437 research outputs found

    Associations of maternal and paternal antenatal mood with offspring anxiety disorder at age 18 years.

    Get PDF
    OBJECTIVE: Maternal antenatal depression and anxiety are associated with increased risk of childhood behavioural and emotional problems in offspring; it remains unclear to what extent this is due to a maternal biological impact on foetal development. Here, we compare associations between maternal and paternal antenatal depression and anxiety with offspring anxiety disorders, thus controlling for some genetic and shared environmental factors. METHODS: We used data from the ALSPAC population cohort including measures of antenatal parental depression and anxiety. At 18 years, offspring completed the CIS-R interview, yielding diagnoses for anxiety disorders. Results were adjusted for confounding variables including parental postnatal depression and anxiety. RESULTS: Children of women with antenatal depression (18 weeks gestation), had an increased risk of anxiety disorders at 18 years of age (11.1% vs. 6.2%; adj. OR 1.75 (1.19, 2.58); p=0.01). Children of women with antenatal anxiety had increased risk of co-morbid anxiety and depression (adj. OR 1.39 (1.06, 1.82); p=0.02). No such associations were found with paternal antenatal depression or anxiety. LIMITATIONS: There was a high attrition rate from the original cohort to the CIS-R completion at 18 years postpartum. Parental mood was only assessed together at one time point during the antenatal period. CONCLUSIONS: The differences in the association between maternal and paternal mood during pregnancy and child outcomes supports the hypothesis that foetal programming may account, at least in part, for this association. We highlight the potential opportunity for preventative intervention by optimising antenatal mental health

    A collagen-hydroxyapatite scaffold allows for binding and co-delivery of recombinant bone morphogenetic proteins and bisphosphonates.

    Get PDF
    An emerging paradigm in orthopedics is that a bone-healing outcome is the product of the anabolic (bone-forming) and catabolic (bone-resorbing) outcomes. Recently, surgical and tissue engineering strategies have emerged that combine recombinant human bone morphogenetic proteins (rhBMPs) and bisphosphonates (BPs) in order to maximize anabolism and minimize catabolism. Collagen-based scaffolds that are the current surgical standard can bind rhBMPs, but not BPs. We hypothesized that a biomimetic collagen-hydroxyapatite (CHA) scaffold would bind both agents and produce superior in vivo outcomes. Consistent with this concept, in vitro elution studies utilizing rhBMP-2 ELISA assays and scintillation counting of (14)C-radiolabeled zoledronic acid (ZA) confirmed delayed release of both agents from the CHA scaffold. Next, scaffolds were tested for their capacity to form ectopic bone after surgical implantation into the rat hind limb. Using CHA, a significant 6-fold increase in bone volume was seen in rhBMP-2/ZA groups compared to rhBMP-2 alone, confirming the ability of ZA to enhance rhBMP-2 bone formation. CHA scaffolds were found to be capable of generating mineralized tissue in the absence of rhBMP-2. This study has implications for future clinical treatments of critical bone defects. It demonstrates the relative advantages of co-delivering anabolic and anti-catabolic agents using a multicomponent scaffold system

    Spatial control of bone formation using a porous polymer scaffold co-delivering anabolic RHBMP-2 and anti-resorptive agents

    Get PDF
    Current clinical delivery of recombinant human bone morphogenetic proteins (rhBMPs) utilises freeze-dried collagen. Despite effective new bone generation, rhBMP via collagen can be limited by significant complications due to inflammation and uncontrolled bone formation. This study aimed to produce an alternative rhBMP local delivery system to permit more controllable and superior rhBMP-induced bone formation. Cylindrical porous poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid) (PLGA) scaffolds were manufactured by thermally-induced phase separation. Scaffolds were encapsulated with anabolic rhBMP-2 (20 μg) ± anti-resorptive agents: zoledronic acid (5 μg ZA), ZA pre-adsorbed onto hydroxyapatite microparticles, (5 μg ZA/2 % HA) or IkappaB kinase (IKK) inhibitor (10 μg PS-1145). Scaffolds were inserted in a 6-mm critical-sized femoral defect in Wistar rats, and compared against rhBMP-2 via collagen. The regenerate region was examined at 6 weeks by 3D microCT and descriptive histology. MicroCT and histology revealed rhBMP-induced bone was more restricted in the PLGA scaffolds than collagen scaffolds (-92.3 % TV, p < 0.01). The regenerate formed by PLGA + rhBMP-2/ZA/HA showed comparable bone volume to rhBMP-2 via collagen, and bone mineral density was +9.1 % higher (p < 0.01). Local adjunct ZA/HA or PS-1145 significantly enhanced PLGA + rhBMP-induced bone formation by +78.2 % and +52.0 %, respectively (p ≤ 0.01). Mechanistically, MG-63 human osteoblast-like cells showed cellular invasion and proliferation within PLGA scaffolds. In conclusion, PLGA scaffolds enabled superior spatial control of rhBMP-induced bone formation over clinically-used collagen. The PLGA scaffold has the potential to avoid uncontrollable bone formation-related safety issues and to customise bone shape by scaffold design. Moreover, local treatment with anti-resorptive agents incorporated within the scaffold further augmented rhBMP-induced bone formation

