Apolipoprotein E polymorphism distribution in an elderly Brazilian population: the Bambuí Health and Aging Study

Apolipoprotein E (ApoE) is one of the most extensively studied genes in the context of aging, but there are few population-based studies on ApoE polymorphism in the elderly in developing countries. The objective of the present study was to assess ApoE allele and genotype distribution in a large elderly community-based sample and its association with age, sex and skin color. Participants included 1408 subjects (80.8% of all residents aged ³60 years) residing in Bambuí city, MG, Brazil. The DNA samples were subjected to the polymerase chain reaction amplification, followed by the restriction fragment length polymorphism technique, with digestion by HhaI. Analysis was carried out taking into consideration the six ApoE genotypes (e3/e3, e3/e4, e2/e3, e4/e4, e2/e4, and e2/e2), the three ApoE alleles, and the number of ApoE4 alleles for each individual. The e3 allele predominated (80.0%), followed by e4 (13.5%) and e2 (6.5%). All six possible genotypes were observed, the e3/e3 genotype being the most frequent (63.4%). This distribution was similar to that described in other western populations. Sex was not associated with number of ApoE4 alleles. Black skin color was significantly and independently associated with the presence of two ApoE4 alleles (age-sex adjusted OR = 7.38; 95%CI = 1.93-28.25), showing that the African-Brazilian elderly have a high prevalence of the e4 allele, as observed in blacks from Africa. No association between number of ApoE4 alleles and age was found, suggesting the absence of association of ApoE genotype with mortality in this population

Analysis and results of the industrial production of the superconducting Nb/Cu cavities for the LEP2 project

For the energy upgrade of the Large Electron Positron Collider at CERN 216 RF superconducting cavities were ordered from three European industrial firms (Ansaldo, Cerca, Siemens/Accel) at the beginning of 1991. These cavities are made of copper (Cu), internally coated with niobium (Nb) according to a procedure developed at CERN. Up to now about 147 of these cavities fulfilling the specifications have been produced. The large-scale statistics available and the use of dedicated analytical and optical inspection techniques shed new light on the relationship between production procedures, niobium film properties and cavity performance. An overview of this subject is presented, together with some significant trends and results

Rapid Earthquake Characterization Using MEMS Accelerometers and Volunteer Hosts Following the M 7.2 Darfield, New Zealand, Earthquake

We test the feasibility of rapidly detecting and characterizing earthquakes with the Quake‐Catcher Network (QCN) that connects low‐cost microelectromechanical systems accelerometers to a network of volunteer‐owned, Internet‐connected computers. Following the 3 September 2010 M 7.2 Darfield, New Zealand, earthquake we installed over 180 QCN sensors in the Christchurch region to record the aftershock sequence. The sensors are monitored continuously by the host computer and send trigger reports to the central server. The central server correlates incoming triggers to detect when an earthquake has occurred. The location and magnitude are then rapidly estimated from a minimal set of received ground‐motion parameters. Full seismic time series are typically not retrieved for tens of minutes or even hours after an event. We benchmark the QCN real‐time detection performance against the GNS Science GeoNet earthquake catalog. Under normal network operations, QCN detects and characterizes earthquakes within 9.1 s of the earthquake rupture and determines the magnitude within 1 magnitude unit of that reported in the GNS catalog for 90% of the detections

PseudoBase++: an extension of PseudoBase for easy searching, formatting and visualization of pseudoknots

Pseudoknots have been recognized to be an important type of RNA secondary structures responsible for many biological functions. PseudoBase, a widely used database of pseudoknot secondary structures developed at Leiden University, contains over 250 records of pseudoknots obtained in the past 25 years through crystallography, NMR, mutational experiments and sequence comparisons. To promptly address the growing analysis requests of the researchers on RNA structures and bring together information from multiple sources across the Internet to a single platform, we designed and implemented PseudoBase++, an extension of PseudoBase for easy searching, formatting and visualization of pseudoknots. PseudoBase++ (http://pseudobaseplusplus.utep.edu) maps the PseudoBase dataset into a searchable relational database including additional functionalities such as pseudoknot type. PseudoBase++ links each pseudoknot in PseudoBase to the GenBank record of the corresponding nucleotide sequence and allows scientists to automatically visualize RNA secondary structures with PseudoViewer. It also includes the capabilities of fine-grained reference searching and collecting new pseudoknot information