Global Weather States and Their Properties from Passive and Active Satellite Cloud Retrievals

In this study, the authors apply a clustering algorithm to International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project (ISCCP) cloud optical thickness-cloud top pressure histograms in order to derive weather states (WSs) for the global domain. The cloud property distribution within each WS is examined and the geographical variability of each WS is mapped. Once the global WSs are derived, a combination of CloudSat and Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observations (CALIPSO) vertical cloud structure retrievals is used to derive the vertical distribution of the cloud field within each WS. Finally, the dynamic environment and the radiative signature of the WSs are derived and their variability is examined. The cluster analysis produces a comprehensive description of global atmospheric conditions through the derivation of 11 WSs, each representing a distinct cloud structure characterized by the horizontal distribution of cloud optical depth and cloud top pressure. Matching those distinct WSs with cloud vertical profiles derived from CloudSat and CALIPSO retrievals shows that the ISCCP WSs exhibit unique distributions of vertical layering that correspond well to the horizontal structure of cloud properties. Matching the derived WSs with vertical velocity measurements shows a normal progression in dynamic regime when moving from the most convective to the least convective WS. Time trend analysis of the WSs shows a sharp increase of the fair-weather WS in the 1990s and a flattening of that increase in the 2000s. The fact that the fair-weather WS is the one with the lowest cloud radiative cooling capability implies that this behavior has contributed excess radiative warming to the global radiative budget during the 1990s

Subclinical Atherosclerosis Is Not Accelerated in Patients with Ankylosing Spondylitis with Low Disease Activity: New Data and Metaanalysis of Published Studies.

Objective.Chronic inflammatory rheumatic diseases are associated with accelerated atherosclerosis, but data in ankylosing spondylitis (AS) are limited and the relative contribution of inflammation versus classical cardiovascular (CV) risk factors remains a matter of controversy. We addressed this in an original study and a metaanalysis of previous studies.Methods.Atheromatic plaques in carotid and femoral arteries, carotid hypertrophy [intima-media thickness (IMT), cross-sectional area], and carotid stiffness by ultrasound, as well as aortic stiffness by pulse wave velocity, were examined in consecutive nondiabetic, CV disease (CVD)-free patients with AS. Healthy individuals carefully matched 1:1 with patients for age, sex, smoking habits, hyperlipidemia, and hypertension served as controls. A metaanalysis of original studies that examined subclinical atherosclerosis in patients with AS versus controls with comparable CVD risk factors was also performed.Results.Carotid and femoral atheromatic plaques were slightly less prevalent compared with controls in a contemporary cohort consisting of 67 patients with AS (82% men), aged 47.5 ± 12.5 years (mean ± SD), with a median disease duration of 12 years and a Bath AS Disease Activity Index (BASDAI) of 1.8 (interquartile range 0.4–3.6), of whom 66% were receiving anti-tumor necrosis factor (TNF) treatment. Carotid hypertrophy and stiffness, as well as aortic stiffness, were similar between patients and their matched controls. Metaanalysis of all published studies revealed a significantly increased carotid IMT, but not plaque burden, in AS versus controls. Notably, however, increased IMT was not evident in studies involving patients with low disease activity (mean BASDAI &lt; 4) or in those studies that included &gt; 50% of patients treated with anti-TNF.Conclusion.Low AS disease activity is not associated with accelerated atherosclerosis.</jats:sec

