Nucleon Charge and Magnetization Densities from Sachs Form Factors

Relativistic prescriptions relating Sachs form factors to nucleon charge and magnetization densities are used to fit recent data for both the proton and the neutron. The analysis uses expansions in complete radial bases to minimize model dependence and to estimate the uncertainties in radial densities due to limitation of the range of momentum transfer. We find that the charge distribution for the proton is significantly broad than its magnetization density and that the magnetization density is slightly broader for the neutron than the proton. The neutron charge form factor is consistent with the Galster parametrization over the available range of Q^2, but relativistic inversion produces a softer radial density. Discrete ambiguities in the inversion method are analyzed in detail. The method of Mitra and Kumari ensures compatibility with pQCD and is most useful for extrapolating form factors to large Q^2.Comment: To appear in Phys. Rev. C. Two new figures and accompanying text have been added and several discussions have been clarified with no significant changes to the conclusions. Now contains 47 pages including 21 figures and 2 table

A chronology of global air quality

Air pollution has been recognized as a threat to human health since the time of Hippocrates, ca 400 BC. Successive written accounts of air pollution occur in different countries through the following two millennia until measurements, from the eighteenth century onwards, show the growing scale of poor air quality in urban centres and close to industry, and the chemical characteristics of the gases and particulate matter. The industrial revolution accelerated both the magnitude of emissions of the primary pollutants and the geographical spread of contributing countries as highly polluted cities became the defining issue, culminating with the great smog of London in 1952. Europe and North America dominated emissions and suffered the majority of adverse effects until the latter decades of the twentieth century, by which time the transboundary issues of acid rain, forest decline and ground-level ozone became the main environmental and political air quality issues. As controls on emissions of sulfur and nitrogen oxides (SO2 and NOx) began to take effect in Europe and North America, emissions in East and South Asia grew strongly and dominated global emissions by the early years of the twenty-first century. The effects of air quality on human health had also returned to the top of the priorities by 2000 as new epidemiological evidence emerged. By this time, extensive networks of surface measurements and satellite remote sensing provided global measurements of both primary and secondary pollutants. Global emissions of SO2 and NOx peaked, respectively, in ca 1990 and 2018 and have since declined to 2020 as a result of widespread emission controls. By contrast, with a lack of actions to abate ammonia, global emissions have continued to grow

Molecular characterization of glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase deficiency in Jeddah, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

International audienceABSTRACT: BACKGROUND: The development of polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-based methods for the detection of known mutations has facilitated detecting specific red blood cell (RBC) enzyme deficiencies. We carried out a study on glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G6PD) deficient subjects in Jeddah to evaluate the molecular characteristics of this enzyme deficiency and the frequency of nucleotide1311 and IVS-XI-93 polymorphisms in the glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase gene. RESULTS: A total of 1584 unrelated Saudis (984 neonates and 600 adults) were screened for glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase deficiency. The prevalence of glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase deficiency was 6.9% (n=110). G6PD Mediterranean mutation was observed in 98 (89.1%) cases, G6PD Aures in 11 (10.0%) cases, and G6PD Chatham in 1 (0.9%) case. None of the samples showed G6PD A mutation. Samples from 29 deficient subjects (25 males and 4 females) were examined for polymorphism. The association of two polymorphisms of exon/intron 11 (c.1311T/IVS XI 93C) was observed in 14 (42.4%) of 33 chromosomes studied. This association was found in 9 (31.0%) carriers of G6PD Mediterranean and in 4 (13.8%) carriers of G6PD Aures. CONCLUSIONS: The majority of mutations were G6PD Mediterranean, followed by G6PD Aures and <1% G6PD Chatham. We conclude that 1311T is a frequent polymorphism in subjects with G6PD Mediterranean and Aures variants in Jeddah

How coastal strategic planning reflects interrelationships between ecosystem services: a four-step method

Explicit and integrated inclusion of ecosystem services (ESs) and their interrelationships can improve the quality of strategic plans and decision-making processes. However, there is little systematic analysis of how ES interrelationships are framed in policy language, particularly in coastal planning discourse. The objective of this paper is therefore to present a four-step method, based on content analysis, to assess ES interrelationships in coastal strategic planning documents. The method consists of: 1) selecting strategic plans; 2) identifying ESs; 3) identifying drivers, ESs and their effects; and 4) constructing relational diagrams. The four-step method is applied to a case of Jiaozhou Bay in China, demonstrating its capacity of identifying which drivers and ES trade-offs and synergies are formulated in coastal strategic plans. The method is helpful to identify overlooked ES interrelationships, inform temporal and spatial issues, and assess the continuity of plans' attention to interrelationships. The main methodological contributions are discussed by emphasizing its broad scope of drivers and ESs and an explicit distinction among the cause of relationships. The developed method also has the potential of cross-fertilizing other kinds of approaches and facilitating practical planning processes

Non-specific symptoms as clues to changes in emotional well-being

Background: Somatic symptoms are a common reason for visits to the family physician. The aim of this study was to examine the relation between non-specific symptoms and changes in emotional well-being and the degree to which the physician considers the possibility of mental distress when faced with such patients. Methods: Patients who complained of two or more symptoms including headache, dizziness, fatigue or weakness, palpitations and sleep disorders over one year were identified from the medical records of a random sample of 45 primary care physicians. A control group matched for gender and age was selected from the same population. Emotional well-being was assessed using the MOS-SF 36 in both groups. Results: The study group and the control group each contained 110 patients. Completed MOS questionnaires were obtained from 92 patients, 48 patients with somatic symptoms and 44 controls. Sixty percent of the patients with somatic symptoms experienced decreased emotional well being compared to 25% in the control group (p =0.00005). Symptoms of dizziness, fatigue and sleep disturbances were significantly linked with mental health impairments. Primary care physicians identified only 6 of 29 patients (21%) whose responses revealed functional limitations due to emotional problems as suffering from an emotional disorder and only 6 of 23 patients (26%) with a lack of emotional well being were diagnosed with an emotional disorder. Conclusions: Non-specific somatic symptoms may be clues to changes in emotional well-being. Improved recognition and recording of mental distress among patients who complain of these symptoms may enable better follow up and treatment

