Antegrade pressure measurement as a diagnostic tool in modern pediatric urology

The antegrade pressure measurement (APM) or perfusion pressure-flow test (Whitaker test) is a method of antegrade measurement of pressure in the upper urinary tract. In this study, we present the long-term follow-up results of APMs performed in our institution in the late 1980s and early 1990s to see whether the diagnostic decisions that were based on the outcomes of the test prove to be correct in the long term. We conducted a retrospective study by searching our hospital's electronic database. We found a total of 16 APMs performed between 1987 and 1995 (10 boys, six girls; mean age 61 months). In nine cases, action was undertaken immediately after the APM had been performed; in seven cases, this was a surgical procedure (re-implantation/re-calibration or pyeloplasty) after obstruction was demonstrated. In two cases (both postoperative after previous pyeloplasty), absence of obstruction was demonstrated and nephrostomy tubes were subsequently closed. In one case, this resulted in hydronephrosis that had to be treated with a new JJ stent. In all the seven cases in which no action was deemed necessary as a result of the outcome of the APM, long-term follow-up showed that intervention had indeed not been necessary. Although not often used anymore, the APM seems to be a safe and valuable diagnostic tool in the work up for possible urinary tract obstruction in children, especially in cases in which there is serious doubt concerning conservative watchful waitin

The LSST DESC data challenge 1: Generation and analysis of synthetic images for next-generation surveys

Data Challenge 1 (DC1) is the first synthetic data set produced by the Rubin Observatory Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) Dark Energy Science Collaboration (DESC). DC1 is designed to develop and validate data reduction and analysis and to study the impact of systematic effects that will affect the LSST data set. DC1 is comprised of r-band observations of 40 deg2 to 10 yr LSST depth. We present each stage of the simulation and analysis process: (a) generation, by synthesizing sources from cosmological N-body simulations in individual sensor-visit images with different observing conditions; (b) reduction using a development version of the LSST Science Pipelines; and (c) matching to the input cosmological catalogue for validation and testing. We verify that testable LSST requirements pass within the fidelity of DC1. We establish a selection procedure that produces a sufficiently clean extragalactic sample for clustering analyses and we discuss residual sample contamination, including contributions from inefficiency in star-galaxy separation and imperfect deblending. We compute the galaxy power spectrum on the simulated field and conclude that: (i) survey properties have an impact of 50 per cent of the statistical uncertainty for the scales and models used in DC1; (ii) a selection to eliminate artefacts in the catalogues is necessary to avoid biases in the measured clustering; and (iii) the presence of bright objects has a significant impact (2-6) in the estimated power spectra at small scales (> 1200), highlighting the impact of blending in studies at small angular scales in LSST

The RR Lyrae Distance Scale

We review seven methods of measuring the absolute magnitude M_V of RR Lyrae stars in light of the Hipparcos mission and other recent developments. We focus on identifying possible systematic errors and rank the methods by relative immunity to such errors. For the three most robust methods, statistical parallax, trigonometric parallax, and cluster kinematics, we find M_V (at [Fe/H] = -1.6) of 0.77 +/- 0.13, 0.71 +/- 0.15, 0.67 +/- 0.10. These methods cluster consistently around 0.71 +/- 0.07. We find that Baade-Wesselink and theoretical models both yield a broad range of possible values (0.45-0.70 and 0.45-0.65) due to systematic uncertainties in the temperature scale and input physics. Main-sequence fitting gives a much brighter M_V = 0.45 +/- 0.04 but this may be due to a difference in the metallicity scales of the cluster giants and the calibrating subdwarfs. White-dwarf cooling-sequence fitting gives 0.67 +/- 0.13 and is potentially very robust, but at present is too new to be fully tested for systematics. If the three most robust methods are combined with Walker's mean measurement for 6 LMC clusters, V_{0,LMC} = 18.98 +/- 0.03 at [Fe/H] = -1.9, then mu_{LMC} = 18.33 +/- 0.08.Comment: Invited review article to appear in: `Post-Hipparcos Cosmic Candles', A. Heck & F. Caputo (Eds), Kluwer Academic Publ., Dordrecht, in press. 21 pages including 1 table; uses Kluwer's crckapb.sty LaTeX style file, enclose

The Micropolitics of Obesity: Materialism, Markets and Food Sovereignty

This article shifts focus from an individualised and anthropocentric perspective on obesity, and uses a new materialist analysis to explore the assemblages of materialities producing fat and slim bodies. We report data from a study of adults’ accounts of food decision-making and practices, investigating circulations of matter and desires that affect the production, distribution, accumulation and dispersal of fat, and disclose a micropolitics of obesity, which affects bodies in both ‘becoming-fat’ and ‘becoming-slim’ assemblages. These assemblages comprise bodies, food, fat, physical environments, food producers and processing industries, supermarkets and other food retailers and outlets, diet regimens and weight loss clubs, and wider social, cultural and economic formations, along with the thoughts, feelings, ideas and human desires concerning food consumption and obesity. The analysis reveals the significance of the marketisation of food, and discusses whether public health responses to obesity should incorporate a food sovereignty component

