Airways inflammation and treatment during acute exacerbations of COPD

INTRODUCTION: Inflammation is a core feature of acute chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) exacerbations. It is important to focus on inflammation since it gives insight into the pathological changes causing an exacerbation, thereby possibly providing directions for future therapies which modify inflammation. OBJECTIVES: To provide a cell-by-cell overview of the inflammatory processes during COPD exacerbations. To evaluate cell activation, and cytokine production, cellular interactions, damaging effects of inflammatory mediators to tissue, and the relation to symptoms at the onset of COPD exacerbations. To speculate on future therapeutic options to modify inflammation during COPD exacerbations. RESULTS: During COPD exacerbations, there is increased airway wall inflammation, with pathophysiological influx of eosinophils, neutrophils, and lymphocytes. Although links have been suggested between the increase in eosinophils and lymphocytes and a viral etiology of the exacerbation, and between the increase in neutrophils and a bacterial aetiology, these increases in both inflammatory cell types are not limited to the respective aetiologies and the underlying mechanisms remain elusive. CONCLUSION: Further research is required to fully understand the inflammatory mechanisms in the onset and development of COPD exacerbations. This might make inflammatory pathway-specific intervention possible, resulting in a more effective treatment of COPD exacerbations with fewer side effects

Extremal Presentations for Classical Lie Algebras

The long-root elements in Lie algebras of Chevalley type have been well studied and can be characterized as extremal elements, that is, elements $x$ such that the image of (\ad x)^2 lies in the subspace spanned by $x$. In this paper, assuming an algebraically closed base field of characteristic not 2, we find presentations of the Lie algebras of classical Chevalley type by means of minimal sets of extremal generators. The relations are described by simple graphs on the sets. For example, for $C_n$ the graph is a path of length $2n$, and for $A_n$ the graph is the triangle connected to a path of length $n-3$.Comment: 26 pages, 6 figure

Bewoners profielen van duurzame wijken:huur- en koopmotieven van een duurzame woning inrelatie met de leefstijlen en de toepassing van duurzaamheid

In dit onderzoeksrapport staat de wijk de Drielanden te Groningen Centraal. Aan de noordoostzijde van de stad Groningen is de wijk gelegen. De wijk drielanden bestaat sinds 1995, in die tijd was het een vooruitstrevende wijk op het gebied van duurzaamheid. Tegenwoordig worden veel nieuwe duurzame wijken gebouwd, maar er is een terugloop geconstateerd in de koop van woningen in duurzame wijken. Met behulp van dit onderzoek wordt duidelijk hoe er in de toekomst op koop- en verkoopmotieven ingespeeld kan worden. Er gaat onderzocht worden wat de motieven zijn voor de koop van een duurzame woning, het gaat hier om bewuste, onbewuste en psychologische motieven. Dit leidt tot de volgende probleemstelling: Welke kenmerken van de bewoners uit de Drielanden hangen samen met de koopmotieven? Het vraagtype van de probleemstelling is definiëren. Het onderzoek is uitgevoerd met een enquête, dit is het meetinstrument. Het totale domein van dit onderzoek bedraagt 390 huishoudens verdeeld over de drie straten in de wijk Drielanden; Waterland met 166 huishoudens, Zonland met 142 huishoudens en Mooiland met 82 huishoudens. Het onderzoek is uitgevoerd om de verkoop- en koopmotieven in de duurzame wijk te onderzoeken, dit zijn de onderzoekseenheden van het onderzoek. De methode die gebruikt is voor het onderzoek is een combinatie van de kwantitatieve (desk research) en de kwalitatieve strategie (enquête). De doelstelling van het onderzoek is weten welke motieven kopers van 'duurzame woningen' hebben om een dergelijke woning te kopen, zodat de neergang in de verkoop en verhuur van duurzame woningen kan worden tegengegaan. De hoofdresultaten uit het onderzoek hebben betrekking op de leefstijlen, toepassing van duurzaamheid en de koop- en huurmotieven van de bewoners van de Drielanden. Er zijn vier leefstijlen te onderscheiden. Eén leefstijl is minder vertegenwoordigd, namelijk vitaliteit. Deze beslaat de bevolkingsgroep die ego georiënteerd en extravert is. De toepassing van duurzaamheid is gemiddeld matig tot licht voldoende. Voor een duurzame wijk is dit zeer beneden de maat. In verhouding tot de motieven is dit te verklaren aangezien ongeveer 1 op de 10 bewoners voor duurzaamheid heeft gekozen. De overige bewoners hebben andere redenen als ligging en een ruimere woning. Dit zijn direct de twee meest voorkomende motieven. Er zal ongetwijfeld samenhang zijn tussen duurzaamheid en een ruim opgezette wijk. Het ruimer wonen kan dus in verband staan met het motief duurzaam wonen. Dit zal een juist onderwerp zijn voor een eventueel vervolgonderzoek. Studentenonderzoek in het kader van het thema Duurzaam bouwe