Sleep Disturbances and Interleukin 6 Receptor Inhibition in Rheumatoid Arthritis

Objective. Interleukin 6 (IL-6)-mediated interactions have been associated with sleep disturbances in healthy subjects. In this pilot study we examined whether administration of the IL-6 receptor antagonist tocilizumab in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) affects sleep disturbances. Methods. Fifteen patients (13 women) with sleep disturbances at baseline received 6 monthly infusions of tocilizumab 8 mg/kg for moderately or severely active RA. Sleep quality was assessed by Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), daytime sleepiness by Epworth Sleepiness Scale, disease activity by the 28-joint Disease Activity Score-erythrocyte sedimentation rate, functional disability by Health Assessment Questionnaire Disability Index (HAQ-DI), and fatigue by the Functional Assessment of Chronic Illness Therapy (FACIT-Fatigue Scale; FFS) at baseline and first, second, third, and sixth month of treatment. Medications used before enrollment remained unchanged during followup. Results. Sleep quality improved and daytime sleepiness decreased significantly at first-month assessment (p &lt; 0.00001 and p &lt; 0.004, respectively, by repeated measurement analysis) compared to baseline, and these changes became more evident through 6 months. Disease activity decreased, fatigue decreased, and functional status improved significantly. Changes in PSQI score over time were not associated with the corresponding changes in DAS28-ESR (r = 0.37, p = 0.17), but correlated significantly with HAQ-DI changes (r = 0.60, p = 0.02) and marginally with changes in FFS scores (r = -0.46, p = 0.08). Conclusion. Improvement of sleep quality after tocilizumab treatment in patients with RA does not appear to directly result from decreased disease activity, further suggesting that aberrant IL-6 regulation is associated with sleep disturbances. (First Release Dec I 2011; J Rheumatol 2012;39:60-2; doi:10.3899/jrheum.110617

Midlatitude Cloud Shifts, Their Primary Link to the Hadley Cell, and Their Diverse Radiative Effects

We investigate the interannual relationship among clouds, their radiative effects, and two key indices of the atmospheric circulation: the latitudinal positions of the Hadley cell edge and the midlatitude jet. From reanalysis data and satellite observations, we find a clear and consistent relationship between the width of the Hadley cell and the high cloud field, statistically significant in nearly all regions and seasons. In contrast, shifts of the midlatitude jet correlate significantly with high cloud shifts only in the North Atlantic region during the winter season. While in that region and season poleward high cloud shifts are associated with shortwave radiative warming, over the Southern Oceans during all seasons they are associated with shortwave radiative cooling. Finally, a trend analysis reveals that poleward high cloud shifts observed over the 1983-2009 period are more likely related to Hadley cell expansion, rather than poleward shifts of the midlatitude jets

Plasma Metabolomic Profiling Suggests Early Indications for Predisposition to Latent Insulin Resistance in Children Conceived by ICSI

Background: There have been increasing indications about an epigenetically-based elevated predisposition of assisted reproductive technology (ART) offspring to insulin resistance, which can lead to an unfavorable cardio-metabolic profile in adult life. However, the relevant long-term systematic molecular studies are limited, especially for the IntraCytoplasmic Sperm Injection (ICSI) method, introduced in 1992. In this study, we carefully defined a group of 42 prepubertal ICSI and 42 naturally conceived (NC) children. We assessed differences in their metabolic profile based on biochemical measurements, while, for a subgroup, plasma metabolomic analysis was also performed, investigating any relevant insulin resistance indices. Methods &amp; Results: Auxological and biochemical parameters of 42 6.8 +/- 2.1 yrs old ICSI-conceived and 42 age-matched controls were measured. Significant differences between the groups were determined using univariate and multivariate statistics, indicating low urea and low-grade inflammation markers (YKL-40, hsCRP) and high triiodothyronine (T3) in ICSI-children compared to controls. Moreover, plasma metabolomic analysis carried out for a subgroup of 10 ICSI-and 10 NC girls using Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry (GC-MS) indicated clear differences between the two groups, characterized by 36 metabolites linked to obesity, insulin resistance and metabolic syndrome. Notably, the distinction between the two girl subgroups was accentuated when both their biochemical and metabolomic measurements were employed. Conclusions: The present study contributes a large auxological and biochemical dataset of a well-defined group of prepubertal ICSI-conceived subjects to the research of the ART effect to the offspring’s health. Moreover, it is the first time that the relevant usefulness of metabolomics was investigated. The acquired results are consistent with early insulin resistance in ICSI-offspring, paving the way for further systematic investigations. These data support that metabolomics may unravel metabolic differences before they become clinically or biochemically evident, underlining its utility in the ART research

Apoptosis Induction and Gene Expression Profile Alterations of Cutaneous T-Cell Lymphoma Cells following Their Exposure to Bortezomib and Methotrexate.