    On Divestment

    Get PDF
    Foreword to On Divestment The writings collected here are an online supplement to a class zine title On Divestment. The zine and online archive were conceived, written, and designed by the members of the Spring 2015 Literature and Environment course (ENGL 374) at the University of Puget Sound. Considerations of timeliness and sustainability encouraged us to keep the size of the printed zine compact by including only excerpts of each author’s work; the zine is in a sense an advertisement for the more substantial body of writing that you find here on Sound Ideas, which reproduces student creative work in its entirety. Informed by our study of works of ecocriticism such as Rob Nixon’s Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor (Harvard UP, 2011), which explores the role that imaginative writing can play in illuminating ecological issues, our class seized the opportunity of a collaborative final project to see how students’ own writing—whether creative, critical, or some combination of the two—might engage with a topical environmental concern. The selection of a final project was arrived at through a democratic process. Working in groups of five individuals, students presented proposals for a final project, arguing both for the primacy of the environmental concern they selected and the efficacy of the writing task they were asking the class to undertake. All the proposals were excellent, but the class had to settle on a single undertaking; the project that students ultimately selected was the fossil fuel divestment movement, currently a topic of debate on many university campuses, including the University of Puget Sound. Largely led by students, this ongoing environmental movement encourages colleges and universities to divest their endowment holdings from companies whose primary business is fossil fuel. Since we knew from recent reportage in The Trail that UPS’s own ECO Club is advocating for fossil fuel divestment, we invited ECO Club representatives to speak to the class. From their visit, we learned about the broad contours of the divestment movement. Observing that the majority of scientists understand anthropogenic climate change to be the result of burning fossil fuels, the divestment movement argues that colleges and universities should exert pressure on these companies by withdrawing their investments from them. Several universities have already made commitments to divest some component of their endowment, among them Stanford University, Pitzer College, and the University of Glasgow, and campaigns to do so are underway at other institutions of higher learning, as well as many cities and municipalities. In formalizing the class proposal into an assignment, the terms were intentionally crafted to remain open-ended and non-prescriptive. Students were invited simply “to create a work of literature or literary analysis that engages with the issue of university fossil fuel divestment.” (Students could also opt out of the zine and write a more conventional final essay). Here are some excerpts from an email that I sent to the class elaborating on this non-traditional assignment. There\u27s a quotation by W.B. Yeats that strikes me as relevant here: Out of the quarrel with others we make rhetoric; out of the quarrel with ourselves we make poetry. What I understand Yeats to mean is that honest creative writing explores its subject, rather than argues a pre-established position. (For his word poetry in that quotation, you could equally substitute drama, or fiction, creative nonfiction, etc.) Our goal is to write literature, not propaganda . . . . While the work you create should shed light on some aspect of the divestment issue, it needn\u27t do so directly. In fact, it’s possible to shed light on the issue without even mentioning the word “divestment.” Consider, for example, the first novel we read this semester, Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake. That novel engages with a host of environmental topics, among them global climate change, genetic engineering, population growth, the treatment of animals, and environmental justice. It doesn\u27t tell the reader what to do or think about any of these issues; rather, it explores them imaginatively, but it does so in a way that I believe encourages readers to be more reflective about each of those issues than they were before starting the novel. It sheds light on these issues. [K]eep in mind that this assignment does not expect that you will take a particular position. It does not assume that you will create a work of literature or literary criticism that is “for” fossil fuel divestment. (I\u27m not even sure that a work of art can ever be “for” or “against” a particular action. Is Oryx and Crake for or against the human manipulation of the environment? Who knows?—it\u27s a work of imaginative writing that tells a story. Readers can engage their own sense of values based upon the encounter with the imaginative work). I hope that this advice is helpful and that you feel authorized to write freely. I created the opportunity for the assignment because I believe that your voice—both individually and collectively—does matter and I wanted to facilitate a way for it to be heard, in however modest a fashion. What that voice says is entirely up to you. Those twenty voices from the class combine to form the collective voice you encounter here in the Sound Ideas archive On Divestment. On behalf of the writers and critics in ENGL 374, I invite you explore these remarkable poems, short stories, essays, and plays in their entirety. Best wishes, Prof. William Kupinse Department of Englis

