The identification of established modifiable mid-life risk factors for cardiovascular disease which contribute to cognitive decline: Korean Longitudinal Study of Aging (KLoSA)

INTRODUCTION: We explored how different chronic diseases, risk factors, and protective factors highly associated with cardiovascular diseases (CVD) are associated with dementia or Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) in Korean elders, with a focus on those that manifest in mid-life. METHODS: A CVD-free cohort (n = 4289) from the Korean Longitudinal Study of Aging was selected to perform Cox mixed-effects proportional hazard regressions. Eighteen control variables with strong associations to CVD were chosen as explanatory variables, and Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) score cut-off for dementia and MCI were used as outcome variables. RESULTS: The statistically significant (P < 0.05) adverse factors that contribute in developing dementia were age (aHR 1.07, 1.05-1.09), Centre for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale (CESD-10) (aHR 1.17, 1.12-1.23), diagnosis with cerebrovascular disease (aHR 3.73, 1.81-7.66), living with diabetes (aHR 2.30, 1.22-4.35), and living with high blood pressure (HBP) (aHR 2.05, 1.09-3.87). In contrast, the statistically significant protective factors against developing dementia were current alcohol consumption (aHR 0.67, 0.46-0.99), higher educational attainment (aHR 0.36, 0.26-0.56), and regular exercise (aHR 0.37, 0.26-0.51). The factors with a statistically significant adverse association with progression to MCI were age (aHR 1.02, 1.01-1.03) and CESD-10 (aHR 1.17, 1.14-1.19). In contrast, the statistically significant protective factors against developing MCI were BMI (aHR 0.96, 0.94-0.98), higher educational attainment (aHR 0.33, 0.26-0.43), and regular exercise (aHR 0.83, 0.74-0.92). CONCLUSION: In lieu of the protective factor of MCI and dementia, implementing regular exercise routine well before mid-life and cognitive decline is significant, with adjustments made for those suffering from health conditions, so they can continue exercising despite their morbidity. Further attention in diabetes care and management is needed for patients who already show decline in cognitive ability as it is likely that their MCI impacts their ability to manage their existing chronic conditions, which may adversely affect their cognitive ability furthermore

Linking scales of sea ice surface topography: evaluation of ICESat-2 measurements with coincident helicopter laser scanning during MOSAiC

Information about sea ice surface topography and related deformation is crucial for studies of sea ice mass balance, sea ice modeling, and ship navigation through the ice pack. The Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation Satellite-2 (ICESat-2), part of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Earth Observing System, has been on orbit for over 4 years, sensing the sea ice surface topography with six laser beams capable of capturing individual features such as pressure ridges. To assess the capabilities and uncertainties of ICESat-2 products, coincident high-resolution measurements of sea ice surface topography are required. During the yearlong Multidisciplinary drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate (MOSAiC) expedition in the Arctic Ocean, we successfully carried out a coincident underflight of ICESat-2 with a helicopter-based airborne laser scanner (ALS), achieving an overlap of more than 100 km. Despite the comparably short data set, the high-resolution centimeter-scale measurements of the ALS can be used to evaluate the performance of ICESat-2 products. Our goal is to investigate how the sea ice surface roughness and topography are represented in different ICESat-2 products as well as how sensitive ICESat-2 products are to leads and small cracks in the ice cover. Here, we compare the ALS measurements with ICESat-2's primary sea ice height product, ATL07, and the high-fidelity surface elevation product developed by the University of Maryland (UMD). By applying a ridge-detection algorithm, we find that 16 % (4 %) of the number of obstacles in the ALS data set are found using the strong (weak) center beam in ATL07. Significantly higher detection rates of 42 % (30 %) are achieved when using the UMD product. While only one lead is indicated in ATL07 for the underflight, the ALS reveals many small, narrow, and only partly open cracks that appear to be overlooked by ATL07

The subconvexity problem for \GL_{2}

Generalizing and unifying prior results, we solve the subconvexity problem for the $L$-functions of \GL_{1} and \GL_{2} automorphic representations over a fixed number field, uniformly in all aspects. A novel feature of the present method is the softness of our arguments; this is largely due to a consistent use of canonically normalized period relations, such as those supplied by the work of Waldspurger and Ichino--Ikeda.Comment: Almost final version to appear in Publ. Math IHES. References updated

Inducible Bronchus-Associated Lymphoid Tissue Elicited by a Protein Cage Nanoparticle Enhances Protectionin Mice against Diverse Respiratory Viruses

Destruction of the architectural and subsequently the functional integrity of the lung following pulmonary viral infections is attributable to both the extent of pathogen replication and to the host-generated inflammation associated with the recruitment of immune responses. The presence of antigenically disparate pulmonary viruses and the emergence of novel viruses assures the recurrence of lung damage with infection and resolution of each primary viral infection. Thus, there is a need to develop safe broad spectrum immunoprophylactic strategies capable of enhancing protective immune responses in the lung but which limits immune-mediated lung damage. The immunoprophylactic strategy described here utilizes a protein cage nanoparticle (PCN) to significantly accelerate clearance of diverse respiratory viruses after primary infection and also results in a host immune response that causes less lung damage

Linking scales of sea ice surface topography: evaluation of ICESat-2 measurements with coincident helicopter laser scanning during MOSAiC