ULTRA-BRIGHT OPTICAL TRANSIENTS ARE LINKED WITH TYPE Ic SUPERNOVAE

Recent searches by unbiased, wide-field surveys have uncovered a group of extremely luminous optical transients. The initial discoveries of SN 2005ap by the Texas Supernova Search and SCP-06F6 in a deep Hubble pencil beam survey were followed by the Palomar Transient Factory confirmation of host redshifts for other similar transients. The transients share the common properties of high optical luminosities (peak magnitudes ~−21 to −23), blue colors, and a lack of H or He spectral features. The physical mechanism that produces the luminosity is uncertain, with suggestions ranging from jet-driven explosion to pulsational pair instability. Here, we report the most detailed photometric and spectral coverage of an ultra-bright transient (SN 2010gx) detected in the Pan-STARRS 1 sky survey. In common with other transients in this family, early-time spectra show a blue continuum and prominent broad absorption lines of O ii. However, about 25 days after discovery, the spectra developed type Ic supernova features, showing the characteristic broad Fe ii and Si ii absorption lines. Detailed, post-maximum follow-up may show that all SN 2005ap and SCP-06F6 type transients are linked to supernovae Ic. This poses problems in understanding the physics of the explosions: there is no indication from late-time photometry that the luminosity is powered by 56Ni, the broad light curves suggest very large ejected masses, and the slow spectral evolution is quite different from typical Ic timescales. The nature of the progenitor stars and the origin of the luminosity are intriguing and open questions

Breastfeeding and maternal cardiovascular risk factors and outcomes:A systematic review

There is growing evidence that breastfeeding has short- and long-term cardiovascular health benefits for mothers. The objectives of this systematic review were to examine the association between breastfeeding and maternal cardiovascular risk factors and outcomes that have not previously been synthesized systematically, including metabolic syndrome, hypertension and cardiovascular disease.This systematic review meets PRISMA guidelines. The MEDLINE, EMBASE and CINAHL databases were systematically searched for relevant publications of any study design from the earliest publication date to March 2016. The reference lists from selected articles were reviewed, and forward and backward referencing were conducted. The methodological quality of reviewed articles was appraised using validated checklists. Twenty-one studies meeting the inclusion criteria examined the association between self-reported breastfeeding and one or more of the following outcomes: metabolic syndrome/metabolic risk factors (n = 10), inflammatory markers/adipokines (n = 2), hypertension (n = 7), subclinical cardiovascular disease (n = 2), prevalence/incidence of cardiovascular disease (n = 3) and cardiovascular disease mortality (n = 2). Overall, 19 studies (10 cross-sectional/retrospective, 9 prospective) reported significant protective effects of breastfeeding, nine studies (3 cross-sectional/retrospective, 5 prospective, 1 cluster randomized controlled trial) reported non-significant findings and none reported detrimental effects of breastfeeding. In most studies reporting significant associations, breastfeeding remained associated with both short- and long-term maternal cardiovascular health risk factors/outcomes, even after covariate adjustment. Findings from several studies suggested that the effects of breastfeeding may diminish with age and a dose-response association between breastfeeding and several metabolic risk factors. However, further longitudinal studies, including studies that measure exclusive breastfeeding, are needed to confirm these findings.The evidence from this review suggests that breastfeeding is associated with cardiovascular health benefits. However, results should be interpreted with caution as the evidence gathered for each individual outcome was limited by the small number of observational studies. Additional prospective studies are needed.CRD42016047766

Diet supplementation for 5 weeks with polyphenol-rich cereals improves several functions and the redox state of mouse leucocytes