Health and lifespan of Swiss men born in an alpine region in 1905–1907

Body height and body mass index (BMI) are associated with later life outcomes in present and historical populations. We examine the case study of the Swiss Alpine canton of Glarus, which was highly industrialised at the beginning of the 20th century. Our study links conscription registers to genealogical registers at the individual level in Switzerland for the first time. We analyse whether body height, BMI, socioeconomic position (HISCLASS), region of residence, fitness to serve (as a proxy for health status in a military context), and goitre status (as a proxy for iodine deficiency) in young adulthood are associated with lifespan. We transcribed conscription records of 1073 men born between 1905 and 1907 and recruited between 1925 and 1927 (coverage birth cohorts 96%). Of the 827 young men residing within the canton, we were able to identify 635 (76.8%) in the cantonal genealogical register. Using body height, chest circumference, and upper arm circumference, we estimated BMI. We find socioeconomic differences for height and estimated BMI at conscription age. Young men with a recorded goitre were taller. We also present a positive association between body height and lifespan, with small men being particularly disadvantaged. In a small subsample of two municipalities, we estimated the heritability of height to be 65%

The era of our lives: The memory of Korsakoff patients for the first Covid-19 pandemic lockdown in the Netherlands

Memories for worldwide and emotional events (such as 9/11) are more vividly relived and recalled than memories for everyday events. Previous studies have shown that flashbulb memories of a single event enhanced the memory strength in severe amnesia. It is currently unknown whether macro-events that stretch out over longer periods of time (weeks, months) strengthen memory even further. Our aim was therefore to investigate to what extent patients with severe amnesia, due to Korsakoff's syndrome (KS), were able to relive the first Covid-19 lockdown in the Netherlands, and whether experienced emotions enhanced reliving of the participants. We included 22 KS patients and 24 age-, education-, and gender-matched healthy controls. Covid-19 related memories were assessed by measures of autobiographical memory specificity, phenomenological reliving, emotional intensity and semantic-and episodic knowledge about the first lockdown in March 2020 - May 2020 in the Netherlands. Although amnesia patients remembered significantly fewer autobiographical details regarding the Covid-19 lockdown than healthy controls, one fourth of the KS patients recalled specific events. Amnesia patients reported levels of emotional intensity equivalent to those in the control group. Stronger autobiographical reliving was associated with higher emotional intensity. Both amnesia patients and healthy controls had higher recall of episodic than semantic lockdown related information. In conclusion, results demonstrate that information for macro-events can still be memorized and relived, most specifically when emotional valence is high, even by highly amnestic patients

Inflated Impact Factors? The True Impact of Evolutionary Papers in Non-Evolutionary Journals

Amongst the numerous problems associated with the use of impact factors as a measure of quality are the systematic differences in impact factors that exist among scientific fields. While in theory this can be circumvented by limiting comparisons to journals within the same field, for a diverse and multidisciplinary field like evolutionary biology, in which the majority of papers are published in journals that publish both evolutionary and non-evolutionary papers, this is impossible. However, a journal's overall impact factor may well be a poor predictor for the impact of its evolutionary papers. The extremely high impact factors of some multidisciplinary journals, for example, are by many believed to be driven mostly by publications from other fields. Despite plenty of speculation, however, we know as yet very little about the true impact of evolutionary papers in journals not specifically classified as evolutionary. Here I present, for a wide range of journals, an analysis of the number of evolutionary papers they publish and their average impact. I show that there are large differences in impact among evolutionary and non-evolutionary papers within journals; while the impact of evolutionary papers published in multidisciplinary journals is substantially overestimated by their overall impact factor, the impact of evolutionary papers in many of the more specialized, non-evolutionary journals is significantly underestimated. This suggests that, for evolutionary biologists, publishing in high-impact multidisciplinary journals should not receive as much weight as it does now, while evolutionary papers in more narrowly defined journals are currently undervalued. Importantly, however, their ranking remains largely unaffected. While journal impact factors may thus indeed provide a meaningful qualitative measure of impact, a fair quantitative comparison requires a more sophisticated journal classification system, together with multiple field-specific impact statistics per journal

Lifelogging as a rehabilitation tool in patients with amnesia: A narrative literature review on the effect of lifelogging on memory loss

Visual lifelogging is the procedure that enables individuals to visually record daily life activities by means of small wearable cameras, which can be worn around the neck or on the clothing. Lifelogging devices automatically take pictures or videos after pre-set time intervals or after dynamic input changes. Although some studies have shown effectivity of reviewing lifelogging images in brain-damaged individuals with forms of amnesia as a rehabilitation tool, systematic endeavours to overview this literature is yet missing. The aim of this narrative literature review was to review all the available case-studies, experimental studies and group studies in brain-damaged individuals applying lifelogging devices in a clinical context. The included studies showed efficacy for both subjective and objective measures of memory. In mild to severe amnesia, reviewing images recorded by the lifelogging device was beneficial to subjective and objective measures of memory. Lifelogging is demonstrated to have a great potential in helping people who are suffering from memory loss. It can offer an excellent alternative to currently more frequently used memory rehabilitation techniques and can be applied more in clinical settings

A comment on 'The adaptive value of gluttony: predators mediate the life history trade?offs of satiation threshold' by Pruitt & Krauel (2010)

Inspection of the data that accompany Pruitt and Krauel's study of individual variation in satiation threshold and a comparison of these data with the Materials and Methods and Results sections of the paper have revealed a number of issues that cast doubts on the reliability of the data and any results based on these data. In particular, we show that, following our analyses, the data are unlikely to have been obtained using the study design outlined in the publication and that statistical analyses of these data provide results that differ in important ways from those reported. These findings illustrate the importance of making raw data and analysis code available for the rigour and reproducibility of the scientific literature