Soldier’s beliefs in abstinence before and after the implementation of a novel army nicotine-free policy

United States Army soldiers have used tobacco for decades1 despite known health risks associated with these products.2 Material connections between the tobacco industry and the military during the early part of the 20th century, coupled with pervasive advertising images of soldiers using tobacco during combat, served to promote tobacco use among young recruits entering training.3 A variety of policieshave been instituted during the training period, to varied and sometimes suboptimal effect.4 Currently, tobacco (defined as any non-therapeutic nicotine product) is banned during basic combat training (BCT), the first phase of training in a soldier’s career, which lasts 10 weeks. It is allowed in the longer subsequent advanced individual training (AIT), during which soldiers learn their military occupationspecialty. Trainee soldiers in an AIT aviation battalion on Fort Eustis in Virginia previously reported a reduction in overall tobacco use following BCT,5 prompting a decision to institute a proposed nicotine-free policy during AIT, which lasts approximately 3–6 months. This study aimed to determine if the AIT nicotine-free policy implementation process would change the tobacco user’s intentionto remain abstinent following AIT, when tobacco use would not be restricted

Energy in the German-Polish relationship: acknowledging controversies - pursuing shared interests

Germany and Poland stand as examples of the differing interests of individual European Union (EU) member states in energy policy. However, both countries are crucial for filling an Energy Union with substance. Yet, progress in bilateral engagement has stalled, as controversies, for example over Nord Stream II, threaten to distract attention from other issues and avenues for energy cooperation. While acknowledging disagreements, the focus should be on identifying areas of agreement and opportunities for cooperation. Although the difficulty of resolving highly controversial issues is not to be discounted, addressing them will require taking steps to establish trust while designing programs and projects to transform the idea of solidarity from rhetoric into reality. (author's abstract

A water-soluble [60]fullerene-derivative stimulates chlorophyll accumulation and has no toxic effect on Chlamydomonas reinhardtii

Chlamydomonas reinhardtii (WT 2137) P. A. Dang. (Volvocales, Chlorophyceae) is a green microalgae serving as a suitable model in scientific research and a promising industrial biotechnology platform for production of biofuel, hydrogen and recombinant proteins. Fullerenes (C60) are allotropic carbon nanoparticles discovered in 1985 and used in biomedical studies since the early 1990s, when water solubilization methodologies were developed. Recently, surface-modified hydroxylated derivatives of fullerenes were proven to enhance algal growth and drought tolerance in plants. Here, a novel type of water-soluble [60]fullerene derivative with 12 glycine residues (GF) has been synthesized and tested for acute toxicity (up to 50 μg/ml) and as a potential biostimulant of algal growth. The effects of GF on pigment composition and growth rate of Chlamydomonas reinhardtii were systematically investigated. Our results suggest that GF was not toxic, and no negative change in the pigment content and no stress symptoms were observed. No changes in the photosynthetic parameters based on the fluorescence of chlorophyll a in Photosystem II (NPQ, Fv/Fm, Fv/F0, PI and RC/ABS) were observed. The GF had no effect on cell size and growth rate. At a concentration of 20 μg/ml, GF stimulated chlorophyll accumulation in 3-day-old cultures

