483 research outputs found
Effect of Rhesus D incompatibility on schizophrenia depends on offspring sex.
Rhesus D incompatibility increases risk for schizophrenia, with some evidence that risk is limited to male offspring. The purpose of this study is to determine whether risk for schizophrenia due to Rhesus D incompatibility differs by offspring sex using a nuclear family-based candidate gene approach and a meta-analysis approach. The genetic study is based on a sample of 277 nuclear families with RHD genotype data on at least one parent and at least one child diagnosed with schizophrenia or related disorder. Meta-analysis inclusion criteria were (1) well-defined sample of schizophrenia patients with majority born before 1970, (2) Rhesus D incompatibility phenotype or genotype data available on mother and offspring, and by offspring sex. Two of ten studies, plus the current genetic study sample, fulfilled these criteria, for a total of 358 affected males and 226 affected females. The genetic study found that schizophrenia risk for incompatible males was significantly greater than for compatible offspring (p=0.03), while risk for incompatible and compatible females was not significantly different (p=.32). Relative risks for incompatible males and females were not significantly different from each other. Meta-analysis using a larger number of affected males and females supports their difference. Taken together, these results provide further support that risk of schizophrenia due to Rhesus D incompatibility is limited to incompatible males, although a weak female incompatibility effect cannot be excluded. Sex differences during fetal neurodevelopment should be investigated to fully elucidate the etiology of schizophrenia
Conceptualising the geographic world: the dimensions of negotiation in crowdsourced cartography
In crowdsourced cartographic projects, mappers coordinate their efforts
through online tools to produce digital geospatial artefacts, such as maps and
gazetteers, which were once the exclusive territory of professional surveyors and
cartographers. In order to produce meaningful and coherent data, contributors
need to negotiate a shared conceptualisation that defines the domain concepts,
such as road, building, train station, forest, and lake, enabling the communi-
cation of geographic knowledge. Considering the OpenStreetMap Wiki website
as a case study, this article investigates the nature of this negotiation, driven
by a small group of mappers in a context of high contribution inequality. De-
spite the apparent consensus on the conceptualisation, the negotiation keeps
unfolding in a tension between alternative representations, which are often in-
commensurable, i.e., hard to integrate and reconcile. In this study, we identify
six complementary dimensions of incommensurability that recur in the nego-
tiation: (i) ontology, (ii) cartography, (iii) culture and language, (iv) lexical
definitions, (v) granularity, and (vi) semantic overload and duplication
The kinematics of ionized gas in lyman-break analogs at z ~ 0.2
We present results for 19 “Lyman-break analogs” observed with Keck/OSIRIS with an adaptive-optics-assisted
spatial resolution of less than 200 pc. We detect satellites/companions, diffuse emission, and velocity shear, all
with high signal-to-noise ratios. These galaxies present remarkably high velocity dispersion along the line of sight
(~70 km s^(−1)), much higher than standard star-forming spirals in the low-redshift universe. We artificially redshift
our data to z ~ 2.2 to allow for a direct comparison with observations of high-z Lyman-break galaxies and find
striking similarities between both samples. This suggests that either similar physical processes are responsible
for their observed properties, or, alternatively, that it is very difficult to distinguish between different mechanisms
operating in the low- versus high-redshift starburst galaxies based on the available data. The comparison between
morphologies in the UV/optical continuum and our kinemetry analysis often shows that neither is by itself sufficient
to confirm or completely rule out the contribution from recent merger events. We find a correlation between the
kinematic properties and stellar mass, in that more massive galaxies show stronger evidence for a disk-like structure.
