Temporal variations of extreme precipitation events in the United States: 1895–2000

A newly available data set of daily precipitation observations was used to study the temporal variability of the frequency of short-duration extreme precipitation events for 1895–2000 in the conterminous United States. Event durations of 1, 5, 10, and 30 day and return periods of 1, 5, and 20 year were analyzed. For all combinations of duration and return period, heavy precipitation frequencies were relatively high during the late 19th/early 20th Centuries, decreasing to a minimum in the 1920s and 30s, followed by a general increase into the 1990s. The frequencies at the beginning of the 20th Century were nearly as high as during the late 20th Century for some combinations of duration and return period, suggesting that natural variability cannot be discounted as an important contributor to the recent high values. Extensive quality control of data and Monte Carlo testing was performed to provide confidence in the reality of the early period high frequencies

Targeted Food Marketing to Youth: Engaging Professionals in an Online Environment

The use of technology provides unique ways to create an engaged online community of learning for professionals that can be integrated into existing and future Extension programming. The Targeted Food Marketing to Youth online professional development course uses strategies and tools to create and support an engaged online community

Quality Control of Pre-1948 Cooperative Observer Network Data

A recent comprehensive effort to digitize U.S. daily temperature and precipitation data observed prior to 1948 has resulted in a major enhancement in the computer database of the records of the National Weather Service’s cooperative observer network. Previous digitization efforts had been selective, concentrating on state or regional areas. Special quality control procedures were applied to these data to enhance their value for climatological analysis. The procedures involved a two-step process. In the first step, each individual temperature and precipitation data value was evaluated against a set of objective screening criteria to flag outliers. These criteria included extreme limits and spatial comparisons with nearby stations. The following data were automatically flagged: 1) all precipitation values exceeding 254 mm (10 in.) and 2) all temperature values whose anomaly from the monthly mean for that station exceeded five standard deviations. Addi- tional values were flagged based on differences with nearby stations; in this case, metrics were used to rank outliers so that the limited resources were concentrated on those values most likely to be invalid. In the second step, each outlier was manually assessed by climatologists and assigned one of the four following flags: valid, plausible, questionable, or invalid. In excess of 22 400 values were manually assessed, of which about 48% were judged to be invalid. Although additional manual assessment of outliers might further improve the quality of the database, the procedures applied in this study appear to have been successful in identifying the most flagrant errors

Trend Identification in Twentieth-Century U.S. Snowfall: The Challenges

There is an increasing interest in examining long-term trends in measures of snow climatology. An examination of the U.S. daily snowfall records for 1900–2004 revealed numerous apparent inconsistencies. For example, long-term snowfall trends among neighboring lake-effect stations differ greatly from insignificant to +100% century -1. Internal inconsistencies in the snow records, such as a lack of upward trends in maximum seasonal snow depth at stations with large upward trends in snowfall, point to inhomogeneities. Nationwide, the frequency of daily observations with a 10:1 snowfall-to-liquid-equivalent ratio declined from 30% in the 1930s to a current value of around 10%, a change that is clearly due to observational practice. There then must be biases in cold-season liquid-equivalent precipitation, or snowfall, or both. An empirical adjustment of snow-event, liquid-equivalent precipitation indicates that the potential biases can be statistically significant. Examples from this study show that there are nonclimatic issues that complicate the identification of and significantly change the trends in snow variables. Thus, great care should be taken in interpretation of time series of snow-related variables from the Cooperative Observer Program (COOP) network. Furthermore, full documentation of optional practices should be required of network observers so that future users of these data can properly account for such practices

Aurora B dynamics at centromeres create a diffusion-based phosphorylation gradient

Aurora B kinase is concentrated and activated at centromeres before release and diffusion to reach spatially distributed substrates necessary for cell division

The attitudes of brain cancer patients and their caregivers towards death and dying: a qualitative study

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Much money and energy has been spent on the study of the molecular biology of malignant brain tumours. However, little attention has been paid to the wishes of patients afflicted with these incurable tumours, and how this might influence treatment considerations.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We interviewed 29 individuals – 7 patients dying of a malignant brain tumor and 22 loved ones. One-on-one interviews were conducted according to a pre-designed interview guide. A combination of open-ended questions, as well as clinical scenarios was presented to participants in order to understand what is meaningful and valuable to them when determining treatment options and management approaches. The results were analyzed, coded, and interpreted using qualitative analytic techniques in order to arrive at several common overarching themes.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Seven major themes were identified. In general, respondents were united in viewing brain cancer as unique amongst malignancies, due in large part to the premium placed on mental competence and cognitive functioning. Importantly, participants found their experiences, however difficult, led to the discovery of inner strength and resilience. Responses were usually framed within an interpersonal context, and participants were generally grateful for the opportunity to speak about their experiences. Attitudes towards religion, spirituality, and euthanasia were also probed.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Several important themes underlie the experiences of brain cancer patients and their caregivers. It is important to consider these when managing these patients and to respect not only their autonomy but also the complex interpersonal toll that a malignant diagnosis can have.</p

Similarity in cognitive complexity and attraction to friends and lovers: Experimental and correlational studies

