3,776 research outputs found
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Sphaerodactylus kirbyi
Number of Pages: 2Integrative BiologyGeological Science
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Sphaerodactylus vincenti
Number of Pages: 6Integrative BiologyGeological Science
Terrestrial dispersal of juvenile Mink Frog (Lithobates septentrionalis) in Algonquin Provincial Park, Ontario
Dispersal following metamorphosis is critical for sustaining anuran metapopulations. Mink Frog (Lithobates septentrionalis) is a primarily aquatic species that is common in eastern Canada. The species is not well studied, and little is known about the terrestrial dispersal of recently metamorphosed individuals. Here we present our observations on the phenology of terrestrial activity in recently metamorphosed Mink Frogs in Algonquin Provincial Park, Ontario, Canada. Despite a sampling effort of over 26 000 trap nights over two years (2010 and 2011) in an area with a known population of Mink Frogs, we observed only 35 individuals, all of which were recent metamorphs, in late summer 2011, suggesting annual variability of recruitment. Because all Mink Frogs were observed in a riparian area, it is likely that this species uses riparian corridors to disperse toward other wetlands, thus avoiding forested areas
Reduced glycogen availability is associated with increased AMPKα2 activity, nuclear AMPKα2 protein abundance, and GLUT4 mRNA expression in contracting human skeletal muscle
Glycogen availability can influence glucose transporter 4 (GLUT4) expression in skeletal muscle through unknown mechanisms. The multisubstrate enzyme AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) has also been shown to play an important role in the regulation of GLUT4 expression in skeletal muscle. During contraction, AMPK [alpha]2 translocates to the nucleus and the activity of this AMPK isoform is enhanced when skeletal muscle glycogen is low. In this study, we investigated if decreased pre-exercise muscle glycogen levels and increased AMPK [alpha]2 activity reduced the association of AMPK with glycogen and increased AMPK [alpha]2 translocation to the nucleus and GLUT4 mRNA expression following exercise. Seven males performed 60 min of exercise at ~70% [VO.sub.2] peak on 2 occasions: either with normal (control) or low (LG) carbohydrate pre-exercise muscle glycogen content. Muscle samples were obtained by needle biopsy before and after exercise. Low muscle glycogen was associated with elevated AMPK [alpha]2 activity and acetyl-CoA carboxylase [beta] phosphorylation, increased translocation of AMPK [alpha]2 to the nucleus, and increased GLUT4 mRNA. Transfection of primary human myotubes with a constitutively active AMPK adenovirus also stimulated GLUT4 mRNA, providing direct evidence of a role of AMPK in regulating GLUT4 expression. We suggest that increased activation of AMPK [alpha]2 under conditions of low muscle glycogen enhances AMPK [alpha]2 nuclear translocation and increases GLUT4 mRNA expression in response to exercise in human skeletal muscle. <br /
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Online Adaptive Radiation Therapy: Implementation of a New Process of Care.
Onboard magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) guided radiotherapy is now clinically available in nine centers in the world. This technology has facilitated the clinical implementation of online adaptive radiotherapy (OART), or the ability to alter the daily treatment plan based on tumor and anatomical changes in real-time while the patient is on the treatment table. However, due to the time sensitive nature of OART, implementation in a large and busy clinic has many potential obstacles as well as patient-related safety considerations. In this work, we have described the implementation of this new process of care in the Department of Radiation Oncology at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). We describe the rationale, the initial challenges such as treatment time considerations, technical issues during the process of re-contouring, re-optimization, quality assurance, as well as our current solutions to overcome these challenges. In addition, we describe the implementation of a coverage system with a physician of the day as well as online planners (physicists or dosimetrists) to oversee each OART treatment with patient-specific 'hand-off' directives from the patient's treating physician. The purpose of this effort is to streamline the process without compromising treatment quality and patient safety. As more MRI-guided radiotherapy programs come online, we hope that our experience can facilitate successful adoption of OART in a way that maximally benefits the patient
Thermally Induced Fluctuations Below the Onset of Rayleigh-B\'enard Convection
We report quantitative experimental results for the intensity of
noise-induced fluctuations below the critical temperature difference for Rayleigh-B\'enard convection. The structure factor of the fluctuating
convection rolls is consistent with the expected rotational invariance of the
system. In agreement with predictions based on stochastic hydrodynamic
equations, the fluctuation intensity is found to be proportional to
where . The
noise power necessary to explain the measurements agrees with the prediction
for thermal noise. (WAC95-1)Comment: 13 pages of text and 4 Figures in a tar-compressed and uuencoded file
(using uufiles package). Detailed instructions of unpacking are include
SeqAnt: A web service to rapidly identify and annotate DNA sequence variations
