Cholecystitis in Pregnancy

Biliary tract disease is a relatively uncommon, heterogenous disease in pregnancy. Specifically, acute cholecystitis can be especially difficult to recognize in pregnancy. However, once diagnosed, the initial management plan should be conservative and include antibiotic therapy. Subsequent management depends on the gestational age at diagnosis. Surgical therapy, when indicated, should not be delayed and a planned intervention during the second trimester appears to offer a better outcome than surgery performed under emergent conditions

Do Incest, Depression, Parental Drinking, Serious Romantic Relationships, and Living with Parents Influence Patterns of Substance Use During Emerging Adulthood?

This study examined how incest, depression, parental drinking, relationship status, and living with parents affect patterns of substance use among emerging adults, 18 to 25 years old. The study sample included (n = 11,546) individuals who participated in Waves I, II, and III of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health). The study used separate latent class analysis for males and females to determine how patterns of substance use clustered together. The study identified the following three classes of substance use: heavy, moderate, and normative substance use patterns. Multinomial logistic regression indicated that, for females only, incest histories also nearly doubled the risk of heavy-use class membership. In addition, experiencing depression, being single, and not living with parents serve as risk factors for males and females in the heavy-use group. Conversely, being Black, Hispanic, or living with parents lowered the likelihood of being in the group with the most substance use behaviors (i.e., heavy use). Findings highlight the need for interventions that target depression and female survivors of incest among emerging adults

Representational Gesture as a Tool for Promoting Verb Learning in Young Children

The movements we produce or observe others produce can help us learn. Two forms of movement that are commonplace in our daily lives are actions, hand movements that directly manipulate our environment, and gestures, hand movements that accompany speech and represent ideas but do not lead to physical changes in the environment. Both action and gesture have been found to influence cognition, facilitating our ability to learn and remember new information (e.g., Calvo-Merino, Glaser, Grezes, Passingham, & Haggard, 2005; Casile & Giese, 2006; Chao & Martin, 2000; Cook, Mitchell, & GoldinMeadow, 2008; Goldin-Meadow, Cook, & Mitchell, 2009; Goldin-Meadow et al., 2012; James, 2010; James & Atwood, 2009; James & Gauthier, 2006; James & Maouene, 2009; James & Swain, 2011; Longcamp, Anton, Roth, & Velay, 2003; Longcamp, Tanskanen, & Hari, 2006; Pulvermüller, 2001; Wakefield & James, 2015). However, the two types of movement may affect learning in different ways. In previous work, the effects of action and gesture on learning have been considered separately (but see Novack, Congdon, Hemani-Lopez, & Goldin-Meadow, 2014). Our goal here is to directly compare children’s ability to learn from actions on objects versus gestures off objects. We consider this question in the realm of word learning, specifically, teaching children verbs for actions that are performed on objects. We also ask whether learning through these movements unfolds differently when movements are produced versus observed by a child. More broadly, our study is a first step in understanding how information is learned, generalized, and retained based on whether it is expressed through action or gesture

Corporate Panel—Chapter 11 Cramdown Interest Rates: Till, Momentive, and the Proper Valuation Method

The Corporate Panel debated the appropriate way to determine chapter 11 cramdown interest rates

Development and Validation of the Cognitive Behavioral Physical Activity Questionnaire

Purpose: Develop and demonstrate preliminary validation of a brief questionnaire aimed at assessing social cognitive determinants of physical activity (PA) in a college population. Design: Quantitative and observational. Setting: A midsized northeastern university. Subjects: Convenience sample of 827 male and female college students age 18 to 24 years. Measures: International Physical Activity Questionnaire and a PA stage-of-change algorithm. Analysis: A sequential process of survey development, including item generation and data reduction analyses by factor analysis, was followed with the goal of creating a parsimonious questionnaire. Structural equation modeling was used for confirmatory factor analysis and construct validation was confirmed against self-reported PA and stage of change. Validation analyses were replicated in a second, independent sample of 1032 college students. Results: Fifteen items reflecting PA self-regulation, outcome expectations, and personal barriers explained 65% of the questionnaire data and explained 28.6% and 39.5% of the variance in total PA and moderate-to-vigorous–intensity PA, respectively. Scale scores were distinguishable across the stages of change. Findings were similar when the Cognitive Behavioral Physical Activity Questionnaire (CBPAQ) was tested in a similar and independent sample of college students (40%; R2 moderate-to-vigorous–intensity PA = .40; p \u3c .001). Conclusion: The CBPAQ successfully explains and predicts PA behavior in a college population, warranting its incorporation into future studies aiming at understanding and improving on PA behavior in college students