Abstract OnlyTwo studies are reported examining whether similarities in cognitive complexity foster different forms of interpersonal attraction. Study 1 provided an experimental test of the hypothesis that perceivers would be more attracted to targets with similar levels of complexity than to targets with dissimilar levels of complexity. Participants read interpersonal impressions reflecting low and high levels of cognitive complexity and completed 3 assessments of attraction (social, task, and intellectual) to the source of the impressions. As predicted, there were significant interactions between perceiver complexity and target complexity such that high-complexity perceivers were more attracted to high-complexity targets than were low-complexity perceivers, whereas low-complexity perceivers were more attracted to low-complexity targets than were high-complexity perceivers. Unexpectedly, however, low-complexity perceivers were more attracted to a high-complexity target than a low-complexity target. Study 2 examined the effects of similarities in cognitive complexity on attraction among 126 pairs of dating partners. Partners having similar levels of cognitive complexity expressed significantly greater intellectual attraction to one another than partners having dissimilar levels of cognitive complexity

Tyrosine Sulfation of Native Mouse Psgl-1 Is Required for Optimal Leukocyte Rolling on P-Selectin In Vivo

We recently demonstrated that tyrosine sulfation is an important contributor to monocyte recruitment and retention in a mouse model of atherosclerosis. P-selectin glycoprotein ligand-1 (Psgl-1) is tyrosine-sulfated in mouse monocyte/macrophages and its interaction with P-selectin is important in monocyte recruitment in atherosclerosis. However, whether tyrosine sulfation is required for the P-selectin binding function of mouse Psgl-1 is unknown. Here we test the function of native Psgl-1 expressed in leukocytes lacking endogenous tyrosylprotein sulfotransferase (TPST) activity.Psgl-1 function was assessed by examining P-selectin dependent leukocyte rolling in post-capillary venules of C57BL6 mice transplanted with hematopoietic progenitors from wild type (WT → B6) or Tpst1;Tpst2 double knockout mice (Tpst DKO → B6) which lack TPST activity. We observed that rolling flux fractions were lower and leukocyte rolling velocities were higher in Tpst DKO → B6 venules compared to WT → B6 venules. Similar results were observed on immobilized P-selectin in vitro. Finally, Tpst DKO leukocytes bound less P-selectin than wild type leukocytes despite equivalent surface expression of Psgl-1.These findings provide direct and convincing evidence that tyrosine sulfation is required for optimal function of mouse Psgl-1 in vivo and suggests that tyrosine sulfation of Psgl-1 contributes to the development of atherosclerosis

Microsatellite instability due to hMLH1 deficiency is associated with increased cytotoxicity to irinotecan in human colorectal cancer cell lines

Around 15% of colorectal cancers (CRCs) show microsatellite instability (MSI) due to dysfunction of the mismatch repair system (MMR). As a consequence of this, MSI tumours tend to accumulate errors in mononucleotide repeats as those in genes implicated in repairing double-strand breaks (DSBs). Previous studies have shown that irinotecan (CPT-11), a chemotherapy agent inducing DSB, is more active in MSI than in microsatellite stable (MSS) CRC. The purpose of this study was to compare the sensitivity to CPT-11 in a series of CRC cell lines with either proficient or deficient MMR and to assess the mutational status of two DSB repair genes, MRE11 and RAD50, in these cell lines. hMLH1-deficient cell lines due to either epigenetic silencing or mutation showed very similar IC50 and were four- to nine-fold more sensitive to CPT-11 than the MSS line. Cell lines harbouring mutations in both MRE11 and RAD50 were most sensitive to CPT-11. We conclude that MSI cell lines display higher sensitivity to CPT-11 than MSS cells. Mutation of MRE11 and RAD50 could account for this difference in response to CPT-11. Future clinical trials tailoring chemotherapy regimens based on microsatellite status are warranted

LC/MS-Based Quantitative Proteomic Analysis of Paraffin-Embedded Archival Melanomas Reveals Potential Proteomic Biomarkers Associated with Metastasis

BACKGROUND: Melanoma metastasis status is highly associated with the overall survival of patients; yet, little is known about proteomic changes during melanoma tumor progression. To better understand the changes in protein expression involved in melanoma progression and metastasis, and to identify potential biomarkers, we conducted a global quantitative proteomic analysis on archival metastatic and primary melanomas. METHODOLOGY AND FINDINGS: A total of 16 metastatic and 8 primary cutaneous melanomas were assessed. Proteins were extracted from laser captured microdissected formalin fixed paraffin-embedded archival tissues by liquefying tissue cells. These preparations were analyzed by a LC/MS-based label-free protein quantification method. More than 1500 proteins were identified in the tissue lysates with a peptide ID confidence level of >75%. This approach identified 120 significant changes in protein levels. These proteins were identified from multiple peptides with high confidence identification and were expressed at significantly different levels in metastases as compared with primary melanomas (q-Value<0.05). CONCLUSIONS AND SIGNIFICANCE: The differentially expressed proteins were classified by biological process or mapped into biological system networks, and several proteins were implicated by these analyses as cancer- or metastasis-related. These proteins represent potential biomarkers for tumor progression. The study successfully identified proteins that are differentially expressed in formalin fixed paraffin-embedded specimens of metastatic and primary melanoma