Pulse wave velocity and carotid atherosclerosis in White and Latino patients with hypertension

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Preventive cardiology has expanded beyond coronary heart disease towards prevention of a broader spectrum of cardiovascular diseases. Ethnic minorities are at proportionately greater risk for developing extracoronary vascular disease including heart failure and cerebrovascular disease.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We performed a cross sectional study of Latino and White hypertension patients in a safety-net healthcare system. Framingham risk factors, markers of inflammation (hsCRP, LPpLA2), arterial stiffness (Pulse wave velocity, augmentation index, and central aortic pressure), and endothelial function (brachial artery flow-mediated dilatation) were measured. Univariate and multivariable associations between these parameters and an index of extracoronary atherosclerosis (carotid intima media thickness) was performed.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Among 177 subjects, mean age was 62 years, 67% were female, and 67% were Latino. In univariate analysis, markers associated with carotid intima media thickness (IMT) at p < 0.25 included pulse wave velocity (PWV), augmentation index (AIx), central aortic pressure (cAP), and LpPLA₂activity rank. However, AIx, cAP, and LpPLA2 activity were not significantly associated with carotid IMT after adjusting for Framingham risk factors (all p > .10). Only PWV retained a significant association with carotid IMT independent of the Framingham general risk profile parameters (p = .016). No statistically significant interactions between Framingham and other independent variables with ethnicity (all p > .05) were observed.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>In this safety net cohort, PWV is a potentially useful adjunctive atherosclerotic risk marker independent of traditional risk factors and irrespective of ethnicity.</p

From Nonspecific DNA–Protein Encounter Complexes to the Prediction of DNA–Protein Interactions

©2009 Gao, Skolnick. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.doi:10.1371/journal.pcbi.1000341DNA–protein interactions are involved in many essential biological activities. Because there is no simple mapping code between DNA base pairs and protein amino acids, the prediction of DNA–protein interactions is a challenging problem. Here, we present a novel computational approach for predicting DNA-binding protein residues and DNA–protein interaction modes without knowing its specific DNA target sequence. Given the structure of a DNA-binding protein, the method first generates an ensemble of complex structures obtained by rigid-body docking with a nonspecific canonical B-DNA. Representative models are subsequently selected through clustering and ranking by their DNA–protein interfacial energy. Analysis of these encounter complex models suggests that the recognition sites for specific DNA binding are usually favorable interaction sites for the nonspecific DNA probe and that nonspecific DNA–protein interaction modes exhibit some similarity to specific DNA–protein binding modes. Although the method requires as input the knowledge that the protein binds DNA, in benchmark tests, it achieves better performance in identifying DNA-binding sites than three previously established methods, which are based on sophisticated machine-learning techniques. We further apply our method to protein structures predicted through modeling and demonstrate that our method performs satisfactorily on protein models whose root-mean-square Ca deviation from native is up to 5 Å from their native structures. This study provides valuable structural insights into how a specific DNA-binding protein interacts with a nonspecific DNA sequence. The similarity between the specific DNA–protein interaction mode and nonspecific interaction modes may reflect an important sampling step in search of its specific DNA targets by a DNA-binding protein

Pion and proton showers in the CALICE scintillator-steel analogue hadron calorimeter

Showers produced by positive hadrons in the highly granular CALICE scintillator-steel analogue hadron calorimeter were studied. The experimental data were collected at CERN and FNAL for single particles with initial momenta from 10 to 80 GeV/c. The calorimeter response and resolution and spatial characteristics of shower development for proton- and pion-induced showers for test beam data and simulations using Geant4 version 9.6 are compared.Comment: 26 pages, 16 figures, JINST style, changes in the author list, typos corrected, new section added, figures regrouped. Accepted for publication in JINS

Shower development of particles with momenta from 15 GeV to 150 GeV in the CALICE scintillator-tungsten hadronic calorimeter

