Active vitamin D (1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D) and bone health in middle-aged and elderly men: the European male aging study (EMAS)

<p>Context: There is little information on the potential impact of serum 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D [1,25(OH)2D] on bone health including turnover.</p> <p>Objective: The objective of the study was to determine the influence of 1,25(OH)2D and 25-hydroxyvitamin D [25(OH)D] on bone health in middle-aged and older European men.</p> <p>Design, Setting, and Participants: Men aged 40–79 years were recruited from population registers in 8 European centers. Subjects completed questionnaires that included questions concerning lifestyle and were invited to attend for quantitative ultrasound (QUS) of the heel, assessment of height and weight, and a fasting blood sample from which 1,25(OH)2D, 25(OH)D, and PTH were measured. 1,25(OH)2D was measured using liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry. Bone markers serum N-terminal propeptide of type 1 procollagen (P1NP) and crosslinks (β-cTX) were also measured. Dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry (DXA) of the hip and lumbar spine was performed in 2 centers.</p> <p>Main Outcome Measure(s): QUS of the heel, bone markers P1NP and β-cTX, and DXA of the hip and lumbar spine were measured.</p> <p>Results: A total of 2783 men, mean age 60.0 years (SD 11.0) were included in the analysis. After adjustment for age and center, 1,25(OH)2D was positively associated with 25(OH)D but not with PTH. 25(OH)D was negatively associated with PTH. After adjustment for age, center, height, weight, lifestyle factors, and season, 1,25(OH)2D was associated negatively with QUS and DXA parameters and associated positively with β-cTX. 1,25(OH)2D was not correlated with P1NP. 25(OH)D was positively associated with the QUS and DXA parameters but not related to either bone turnover marker. Subjects with both high 1,25(OH)2D (upper tertile) and low 25(OH)D (lower tertile) had the lowest QUS and DXA parameters and the highest β-cTX levels.</p> <p>Conclusions: Serum 1,25(OH)2D is associated with higher bone turnover and poorer bone health despite being positively related to 25(OH)D. A combination of high 1,25(OH)2D and low 25(OH)D is associated with the poorest bone health.</p&gt

Active vitamin D (1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D) and bone health in middle-aged and elderly men: the European male aging study (EMAS)

<p>Context: There is little information on the potential impact of serum 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D [1,25(OH)2D] on bone health including turnover.</p> <p>Objective: The objective of the study was to determine the influence of 1,25(OH)2D and 25-hydroxyvitamin D [25(OH)D] on bone health in middle-aged and older European men.</p> <p>Design, Setting, and Participants: Men aged 40–79 years were recruited from population registers in 8 European centers. Subjects completed questionnaires that included questions concerning lifestyle and were invited to attend for quantitative ultrasound (QUS) of the heel, assessment of height and weight, and a fasting blood sample from which 1,25(OH)2D, 25(OH)D, and PTH were measured. 1,25(OH)2D was measured using liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry. Bone markers serum N-terminal propeptide of type 1 procollagen (P1NP) and crosslinks (β-cTX) were also measured. Dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry (DXA) of the hip and lumbar spine was performed in 2 centers.</p> <p>Main Outcome Measure(s): QUS of the heel, bone markers P1NP and β-cTX, and DXA of the hip and lumbar spine were measured.</p> <p>Results: A total of 2783 men, mean age 60.0 years (SD 11.0) were included in the analysis. After adjustment for age and center, 1,25(OH)2D was positively associated with 25(OH)D but not with PTH. 25(OH)D was negatively associated with PTH. After adjustment for age, center, height, weight, lifestyle factors, and season, 1,25(OH)2D was associated negatively with QUS and DXA parameters and associated positively with β-cTX. 1,25(OH)2D was not correlated with P1NP. 25(OH)D was positively associated with the QUS and DXA parameters but not related to either bone turnover marker. Subjects with both high 1,25(OH)2D (upper tertile) and low 25(OH)D (lower tertile) had the lowest QUS and DXA parameters and the highest β-cTX levels.</p> <p>Conclusions: Serum 1,25(OH)2D is associated with higher bone turnover and poorer bone health despite being positively related to 25(OH)D. A combination of high 1,25(OH)2D and low 25(OH)D is associated with the poorest bone health.</p&gt