Phosphate Homeostasis, Inflammation and the Regulation of FGF-23

Fibroblast growth factor 23 (FGF23) is released primarily from osteoblasts/osteocytes in bone. In cooperation with the transmembrane protein Klotho, FGF23 is a powerful inhibitor of 1α 25OH Vitamin D Hydroxylase (Cyp27b1) and thus of the formation of 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D3 (1,25(OH)2D3). As 1,25(OH)2D3 up-regulates intestinal calcium and phosphate absorption, the downregulation of 1,25(OH)2D3 synthesis counteracts phosphate excess and tissue calcification. FGF23 also directly inhibits renal phosphate reabsorption. Other actions of FGF23 include triggering of cardiac hypertrophy. FGF23 formation and/or release are stimulated by 1,25(OH)2D3, phosphate excess, Ca2+, PTH, leptin, catecholamines, mineralocorticoids, volume depletion, lithium, high fat diet, iron deficiency, TNFα and TGFß2. The stimulating effect of 1,25(OH)2D3 on FGF23 expression is dependent on RAC1/PAK1 induced actin-polymerisation. Intracellular signaling involved in the stimulation of FGF23 release also includes increases in the cytosolic Ca2+ concentration ([Ca2+]i) following intracellular Ca2+ release and store-operated Ca2+ entry (SOCE). SOCE is accomplished by the Ca2+ release-activated calcium channel protein 1 (Orai1) and its stimulator stromal interaction molecule 1 (STIM1). Expression of Orai1, SOCE and FGF23-formation are up-regulated by the proinflammatory transcription factor NFκB. The present brief review describes the cellular mechanisms involved in FGF23 regulation and its sensitivity to both phosphate metabolism and inflammation. The case is made that up-regulation of FGF23 by inflammatory mediators and signaling may amplify inflammation by inhibiting formation of the anti-inflammatory 1,25(OH)2D3

Tumor Necrosis Factor-mediated survival of CD169⁺ cells promotes immune activation during vesicular stomatitis virus infection

Innate immune activation is essential to mount an effective antiviral response and to prime adaptive immunity. Although a crucial role of CD169+ cells during vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV) infections is increasingly recognized, factors regulating CD169+ cells during viral infections remain unclear. Here, we show that tumor necrosis factor is produced by CD11b+ Ly6C+ Ly6G+ cells following infection with VSV. The absence of TNF or TNF receptor 1 (TNFR1) resulted in reduced numbers of CD169+ cells and in reduced type I interferon (IFN-I) production during VSV infection, with a severe disease outcome. Specifically, TNF triggered RelA translocation into the nuclei of CD169+ cells; this translocation was inhibited when the paracaspase MALT-1 was absent. Consequently, MALT1 deficiency resulted in reduced VSV replication, defective innate immune activation, and development of severe disease. These findings indicate that TNF mediates the maintenance of CD169+ cells and innate and adaptive immune activation during VSV infection

Effects of scene properties and emotional valence on brain activations : a fixation-related fMRI study

Temporal and spatial characteristics of fixations are affected by image properties, including high-level scene characteristics, such as object-background composition, and low-level physical characteristics, such as image clarity. The influence of these factors is modulated by the emotional content of an image. Here, we aimed to establish whether brain correlates of fixations reflect these modulatory effects. To this end, we simultaneously scanned participants and measured their eye movements, while presenting negative and neutral images in various image clarity conditions, with controlled object-background composition. The fMRI data were analyzed using a novel fixation-based event-related (FIBER) method, which allows the tracking of brain activity linked to individual fixations. The results revealed that fixating an emotional object was linked to greater deactivation in the right lingual gyrus than fixating the background of an emotional image, while no difference between object and background was found for neutral images. We suggest that deactivation in the lingual gyrus might be linked to inhibition of saccade execution. This was supported by fixation duration results, which showed that in the negative condition, fixations falling on the object were longer than those falling on the background. Furthermore, increase in the image clarity was correlated with fixation-related activity within the lateral occipital complex, the structure linked to object recognition. This correlation was significantly stronger for negative images, presumably due to greater deployment of attention towards emotional objects. Our eye-tracking results are in line with these observations, showing that the chance of fixating an object rose faster for negative images over neutral ones as the level of noise decreased. Overall, our study demonstrated that emotional value of an image changes the way that low and high-level scene properties affect the characteristics of fixations. The fixation-related brain activity is affected by the low-level scene properties and this impact differs between negative and neutral images. The high-level scene properties also affect brain correlates of fixations, but only in the case of the negative images

Disruption of Coronin 1 Signaling in T Cells Promotes Allograft Tolerance while Maintaining Anti-Pathogen Immunity

