1,282 research outputs found
Use of domesticated pigs by Mesolithic hunter-gatherers in northwestern Europe
Acknowledgements We thank the Archaeological State Museum Schleswig-Holstein, the Archaeological State Offices of Brandenburg, Lower Saxony and Saxony and the following individuals who provided sample material: Betty Arndt, Jo¨rg Ewersen, Frederick Feulner, Susanne Hanik, Ru¨diger Krause, Jochen Reinhard, Uwe Reuter, Karl-Heinz Ro¨hrig, Maguerita Scha¨fer, Jo¨rg Schibler, Reinhold Schoon, Regina Smolnik, Thomas Terberger and Ingrid Ulbricht. We are grateful to Ulrich Schmo¨lcke, Michael Forster, Peter Forster and Aikaterini Glykou for their support and comments on the manuscript. We also thank many institutions and individuals that provided sample material and access to collections, especially the curators of the Museum fu¨r Naturkunde, Berlin; Muse´um National d0 Histoire Naturelle, Paris; Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of Natural History, Washington D.C.; Zoologische Staatssammlung, Mu¨nchen; Museum fu¨r Haustierkunde, Halle; the American Museum of Natural History, New-York. This work was funded by the Graduate School ‘Human Development in Landscapes’ at Kiel University (CAU) and supported by NERC project Grant NE/F003382/1. Radiocarbon dating was carried out at the Leibniz Laboratory, CAU. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons AttributionNonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.Peer reviewedPublisher PD
Skin flora: Differences Between People Affected by Albinism and Those with Normally Pigmented Skin in Northern Tanzania - Cross Sectional Study.
Skin flora varies from one site of the body to another. Individual's health, age and gender determine the type and the density of skin flora. A 1 cm² of the skin on the sternum was rubbed with sterile cotton swab socked in 0.9% normal saline and plated on blood agar. This was cultured at 35 °C. The bacteria were identified by culturing on MacConkey agar, coagulase test, catalase test and gram staining. Swabs were obtained from 66 individuals affected by albinism and 31 individuals with normal skin pigmentation. Those with normal skin were either relatives or staying with the individuals affected by albinism who were recruited for the study. The mean age of the 97 recruited individuals was 30.6 (SD ± 14.9) years. The mean of the colony forming units was 1580.5 per cm2. Those affected by albinism had a significantly higher mean colony forming units (1680 CFU per cm²) as compared with 453.5 CFU per cm² in those with normally pigmented skin (p = 0.023). The skin type and the severity of sun- damaged skin was significantly associated with a higher number of colony forming units (p = 0.038). Individuals affected by albinism have a higher number of colony forming units which is associated with sun- damaged skin
Dog10K: an international sequencing effort to advance studies of canine domestication, phenotypes and health
Dogs are the most phenotypically diverse mammalian species, and they possess more known heritable disorders than any other non-human mammal. Efforts to catalog and characterize genetic variation across well-chosen populations of canines are necessary to advance our understanding of their evolutionary history and genetic architecture. To date, no organized effort has been undertaken to sequence the world's canid populations. The Dog10K Consortium (http://www.dog10kgenomes.org) is an international collaboration of researchers from across the globe who will generate 20× whole genomes from 10 000 canids in 5 years. This effort will capture the genetic diversity that underlies the phenotypic and geographical variability of modern canids worldwide. Breeds, village dogs, niche populations and extended pedigrees are currently being sequenced, and de novo assemblies of multiple canids are being constructed. This unprecedented dataset will address the genetic underpinnings of domestication, breed formation, aging, behavior and morphological variation. More generally, this effort will advance our understanding of human and canine health
Arthroscopic Treatment of Acetabular Retroversion With Acetabuloplasty and Subspine Decompression: A Matched Comparison With Patients Undergoing Arthroscopic Treatment for Focal Pincer-Type Femoroacetabular Impingement.
BackgroundGlobal acetabular retroversion is classically treated with open reverse periacetabular osteotomy. Given the low morbidity and recent success associated with the arthroscopic treatment of femoroacetabular impingement (FAI), there may also be a role for arthroscopic treatment of acetabular retroversion. However, the safety and outcomes after hip arthroscopic surgery for retroversion need further study, and the effect of impingement from the anterior inferior iliac spine (subspine) in patients with retroversion is currently unknown.HypothesisArthroscopic treatment for global acetabular retroversion will be safe, and patients will have similar outcomes compared with a matched group undergoing arthroscopic treatment for focal pincer-type FAI.Study designCohort study; Level of evidence, 2.MethodsPatients undergoing hip arthroscopic surgery for symptomatic global acetabular retroversion were prospectively enrolled and compared with a matched group of patients undergoing arthroscopic surgery for focal pincer-type FAI. Both groups underwent the same arthroscopic treatment protocol. All patients were administered patient-reported outcome (PRO) measures, including the 12-item Short-Form Health Survey (SF-12) Physical Component Summary (PCS) and a Mental Component Summary (MCS), modified Harris Hip Score (mHHS), Hip disability and Osteoarthritis Outcome Score (HOOS), and visual analog scale (VAS) for pain preoperatively and at 1 year postoperatively.ResultsThere were no differences in age, sex, or body mass index between 39 hips treated for global acetabular retroversion and 39 hips treated for focal pincer-type FAI. There were no major or minor complications in either group. Patients who underwent arthroscopic treatment for global acetabular retroversion demonstrated similar significant improvements in postoperative PRO scores (scores increased by 17 to 43 points) as patients who underwent arthroscopic treatment for focal pincer-type FAI. Patients treated for retroversion who also underwent subspine decompression had greater improvement than patients who did not undergo subspine decompression for the HOOS-Pain (33.7 ± 15.3 vs 22.5 ± 17.6, respectively; P = .046) and HOOS-Quality of Life (49.7 ± 18.8 vs 34.6 ± 22.0, respectively; P = .030) scores.ConclusionArthroscopic treatment for acetabular retroversion is safe and provides significant clinical improvement similar to arthroscopic treatment for pincer-type FAI. Patients with acetabular retroversion who also underwent arthroscopic subspine decompression demonstrated greater improvements in pain and quality of life outcomes than those who underwent arthroscopic treatment without subspine decompression
