Gross solids from combined sewers in dry weather and storms, elucidating production, storage and social factors

Variation in rates of sanitary hygiene products, toilet tissue and faeces occurring in sewers are presented for dry and wet weather from three steep upstream urban catchments with different economic, age and ethnic profiles. Results show, for example, that total daily solids per capita from the low income and ageing populations are almost twice that from high income or ethnic populations. Relative differences are verified through independent questionnaires. The relationship between solids stored in sewers prior to storms, antecedent dry weather period and the proportion of roof to total catchment area is quantified. A full solids' flush occurs when storm flows exceed three times the peak dry weather flow. The data presented will assist urban drainage designers in managing pollution caused by the discharge of sewage solids

Covalent polymer functionalization of graphene/graphene oxide and its application as anticorrosion materials

Research on grapheme-polymer composites as the promising ion barrier materials to tackle the corrosion issue is rapidly developing and attracts interests from both academia and industry. In this minireview, we highlight the covalent functionalization of graphene and its derivatives such as graphene oxide (GO) with polymer brushes, and their application in anticorrosion within the last 3 years. There are some recent excellent reviews published on single layer graphene and graphene-based polymer composites for anticorrosion. However, the covalent functionalization of graphene and GO with polymer brushes for application in anticorrosion has not been addressed in those reviews. In this review, we describe first the current state of the art of covalent functionalization of graphene/GO with polymer brushes. We then discuss the application of pristine graphene as anticorrosion material and its drawbacks which can be overcome by graphene-based polymer composites. Afterwards, we discuss in detail the recent progress and development of covalent polymer functionalized graphene/GO as anticorrosion coatings, reported within the last 3 years. Finally, as perspective, we will briefly summarize the work on composites of polymers with other two-dimensional (2D) materials as anticorrosion coatings. Herein, hexagonal boron nitride, the most studied 2D materials after graphene, and Ti3C2Tx MXene which is the rising star of 2D transition metal carbide/nitride will be discussed

Ti₃C₂T_<i>x</i>MXene Polymer Composites for Anticorrosion:An Overview and Perspective

[Image: see text] As the most studied two-dimensional (2D) material from the MXene family, Ti(3)C(2)T(x) has constantly gained interest from academia and industry. Ti(3)C(2)T(x) MXene has the highest electrical conductivity (up to 24,000 S cm(–1)) and one of the highest stiffness values with a Young’s modulus of ∼ 334 GPa among water-dispersible conductive 2D materials. The negative surface charge of MXene helps to disperse it well in aqueous and other polar solvents. This solubility across a wide range of solvents, excellent interface interaction, tunable surface functionality, and stability with other organic/polymeric materials combined with the layered structure of Ti(3)C(2)T(x) MXene make it a promising material for anticorrosion coatings. While there are many reviews on Ti(3)C(2)T(x) MXene polymer composites for catalysis, flexible electronics, and energy storage, to our knowledge, no review has been published yet on MXenes’ anticorrosion applications. In this brief report, we summarize the current progress and the development of Ti(3)C(2)T(x) polymer composites for anticorrosion. We also provide an outlook and discussion on possible ways to improve the exploitation of Ti(3)C(2)T(x) polymer composites as anticorrosive materials. Finally, we provide a perspective beyond Ti(3)C(2)T(x) MXene composition for the development of future anticorrosion coatings

Integrating the environmental and genetic architectures of aging and mortality

Both environmental exposures and genetics are known to play important roles in shaping human aging. Here we aimed to quantify the relative contributions of environment (referred to as the exposome) and genetics to aging and premature mortality. To systematically identify environmental exposures associated with aging in the UK Biobank, we first conducted an exposome-wide analysis of all-cause mortality (n = 492,567) and then assessed the associations of these exposures with a proteomic age clock (n = 45,441), identifying 25 independent exposures associated with mortality and proteomic aging. These exposures were also associated with incident age-related multimorbidity, aging biomarkers and major disease risk factors. Compared with information on age and sex, polygenic risk scores for 22 major diseases explained less than 2 percentage points of additional mortality variation, whereas the exposome explained an additional 17 percentage points. Polygenic risk explained a greater proportion of variation (10.3–26.2%) compared with the exposome for incidence of dementias and breast, prostate and colorectal cancers, whereas the exposome explained a greater proportion of variation (5.5–49.4%) compared with polygenic risk for incidence of diseases of the lung, heart and liver. Our findings provide a comprehensive map of the contributions of environment and genetics to mortality and incidence of common age-related diseases, suggesting that the exposome shapes distinct patterns of disease and mortality risk, irrespective of polygenic disease risk.</p

Improving Genetic Prediction by Leveraging Genetic Correlations Among Human Diseases and Traits

Genomic prediction has the potential to contribute to precision medicine. However, to date, the utility of such predictors is limited due to low accuracy for most traits. Here theory and simulation study are used to demonstrate that widespread pleiotropy among phenotypes can be utilised to improve genomic risk prediction. We show how a genetic predictor can be created as a weighted index that combines published genome-wide association study (GWAS) summary statistics across many different traits. We apply this framework to predict risk of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder in the Psychiatric Genomics consortium data, finding substantial heterogeneity in prediction accuracy increases across cohorts. For six additional phenotypes in the UK Biobank data, we find increases in prediction accuracy ranging from 0.7 for height to 47 for type 2 diabetes, when using a multi-trait predictor that combines published summary statistics from multiple traits, as compared to a predictor based only on one trait. © 2018 The Author(s)

