Circulating Levels of Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) and Carotid Atherosclerosis in the Elderly

Background and objective: Increased circulating levels of persistent organic pollutants (POPs) have been associated with myocardial infarction. Because myocardial infarction is an atherosclerotic disease, we investigated, in a cross-sectional study, whether POP levels are related to atherosclerosis

Estimation of the population mean using paired ranked set sampling

In the situation where the sampling units in a study can be easily ranked than quantified, the ranked set sampling methods are found to be more efficient and cost effective as compared to SRS. In this paper we propose an estimator of the population mean using paired ranked set sampling (RSS) method. The proposed estimator is an unbiased estimator of the population mean when the set size is even. In case of odd set size the estimator is unbiased when the underlying distribution is symmetric. It is shown that the proposed estimator is more efficient than its counterpart SRS method for all distributions considered in this study

Review of current Severe Accident Management (SAM) approaches for Nuclear Power Plants in Europe

The Fukushima accidents highlighted that both the in-depth understanding of such sequences and the development or improvement of adequate Severe Accident Management (SAM) measures are essential in order to further increase the safety of the nuclear power plants operated in Europe. To support this effort, the CESAM (Code for European Severe Accident Management) R&D project, coordinated by GRS, started in April 2013 for 4 years in the 7th EC Framework Programme of research and development of the European Commission. It gathers 18 partners from 12 countries: IRSN, AREVA NP SAS and EDF (France), GRS, KIT, USTUTT and RUB (Germany), CIEMAT (Spain), ENEA (Italy), VUJE and IVS (Slovakia), LEI (Lithuania), NUBIKI (Hungary), INRNE (Bulgaria), JSI (Slovenia), VTT (Finland), PSI (Switzerland), BARC (India) plus the European Commission Joint Research Center (JRC). The CESAM project focuses on the improvement of the ASTEC (Accident Source Term Evaluation Code) computer code. ASTEC,, jointly developed by IRSN and GRS, is considered as the European reference code since it capitalizes knowledge from the European R&D on the domain. The project aims at its enhancement and extension for use in severe accident management (SAM) analysis of the nuclear power plants (NPP) of Generation II-III presently under operation or foreseen in near future in Europe, spent fuel pools included. In the frame of the CESAM project one of the tasks consisted in the preparation of a report providing an overview of the Severe Accident Management (SAM) approaches in European Nuclear Power Plants to serve as a basis for further ASTEC improvements. This report draws on the experience in several countries from introducing SAMGs and on substantial information that has become available within the EU “stress test”. To disseminate this information to a broader audience, the initial CESAM report has been revised to include only public available information. This work has been done with the agreement and in collaboration with all the CESAM project partners. The result of this work is presented here.JRC.F.5-Nuclear Reactor Safety Assessmen

Longer Leukocyte Telomere Length Is Associated with Smaller Hippocampal Volume among Non-Demented APOE ε3/ε3 Subjects

Telomere length shortens with cellular division, and leukocyte telomere length is used as a marker for systemic telomere length. The hippocampus hosts adult neurogenesis and is an important structure for episodic memory, and carriers of the apolipoprotein E ε4 allele exhibit higher hippocampal atrophy rates and differing telomere dynamics compared with non-carriers. The authors investigated whether leukocyte telomere length was associated with hippocampal volume in 57 cognitively intact subjects (29 ε3/ε3 carriers; 28 ε4 carriers) aged 49–79 yr. Leukocyte telomere length correlated inversely with left (rs = −0.465; p = 0.011), right (rs = −0.414; p = 0.025), and total hippocampus volume (rs = −0.519; p = 0.004) among APOE ε3/ε3 carriers, but not among ε4 carriers. However, the ε4 carriers fit with the general correlation pattern exhibited by the ε3/ε3 carriers, as ε4 carriers on average had longer telomeres and smaller hippocampi compared with ε3/ε3 carriers. The relationship observed can be interpreted as long telomeres representing a history of relatively low cellular proliferation, reflected in smaller hippocampal volumes. The results support the potential of leukocyte telomere length being used as a biomarker for tapping functional and structural processes of the aging brain

Serum concentrations of phthalate metabolites are related to abdominal fat distribution two years later in elderly women

