Journal publishing with Acrobat: the CAJUN project

The publication of material in electronic form should ideally preserve, in a unified document representation, all of the richness of the printed document while maintaining enough of its underlying structure to enable searching and other forms of semantic processing. Until recently it has been hard to find a document representation which combined these attributes and which also stood some chance of becoming a de facto multi-platform standard. This paper sets out experience gained within the Electronic Publishing Research Group at the University of Nottingham in using Adobe Acrobat software and its underlying PDF (Portable Document Format) notation. The CAJUN project1 (CD-ROM Acrobat Journals Using Networks) began in 1993 and has used Acrobat software to produce electronic versions of journal papers for network and CD-ROM dissemination. The paper describes the project's progress so far and also gives a brief assessment of PDF's suitability as a universal document interchange standard

Extinction of cue-evoked food seeking recruits a GABAergic interneuron ensemble in the dorsal medial prefrontal cortex of mice

Animals must quickly adapt food-seeking strategies to locate nutrient sources in dynamically changing environments. Learned associations between food and environmental cues that predict its availability promote food-seeking behaviors. However, when such cues cease to predict food availability, animals undergo 'extinction' learning, resulting in the inhibition of food-seeking responses. Repeatedly activated sets of neurons, or 'neuronal ensembles', in the dorsal medial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC) are recruited following appetitive conditioning and undergo physiological adaptations thought to encode cue-reward associations. However, little is known about how the recruitment and intrinsic excitability of such dmPFC ensembles are modulated by extinction learning. Here, we used in vivo 2-Photon imaging in male Fos-GFP mice that express green fluorescent protein (GFP) in recently behaviorally-activated neurons to determine the recruitment of activated pyramidal and GABAergic interneuron mPFC ensembles during extinction. During extinction, we revealed a persistent activation of a subset of interneurons which emerged from a wider population of interneurons activated during the initial extinction session. This activation pattern was not observed in pyramidal cells, and extinction learning did not modulate the excitability properties of activated neurons. Moreover, extinction learning reduced the likelihood of reactivation of pyramidal cells activated during the initial extinction session. Our findings illuminate novel neuronal activation patterns in the dmPFC underlying extinction of food-seeking, and in particular, highlight an important role for interneuron ensembles in this inhibitory form of learning

Characterization of hexabundles: Initial results

New multi-core imaging fibre bundles -- hexabundles -- being developed at the University of Sydney will provide simultaneous integral field spectroscopy for hundreds of celestial sources across a wide angular field. These are a natural progression from the use of single fibres in existing galaxy surveys. Hexabundles will allow us to address fundamental questions in astronomy without the biases introduced by a fixed entrance aperture. We have begun to consider instrument concepts that exploit hundreds of hexabundles over the widest possible field of view. To this end, we have compared the performance of a 61-core fully-fused hexabundle and 5 lightly-fused bundles with 7 cores each. All fibres in the bundles have 100 micron cores. In the fully-fused bundle, the cores are distorted from a circular shape in order to achieve a higher fill fraction. The lightly-fused bundles have circular cores and five different cladding thicknesses which affect the fill fraction. We compare the optical performance of all 6 bundles and find that the advantage of smaller interstitial holes (higher fill fraction) is outweighed by the increase in modal coupling, cross-talk and the poor optical performance caused by the deformation of the fibre cores. Uniformly high throughput and low cross-talk are essential for imaging faint astronomical targets with sufficient resolution to disentangle the dynamical structure. Devices already under development will have between 100 and 200 lightly-fused cores, although larger formats are feasible. The light-weight packaging of hexabundles is sufficiently flexible to allow existing robotic positioners to make use of them.Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRAS. See also a complimentary paper on the development of hexabundles - Bland-Hawthorn et al. 2011, Optics Express, vol. 19, p. 2649 (http://www.opticsinfobase.org/abstract.cfm?URI=oe-19-3-2649

Amniotic Fluid Glucose Concentration: A Marker for Infection in Preterm Labor and Preterm Premature Rupture of Membranes

Amniotic fluid Gram stain and culture have been utilized as laboratory tests of microbial invasion of the amniotic cavity. The Gram stain of amniotic fluid has a low sensitivity in the detection of clinical infection or microbial invasion of the amniotic cavity, and amniotic fluid culture results are not immediately available for management decisions. Glucose concentration is used to diagnose infection in other sites such as cerebrospinal fluid

The association of adolescent spinal-pain-related absenteeism with early adulthood work absenteeism: A six-year follow-up data from a population-based cohort