The spectral and chemical measurement of pollutants on snow near South Pole, Antarctica

Remote sensing of light-absorbing particles (LAPs), or dark colored impurities, such as black carbon (BC) and dust on snow, is a key remaining challenge in cryospheric surface characterization and application to snow, ice, and climate models. We present a quantitative data set of in situ snow reflectance, measured and modeled albedo, and BC and trace element concentrations from clean to heavily fossil fuel emission contaminated snow near South Pole, Antarctica. Over 380 snow reflectance spectra (350–2500 nm) and 28 surface snow samples were collected at seven distinct sites in the austral summer season of 2014–2015. Snow samples were analyzed for BC concentration via a single particle soot photometer and for trace element concentration via an inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometer. Snow impurity concentrations ranged from 0.14 to 7000 part per billion (ppb) BC, 9.5 to 1200 ppb sulfur, 0.19 to 660 ppb iron, 0.013 to 1.9 ppb chromium, 0.13 to 120 ppb copper, 0.63 to 6.3 ppb zinc, 0.45 to 82 parts per trillion (ppt) arsenic, 0.0028 to 6.1 ppb cadmium, 0.062 to 22 ppb barium, and 0.0044 to 6.2 ppb lead. Broadband visible to shortwave infrared albedo ranged from 0.85 in pristine snow to 0.62 in contaminated snow. LAP radiative forcing, the enhanced surface absorption due to BC and trace elements, spanned from \u3c1 W m­–2 for clean snow to ~70 W m­–2 for snow with high BC and trace element content. Measured snow reflectance differed from modeled snow albedo due to specific impurity-dependent absorption features, which we recommend be further studied and improved in snow albedo models

Correction: Benchmarking tools for the alignment of functional noncoding DNA

RIGHTS : This article is licensed under the BioMed Central licence at http://www.biomedcentral.com/about/license which is similar to the 'Creative Commons Attribution Licence'. In brief you may : copy, distribute, and display the work; make derivative works; or make commercial use of the work - under the following conditions: the original author must be given credit; for any reuse or distribution, it must be made clear to others what the license terms of this work are.AbstractIn follow-up studies to this work [1], we have identified an error in a single line of code responsible for parsing BLASTZ [2] alignments that affects our previously published results for this alignment tool. This error resulted in a reduction in overall alignment coverage, with a concomitant underestimation of alignment sensitivity and overestimation of alignment specificity. As BLASTZ is an important and widely used alignment tool, we present here the revised results of our performance evaluations for BLASTZ together with previously reported results for the other alignment tools studied, which have been subsequently verified (Figures 1-4). The general conclusions presented in [1] remain unchanged, although the following sections concerning BLASTZ performance must be modified in light of our recent findings. The true overall alignment coverage for BLASTZ with and without insertion/deletion evolution and with and without blocks of constraint is shown in Figure 1, and reveals increased overall coverage in the presence of constrained blocks for intermediate to high divergence distances (Figures 1C & 1D) relative to previous results ([1] Figures 3C & 3D). As a consequence, the true overall sensitivity for BLASTZ is increased for intermediate to high divergence distances, especially in the presence of insertion/deletion evolution and constrained blocks (Figure 2D) relative to previous results ([1] Figure 4D). The most important revisions to [1] concern BLASTZ performance in interspersed blocks of constrained sequences (Figures 3, 4). Figure 3 shows that the true constraint coverage, and therefore constraint sensitivity, of BLASTZ is much improved relative to previous results for intermediate to high divergence distances ([1], Figure 5). Thus BLASTZ has increased constraint coverage relative to overall coverage (cp. Figures 1C & 1D with 3A & 3B), indicating that BLASTZ local alignments preferentially occur in constrained sequences for intermediate to high divergence distances, overturning claims on page 6 of [1] to the contrary. Likewise, the claim that BLASTZ has a "dramatic decrease in constraint sensitivity in the presence of indel evolution" on page 10 of [1] is incorrect. The increase in overall coverage, however, decreases the constraint specificity of BLASTZ for intermediate to high divergence distances (Figure 4A & 4B) relative to previous results ([1] Figure 6A & 6B). This decrease in constraint specificity requires reconsideration of the use of BLASTZ local alignments as specific detectors of constrained noncoding sequences discussed page 10 of [1]. Revised performance statistics for BLASTZ are posted along with previous results at [3]. We apologize for any misconception or inconvenience this error may have caused. References: 1. Pollard DA, Bergman CM, Stoye J, Celniker SE, Eisen MB: Benchmarking tools for the alignment of functional noncoding DNA. BMC Bioinformatics 2004, 5:6. 2. Schwartz S, Kent WJ, Smit A, Zhang Z, Baertsch R, Hardison RC, Haussler D, Miller W: Human-mouse alignments with BLASTZ. Genome Res 2003, 13:103-7. 3. AlignmentBenchmarking [http://rana.lbl.gov/AlignmentBenchmarking]Peer Reviewe

