The mineralogy and petrology of layered series nepheline syenite within Center II of the Coldwell Complex

The Coldwell Complex is situated within the Archean Schreiber-White River metavolcanic and metasediment of the Superior Province. Spanning over 25km in diameter, it is the largest alkaline intrusion in North America. The 1108 ± 1 Ma age of the Coldwell Complex and its close spatial proximity supports a strong relationship to the magmatism of the Keweenawan Midcontinent Rift. Early studies define three magmatic centers of the Coldwell Complex, which in order of intrusion are Center I, Center II, and Center III. Center I consists of an oldest phase gabbro, which borders a ferroaugite syenite to the east and north. Center II includes a nepheline-bearing biotite-gabbro and several intrusions of nepheline syenite, and Center III is composed of four syenites which in order of intrusion are: magnesiohornblende syenite, contaminated ferroedenite syenite, ferroedenite syenite, and quartz syenite. This study evaluated the formation of the layered series nepheline syenite in Center II of the Coldwell Complex. Field mapping and sampling were completed along the shoreline of Neys Provincial Park, where extensive exposures of massive, hybrid, and layered syenite; together with xenolith-rich zones, biotite-gabbro, lamprophyre dykes and pegmatitic syenite of diverse composition are preserved. In the layered series, perthitic K-feldspar with secondary plagioclase forms the cumulus phase. Feldspar observed through cathodoluminescence (CL) imaging demonstrated multiple feldspar species within single crystals. K-feldspar ranged in orthoclase component from 87-100%, whereas plagioclase exsolution and alterations were characterized as albite, with anorthite components ranging from 0-3%. Amphibole (classified as ferro-pargasite) and minor apatite represent post-cumulus phases, forming interstitially to feldspar laths or in amphibole-rich laminae at the base of individual layers. Biotite, also a post-cumulus phase, was classified as the iron-rich end member annite. Fluorapatite is the most abundant accessory mineral, hosting light rare earth elements (LREE), along with less abundant britholite, wöhlerite, pyrochlore, titanite and other minor accessory minerals hosting incompatible elements. Layers commonly display modal grading from amphibole-dominant laminae, to a mixture of amphibole and feldspar, followed by a section of ‘normal syenite’ (dominantly feldspar with disseminated amphibole). Hydrodynamic processes are favoured for the origin of the layered series, specifically surge-type density currents and separation and reattachment vortex cells, are proposed to have formed the modally graded cumulate layers. In conjunction with graded layers, other magmatic “sedimentary” features including slumping, scour channels, flame structures, load casts, and various stages of hybridization and deformation of mafic xenoliths produced during hydrodynamic processes, indicate a strong convecting current operating during the formation of these rocks. The formation of the layered series was a product of fractional crystallization, varying deposition mechanisms, and reworking through erosion or deformational processes

Pseudonymity, authorship, selfhood : the names and lives of Charlotte Brontë and George Eliot

"Why did George Eliot live and Currer Bell die?" Victorian pseudonymity is seldom treated to any critical scrutiny - the only sustained interest has been in reading masculine pseudonyms as masks for "disreputable femininity," signs of the woman writer's "anxiety of authorship." This thesis proposes that pseudonymity is not a capitulation to gender ideology, but that a nom de plume is an exaggerated version of any authorial signature - the abstraction (or Othering) of a self into text which occurs in the production of "real" authors as well as fictional characters. After an introductory chapter presenting the theoretical issues of selfhood and authorship, I go on to discuss milieu - the contexts which produced Bronte and Eliot - including a brief history of pseudonymous novelists and the Victorian publishing and reviewing culture. The third and fourth chapters deal with pseudonymity as heccéité, offering "biographies" of the authorial personas "Currer Bell" and "George Eliot" rather than the women who created them, thus demonstrating the problems of biography and the relative, multiple status of identity. The three following chapters explore the concerns of pseudonymity through a reading of the novels: I treat Jane Eyre, Villette, and even Shirley as "autobiographical" in order to address the construction of self and narrative; I examine how Eliot's realist fictions (notably Scenes of Clerical Life, Romola, Middlemarch and Daniel Deronda) trouble the "reality"/"fiction" binary; and finally I read Bronte specifically for her engagement with "dress," using queer theories of performativity with Victorian theories of clothing and conduct to question "readability" itself. My final chapter is concerned with agencement (adjustment) and "mythmaking": the posthumous biographical and critical practices surrounding these two writers reveal that an author's "name," secured through literary reputation, is not static or inevitable, but the result of constant process and revision