This suggests a co-evolutionary process between the stellar mass buildup and the formation of morphological and
dynamical substructure within the galaxy
Nitrogen Production in Starburst Galaxies Detected by GALEX
We investigate the production of nitrogen in star-forming galaxies with ultraviolet (UV) radiation detected by the Galaxy Evolution Explorer Satellite (GALEX). We use a sample of 8745 GALEX emission-line galaxies matched to the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) spectroscopic sample. We derive both gas-phase oxygen and nitrogen abundances for the sample and apply stellar population synthesis models to derive stellar masses and star formation histories of the galaxies. We compare oxygen abundances derived using three different diagnostics. We derive the specific star formation rates of the galaxies by modeling the seven-band GALEX+SDSS photometry. We find that galaxies that have log (SFR/M_*) ≳ − 10.0 typically have values of log (N/O) ~ 0.05 dex less than galaxies with log (SFR/M_*) ≾ − 10.0 and similar oxygen abundances
A rapid non-radioactive technique for measurement of repair synthesis in primary human fibroblasts by incorporation of ethynyl deoxyuridine (EdU)
Xeroderma pigmentosum (XP) is an autosomal recessive genetic disorder. Afflicted patients show extreme sun-sensitivity and skin cancer predisposition. XP is in most cases associated with deficient nucleotide excision repair (NER), which is the process responsible for removing photolesions from DNA. Measuring NER activity by nucleotide incorporation into repair patches, termed ‘unscheduled DNA synthesis (UDS)’, is one of the most commonly used assays for XP-diagnosis and NER research. We have established a rapid and accurate procedure for measuring UDS by replacement of thymidine with 5-ethynyl-2'-deoxyuridine (EdU). EdU incorporated into repair patches can be directly conjugated to fluorescent azide derivatives, thereby obviating the need for either radiolabeled thymidine or denaturation and antibody detection of incorporated bromodeoxyuridine (BrdU). We demonstrate that the EdU incorporation assay is compatible with conventional techniques such as immunofluorescent staining and labeling of cells with micro-latex beads. Importantly, we can complete the entire UDS assay within half a day from preparation of the assay coverslips; this technique may prove useful as a method for XP diagnosis
UV Star Formation Rates in the Local Universe
We measure star formation rates of ~50,000 optically-selected galaxies in the
local universe (z~0.1), spanning a range from gas-rich dwarfs to massive
ellipticals. We obtain dust-corrected SFRs by fitting the GALEX (UV) and SDSS
(optical) photometry to a library of population synthesis models that include
dust attenuation. For star-forming galaxies, our UV-based SFRs compare
remarkably well with those derived from SDSS H alpha. Deviations from perfect
agreement between these two methods are due to differences in the dust
attenuation estimates. In contrast to H alpha, UV provides reliable SFRs for
galaxies with weak or no H alpha emission, and where H alpha is contaminated
with an emission from an AGN. We use full-SED SFRs to calibrate a simple
prescription that uses GALEX UV magnitudes to produce good SFRs for normal
star-forming galaxies. The specific SFR is considered as a function of stellar
mass for (1) star-forming galaxies with no AGN, (2) those hosting an AGN, and
for (3) galaxies without H alpha emission. We find that the three have distinct
star formation histories, with AGN lying intermediate between the star-forming
and the quiescent galaxies. Normal star forming galaxies (without an AGN) lie
on a relatively narrow linear sequence. Remarkably, galaxies hosting a strong
AGN appear to represent the massive continuation of this sequence. Weak AGN,
while also massive, have lower SFR, sometimes extending to the realm of
quiescent galaxies. We propose an evolutionary sequence for massive galaxies
that smoothly connects normal star-forming galaxies to quiescent (red sequence)
galaxies via strong and weak AGN. We confirm that some galaxies with no H alpha
emission show signs of SF in the UV. We derive a UV-based cosmic SFR density at
z=0.1 with smaller total error than previous measurements (abridged).Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJ (Special GALEX Supplement issue - Dec
2007). v2: Typo in Eq. 2 correcte
Nanoparticles for Local Drug Delivery to the Oral Mucosa: Proof of Principle Studies
Purpose To determine if solid lipid nanoparticles represent a viable strategy for local delivery of poorly water soluble and unstable chemopreventive compounds to human oral tissues. Methods Nanoparticle uptake and compound retention evaluations employed monolayer-cultured human oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) cell lines and normal human oral mucosal explants. Feasibility of nanoparticle delivery was also evaluated with respect to the presence of phase-III efflux transporters in normal oral mucosal tissue and OSCC tissues. Results Functional uptake assays confirmed significantly greater internalization of nanoparticle-delivered fluorescent probe relative to free-fluorescent probe delivery, while concurrently demonstrating nanoparticle uptake rate differences among the OSCC cell lines and the phagocytic control human monocyte cell line. Mucosal explants exhibited nanoparticle penetration and internalization in the spinous and basal epithelial layer
