Effects of mild calorie restriction and high-intensity interval walking in middle-aged and older overweight Japanese

We investigated whether a combination of mild calorie restriction (MCR) and high-intensity interval walking (HIW) improved physical fitness more than HIW alone in middle-aged and older overweight Japanese (40-69 years old, BMI >= 23.6 kg/m(2)). Forty-seven women and 16 men were divided into MCR + HIW and HIW groups. All subjects performed HIW: >= 5 sets of 3-min low-intensity walking (40% peak aerobic capacity for walking, VO2peak) and 3-min high-intensity walking (>= 70% VO2peak) per day, >= 4 days per week, for 16 weeks while energy expenditure was monitored with a tri-axial accelerometer. The MCR + HIW group consumed meal replacement formula (240 kcal): a mixture of low-carbohydrates and -fat and high-protein, for either lunch or dinner everyday and therefore, had similar to 87% of the energy intake of the HIW group during the intervention period. Although the HIW group showed improvements in BMI, blood pressure, and several blood chemicals, the MCR + HIW group had greater improvement. Moreover, the medical expenditure for the 6 months including the intervention period was 59% lower in the MCR + HIW group than in the HIW group. Our strategy of a short-term combination of MCR and HIW may thus prevent lifestyle-associated diseases and improve health in middle-aged and older overweight Japanese.ArticleEXPERIMENTAL GERONTOLOGY. 44(10):666-675 (2009)journal articl

The Quiescent Intracluster Medium in the Core of the Perseus Cluster

Clusters of galaxies are the most massive gravitationally-bound objects in the Universe and are still forming. They are thus important probes of cosmological parameters and a host of astrophysical processes. Knowledge of the dynamics of the pervasive hot gas, which dominates in mass over stars in a cluster, is a crucial missing ingredient. It can enable new insights into mechanical energy injection by the central supermassive black hole and the use of hydrostatic equilibrium for the determination of cluster masses. X-rays from the core of the Perseus cluster are emitted by the 50 million K diffuse hot plasma filling its gravitational potential well. The Active Galactic Nucleus of the central galaxy NGC1275 is pumping jetted energy into the surrounding intracluster medium, creating buoyant bubbles filled with relativistic plasma. These likely induce motions in the intracluster medium and heat the inner gas preventing runaway radiative cooling; a process known as Active Galactic Nucleus Feedback. Here we report on Hitomi X-ray observations of the Perseus cluster core, which reveal a remarkably quiescent atmosphere where the gas has a line-of-sight velocity dispersion of 164+/-10 km/s in a region 30-60 kpc from the central nucleus. A gradient in the line-of-sight velocity of 150+/-70 km/s is found across the 60 kpc image of the cluster core. Turbulent pressure support in the gas is 4% or less of the thermodynamic pressure, with large scale shear at most doubling that estimate. We infer that total cluster masses determined from hydrostatic equilibrium in the central regions need little correction for turbulent pressure.Comment: 31 pages, 11 Figs, published in Nature July

Hitomi (ASTRO-H) X-ray Astronomy Satellite

The Hitomi (ASTRO-H) mission is the sixth Japanese x-ray astronomy satellite developed by a large international collaboration, including Japan, USA, Canada, and Europe. The mission aimed to provide the highest energy resolution ever achieved at E  >  2  keV, using a microcalorimeter instrument, and to cover a wide energy range spanning four decades in energy from soft x-rays to gamma rays. After a successful launch on February 17, 2016, the spacecraft lost its function on March 26, 2016, but the commissioning phase for about a month provided valuable information on the onboard instruments and the spacecraft system, including astrophysical results obtained from first light observations. The paper describes the Hitomi (ASTRO-H) mission, its capabilities, the initial operation, and the instruments/spacecraft performances confirmed during the commissioning operations for about a month

Hitomi X-Ray Studies of Giant Radio Pulses from the Crab Pulsar

To search for giant X-ray pulses correlated with the giant radio pulses (GRPs) from the Crab pulsar, we performed a simultaneous observation of the Crab pulsar with the X-ray satellite Hitomi in the 2300 keV band and the Kashima NICT radio telescope in the 1.41.7 GHz band with a net exposure of about 2 ks on 2016 March 25, just before the loss of the Hitomi mission. The timing performance of the Hitomi instruments was confirmed to meet the timing requirement and about 1000 and 100 GRPs were simultaneously observed at the main pulse and inter-pulse phases, respectively, and we found no apparent correlation between the giant radio pulses and the X-ray emission in either the main pulse or inter-pulse phase. All variations are within the 2 fluctuations of the X-ray fluxes at the pulse peaks, and the 3 upper limits of variations of main pulse or inter-pulse GRPs are 22% or 80% of the peak flux in a 0.20 phase width, respectively, in the 2300 keV band. The values for main pulse or inter-pulse GRPs become 25% or 110%, respectively, when the phase width is restricted to the 0.03 phase. Among the upper limits from the Hitomi satellite, those in the 4.510 keV and 70300 keV bands are obtained for the first time, and those in other bands are consistent with previous reports. Numerically, the upper limits of the main pulse and inter-pulse GRPs in the 0.20 phase width are about (2.4 and 9.3) 10(exp 11) erg cm(exp 2), respectively. No significant variability in pulse profiles implies that the GRPs originated from a local place within the magnetosphere. Although the number of photon-emitting particles should temporarily increase to account for the brightening of the radio emission, the results do not statistically rule out variations correlated with the GRPs, because the possible X-ray enhancement may appear due to a >0.02% brightening of the pulse-peak flux under such conditions

Retrospective evaluation of whole exome and genome mutation calls in 746 cancer samples

Funder: NCI U24CA211006Abstract: The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and International Cancer Genome Consortium (ICGC) curated consensus somatic mutation calls using whole exome sequencing (WES) and whole genome sequencing (WGS), respectively. Here, as part of the ICGC/TCGA Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes (PCAWG) Consortium, which aggregated whole genome sequencing data from 2,658 cancers across 38 tumour types, we compare WES and WGS side-by-side from 746 TCGA samples, finding that ~80% of mutations overlap in covered exonic regions. We estimate that low variant allele fraction (VAF < 15%) and clonal heterogeneity contribute up to 68% of private WGS mutations and 71% of private WES mutations. We observe that ~30% of private WGS mutations trace to mutations identified by a single variant caller in WES consensus efforts. WGS captures both ~50% more variation in exonic regions and un-observed mutations in loci with variable GC-content. Together, our analysis highlights technological divergences between two reproducible somatic variant detection efforts