305 research outputs found
Injury, Interiority, and Isolation in Menās Suicidality
Menās high suicide rates have been linked to individual risk factors including history of being abused as a child, single marital status, and financial difficulties. While it has also been suggested that the normative influences of hegemonic masculinities are implicated in menās suicide, the gendered experiences of male suicidality are poorly understood. In the current photovoice study, 20 men who previously had suicidal thoughts, plans, and/or attempts were interviewed as a means to better understanding the connections between masculinities and their experiences of suicidality. The study findings revealed injury, interiority, and isolation as interconnected themes characterizing menās suicidality. Injury comprised an array of childhood and/or cumulative traumas that fueled menās ruminating thoughts inhibiting recovery and limiting hopes for improved life quality. In attempting to blunt these traumas, many men described self-injuring through the overuse of alcohol and other drugs. The interiority theme revealed how suicidal thoughts can fuel hopelessness amid summonsing remedies from within. The challenges to self-manage, especially when experiencing muddled thinking and negative thought were evident, and led some participants to summons exterior resources to counter suicidality. Isolation included separateness from others, and was linked to abandonment issues and not having a job and/or partner. Self-isolating also featured as a protection strategy to avoid troubling others and/or reducing exposure to additional noxious stimuli. The study findings suggest multiple intervention points and strategies, the majority of which are premised on promoting menās social connectedness. The destigmatizing value of photovoice methods is also discussed
Increased serum kallistatin levels in type 1 diabetes patients with vascular complications
BACKGROUND: Kallistatin, a serpin widely produced throughout the body, has vasodilatory, anti-angiogenic, anti-oxidant, and anti-inflammatory effects. Effects of diabetes and its vascular complications on serum kallistatin levels are unknown. METHODS: Serum kallistatin was quantified by ELISA in a cross-sectional study of 116 Type 1 diabetic patients (including 50 with and 66 without complications) and 29 non-diabetic controls, and related to clinical status and measures of oxidative stress and inflammation. RESULTS: Kallistatin levels (mean(SD)) were increased in diabetic vs. control subjects (12.6(4.2) vs. 10.3(2.8) Ī¼g/ml, p = 0.007), and differed between diabetic patients with complications (13.4(4.9) Ī¼g/ml), complication-free patients (12.1(3.7) Ī¼g/ml), and controls; ANOVA, p = 0.007. Levels were higher in diabetic patients with complications vs. controls, p = 0.01, but did not differ between complication-free diabetic patients and controls, p > 0.05. On univariate analyses, in diabetes, kallistatin correlated with renal dysfunction (cystatin C, r = 0.28, p = 0.004; urinary albumin/creatinine, r = 0.34, p = 0.001; serum creatinine, r = 0.23, p = 0.01; serum urea, r = 0.33, p = 0.001; GFR, r = -0.25, p = 0.009), total cholesterol (r = 0.28, p = 0.004); LDL-cholesterol (r = 0.21, p = 0.03); gamma-glutamyltransferase (GGT) (r = 0.27, p = 0.04), and small artery elasticity, r = -0.23, p = 0.02, but not with HbA1c, other lipids, oxidative stress or inflammation. In diabetes, geometric mean (95%CI) kallistatin levels adjusted for covariates, including renal dysfunction, were higher in those with vs. without hypertension (13.6 (12.3-14.9) vs. 11.8 (10.5-13.0) Ī¼g/ml, p = 0.03). Statistically independent determinants of kallistatin levels in diabetes were age, serum urea, total cholesterol, SAE and GGT, adjusted r2 = 0.24, p < 0.00001. CONCLUSIONS: Serum kallistatin levels are increased in Type 1 diabetic patients with microvascular complications and with hypertension, and correlate with renal and vascular dysfunction
Vertical structure of a supernova-driven turbulent magnetized ISM
Stellar feedback drives the circulation of matter from the disk to the halo
of galaxies. We perform three-dimensional magnetohydrodynamic simulations of a
vertical column of the interstellar medium with initial conditions typical of
the solar circle in which supernovae drive turbulence and determine the
vertical stratification of the medium. The simulations were run using a stable,
positivity-preserving scheme for ideal MHD implemented in the FLASH code. We
find that the majority (\approx 90 %) of the mass is contained in
thermally-stable temperature regimes of cold molecular and atomic gas at T <
200 K or warm atomic and ionized gas at 5000 K < T < 10^{4.2} K, with strong
peaks in probability distribution functions of temperature in both the cold and
warm regimes. The 200 - 10^{4.2} K gas fills 50-60 % of the volume near the
plane, with hotter gas associated with supernova remnants (30-40 %) and cold
clouds (< 10 %) embedded within. At |z| ~ 1-2 kpc, transition-temperature (10^5
K) gas accounts for most of the mass and volume, while hot gas dominates at |z|
> 3 kpc. The magnetic field in our models has no significant impact on the
scale heights of gas in each temperature regime; the magnetic tension force is
approximately equal to and opposite the magnetic pressure, so the addition of
the field does not significantly affect the vertical support of the gas. The
addition of a magnetic field does reduce the fraction of gas in the cold (< 200
K) regime with a corresponding increase in the fraction of warm (~ 10^4 K) gas.
