Proposal to study Bs→DˉsJB_s \to \bar D_{sJ} transitions

It is proposed to clear some of the puzzles of B decay to the broad $\bar{D}^{\ast\ast}$ states by studying the corresponding decay with strange states $B_s^0 \to D_{s0}^{\ast -} \pi^+$ at LHCb. Interpretation of the results should be easier due to the narrowness of the $D_{s0}^{\ast -}$ state.Comment: 21 page

Disability and its influence in nutritional assessment tools in elderly people living in nursing homes

Introduction: Poor nutritional status is associated with increased morbidity and mortality, especially in older people. Objective: The aim of this study was to assess nutritional status in elderly nursing home residents with different nutritional test, and to determine which parameters used for nutritional assessment can be carried out in this population, which usually have a high prevalence of functionally dependent residents. Methods: A cross-sectional study was performed in 383 elderly. The nutritional assessment tools used were the Mini Nutritional Assessment (MNA), the new ESPEN consensus definition of malnutrition, and the tool for Controlling Nutritional Status (CONUT). Moreover, the ability to perform basic activities of daily living was assessed with the Barthel index (BI). Results: According to BI, 78.9% had a total dependence and only 20.9% could be weighed and heighed. The prevalence of malnutrition with MNA, ESPEN and CONUT was 21.3%, 17.6% and 20.7%, respectively. The agreement between MNA vs ESPEN criteria was moderate (?= 0.483), but with CONUT was low. Conclusions: Nursing homes had a high percentage of totally dependent residents. This high degree of functional dependence made difficult to obtain some anthropometric parameters such as weight and height, which are essential to carry out most nutritional tests. MNA, CONUT and the new ESPEN criteria of malnutrition showed a high prevalence of malnutrition and risk of malnutrition in subjects in which they could be performed. Introducción: un estado nutricional deficiente está asociado con un incremento de la morbilidad y la mortalidad, especialmente en personas ancianas. Objetivo: el objetivo de este estudio fue evaluar el estado nutricional en ancianos institucionalizados en residencias geriátricas mediante diferentes test nutricionales, y determinar qué parámetros utilizados en la valoración nutricional pueden ser realizados en esta población. Métodos: se llevó a cabo un estudio transversal en 383 ancianos. Las herramientas de valoración nutricional empleadas fueron el Mini Nutritional Assessment (MNA), el nuevo consenso de definición de malnutrición, y el CONUT. Además, la capacidad de realizar las actividades básicas de la vida diaria fue evaluada con el índice de Barthel. Resultados: según el índice de Barthel, hasta un 78, 9% de los residentes tenía una dependencia total, y en solo el 20, 9% se pudo determinar el peso y la talla. La prevalencia de malnutrición con MNA, el consenso de ESPEN y CONUT fueron 21, 3%, 17, 2% y 20, 7%, respectivamente. La concordancia (kappa) entre el MNA y el ESPEN fue moderada (? = 0, 483), pero con CONUT fue baja. Conclusiones: en las residencias geriátricas públicas existe un elevado porcentaje de ancianos totalmente dependientes. Este alto grado de dependencia funcional dificulta la obtención de algunos parámetros antropométricos como el peso y la talla, que son esenciales para llevar a cabo la mayoría de los test de valoración nutricional. El MNA, el CONUT y los nuevos criterios de desnutrición de la ESPEN mostraron una elevada prevalencia de desnutrición y de riesgo de desnutrición en esta población de ancianos institucionalizados, en aquellos en los que fue posible realizarlos

Neck circumference is associated with nutritional status in elderly nursing home residents

Objectives: Anthropometry is an easy and noninvasive method to evaluate nutritional status in institutionalized elderly people who are often bedridden. The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between the neck circumference (NC) and nutritional status of elderly nursing home residents and to find cutoff points for NC size to identify individuals at risk of malnutrition. Methods: A cross-sectional study was developed with data collected from 352 elderly people living in five public nursing homes. Different anthropometric measures and the Mini Nutritional Assessment (MNA) were used to determine nutritional status. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were built for each anthropometric variable to determine their sensitivity and specificity for predicting the risk of malnutrition according to the MNA. Results: The mean age of the participants (59% females) was 83 years old. In total, 48.3% of women and 45.5% of men were at risk of malnutrition according to their MNA scores. All anthropometric measurements were highly intercorrelated in both men and women, indicating a high degree of collinearity. Bootstrapped linear regression was used to assess the strength of the association between an individuals’ nutritional status and their anthropometric parameters. Calf circumference and NC presented the best predictive value with the highest sensitivity for diagnosing the risk of malnutrition in both institutionalized elderly men and women. The best cutoff points of NC to identify elderly nursing home residents at risk of malnutrition were 35.2 cm for females and 37.8 cm for males. Conclusions: NC is associated with other classical anthropometric parameters and malnutrition status in elderly people living in nursing homes