Age at first birth in women is genetically associated with increased risk of schizophrenia

Prof. Paunio on PGC:n jäsenPrevious studies have shown an increased risk for mental health problems in children born to both younger and older parents compared to children of average-aged parents. We previously used a novel design to reveal a latent mechanism of genetic association between schizophrenia and age at first birth in women (AFB). Here, we use independent data from the UK Biobank (N = 38,892) to replicate the finding of an association between predicted genetic risk of schizophrenia and AFB in women, and to estimate the genetic correlation between schizophrenia and AFB in women stratified into younger and older groups. We find evidence for an association between predicted genetic risk of schizophrenia and AFB in women (P-value = 1.12E-05), and we show genetic heterogeneity between younger and older AFB groups (P-value = 3.45E-03). The genetic correlation between schizophrenia and AFB in the younger AFB group is -0.16 (SE = 0.04) while that between schizophrenia and AFB in the older AFB group is 0.14 (SE = 0.08). Our results suggest that early, and perhaps also late, age at first birth in women is associated with increased genetic risk for schizophrenia in the UK Biobank sample. These findings contribute new insights into factors contributing to the complex bio-social risk architecture underpinning the association between parental age and offspring mental health.Peer reviewe

New insights into the genetic etiology of Alzheimer's disease and related dementias

Characterization of the genetic landscape of Alzheimer's disease (AD) and related dementias (ADD) provides a unique opportunity for a better understanding of the associated pathophysiological processes. We performed a two-stage genome-wide association study totaling 111,326 clinically diagnosed/'proxy' AD cases and 677,663 controls. We found 75 risk loci, of which 42 were new at the time of analysis. Pathway enrichment analyses confirmed the involvement of amyloid/tau pathways and highlighted microglia implication. Gene prioritization in the new loci identified 31 genes that were suggestive of new genetically associated processes, including the tumor necrosis factor alpha pathway through the linear ubiquitin chain assembly complex. We also built a new genetic risk score associated with the risk of future AD/dementia or progression from mild cognitive impairment to AD/dementia. The improvement in prediction led to a 1.6- to 1.9-fold increase in AD risk from the lowest to the highest decile, in addition to effects of age and the APOE ε4 allele

New Blood Pressure-Associated Loci Identified in Meta-Analyses of 475,000 Individuals

Background - Genome-wide association studies have recently identified &gt;400 loci that harbor DNA sequence variants that influence blood pressure (BP). Our earlier studies identified and validated 56 single nucleotide variants (SNVs) associated with BP from meta-analyses of exome chip genotype data. An additional 100 variants yielded suggestive evidence of association. Methods and Results - Here, we augment the sample with 140 886 European individuals from the UK Biobank, in whom 77 of the 100 suggestive SNVs were available for association analysis with systolic BP or diastolic BP or pulse pressure. We performed 2 meta-analyses, one in individuals of European, South Asian, African, and Hispanic descent (pan-ancestry, ≈475 000), and the other in the subset of individuals of European descent (≈423 000). Twenty-one SNVs were genome-wide significant (P&lt;5×10-8) for BP, of which 4 are new BP loci: rs9678851 (missense, SLC4A1AP), rs7437940 (AFAP1), rs13303 (missense, STAB1), and rs1055144 (7p15.2). In addition, we identified a potentially independent novel BP-associated SNV, rs3416322 (missense, SYNPO2L) at a known locus, uncorrelated with the previously reported SNVs. Two SNVs are associated with expression levels of nearby genes, and SNVs at 3 loci are associated with other traits. One SNV with a minor allele frequency &lt;0.01, (rs3025380 at DBH) was genome-wide significant. Conclusions - We report 4 novel loci associated with BP regulation, and 1 independent variant at an established BP locus. This analysis highlights several candidate genes with variation that alter protein function or gene expression for potential follow-up

The trans-ancestral genomic architecture of glycemic traits

Glycemic traits are used to diagnose and monitor type 2 diabetes and cardiometabolic health. To date, most genetic studies of glycemic traits have focused on individuals of European ancestry. Here we aggregated genome-wide association studies comprising up to 281,416 individuals without diabetes (30% non-European ancestry) for whom fasting glucose, 2-h glucose after an oral glucose challenge, glycated hemoglobin and fasting insulin data were available. Trans-ancestry and single-ancestry meta-analyses identified 242 loci (99 novel; P < 5 x 10(-8)), 80% of which had no significant evidence of between-ancestry heterogeneity. Analyses restricted to individuals of European ancestry with equivalent sample size would have led to 24 fewer new loci. Compared with single-ancestry analyses, equivalent-sized trans-ancestry fine-mapping reduced the number of estimated variants in 99% credible sets by a median of 37.5%. Genomic-feature, gene-expression and gene-set analyses revealed distinct biological signatures for each trait, highlighting different underlying biological pathways. Our results increase our understanding of diabetes pathophysiology by using trans-ancestry studies for improved power and resolution.A trans-ancestry meta-analysis of GWAS of glycemic traits in up to 281,416 individuals identifies 99 novel loci, of which one quarter was found due to the multi-ancestry approach, which also improves fine-mapping of credible variant sets.Diabetes mellitus: pathophysiological changes and therap