Overnight levels of luteinizing hormone, follicle-stimulating hormone and growth hormone before and during gonadotropin-releasing hormone analogue treatment in short boys born small for gestational age

Aims: To evaluate if 3 months of gonadotropin-releasing hormone analogue (GnRHa) treatment results in sufficient suppression of pubertal luteinizing hormone (LH) and follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) profile patterns in short pubertal small for gestational age (SGA) boys. To compare growth hormone (GH) profiles and fasting insulin-like growth factor (IGF)-I and IGF-binding protein-3 (IGFBP-3) levels after 3 months of GnRHa treatment with those at baseline. Methods: After measurement of baseline overnight profiles and IGF-I and IGFBP-3 levels, 14 short pubertal SGA boys received leuprorelide acetate depots of 3.75 mg subcutaneously, every 4 weeks. Results: At baseline, mean GH levels were comparable with those of controls, whereas IGF-I and IGFBP-3 standard deviation scores (SDS) were significantly lower than zero SDS. After 3 months of GnRHa treatment, all boys showed clinical arrest of puberty. The area under the curve above zero, mean and maximum LH and FSH had significantly decreased to prepubertal levels. Peak LH during the GnRH agonist test, however, indicated insufficient pubertal suppression in 43% of boys. Overnight GH profile characteristics and IGF-I and IGFBP-3 levels did not significantly change. Conclusions: Puberty was sufficiently suppressed by GnRHa treatment, as shown by the prepubertal LH and FSH profiles. After 3 months of GnRHa treatment, overnight GH profile characteristics had not significantly changed, reflecting that GH levels are comparable for prepubertal and early pubertal boys

Signatures of chaotic tunnelling

Recent experiments with cold atoms provide a significant step toward a better understanding of tunnelling when irregular dynamics is present at the classical level. In this paper, we lay out numerical studies which shed light on the previous experiments, help to clarify the underlying physics and have the ambition to be guidelines for future experiments.Comment: 11 pages, 9 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev. E. Figures of better quality can be found at http://www.phys.univ-tours.fr/~mouchet

Chaos assisted tunnelling with cold atoms

In the context of quantum chaos, both theory and numerical analysis predict large fluctuations of the tunnelling transition probabilities when irregular dynamics is present at the classical level. We consider here the non-dissipative quantum evolution of cold atoms trapped in a time-dependent modulated periodic potential generated by two laser beams. We give some precise guidelines for the observation of chaos assisted tunnelling between invariant phase space structures paired by time-reversal symmetry.Comment: submitted to Phys. Rev. E ; 16 pages, 13 figures; figures of better quality can be found at http://www.phys.univ-tours.fr/~mouchet

A remarkable case of HbH disease illustrates the relative contributions of the alpha-globin enhancers to gene expression

Genetics of disease, diagnosis and treatmen

Development of immunity in rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss, Walbaum) to Aeromonas hydrophila after the dietary application of garlic

The development and duration of immune protection against Aeromonas hydrophila infections with garlic as immunostimulant in rainbow trout Oncorhynchus mykiss was studied. Rainbow trout fingerlings of 14 g average weight were fed with 0 g (= Control), 0.5 g and 1.0 g of garlic 100 g-1 of feed for 14 days. Physiological factors, biochemical, immunological, hematological parameters and electrolyte indices were evaluated after a further 14, 21 and 28 days before challenge with Aeromonas hydrophila. Fourteen days after the cessation of feeding with garlic, mortality rates of 12 % (relative percent survival [RPS] = 86 %) and 16 % (RPS = 80 %) were recorded in groups which received 0.5 g and 1.0 g of garlic 100 g-1 of feed, respectively, compared to 84 % mortalities in the controls. The corresponding RPS 21 days after ending the feeding regime was 75 % and 68, respectively. One week later, the RPS had dropped to 55% and 46% in the groups fed with 0.5 g and 1.0 g garlic 100 g-1 of feed, respectively

