Cabora Bassa Fish Populations Before and During the First Filling Phase

Pre-impoundment surveys were made in 1973-4. The regulatory effect of continual water discharge from Kariba resulted in extensive dry-season aquatic, rooted, vegetal growth and a comparatively high small-fish population. Of a maximum of 38 species found one, Sarotherodon andersoni, was a new Middle Zambezi record. Lotic and shallow-water species were abundant; gill-nets showed moderately high catches per unit effort. In early November 1974 two-month-old Hydrocymis vittatus juveniles were present indicating an abnormal spawning time. Post-impoundment data from closure on 5 December 1974, to mid-August 1975 are given. The dam filled extremely rapidly to within 10 m of retention level but was thereafter drawn down by heavy floodgate discharge, resulting in continuous slow water-flow and the absence of any stratification or explosive plankton reproduction. Small lotic species, previously abundant, immediately disappeared or became scarce. There was a very high survival of new-spawned young of many migratory species. Growth rates, and abnormal feeding habits caused by post-impoundment stresses, of some of these are described. There was relatively poor reproduction of cichlid species. Soon after closure the first year-class predominated over all other age-groups; these juveniles, and small adult species, concentrated under mats of Elchhomia crassipes. One further species new to the area, Haplochromis carlottae, is recorded

Mathematically Gifted Adolescents Have Deficiencies in Social Valuation and Mentalization

Many mathematically gifted adolescents are characterized as being indolent, underachieving and unsuccessful despite their high cognitive ability. This is often due to difficulties with social and emotional development. However, research on social and emotional interactions in gifted adolescents has been limited. The purpose of this study was to observe differences in complex social strategic behaviors between gifted and average adolescents of the same age using the repeated Ultimatum Game. Twenty-two gifted adolescents and 24 average adolescents participated in the Ultimatum Game. Two adolescents participate in the game, one as a proposer and the other as a responder. Because of its simplicity, the Ultimatum Game is an apt tool for investigating complex human emotional and cognitive decision-making in an empirical setting. We observed strategic but socially impaired offers from gifted proposers and lower acceptance rates from gifted responders, resulting in lower total earnings in the Ultimatum Game. Thus, our results indicate that mathematically gifted adolescents have deficiencies in social valuation and mentalization

Quantitative model for inferring dynamic regulation of the tumour suppressor gene p53

Background: The availability of various "omics" datasets creates a prospect of performing the study of genome-wide genetic regulatory networks. However, one of the major challenges of using mathematical models to infer genetic regulation from microarray datasets is the lack of information for protein concentrations and activities. Most of the previous researches were based on an assumption that the mRNA levels of a gene are consistent with its protein activities, though it is not always the case. Therefore, a more sophisticated modelling framework together with the corresponding inference methods is needed to accurately estimate genetic regulation from "omics" datasets. Results: This work developed a novel approach, which is based on a nonlinear mathematical model, to infer genetic regulation from microarray gene expression data. By using the p53 network as a test system, we used the nonlinear model to estimate the activities of transcription factor (TF) p53 from the expression levels of its target genes, and to identify the activation/inhibition status of p53 to its target genes. The predicted top 317 putative p53 target genes were supported by DNA sequence analysis. A comparison between our prediction and the other published predictions of p53 targets suggests that most of putative p53 targets may share a common depleted or enriched sequence signal on their upstream non-coding region. Conclusions: The proposed quantitative model can not only be used to infer the regulatory relationship between TF and its down-stream genes, but also be applied to estimate the protein activities of TF from the expression levels of its target genes

Characteristics of maxillofacial injuries resulting from road traffic accidents – a 5 year review of the case records from Department of Maxillofacial Surgery in Katowice, Poland

BACKGROUND: In spite of employing numerous devices improving the safety in motor vehicles, traffic accidents are still among the main reasons of maxillofacial injuries. The maxillofacial injuries remain the serious clinical problem because of the specificity of this anatomical region. The knowledge of etiologic factors and mechanisms of injuries can be helpful in a satisfactory trauma prevention. The aim of this study was to find out the incidence and the pattern of maxillofacial injuries resulting from traffic accidents in the patients treated in the Department of Maxillofacial Surgery (Silesian Medical Academy in Katowice, Poland) from January 2001 to December 2005. METHODS: The material consisted of 1024 case records of patients with maxillofacial injuries treated in the Maxillofacial Surgery Department of Silesian Medical Academy. The detailed analysis was carried out on the case records of 198 patients in the age of 3 to 68 with maxillofacial injuries resulting from traffic accidents. On the basis of data from a history, examination on admission, consultations and radiological examinations, patients' age and gender, we obtained the information on a pattern of injury and detailed description of an accident (the date and the time of an accident, the role of the patient in an accident). RESULTS: The traffic accidents were the cause of 19,93% maxillofacial injuries in the analyzed period of time. Most of the patients had injuries to the soft tissues of the face (22,21%), followed by tooth and alveolar process injuries (20,71%) and mandibular fractures (18,69%). All the types of injuries were more common in men than in women. The majority of the patients were car drivers followed by car passengers, pedestrians, cyclists and motor cyclists. The peak age of the patients was between 18 to 25 years. The prevalent number of accidents resulting in injuries to this region took place in spring, especially between noon and 4 PM. CONCLUSION: Our results exhibit that road traffic accidents remain among the main reasons of maxillofacial injuries following the traumas resulting from assaults and interpersonal violence. This succession of etiologic factors is in accordance with the data from the most developed countries. The relatively high incidence of injuries resulting from traffic accidents indicates the necessity to reinforce legislation aimed to prevent road traffic crashes and thus to reduce maxillofacial injuries among children and adults

