

Background: Most risk assessment models for type 2 diabetes (T2DM) have been developed in Caucasians and Asians; little is known about their performance in other ethnic groups.Objective(s): We aimed to identify existing models for the risk of prevalent or undiagnosed T2DM and externally validate them in a multi-ethnic population currently living in the Netherlands.Methods: A literature search to identify risk assessment models for prevalent or undiagnosed T2DM was performed in PubMed until December 2017. We validated these models in 4,547 Dutch, 3,035 South Asian Surinamese, 4,119 African Surinamese, 2,326 Ghanaian, 3,598 Turkish, and 3,894 Moroccan origin participants from the HELIUS (Healthy LIfe in an Urban Setting) cohort study performed in Amsterdam. Model performance was assessed in terms of discrimination (C-statistic) and calibration (Hosmer-Lemeshow test). We identified 25 studies containing 29 models for prevalent or undiagnosed T2DM. C-statistics varied between 0.77-0.92 in Dutch, 0.66-0.83 in South Asian Surinamese, 0.70-0.82 in African Surinamese, 0.61-0.81 in Ghanaian, 0.69-0.86 in Turkish, and 0.69-0.87 in the Moroccan populations. The C-statistics were generally lower among the South Asian Surinamese, African Surinamese, and Ghanaian populations and highest among the Dutch. Calibration was poor (Hosmer-Lemeshow p < 0.05) for all models except one.Conclusions: Generally, risk models for prevalent or undiagnosed T2DM show moderate to good discriminatory ability in different ethnic populations living in the Netherlands, but poor calibration. Therefore, these models should be recalibrated before use in clinical practice and should be adapted to the situation of the population they are intended to be used in.Therapeutic cell differentiatio

Pellino-1 regulates the responses of the airway to viral infection

Exposure to respiratory pathogens is a leading cause of exacerbations of airway diseases such as asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Pellino-1 is an E3 ubiquitin ligase known to regulate virally-induced inflammation. We wished to determine the role of Pellino-1 in the host response to respiratory viruses in health and disease. Pellino-1 expression was examined in bronchial sections from patients with GOLD stage two COPD and healthy controls. Primary bronchial epithelial cells (PBECs) in which Pellino-1 expression had been knocked down were extracellularly challenged with the TLR3 agonist poly(I:C). C57BL/6 Peli1−/− mice and wild type littermates were subjected to intranasal infection with clinically-relevant respiratory viruses: rhinovirus (RV1B) and influenza A. We found that Pellino-1 is expressed in the airways of normal subjects and those with COPD, and that Pellino-1 regulates TLR3 signaling and responses to airways viruses. In particular we observed that knockout of Pellino-1 in the murine lung resulted in increased production of proinflammatory cytokines IL-6 and TNFα upon viral infection, accompanied by enhanced recruitment of immune cells to the airways, without any change in viral replication. Pellino-1 therefore regulates inflammatory airway responses without altering replication of respiratory viruses

Structure-affinity relationships (SARs) and structure-kinetics relationships (SKRs) of Kv11.1 blockers

Medicinal Chemistr

Abelian-Projected Effective Gauge Theory of QCD with Asymptotic Freedom and Quark Confinement

We give an outline of a recent proof that the low-energy effective gauge theory exhibiting quark confinement due to magnetic monopole condensation can be derived from QCD without any specific assumption. We emphasize that the low-energy effective abelian gauge theories obtained here give the dual description of the same physics in the low-energy region. They show that the QCD vacuum is nothing but the dual (type II) superconductor.Comment: 15 pages, Latex, no figures, Talk given at YKIS'97, Non-perturbative QCD, Kyot

Abelian-Projected Effective Gauge Theory of QCD with Asymptotic Freedom and Quark Confinement

Starting from SU(2) Yang-Mills theory in 3+1 dimensions, we prove that the abelian-projected effective gauge theories are written in terms of the maximal abelian gauge field and the dual abelian gauge field interacting with monopole current. This is performed by integrating out all the remaining non-Abelian gauge field belonging to SU(2)/U(1). We show that the resulting abelian gauge theory recovers exactly the same one-loop beta function as the original Yang-Mills theory. Moreover, the dual abelian gauge field becomes massive if the monopole condensation occurs. This result supports the dual superconductor scenario for quark confinement in QCD. We give a criterion of dual superconductivity and point out that the monopole condensation can be estimated from the classical instanton configuration. Therefore there can exist the effective abelian gauge theory which shows both asymptotic freedom and quark confinement based on the dual Meissner mechanism. Inclusion of arbitrary number of fermion flavors is straightforward in this approach. Some implications to lower dimensional case will also be discussed.Comment: 39 pages, Latex, no figures, (2.2, 4.1, 4.3 are modified; 4.4, Appendices A,B,C and references are added. No change in conclusion

Markets and marketing research on poverty and its alleviation: Summarizing an evolving logic toward human capabilities, well-being goals and transformation

Marketing practitioners and business scholars now view some of the world’s poorest communities as profitable growth markets. Hence a market-based approach to poverty alleviation has gathered momentum. This article traces the evolution of such a market-based approach over four decades and highlights a gradual trend away from a deficit-reduction approach (focused on constraints and justice) towards an opportunity-expansion approach (focused on capabilities and well-being). This trend is summarized in an analytical framework of human capabilities, well-being goals and transformative impact evolved from the literature. The framework is then used to analyse the practice of sanitation marketing, which has emerged as a key method in one of the highest priority domains in international development discourse – sanitation. The article concludes with a discussion of how contemporary work can further take forward the key tenets of the framework and guide the development of ‘good markets’ for the poor