Digital Media Use: Differences and Inequalities in Relation to Class and Age

This paper takes a national perspective on issues of digital media use. The paper draws upon the OfCom Media Literacy 2013 survey to explore how digital media use varies in regard to two major social variables – class and age. Both class and age feature predominantly in UK policy on digital access and use. Class and age are invoked as either things that create barriers to access or as issues to be addressed and managed through using digital media. Despite the large body of work on the 'digital divide' there is a more limited literature that explicitly addresses class. The paper seeks to act as an empirical reference point for the development of further debate around the links between class and digital media use. The paper presents a factor analysis of the OfCom data that identifies five main areas of digital media use. These five factors are then subjected to a multiple analysis of variance to explore the effects across, between and within age and class categories. A cluster analysis based on the factors identifies seven main 'User Types' that are again compared across class and age. The paper finds that class and age act relatively independently as predicators of digital media use and neither compound nor mitigate each other's effects. Importantly the paper notes that the greatest levels and breadth of Internet use can be found in NRS social class groups AB and to an extent C1. In contrast the greatest levels of non-use and limited use can be found in NRS social class groups DE. In conclusion the paper notes that age still acts as the major explanatory variable for overall use and some specific types of use, but that class also independently acts to explain patterns of digital media use. As a result any simplistic policy expectations that digital access and use issues will become less relevant as age demographics change have to be questioned

Introducing an adolescent cognitive maturity index

Children show substantial variation in the rate of physical, cognitive, and social maturation as they traverse adolescence and enter adulthood. Differences in developmental paths are thought to underlie individual differences in later life outcomes, however, there remains a lack of consensus on the normative trajectory of cognitive maturation in adolescence. To address this problem, we derive a Cognitive Maturity Index (CMI), to estimate the difference between chronological and cognitive age predicted with latent factor estimates of inhibitory control, risky decision-making and emotional processing measured with standard neuropsychological instruments. One hundred and forty-one children from the Adolescent Development Study (ADS) were followed longitudinally across three time points from ages 11–14, 13–16, and 14–18. Age prediction with latent factor estimates of cognitive skills approximated age within ±10 months (r = 0.71). Males in advanced puberty displayed lower cognitive maturity relative to peers of the same age; manifesting as weaker inhibitory control, greater risk-taking, desensitization to negative affect, and poor recognition of positive affect

Proximity effect at superconducting Sn-Bi2Se3 interface

We have investigated the conductance spectra of Sn-Bi2Se3 interface junctions down to 250 mK and in different magnetic fields. A number of conductance anomalies were observed below the superconducting transition temperature of Sn, including a small gap different from that of Sn, and a zero-bias conductance peak growing up at lower temperatures. We discussed the possible origins of the smaller gap and the zero-bias conductance peak. These phenomena support that a proximity-effect-induced chiral superconducting phase is formed at the interface between the superconducting Sn and the strong spin-orbit coupling material Bi2Se3.Comment: 7 pages, 8 figure

Demonstration of the temporal matter-wave Talbot effect for trapped matter waves

We demonstrate the temporal Talbot effect for trapped matter waves using ultracold atoms in an optical lattice. We investigate the phase evolution of an array of essentially non-interacting matter waves and observe matter-wave collapse and revival in the form of a Talbot interference pattern. By using long expansion times, we image momentum space with sub-recoil resolution, allowing us to observe fractional Talbot fringes up to 10th order.Comment: 17 pages, 7 figure

Centrality Dependence of the High p_T Charged Hadron Suppression in Au+Au collisions at sqrt(s_NN) = 130 GeV

PHENIX has measured the centrality dependence of charged hadron p_T spectra from central Au+Au collisions at sqrt(s_NN)=130 GeV. The truncated mean p_T decreases with centrality for p_T > 2 GeV/c, indicating an apparent reduction of the contribution from hard scattering to high p_T hadron production. For central collisions the yield at high p_T is shown to be suppressed compared to binary nucleon-nucleon collision scaling of p+p data. This suppression is monotonically increasing with centrality, but most of the change occurs below 30% centrality, i.e. for collisions with less than about 140 participating nucleons. The observed p_T and centrality dependence is consistent with the particle production predicted by models including hard scattering and subsequent energy loss of the scattered partons in the dense matter created in the collisions.Comment: 7 pages text, LaTeX, 6 figures, 2 tables, 307 authors, resubmitted to Phys. Lett. B. Revised to address referee concerns. Plain text data tables for the points plotted in figures for this and previous PHENIX publications are publicly available at http://www.phenix.bnl.gov/phenix/WWW/run/phenix/papers.htm