BACKGROUND: Phthalates, commonly used to soften plastic goods, are known PPAR-agonists affecting lipid metabolism and adipocytes in the experimental setting. We evaluated if circulating concentrations of phthalates were related to different indices of obesity using data from the Prospective Investigation of the Vasculature in Uppsala Seniors (PIVUS) study. Data from both dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) and abdominal magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) were used. METHODS: 1,016 subjects aged 70 years were investigated in the PIVUS study. Four phthalate metabolites were detected in the serum of almost all subjects (> 96%) by an API 4000 liquid chromatograph/tandem mass spectrometer. Abdominal MRI was performed in a representative subsample of 287 subjects (28%), and a dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA)-scan was obtained in 890 (88%) of the subjects two year following the phthalate measurements. RESULTS: In women, circulating concentrations of mono-isobutyl phthalate (MiBP) were positively related to waist circumference, total fat mass and trunk fat mass by DXA, as well as to subcutaneous adipose tissue by MRI following adjustment for serum cholesterol and triglycerides, education, smoking and exercise habits (all p < 0.008). Mono-methyl phthalate (MMP) concentrations were related to trunk fat mass and the trunk/leg-ratio by DXA, but less powerful than MiBP. However, no such statistically significant relationships were seen in men. CONCLUSIONS: The present evaluation shows that especially the phthalate metabolite MiBP was related to increased fat amount in the subcutaneous abdominal region in women measured by DXA and MRI two years later

Increased Systemic Th17 Cytokines Are Associated with Diastolic Dysfunction in Children and Adolescents with Diabetic Ketoacidosis

Diastolic dysfunction suggestive of diabetic cardiomyopathy is established in children with T1DM, but its pathogenesis is not well understood. We studied the relationships of systemic inflammatory cytokines/chemokines and cardiac function in 17 children with T1DM during and after correction of diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA). Twenty seven of the 39 measured cytokines/chemokines were elevated at 6–12 hours into treatment of DKA compared to values after DKA resolution. Eight patients displayed at least one parameter of diastolic abnormality (DA) during acute DKA. Significant associations were present between nine of the cytokine/chemokine levels and the DA over time. Interestingly, four of these nine interactive cytokines (GM-CSF, G-CSF, IL-12p40, IL-17) are associated with a Th17 mediated cell response. Both the DA and CCL7 and IL-12p40, had independent associations with African American patients. Thus, we report occurrence of a systemic inflammatory response and the presence of cardiac diastolic dysfunction in a subset of young T1DM patients during acute DKA

The wide-field, multiplexed, spectroscopic facility WEAVE : survey design, overview, and simulated implementation

Funding for the WEAVE facility has been provided by UKRI STFC, the University of Oxford, NOVA, NWO, Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC), the Isaac Newton Group partners (STFC, NWO, and Spain, led by the IAC), INAF, CNRS-INSU, the Observatoire de Paris, Région Île-de-France, CONCYT through INAOE, Konkoly Observatory (CSFK), Max-Planck-Institut für Astronomie (MPIA Heidelberg), Lund University, the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP), the Swedish Research Council, the European Commission, and the University of Pennsylvania.WEAVE, the new wide-field, massively multiplexed spectroscopic survey facility for the William Herschel Telescope, will see first light in late 2022. WEAVE comprises a new 2-degree field-of-view prime-focus corrector system, a nearly 1000-multiplex fibre positioner, 20 individually deployable 'mini' integral field units (IFUs), and a single large IFU. These fibre systems feed a dual-beam spectrograph covering the wavelength range 366-959 nm at R ∼ 5000, or two shorter ranges at R ∼ 20,000. After summarising the design and implementation of WEAVE and its data systems, we present the organisation, science drivers and design of a five- to seven-year programme of eight individual surveys to: (i) study our Galaxy's origins by completing Gaia's phase-space information, providing metallicities to its limiting magnitude for ∼ 3 million stars and detailed abundances for ∼ 1.5 million brighter field and open-cluster stars; (ii) survey ∼ 0.4 million Galactic-plane OBA stars, young stellar objects and nearby gas to understand the evolution of young stars and their environments; (iii) perform an extensive spectral survey of white dwarfs; (iv) survey  ∼ 400 neutral-hydrogen-selected galaxies with the IFUs; (v) study properties and kinematics of stellar populations and ionised gas in z 1 million spectra of LOFAR-selected radio sources; (viii) trace structures using intergalactic/circumgalactic gas at z > 2. Finally, we describe the WEAVE Operational Rehearsals using the WEAVE Simulator.PostprintPeer reviewe