Objectives Spinal (ie, back and neck) pain often develops as early as during adolescence and can set a trajectory for later life. However, whether early-life spinal-pain-related behavioral responses of missing school/work are predictive of future work absenteeism is yet unknown. We assessed the association of adolescent spinal-pain-related work or school absenteeism with early adulthood work absenteeism in a prospective population-based cohort. Methods Six year follow-up data from the Western Australian Pregnancy Cohort (Raine) study were used (N=476; with a 54% response rate). At age 17, participants reported spinal pain (using the Nordic questionnaire) and adolescent spinal-pain-related work/school absenteeism (with a single item question). Annual total and health-related work absenteeism was assessed with the Health and Work Performance questionnaire distributed in four quarterly text messages during the 23rd year of age. We modelled the association of adolescent spinal-pain-related absenteeism with work absenteeism during early adulthood, using negative binomial regression adjusting for sex, occupation and comorbidities. Results Participants with adolescent low-back or neck pain with work/school absenteeism reported higher total work absenteeism in early adulthood [148.7, standard deviation (SD) 243.4 hours/year], than those without pain [43.7 (SD 95.2) hours/year); incidence rate ratio 3.4 (95% CI 1.2-9.2)]. Comparable findings were found when considering low-back and neck separately, and when considering health-related absenteeism. Conclusions We found a more than three-fold higher risk of work absenteeism in early adulthood among those with adolescent spinal-pain-related absenteeism, compared to those without. These findings suggest that, to keep a sustainable workforce, pain prevention and management should focus on pain-related behaviors as early as in adolescence

Using globular clusters to test gravity in the weak acceleration regime

We have carried out a study of the velocity dispersion of the stars in the outskirts of the globular cluster Omega Centauri, finding that the velocity dispersion remains constant at large radii rather than decrease monotonically. The dispersion starts to be constant for an acceleration of gravity of a = 2.1e-8 cm/s/s. A similar result is obtained reanalyzing existing data for the globular cluster M15 where the profile flattens out for a = 1.7e-8 cm/s/s. In both cases the acceleration is comparable to that at which the effect of dark matter becomes relevant in galaxies. Explanations for this result within Newtonian dynamics exist (e.g. cluster evaporation, tidal effects, presence of dark matter) but require ad hoc tuning of the relevant parameters in order to make in both clusters the dispersion profile flat starting exactly at the same acceleration. We suggest that this result, together with a similar one for Palomar 13 and the anomalous behavior of spacecrafts outside the solar system, may indicate a breakdown of Newton's law in the weak acceleration regime. Although not conclusive, these data prompt for the accurate determination of the internal dynamics of as many GCs as possible.Comment: Accepted for publication on A&A Letters. Four pages + 2 figure

Height and risk of death among men and women: aetiological implications of associations with cardiorespiratory disease and cancer mortality

OBJECTIVES: Height is inversely associated with cardiovascular disease mortality risk and has shown variable associations with cancer incidence and mortality. The interpretation of findings from previous studies has been constrained by data limitations. Associations between height and specific causes of death were investigated in a large general population cohort of men and women from the West of Scotland. DESIGN: Prospective observational study. SETTING: Renfrew and Paisley, in the West of Scotland. SUBJECTS: 7052 men and 8354 women aged 45-64 were recruited into a study in Renfrew and Paisley, in the West of Scotland, between 1972 and 1976. Detailed assessments of cardiovascular disease risk factors, morbidity and socioeconomic circumstances were made at baseline. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Deaths during 20 years of follow up classified into specific causes. RESULTS: Over the follow up period 3347 men and 2638 women died. Height is inversely associated with all cause, coronary heart disease, stroke, and respiratory disease mortality among men and women. Adjustment for socioeconomic position and cardiovascular risk factors had little influence on these associations. Height is strongly associated with forced expiratory volume in one second (FEV1) and adjustment for FEV1 considerably attenuated the association between height and cardiorespiratory mortality. Smoking related cancer mortality is not associated with height. The risk of deaths from cancer unrelated to smoking tended to increase with height, particularly for haematopoietic, colorectal and prostate cancers. Stomach cancer mortality was inversely associated with height. Adjustment for socioeconomic position had little influence on these associations. CONCLUSION: Height serves partly as an indicator of socioeconomic circumstances and nutritional status in childhood and this may underlie the inverse associations between height and adulthood cardiorespiratory mortality. Much of the association between height and cardiorespiratory mortality was accounted for by lung function, which is also partly determined by exposures acting in childhood. The inverse association between height and stomach cancer mortality probably reflects Helicobacter pylori infection in childhood resulting inor being associated withshorter height. The positive associations between height and several cancers unrelated to smoking could reflect the influence of calorie intake during childhood on the risk of these cancers

The Main Sequence Luminosity Function of Palomar 5 from HST

A low mass, large core radius, and strong tidal tails suggest that the globular cluster Palomar 5 has lost a large fraction of its initial mass over time. If the dynamical evolution of Palomar 5 has been dominated by the effects of mass loss, then the luminosity function should be deficient in low-mass stars. Using deep WFPC2 F555W and F814W photometry, we determine the main sequence luminosity functions both near the cluster center and in a field near the half-light radius. There is no compelling evidence for mass segregation within the cluster, but a comparison of the global mass function of Palomar 5 with those of Omega Cen and M55 indicates an increasing deficiency of stars with progressively lower masses. A fit of the observed luminosity function to theoretical models yields a power-law mass function with an exponent of -0.5. The flatness of the mass function is consistent with models of the dynamical evolution of globular clusters that have lost on the order of 90% of their original stellar mass. We suggest that Palomar 5 has lost a large percentage of its original stellar content as a result of tidal shocking.Comment: 19 LaTeX/AASTeX pages with 8 figures, accepted for publication in the Astronomical Journa