A data support infrastructure for Clean Development Mechanism forestry implementation: an inventory perspective from Cameroon

Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) forestry project development requires highly multi-disciplinary and multiple-source information that can be complex, cumbersome and costly to acquire. Yet developing countries in which CDM projects are created and implemented are often data poor environments and unable to meet such complex information requirements. Using Cameroon as an example, the present paper explores the structure of an enabling host country data support infrastructure for CDM forestry implementation, and also assesses the supply potential of current forestry information. Results include a conceptual data model of CDM project data needs; the list of meso- and macro-level data and information requirements (Demand analysis); and an inventory of relevant data available in Cameroon (Supply analysis). From a comparison of demand and supply, we confirm that data availability and the relevant infrastructure for data or information generation is inadequate for supporting carbon forestry at the micro, meso and macro-levels in Cameroon. The results suggest that current CDM afforestation and reforestation information demands are almost impenetrable for local communities in host countries and pose a number of cross-scale barriers to project adoption. More importantly, we identify proactive regulatory, institutional and capacity building policy strategies for forest data management improvements that could enhance biosphere carbon management uptake in poor countries. CDM forestry information research needs are also highlighted

Low frequency of the TIRAP S180L polymorphism in Africa, and its potential role in malaria, sepsis, and leprosy

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The Toll-like receptors (TLRs) mediate innate immunity to various pathogens. A mutation (S180L) in the TLR downstream signal transducer <it>TIRAP </it>has recently been reported to be common in Europeans and Africans and to roughly half the risks of heterogeneous infectious diseases including malaria, tuberculosis, bacteremia, and invasive pneumococal disease in heterozygous mutation carriers.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We assessed the <it>TIRAP </it>S180L variant by melting curve and RFLP analysis in 1095 delivering women from malaria-endemic Ghana, as well as in a further 1114 individuals participating in case control studies on sepsis and leprosy in Germany, Turkey and Bangladesh.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>In Ghana, the <it>TIRAP </it>S180L polymorphism was virtually absent. In contrast, the mutation was observed among 26.6%, 32.9% and 12% of German, Bangladesh and Turkish controls, respectively. No significant association of the heterozygous genotype with sepsis or leprosy was observed. Remarkably, homozygous <it>TIRAP </it>180L tend to increase the risk of sepsis in the German study (<it>P </it>= 0.04).</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>A broad protective effect of <it>TIRAP </it>S180L against infectious diseases <it>per se </it>is not discernible.</p

Lithic technological responses to Late Pleistocene glacial cycling at Pinnacle Point Site 5-6, South Africa

There are multiple hypotheses for human responses to glacial cycling in the Late Pleistocene, including changes in population size, interconnectedness, and mobility. Lithic technological analysis informs us of human responses to environmental change because lithic assemblage characteristics are a reflection of raw material transport, reduction, and discard behaviors that depend on hunter-gatherer social and economic decisions. Pinnacle Point Site 5-6 (PP5-6), Western Cape, South Africa is an ideal locality for examining the influence of glacial cycling on early modern human behaviors because it preserves a long sequence spanning marine isotope stages (MIS) 5, 4, and 3 and is associated with robust records of paleoenvironmental change. The analysis presented here addresses the question, what, if any, lithic assemblage traits at PP5-6 represent changing behavioral responses to the MIS 5-4-3 interglacial-glacial cycle? It statistically evaluates changes in 93 traits with no a priori assumptions about which traits may significantly associate with MIS. In contrast to other studies that claim that there is little relationship between broad-scale patterns of climate change and lithic technology, we identified the following characteristics that are associated with MIS 4: increased use of quartz, increased evidence for outcrop sources of quartzite and silcrete, increased evidence for earlier stages of reduction in silcrete, evidence for increased flaking efficiency in all raw material types, and changes in tool types and function for silcrete. Based on these results, we suggest that foragers responded to MIS 4 glacial environmental conditions at PP5-6 with increased population or group sizes, 'place provisioning', longer and/or more intense site occupations, and decreased residential mobility. Several other traits, including silcrete frequency, do not exhibit an association with MIS. Backed pieces, once they appear in the PP5-6 record during MIS 4, persist through MIS 3. Changing paleoenvironments explain some, but not all temporal technological variability at PP5-6.Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada; NORAM; American-Scandinavian Foundation; Fundacao para a Ciencia e Tecnologia [SFRH/BPD/73598/2010]; IGERT [DGE 0801634]; Hyde Family Foundations; Institute of Human Origins; National Science Foundation [BCS-9912465, BCS-0130713, BCS-0524087, BCS-1138073]; John Templeton Foundation to the Institute of Human Origins at Arizona State Universit

