Exercise and Coronary Atherosclerosis: Observations, Explanations, Relevance, and Clinical Management.

Physical activity and exercise training are effective strategies for reducing the risk of cardiovascular events, but multiple studies have reported an increased prevalence of coronary atherosclerosis, usually measured as coronary artery calcification, among athletes who are middle-aged and older. Our review of the medical literature demonstrates that the prevalence of coronary artery calcification and atherosclerotic plaques, which are strong predictors for future cardiovascular morbidity and mortality, was higher in athletes compared with controls, and was higher in the most active athletes compared with less active athletes. However, analysis of plaque morphology revealed fewer mixed plaques and more often only calcified plaques among athletes, suggesting a more benign composition of atherosclerotic plaques. This review describes the effects of physical activity and exercise training on coronary atherosclerosis in athletes who are middle-aged and older and aims to contribute to the understanding of the potential adverse effects of the highest doses of exercise training on the coronary arteries. For this purpose, we will review the association between exercise and coronary atherosclerosis measured using computed tomography, discuss the potential underlying mechanisms for exercise-induced coronary atherosclerosis, determine the clinical relevance of coronary atherosclerosis in middle-aged athletes and describe strategies for the clinical management of athletes with coronary atherosclerosis to guide physicians in clinical decision making and treatment of athletes with elevated coronary artery calcification scores

Effect of co-administration of voglibose and vildagliptin on diabetic albino rats

Background: The progressive nature of type 2 diabetes usually requires a combination of two or more oral agents in long term. Studies have been done to support its relevance. This study was made to observe the possible additive or supra-additive effect of the co-administration of voglibose and vildagliptin expecting it to be beneficial by enhancing the peptide GLP-1 activity which in turn increases insulin secretion while decreasing that of glucagon in response to rise in plasma glucose.Methods: Healthy male wistar rats weighing 150-250 grams were taken for this study. The animals were divided into five groups, six animals in each group. These groups were normal control, diabetic control, vildagliptin treated, voglibose treated and by vildagliptin and voglibose (co-administered) treated group diabetic rats. Diabetes was induced by freshly prepared nicotinamide followed by streptozotocin intraperitoneal injection. The fasting blood samples were determined by glucose oxidase method. One way ANOVA test was used to compare the effect of drugs on different group.Results: Fasting blood glucose in normal control was found static. Diabetic rats fasting blood glucose level subsequently increased in different weeks. The animal treated by vildagliptin and voglibose orally has a better control of FBS in comparison to diabetic control group. The animal treated by co-administration of vildagliptin and voglibose had a better effect than vildagliptin treated group and voglibose treated animal.Conclusions: Vildagliptin and voglibose are effective in lowering blood glucose level in albino diabetic rats but their combination has potentiating effect

Saving the Greater Adjutant Stork by Changing Perceptions and Linking to Assamese Traditions in India

https://ojs.ethnobiology.org/index.php/ebl/article/view/1648https://ojs.ethnobiology.org/index.php/ebl/article/view/164

Have We Even Solved the First 'Big Data Challenge'?: Practical Issues Concerning Data Collection and Visual Representation for Social Media Analytics

Thanks to an influx of data collection and analytic software, harvesting and visualizing ‘big’ social media data1 is becoming increasingly feasible as a method for social science researchers. Yet while there is an emerging body of work utilizing social media as a data resource, there are a number of computational issues affecting data collection. These issues may problematize any conclusions we draw from our research work, yet for the large part, they remain hidden from the researcher’s view. We contribute towards the burgeoning literature which critically addresses various fundamental concerns with big data (see boyd and Crawford, 2012; Murthy, 2013; Rogers, 2013). However, rather than focusing on epistemological, political or theoretical issues — these areas are very ably accounted for by the authors listed above, and others — we engage with a different concern: how technical aspects of computational tools for capturing and handling social media data may impact our readings of it. This chapter outlines and explores two such technical issues as they occur for data taken from Twitter

Pan-arthropod analysis reveals somatic piRNAs as an ancestral defence against transposable elements

In animals, small RNA molecules termed PIWI-interacting RNAs (piRNAs) silence transposable elements (TEs), protecting the germline from genomic instability and mutation. piRNAs have been detected in the soma in a few animals, but these are believed to be specific adaptations of individual species. Here, we report that somatic piRNAs were likely present in the ancestral arthropod more than 500 million years ago. Analysis of 20 species across the arthropod phylum suggests that somatic piRNAs targeting TEs and mRNAs are common among arthropods. The presence of an RNA-dependent RNA polymerase in chelicerates (horseshoe crabs, spiders, scorpions) suggests that arthropods originally used a plant-like RNA interference mechanism to silence TEs. Our results call into question the view that the ancestral role of the piRNA pathway was to protect the germline and demonstrate that small RNA silencing pathways have been repurposed for both somatic and germline functions throughout arthropod evolution.We thank A. McGregor, D. Leite, M. Akam, R. Jenner, R. Kilner, A. Duarte, C. Jiggins, R. Wallbank, A. Bourke, T. Dalmay, N. Moran, K. Warchol, R. Callahan, G. Farley and T. Livdahl for providing the arthropods. H. Robertson provided the D. virgifera genome sequence. This research was supported by a Leverhulme Research Project Grant (RPG-2016-210 to F.M.J., E.A.M. and P.S.), a European Research Council grant (281668 DrosophilaInfection to F.M.J.), a Medical Research Council grant (MRC MC-A652-5PZ80 to P.S.), an Imperial College Research Fellowship (to P.S.), Cancer Research UK (C13474/A18583 and C6946/A14492 to E.A.M.), the Wellcome Trust (104640/Z/14/Z and 092096/Z/10/Z to E.A.M.) and a National Institutes of Health R37 grant (GM62862 to P.D.Z.)

