Ruderal vascular plants on a waste ground in the island of Dånö, Åland Islands, SW Finland

The Åland Islands, SW Finland, are known for luxuriant vegetation with numerous calciphilic vascular plants, but ruderal plants are rather few compared to the adjoining regions of Finland and Sweden. However, new ruderal plants are occasionally found in Åland. We came across a waste ground in the island of Dånö, municipality of Geta, on which several non-familiar vascular plants grew. The waste ground has been used for dumping flower shop garbage and thus some unfamiliar plants have been dumped there. The following species have not been found previously as ruderal plants in the Åland Islands: Allium sativum, Cucumis melo, Dipsacus fullonum, Hedera helix, Inula helenium and Lactuca serriola. Several other more or less rare ruderals were also found on the waste ground: Bromus secalinus, Conyza canadensis, Holcus lanatus, Lepidium densiflorum subsp. neglectum and Senecio jacobaea. Three garden shrubs, Rosa spinosissima, Symphoricarpos albus var. laevigatus and Salix viminalis grew together with more common garden ruderals, such as Digitalis purpurea, Malva moschata and Saponaria officinalis. A total of 137 vascular plant taxa, most of them common in the Åland Islands, were observed growing on the waste ground

Epilobium hirsutum in the Åland Islands, SW Finland

Epilobium hirsutum L. is an introduced species in Finland with the first reliable findings made in the late 19th century. The number of new findings accumulated slowly during the period 1900–1929. From the 1930’s onwards, the number of findings grew rapidly and E. hirsutum has been found in 153 grid squares of 10 km × 10 km size in the southern part of Finland until 2012. The first information of the species in the Åland Islands is a note in the literature from 1821 and the first collected specimen in the Åland Islands is from the municipality of Sund in 1873. However, both these are doubtful as they were not noticed in Finnish vascular plant floras later on. The first reliable finding is from 1973 and thereafter the localities with E. hirsutum increased with four more during the 1970’s, eight new during the 1980’s, fourteen new during the 1990’s and 35 new localities during the period 2000–2013. It thrives chiefly in man-made habitats in the cultural landscape and the most common habitats in the Åland Islands seem to be roadsides and road ditches. Although E. hirsutum has expanded during the last fifty years in Åland, it is not common yet and it has not been found in most of the eastern archipelago area. As an immigrant in our flora, E. hirsutum is now well established in the Åland Islands and it will probably be more common in the future. However, it seems that it is not a harmful invasive weed in Åland

A new record of Arctic Bramble, Rubus arcticus, in the Åland Islands, SW Finland

The Arctic Bramble, Rubus arcticus L., was found in Gottby in the municipality of Jomala, the Åland Islands, SWFinland, in June 2009. It was both flowering and fruiting, although rather sparingly. This boreal species has not been observed in the Åland Islands since 1950. The total distribution of the species is outlined.An account is given of the previous six observations of R. arcticus in Åland. The dispersal of the seeds (endocarps with seeds) of R. arcticus is treated

Lack of an Association or an Inverse Association Between Low-Density-Lipoprotein Cholesterol and Mortality in the Elderly: A Systematic Review

OBJECTIVE: It is well known that total cholesterol becomes less of a risk factor or not at all for all-cause and cardiovascular (CV) mortality with increasing age, but as little is known as to whether low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C), one component of total cholesterol, is associated with mortality in the elderly, we decided to investigate this issue. SETTING, PARTICIPANTS AND OUTCOME MEASURES: We sought PubMed for cohort studies, where LDL-C had been investigated as a risk factor for all-cause and/or CV mortality in individuals ≥60 years from the general population. RESULTS: We identified 19 cohort studies including 30 cohorts with a total of 68 094 elderly people, where all-cause mortality was recorded in 28 cohorts and CV mortality in 9 cohorts. Inverse association between all-cause mortality and LDL-C was seen in 16 cohorts (in 14 with statistical significance) representing 92% of the number of participants, where this association was recorded. In the rest, no association was found. In two cohorts, CV mortality was highest in the lowest LDL-C quartile and with statistical significance; in seven cohorts, no association was found. CONCLUSIONS: High LDL-C is inversely associated with mortality in most people over 60 years. This finding is inconsistent with the cholesterol hypothesis (ie, that cholesterol, particularly LDL-C, is inherently atherogenic). Since elderly people with high LDL-C live as long or longer than those with low LDL-C, our analysis provides reason to question the validity of the cholesterol hypothesis. Moreover, our study provides the rationale for a re-evaluation of guidelines recommending pharmacological reduction of LDL-C in the elderly as a component of cardiovascular disease prevention strategies

Changing musical emotion: A computational rule system for modifying score and performance

