46 research outputs found
Association of Forced Vital Capacity with the Developmental Gene NCOR2
Background Forced Vital Capacity (FVC) is an important predictor of all-cause mortality in the absence of chronic respiratory conditions. Epidemiological evidence highlights the role of early life factors on adult FVC, pointing to environmental exposures and genes affecting lung development as risk factors for low FVC later in life. Although highly heritable, a small number of genes have been found associated with FVC, and we aimed at identifying further genetic variants by focusing on lung development genes. Methods Per-allele effects of 24,728 SNPs in 403 genes involved in lung development were tested in 7,749 adults from three studies (NFBC1966, ECRHS, EGEA). The most significant SNP for the top 25 genes was followed-up in 46,103 adults (CHARGE and SpiroMeta consortia) and 5,062 children (ALSPAC). Associations were considered replicated if the replication p-value survived Bonferroni correction (p<0.002; 0.05/25), with a nominal p-value considered as suggestive evidence. For SNPs with evidence of replication, effects on the expression levels of nearby genes in lung tissue were tested in 1,111 lung samples (Lung eQTL consortium), with further functional investigation performed using public epigenomic profiling data (ENCODE). Results NCOR2-rs12708369 showed strong replication in children (p = 0.0002), with replication unavailable in adults due to low imputation quality. This intronic variant is in a strong transcriptional enhancer element in lung fibroblasts, but its eQTL effects could not be tested due to low imputation quality in the eQTL dataset. SERPINE2-rs6754561 replicated at nominal level in both adults (p = 0.036) and children (p = 0.045), while WNT16-rs2707469 replicated at nominal level only in adults (p = 0.026). The eQTL analyses showed association of WNT16-rs2707469 with expression levels of the nearby gene CPED1.We found no statistically significant eQTL effects for SERPINE2-rs6754561. Conclusions We have identified a new gene, NCOR2, in the retinoic acid signalling pathway pointing to a role of Vitamin A metabolism in the regulation of FVC. Our findings also support SERPINE2, a COPD gene with weak previous evidence of association with FVC, and suggest WNT16 as a further promising candidate
Ethnic residential segregation in Singapore's public housing
SIGLEAvailable from British Library Document Supply Centre-DSC:D210612 / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreGBUnited Kingdo
The use of laser on acupuncture points for smoking cessation
American Journal of Acupuncture152137-141AJAP
CMOS compatible integrated gas sensor
This paper describes the design and fabrication of a new silicon integrated gas sensor. The sensor is designed so that the front-end of the fabrication is compatible to the standard CMOS (Complementary Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor) process. The sensor specific fabrication is carried out as post-processing steps after the standard CMOS processing. The new device is an improved version of the previously reported device. The CMOS compatibility will facilitate the integration of support circuitry and the realization of the integrated gas sensor array for the detection and analysis of a gas mixture. The CMOS compatibility will also reduce the cost and increase the reliability of the integrated sensor
Outcome and survival analysis of surgical repair of post-infarction ventricular septal rupture
10.1186/1749-8090-8-44Journal of Cardiothoracic Surgery814
10-bit 100-MS/s Reference-Free SAR ADC in 90 nm CMOS
A 1.2 V 10-bit 100 MS/s Successive Approximation (SA) ADC is presented. The scheme achieves high-speed and low-power operation thanks to the reference-free technique that avoids the static power dissipation of an on-chip reference generator. Moreover, the use of a common-mode based charge recovery switching method reduces the switching energy and improves the conversion linearity. A variable self-timed loop optimizes the reset time of the preamplifier to improve the conversion speed. Measurement results on a 90 nm CMOS prototype operated at 1.2 V supply show 3 mW total power consumption with a peak SNDR of 56.6 dB and a FOM of 77 fJ/conv-step