Morphological and population genomic evidence that human faces have evolved to signal individual identity.

Facial recognition plays a key role in human interactions, and there has been great interest in understanding the evolution of human abilities for individual recognition and tracking social relationships. Individual recognition requires sufficient cognitive abilities and phenotypic diversity within a population for discrimination to be possible. Despite the importance of facial recognition in humans, the evolution of facial identity has received little attention. Here we demonstrate that faces evolved to signal individual identity under negative frequency-dependent selection. Faces show elevated phenotypic variation and lower between-trait correlations compared with other traits. Regions surrounding face-associated single nucleotide polymorphisms show elevated diversity consistent with frequency-dependent selection. Genetic variation maintained by identity signalling tends to be shared across populations and, for some loci, predates the origin of Homo sapiens. Studies of human social evolution tend to emphasize cognitive adaptations, but we show that social evolution has shaped patterns of human phenotypic and genetic diversity as well

ANCA Glomerulonephritis and Vasculitis

ANCA vasculitis has an associated autoimmune response that produces ANCAs that induce distinct pathologic lesions. Pauci-immune necrotizing and crescentic GN is a frequent component of ANCA vasculitis. ANCA vasculitis is associated with ANCA specific for myeloperoxidase (MPO-ANCA) or proteinase 3 (PR3-ANCA). A diagnosis of ANCA vasculitis should always specify the serotype as MPO-ANCA positive, PR3-ANCA positive, or ANCA-negative. To fully characterize a patient, the serotype also should be accompanied by the clinicopathologic variant if this can be determined: microscopic polyangiitis, granulomatosis with polyangiitis (Wegener), eosinophilic granulomatosis with polyangiitis (Churg-Strauss), or renal-limited vasculitis. ANCA vasculitis is most prevalent in individuals >50 years old. There are racial/ethnic and geographic influences on the prevalence, serotype frequencies, and clinicopathologic phenotypes. There is clinical, in vitro, and animal model evidence that ANCAs cause disease by activating neutrophils to attack small vessels. Immunomodulatory and immunosuppressive therapies are used to induce remission, maintain remission, and treat relapses. Over recent years, there have been major advances in optimizing treatment by minimizing toxic therapy and utilizing more targeted therapy

Identification of nonlinearity in conductivity equation via Dirichlet-to-Neumann map

We prove that the linear term and quadratic nonlinear term entering a nonlinear elliptic equation of divergence type can be uniquely identified by the Dirichlet to Neuman map. The unique identifiability is proved using the complex geometrical optics solutions and singular solutions

Leveraging Epidemiology to Improve Risk Assessment.

The field of environmental public health is at an important crossroad. Our current biomonitoring efforts document widespread exposure to a host of chemicals for which toxicity information is lacking. At the same time, advances in the fields of genomics, proteomics, metabolomics, genetics and epigenetics are yielding volumes of data at a rapid pace. Our ability to detect chemicals in biological and environmental media has far outpaced our ability to interpret their health relevance, and as a result, the environmental risk paradigm, in its current state, is antiquated and ill-equipped to make the best use of these new data. In light of new scientific developments and the pressing need to characterize the public health burdens of chemicals, it is imperative to reinvigorate the use of environmental epidemiology in chemical risk assessment. Two case studies of chemical assessments from the Environmental Protection Agency Integrated Risk Information System database are presented to illustrate opportunities where epidemiologic data could have been used in place of experimental animal data in dose-response assessment, or where different approaches, techniques, or studies could have been employed to better utilize existing epidemiologic evidence. Based on the case studies and what can be learned from recent scientific advances and improved approaches to utilizing human data for dose-response estimation, recommendations are provided for the disciplines of epidemiology and risk assessment for enhancing the role of epidemiologic data in hazard identification and dose-response assessment

A convergent algorithm for the hybrid problem of reconstructing conductivity from minimal interior data

We consider the hybrid problem of reconstructing the isotropic electric conductivity of a body $\Omega$ from interior Current Density Imaging data obtainable using MRI measurements. We only require knowledge of the magnitude $|J|$ of one current generated by a given voltage $f$ on the boundary $\partial\Omega$. As previously shown, the corresponding voltage potential u in $\Omega$ is a minimizer of the weighted least gradient problem $$u=\hbox{argmin} \{\int_{\Omega}a(x)|\nabla u|: u \in H^{1}(\Omega), \ \ u|_{\partial \Omega}=f\},$$ with $a(x)= |J(x)|$. In this paper we present an alternating split Bregman algorithm for treating such least gradient problems, for $a\in L^2(\Omega)$ non-negative and $f\in H^{1/2}(\partial \Omega)$. We give a detailed convergence proof by focusing to a large extent on the dual problem. This leads naturally to the alternating split Bregman algorithm. The dual problem also turns out to yield a novel method to recover the full vector field $J$ from knowledge of its magnitude, and of the voltage $f$ on the boundary. We then present several numerical experiments that illustrate the convergence behavior of the proposed algorithm

A window into a public programme for prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV: evidence from a prospective clinical trial

Objectives. To evaluate efficacy of the antenatal, intrapartum and postnatal antiretroviral components of a public service prevention of mother-to-child (PMTCT) programme in infants.Design. Analysis of prospectively collected screening data of demographic and MTCT-related interventions and HIV infection status of infants identified through HIV-specific DNA polymerase chain reaction.Setting. Tygerberg Children’s Hospital, Western Cape, South Africa.Subjects. HIV-infected women and their infants identified through participation in a public service PMTCT programme were referred for possible participation in a prospective study of isoniazid prophylaxis.Interventions. Key components of the programme include voluntary counselling and testing, administration of zidovudine to the mother from between 28 and 34 weeks’ gestation and to the newborn infant for the firstweek, single-dose nevirapine to the mother in labour and to the newborn shortly after birth, and free formula for 6 months.Main outcome measures. Number and percentage of HIV-infected infants and extent of exposure to antenatal, intrapartum and postnatal antiretrovirals.Results. Of 656 infants with a median age of 12.6 weeks, screened between 1 April 2005 through May 2006, 39 were HIV-infected, giving a transmission rate of 5.9% (95% confidence interval (CI) 4.4 - 8.0%). Antenatal prophylaxis was significantly associated with reduced transmission (odds ratio (OR) 0.43 (95% CI 0.21 - 0.94)) as opposed to intrapartum and postpartum components (p=0.85 and p=0.84, respectively). In multivariable analysis the antenatal component remained significant (OR=0.40 (95% CI 0.19 - 0.90)).Conclusions. The antenatal phase is the most important antiretroviral component of the PMTCT programme, allowing most opportunity for intervention

Climate change, adaptation, and phenotypic plasticity: the problem and the evidence

Peer reviewe

Full-wave invisibility of active devices at all frequencies

There has recently been considerable interest in the possibility, both theoretical and practical, of invisibility (or "cloaking") from observation by electromagnetic (EM) waves. Here, we prove invisibility, with respect to solutions of the Helmholtz and Maxwell's equations, for several constructions of cloaking devices. Previous results have either been on the level of ray tracing [Le,PSS] or at zero frequency [GLU2,GLU3], but recent numerical [CPSSP] and experimental [SMJCPSS] work has provided evidence for invisibility at frequency $k\ne 0$. We give two basic constructions for cloaking a region $D$ contained in a domain $\Omega$ from measurements of Cauchy data of waves at \p \Omega; we pay particular attention to cloaking not just a passive object, but an active device within $D$, interpreted as a collection of sources and sinks or an internal current.Comment: Final revision; to appear in Commun. in Math. Physic