Recreational visits to marine and coastal environments in England: Where, what, who, why, and when?

Health and economic benefits may accrue from marine and coastal recreation. In England, few national-level descriptive analyses exist which examine predictors of recreation in these environments. Data from seven waves (2009–2016) of a representative survey of the English population (n = 326,756) were analysed to investigate how many recreational visits were made annually to coastal environments in England, which activities were undertaken on these visits, and which demographic, motivational, temporal, and regional factors predict them. Inland environments are presented for comparison. Approximately 271 million recreational visits were made to coastal environments in England annually, the majority involving land-based activities such as walking. Separately, there were around 59 million instances of water-based recreation undertaken on recreational visits (e.g. swimming, water sports). Visits to the coast involving walking were undertaken by a wide spectrum of the population: compared to woodland walks, for instance, coastal walks were more likely to be made by females, older adults, and individuals from lower socioeconomic classifications, suggesting the coast may support reducing activity inequalities. Motivational and temporal variables showed distinct patterns between visits to coastal and inland comparator environments. Regional variations existed too with more visits to coastal environments made by people living in the south-west and north-east compared to London, where more visits were made to urban open spaces. The results provide a reference for current patterns of coastal recreation in England, and could be considered when making policy-level decisions with regard to coastal accessibility and marine plans. Implications for future public health and marine plans are discussed

A firearm bullet lodged into the thoracic spinal canal without vertebral bone destruction: a case report

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Introduction</p> <p>Firearm injuries account for 13% to 17% of all spinal cord injuries, and are generally caused during warfare or assault with intent to kill. Spinal cord injuries caused by firearms are usually observed in patients aged 15 to 34 years old, and are especially common among men.</p> <p>Case presentation</p> <p>We report the case of a 28-year-old Iraqi man who was referred to our radiology department with lower limb paraplegia secondary to a gunshot wound. We performed 64-slice computerized tomography with two-dimensional and three-dimensional reconstruction of the thoracolumbar spine. On the two-dimensional and three-dimensional reconstructed axial images of the thoracolumbar spine, an intra-canalicular bullet nucleus was found at the mid-spinal cord at the T8 level, with no evidence of vertebral bone destruction.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>To the best of our knowledge, there is only one previous report in the literature describing a case of a bullet nucleus lodged into the inferior epidural spinal canal without destruction of the vertebral bone. With the rise of violence worldwide the incidence of gunshot injuries continues to increase, and, thus, it is essential for radiologists to have a clear understanding of gunshot injuries and the findings on radiographic images.</p

A preliminary study of genetic factors that influence susceptibility to bovine tuberculosis in the British cattle herd

Associations between specific host genes and susceptibility to Mycobacterial infections such as tuberculosis have been reported in several species. Bovine tuberculosis (bTB) impacts greatly the UK cattle industry, yet genetic predispositions have yet to be identified. We therefore used a candidate gene approach to study 384 cattle of which 160 had reacted positively to an antigenic skin test (‘reactors’). Our approach was unusual in that it used microsatellite markers, embraced high breed diversity and focused particularly on detecting genes showing heterozygote advantage, a mode of action often overlooked in SNP-based studies. A panel of neutral markers was used to control for population substructure and using a general linear model-based approach we were also able to control for age. We found that substructure was surprisingly weak and identified two genomic regions that were strongly associated with reactor status, identified by markers INRA111 and BMS2753. In general the strength of association detected tended to vary depending on whether age was included in the model. At INRA111 a single genotype appears strongly protective with an overall odds ratio of 2.2, the effect being consistent across nine diverse breeds. Our results suggest that breeding strategies could be devised that would appreciably increase genetic resistance of cattle to bTB (strictly, reduce the frequency of incidence of reactors) with implications for the current debate concerning badger-culling

Cystathionine beta-synthase mutants exhibit changes in protein unfolding: conformational analysis of misfolded variants in crude cell extracts