BACKGROUND: Cereals naturally contain a great variety of polyphenols, which exert a wide range of physiological effects both in vitro and in vivo. Many of their protective effects, including an improvement of the function and redox state of immune cells in unhealthy or aged subjects come from their properties as powerful antioxidant compounds. However, whether cereal-based dietary supplementation positively affects the immune function and cellular redox state of healthy subjects remains unclear. AIM OF THE STUDY: To investigate the effects of supplementation (20% wt/wt) for 5 weeks with four different cereal fractions on healthy mice. METHODS: Several parameters of function and redox state of peritoneal leukocytes were measured. The cereals, named B (wheat germ), C (buckwheat flour), D (fine rice bran) and E (wheat middlings) contained different amounts of gallic acid, p-hydroxybenzoic acid, vanillic acid, sinapic acid, p-coumaric acid, ferulic acid, quercetin, catechin, rutin and oryzanol as major polyphenols. RESULTS: In general, all cereal fractions caused an improvement of the leukocyte parameters studied such as chemotaxis capacity, microbicidal activity, lymphoproliferative response to mitogens, interleukin-2 (IL-2) and tumor necrosis factor (TNFα) release, as well as oxidized glutathione (GSSG), GSSG/GSH ratio, catalase (CAT) activity and lipid oxidative damage. We observed similar effects among the cereal fractions. CONCLUSIONS: The results suggest that some of these effects may due, at least partially, to the antioxidant activity of the polyphenols naturally present in cereals. Since an appropriate function of the leukocytes has been proposed as marker of the health state, a short-term intake of cereals seems to be sufficient to exert a benefit in the health of the general population. However, further studies are needed to assess the optimal doses and to find out which active polyphenols are able to mediate the observed physiological effects before recommending their regular consumption

Developing a Citizen Social Science approach to understand urban stress and promote wellbeing in urban communities

This paper sets out the future potential and challenges for developing an interdisciplinary, mixed-method Citizen Social Science approach to researching urban emotions. It focuses on urban stress, which is increasingly noted as a global mental health challenge facing both urbanised and rapidly urbanising societies. The paper reviews the existing use of mobile psychophysiological or biosensing within urban environments—as means of ‘capturing’ the urban geographies of emotions. Methodological reflections are included on primary research using biosensing in a study of workplace and commuter stress for university employees in Birmingham (UK) and Salzburg (Austria) for illustrative purposes. In comparing perspectives on the conceptualisation and measurement of urban stress from psychology, neuroscience and urban planning, the difficulties of defining scientific constructs within Citizen Science are discussed to set out the groundwork for fostering interdisciplinary dialogue. The novel methods, geo-located sensor technologies and data-driven approaches to researching urban stress now available to researchers pose a number of ethical, political and conceptual challenges around defining and measuring emotions, stress, human behaviour and urban space. They also raise issues of rigour, participation and social scientific interpretation. Introducing methods informed by more critical Citizen Social Science perspectives can temper overly individualised forms of data collection to establish more effective ways of addressing urban stress and promoting wellbeing in urban communities

Governing through choice: Food labels and the confluence of food industry and public health discourse to create ‘healthy consumers’

Food industry and public health representatives are often in conflict, particularly over food labelling policies and regulation. Food corporations are suspicious of regulated labels and perceive them as a threat to free market enterprise, opting instead for voluntary labels. Public health and consumer groups, in contrast, argue that regulated and easy-to-read labels are essential for consumers to exercise autonomy and make healthy choices in the face of food industry marketing. Although public health and food industry have distinct interests and objectives, I argue that both contribute to the creation of the food label as a governmental strategy that depends on free-market logics to secure individual and population health. While criticism of ‘Big Food’ has become a growth industry in academic publishing and research, wider critique is needed that also includes the activities of public health. Such a critique needs to address the normalizing effect of neoliberal governmentality within which both the food industry and public health operate to reinforce individuals as ‘healthy consumers’. Drawing on Michel Foucault’s lectures at the Collège de France, I examine the food label through the lens of governmentality. I argue that the rationale operating through the food label combines nutrition science and free-market logics to normalize subjects as responsible for their own health and reinforces the idea of consumption as a means to secure population health from diet-related chronic diseases

OptCom: A Multi-Level Optimization Framework for the Metabolic Modeling and Analysis of Microbial Communities

Microorganisms rarely live isolated in their natural environments but rather function in consolidated and socializing communities. Despite the growing availability of high-throughput sequencing and metagenomic data, we still know very little about the metabolic contributions of individual microbial players within an ecological niche and the extent and directionality of interactions among them. This calls for development of efficient modeling frameworks to shed light on less understood aspects of metabolism in microbial communities. Here, we introduce OptCom, a comprehensive flux balance analysis framework for microbial communities, which relies on a multi-level and multi-objective optimization formulation to properly describe trade-offs between individual vs. community level fitness criteria. In contrast to earlier approaches that rely on a single objective function, here, we consider species-level fitness criteria for the inner problems while relying on community-level objective maximization for the outer problem. OptCom is general enough to capture any type of interactions (positive, negative or combinations thereof) and is capable of accommodating any number of microbial species (or guilds) involved. We applied OptCom to quantify the syntrophic association in a well-characterized two-species microbial system, assess the level of sub-optimal growth in phototrophic microbial mats, and elucidate the extent and direction of inter-species metabolite and electron transfer in a model microbial community. We also used OptCom to examine addition of a new member to an existing community. Our study demonstrates the importance of trade-offs between species- and community-level fitness driving forces and lays the foundation for metabolic-driven analysis of various types of interactions in multi-species microbial systems using genome-scale metabolic models