Steady-State and Time-Resolved Spectroscopy of F420 Extracted from Methanogen Cells

The methanogen electron carrier F420 was extracted from a methanogen cell culture, Methanobrevibacter ruminantium, and separated from other cell components by a single anion exchange chromatographic process. The extent of separation was determined spectroscopically. The fluorescence lifetime of F420 at pH 7.5 is ~4.2 nanoseconds

Chronic viral infection promotes sustained Th1-derived immunoregulatory IL-10 via BLIMP-1

During the course of many chronic viral infections, the antiviral T cell response becomes attenuated through a process that is regulated in part by the host. While elevated expression of the immunosuppressive cytokine IL-10 is involved in the suppression of viral-specific T cell responses, the relevant cellular sources of IL-10, as well as the pathways responsible for IL-10 induction, remain unclear. In this study, we traced IL-10 production over the course of chronic lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus (LCMV) infection in an IL-10 reporter mouse line. Using this model, we demonstrated that virus-specific T cells with reduced inflammatory function, particularly Th1 cells, display elevated and sustained IL-10 expression during chronic LCMV infection. Furthermore, ablation of IL-10 from the T cell compartment partially restored T cell function and reduced viral loads in LCMV-infected animals. We found that viral persistence is needed for sustained IL-10 production by Th1 cells and that the transcription factor BLIMP-1 is required for IL-10 expression by Th1 cells. Restimulation of Th1 cells from LCMV-infected mice promoted BLIMP-1 and subsequent IL-10 expression, suggesting that constant antigen exposure likely induces the BLIMP-1/IL-10 pathway during chronic viral infection. Together, these data indicate that effector T cells self-limit their responsiveness during persistent viral infection via an IL-10-dependent negative feedback loop.This work was supported by an Australian NHMRC Overseas Biomedical Postdoctoral Fellowship (to I.A. Parish); a Yale School of Medicine Brown-Coxe Postdoctoral Fellowship (to I.A. Parish); the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (SKA2010, to P.A. Lang); a CIHR grant (to P.S. Ohashi); and by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and NIH grant RO1AI074699 (to S.M. Kaech). P.S. Ohashi holds a Canada Research Chair in Autoimmunity and Tumor immunity

Evolution of the Gas Mass Fraction of Progenitors to Today's Massive Galaxies: ALMA Observations in the CANDELS GOODS-S Field

We present an ALMA survey of dust continuum emission in a sample of 70 galaxies in the redshift range z=2-5 selected from the CANDELS GOODS-S field. Multi-Epoch Abundance Matching (MEAM) is used to define potential progenitors of a z = 0 galaxy of stellar mass 1.5 10^11 M_sun. Gas masses are derived from the 850um luminosity. Ancillary data from the CANDELS GOODS-S survey are used to derive the gas mass fractions. The results at z<=3 are mostly in accord with expectations: The detection rates are 75% for the z=2 redshift bin, 50% for the z=3 bin and 0% for z>=4. The average gas mass fraction for the detected z=2 galaxies is f_gas = 0.55+/-0.12 and f_gas = 0.62+/-0.15 for the z=3 sample. This agrees with expectations for galaxies on the star-forming main sequence, and shows that gas fractions have decreased at a roughly constant rate from z=3 to z=0. Stacked images of the galaxies not detected with ALMA give upper limits to f_gas of <0.08 and <0.15, for the z=2 and z=3 redshift bins. None of our galaxies in the z=4 and z=5 sample are detected and the upper limit from stacked images, corrected for low metallicity, is f_gas<0.66. We do not think that lower gas-phase metallicities can entirely explain the lower dust luminosities. We briefly consider the possibility of accretion of very low-metallicity gas to explain the absence of detectable dust emission in our galaxies at z>4.Comment: Accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal. 33 pages; 11 figure