A large sample of low surface brightness disc galaxies from the SDSS- II. Metallicities in surface brightness bins
We study the spectroscopic properties of a large sample of Low Surface
Brightness galaxies (LSBGs) (with B-band central surface brightness mu0(B)>22
mag arcsec^(-2)) selected from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 4
(SDSS-DR4) main galaxy sample. A large sample of disk-dominated High Surface
Brightness galaxies (HSBGs, with mu0(B)<22 mag arcsec^(-2)) are also selected
for comparison simultaneously. To study them in more details, these sample
galaxies are further divided into four subgroups according to mu0(B) (in units
of mag arcsec^(-2)): vLSBGs (24.5-22.75),iLSBGs (22.75-22.0), iHSBGs
(22.0-21.25), and vHSBGs (<21.25). The diagnostic diagram from spectral
emission-line ratios shows that the AGN fractions of all the four subgroups are
small (<9%). The 21,032 star-forming galaxies with good quality spectroscopic
observations are further selected for studying their dust extinction,
strong-line ratios, metallicities and stellar mass-metallicities relations. The
vLSBGs have lower extinction values and have less metal-rich and massive
galaxies than the other subgroups. The oxygen abundances of our LSBGs are not
as low as those of the HII regions in LSBGs studied in literature, which could
be because our samples are more luminous, and because of the different
metallicity calibrations used. We find a correlation between 12+log(O/H) and
mu0(B) for vLSBGs, iLSBGs and iHSBGs but show that this could be a result of
correlation between mu0(B) and stellar mass and the well-known mass-metallicity
relation. This large sample shows that LSBGs span a wide range in metallicity
and stellar mass, and they lie nearly on the stellar mass vs. metallicity and
N/O vs. O/H relations of normal galaxies. This suggests that LSBGs and HSBGs
have not had dramatically different star formation and chemical enrichment
histories.Comment: 14 pages, 11 figures, accepted for publication in MNRA
The UV-Optical Color Dependence of Galaxy Clustering in the Local Universe
We measure the UV-optical color dependence of galaxy clustering in the local
universe. Using the clean separation of the red and blue sequences made
possible by the NUV - r color-magnitude diagram, we segregate the galaxies into
red, blue and intermediate "green" classes. We explore the clustering as a
function of this segregation by removing the dependence on luminosity and by
excluding edge-on galaxies as a means of a non-model dependent veto of highly
extincted galaxies. We find that \xi (r_p, \pi) for both red and green galaxies
shows strong redshift space distortion on small scales -- the "finger-of-God"
effect, with green galaxies having a lower amplitude than is seen for the red
sequence, and the blue sequence showing almost no distortion. On large scales,
\xi (r_p, \pi) for all three samples show the effect of large-scale streaming
from coherent infall. On scales 1 Mpc/h < r_p < 10 Mpc/h, the projected
auto-correlation function w_p(r_p) for red and green galaxies fits a power-law
with slope \gamma ~ 1.93 and amplitude r_0 ~ 7.5 and 5.3, compared with \gamma
~ 1.75 and r_0 ~ 3.9 Mpc/h for blue sequence galaxies. Compared to the
clustering of a fiducial L* galaxy, the red, green, and blue have a relative
bias of 1.5, 1.1, and 0.9 respectively. The w_p(r_p) for blue galaxies display
an increase in convexity at ~ 1 Mpc/h, with an excess of large scale
clustering. Our results suggest that the majority of blue galaxies are likely
central galaxies in less massive halos, while red and green galaxies have
larger satellite fractions, and preferentially reside in virialized structures.
If blue sequence galaxies migrate to the red sequence via processes like
mergers or quenching that take them through the green valley, such a
transformation may be accompanied by a change in environment in addition to any
change in luminosity and color.Comment: accepted by MNRA
An Integrated TCGA Pan-Cancer Clinical Data Resource to Drive High-Quality Survival Outcome Analytics
For a decade, The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) program collected clinicopathologic annotation data along with multi-platform molecular profiles of more than 11,000 human tumors across 33 different cancer types. TCGA clinical data contain key features representing the democratized nature of the data collection process. To ensure proper use of this large clinical dataset associated with genomic features, we developed a standardized dataset named the TCGA Pan-Cancer Clinical Data Resource (TCGA-CDR), which includes four major clinical outcome endpoints. In addition to detailing major challenges and statistical limitations encountered during the effort of integrating the acquired clinical data, we present a summary that includes endpoint usage recommendations for each cancer type. These TCGA-CDR findings appear to be consistent with cancer genomics studies independent of the TCGA effort and provide opportunities for investigating cancer biology using clinical correlates at an unprecedented scale. Analysis of clinicopathologic annotations for over 11,000 cancer patients in the TCGA program leads to the generation of TCGA Clinical Data Resource, which provides recommendations of clinical outcome endpoint usage for 33 cancer types
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