CMERS system architecture has been implemented in the programming language scheme, and it uses the improvised music programming environment with the objective to provide researchers with a tool for testing the relationships between musical features and emotion. A music work represented in CMERS uses the music object hierarchy that is based on GTTM's grouping structure and is automatically generated from the phrase boundary markup and MIDI file. The Mode rule type of CMERS converts a note into those of the parallel mode and no change in pitch height occurs when converting to the parallel mode. It is reported that the odds of correctness with CMERS are approximately five times greater than that of DM. The repeated-measures analysis of variance for valence shows a significant difference between systems with F (1, 17) = 45.49, p < .0005 and the interaction between system and quadrant is significant with F (3, 51) = 4.23, p = .01, which indicates that CMERS is extensively more effective at correctly influencing valence than DM. c 2010 Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Human Embryonic Stem Cell Derived Hepatocyte-Like Cells as a Tool for In Vitro Hazard Assessment of Chemical Carcinogenicity

Hepatocyte-like cells derived from the differentiation of human embryonic stem cells (hES-Hep) have potential to provide a human relevant in vitro test system in which to evaluate the carcinogenic hazard of chemicals. In this study, we have investigated this potential using a panel of 15 chemicals classified as noncarcinogens, genotoxic carcinogens, and nongenotoxic carcinogens and measured whole-genome transcriptome responses with gene expression microarrays. We applied an ANOVA model that identified 592 genes highly discriminative for the panel of chemicals. Supervised classification with these genes achieved a cross-validation accuracy of > 95%. Moreover, the expression of the response genes in hES-Hep was strongly correlated with that in human primary hepatocytes cultured in vitro. In order to infer mechanistic information on the consequences of chemical exposure in hES-Hep, we developed a computational method that measures the responses of biochemical pathways to the panel of treatments and showed that these responses were discriminative for the three toxicity classes and linked to carcinogenesis through p53, mitogen-activated protein kinases, and apoptosis pathway modules. It could further be shown that the discrimination of toxicity classes was improved when analyzing the microarray data at the pathway level. In summary, our results demonstrate, for the first time, the potential of human embryonic stem cell--derived hepatic cells as an in vitro model for hazard assessment of chemical carcinogenesis, although it should be noted that more compounds are needed to test the robustness of the assay

Dietary carbohydrate restriction as the first approach in diabetes management:Critical review and evidence base

AbstractThe inability of current recommendations to control the epidemic of diabetes, the specific failure of the prevailing low-fat diets to improve obesity, cardiovascular risk, or general health and the persistent reports of some serious side effects of commonly prescribed diabetic medications, in combination with the continued success of low-carbohydrate diets in the treatment of diabetes and metabolic syndrome without significant side effects, point to the need for a reappraisal of dietary guidelines. The benefits of carbohydrate restriction in diabetes are immediate and well documented. Concerns about the efficacy and safety are long term and conjectural rather than data driven. Dietary carbohydrate restriction reliably reduces high blood glucose, does not require weight loss (although is still best for weight loss), and leads to the reduction or elimination of medication. It has never shown side effects comparable with those seen in many drugs. Here we present 12 points of evidence supporting the use of low-carbohydrate diets as the first approach to treating type 2 diabetes and as the most effective adjunct to pharmacology in type 1. They represent the best-documented, least controversial results. The insistence on long-term randomized controlled trials as the only kind of data that will be accepted is without precedent in science. The seriousness of diabetes requires that we evaluate all of the evidence that is available. The 12 points are sufficiently compelling that we feel that the burden of proof rests with those who are opposed

A Method for Efficient Calculation of Diffusion and Reactions of Lipophilic Compounds in Complex Cell Geometry

A general description of effects of toxic compounds in mammalian cells is facing several problems. Firstly, most toxic compounds are hydrophobic and partition phenomena strongly influence their behaviour. Secondly, cells display considerable heterogeneity regarding the presence, activity and distribution of enzymes participating in the metabolism of foreign compounds i.e. bioactivation/biotransformation. Thirdly, cellular architecture varies greatly. Taken together, complexity at several levels has to be addressed to arrive at efficient in silico modelling based on physicochemical properties, metabolic preferences and cell characteristics. In order to understand the cellular behaviour of toxic foreign compounds we have developed a mathematical model that addresses these issues. In order to make the system numerically treatable, methods motivated by homogenization techniques have been applied. These tools reduce the complexity of mathematical models of cell dynamics considerably thus allowing to solve efficiently the partial differential equations in the model numerically on a personal computer. Compared to a compartment model with well-stirred compartments, our model affords a more realistic representation. Numerical results concerning metabolism and chemical solvolysis of a polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon carcinogen show good agreement with results from measurements in V79 cell culture. The model can easily be extended and refined to include more reactants, and/or more complex reaction chains, enzyme distribution etc, and is therefore suitable for modelling cellular metabolism involving membrane partitioning also at higher levels of complexity

Spermidine Promotes Human Hair Growth and Is a Novel Modulator of Human Epithelial Stem Cell Functions

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Vilhelm Lundstedt’s ‘Legal Machinery’ and the Demise of Juristic Practice

This article aims to contribute to the academic debate on the general crisis faced by law schools and the legal professions by discussing why juristic practice is a matter of experience rather than knowledge. Through a critical contextualisation of Vilhelm Lundstedt’s thought under processes of globalisation and transnationalism, it is argued that the demise of the jurist’s function is related to law’s scientification as brought about by the metaphysical construction of reality. The suggested roadmap will in turn reveal that the current voiding of juristic practice and its teaching is part of the crisis regarding what makes us human