The ability of the immune system to discriminate self from non-self is essential for eradicating microbial pathogens but is also responsible for allograft rejection. Whether it is possible to selectively suppress alloresponses while maintaining anti-pathogen immunity remains unknown. We found that mice deficient in coronin 1, a regulator of naive T cell homeostasis, fully retained allografts while maintaining T cell-specific responses against microbial pathogens. Mechanistically, coronin 1-deficiency increased cyclic adenosine monophosphate (cAMP) concentrations to suppress allo-specific T cell responses. Costimulation induced on microbe-infected antigen presenting cells was able to overcome cAMP-mediated immunosuppression to maintain anti-pathogen immunity. In vivo pharmacological modulation of this pathway or a prior transfer of coronin 1-deficient T cells actively suppressed allograft rejection. These results define a coronin 1-dependent regulatory axis in T cells important for allograft rejection and suggest that modulation of this pathway may be a promising approach to achieve long-term acceptance of mismatched allografts

A systematic review of the development and application of home cage monitoring in laboratory mice and rats

Funding Information: Open Access funding enabled and organized by Projekt DEAL. VV is supported by Jane and Aatos Erkko Foundation. Funding Information: The Vienna BioCenter Core Facilities (VBCF) Preclinical Phenotyping Facility acknowledges funding from the Austrian Federal Ministry of Education, Science & Research; and the City of Vienna. Funding Information: This article is based upon work from COST Action “Improving biomedical research by automated behaviour monitoring in the animal home-cage” (TEATIME; CA20135; cost-teatime.org) supported by COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology). Funding Information: PK, PM, AJ, BL, CTR, LL, and KH were funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) under Germany’s Excellence Strategy—EXC 2002/1 “Science of Intelligence” —project number 390523135. Funding Information: This article is based upon work from COST Action “Improving biomedical research by automated behaviour monitoring in the animal home-cage” (TEATIME; CA20135; cost-teatime.org) supported by COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology). Publisher Copyright: © 2023, The Author(s).Background: Traditionally, in biomedical animal research, laboratory rodents are individually examined in test apparatuses outside of their home cages at selected time points. However, the outcome of such tests can be influenced by various factors and valuable information may be missed when the animals are only monitored for short periods. These issues can be overcome by longitudinally monitoring mice and rats in their home cages. To shed light on the development of home cage monitoring (HCM) and the current state-of-the-art, a systematic review was carried out on 521 publications retrieved through PubMed and Web of Science. Results: Both the absolute (~ × 26) and relative (~ × 7) number of HCM-related publications increased from 1974 to 2020. There was a clear bias towards males and individually housed animals, but during the past decade (2011–2020), an increasing number of studies used both sexes and group housing. In most studies, animals were kept for short (up to 4 weeks) time periods in the HCM systems; intermediate time periods (4–12 weeks) increased in frequency in the years between 2011 and 2020. Before the 2000s, HCM techniques were predominantly applied for less than 12 h, while 24-h measurements have been more frequent since the 2000s. The systematic review demonstrated that manual monitoring is decreasing in relation to automatic techniques but still relevant. Until (and including) the 1990s, most techniques were applied manually but have been progressively replaced by automation since the 2000s. Independent of the year of publication, the main behavioral parameters measured were locomotor activity, feeding, and social behaviors; the main physiological parameters were heart rate and electrocardiography. External appearance-related parameters were rarely examined in the home cages. Due to technological progress and application of artificial intelligence, more refined and detailed behavioral parameters have been investigated in the home cage more recently. Conclusions: Over the period covered in this study, techniques for HCM of mice and rats have improved considerably. This development is ongoing and further progress as well as validation of HCM systems will extend the applications to allow for continuous, longitudinal, non-invasive monitoring of an increasing range of parameters in group-housed small rodents in their home cages.publishersversionpublishe