Les ratés de cuisson du haut Moyen Âge de l’atelier de Saran

Actuellement considérée comme accueillant la plus importante agglomération potière du haut Moyen Âge jamais explorée, la commune de Saran (Loiret) a livré depuis bientôt 50 ans une quantité impressionnante de rebuts de cuissons. Au gré des recherches, leur examen attentif, couplé à celui des autres vestiges laissés par cet artisanat, a progressivement alimenté une histoire complexe de la chaîne opératoire potière, depuis la matière première jusqu’au produit fini. Les réponses apportées aux questionnements sur les traces discrètes visibles sur ces centaines de milliers de fragments de vases ratés éclairent d’un jour nouveau les gestes du potier, l’équipement de l’atelier, les moyens de production et plus globalement les savoir-faire.Currently considered to host the largest pottery settlement of the Middle Ages ever explored, the town of Saran (Loiret) has delivered for nearly 50 years an impressive amount of firing scraps. In the course of research, their careful examination, coupled with that of the other vestiges left by this craft, has progressively supplied a complex history of the potter's operational chain, from the raw material to the finished product. The answers given to the questions about the discrete traces visible on these hundreds of thousands of fragments of failed vases shed new light on the potter's gestures, the equipment of the workshop, the means of production and, more generally, the know how.Desde hace casi 50 años, la comuna de Saran –situada en el departamento de Loiret– ha aportado una cantidad impresionante de desechos de cocción, siendo considerada actualmente la mayor aglomeración alfarera de la Alta Edad Media explorada hasta ahora. El análisis detallado al filo de las investigaciones, asociado al de los demás vestigios dejados por este artesanado, ha ido alimentando progresivamente una historia compleja de la cadena operatoria alfarera, desde la primera materia prima hasta el producto final. Las respuestas a los cuestionamientos relativos a las huellas –discretas pero visibles– en miles de fragmentos de jarros desechados han aportado nuevas luces sobre los gestos del alfarero, el equipamiento del taller, los medios de producción y, de forma más amplia, sobre el saber hacer alfarero

Multi-model evaluation of the sensitivity of the global energy budget and hydrological cycle to resolution

This study undertakes a multi-model comparison with the aim to describe and quantify systematic changes of the global energy and water budgets when the horizontal resolution of atmospheric models is increased and to identify common factors of these changes among models. To do so, we analyse an ensemble of twelve atmosphere-only and six coupled GCMs, with different model formulations and with resolutions spanning those of state-of-the-art coupled GCMs, i.e. from resolutions coarser than 100 km to resolutions finer than 25 km. The main changes in the global energy budget with resolution are a systematic increase in outgoing longwave radiation and decrease in outgoing shortwave radiation due to changes in cloud properties, and a systematic increase in surface latent heat flux; when resolution is increased from 100 to 25 km, the magnitude of the change of those fluxes can be as large as 5 W m−2. Moreover, all but one atmosphere-only model simulate a decrease of the poleward energy transport at higher resolution, mainly explained by a reduction of the equator-to-pole tropospheric temperature gradient. Regarding hydrological processes, our results are the following: (1) there is an increase of global precipitation with increasing resolution in all models (up to 40 × 103 km3 year−1) but the partitioning between land and ocean varies among models; (2) the fraction of total precipitation that falls on land is on average 10% larger at higher resolution in grid point models, but it is smaller at higher resolution in spectral models; (3) grid points models simulate an increase of the fraction of land precipitation due to moisture convergence twice as large as in spectral models; (4) grid point models, which have a better resolved orography, show an increase of orographic precipitation of up to 13 × 103 km3 year−1 which explains most of the change in land precipitation; (5) at the regional scale, precipitation pattern and amplitude are improved with increased resolution due to a better simulated seasonal mean circulation. We discuss our results against several observational estimates of the Earth's energy budget and hydrological cycle and show that they support recent high estimates of global precipitation

Reverse engineering of declarative user interfaces

The need to access user interfaces (UIs), especially Web pages, with different platforms is increasing continuously with the constant apparition of new platforms. There is thus a need to adapt the existing UIs to the capabilities of this variety of platforms. Current approaches to reengineer UIs are designed to take into account a limited scope of source and targets platforms or languages, and apply the reverse engineering in a very rigid way. In contrast, we propose a flexible reverse engineering approach, which can be adapted to the platforms targeted by the reengineering process. Several sources UIs have been considered in this research (HTML, WML, VoiceXML and Windows resource files). A notation has been developed to express explicitly the derivation rules from these different source languages to the abstract models. The designer can choose which sets of derivation rules to apply and thus adapt the reverse engineering process for a particular context of use. The approach was operationalized by ReversiXML, a reverse engineering tool able to recover the concrete and abstract UI in UsiXML from HTML files.Doctorat en sciences de gestion (IAG 3)--UCL, 200

Reverse Engineering of User Interfaces

Reverse Engineering of User Interfaces(PhD in Management Sciences, option "Information Systems") -- UCL, 200