Tidal and Storm Impacts on Hydrodynamics and Sediment Dynamics in an Energetic Ebb Tidal Delta

Bottom-mounted instrumentation was deployed at two sites on a large sandy shoal of an ebb tidal delta offshore of the Port Royal Sound of South Carolina of USA to collect hydrodynamics and sediment dynamics data. One site ( borrow site ) was 2 km offshore in a dredge pit for nearby beach nourishment and the other site ( reference site ) was 10 km offshore. In situ time-series data were collected during two periods after the dredging: 15 March-12 June (spring) and 18 August-18 November (fall) of 2012. Data at the reference site indicated active migrating bedforms from centimeters to decimeters tall, and sediment concentrations were highly associated with semidiurnal and fortnightly tidal cycles. In the fall deployment, waves at the reference site were higher than those at the shallow borrow site. Both Tropical Storm Beryl and Hurricane Sandy formed high waves and strong currents but did not generate the greatest sediment fluxes. The two sites were at different depths and distances offshore, and waves contributed more to sediment mobility at the reference site whereas tidal forcing was the key controlling factor at the borrow site. This study provides valuable datasets for the selection of sites, prediction of pit infilling, and the modeling of storm impact in future beach nourishment and coastal restoration projects

Hypothalamic actions of neuromedin U.

The central nervous system and gut peptide neuromedin U (NMU) inhibits feeding after intracerebroventricular injection. This study explored the hypothalamic actions of NMU on feeding and the hypothalamo-pituitary-adrenal axis. Intraparaventricular nucleus (intra-PVN) NMU dose-dependently inhibited food intake, with a minimum effective dose of 0.1 nmol and a robust effect at 0.3 nmol. Feeding inhibition was mapped by NMU injection into eight hypothalamic areas. NMU (0.3 nmol) inhibited food intake in the PVN (0-1 h, 59 ± 6.9% of the control value; P < 0.001) and arcuate nucleus (0-1 h, 76 ± 10.4% of the control value; P < 0.05). Intra-PVN NMU markedly increased grooming and locomotor behavior and dose-dependently increased plasma ACTH (0.3 nmol NMU, 24.8 ± 1.9 pg/ml; saline, 11.4 ± 1.0; P < 0.001) and corticosterone (0.3 nmol NMU, 275.4 ± 40.5 ng/ml; saline, 129.4 ± 25.0; P < 0.01). Using hypothalamic explants in vitro, NMU stimulated CRH (100 nM NMU, 5.9 ± 0.95 pmol/explant; basal, 3.8 ± 0.39; P < 0.01) and arginine vasopressin release (100 nM NMU, 124.5 ± 21.8 fmol/explant; basal, 74.5 ± 7.6; P < 0.01). Leptin stimulated NMU release (141.9 ± 20.4 fmol/explant; basal, 92.9 ± 9.4; P < 0.01). Thus, we describe a novel role for NMU in the PVN to stimulate the hypothalamo-pituitary-adrenal axis and locomotor and grooming behavior and to inhibit feeding

A scalable machine-learning approach to recognize chemical names within large text databases

MOTIVATION: The use or study of chemical compounds permeates almost every scientific field and in each of them, the amount of textual information is growing rapidly. There is a need to accurately identify chemical names within text for a number of informatics efforts such as database curation, report summarization, tagging of named entities and keywords, or the development/curation of reference databases. RESULTS: A first-order Markov Model (MM) was evaluated for its ability to distinguish chemical names from words, yielding ~93% recall in recognizing chemical terms and ~99% precision in rejecting non-chemical terms on smaller test sets. However, because total false-positive events increase with the number of words analyzed, the scalability of name recognition was measured by processing 13.1 million MEDLINE records. The method yielded precision ranges from 54.7% to 100%, depending upon the cutoff score used, averaging 82.7% for approximately 1.05 million putative chemical terms extracted. Extracted chemical terms were analyzed to estimate the number of spelling variants per term, which correlated with the total number of times the chemical name appeared in MEDLINE. This variability in term construction was found to affect both information retrieval and term mapping when using PubMed and Ovid

Ghrelin causes hyperphagia and obesity in rats.

Ghrelin, a circulating growth hormone–releasing pep-tide derived from the stomach, stimulates food intake. The lowest systemically effective orexigenic dose of ghrelin was investigated and the resulting plasma ghre-lin concentration was compared with that during fast-ing. The lowest dose of ghrelin that produced a significant stimulation of feeding after intraperitoneal injection was 1 nmol. The plasma ghrelin concentration after intraperitoneal injection of 1 nmol of ghrelin (2.83 0.13 pmol/ml at 60 min postinjection) was not significantly different from that occurring after a 24-h fast (2.79 0.32 pmol/ml). After microinjection into defined hypothalamic sites, ghrelin (30 pmol) stimu-lated food intake most markedly in the arcuate nucleus (Arc) (0–1 h food intake, 427 43 % of control; P &lt

Centre-level variation in outcomes and treatment for otitis media with effusion and hearing loss and the association of hearing loss with developmental outcomes at ages 5 and 7 years in children with non-syndromic unilateral cleft lip and palate:the Cleft Care UK study. Part 2

