Recent amplification of an alpha satellite DNA in humans.

A repeat sequence 682 base pairs (bp) long produced by cleavage of human DNA with Xba I restriction enzyme is composed of four tandemly arranged subunits with lengths of 171, 170, 171, and 170 bp each. The sequence organization of the 682 bp Xba I repeat bears a striking resemblance to other complex satellite DNAs of primates, including the Eco RI human alpha satellite family which also occurs as a 170 bp repeat. The Eco RI tetramer and the 682 bp Xba I repeat show a sequence divergence of 21%. The 682 bp Xba I repeat sequence is restricted to humans and is only distantly related to the previously reported 340 bp Xba human repeated DNA sequence. These finding are consistent with the concept of occasional amplifications of members or groups of members of alpha satellite DNA during human evolution. Amplifications apparently occurred after humans, apes and gibbons diverged from Old World monkeys (Eco RI satellite), after humans and apes diverged from gibbons (340 bp Xba I satellite) and after humans diverged from the great apes (682 bp Xba I satellite)

School Attendance Problems Among Children with Neurodevelopmental Conditions One year Following the Start of the COVID-19 Pandemic

Purpose: The present study investigated school absence among 1,076 5–15 year-old children with neurodevelopmental conditions (intellectual disability and/or autism) approximately one year following the start of COVID-19 in the UK. Methods: Parents completed an online survey indicating whether their child was absent from school during May 2021 and the reason for each absence. Multi-variable regression models investigated child, family and school variables associated with absenteeism and types of absenteeism. Qualitative data were collected on barriers and facilitators of school attendance. Results: During May 2021, 32% of children presented with persistent absence (missing ≥ 10% of school). School refusal and absence due to ill-health were the most frequent types of absence, accounting for 37% and 22% of days missed, respectively. COVID-19 related absence accounted for just 11% of days missed. Child anxiety was associated with overall absenteeism and with days missed because of school refusal. Parent pandemic anxiety and child conduct problems were not associated with school absenteeism. Hyperactivity was associated with lower levels of absenteeism and school refusal but higher levels of school exclusion. A positive parent-teacher relationship was associated with lower levels of absenteeism, school refusal and exclusion. Child unmet need in school was the most frequently reported barrier to attendance while COVID-19 was one of the least frequently reported barriers. Conclusion: COVID-19 had a limited impact on school attendance problems during this period. Findings highlighted the role of child mental health in different types of absence and the likely protective role of a positive parent-teacher relationship

Genetic and environmental influences on serum oxylipins, endocannabinoids, bile acids and steroids

Lipid bioactivity is a result of direct action and the action of lipid mediators including oxylipins, endocannabinoids, bile acids and steroids. Understanding the factors contributing to biological variation in lipid mediators may inform future approaches to understand and treat complex metabolic diseases. This research aims to determine the contribution of genetic and environmental influences on lipid mediators involved in the regulation of inflammation and energy metabolism. This study recruited 138 monozygotic (MZ) and dizygotic (DZ) twins aged 18-65 years and measured serum oxylipins, endocannabinoids, bile acids and steroids using liquid chromatography mass-spectrometry (LC-MS). In this classic twin design, the similarities and differences between MZ and DZ twins are modelled to estimate the contribution of genetic and environmental influences to variation in lipid mediators. Heritable lipid mediators included the 12-lipoxygenase products 12-hydroxyeicosatetraenoic acid [0.70 (95% CI: 0.12,0.82)], 12-hydroxyeicosatetraenoic acid [0.73 (95% CI: 0.30,0.83)] and 14‑hydroxy-docosahexaenoic acid [0.51 (95% CI: 0.07,0.71)], along with the endocannabinoid docosahexaenoy-lethanolamide [0.52 (95% CI: 0.15,0.72)]. For others such as 13-hydroxyoctadecatrienoic acid and lithocholic acid the contribution of environment to variation was stronger. With increased understanding of lipid mediator functions in health, it is important to understand the factors contributing to their variance. This study provides a comprehensive analysis of lipid mediators and extends pre-existing knowledge of the genetic and environmental influences on the human lipidome

