Disorder Effects in Superconducting Multiple Loop Quantum Interferometers

A theoretical study is presented on a number N of resistively shunted Josephson junctions connected in parallel as a disordered 1D array by superconducting wiring in such a manner that there are N-1 individual SQUID loops with arbitrary shape formed.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure

Spoken Language Skills in Children With Bilateral Hearing Aids or Bilateral Cochlear Implants at the Age of Three Years

Objectives: Early hearing aid (HA) fitting and cochlear implants (CIs) aim to reduce the effects of hearing loss (HL) on spoken language development. The goals of this study were (1) to examine spoken language skills of children with bilateral HAs and children with bilateral CIs; (2) to compare their language skills to the age-norms of peers with normal hearing (NH); and (3) to investigate factors associated with spoken language outcomes. Design: Spoken language results of 56 Finnish children with HL were obtained from a nationwide prospective multicenter study. Children with HL comprised two groups: children with mild-to-severe HL who used bilateral HAs (BiHA group, n = 28) and children with profound HL who used bilateral CIs (BiCI group, n = 28). Children's spoken language comprehension, expressive and receptive vocabulary, and phonological skills were compared with normative values of children with NH at the age of three years. Odds ratio (OR) was calculated to compare proportions of children below age-norms in BiHA and BiCI groups. Factors associated with spoken language outcomes were modeled with analysis of covariance. Results: At the age of 3 years, 50%-96% of children with HL performed 1 SD or more below the mean of the normative sample of age-peers with NH in spoken language skills, depending on the language domain. Receptive vocabulary and phonological skills were the most vulnerable language domains. In receptive vocabulary, 82% of the children in the BiHA group and 50% of the children in the BiCI group scored 1 SD or more below the normative mean. The BiHA group was 4.4 times more likely to have poorer receptive vocabulary than the BiCI group. In phonological skills, 96% of children in the BiHA group and 60% of the children in the BiCI group scored 1 SD or more below the normative mean. The BiHA group was 18.0 times more likely to have poorer phonological skills than the BiCI group. The analysis of covariance models showed that unaided pure-tone average, PTA(0.5-4 kHz), had a significant effect on spoken language comprehension in the BiHA group. For the BiCI group, age at HL diagnosis and age at CI activation had a significant effect on expressive vocabulary. High maternal level of education had a significant effect on language comprehension and expressive vocabulary and female gender on phonological skills. Conclusions: At the age of 3 years, especially receptive vocabulary and phonological skills caused difficulties for children with HL showing also considerable individual variation. Children with bilateral HAs seemed to be more likely to have poorer receptive vocabulary and phonological skills than children with bilateral CIs. A variety of factors was associated with outcomes in both groups. Close monitoring of spoken language skills of children with HL is important for ensuring similar opportunities for all children with HL and timely intervention, when needed.Peer reviewe

Associations of vitamin D pathway genes with circulating 25-hydroxyvitamin-D, 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin-D, and prostate cancer:a nested case-control study

Vitamin D pathway single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) are potentially useful proxies for investigating whether circulating vitamin D metabolites [total 25-hydroxyvitamin-D, 25(OH)D; 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin, 1,25(OH)2D] are causally related to prostate cancer. We investigated associations of sixteen SNPs across seven genes with prostate-specific antigen-detected prostate cancer

Second primary cancers in patients with skin cancer: a population-based study in Northern Ireland

Among all 14 500 incident cases of basal cell carcinoma (BCC), 6405 squamous cell carcinomas (SCC) and 1839 melanomas reported to the Northern Ireland Cancer Registry between 1993 and 2002, compared with the general population, risk of new primaries after BCC or SCC was increased by 9 and 57%, respectively. The subsequent risk of cancer, overall, was more than double after melanoma

Rediscovering vitamin D

Over the past 2 years there has been a radical change in standard clinical practice with respect to vitamin D. As a result of a growing body of knowledgeable physicians are assessing the vitamin D nutritional status of their patients and prescribing aggressive repletion regimens of a vitamin D supplement. The present paper summarizes some basic information about this essential nutrient and reviews some of the more recent data implicating vitamin D deficiency in disease etiology with an emphasis on cardiovascular disease and cancer. Finally a rational approach to the dosing of vitamin D in different patient populations is provided

Circulating 25-Hydroxyvitamin D and Risk of Esophageal and Gastric Cancer: Cohort Consortium Vitamin D Pooling Project of Rarer Cancers

Upper gastrointestinal (GI) cancers of the stomach and esophagus have high incidence and mortality worldwide, but they are uncommon in Western countries. Little information exists on the association between vitamin D and risk of upper GI cancers. This study examined the association between circulating 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25(OH)D) and upper GI cancer risk in the Cohort Consortium Vitamin D Pooling Project of Rarer Cancers. Concentrations of 25(OH)D were measured from 1,065 upper GI cancer cases and 1,066 age-, sex-, race-, and season-of blood draw–matched controls from 8 prospective cohort studies. In multivariate-adjusted models, circulating 25(OH)D concentration was not significantly associated with upper GI cancer risk. Subgroup analysis by race showed that among Asians, but not Caucasians, lower concentrations of 25(OH)D (<25 nmol/L) were associated with a statistically significant decreased risk of upper GI cancer (reference: 50–<75 nmol/L) (odds ratio = 0.53, 95% confidence interval: 0.31, 0.91; P trend = 0.003). Never smokers with concentrations of <25 nmol/L showed a lower risk of upper GI cancers (odds ratio = 0.55, 95% confidence interval: 0.31, 0.96). Subgroup analyses by alcohol consumption produced opposing trends. Results do not support the hypothesis that interventions aimed at increasing vitamin D status would lead to a lower risk of these highly fatal cancers