    Efficiency and safety of varying the frequency of whole blood donation (INTERVAL): a randomised trial of 45 000 donors

    Get PDF
    Background: Limits on the frequency of whole blood donation exist primarily to safeguard donor health. However, there is substantial variation across blood services in the maximum frequency of donations allowed. We compared standard practice in the UK with shorter inter-donation intervals used in other countries. Methods: In this parallel group, pragmatic, randomised trial, we recruited whole blood donors aged 18 years or older from 25 centres across England, UK. By use of a computer-based algorithm, men were randomly assigned (1:1:1) to 12-week (standard) versus 10-week versus 8-week inter-donation intervals, and women were randomly assigned (1:1:1) to 16-week (standard) versus 14-week versus 12-week intervals. Participants were not masked to their allocated intervention group. The primary outcome was the number of donations over 2 years. Secondary outcomes related to safety were quality of life, symptoms potentially related to donation, physical activity, cognitive function, haemoglobin and ferritin concentrations, and deferrals because of low haemoglobin. This trial is registered with ISRCTN, number ISRCTN24760606, and is ongoing but no longer recruiting participants. Findings: 45 263 whole blood donors (22 466 men, 22 797 women) were recruited between June 11, 2012, and June 15, 2014. Data were analysed for 45 042 (99·5%) participants. Men were randomly assigned to the 12-week (n=7452) versus 10-week (n=7449) versus 8-week (n=7456) groups; and women to the 16-week (n=7550) versus 14-week (n=7567) versus 12-week (n=7568) groups. In men, compared with the 12-week group, the mean amount of blood collected per donor over 2 years increased by 1·69 units (95% CI 1·59–1·80; approximately 795 mL) in the 8-week group and by 0·79 units (0·69–0·88; approximately 370 mL) in the 10-week group (p&lt;0·0001 for both). In women, compared with the 16-week group, it increased by 0·84 units (95% CI 0·76–0·91; approximately 395 mL) in the 12-week group and by 0·46 units (0·39–0·53; approximately 215 mL) in the 14-week group (p&lt;0·0001 for both). No significant differences were observed in quality of life, physical activity, or cognitive function across randomised groups. However, more frequent donation resulted in more donation-related symptoms (eg, tiredness, breathlessness, feeling faint, dizziness, and restless legs, especially among men [for all listed symptoms]), lower mean haemoglobin and ferritin concentrations, and more deferrals for low haemoglobin (p&lt;0·0001 for each) than those observed in the standard frequency groups. Interpretation: Over 2 years, more frequent donation than is standard practice in the UK collected substantially more blood without having a major effect on donors' quality of life, physical activity, or cognitive function, but resulted in more donation-related symptoms, deferrals, and iron deficiency. Funding: NHS Blood and Transplant, National Institute for Health Research, UK Medical Research Council, and British Heart Foundation

    Canvass: a crowd-sourced, natural-product screening library for exploring biological space

