Social characteristics of out-migrants, non-migrants and in-migrants in a high in-migration county, Hamblen County, Tennessee

This study investigated social characteristics by migration pattern for two populations of individuals in Hamblen County, Tennessee—young adults reared in Hamblen County and household heads presently residing in Hamblen County. In the study of 868 young adults reared in Hamblen County it was found that non-migrants and out-migrants differed significantly in several characteristics. Out-migrants had a higher level of education than nonmigrants, more home items, better educated parents, higher age, more mobile fathers, and differed in occupation of fathers. No significant differences were found in the two groups in the place where father was reared, number of siblings, and number of home items owned by parents. Comparisons were also made for non-migrants and migrants residing in each of three different areas. Differences were greater for migrants who left the region than return-migrants, migrants residing in adjacent counties, or non-migrants. Persons in the latter three categories differed in few characteristics. Regression analysis was also made on the number of migrations and nine social characteristics. In the study of 575 male household heads residing in the county, in-migrants were found to have significantly more home items than nonmigrants, a higher income, to differ in occupation, and to have more children than non-migrants. The differences in age and education were not significant for the two groups. Differences were more pronounced for those migrating from outside the region, while those moving in from adjacent counties were similar in social characteristics to non-migrants. The findings of this study were compared with those of other selected migration studies. Education was found to be a discriminating variable in many of the studies

Reactions of Halogenated Nitroparaffins

The objective of this research was to investigate some typical reactions of the halogenated nitroparaffins. One problem was that of obtaining the three halogenated 2-nitroparaffins, 2-chloro-, 2-bromo-, and 2-iodo-2-nitropropane. 2-Chloro-2-nitropropane was commercially available; the others were prepared in the laboratory. A second problem was determining the relative ease of replacement of the halogen, either by a different halogen, or some other chemical group. The third problem was the suggestion of a mechanism to e)q)lain the reactions which were observed in the first two problems

Th-11-02 Towards Improved Time-lapse Seismic Repetition Accuracy by Use of Multimeasurement Streamer Reconstruction

SUMMARY It is widely accepted that accurate repetition of source and receiver locations between surveys is key to time-lapse seismic data quality. Whilst the source locations of marine streamer time-lapse surveys can be accurately repeated, exact repetition of receiver locations can still be challenging. The introduction of multimeasurement streamer technology has enabled repetition of receiver locations by reconstruction of the recorded wavefield at the desired coordinates. Two or more multimeasurement surveys may be reconstructed at common locations, or a multimeasurement monitor survey may be reconstructed at the receiver locations of a previous conventional marine streamer dataset. Apache North Sea Limited acquired, in 2012, test lines over the Forties field using multimeasurement streamer technology. The initial results of these tests suggest that a conventional marine streamer survey can be accurately repeated with multimeasurement streamer technology, and work is ongoing to qualify the technology for routine timelapse seismic acquisition

Aerobic fitness does not modulate protein metabolism in response to increased exercise: a controlled trial

© 2009 Smith et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Licens

Genome-wide linkage analysis of 972 bipolar pedigrees using single-nucleotide polymorphisms.

Because of the high costs associated with ascertainment of families, most linkage studies of Bipolar I disorder (BPI) have used relatively small samples. Moreover, the genetic information content reported in most studies has been less than 0.6. Although microsatellite markers spaced every 10 cM typically extract most of the genetic information content for larger multiplex families, they can be less informative for smaller pedigrees especially for affected sib pair kindreds. For these reasons we collaborated to pool family resources and carried out higher density genotyping. Approximately 1100 pedigrees of European ancestry were initially selected for study and were genotyped by the Center for Inherited Disease Research using the Illumina Linkage Panel 12 set of 6090 single-nucleotide polymorphisms. Of the ~1100 families, 972 were informative for further analyses, and mean information content was 0.86 after pruning for linkage disequilibrium. The 972 kindreds include 2284 cases of BPI disorder, 498 individuals with bipolar II disorder (BPII) and 702 subjects with recurrent major depression. Three affection status models (ASMs) were considered: ASM1 (BPI and schizoaffective disorder, BP cases (SABP) only), ASM2 (ASM1 cases plus BPII) and ASM3 (ASM2 cases plus recurrent major depression). Both parametric and non-parametric linkage methods were carried out. The strongest findings occurred at 6q21 (non-parametric pairs LOD 3.4 for rs1046943 at 119 cM) and 9q21 (non-parametric pairs logarithm of odds (LOD) 3.4 for rs722642 at 78 cM) using only BPI and schizoaffective (SA), BP cases. Both results met genome-wide significant criteria, although neither was significant after correction for multiple analyses. We also inspected parametric scores for the larger multiplex families to identify possible rare susceptibility loci. In this analysis, we observed 59 parametric LODs of 2 or greater, many of which are likely to be close to maximum possible scores. Although some linkage findings may be false positives, the results could help prioritize the search for rare variants using whole exome or genome sequencing