Adiposity has differing associations with incident coronary heart disease and mortality in the Scottish population: cross-sectional surveys with follow-up

Objective: Investigation of the association of excess adiposity with three different outcomes: all-cause mortality, coronary heart disease (CHD) mortality and incident CHD. Design: Cross-sectional surveys linked to hospital admissions and death records. Subjects: 19 329 adults (aged 18–86 years) from a representative sample of the Scottish population. Measurements: Gender-stratified Cox proportional hazards models were used to estimate hazard ratios (HRs) for all-cause mortality, CHD mortality and incident CHD. Separate models incorporating the anthropometric measurements body mass index (BMI), waist circumference (WC) or waist–hip ratio (WHR) were created adjusted for age, year of survey, smoking status and alcohol consumption. Results: For both genders, BMI-defined obesity (greater than or equal to30 kg m−2) was not associated with either an increased risk of all-cause mortality or CHD mortality. However, there was an increased risk of incident CHD among the obese men (hazard ratio (HR)=1.78; 95% confidence interval=1.37–2.31) and obese women (HR=1.93; 95% confidence interval=1.44–2.59). There was a similar pattern for WC with regard to the three outcomes; for incident CHD, the HR=1.70 (1.35–2.14) for men and 1.71 (1.28–2.29) for women in the highest WC category (men greater than or equal to102 cm, women greater than or equal to88 cm), synonymous with abdominal obesity. For men, the highest category of WHR (greater than or equal to1.0) was associated with an increased risk of all-cause mortality (1.29; 1.04–1.60) and incident CHD (1.55; 1.19–2.01). Among women with a high WHR (greater than or equal to0.85) there was an increased risk of all outcomes: all-cause mortality (1.56; 1.26–1.94), CHD mortality (2.49; 1.36–4.56) and incident CHD (1.76; 1.31–2.38). Conclusions: In this study excess adiposity was associated with an increased risk of incident CHD but not necessarily death. One possibility is that modern medical intervention has contributed to improved survival of first CHD events. The future health burden of increased obesity levels may manifest as an increase in the prevalence of individuals living with CHD and its consequences

The fate of steroid estrogens: Partitioning during wastewater treatment and onto river sediments

This is the author's accepted manuscript. The final published article is available from the link below. Copyright @ 2010 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.The partitioning of steroid estrogens in wastewater treatment and receiving waters is likely to influence their discharge to, and persistence in, the environment. This study investigated the partitioning behaviour of steroid estrogens in both laboratory and field studies. Partitioning onto activated sludge from laboratory-scale Husmann units was rapid with equilibrium achieved after 1 h. Sorption isotherms and Kd values decreased in the order 17α-ethinyl estradiol > 17α-estradiol > estrone > estriol without a sorption limit being achieved (1/n >1). Samples from a wastewater treatment works indicated no accumulation of steroid estrogens in solids from primary or secondary biological treatment, however, a range of steroid estrogens were identified in sediment samples from the River Thames. This would indicate that partitioning in the environment may play a role in the long-term fate of estrogens, with an indication that they will be recalcitrant in anaerobic conditions.EPSR

The effect of age on emotion processing in individuals with mood disorders and in healthy individuals

Copyright \ua9 2024 Gray, Moot, Frampton, Douglas, Gallagher, Jordan, Carter, Inder, Crowe, McIntosh and Porter. Introduction: Emotion processing is an essential part of interpersonal relationships and social interactions. Changes in emotion processing have been found in both mood disorders and in aging, however, the interaction between such factors has yet to be examined in detail. This is of interest due to the contrary nature of the changes observed in existing research - a negativity bias in mood disorders versus a positivity effect with aging. It is also unclear how changes in non-emotional cognitive function with aging and in mood disorders, interact with these biases. Methods and results: In individuals with mood disorders and in healthy control participants, we examined emotional processing and its relationship to age in detail. Data sets from two studies examining facial expression recognition were pooled. In one study, 98 currently depressed individuals (either unipolar or bipolar) were compared with 61 healthy control participants, and in the other, 100 people with bipolar disorder (in various mood states) were tested on the same facial expression recognition task. Repeated measures analysis of variance was used to examine the effects of age and mood disorder diagnosis alongside interactions between individual emotion, age, and mood disorder diagnosis. A positivity effect was associated with increasing age which was evident irrespective of the presence of mood disorder or current mood episode. Discussion: Results suggest a positivity effect occurring at a relatively early age but with no evidence of a bias toward negative emotions in mood disorder or specifically, in depressed episodes. The positivity effect in emotional processing in aging appears to occur even within people with mood disorders. Further research is needed to understand how this fits with negative biases seen in previous studies in mood disorders