Identification of plasma lipid biomarkers for prostate cancer by lipidomics and bioinformatics

Background: Lipids have critical functions in cellular energy storage, structure and signaling. Many individual lipid molecules have been associated with the evolution of prostate cancer; however, none of them has been approved to be used as a biomarker. The aim of this study is to identify lipid molecules from hundreds plasma apparent lipid species as biomarkers for diagnosis of prostate cancer. Methodology/Principal Findings: Using lipidomics, lipid profiling of 390 individual apparent lipid species was performed on 141 plasma samples from 105 patients with prostate cancer and 36 male controls. High throughput data generated from lipidomics were analyzed using bioinformatic and statistical methods. From 390 apparent lipid species, 35 species were demonstrated to have potential in differentiation of prostate cancer. Within the 35 species, 12 were identified as individual plasma lipid biomarkers for diagnosis of prostate cancer with a sensitivity above 80%, specificity above 50% and accuracy above 80%. Using top 15 of 35 potential biomarkers together increased predictive power dramatically in diagnosis of prostate cancer with a sensitivity of 93.6%, specificity of 90.1% and accuracy of 97.3%. Principal component analysis (PCA) and hierarchical clustering analysis (HCA) demonstrated that patient and control populations were visually separated by identified lipid biomarkers. RandomForest and 10-fold cross validation analyses demonstrated that the identified lipid biomarkers were able to predict unknown populations accurately, and this was not influenced by patient's age and race. Three out of 13 lipid classes, phosphatidylethanolamine (PE), ether-linked phosphatidylethanolamine (ePE) and ether-linked phosphatidylcholine (ePC) could be considered as biomarkers in diagnosis of prostate cancer. Conclusions/Significance: Using lipidomics and bioinformatic and statistical methods, we have identified a few out of hundreds plasma apparent lipid molecular species as biomarkers for diagnosis of prostate cancer with a high sensitivity, specificity and accuracy

The compression type of coronary artery motion in patients with ST-segment elevation acute myocardial infarction and normal controls: a case-control study

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Prediction of the location of culprit lesions responsible for ST-segment elevation myocardial infarctions may allow for prevention of these events. A retrospective analysis of coronary artery motion (CAM) was performed on coronary angiograms of 20 patients who subsequently had ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction treated by primary or rescue angioplasty and an equal number of age and sex matched controls with normal angiograms.</p> <p>Findings</p> <p>There was no statistically significant difference between the frequency of CAM types of the ST-segment elevation acute myocardial infarction and control patients (p = 0.97). The compression type of CAM is more frequent in the proximal and mid segments of all three coronary arteries. No statistically significant difference was found when the frequency of the compression type of CAM was compared between the ST-segment elevation acute myocardial infarction and control patients for the individual coronary artery segments (p = 0.59).</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The proportion of the compression type of coronary artery motion for individual artery segments is not different between patients who have subsequent ST-segment elevation myocardial infarctions and normal controls.</p

Adolescents with Obstructive Sleep Apnea Adhere Poorly to Positive Airway Pressure (PAP), but PAP Users Show Improved Attention and School Performance

Background: Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA) is associated with medical and neurobehavioral morbidity across the lifespan. Positive airway pressure (PAP) treatment has demonstrated efficacy in treating OSA and has been shown to improve daytime functioning in adults, but treatment adherence can be problematic. There are nearly no published studies examining functional outcomes such as academic functioning in adolescents treated with PAP. This study was conducted as an initial step towards determining whether PAP treatment improves daytime functioning among adolescents with OSA. Methods: Self-reported academic grades, self- and parent-reported academic quality of life, and objectively-measured attention were assessed before and after PAP was clinically initiated in a sample of 13 obese adolescents with OSA, as well as 15 untreated obese Controls without OSA. Based on adherence data, the treated group was divided into PAP Users (n = 6) and Non-Adherent participants (n = 7). Results: Though demographically similar, the three groups significantly differed in how their academic performance and attention scores changed from baseline to follow-up. Non-Adherent participants showed worsening functioning over time, while PAP Users showed stable or improved functioning, similar to controls. Conclusion: Although many adolescents prescribed PAP for OSA are non-adherent to the treatment, those who adhere t