We present a study of showers initiated by electrons, pions, kaons, and protons with momenta from 15 GeV to 150 GeV in the highly granular CALICE scintillator-tungsten analogue hadronic calorimeter. The data were recorded at the CERN Super Proton Synchrotron in 2011. The analysis includes measurements of the calorimeter response to each particle type as well as measurements of the energy resolution and studies of the longitudinal and radial shower development for selected particles. The results are compared to Geant4 simulations (version 9.6.p02). In the study of the energy resolution we include previously published data with beam momenta from 1 GeV to 10 GeV recorded at the CERN Proton Synchrotron in 2010.Comment: 35 pages, 21 figures, 8 table

Hadron shower decomposition in the highly granular CALICE analogue hadron calorimeter

The spatial development of hadronic showers in the CALICE scintillator-steel analogue hadron calorimeter is studied using test beam data collected at CERN and FNAL for single positive pions and protons with initial momenta in the range from 10 to 80 GeV/c. Both longitudinal and radial development of hadron showers are parametrised with two-component functions. The parametrisation is fit to test beam data and simulations using the QGSP_BERT and FTFP_BERT physics lists from Geant4 version 9.6. The parameters extracted from data and simulated samples are compared for the two types of hadrons. The response to pions and the ratio of the non-electromagnetic to the electromagnetic calorimeter response, h/e, are estimated using the extrapolation and decomposition of the longitudinal profiles.Comment: 38 pages, 19 figures, 5 tables; author list changed; submitted to JINS

Performance of the first prototype of the CALICE scintillator strip electromagnetic calorimeter

A first prototype of a scintillator strip-based electromagnetic calorimeter was built, consisting of 26 layers of tungsten absorber plates interleaved with planes of 45x10x3 mm3 plastic scintillator strips. Data were collected using a positron test beam at DESY with momenta between 1 and 6 GeV/c. The prototype's performance is presented in terms of the linearity and resolution of the energy measurement. These results represent an important milestone in the development of highly granular calorimeters using scintillator strip technology. This technology is being developed for a future linear collider experiment, aiming at the precise measurement of jet energies using particle flow techniques

The Time Structure of Hadronic Showers in highly granular Calorimeters with Tungsten and Steel Absorbers

The intrinsic time structure of hadronic showers influences the timing capability and the required integration time of hadronic calorimeters in particle physics experiments, and depends on the active medium and on the absorber of the calorimeter. With the CALICE T3B experiment, a setup of 15 small plastic scintillator tiles read out with Silicon Photomultipliers, the time structure of showers is measured on a statistical basis with high spatial and temporal resolution in sampling calorimeters with tungsten and steel absorbers. The results are compared to GEANT4 (version 9.4 patch 03) simulations with different hadronic physics models. These comparisons demonstrate the importance of using high precision treatment of low-energy neutrons for tungsten absorbers, while an overall good agreement between data and simulations for all considered models is observed for steel.Comment: 24 pages including author list, 9 figures, published in JINS

Measurements of fiducial and differential cross sections for Higgs boson production in the diphoton decay channel at s√=8 TeV with ATLAS

Measurements of fiducial and differential cross sections are presented for Higgs boson production in proton-proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of s√=8 TeV. The analysis is performed in the H → γγ decay channel using 20.3 fb−1 of data recorded by the ATLAS experiment at the CERN Large Hadron Collider. The signal is extracted using a fit to the diphoton invariant mass spectrum assuming that the width of the resonance is much smaller than the experimental resolution. The signal yields are corrected for the effects of detector inefficiency and resolution. The pp → H → γγ fiducial cross section is measured to be 43.2 ±9.4(stat.) − 2.9 + 3.2 (syst.) ±1.2(lumi)fb for a Higgs boson of mass 125.4GeV decaying to two isolated photons that have transverse momentum greater than 35% and 25% of the diphoton invariant mass and each with absolute pseudorapidity less than 2.37. Four additional fiducial cross sections and two cross-section limits are presented in phase space regions that test the theoretical modelling of different Higgs boson production mechanisms, or are sensitive to physics beyond the Standard Model. Differential cross sections are also presented, as a function of variables related to the diphoton kinematics and the jet activity produced in the Higgs boson events. The observed spectra are statistically limited but broadly in line with the theoretical expectations