Phase IIa trial in Duchenne muscular dystrophy shows vamorolone is a first-in-class dissociative steroidal anti-inflammatory drug

\ua9 2018 The Authors We report a first-in-patient study of vamorolone, a first-in-class dissociative steroidal anti-inflammatory drug, in Duchenne muscular dystrophy. This 2-week, open-label Phase IIa multiple ascending dose study (0.25, 0.75, 2.0, and 6.0 mg/kg/day) enrolled 48 boys with Duchenne muscular dystrophy (4 to &lt;7 years), with outcomes including clinical safety, pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamic biomarkers. The study design included pharmacodynamic biomarkers in three contexts of use: 1. Secondary outcomes for pharmacodynamic safety (insulin resistance, adrenal suppression, bone turnover); 2. Exploratory outcomes for drug mechanism of action; 3. Exploratory outcomes for expanded pharmacodynamic safety. Vamorolone was safe and well-tolerated through the highest dose tested (6.0 mg/kg/day) and pharmacokinetics of vamorolone were similar to prednisolone. Using pharmacodynamic biomarkers, the study demonstrated improved safety of vamorolone versus glucocorticoids as shown by reduction of insulin resistance, beneficial changes in bone turnover (loss of increased bone resorption and decreased bone formation only at the highest dose level), and a reduction in adrenal suppression. Exploratory biomarkers of pharmacodynamic efficacy showed an anti-inflammatory mechanism of action and a beneficial effect on plasma membrane stability, as demonstrated by a dose-responsive decrease in serum creatine kinase activity. With an array of pre-selected biomarkers in multiple contexts of use, we demonstrate the development of the first dissociative steroid that preserves anti-inflammatory efficacy and decreases steroid-associated safety concerns. Ongoing extension studies offer the potential to bridge exploratory efficacy biomarkers to clinical outcomes

Age, Sex, and Socio-Economic Status Affect the Incidence of Pediatric Spinal Cord Injury: An Eleven-Year National Cohort Study

Few studies focus on pediatric spinal cord injury (SCI) and there is little information regarding the cause, anatomic level, and high risk population of SCI in children. This study aims to investigate the incidence and risk factors of pediatric SCI.A nationwide cohort of 8.7 million children aged<18 years in an 11-year period was analyzed for causes, age at injury, anatomic sites, disability, and familial socio-economic factors. Incidence rates and Cox regression analysis were conducted.<0.05).In the pediatric population, the overall SCI incidence rate is 5.99 per 100,000 person-years, with traumatic cervical SCI accounting for the majority. The incidence rate increases abruptly in male teenagers. Gender, age, and socio-economic status are independent risk factors that should be considered

Reduced expression of a gene proliferation signature is associated with enhanced malignancy in colon cancer