However, our models lack rotational shear and thus have no large-scale dynamo,
which reduces the role of the field in the models compared to reality. The
supernovae drive oscillations in the vertical distribution of halo gas, with
the period of the oscillations ranging from ~ 30 Myr in the T < 200 K gas to ~
100 Myr in the 10^6 K gas, in line with predictions by Walters & Cox.Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJ. Replacement corrects an error in the
observed CNM pressure distribution in Figure 15 and associated discussio
Unbiased Random Number Generation using Injection-Locked Spin-Torque Nano-Oscillators
Unbiased sources of true randomness are critical for the successful
deployment of stochastic unconventional computing schemes and encryption
applications in hardware. Leveraging nanoscale thermal magnetization
fluctuations provides an efficient and almost cost-free means of generating
truly random bitstreams, distinguishing them from predictable pseudo-random
sequences. However, existing approaches that aim to achieve randomness often
suffer from bias, leading to significant deviations from equal fractions of 0
and 1 in the bitstreams and compromising their inherent unpredictability. This
study presents a hardware approach that capitalizes on the intrinsic balance of
phase noise in an oscillator injection locked at twice its natural frequency,
leveraging the stability of this naturally balanced physical system. We
demonstrate the successful generation of unbiased and truly random bitstreams
through extensive experimentation. Our numerical simulations exhibit excellent
agreement with the experimental results, confirming the robustness and
viability of our approach.Comment: 13 pages, 8 figure
A comparative analysis of high-throughput platforms for validation of a circulating microRNA signature in diabetic retinopathy
MicroRNAs are now increasingly recognized as biomarkers of disease progression. Several quantitative real-time PCR (qPCR) platforms have been developed to determine the relative levels of microRNAs in biological fluids. We systematically compared the detection of cellular and circulating microRNA using a standard 96-well platform, a high-content microfluidics platform and two ultrahigh content platforms. We used extensive analytical tools to compute inter- and intra-run variability and concordance measured using fidelity scoring, coefficient of variation and cluster analysis. We carried out unprejudiced next generation sequencing to identify a microRNA signature for Diabetic Retinopathy (DR) and systematically assessed the validation of this signature on clinical samples using each of the above four qPCR platforms. The results indicate that sensitivity to measure low copy number microRNAs is inversely related to qPCR reaction volume and that the choice of platform for microRNA biomarker validation should be made based on the abundance of miRNAs of interest
In vivo alpha-V beta-3 integrin expression in human aortic atherosclerosis.