Impact of vitamin D metabolism on clinical epigenetics

The bioactive vitamin D (VD) metabolite, 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D3 regulates essential pathways of cellular metabolism and differentiation via its nuclear receptor (VDR). Molecular mechanisms which are known to play key roles in aging and cancer are mediated by complex processes involving epigenetic mechanisms contributing to efficiency of VD-activating CYP27A1 and CYP27B1 or inactivating CYP24 enzymes as well as VDR which binds to specific genomic sequences (VD response elements or VDREs). Activity of VDR can be modulated epigenetically by histone acetylation. It co-operates with other nuclear receptors which are influenced by histone acetyl transferases (HATs) as well as several types of histone deacetylases (HDACs). HDAC inhibitors (HDACi) and/or demethylating drugs may contribute to normalization of VD metabolism. Studies link VD signaling through the VDR directly to distinct molecular mechanisms of both HAT activity and the sirtuin class of HDACs (SIRT1) as well as the forkhead transcription factors thus contributing to elucidate complex epigenetic mechanisms for cancer preventive actions of VD

Spoken Language Skills in Children With Bilateral Hearing Aids or Bilateral Cochlear Implants at the Age of Three Years

Objectives: Early hearing aid (HA) fitting and cochlear implants (CIs) aim to reduce the effects of hearing loss (HL) on spoken language development. The goals of this study were (1) to examine spoken language skills of children with bilateral HAs and children with bilateral CIs; (2) to compare their language skills to the age-norms of peers with normal hearing (NH); and (3) to investigate factors associated with spoken language outcomes. Design:Spoken language results of 56 Finnish children with HL were obtained from a nationwide prospective multicenter study. Children with HL comprised two groups: children with mild-to-severe HL who used bilateral HAs (BiHA group, n = 28) and children with profound HL who used bilateral CIs (BiCI group, n = 28). Children's spoken language comprehension, expressive and receptive vocabulary, and phonological skills were compared with normative values of children with NH at the age of three years. Odds ratio (OR) was calculated to compare proportions of children below age-norms in BiHA and BiCI groups. Factors associated with spoken language outcomes were modeled with analysis of covariance. Results: At the age of 3 years, 50%-96% of children with HL performed 1 SD or more below the mean of the normative sample of age-peers with NH in spoken language skills, depending on the language domain. Receptive vocabulary and phonological skills were the most vulnerable language domains. In receptive vocabulary, 82% of the children in the BiHA group and 50% of the children in the BiCI group scored 1 SD or more below the normative mean. The BiHA group was 4.4 times more likely to have poorer receptive vocabulary than the BiCI group. In phonological skills, 96% of children in the BiHA group and 60% of the children in the BiCI group scored 1 SD or more below the normative mean. The BiHA group was 18.0 times more likely to have poorer phonological skills than the BiCI group. The analysis of covariance models showed that unaided pure-tone average, PTA(0.5-4 kHz), had a significant effect on spoken language comprehension in the BiHA group. For the BiCI group, age at HL diagnosis and age at CI activation had a significant effect on expressive vocabulary. High maternal level of education had a significant effect on language comprehension and expressive vocabulary and female gender on phonological skills. Conclusions: At the age of 3 years, especially receptive vocabulary and phonological skills caused difficulties for children with HL showing also considerable individual variation. Children with bilateral HAs seemed to be more likely to have poorer receptive vocabulary and phonological skills than children with bilateral CIs. A variety of factors was associated with outcomes in both groups. Close monitoring of spoken language skills of children with HL is important for ensuring similar opportunities for all children with HL and timely intervention, when needed.</p

Prospective study of serum 25(OH)-vitamin D concentration and risk of oesophageal and gastric cancers

We prospectively examined the relation between pretrial serum vitamin D status and risk of oesophageal and gastric cancers among subjects who developed cancer over 5.25 years of follow-up, including 545 oesophageal squamous cell carcinomas (ESCC), 353 gastric cardia adenocarcinomas, 81 gastric noncardia adenocarcinomas, and an age- and sex-stratified random sample of 1105 subjects. The distribution of serum 25(OH)D was calculated using the known sampling weights. For the cohort as a whole, the 25th, 50th, and 75th percentile concentrations of 25(OH)-vitamin D were 19.6, 31.9, and 48.7 nmol l−1, respectively, and we found that higher serum 25(OH)D concentrations were associated with monotonically increasing risk of ESCC in men, but not in women. Comparing men in the fourth quartile of serum 25(OH)D concentrations to those in the first, we found a hazard ratio (HR) (95% confidence interval (CI)) of 1.77 (1.16–2.70), P trend=0.0033. The same comparison in women had a HR (95% CI) of 1.06 (0.71–1.59), P trend=0.70. We found no associations for gastric cardia or noncardia adenocarcinoma. Among subjects with low vitamin D status, higher serum 25(OH)D concentrations were associated with significantly increased risk of ESCC in men, but not in women. Further refinements of the analysis did not suggest any factors, which could explain this unexpected result