Protein misfolding has been proposed to be a common pathogenic mechanism in many inborn errors of metabolism including cystathionine β-synthase (CBS) deficiency. In this work, we describe the structural properties of nine CBS mutants that represent a common molecular pathology in the CBS gene. Using thermolysin in two proteolytic techniques, we examined conformation of these mutants directly in crude cell extracts after expression in E. coli. Proteolysis with thermolysin under native conditions appeared to be a useful technique even for very unstable mutant proteins, whereas pulse proteolysis in a urea gradient had limited values for the study of the majority of CBS mutants due to their instability. Mutants in the active core had either slightly increased unfolding (p.A114V, p.E302K and p.G307S) or extensive unfolding with decreased stability (p.H65R, p.T191M, p.I278T and p.R369C). The extent of the unfolding inversely correlated with the previously determined degree of tetrameric assembly and with the catalytic activity. In contrast, mutants bearing aminoacid substitutions in the C-terminal regulatory domain (p.R439Q and p.D444N) had increased global stability with decreased flexibility. This study shows that proteolytic techniques can reveal conformational abnormalities even for CBS mutants that have activity and/or a degree of assembly similar to the wild-type enzyme. We present here a methodological strategy that may be used in cell lysates to evaluate properties of proteins that tend to misfold and aggregate and that may be important for conformational studies of disease-causing mutations in the field of inborn errors of metabolism

Quantitative trait loci conferring grain mineral nutrient concentrations in durum wheat 3 wild emmer wheat RIL population

Mineral nutrient malnutrition, and particularly deficiency in zinc and iron, afflicts over 3 billion people worldwide. Wild emmer wheat, Triticum turgidum ssp. dicoccoides, genepool harbors a rich allelic repertoire for mineral nutrients in the grain. The genetic and physiological basis of grain protein, micronutrients (zinc, iron, copper and manganese) and macronutrients (calcium, magnesium, potassium, phosphorus and sulfur) concentration was studied in tetraploid wheat population of 152 recombinant inbred lines (RILs), derived from a cross between durum wheat (cv. Langdon) and wild emmer (accession G18-16). Wide genetic variation was found among the RILs for all grain minerals, with considerable transgressive effect. A total of 82 QTLs were mapped for 10 minerals with LOD score range of 3.2–16.7. Most QTLs were in favor of the wild allele (50 QTLs). Fourteen pairs of QTLs for the same trait were mapped to seemingly homoeologous positions, reflecting synteny between the A and B genomes. Significant positive correlation was found between grain protein concentration (GPC), Zn, Fe and Cu, which was supported by significant overlap between the respective QTLs, suggesting common physiological and/or genetic factors controlling the concentrations of these mineral nutrients. Few genomic regions (chromosomes 2A, 5A, 6B and 7A) were found to harbor clusters of QTLs for GPC and other nutrients. These identified QTLs may facilitate the use of wild alleles for improving grain nutritional quality of elite wheat cultivars, especially in terms of protein, Zn and Fe

Prime movers : mechanochemistry of mitotic kinesins

Mitotic spindles are self-organizing protein machines that harness teams of multiple force generators to drive chromosome segregation. Kinesins are key members of these force-generating teams. Different kinesins walk directionally along dynamic microtubules, anchor, crosslink, align and sort microtubules into polarized bundles, and influence microtubule dynamics by interacting with microtubule tips. The mechanochemical mechanisms of these kinesins are specialized to enable each type to make a specific contribution to spindle self-organization and chromosome segregation

Measurement of the Dipion Mass Spectrum in X(3872) -> J/Psi Pi+ Pi- Decays

We measure the dipion mass spectrum in X(3872)--> J/Psi Pi+ Pi- decays using 360 pb-1 of pbar-p collisions at 1.96 TeV collected with the CDF II detector. The spectrum is fit with predictions for odd C-parity (3S1, 1P1, and 3DJ) charmonia decaying to J/Psi Pi+ Pi-, as well as even C-parity states in which the pions are from Rho0 decay. The latter case also encompasses exotic interpretations, such as a D0-D*0Bar molecule. Only the 3S1 and J/Psi Rho hypotheses are compatible with our data. Since 3S1 is untenable on other grounds, decay via J/Psi Rho is favored, which implies C=+1 for the X(3872). Models for different J/Psi-Rho angular momenta L are considered. Flexibility in the models, especially the introduction of Rho-Omega interference, enable good descriptions of our data for both L=0 and 1.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures -- Submitted to Phys. Rev. Let