Evolutionary conservation and in vitro reconstitution of microsporidian iron–sulfur cluster biosynthesis

This work was supported by Marie Curie Postdoctoral Fellowships to T.A.W., E. H. and S. L., a European Research Council Advanced Investigator Grant (ERC-2010-AdG-268701) to T.M.E., and a Wellcome Trust Programme Grant (number 045404) to T.M.E. and J.M.L. R.L. acknowledges generous financial support from Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (SFB 593, SFB 987, GRK 1216, LI 415/5), LOEWE program of state Hessen, Max-Planck Gesellschaft, von Behring-Röntgen StiftungMicrosporidians are a diverse group of obligate intracellular parasites that have minimized their genome content and simplified their sub-cellular structures by reductive evolution. Functional studies are limited because we lack reliable genetic tools for their manipulation. Here, we demonstrate that the cristae-deficient mitochondrion (mitosome) of the microsporidian Trachipleistophora hominis is the functional site of iron-sulphur cluster (ISC) assembly, which we suggest is the essential task of this organelle. Cell fractionation, fluorescence imaging and fine-scale immunoelectron microscopy demonstrate that mitosomes contain a complete pathway for [2Fe-2S] cluster biosynthesis that we biochemically reconstituted using purified recombinant mitosomal ISC proteins. Reconstitution proceeded as rapidly and efficiently as observed for yeast or fungal mitochondrial ISC components. Core components of the T. hominis cytosolic iron-sulphur protein assembly (CIA) pathway were also identified including the essential Cfd1-Nbp35 scaffold complex that assembles a [4Fe-4S] cluster as shown by spectroscopic methods in vitro. Phylogenetic analyses reveal that both the ISC and CIA biosynthetic pathways are predominantly bacterial, but their cytosolic and nuclear target Fe/S proteins are mainly archaeal. This mixed evolutionary history of the Fe/S-related proteins and pathways, and their strong conservation among highly reduced parasites, provides additional compelling evidence for the ancient chimeric ancestry of eukaryotes.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Usefulness of molecular biology performed with formaldehyde-fixed paraffin embedded tissue for the diagnosis of combined pulmonary invasive mucormycosis and aspergillosis in an immunocompromised patient

Immunocompromised patients who develop invasive filamentous mycotic infections can be efficiently treated if rapid identification of the causative fungus is obtained. We report a case of fatal necrotic pneumonia caused by combined pulmonary invasive mucormycosis and aspergillosis in a 66 year-old renal transplant recipient. Aspergillus was first identified during the course of the disease by cytological examination and culture (A. fumigatus) of bronchoalveolar fluid. Hyphae of Mucorales (Rhizopus microsporus) were subsequently identified by culture of a tissue specimen taken from the left inferior pulmonary lobe, which was surgically resected two days before the patient died. Histological analysis of the lung parenchyma showed the association of two different filamentous mycoses for which the morphological features were evocative of aspergillosis and mucormycosis. However, the definitive identification of the associative infection was made by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) performed on deparaffinized tissue sections using specific primers for aspergillosis and mucormycosis. This case demonstrates that discrepancies between histological, cytological and mycological analyses can occur in cases of combined mycotic infection. In this regard, it shows that PCR on selected paraffin blocks is a very powerful method for making or confirming the association of different filamentous mycoses and that this method should be made available to pathology laboratories

Cell-Cycle Dependence of Transcription Dominates Noise in Gene Expression

The large variability in mRNA and protein levels found from both static and dynamic measurements in single cells has been largely attributed to random periods of transcription, often occurring in bursts. The cell cycle has a pronounced global role in affecting transcriptional and translational output, but how this influences transcriptional statistics from noisy promoters is unknown and generally ignored by current stochastic models. Here we show that variable transcription from the synthetic tetO promoter in S. cerevisiae is dominated by its dependence on the cell cycle. Real-time measurements of fluorescent protein at high expression levels indicate tetO promoters increase transcription rate ~2-fold in S/G2/M similar to constitutive genes. At low expression levels, where tetO promoters are thought to generate infrequent bursts of transcription, we observe random pulses of expression restricted to S/G2/M, which are correlated between homologous promoters present in the same cell. The analysis of static, single-cell mRNA measurements at different points along the cell cycle corroborates these findings. Our results demonstrate that highly variable mRNA distributions in yeast are not solely the result of randomly switching between periods of active and inactive gene expression, but instead largely driven by differences in transcriptional activity between G1 and S/G2/M.GM095733BBBE 103316MIT Startup Fun

Rescue of replication failure by Fanconi anaemia proteins

Chromosomal aberrations are often associated with incomplete genome duplication, for instance at common fragile sites, or as a consequence of chemical alterations in the DNA template that block replication forks. Studies of the cancer-prone disease Fanconi anaemia (FA) have provided important insights into the resolution of replication problems. The repair of interstrand DNA crosslinks induced by chemotherapy drugs is coupled with DNA replication and controlled by FA proteins. We discuss here the recent discovery of new FA-associated proteins and the development of new tractable repair systems that have dramatically improved our understanding of crosslink repair. We focus also on how FA proteins protect against replication failure in the context of fragile sites and on the identification of reactive metabolites that account for the development of Fanconi anaemia symptoms