Rare mutations and potentially damaging missense variants in genes encoding fibrillar collagens and proteins involved in their production are candidates for risk for preterm premature rupture of membranes

Preterm premature rupture of membranes (PPROM) is the leading identifiable cause of preterm birth with ~ 40% of preterm births being associated with PPROM and occurs in 1% - 2% of all pregnancies. We hypothesized that multiple rare variants in fetal genes involved in extracellular matrix synthesis would associate with PPROM, based on the assumption that impaired elaboration of matrix proteins would reduce fetal membrane tensile strength, predisposing to unscheduled rupture. We performed whole exome sequencing (WES) on neonatal DNA derived from pregnancies complicated by PPROM (49 cases) and healthy term deliveries (20 controls) to identify candidate mutations/variants. Genotyping for selected variants from the WES study was carried out on an additional 188 PPROM cases and 175 controls. All mothers were self-reported African Americans, and a panel of ancestry informative markers was used to control for genetic ancestry in all genetic association tests. In support of the primary hypothesis, a statistically significant genetic burden (all samples combined, SKAT-O p-value = 0.0225) of damaging/potentially damaging rare variants was identified in the genes of interest—fibrillar collagen genes, which contribute to fetal membrane strength and integrity. These findings suggest that the fetal contribution to PPROM is polygenic, and driven by an increased burden of rare variants that may also contribute to the disparities in rates of preterm birth among African Americans

Influence of Temperature on the Conformational Guided Physical Properties of Ultrathin Films of PLLA

Poly (L lactic acid) (PLLA) ultrathin films of various thicknesses were prepared by spin coating method and investigated by using vibrational spectroscopic techniques such as FTIR and Raman. The analysis has been done in two parts: first one is verification of structural mode to understand the visibility of characteristic band to confirm the PLLA structure; where interestingly, as the thickness of the film increased, the structural features were found to be more explicit. The second part of the study was to observe the features of the film having been annealed for 1 h in two separate temperatures, one at specific annealing temperature 120 °C and the other at 160 °C to enable PLLA chains to reorient to get crystallized from its soften state at two such specific temperatures. The isothermal crystallization behavior of PLLA film at 120 °C and 160 °C from the melt was monitored by FTIR as well as Raman spectroscopies. More importantly, the band at 921 cm-1 corresponds to α crystalline phase of PLLA has been observed even in this ultrathin film with the effective application of temperature as selected in this study.Defence Science Journal, Vol. 64, No. 3, May 2014, pp. 309-313, DOI:http://dx.doi.org/10.14429/dsj.64.732

BASIS WEIGHT UNIFORMITY OF LIGHTLY NEEDLED HYDROENTANGLED COTTON AND COTTON BLEND WEBS

New nonwoven products containing cotton and Lyocell (Trademarked name Tencel), low temperature thermal-bondable bicomponent olefin/polyester, or comber noils were developed using needlepunching and spunlacing (hydroentanglement). Webs containing five different blends were prepared by either light needlepunching, or light needlepunching followed by hydroentangling. We acquired detailed basis weight uniformity measurements to learn about processing and the influence of fiber blend composition on web uniformity. Basis weight uniformity was evaluated without regard to web direction ("Total" uniformity), along the machine direction (MD uniformity) and across the cross direction (CD uniformity) at numerous size resolutions. We observed that blending manufactured fibers (either Tencel or olefin/polyester) with bleached cotton and comber noils substantially improved basis weight uniformity of both types of nonwovens. We also observed that subjecting needled webs to hydroentangling significantly improved Total and MD uniformities

Production of 26Al in stellar hydrogen-burning environments: spectroscopic properties of states in 27Si

Model predictions of the amount of the radioisotope 26Al produced in hydrogen-burning environments require reliable estimates of the thermonuclear rates for the 26gAl(p,{\gamma})27Si and 26mAl(p,{\gamma})27Si reactions. These rates depend upon the spectroscopic properties of states in 27Si within about 1 MeV of the 26gAl+p threshold (Sp = 7463 keV). We have studied the 28Si(3He,{\alpha})27Si reaction at 25 MeV using a high-resolution quadrupole-dipole-dipole-dipole magnetic spectrograph. For the first time with a transfer reaction, we have constrained J{\pi} values for states in 27Si over Ex = 7.0 - 8.1 MeV through angular distribution measurements. Aside from a few important cases, we generally confirm the energies and spin-parity assignments reported in a recent {\gamma}-ray spectroscopy study. The magnitudes of neutron spectroscopic factors determined from shell-model calculations are in reasonable agreement with our experimental values extracted using this reaction.Comment: accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.

Choice of activity-intensity classification thresholds impacts upon accelerometer-assessed physical activity-health relationships in children

It is unknown whether using different published thresholds (PTs) for classifying physical activity (PA) impacts upon activity-health relationships. This study explored whether relationships between PA (sedentary [SED], light PA [LPA], moderate PA [MPA], moderate-to-vigorous PA, vigorous PA [VPA]) and health markers differed in children when classified using three different PTs

An interpretation for the entropy of a black hole

We investigate the meaning of the entropy carried away by Hawking radiations from a black hole. We propose that the entropy for a black hole measures the uncertainty of the information about the black hole forming matter's precollapsed configurations, self-collapsed configurations, and inter-collapsed configurations. We find that gravitational wave or gravitational radiation alone cannot carry all information about the processes of black hole coalescence and collapse, while the total information locked in the hole could be carried away completely by Hawking radiation as tunneling