    Full text link
    NCATS thanks Dingyin Tao for assistance with compound characterization. This research was supported by the Intramural Research Program of the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, National Institutes of Health (NIH). R.B.A. acknowledges support from NSF (CHE-1665145) and NIH (GM126221). M.K.B. acknowledges support from NIH (5R01GM110131). N.Z.B. thanks support from NIGMS, NIH (R01GM114061). J.K.C. acknowledges support from NSF (CHE-1665331). J.C. acknowledges support from the Fogarty International Center, NIH (TW009872). P.A.C. acknowledges support from the National Cancer Institute (NCI), NIH (R01 CA158275), and the NIH/National Institute of Aging (P01 AG012411). N.K.G. acknowledges support from NSF (CHE-1464898). B.C.G. thanks the support of NSF (RUI: 213569), the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation, and the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation. C.C.H. thanks the start-up funds from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography for support. J.N.J. acknowledges support from NIH (GM 063557, GM 084333). A.D.K. thanks the support from NCI, NIH (P01CA125066). D.G.I.K. acknowledges support from the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (1 R01 AT008088) and the Fogarty International Center, NIH (U01 TW00313), and gratefully acknowledges courtesies extended by the Government of Madagascar (Ministere des Eaux et Forets). O.K. thanks NIH (R01GM071779) for financial support. T.J.M. acknowledges support from NIH (GM116952). S.M. acknowledges support from NIH (DA045884-01, DA046487-01, AA026949-01), the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs through the Peer Reviewed Medical Research Program (W81XWH-17-1-0256), and NCI, NIH, through a Cancer Center Support Grant (P30 CA008748). K.N.M. thanks the California Department of Food and Agriculture Pierce's Disease and Glassy Winged Sharpshooter Board for support. B.T.M. thanks Michael Mullowney for his contribution in the isolation, elucidation, and submission of the compounds in this work. P.N. acknowledges support from NIH (R01 GM111476). L.E.O. acknowledges support from NIH (R01-HL25854, R01-GM30859, R0-1-NS-12389). L.E.B., J.K.S., and J.A.P. thank the NIH (R35 GM-118173, R24 GM-111625) for research support. F.R. thanks the American Lebanese Syrian Associated Charities (ALSAC) for financial support. I.S. thanks the University of Oklahoma Startup funds for support. J.T.S. acknowledges support from ACS PRF (53767-ND1) and NSF (CHE-1414298), and thanks Drs. Kellan N. Lamb and Michael J. Di Maso for their synthetic contribution. B.S. acknowledges support from NIH (CA78747, CA106150, GM114353, GM115575). W.S. acknowledges support from NIGMS, NIH (R15GM116032, P30 GM103450), and thanks the University of Arkansas for startup funds and the Arkansas Biosciences Institute (ABI) for seed money. C.R.J.S. acknowledges support from NIH (R01GM121656). D.S.T. thanks the support of NIH (T32 CA062948-Gudas) and PhRMA Foundation to A.L.V., NIH (P41 GM076267) to D.S.T., and CCSG NIH (P30 CA008748) to C.B. Thompson. R.E.T. acknowledges support from NIGMS, NIH (GM129465). R.J.T. thanks the American Cancer Society (RSG-12-253-01-CDD) and NSF (CHE1361173) for support. D.A.V. thanks the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation, the National Science Foundation (CHE-0353662, CHE-1005253, and CHE-1725142), the Beckman Foundation, the Sherman Fairchild Foundation, the John Stauffer Charitable Trust, and the Christian Scholars Foundation for support. J.W. acknowledges support from the American Cancer Society through the Research Scholar Grant (RSG-13-011-01-CDD). W.M.W.acknowledges support from NIGMS, NIH (GM119426), and NSF (CHE1755698). A.Z. acknowledges support from NSF (CHE-1463819). (Intramural Research Program of the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, National Institutes of Health (NIH); CHE-1665145 - NSF; CHE-1665331 - NSF; CHE-1464898 - NSF; RUI: 213569 - NSF; CHE-1414298 - NSF; CHE1361173 - NSF; CHE1755698 - NSF; CHE-1463819 - NSF; GM126221 - NIH; 5R01GM110131 - NIH; GM 063557 - NIH; GM 084333 - NIH; R01GM071779 - NIH; GM116952 - NIH; DA045884-01 - NIH; DA046487-01 - NIH; AA026949-01 - NIH; R01 GM111476 - NIH; R01-HL25854 - NIH; R01-GM30859 - NIH; R0-1-NS-12389 - NIH; R35 GM-118173 - NIH; R24 GM-111625 - NIH; CA78747 - NIH; CA106150 - NIH; GM114353 - NIH; GM115575 - NIH; R01GM121656 - NIH; T32 CA062948-Gudas - NIH; P41 GM076267 - NIH; R01GM114061 - NIGMS, NIH; R15GM116032 - NIGMS, NIH; P30 GM103450 - NIGMS, NIH; GM129465 - NIGMS, NIH; GM119426 - NIGMS, NIH; TW009872 - Fogarty International Center, NIH; U01 TW00313 - Fogarty International Center, NIH; R01 CA158275 - National Cancer Institute (NCI), NIH; P01 AG012411 - NIH/National Institute of Aging; Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation; Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation; Scripps Institution of Oceanography; P01CA125066 - NCI, NIH; 1 R01 AT008088 - National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health; W81XWH-17-1-0256 - Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs through the Peer Reviewed Medical Research Program; P30 CA008748 - NCI, NIH, through a Cancer Center Support Grant; California Department of Food and Agriculture Pierce's Disease and Glassy Winged Sharpshooter Board; American Lebanese Syrian Associated Charities (ALSAC); University of Oklahoma Startup funds; 53767-ND1 - ACS PRF; PhRMA Foundation; P30 CA008748 - CCSG NIH; RSG-12-253-01-CDD - American Cancer Society; RSG-13-011-01-CDD - American Cancer Society; CHE-0353662 - National Science Foundation; CHE-1005253 - National Science Foundation; CHE-1725142 - National Science Foundation; Beckman Foundation; Sherman Fairchild Foundation; John Stauffer Charitable Trust; Christian Scholars Foundation)Published versionSupporting documentatio