Complex circular subsidence structures in tephra deposited on large blocks of ice: Varða tuff cone, Öræfajökull, Iceland

Several broadly circular structures up to 16 m in diameter, into which higher strata have sagged and locally collapsed, are present in a tephra outcrop on southwest Öræfajökull, southern Iceland. The tephra was sourced in a nearby basaltic tuff cone at Varða. The structures have not previously been described in tuff cones, and they probably formed by the melting out of large buried blocks of ice emplaced during a preceding jökulhlaup that may have been triggered by a subglacial eruption within the Öræfajökull ice cap. They are named ice-melt subsidence structures, and they are analogous to kettle holes that are commonly found in proglacial sandurs and some lahars sourced in ice-clad volcanoes. The internal structure is better exposed in the Varða examples because of an absence of fluvial infilling and reworking, and erosion of the outcrop to reveal the deeper geometry. The ice-melt subsidence structures at Varða are a proxy for buried ice. They are the only known evidence for a subglacial eruption and associated jökulhlaup that created the ice blocks. The recognition of such structures elsewhere will be useful in reconstructing more complete regional volcanic histories as well as for identifying ice-proximal settings during palaeoenvironmental investigations

The incidence of liver injury in Uyghur patients treated for TB in Xinjiang Uyghur autonomous region, China, and its association with hepatic enzyme polymorphisms nat2, cyp2e1, gstm1 and gstt1.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: Of three first-line anti-tuberculosis (anti-TB) drugs, isoniazid is most commonly associated with hepatotoxicity. Differences in INH-induced toxicity have been attributed to genetic variability at several loci, NAT2, CYP2E1, GSTM1and GSTT1, that code for drug-metabolizing enzymes. This study evaluated whether the polymorphisms in these enzymes were associated with an increased risk of anti-TB drug-induced hepatitis in patients and could potentially be used to identify patients at risk of liver injury. METHODS AND DESIGN: In a cross-sectional study, 2244 tuberculosis patients were assessed two months after the start of treatment. Anti-TB drug-induced liver injury (ATLI) was defined as an ALT, AST or bilirubin value more than twice the upper limit of normal. NAT2, CYP2E1, GSTM1 and GSTT1 genotypes were determined using the PCR/ligase detection reaction assays. RESULTS: 2244 patients were evaluated, there were 89 cases of ATLI, a prevalence of 4% 9 patients (0.4%) had ALT levels more than 5 times the upper limit of normal. The prevalence of ATLI was greater among men than women, and there was a weak association with NAT2*5 genotypes, with ATLI more common among patients with the NAT2*5*CT genotype. The sensitivity of the CT genotype for identifying patients with ATLI was 42% and the positive predictive value 5.9%. CT ATLI was more common among slow acetylators (prevalence ratio 2.0 (95% CI 0.95,4.20) )compared to rapid acetylators. There was no evidence that ATLI was associated with CYP2E1 RsaIc1/c1genotype, CYP2E1 RsaIc1/c2 or c2/c2 genotypes, or GSTM1/GSTT1 null genotypes. CONCLUSIONS: In Xinjiang Uyghur TB patients, liver injury was associated with the genetic variant NAT2*5, however the genetic markers studied are unlikely to be useful for screening patients due to the low sensitivity and low positive predictive values for identifying persons at risk of liver injury

High-throughput identification of genotype-specific cancer vulnerabilities in mixtures of barcoded tumor cell lines.

Hundreds of genetically characterized cell lines are available for the discovery of genotype-specific cancer vulnerabilities. However, screening large numbers of compounds against large numbers of cell lines is currently impractical, and such experiments are often difficult to control. Here we report a method called PRISM that allows pooled screening of mixtures of cancer cell lines by labeling each cell line with 24-nucleotide barcodes. PRISM revealed the expected patterns of cell killing seen in conventional (unpooled) assays. In a screen of 102 cell lines across 8,400 compounds, PRISM led to the identification of BRD-7880 as a potent and highly specific inhibitor of aurora kinases B and C. Cell line pools also efficiently formed tumors as xenografts, and PRISM recapitulated the expected pattern of erlotinib sensitivity in vivo

Line tester analysis for combining ability and heterosis in Indian mustard (Brassica juncea)

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