Anogenital distance in human male and female newborns: a descriptive, cross-sectional study

BACKGROUND: In animal studies of the effects of hormonally active agents, measurement of anogenital distance (AGD) is now routine, and serves as a bioassay of fetal androgen action. Although measurement of AGD in humans has been discussed in the literature, to our knowledge it has been measured formally in only two descriptive studies of females. Because AGD has been an easy-to-measure, sensitive outcome in animals studies, we developed and implemented an anthropometric protocol for measurement of AGD in human males as well as females. METHODS: We first evaluated the reliability of the AGD measures in 20 subjects. Then measurements were taken on an additional 87 newborns (42 females, 45 males). All subjects were from Morelos, Mexico. RESULTS: The reliability (Pearson r) of the AGD measure was, for females 0.50, and for males, 0.64. The between-subject variation in AGD, however, was much greater than the variation due to measurement error. The AGD measure was about two-fold greater in males (mean, 22 mm) than in females (mean, 11 mm), and there was little overlap in the distributions for males and females. CONCLUSION: The sexual dimorphism of AGD in humans comprises prima facie evidence that this outcome may respond to in utero exposure to hormonally active agents

Dimensionality and dynamics in the behavior of C. elegans

A major challenge in analyzing animal behavior is to discover some underlying simplicity in complex motor actions. Here we show that the space of shapes adopted by the nematode C. elegans is surprisingly low dimensional, with just four dimensions accounting for 95% of the shape variance, and we partially reconstruct "equations of motion" for the dynamics in this space. These dynamics have multiple attractors, and we find that the worm visits these in a rapid and almost completely deterministic response to weak thermal stimuli. Stimulus-dependent correlations among the different modes suggest that one can generate more reliable behaviors by synchronizing stimuli to the state of the worm in shape space. We confirm this prediction, effectively "steering" the worm in real time.Comment: 9 pages, 6 figures, minor correction

The convective storm initiation project

Copyright @ 2007 AMSThe Convective Storm Initiation Project (CSIP) is an international project to understand precisely where, when, and how convective clouds form and develop into showers in the mainly maritime environment of southern England. A major aim of CSIP is to compare the results of the very high resolution Met Office weather forecasting model with detailed observations of the early stages of convective clouds and to use the newly gained understanding to improve the predictions of the model. A large array of ground-based instruments plus two instrumented aircraft, from the U.K. National Centre for Atmospheric Science (NCAS) and the German Institute for Meteorology and Climate Research (IMK), Karlsruhe, were deployed in southern England, over an area centered on the meteorological radars at Chilbolton, during the summers of 2004 and 2005. In addition to a variety of ground-based remote-sensing instruments, numerous rawin-sondes were released at one- to two-hourly intervals from six closely spaced sites. The Met Office weather radar network and Meteosat satellite imagery were used to provide context for the observations made by the instruments deployed during CSIP. This article presents an overview of the CSIP field campaign and examples from CSIP of the types of convective initiation phenomena that are typical in the United Kingdom. It shows the way in which certain kinds of observational data are able to reveal these phenomena and gives an explanation of how the analyses of data from the field campaign will be used in the development of an improved very high resolution NWP model for operational use.This work is funded by the National Environment Research Council following an initial award from the HEFCE Joint Infrastructure Fund