Information about sea ice surface topography and related deformation is crucial for studies of sea ice mass balance, sea ice modeling, and ship navigation through the ice pack. The Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation Satellite-2 (ICESat-2), part of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Earth Observing System, has been on orbit for over 4 years, sensing the sea ice surface topography with six laser beams capable of capturing individual features such as pressure ridges. To assess the capabilities and uncertainties of ICESat-2 products, coincident high-resolution measurements of sea ice surface topography are required. During the yearlong Multidisciplinary drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate (MOSAiC) expedition in the Arctic Ocean, we successfully carried out a coincident underflight of ICESat-2 with a helicopter-based airborne laser scanner (ALS), achieving an overlap of more than 100 km. Despite the comparably short data set, the high-resolution centimeter-scale measurements of the ALS can be used to evaluate the performance of ICESat-2 products. Our goal is to investigate how the sea ice surface roughness and topography are represented in different ICESat-2 products as well as how sensitive ICESat-2 products are to leads and small cracks in the ice cover. Here, we compare the ALS measurements with ICESat-2's primary sea ice height product, ATL07, and the high-fidelity surface elevation product developed by the University of Maryland (UMD). By applying a ridge-detection algorithm, we find that 16 % (4 %) of the number of obstacles in the ALS data set are found using the strong (weak) center beam in ATL07. Significantly higher detection rates of 42 % (30 %) are achieved when using the UMD product. While only one lead is indicated in ATL07 for the underflight, the ALS reveals many small, narrow, and only partly open cracks that appear to be overlooked by ATL07.</p

Modeling the role of the close- range effect and environmental variables in the occurrence and spread of Phragmites australis in four sites on the Finnish coast of the Gulf of Finland and the Archipelago Sea

Peer reviewe

'MRI-negative PET-positive' temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) and mesial TLE differ with quantitative MRI and PET: a case control study

Background: \u27MRI negative PET positive temporal lobe epilepsy\u27 represents a substantial minority of temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE). Clinicopathological and qualitative imaging differences from mesial temporal lobe epilepsy are reported. We aimed to compare TLE with hippocampal sclerosis (HS+ve) and non lesional TLE without HS (HS-ve) on MRI, with respect to quantitative FDG-PET and MRI measures.Methods: 30 consecutive HS-ve patients with well-lateralised EEG were compared with 30 age- and sex-matched HS+ve patients with well-lateralised EEG. Cerebral, cortical lobar and hippocampal volumetric and co-registered FDG-PET metabolic analyses were performed.Results: There was no difference in whole brain, cerebral or cerebral cortical volumes. Both groups showed marginally smaller cerebral volumes ipsilateral to epileptogenic side (HS-ve 0.99, p = 0.02, HS+ve 0.98, p &lt; 0.001). In HS+ve, the ratio of epileptogenic cerebrum to whole brain volume was less (p = 0.02); the ratio of epileptogenic cerebral cortex to whole brain in the HS+ve group approached significance (p = 0.06). Relative volume deficits were seen in HS+ve in insular and temporal lobes. Both groups showed marked ipsilateral hypometabolism (p &lt; 0.001), most marked in temporal cortex. Mean hypointensity was more marked in epileptogenic-to-contralateral hippocampus in HS+ve (ratio: 0.86 vs 0.95, p &lt; 0.001). The mean FDG-PET ratio of ipsilateral to contralateral cerebral cortex however was low in both groups (ratio: HS-ve 0.97, p &lt; 0.0001; HS+ve 0.98, p = 0.003), and more marked in HS-ve across all lobes except insula.Conclusion: Overall, HS+ve patients showed more hippocampal, but also marginally more ipsilateral cerebral and cerebrocortical atrophy, greater ipsilateral hippocampal hypometabolism but similar ipsilateral cerebral cortical hypometabolism, confirming structural and functional differences between these groups.<br /

Classification and Lateralization of Temporal Lobe Epilepsies with and without Hippocampal Atrophy Based on Whole-Brain Automatic MRI Segmentation

Brain images contain information suitable for automatically sorting subjects into categories such as healthy controls and patients. We sought to identify morphometric criteria for distinguishing controls (n = 28) from patients with unilateral temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE), 60 with and 20 without hippocampal atrophy (TLE-HA and TLE-N, respectively), and for determining the presumed side of seizure onset. The framework employs multi-atlas segmentation to estimate the volumes of 83 brain structures. A kernel-based separability criterion was then used to identify structures whose volumes discriminate between the groups. Next, we applied support vector machines (SVM) to the selected set for classification on the basis of volumes. We also computed pairwise similarities between all subjects and used spectral analysis to convert these into per-subject features. SVM was again applied to these feature data. After training on a subgroup, all TLE-HA patients were correctly distinguished from controls, achieving an accuracy of 96 ± 2% in both classification schemes. For TLE-N patients, the accuracy was 86 ± 2% based on structural volumes and 91 ± 3% using spectral analysis. Structures discriminating between patients and controls were mainly localized ipsilaterally to the presumed seizure focus. For the TLE-HA group, they were mainly in the temporal lobe; for the TLE-N group they included orbitofrontal regions, as well as the ipsilateral substantia nigra. Correct lateralization of the presumed seizure onset zone was achieved using hippocampi and parahippocampal gyri in all TLE-HA patients using either classification scheme; in the TLE-N patients, lateralization was accurate based on structural volumes in 86 ± 4%, and in 94 ± 4% with the spectral analysis approach. Unilateral TLE has imaging features that can be identified automatically, even when they are invisible to human experts. Such morphometric image features may serve as classification and lateralization criteria. The technique also detects unsuspected distinguishing features like the substantia nigra, warranting further study