Masseter muscle thickness measured by ultrasound as a possible link with sarcopenia, malnutrition and dependence in nursing homes

Sarcopenia is a progressive and generalized loss of skeletal muscle mass and strength. It is frequently associated with malnutrition and dependence in nursing homes. Masticatory muscle strength could be the link between sarcopenia, malnutrition and dependence. We aimed to study the relation between sarcopenia, malnutrition and dependence with masseter muscle thickness measured by ultrasound. A cross-sectional study was realized, with 464 patients from 3 public nursing homes in Zaragoza (Spain). The diagnosis of sarcopenia was assessed according to the EuropeanWorking Group on Sarcopenia in Older People 2 criteria, malnutrition by the Mini Nutritional Assessment (MNA) and the Global Leadership Initiative on Malnutrition (GLIM) criteria and functional capacity by the Barhel Index and the texture diet. Masseter muscle thickness (MMT) was measured by ultrasound. The median age was 84.7 years, and 70% of the participants were women. Sarcopenia was confirmed in 39.2% of patients, malnutrition in 26.5% (risk 47.8%), total dependence in 37.9% and diet texture was modified in 44.6%. By logistic regression, once the model was adjusted for age, sex, Barthel index and texture diet, our analyses indicated that each 1 mm decrease in MMT increased the risk of sarcopenia by ~57% (OR: 0.43), the risk of malnutrition by MNA by ~63% (OR: 0.37) and the risk of malnutrition by GLIM by ~34% (OR: 0.66). We found that MMT was reduced in sarcopenic, malnourished and dependent patients, and it could be the common point of a vicious cycle between sarcopenia and malnutrition. Further studies are needed to establish causality. © 2021 by the authors

The Ncoa7 locus regulates V-ATPase formation and function, neurodevelopment and behaviour

Members of the Tre2/Bub2/Cdc16 (TBC), lysin motif (LysM), domain catalytic (TLDc) protein family are associated with multiple neurodevelopmental disorders, although their exact roles in disease remain unclear. For example, nuclear receptor coactivator 7 (NCOA7) has been associated with autism, although almost nothing is known regarding the mode-of-action of this TLDc protein in the nervous system. Here we investigated the molecular function of NCOA7 in neurons and generated a novel mouse model to determine the consequences of deleting this locus in vivo. We show that NCOA7 interacts with the cytoplasmic domain of the vacuolar (V)-ATPase in the brain and demonstrate that this protein is required for normal assembly and activity of this critical proton pump. Neurons lacking Ncoa7 exhibit altered development alongside defective lysosomal formation and function; accordingly, Ncoa7 deletion animals exhibited abnormal neuronal patterning defects and a reduced expression of lysosomal markers. Furthermore, behavioural assessment revealed anxiety and social defects in mice lacking Ncoa7. In summary, we demonstrate that NCOA7 is an important V-ATPase regulatory protein in the brain, modulating lysosomal function, neuronal connectivity and behaviour; thus our study reveals a molecular mechanism controlling endolysosomal homeostasis that is essential for neurodevelopment

Observations of the Hubble Deep Field with the Infrared Space Observatory. IV. Association of sources with Hubble Deep Field Galaxies

We discuss the identification of sources detected by ISO at 6.7 and 15 micron in the Hubble Deep Field (HDF) region. We conservatively associate ISO sources with objects in existing optical and near-infrared HDF catalogues using the likelihood ratio method, confirming these results (and, in one case, clarifying them) with independent visual searches. We find fifteen ISO sources to be reliably associated with bright [I(AB) < 23] galaxies in the HDF, and one with an I(AB)=19.9 star, while a further eleven are associated with objects in the Hubble Flanking Fields (ten galaxies and one star). Amongst optically bright HDF galaxies, ISO tends to detect luminous, star-forming galaxies at fairly high redshift and with disturbed morphologies, in preference to nearby ellipticals.Comment: 8 pages, LaTeX (using mn.sty, epsfig), 3 figures (2 Postscript, 1 GIF) included. Gzipped Postscipt version available from http://artemis.ph.ic.ac.uk/hdf/papers/ps/. Further information on ISO-HDF project can be found at http://artemis.ph.ic.ac.uk/hdf

Effect of magnetically simulated zero-gravity and enhanced gravity on the walk of the common fruitfly†

