2,624 research outputs found
Candidate Gene-Based Association Study of Antipsychotic-Induced Movement Disorders in Long-Stay Psychiatric Patients: A Prospective Study
OBJECTIVE: Four types of antipsychotic-induced movement disorders: tardive dyskinesia (TD), parkinsonism, akathisia and tardive dystonia, subtypes of TD (orofacial and limb truncal dyskinesia), subtypes of parkinsonism (rest tremor, rigidity, and bradykinesia), as well as a principal-factor of the movement disorders and their subtypes, were examined for association with variation in 10 candidate genes (PPP1R1B, BDNF, DRD3, DRD2, HTR2A, HTR2C, COMT, MnSOD, CYP1A2, and RGS2). METHODS: Naturalistic study of 168 white long-stay patients with chronic mental illness requiring long-term antipsychotic treatment, examined by the same rater at least two times over a 4-year period, with a mean follow-up time of 1.1 years, with validated scales for TD, parkinsonism, akathisia, and tardive dystonia. The authors genotyped 31 SNPs, associated with movement disorders or schizophrenia in previous studies. Genotype and allele frequency comparisons were performed with multiple regression methods for continuous movement disorders. RESULTS: VARIOUS SNPS REACHED NOMINAL SIGNIFICANCE: TD and orofacial dyskinesia with rs6265 and rs988748, limb truncal dyskinesia with rs6314, rest tremor with rs6275, rigidity with rs6265 and rs4680, bradykinesia with rs4795390, akathisia with rs4680, tardive dystonia with rs1799732, rs4880 and rs1152746. After controlling for multiple testing, no significant results remained. CONCLUSIONS: The findings suggest that selected SNPs are not associated with a susceptibility to movement disorders. However, as the sample size was small and previous studies show inconsistent results, definite conclusions cannot be made. Replication is needed in larger study samples, preferably in longitudinal studies which take the fluctuating course of movement disorders and gene-environment interactions into account
Global implications of the European Food System : A food systems approach
The EU is a major player in the world market for agricultural products, both dependent on commodity imports from many countries, and exporting high-value agricultural products. There is a need to better understand the impact - on people, planet and profit - of the EU trade on food systems outside the EU, with a focus on Low- and Middle-Income Countries (LMIC). This will help the EU to steer its actions and policies in other directions where this is deemed necessary to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
Proportioning whole-genome single-nucleotide-polymorphism diversity for the identification of geographic population structure and genetic ancestry
The identification of geographic population structure and genetic ancestry
on the basis of a minimal set of genetic markers is desirable for a wide
range of applications in medical and forensic sciences. However, the
absence of sharp discontinuities in the neutral genetic diversity among
human populations implies that, in practice, a large number of neutral
markers will be required to identify the genetic ancestry of one
individual. We showed that it is possible to reduce the amount of markers
required for detecting continental population structure to only 10
single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), by applying a newly developed
ascertainment algorithm to Affymetrix GeneChip Mapping 10K SNP array data
that we obtained from samples of globally dispersed human individuals (the
Y Chromosome Consortium panel). Furthermore, this set of SNPs was able to
recover the genetic ancestry of individuals from all four continents
represented in the original data set when applied to an independent, much
larger, worldwide population data set (Centre d'Etude du Polymorphisme
Humain-Human Genome Diversity Project Cell Line Panel). Finally, we
provide evidence that the unusual patterns of genetic variation we
observed at the respective genomic regions surrounding the five most
informative SNPs is in agreement with local positive selection being the
explanation for the striking SNP allele-frequency differences we found
between continental groups of human populations
N-acetyltransferase 2 polymorphism in Parkinson's disease. The Rotterdam study
The N-acetyltransferase-2 gene (NAT-2) has been associated with Parkinson's disease. The genotype associated with slow acetylation has been reported to be increased in patients with Parkinson's disease. Three mutant alleles M1, M2, and M3 of NAT-2 were investigated in 80 patients with idiopathic Parkinson's disease and 161 age matched randomly selected controls from a prospective population based cohort study. The allelic frequencies and genotypic distributions in patients were very similar to those found in controls. In controls the frequency of the wild type allele increased significantly with age suggesting that the mutant alleles are associated with an increased risk of mortality. These findings suggest that NAT-2 polymorphism is not a major genetic determinant of idiopathic Parkinson's disease, but may be a determinant of mortality in the general population
A review on equipment protection and system protection relay in power system
Power system equipment is configured and connected together with multiple voltage levels in existing electrical power system. There are varieties of electrical equipment obtainable in the power system predominantly from generation side up to the distribution side. Consequently, appropriate protections must be apt to prevent inessential disturbances that lead to voltage instability, voltage collapse and sooner a total blackout took place in the power system. The understanding of each component on the system protection is critical. This is due to any abnormal condition and failure can be analyzed and solved effectively due to the rapid changing and development on the power system network. Therefore, the enhancement of power quality can be achieved by sheltering the equipment with protection relay in power system. Moreover, the design of a systematic network is crucial for the system protection itself. Several types of protective equipment and protection techniques are taken into consideration in this paper. Hence, the existing accessible types and methods of system protection in the power system network are reviewed
Modeling Life as Cognitive Info-Computation
This article presents a naturalist approach to cognition understood as a
network of info-computational, autopoietic processes in living systems. It
provides a conceptual framework for the unified view of cognition as evolved
from the simplest to the most complex organisms, based on new empirical and
theoretical results. It addresses three fundamental questions: what cognition
is, how cognition works and what cognition does at different levels of
complexity of living organisms. By explicating the info-computational character
of cognition, its evolution, agent-dependency and generative mechanisms we can
better understand its life-sustaining and life-propagating role. The
info-computational approach contributes to rethinking cognition as a process of
natural computation in living beings that can be applied for cognitive
computation in artificial systems.Comment: Manuscript submitted to Computability in Europe CiE 201
Geometrical quadrupolar frustration in DyB
Physical properties of DyB have been studied by magnetization, specific
heat, and ultrasonic measurements. The magnetic entropy change and the
ultrasonic properties in the intermediate phase II indicate that the degeneracy
of internal degrees of freedom is not fully lifted in spite of the formation of
magnetic order. The ultrasonic attenuation and the huge softening of
in phase II suggests existence of electric-quadrupolar (orbital) fluctuations
of the 4-electron. These unusual properties originate from the geometrical
quadrupolar frustration.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in Journal of the
Physical Society of Japa
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