Genome-wide association study identifies six new loci influencing pulse pressure and mean arterial pressure.

Numerous genetic loci have been associated with systolic blood pressure (SBP) and diastolic blood pressure (DBP) in Europeans. We now report genome-wide association studies of pulse pressure (PP) and mean arterial pressure (MAP). In discovery (N = 74,064) and follow-up studies (N = 48,607), we identified at genome-wide significance (P = 2.7 × 10(-8) to P = 2.3 × 10(-13)) four new PP loci (at 4q12 near CHIC2, 7q22.3 near PIK3CG, 8q24.12 in NOV and 11q24.3 near ADAMTS8), two new MAP loci (3p21.31 in MAP4 and 10q25.3 near ADRB1) and one locus associated with both of these traits (2q24.3 near FIGN) that has also recently been associated with SBP in east Asians. For three of the new PP loci, the estimated effect for SBP was opposite of that for DBP, in contrast to the majority of common SBP- and DBP-associated variants, which show concordant effects on both traits. These findings suggest new genetic pathways underlying blood pressure variation, some of which may differentially influence SBP and DBP

Look Who's Suggesting

During design architects do not only sketch, they combine different kinds of information and representations. The combination of text, image, sketch and/or draft can provoke new associations that keep the design process going. The sketchbook presented here enables architects to use all representations simultaneously, so as to fully exploit their cross-fertilisation. More importantly, it steadily makes suggestions for continuing development of design ideas. These suggestions can take the form of words that are semantically related to the users’ ideas, or of images showing how other architects have developed related ideas into built artefacts. To this end, the sketchbook captures all information the architect/user puts ‘on paper’ and forwards it to a design idea recorder/interpreter called Idea Space System (ISS). In trying to understand the user’s ideas, ISS places all elements captured into a gigantic network, as if part of the frame of reference is made explicit. In the network nodes are words, sketches or images, while links represent relations of various origins. The semantic relations that ISS identifies are shown to the user. At the same time, words are processed as search criteria in DYNAMO, a growing architectural case base, to detect and display design projects that exemplify related ideas. Through the explicit links between early ideas and concrete design cases, the sketchbook acts as a permanent source of inspiration, while stimulating both architects’ creativity and their awareness of the downstream implications of design ideas

The Idea Space System - Words As Handles To A Comprehensive Data Structure

The Idea Space System is a CAAD system that supports an architect in the early phase of the design process, by reducing fixation in the process and enhancing the ‘flow’ of work. Mostly in the field of CAAD research, the emphasis lies on sketching or modelling. However the architect uses multiple representations in developing the design. In this research the focus lies on the use of words. The Idea Space System captures all design data and then uses the words to provide the architect with new associations and relations between words (real time), which stimulate the generation of new ideas. Architecture students have used our first prototype of the Idea Space System in a small experiment. This gave us better insight in the ideas and relations made by the architect in the early phase of the design process and what kind of feedback preferred. Afterwards a study was done about the representation of the feedback. In this paper we focus on the textual input provided by the architecture students and the description of the Idea Space System, handling this textual input and providing the architecture students with the proper feedback