Understanding the effects of gravity on biological organisms is vital to the success of future space missions. Previous studies in Earth orbit have shown that the common fruitfly (Drosophila melanogaster) walks more quickly and more frequently in microgravity, compared with its motion on Earth. However, flight preparation procedures and forces endured on launch made it difficult to implement on the Earth's surface a control that exposed flies to the same sequence of major physical and environmental changes. To address the uncertainties concerning these behavioural anomalies, we have studied the walking paths of D. melanogaster in a pseudo-weightless environment (0g*) in our Earth-based laboratory. We used a strong magnetic field, produced by a superconducting solenoid, to induce a diamagnetic force on the flies that balanced the force of gravity. Simultaneously, two other groups of flies were exposed to a pseudo-hypergravity environment (2g*) and a normal gravity environment (1g*) within the spatially varying field. The flies had a larger mean speed in 0g* than in 1g*, and smaller in 2g*. The mean square distance travelled by the flies grew more rapidly with time in 0g* than in 1g*, and slower in 2g*. We observed no other clear effects of the magnetic field, up to 16.5 T, on the walks of the flies. We compare the effect of diamagnetically simulated weightlessness with that of weightlessness in an orbiting spacecraft, and identify the cause of the anomalous behaviour as the altered effective gravity

High fidelity: extra-pair fertilisations in eight Charadrius plover species are not associated with parental relatedness or social mating system

Extra-pair paternity is a common reproductive strategy in many bird species. However, it remains unclear why extra-pair paternity occurs and why it varies among species and populations. Plovers (Charadrius spp.) exhibit considerable variation in reproductive behaviour and ecology, making them excellent models to investigate the evolution of social and genetic mating systems. We investigated inter- and intra-specific patterns of extra-pair parentage and evaluated three major hypotheses explaining extra-pair paternity using a comparative approach based on the microsatellite genotypes of 2049 individuals from 510 plover families sampled from twelve populations that constituted eight species. Extra-pair paternity rates were very low (0 to 4.1% of chicks per population). No evidence was found in support of the sexual conflict or genetic compatibility hypotheses, and there was no seasonal pattern of extra-pair paternity (EPP). The low prevalence of EPP is consistent with a number of alternative hypotheses, including the parental investment hypothesis, which suggests that high contribution to care by males restricts female plovers from engaging in extra-pair copulations. Further studies are needed to critically test the importance of this hypothesis for mate choice in plovers

Estudio sobre la integración en aula específica, de un IES, de alumnado diagnosticado como negativista desafiante y su posible inclusión en aula ordinaria

It is known that, nowadays, with the arrival of the inclusive school, in our classrooms we find a greater functional diversity in the students than in the past, diversity that is not always known and accepted within normality. The present investigation, based on the real experience, has as objective the integration in an IES of specific classroom of students affected by serious behavior disorders, such as the defiant negativist disorder, for its later inclusion in the ordinary classroom, in principle, under supervision. The sample consists of 5 subjects whose ages range between 13 and 15 years, who, due to serious alterations in their behavior, can not have full-time schooling in the ordinary classroom. Three of these students are enrolled in 1st of Compulsory Secondary Education (ESO) and 2 of them in 2nd. The serious behavioral problems led to the application of a behavior modification program and a cognitive restructuring and a self-control training.Es sabido que, en la actualidad, con la llegada de la escuela inclusiva, en nuestras aulas nosencontramos con una mayor diversidad funcional en el alumnado que en tiempos pasados, diversidad que no siempre es conocida y aceptada dentro de la normalidad. La presente investigación, basada en la experiencia real, tiene como objetivo la integración en un IES de un aula específica de alumnado afectado de trastornos graves de conducta, como es el trastorno negativista desafiante, para su posterior inclusión en el aula ordinaria, en principio, bajo supervisión. La muestra consta de 5 sujetos cuyas edades oscilan entre los 13 y 15 años, que por presentar graves alteraciones en su conducta no pueden tener una escolarización a tiempo completo en el aula ordinaria. Tres de estos alumnos, estan matriculados en 1º de la Educación Secundaria Obligatoria (ESO) y 2 de ellos en 2º. Los graves problemas de conducta llevaron a la aplicación de un programa de modificación de conducta cognitivo conductual, a una reestructuración cognitiva y a un entrenamiento en autocontrol

Trust transitivity in social networks

Non-centralized recommendation-based decision making is a central feature of several social and technological processes, such as market dynamics, peer-to-peer file-sharing and the web of trust of digital certification. We investigate the properties of trust propagation on networks, based on a simple metric of trust transitivity. We investigate analytically the percolation properties of trust transitivity in random networks with arbitrary degree distribution, and compare with numerical realizations. We find that the existence of a non-zero fraction of absolute trust (i.e. entirely confident trust) is a requirement for the viability of global trust propagation in large systems: The average pair-wise trust is marked by a discontinuous transition at a specific fraction of absolute trust, below which it vanishes. Furthermore, we perform an extensive analysis of the Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) web of trust, in view of the concepts introduced. We compare different scenarios of trust distribution: community- and authority-centered. We find that these scenarios lead to sharply different patterns of trust propagation, due to the segregation of authority hubs and densely-connected communities. While the authority-centered scenario is more efficient, and leads to higher average trust values, it favours weakly-connected "fringe" nodes, which are directly trusted by authorities. The community-centered scheme, on the other hand, favours nodes with intermediate degrees, in detriment of the authorities and its "fringe" peers.Comment: 11 pages, 9 figures (with minor corrections