A novel isolator-based system promotes viability of human embryos during laboratory processing

In vitro fertilisation (IVF) and related technologies are arguably the most challenging of all cell culture applications. The starting material is a single cell from which one aims to produce an embryo capable of establishing a pregnancy eventually leading to a live birth. Laboratory processing during IVF treatment requires open manipulations of gametes and embryos, which typically involves exposure to ambient conditions. To reduce the risk of cellular stress, we have developed a totally enclosed system of interlinked isolator-based workstations designed to maintain oocytes and embryos in a physiological environment throughout the IVF process. Comparison of clinical and laboratory data before and after the introduction of the new system revealed that significantly more embryos developed to the blastocyst stage in the enclosed isolator-based system compared with conventional open-fronted laminar flow hoods. Moreover, blastocysts produced in the isolator-based system contained significantly more cells and their development was accelerated. Consistent with this, the introduction of the enclosed system was accompanied by a significant increase in the clinical pregnancy rate and in the proportion of embryos implanting following transfer to the uterus. The data indicate that protection from ambient conditions promotes improved development of human embryos. Importantly, we found that it was entirely feasible to conduct all IVF-related procedures in the isolator-based workstations

Genome-wide parametric linkage analyses of 644 bipolar pedigrees suggest susceptibility loci at chromosomes 16 and 20

OBJECTIVE: Our aim is to map chromosomal regions that harbor loci that increase susceptibility to bipolar disorder. METHODS: We analyzed 644 bipolar families ascertained by the National Institute of Mental Health Human Genetics Initiative for bipolar disorder. The families have been genotyped with microsatellite loci spaced every approximately 10 cM or less across the genome. Earlier analyses of these pedigrees have been limited to nonparametric (model-free) methods and thus, information from unaffected subjects with genotypes was not considered. In this study, we used parametric analyses assuming dominant and recessive transmission and specifying a maximum penetrance of 70%, so that information from unaffecteds could be weighed in the linkage analyses. As in previous linkage analyses of these pedigrees, we analyzed three diagnostic categories: model 1 included only bipolar I and schizoaffective, bipolar cases (1565 patients of whom approximately 4% were schizoaffective, bipolar); model 2 included all individuals in model 1 plus bipolar II patients (1764 total individuals); and model 3 included all individuals in model 2 with the addition of patients with recurrent major depressive disorder (2046 total persons). RESULTS: Assuming dominant inheritance the highest genome-wide pair-wise logarithm of the odds (LOD) score was 3.2 with D16S749 using model 2 patients. Multipoint analyses of this region yielded a maximum LOD score of 4.91. Under recessive transmission a number of chromosome 20 markers were positive and multipoint analyses of the area gave a maximum LOD of 3.0 with model 2 cases. CONCLUSION: The chromosome 16p and 20 regions have been implicated by some studies and the data reported herein provide additional suggestive evidence of bipolar susceptibility genes in these regions

Genome-wide association study identifies 30 loci associated with bipolar disorder.

Bipolar disorder is a highly heritable psychiatric disorder. We performed a genome-wide association study (GWAS) including 20,352 cases and 31,358 controls of European descent, with follow-up analysis of 822 variants with P < 1 × 10-4 in an additional 9,412 cases and 137,760 controls. Eight of the 19 variants that were genome-wide significant (P < 5 × 10-8) in the discovery GWAS were not genome-wide significant in the combined analysis, consistent with small effect sizes and limited power but also with genetic heterogeneity. In the combined analysis, 30 loci were genome-wide significant, including 20 newly identified loci. The significant loci contain genes encoding ion channels, neurotransmitter transporters and synaptic components. Pathway analysis revealed nine significantly enriched gene sets, including regulation of insulin secretion and endocannabinoid signaling. Bipolar I disorder is strongly genetically correlated with schizophrenia, driven by psychosis, whereas bipolar II disorder is more strongly correlated with major depressive disorder. These findings address key clinical questions and provide potential biological mechanisms for bipolar disorder