Whole-genome association analyses for lifetime reproductive traits in the pig

Profits for commercial pork producers vary in part because of sow productivity or sow productive life (SPL) and replacement costs. During the last decade, culling rates of sows have increased to more than 50% in the United States. Both SPL and culling rates are influenced by genetic and nongenetic factors. A whole-genome association study was conducted for pig lifetime reproductive traits, including lifetime total number born (LTNB), lifetime number born alive (LNBA), removal parity, and the ratio between lifetime nonproductive days and herd life. The proportion of phenotypic variance explained by markers was 0.15 for LTNB and LNBA, 0.12 for removal parity, and 0.06 for the ratio between lifetime nonproductive days and herd life. Several informative QTL regions (e.g., 14 QTL regions for LTNB) and genes within the regions (e.g., SLC22A18 on SSC2 for LTNB) were associated with lifetime reproductive traits in this study. Genes associated with LTNB and LNBA were similar, reflecting the high genetic correlation (0.99 ± 0.003) between these traits. Functional annotation revealed that many genes at the associated regions are expressed in reproductive tissues. For instance, the SLC22A18 gene on SSC2 associated with LTNB has been shown to be expressed in the placenta of mice. Many of the QTL regions showing associations coincided with previously identified QTL for fat deposition. This reinforces the role of fat regulation for lifetime reproductive traits. Overall, this whole-genome association study provides a list of genomic locations and markers associated with pig lifetime reproductive traits that could be considered for SPL in future studies

Incidence trends of childhood central nervous system tumors in Finland 1990-2017

Introduction Central nervous system (CNS) tumors are a leading cause of cancer-related morbidity and mortality in children. Our aim is to characterize incidence trends of pediatric CNS tumors in Finland over the last three decades. Methods Data on all benign and malignant incident CNS tumors diagnosed in children aged 0-14 years in 1990-2017 were extracted from the Finnish Cancer Registry and classified according to the 2016 WHO classification of CNS tumors. We analyzed age-standardized incidence rates (ASR) for pediatric CNS tumors overall and by sex, age, tumor histology, grade, and location using Poisson regression. We used joinpoint regression to evaluate changes in trends. Results Overall, 1117 pediatric CNS tumor cases were registered in Finland with a 1.2:1 male to female ratio. The average annual ASR was 4.3 per 100,000 person-years (95% CI 4.26, 4.34). The most common tumor type was pilocytic astrocytoma (30% of tumors), followed by medulloblastoma (10%) with incidence rates of 1.30 and 0.45 per 100,000 person-years, respectively. The overall incidence of pediatric CNS tumors increased by an annual percentage change (APC) of 0.8% (95% CI 0.2, 1.4). We observed no major changes in incidence trends of tumor histology groups or tumor location groups. The ASR of benign tumors increased by an APC of 1.0 (95% CI 0.1, 2.0). Conclusions Utilizing the high-quality and completeness of data in the Finnish Cancer registry, we found that the incidence of pediatric CNS tumors in Finland has increased slightly from 1990 until 2017. Although variations in diagnostic and registration practices over time might have affected the rates, the trend may also reflect a true increase in incidence.Peer reviewe

Multivariate multi-way analysis of multi-source data

Motivation: Analysis of variance (ANOVA)-type methods are the default tool for the analysis of data with multiple covariates. These tools have been generalized to the multivariate analysis of high-throughput biological datasets, where the main challenge is the problem of small sample size and high dimensionality. However, the existing multi-way analysis methods are not designed for the currently increasingly important experiments where data is obtained from multiple sources. Common examples of such settings include integrated analysis of metabolic and gene expression profiles, or metabolic profiles from several tissues in our case, in a controlled multi-way experimental setup where disease status, medical treatment, gender and time-series are usual covariates

Immune Dysregulation and Self-Reactivity in Schizophrenia: Do Some Cases of Schizophrenia Have an Autoimmune Basis?

Schizophrenia affects 1% of the world's population, but its cause remains obscure. Numerous theories have been proposed regarding the cause of schizophrenia, ranging from developmental or neurodegenerative processes or neurotransmitter abnormalities to infectious or autoimmune processes. In this review, findings suggestive of immune dysregulation and reactivity to self in patients with schizophrenia are examined with reference to criteria for defining whether or not a human disease is autoimmune in origin. Associations with other autoimmune diseases and particular MHC haplotypes, increased serum levels of autoantibodies, and in vivo and in vitro replication of some of the functional and ultrastructural abnormalities of schizophrenia by transfer of autoantibodies from the sera of patients with schizophrenia suggest that, in some patients at least, autoimmune mechanisms could play a role in the development of disease. Recent findings regarding specific autoimmune responses directed against neurotransmitter receptors in the brain in patients with schizophrenia will also be reviewed