<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The enormous throughput and low cost of second-generation sequencing platforms now allow research and clinical geneticists to routinely perform single experiments that identify tens of thousands to millions of variant sites. Existing methods to annotate variant sites using information from publicly available databases via web browsers are too slow to be useful for the large sequencing datasets being routinely generated by geneticists. Because sequence annotation of variant sites is required before functional characterization can proceed, the lack of a high-throughput pipeline to efficiently annotate variant sites can act as a significant bottleneck in genetics research.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>SeqAnt (<it>Seq</it>uence <it>An</it>notator) is an open source web service and software package that rapidly annotates DNA sequence variants and identifies recessive or compound heterozygous loci in human, mouse, fly, and worm genome sequencing experiments. Variants are characterized with respect to their functional type, frequency, and evolutionary conservation. Annotated variants can be viewed on a web browser, downloaded in a tab-delimited text file, or directly uploaded in a BED format to the UCSC genome browser. To demonstrate the speed of SeqAnt, we annotated a series of publicly available datasets that ranged in size from 37 to 3,439,107 variant sites. The total time to completely annotate these data completely ranged from 0.17 seconds to 28 minutes 49.8 seconds.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>SeqAnt is an open source web service and software package that overcomes a critical bottleneck facing research and clinical geneticists using second-generation sequencing platforms. SeqAnt will prove especially useful for those investigators who lack dedicated bioinformatics personnel or infrastructure in their laboratories.</p
Dynamic fragmentation of Al-W granular rings with different mesostructures
The support of this project was provided by the Office of Naval research Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative Award N00014-07-1-0740, Program Manager Dr. Clifford D. Bedford
Reducing Smoking Among People With Schizophrenia: Perspectives on Priorities for Advancing Research
Copyright © 2018 Baker, Robson, Lawn, Steinberg, Bucci, McNeill, Castle and Bonevski. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.Although tobacco smoking is very common among people with schizophrenia and has devastating effects on health, strategies to ameliorate the risk are lacking. Some studies have reported promising results yet quit rates are much lower than in the general population. There is a need to advance research into smoking cessation efforts among people with schizophrenia. We posed the following question to five leading international experts in the field: “What are the top three research ideas we need to prioritize in order to advance the field of reducing smoking amongst people with schizophrenia?” They identified three broad priorities: (i) deeper understanding about the relationship between smoking, smoking cessation and symptomatology; (ii) targeted, adaptive and responsive behavioral interventions evaluated with smarter methodologies; and (iii) improvements in delivery of interventions. Efforts should be made to establish a collaborative international research agenda
Inflammatory breast cancer: dynamic contrast-enhanced MR in patients receiving bevacizumab. Initial experience
To retrospectively compare three dynamic contrast material-enhanced
magnetic resonance (MR) imaging (dynamic MR imaging) analytic methods to
determine the parameter or combination of parameters most strongly associated
with changes in tumor microvasculature during treatment with bevacizumab alone
and bevacizumab plus chemotherapy in patients with inflammatory or locally
advanced breast cancer. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This study was conducted in
accordance with the institutional review board of the National Cancer Institute
and was compliant with the Privacy Act of 1974. Informed consent was obtained
from all patients. Patients with inflammatory or locally advanced breast cancer
were treated with one cycle of bevacizumab alone (cycle 1) followed by six cycles
of combination bevacizumab and chemotherapy (cycles 2-7). Serial dynamic MR
images were obtained, and the kinetic parameters measured by using three dynamic
analytic MR methods (heuristic, Brix, and general kinetic models) and two
region-of-interest strategies were compared by using two-sided statistical tests.
A P value of .01 was required for significance. RESULTS: In 19 patients, with use
of a whole-tumor region of interest, the authors observed a significant decrease
in the median values of three parameters measured from baseline to cycle 1:
forward transfer rate constant (Ktrans) (-34% relative change, P=.003), backflow
compartmental rate constant extravascular and extracellular to plasma (Kep) (-15%
relative change, P<.001), and integrated area under the gadolinium concentration
curve (IAUGC) at 180 seconds (-23% relative change, P=.009). A trend toward
differences in the heuristic slope of the washout curve between responders and
nonresponders to therapy was observed after cycle 1 (bevacizumab alone, P=.02).
The median relative change in slope of the wash-in curve from baseline to cycle 4
was significantly different between responders and nonresponders (P=.009).
CONCLUSION: The dynamic contrast-enhanced MR parameters Ktrans, Kep, and IAUGC at
180 seconds appear to have the strongest association with early physiologic
response to bevacizumab. Clinical trial registration no. NCT0001654
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