    Overfitting Affects the Reliability of Radial Velocity Mass Estimates of the V1298 Tau Planets

    Full text link
    Mass, radius, and age measurements of young (<100 Myr) planets have the power to shape our understanding of planet formation. However, young stars tend to be extremely variable in both photometry and radial velocity, which makes constraining these properties challenging. The V1298 Tau system of four ~0.5 Rjup planets transiting a pre-main sequence star presents an important, if stress-inducing, opportunity to directly observe and measure the properties of infant planets. Su\'arez-Mascare\~no et al. (2021) published radial-velocity-derived masses for two of the V1298 Tau planets using a state-of-the-art Gaussian Process regression framework. The planetary densities computed from these masses were surprisingly high, implying extremely rapid contraction after formation in tension with most existing planet formation theories. In an effort to further constrain the masses of the V1298 Tau planets, we obtained 36 RVs using Keck/HIRES, and analyzed them in concert with published RVs and photometry. Through performing a suite of cross validation tests, we found evidence that the preferred model of SM21 suffers from overfitting, defined as the inability to predict unseen data, rendering the masses unreliable. We detail several potential causes of this overfitting, many of which may be important for other RV analyses of other active stars, and recommend that additional time and resources be allocated to understanding and mitigating activity in active young stars such as V1298 Tau.Comment: 26 pages, 12 figures; published in A

    The TESS-Keck Survey: Science Goals and Target Selection

    Full text link
    Space-based transit missions such as Kepler and TESS have demonstrated that planets are ubiquitous. However, the success of these missions heavily depends on ground-based radial velocity (RV) surveys, which combined with transit photometry can yield bulk densities and orbital properties. While most Kepler host stars are too faint for detailed follow-up observations, TESS is detecting planets orbiting nearby bright stars that are more amenable to RV characterization. Here we introduce the TESS-Keck Survey (TKS), an RV program using ~100 nights on Keck/HIRES to study exoplanets identified by TESS. The primary survey aims are investigating the link between stellar properties and the compositions of small planets; studying how the diversity of system architectures depends on dynamical configurations or planet multiplicity; identifying prime candidates for atmospheric studies with JWST; and understanding the role of stellar evolution in shaping planetary systems. We present a fully-automated target selection algorithm, which yielded 103 planets in 86 systems for the final TKS sample. Most TKS hosts are inactive, solar-like, main-sequence stars (4500 K < Teff < 6000 K) at a wide range of metallicities. The selected TKS sample contains 71 small planets (Rp < 4 Re), 11 systems with multiple transiting candidates, 6 sub-day period planets and 3 planets that are in or near the habitable zone of their host star. The target selection described here will facilitate the comparison of measured planet masses, densities, and eccentricities to predictions from planet population models. Our target selection software is publicly available (at https://github.com/ashleychontos/sort-a-survey) and can be adapted for any survey which requires a balance of multiple science interests within a given telescope allocation.Comment: 23 pages, 10 figures, 5 table
    corecore