Genetic associations for gilt growth, compositional, and structural soundness traits with sow longevity and lifetime reproductive performance

The objective of this study was to estimate genetic associations for gilt growth, compositional, and structural soundness with sow longevity and lifetime reproduction. Performance and pedigree information from 1,447 commercial females from 2 genetic lines were included in the data analyzed. Growth was expressed as days to 113.5 kg BW (DAYS) and compositional traits included loin muscle area (LMA), 10th rib backfat (BF10), and last rib backfat (LRF). Structural soundness traits included body structure traits [length (BL), depth (BD), width (BWD), rib shape (BRS), top line (BTL), and hip structure (BHS)], leg structure traits [front legs: legs turned (FLT), buck knees (FBK), pastern posture (FPP), foot size (FFS), and uneven toes (FUT); rear legs: legs turned (RLT), leg posture (RLP), pastern posture (RPP), foot size (RFS), and uneven toes (RUT)], and overall leg action (OLA). Lifetime (LT) and removal parity (RP) were considered as longevity traits whereas lifetime reproductive traits included lifetime total number born (LNB), lifetime number born alive (LBA), number born alive per lifetime day (LBA/LT), and percentage productive days from total herd days (PD%). Genetic parameters were estimated with linear animal models using the average information REML algorithm. Second, to account for censored longevity and lifetime reproduction records, genetic parameters were estimated using Markov Chain Monte Carlo and Gibbs sampling methods. Similar estimates were obtained across the analysis methods. Heritability estimates for growth and compositional traits ranged from 0.50 to 0.70 and for structural soundness traits from 0.07 to 0.31. Longevity and lifetime reproductive trait heritability estimates ranged from 0.14 to 0.17 when REML was used. Unfavorable genetic correlations were obtained for DAYS with LT, RP, LNB, LBA, and PD% and for LRF with PD%. However, LMA was favorably associated with LT, RP, and LNB. Moderate to high correlations were obtained for BL and BRS with all longevity and lifetime reproductive traits. Correlations of BWD with LT and RP were moderate. Associations for leg soundness traits with longevity and lifetime reproductive traits were mainly low and nonsignificant (P ≥ 0.10). However, RLP was moderately correlated with LBA/LT and PD%. Current results indicate that selection for fewer DAYS has an antagonistic effect on lifetime performance. Furthermore, great BL, flat BRS, narrow BWD, and upright RLP seem detrimental to sow longevity and lifetime reproduction

Insulin resistance in type 1 diabetes: what is ‘double diabetes’ and what are the risks?

In this review, we explore the concept of ‘double diabetes’, a combination of type 1 diabetes with features of insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes. After considering whether double diabetes is a useful concept, we discuss potential mechanisms of increased insulin resistance in type 1 diabetes before examining the extent to which double diabetes might increase the risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD). We then go on to consider the proposal that weight gain from intensive insulin regimens may be associated with increased CV risk factors in some patients with type 1 diabetes, and explore the complex relationships between weight gain, insulin resistance, glycaemic control and CV outcome. Important comparisons and contrasts between type 1 diabetes and type 2 diabetes are highlighted in terms of hepatic fat, fat partitioning and lipid profile, and how these may differ between type 1 diabetic patients with and without double diabetes. In so doing, we hope this work will stimulate much-needed research in this area and an improvement in clinical practice

Semi-automated non-target processing in GC × GC–MS metabolomics analysis: applicability for biomedical studies

Due to the complexity of typical metabolomics samples and the many steps required to obtain quantitative data in GC × GC–MS consisting of deconvolution, peak picking, peak merging, and integration, the unbiased non-target quantification of GC × GC–MS data still poses a major challenge in metabolomics analysis. The feasibility of using commercially available software for non-target processing of GC × GC–MS data was assessed. For this purpose a set of mouse liver samples (24 study samples and five quality control (QC) samples prepared from the study samples) were measured with GC × GC–MS and GC–MS to study the development and progression of insulin resistance, a primary characteristic of diabetes type 2. A total of 170 and 691 peaks were quantified in, respectively, the GC–MS and GC × GC–MS data for all study and QC samples. The quantitative results for the QC samples were compared to assess the quality of semi-automated GC × GC–MS processing compared to targeted GC–MS processing which involved time-consuming manual correction of all wrongly integrated metabolites and was considered as golden standard. The relative standard deviations (RSDs) obtained with GC × GC–MS were somewhat higher than with GC–MS, due to less accurate processing. Still, the biological information in the study samples was preserved and the added value of GC × GC–MS was demonstrated; many additional candidate biomarkers were found with GC × GC–MS compared to GC–MS