Advanced optical imaging in living embryos
Developmental biology investigations have evolved from static studies of embryo anatomy and into dynamic studies of the genetic and cellular mechanisms responsible for shaping the embryo anatomy. With the advancement of fluorescent protein fusions, the ability to visualize and comprehend how thousands to millions of cells interact with one another to form tissues and organs in three dimensions (xyz) over time (t) is just beginning to be realized and exploited. In this review, we explore recent advances utilizing confocal and multi-photon time-lapse microscopy to capture gene expression, cell behavior, and embryo development. From choosing the appropriate fluorophore, to labeling strategy, to experimental set-up, and data pipeline handling, this review covers the various aspects related to acquiring and analyzing multi-dimensional data sets. These innovative techniques in multi-dimensional imaging and analysis can be applied across a number of fields in time and space including protein dynamics to cell biology to morphogenesis
Broadening INPP5E phenotypic spectrum: detection of rare variants in syndromic and non-syndromic IRD
Pathogenic variants in INPP5E cause Joubert syndrome (JBTS), a ciliopathy with retinal involvement. However, despite sporadic cases in large cohort sequencing studies, a clear association with non-syndromic inherited retinal degenerations (IRDs) has not been made. We validate this association by reporting 16 non-syndromic IRD patients from ten families with bi-allelic mutations in INPP5E. Additional two patients showed early onset IRD with limited JBTS features. Detailed phenotypic description for all probands is presented. We report 14 rare INPP5E variants, 12 of which have not been reported in previous studies. We present tertiary protein modeling and analyze all INPP5E variants for deleteriousness and phenotypic correlation. We observe that the combined impact of INPP5E variants in JBTS and non-syndromic IRD patients does not reveal a clear genotype–phenotype correlation, suggesting the involvement of genetic modifiers. Our study cements the wide phenotypic spectrum of INPP5E disease, adding proof that sequence defects in this gene can lead to early-onset non-syndromic IRD
Quantity of ethanol absorption after excessive hand disinfection using three commercially available hand rubs is minimal and below toxic levels for humans
The stellar and sub-stellar IMF of simple and composite populations
The current knowledge on the stellar IMF is documented. It appears to become
top-heavy when the star-formation rate density surpasses about 0.1Msun/(yr
pc^3) on a pc scale and it may become increasingly bottom-heavy with increasing
metallicity and in increasingly massive early-type galaxies. It declines quite
steeply below about 0.07Msun with brown dwarfs (BDs) and very low mass stars
having their own IMF. The most massive star of mass mmax formed in an embedded
cluster with stellar mass Mecl correlates strongly with Mecl being a result of
gravitation-driven but resource-limited growth and fragmentation induced
starvation. There is no convincing evidence whatsoever that massive stars do
form in isolation. Various methods of discretising a stellar population are
introduced: optimal sampling leads to a mass distribution that perfectly
represents the exact form of the desired IMF and the mmax-to-Mecl relation,
while random sampling results in statistical variations of the shape of the
IMF. The observed mmax-to-Mecl correlation and the small spread of IMF
power-law indices together suggest that optimally sampling the IMF may be the
more realistic description of star formation than random sampling from a
universal IMF with a constant upper mass limit. Composite populations on galaxy
scales, which are formed from many pc scale star formation events, need to be
described by the integrated galactic IMF. This IGIMF varies systematically from
top-light to top-heavy in dependence of galaxy type and star formation rate,
with dramatic implications for theories of galaxy formation and evolution.Comment: 167 pages, 37 figures, 3 tables, published in Stellar Systems and
Galactic Structure, Vol.5, Springer. This revised version is consistent with
the published version and includes additional references and minor additions
to the text as well as a recomputed Table 1. ISBN 978-90-481-8817-
A review of elliptical and disc galaxy structure, and modern scaling laws
A century ago, in 1911 and 1913, Plummer and then Reynolds introduced their
models to describe the radial distribution of stars in `nebulae'. This article
reviews the progress since then, providing both an historical perspective and a
contemporary review of the stellar structure of bulges, discs and elliptical
galaxies. The quantification of galaxy nuclei, such as central mass deficits
and excess nuclear light, plus the structure of dark matter halos and cD galaxy
envelopes, are discussed. Issues pertaining to spiral galaxies including dust,
bulge-to-disc ratios, bulgeless galaxies, bars and the identification of
pseudobulges are also reviewed. An array of modern scaling relations involving
sizes, luminosities, surface brightnesses and stellar concentrations are
presented, many of which are shown to be curved. These 'redshift zero'
relations not only quantify the behavior and nature of galaxies in the Universe
today, but are the modern benchmark for evolutionary studies of galaxies,
whether based on observations, N-body-simulations or semi-analytical modelling.
For example, it is shown that some of the recently discovered compact
elliptical galaxies at 1.5 < z < 2.5 may be the bulges of modern disc galaxies.Comment: Condensed version (due to Contract) of an invited review article to
appear in "Planets, Stars and Stellar
Systems"(www.springer.com/astronomy/book/978-90-481-8818-5). 500+ references
incl. many somewhat forgotten, pioneer papers. Original submission to
Springer: 07-June-201
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