Operative strategy for fistula-in-ano without division of the anal sphincter

We would like to thank Mr ER MacDonald for his contribution in data collection during the early years of the study. The material in this paper was presented as a poster at the annual meeting of the American Society of Colon and Rectal Surgeons held in Vancouver, Canada, May 2011.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Rapid and Accurate Multiple Testing Correction and Power Estimation for Millions of Correlated Markers

With the development of high-throughput sequencing and genotyping technologies, the number of markers collected in genetic association studies is growing rapidly, increasing the importance of methods for correcting for multiple hypothesis testing. The permutation test is widely considered the gold standard for accurate multiple testing correction, but it is often computationally impractical for these large datasets. Recently, several studies proposed efficient alternative approaches to the permutation test based on the multivariate normal distribution (MVN). However, they cannot accurately correct for multiple testing in genome-wide association studies for two reasons. First, these methods require partitioning of the genome into many disjoint blocks and ignore all correlations between markers from different blocks. Second, the true null distribution of the test statistic often fails to follow the asymptotic distribution at the tails of the distribution. We propose an accurate and efficient method for multiple testing correction in genome-wide association studies—SLIDE. Our method accounts for all correlation within a sliding window and corrects for the departure of the true null distribution of the statistic from the asymptotic distribution. In simulations using the Wellcome Trust Case Control Consortium data, the error rate of SLIDE's corrected p-values is more than 20 times smaller than the error rate of the previous MVN-based methods' corrected p-values, while SLIDE is orders of magnitude faster than the permutation test and other competing methods. We also extend the MVN framework to the problem of estimating the statistical power of an association study with correlated markers and propose an efficient and accurate power estimation method SLIP. SLIP and SLIDE are available at http://slide.cs.ucla.edu

Universal scaling in the branching of the Tree of Life

Understanding the patterns and processes of diversification of life in the planet is a key challenge of science. The Tree of Life represents such diversification processes through the evolutionary relationships among the different taxa, and can be extended down to intra-specific relationships. Here we examine the topological properties of a large set of interspecific and intraspecific phylogenies and show that the branching patterns follow allometric rules conserved across the different levels in the Tree of Life, all significantly departing from those expected from the standard null models. The finding of non-random universal patterns of phylogenetic differentiation suggests that similar evolutionary forces drive diversification across the broad range of scales, from macro-evolutionary to micro-evolutionary processes, shaping the diversity of life on the planet.Comment: 6 pages + 19 of Supporting Informatio

MyoMiner: explore gene co-expression in normal and pathological muscle

International audienceBackground: High-throughput transcriptomics measures mRNA levels for thousands of genes in a biological sample. Most gene expression studies aim to identify genes that are differentially expressed between different biological conditions, such as between healthy and diseased states. However, these data can also be used to identify genes that are co-expressed within a biological condition. Gene co-expression is used in a guilt-by-association approach to prioritize candidate genes that could be involved in disease, and to gain insights into the functions of genes, protein relations, and signaling pathways. Most existing gene co-expression databases are generic, amalgamating data for a given organism regardless of tissue-type.Methods: To study muscle-specific gene co-expression in both normal and pathological states, publicly available gene expression data were acquired for 2376 mouse and 2228 human striated muscle samples, and separated into 142 categories based on species (human or mouse), tissue origin, age, gender, anatomic part, and experimental condition. Co-expression values were calculated for each category to create the MyoMiner database.Results: Within each category, users can select a gene of interest, and the MyoMiner web interface will return all correlated genes. For each co-expressed gene pair, adjusted p-value and confidence intervals are provided as measures of expression correlation strength. A standardized expression-level scatterplot is available for every gene pair r-value. MyoMiner has two extra functions: (a) a network interface for creating a 2-shell correlation network, based either on the most highly correlated genes or from a list of genes provided by the user with the option to include linked genes from the database and (b) a comparison tool from which the users can test whether any two correlation coefficients from different conditions are significantly different.Conclusions: These co-expression analyses will help investigators to delineate the tissue-, cell-, and pathology-specific elements of muscle protein interactions, cell signaling and gene regulation. Changes in co-expression between pathologic and healthy tissue may suggest new disease mechanisms and help define novel therapeutic targets. Thus, MyoMiner is a powerful muscle-specific database for the discovery of genes that are associated with related functions based on their co-expression. MyoMiner is freely available at https://www.sys-myo.com/myominer

The Context of Current Content Analysis of Gender Roles: An Introduction to a Special Issue

The aim of this paper is to provide context for the quantitative content analyses of gender roles that are to be included in both parts of this special issue. First, a timeline of historical uses of the content analysis methodology is presented. Second, research objectives that frequently drive content analysis of gender roles are described; these include: to support feminist claims, to compare media with real life, to predict effects on audiences, and to detect effects of media producers on content. Third, previous content analyses published in Sex Roles and other gender-focused journals are reviewed and categorized in terms of medium, genre, time span, gender, and nationality. Finally, contributions of each of the articles in this special issue are outlined

Selected sociodemographic factors and related differences in patterns of alcohol use among university students in Slovakia

Background: Alcohol use and misuse and their relation to sociodemograhic factors are well studied among university students in Western European countries and the USA, but less is known about students in Eastern Europe. The historical past as communistic countries might have affected the social life among these populations, which is again one of the main factors determining the alcohol consumption among university students. The aim of our study was to assess the association of selected sociodemographic factors with different patterns of alcohol use among university students in Slovakia. Methods: A sample of 813 young adults (mean age 21.1 years, 63.8% females; response rate of 71%) from four universities in Kosice answered questions about their sociodemographic background and about alcohol use. To obtain a detailed picture of different aspects, alcohol use was measured by four variables: frequency of alcohol use, heavy episodic drinking, frequency of drunkenness and problem drinking. Four separate logistic regression models were used to assess the association between sociodemographic and alcohol-related variables. To assess the potentially different effects in both genders, all two-way interactions with gender were tested. Results: While 41% of the students drank alcohol once a week or more often, 77% reported heavy episodic drinking and 49% had been drunk more than once in the last month. Problem drinking existed in 23.3% of the sample. Gender was consistently associated with all four alcohol-related variables, with males being at higher risk. A higher study year was associated only with lower levels of heavy episodic drinking, but displayed no association with the other studied variables. Living with parents during the semester was consistently associated with less frequent heavy episodic drinking, drunkenness episodes, and problem drinking while having an intimate relationship was associated with less problem drinking only. Conclusions: Our findings for the university students from Slovakia are in line with previous studies in Western Europe. Additionally, it appears that frequent alcohol use, excessive alcohol use (heavy episodic drinking and drunkenness) and problem drinking among university students represent a continuum and are influenced by the same sociodemographic factors

Efficacy of Major Plant Extracts/Molecules on Field Insect Pests

Insect pests are considered the major hurdle in enhancing the production and productivity of any farming system. The use of conventional synthetic pesticides has led to the emergence of pesticide-resistant insects, environmental pollution, and negative effects on natural enemies, which have caused an ecological imbalance of the predator-prey ratio and human health hazards; therefore, eco-friendly alternative strategies are required. The plant kingdom, a rich repertoire of secondary metabolites, can be tapped as an alternative for insect pest management strategies. A number of plants have been documented to have insecticidal properties against various orders of insects in vitro by acting as antifeedants, repellents, sterilant and oviposition deterrents, etc. However, only a few plant compounds are applicable at the field level or presently commercialised. Here, we have provided an overview of the broad-spectrum insecticidal activity of plant compounds from neem, Annona, Pongamia, and Jatropha. Additionally, the impact of medicinal plants, herbs, spices, and essential oils has been reviewed briefl