Genetic parameters of ovarian cyst incidence in Swedish dairy cattle

International audienc

Revision and complication rates in 654 Exeter total hip replacements, with a maximum follow-up of 20 years.

To access full text version of this article. Please click on the hyperlink "View/open" at the bottom of this pageBACKGROUND: Iceland's geographical isolation with a stable and small population gives a rare opportunity for follow-up studies of medical interventions. Total hip replacements (THR) have been done at FSA Central Hospital in Akureyri, Iceland since 1982 with the Exeter hip implant being in use from the beginning. METHODS: Hospital records for all patients operated on with THR between 1982 and the end of 1999 were reviewed and the patients were followed until the end of 2001. Information was gathered regarding the indication for primary surgery, the reason for revision if needed, as well as that of any complications. Survival statistics were used to calculate the cumulative revision rate. RESULTS: The mean age at primary THR was 68.4 years for males and 68.8 years for females. 654 primary THRs were done; of which 571 (87 %) were due to osteoarthritis. 37 of the primary arthroplasties had been revised before the end of year 2001. CONCLUSION: We have in this unique 2-20 year study of 654 THRs with no loss to follow-up for the patients, found revision rates that conform with the large Swedish THR registry. Complication rates in general are in agreement with that reported for other comparable patient groups, while infection rates appear lower

Using Association Mapping in Teosinte to Investigate the Function of Maize Selection-Candidate Genes

BACKGROUND:Large-scale screens of the maize genome identified 48 genes that show the putative signature of artificial selection during maize domestication or improvement. These selection-candidate genes may act as quantitative trait loci (QTL) that control the phenotypic differences between maize and its progenitor, teosinte. The selection-candidate genes appear to be located closer in the genome to domestication QTL than expected by chance. METHODS AND FINDINGS:As a step toward defining the traits controlled by these genes, we performed phenotype-genotype association mapping in teosinte for 32 of the 48 plus three other selection-candidate genes. Our analyses assayed 32 phenotypic traits, many of which were altered during maize domestication or improvement. We observed several significant associations between SNPs in the selection-candidate genes and trait variation in teosinte. These included two associations that surpassed the Bonferroni correction and five instances where a gene significantly associated with the same trait in both of our association mapping panels. Despite these significant associations, when compared as a group the selection-candidate genes performed no better than randomly chosen genes. CONCLUSIONS:Our results suggest association analyses can be helpful for identifying traits under the control of selection-candidate genes. Indeed, we present evidence for new functions for several selection-candidate genes. However, with the current set of selection-candidate genes and our association mapping strategy, we found very few significant associations overall and no more than we would have found with randomly chosen genes. We discuss possible reasons that a large number of significant genotype-phenotype associations were not discovered

A Framework for Analysing Interactivity in a Remote Access Field Exploration System

Abstract: The research described in this paper is the investigation of interactivity between learners and system in the context of remote access to educational field explorations (field trips)

The association between hip fracture and hip osteoarthritis: A case-control study

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>There have been reports both supporting and refuting an inverse relationship between hip fracture and hip osteoarthritis (OA). We explore this relationship using a case-control study design.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Exclusion criteria were previous hip fracture (same side or contralateral side), age younger than 60 years, foreign nationality, pathological fracture, rheumatoid arthritis and cases were radiographic examinations were not found in the archives. We studied all subjects with hip fracture that remained after the exclusion process that were treated at Akureyri University Hospital, Iceland 1990-2008, n = 562 (74% women). Hip fracture cases were compared with a cohort of subjects with colon radiographs, n = 803 (54% women) to determine expected population prevalence of hip OA. Presence of radiographic hip OA was defined as a minimum joint space of 2.5 mm or less on an anteroposterior radiograph, or Kellgren and Lawrence grade 2 or higher. Possible causes of secondary osteoporosis were identified by review of medical records.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The age-adjusted odds ratio (OR) for subjects with hip fracture having radiographic hip OA was 0.30 (95% confidence interval [95% CI] 0.12-0.74) for men and 0.33 (95% CI 0.19-0.58) for women, compared to controls. The probability for subjects with hip fracture and hip OA having a secondary cause of osteoporosis was three times higher than for subjects with hip fracture without hip OA.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The results of our study support an inverse relationship between hip fractures and hip OA.</p

Low frequency 1/f noise in doped manganite grain-boundary junctions

We have performed a systematic analysis of the low frequency 1/f-noise in single grain boundary junctions in the colossal magnetoresistance material La_{2/3}Ca_{1/3}MnO_{3-delta}. The grain boundary junctions were formed in epitaxial La_{2/3}Ca_{1/3}MnO_{3-delta} films deposited on SrTiO_3 bicrystal substrates and show a large tunneling magnetoresistance of up to 300% at 4.2 K as well as ideal, rectangular shaped resistance versus applied magnetic field curves. Below the Curie temperature T_C the measured 1/f noise is dominated by the grain boundary. The dependence of the noise on bias current, temperature and applied magnetic field gives clear evidence that the large amount of low frequency noise is caused by localized sites with fluctuating magnetic moments in a heavily disordered grain boundary region. At 4.2 K additional temporally unstable Lorentzian components show up in the noise spectra that are most likely caused by fluctuating clusters of interacting magnetic moments. Noise due to fluctuating domains in the junction electrodes is found to play no significant role.Comment: 9 pages, 7 figure

Rate of SARS-CoV-2 Reinfection during an Omicron Wave in Iceland

Funding Information: Funding/Support: This work was supported by the Landspitali University Hospital Research Fund (grant A-2021-051). Neither the authors nor their institutions received payment or services from a third party for any aspect of the submitted work.This cohort study estimates the proportion of persons who became reinfected with SARS-CoV-2 during the Omicron wave in Iceland.Peer reviewe

Species Discrimination, Population Structure and Linkage Disequilibrium in Eucalyptus camaldulensis and Eucalyptus tereticornis Using SSR Markers

Eucalyptus camaldulensis and E. tereticornis are closely related species commonly cultivated for pulp wood in many tropical countries including India. Understanding the genetic structure and linkage disequilibrium (LD) existing in these species is essential for the improvement of industrially important traits. Our goal was to evaluate the use of simple sequence repeat (SSR) loci for species discrimination, population structure and LD analysis in these species. Investigations were carried out with the most common alleles in 93 accessions belonging to these two species using 62 SSR markers through cross amplification. The polymorphic information content (PIC) ranged from 0.44 to 0.93 and 0.36 to 0.93 in E. camaldulensis and E. tereticornis respectively. A clear delineation between the two species was evident based on the analysis of population structure and species-specific alleles. Significant genotypic LD was found in E. camaldulensis, wherein out of 135 significant pairs, 17 pairs showed r2≥0.1. Similarly, in E. tereticornis, out of 136 significant pairs, 18 pairs showed r2≥0.1. The extent of LD decayed rapidly showing the significance of association analyses in eucalypts with higher resolution markers. The availability of whole genome sequence for E. grandis and the synteny and co-linearity in the genome of eucalypts, will allow genome-wide genotyping using microsatellites or single nucleotide polymorphims