Mycosis fungoides (MF) and its leukemic variant Sézary syndrome (SS) comprise the majority of CTCL, a heterogenous group of non-Hodgkins lymphomas involving the skin. The CTCL's resistance to chemotherapy and the lack of full understanding of their pathogenesis request further investigation. With the view of a more targeted therapy, we evaluated in vitro the effectiveness of bortezomib and methotrexate, as well as their combination in CTCL cell lines, regarding apoptosis induction. Our data are of clinical value and indicate that the bortezomib/methotrexate combinational therapy has an inferior impact on the apoptosis of CTCL compared to monotherapy, with bortezomib presenting as the most efficient treatment option for SS and methotrexate for MF. Using PCR arrays technology, we also investigated the alterations in the expression profile of genes related to DNA repair pathways in CTCL cell lines after treatment with bortezomib or methotrexate. We found that both agents, but mostly bortezomib, significantly deregulate a large number of genes in SS and MF cell lines, suggesting another pathway through which these agents could induce apoptosis in CTCL. Finally, we show that SS and MF respond differently to treatment, verifying their distinct nature and further emphasizing the need for discrete treatment approaches

Plasma Metabolomic Profiling Suggests Early Indications for Predisposition to Latent Insulin Resistance in Children Conceived by ICSI

<div><p>Background</p><p>There have been increasing indications about an epigenetically-based elevated predisposition of assisted reproductive technology (ART) offspring to insulin resistance, which can lead to an unfavorable cardio-metabolic profile in adult life. However, the relevant long-term systematic molecular studies are limited, especially for the IntraCytoplasmic Sperm Injection (ICSI) method, introduced in 1992. In this study, we carefully defined a group of 42 prepubertal ICSI and 42 naturally conceived (NC) children. We assessed differences in their metabolic profile based on biochemical measurements, while, for a subgroup, plasma metabolomic analysis was also performed, investigating any relevant insulin resistance indices.</p><p>Methods & Results</p><p>Auxological and biochemical parameters of 42 6.8±2.1 yrs old ICSI-conceived and 42 age-matched controls were measured. Significant differences between the groups were determined using univariate and multivariate statistics, indicating low urea and low-grade inflammation markers (YKL-40, hsCRP) and high triiodothyronine (T3) in ICSI-children compared to controls. Moreover, plasma metabolomic analysis carried out for a subgroup of 10 ICSI- and 10 NC girls using Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry (GC-MS) indicated clear differences between the two groups, characterized by 36 metabolites linked to obesity, insulin resistance and metabolic syndrome. Notably, the distinction between the two girl subgroups was accentuated when both their biochemical and metabolomic measurements were employed.</p><p>Conclusions</p><p>The present study contributes a large auxological and biochemical dataset of a well-defined group of pre-pubertal ICSI-conceived subjects to the research of the ART effect to the offspring's health. Moreover, it is the first time that the relevant usefulness of metabolomics was investigated. The acquired results are consistent with early insulin resistance in ICSI-offspring, paving the way for further systematic investigations. These data support that metabolomics may unravel metabolic differences before they become clinically or biochemically evident, underlining its utility in the ART research.</p></div

The significant metabolites between the ICSI and NC girl subgroups within the inter-organ metabolic network.

<p>Positioning the significant metabolites shown in <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0094001#pone-0094001-t003" target="_blank">Table 3</a> within the reconstructed network indicates metabolic physiology differences between the ICSI and NC girl subgroups. All known metabolites detected in the plasma GC-MS metabolic profiles are shown in the area of the figure named “blood”; among these, the metabolites which were not included in the analysis after the normalization and filtering steps are shown in gray boxes. The names of the positively and negatively significant metabolites (<a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0094001#pone-0094001-t003" target="_blank">Table 3</a>) are shown in red and green fonts, respectively, while the nonsignificant are shown in black. The plasma metabolites are connected with dashed lines with the same metabolite pool in any of the depicted tissues. The intra-tissue pools of the plasma positively and negatively significant metabolites are shown in red and green, respectively; it is noted that we cannot predict the intra-tissue metabolite concentration from its plasma concentration, but we have tried to include the most significant tissue “sources” and “sinks” that contribute to the observed plasma concentration.</p