OBJECTIVES: Intraplaque angiogenesis and inflammation are key promoters of atherosclerosis and are mediated by the alpha-V beta-3 (Ī±vĪ²3) integrin pathway. We investigated the applicability of the Ī±vĪ²3-integrin receptor-selective positron emission tomography (PET) radiotracer 18F-fluciclatide in assessing human aortic atherosclerosis. METHODS: Vascular 18F-fluciclatide binding was evaluated using ex vivo analysis of carotid endarterectomy samples with autoradiography and immunohistochemistry, and in vivo kinetic modelling following radiotracer administration. Forty-six subjects with a spectrum of atherosclerotic disease categorised as stable (n=27) or unstable (n=19; recent myocardial infarction) underwent PET and CT imaging of the thorax after administration of 229 (IQR 217-237) MBq 18F-fluciclatide. Thoracic aortic 18F-fluciclatide uptake was quantified on fused PET-CT images and corrected for blood-pool activity using the maximum tissue-to-background ratio (TBRmax). Aortic atherosclerotic burden was quantified by CT wall thickness, plaque volume and calcium scoring. RESULTS: 18F-Fluciclatide uptake co-localised with regions of increased Ī±vĪ²3 integrin expression, and markers of inflammation and angiogenesis. 18F-Fluciclatide vascular uptake was confirmed in vivo using kinetic modelling, and on static imaging correlated with measures of aortic atherosclerotic burden: wall thickness (r=0.57, p=0.001), total plaque volume (r=0.56, p=0.001) and aortic CT calcium score (r=0.37, p=0.01). Patients with recent myocardial infarction had greater aortic 18F-fluciclatide uptake than those with stable disease (TBRmax 1.29 vs 1.21, p=0.02). CONCLUSIONS: In vivo expression of Ī±vĪ²3 integrin in human aortic atheroma is associated with plaque burden and is increased in patients with recent myocardial infarction. Quantification of Ī±vĪ²3 integrin expression with 18F-fluciclatide PET has potential to assess plaque vulnerability and disease activity in atherosclerosis
Multilayer spintronic neural networks with radio-frequency connections
Spintronic nano-synapses and nano-neurons perform complex cognitive
computations with high accuracy thanks to their rich, reproducible and
controllable magnetization dynamics. These dynamical nanodevices could
transform artificial intelligence hardware, provided that they implement
state-of-the art deep neural networks. However, there is today no scalable way
to connect them in multilayers. Here we show that the flagship nano-components
of spintronics, magnetic tunnel junctions, can be connected into multilayer
neural networks where they implement both synapses and neurons thanks to their
magnetization dynamics, and communicate by processing, transmitting and
receiving radio frequency (RF) signals. We build a hardware spintronic neural
network composed of nine magnetic tunnel junctions connected in two layers, and
show that it natively classifies nonlinearly-separable RF inputs with an
accuracy of 97.7%. Using physical simulations, we demonstrate that a large
network of nanoscale junctions can achieve state-of the-art identification of
drones from their RF transmissions, without digitization, and consuming only a
few milliwatts, which is a gain of more than four orders of magnitude in power
consumption compared to currently used techniques. This study lays the
foundation for deep, dynamical, spintronic neural networks
Lack of an association between gallstone disease and bilirubin levels with risk of colorectal cancer : a Mendelian randomisation analysis
BACKGROUND: Epidemiological studies of the relationship between gallstone disease and circulating levels of bilirubin with risk of developing colorectal cancer (CRC) have been inconsistent. To address possible confounding and reverse causation, we examine the relationship between these potential risk factors and CRC using Mendelian randomisation (MR). METHODS: We used two-sample MR to examine the relationship between genetic liability to gallstone disease and circulating levels of bilirubin with CRC in 26,397 patients and 41,481 controls. We calculated the odds ratio per genetically predicted SD unit increase in log bilirubin levels (ORSD) for CRC and tested for a non-zero causal effect of gallstones on CRC. Sensitivity analysis was applied to identify violations of estimator assumptions. RESULTS: No association between either gallstone disease (P value = 0.60) or circulating levels of bilirubin (ORSD = 1.00, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 0.96-1.03, P value = 0.90) with CRC was shown. CONCLUSIONS: Despite the large scale of this study, we found no evidence for a causal relationship between either circulating levels of bilirubin or gallstone disease with risk of developing CRC. While the magnitude of effect suggested by some observational studies can confidently be excluded, we cannot exclude the possibility of smaller effect sizes and non-linear relationships.Peer reviewe
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