Objectives: To explore centre-level variation in otitis media with effusion (OME), hearing loss and treatments in children in Cleft Care UK (CCUK) and to examine the association between OME, hearing loss and developmental outcomes at 5 and 7 years. Setting and Sample Population: Two hundred and sixty-eight 5-year-old British children with non-syndromic unilateral cleft lip and palate (UCLP) recruited to CCUK. Materials and Methods: Children had air and bone conduction audiometry at age 5. Information on grommet and hearing aid treatment was obtained from parental questionnaire and medical notes. Hearing loss at age 5 was defined as >20 dB in the better ear and history of OME and hearing loss was determined from past treatment. Children with sensorineural hearing loss were excluded. Associations were examined with speech, behaviour and self-confidence at age 5 and educational attainment at age 7. Centre variation was examined using hierarchical models and associations between hearing variables and developmental outcomes were examined using logistic regression. Results: There was centre-level variation in early grommet placement (variance partition coefficient (VPC) 18%, P=.001) and fitting of hearing aids (VPC 8%, P=.03). A history of OME and hearing loss was associated with poor intelligibility of speech (adjusted odds ratio=2.87, 95% CI 1.42-5.77) and aspects of educational attainment. Conclusions: Hearing loss is an important determinant of poor speech and treatment variation across centres suggest management of OME and hearing loss could be improved

Ghrelin Indirectly Activates Hypophysiotropic CRF Neurons in Rodents

Ghrelin is a stomach-derived hormone that regulates food intake and neuroendocrine function by acting on its receptor, GHSR (Growth Hormone Secretagogue Receptor). Recent evidence indicates that a key function of ghrelin is to signal stress to the brain. It has been suggested that one of the potential stress-related ghrelin targets is the CRF (Corticotropin-Releasing Factor)-producing neurons of the hypothalamic paraventricular nucleus, which secrete the CRF neuropeptide into the median eminence and activate the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis. However, the neural circuits that mediate the ghrelin-induced activation of this neuroendocrine axis are mostly uncharacterized. In the current study, we characterized in vivo the mechanism by which ghrelin activates the hypophysiotropic CRF neurons in mice. We found that peripheral or intra-cerebro-ventricular administration of ghrelin strongly activates c-fos – a marker of cellular activation – in CRF-producing neurons. Also, ghrelin activates CRF gene expression in the paraventricular nucleus of the hypothalamus and the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis at peripheral level. Ghrelin administration directly into the paraventricular nucleus of the hypothalamus also induces c-fos within the CRF-producing neurons and the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, without any significant effect on the food intake. Interestingly, dual-label immunohistochemical analysis and ghrelin binding studies failed to show GHSR expression in CRF neurons. Thus, we conclude that ghrelin activates hypophysiotropic CRF neurons, albeit indirectly

Indices of insulin sensitivity and secretion from a standard liquid meal test in subjects with type 2 diabetes, impaired or normal fasting glucose

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>To provide an initial evaluation of insulin sensitivity and secretion indices derived from a standard liquid meal tolerance test protocol in subjects with normal (NFG), impaired fasting glucose (IFG) or type 2 diabetes mellitus.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Areas under the curve (AUC) for glucose, insulin and C-peptide from pre-meal to 120 min after consumption of a liquid meal were calculated, as were homeostasis model assessments of insulin resistance (HOMA2-IR) and the Matsuda index of insulin sensitivity.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Subjects with NFG (n = 19), IFG (n = 19), and diabetes (n = 35) had mean ± SEM HOMA2-IR values of 1.0 ± 0.1, 1.6 ± 0.2 and 2.5 ± 0.3 and Matsuda insulin sensitivity index values of 15.6 ± 2.0, 8.8 ± 1.2 and 6.0 ± 0.6, respectively. The log-transformed values for these variables were highly correlated overall and within each fasting glucose category (r = -0.91 to -0.94, all p < 0.001). Values for the product of the insulin/glucose AUC ratio and the Matsuda index, an indicator of the ability of the pancreas to match insulin secretion to the degree of insulin resistance, were 995.6 ± 80.7 (NFG), 684.0 ± 57.3 (IFG) and 188.3 ± 16.1 (diabetes) and discriminated significantly between fasting glucose categories (p < 0.001 for each comparison).</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>These results provide initial evidence to support the usefulness of a standard liquid meal tolerance test for evaluation of insulin secretion and sensitivity in clinical and population studies.</p

Strong and tough nanofibrous hydrogel composites based on biomimetic principles

Mechanically robust hydrogels are required for many tissue engineering applications to serve as cell-supporting structures. Unlike natural tissues, the majority of existing tough hydrogels lack ordered microstructures organized to withstand specific loading conditions. In this work, electrospun gelatin nanofibres, mimicking the collagen network in native tissues, are used to strengthen and resist crack propagation in brittle alginate hydrogels. Aligned nanofibre reinforcement enhances the tensile strength of the hydrogels by up to two orders of magnitude. The nanofibres can be arranged as multilayer laminates with varying orientations, which increases the toughness by two orders of magnitude compared with the unreinforced hydrogel. This work demonstrates a two-part strategy of fibre reinforcement and composite lamination in manufacturing strong and tough hydrogels with flexible microstructures to suit different mechanical and biomedical requirements.K.T. acknowledges the Thai government and the University of Cambridge Nanoscience Doctoral Training Centre (EPSRC EP/G037221/1) for financial support, Anne Bahnweg for SEM assistance, Mark Rainer for electronics assistance, and Jenna Shapiro and Peerapat Thongnuek for helpful discussion. A.L.B. acknowledges the EPSRC Doctoral Training Account at Cambridge Engineering for financial support