The association between cell proliferation and the malignant potential of colon cancer is not well understood. Here, we evaluated this association using a colon-specific gene proliferation signature (GPS). The GPS was derived by combining gene expression data obtained from the analysis of a cancer cell line model and a published colon crypt profile. The GPS was overexpressed in both actively cycling cells in vitro and the proliferate compartment of colon crypts. K-means clustering was used to independantly stratify two cohorts of colon tumours into two groups with high and low GPS expression. Notably, we observed a significant association between reduced GPS expression and an increased likelihood of recurrence (P<0.05), leading to shorter disease-free survival in both cohorts. This finding was not a result of methodological bias as we verified the well-established association between breast cancer malignancy and increased proliferation, by applying our GPS to public breast cancer data. In this study, we show that reduced proliferation is a biological feature characterizing the majority of aggressive colon cancers. This contrasts with many other carcinomas such as breast cancer. Investigating the reasons underlying this unusual observation may provide important insight into the biology of colon cancer progression and putative novel therapy options

C-tactile afferent stimulating touch carries a positive affective value

The rewarding sensation of touch in affiliative interactions is hypothesized to be underpinned by a specialized system of nerve fibers called C-Tactile afferents (CTs), which respond optimally to slowly moving, gentle touch, typical of a caress. However, empirical evidence to support the theory that CTs encode socially relevant, rewarding tactile information in humans is currently limited. While in healthy participants, touch applied at CT optimal velocities (1-10cm/sec) is reliably rated as subjectively pleasant, neuronopathy patients lacking large myelinated afferents, but with intact C-fibres, report that the conscious sensation elicited by stimulation of CTs is rather vague. Given this weak perceptual impact the value of self-report measures for assessing the specific affective value of CT activating touch appears limited. Therefore, we combined subjective ratings of touch pleasantness with implicit measures of affective state (facial electromyography) and autonomic arousal (heart rate) to determine whether CT activation carries a positive affective value. We recorded the activity of two key emotion-relevant facial muscle sites (zygomaticus major—smile muscle, positive affect & corrugator supercilii—frown muscle, negative affect) while participants evaluated the pleasantness of experimenter administered stroking touch, delivered using a soft brush, at two velocities (CT optimal 3cm/sec & CT non-optimal 30cm/sec), on two skin sites (CT innervated forearm & non-CT innervated palm). On both sites, 3cm/sec stroking touch was rated as more pleasant and produced greater heart rate deceleration than 30cm/sec stimulation. However, neither self-report ratings nor heart rate responses discriminated stimulation on the CT innervated arm from stroking of the non-CT innervated palm. In contrast, significantly greater activation of the zygomaticus major (smiling muscle) was seen specifically to CT optimal, 3cm/sec, stroking on the forearm in comparison to all other stimuli. These results offer the first empirical evidence in humans that tactile stimulation that optimally activates CTs carries a positive affective valence that can be measured implicitly

Associations of exercise-induced hormone profiles and gains in strength and hypertrophy in a large cohort after weight training

The purpose of this study was to investigate associations between acute exercise-induced hormone responses and adaptations to high intensity resistance training in a large cohort (n = 56) of young men. Acute post-exercise serum growth hormone (GH), free testosterone (fT), insulin-like growth factor (IGF-1) and cortisol responses were determined following an acute intense leg resistance exercise routine at the midpoint of a 12-week resistance exercise training study. Acute hormonal responses were correlated with gains in lean body mass (LBM), muscle fibre cross-sectional area (CSA) and leg press strength. There were no significant correlations between the exercise-induced elevations (area under the curve—AUC) of GH, fT and IGF-1 and gains in LBM or leg press strength. Significant correlations were found for cortisol, usually assumed to be a hormone indicative of catabolic drive, AUC with change in LBM (r = 0.29, P < 0.05) and type II fibre CSA (r = 0.35, P < 0.01) as well as GH AUC and gain in fibre area (type I: r = 0.36, P = 0.006; type II: r = 0.28, P = 0.04, but not lean mass). No correlations with strength were observed. We report that the acute exercise-induced systemic hormonal responses of cortisol and GH are weakly correlated with resistance training-induced changes in fibre CSA and LBM (cortisol only), but not with changes in strength