State of the California current 2012-13: No such thing as an “average” year

This report reviews the state of the California Current System (CCS) between winter 2012 and spring 2013, and includes observations from Washington State to Baja California. During 2012, large-scale climate modes indicated the CCS remained in a cool, productive phase present since 2007. The upwelling season was delayed north of 42°N, but regions to the south, especially 33° to 36°N, experienced average to above average upwelling that persisted throughout the summer. Contrary to the indication of high production suggested by the climate indices, chlorophyll observed from surveys and remote sensing was below average along much of the coast. As well, some members of the forage assemblages along the coast experienced low abundances in 2012 surveys. Specifically, the concentrations of all lifestages observed directly or from egg densities of Pacific sardine, Sardinops sagax, and northern anchovy, Engraulis mordax, were less than previous years’ survey estimates. However, 2013 surveys and observations indicate an increase in abundance of northern anchovy. During winter 2011/2012, the increased presence of northern copepod species off northern California was consistent with stronger southward transport. Krill and small-fraction zooplankton abundances, where examined, were generally above average. North of 42°N, salps returned to typical abundances in 2012 after greater observed concentrations in 2010 and 2011. In contrast, salp abundance off central and southern California increased after a period of southward transport during winter 2011/2012. Reproductive success of piscivorous Brandt’s cormorant, Phalacrocorax penicillatus, was reduced while planktivorous Cassin’s auklet, Ptychoramphus aleuticus was elevated. Differences between the productivity of these two seabirds may be related to the available forage assemblage observed in the surveys. California sea lion pups from San Miguel Island were undernourished resulting in a pup mortality event perhaps in response to changes in forage availability. Limited biological data were available for spring 2013, but strong winter upwelling coastwide indicated an early spring transition, with the strong upwelling persisting into early summer

Obstructive Sleep Apnea Alters Sleep Stage Transition Dynamics

Enhanced characterization of sleep architecture, compared with routine polysomnographic metrics such as stage percentages and sleep efficiency, may improve the predictive phenotyping of fragmented sleep. One approach involves using stage transition analysis to characterize sleep continuity.We analyzed hypnograms from Sleep Heart Health Study (SHHS) participants using the following stage designations: wake after sleep onset (WASO), non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep, and REM sleep. We show that individual patient hypnograms contain insufficient number of bouts to adequately describe the transition kinetics, necessitating pooling of data. We compared a control group of individuals free of medications, obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), medical co-morbidities, or sleepiness (n = 374) with mild (n = 496) or severe OSA (n = 338). WASO, REM sleep, and NREM sleep bout durations exhibited multi-exponential temporal dynamics. The presence of OSA accelerated the "decay" rate of NREM and REM sleep bouts, resulting in instability manifesting as shorter bouts and increased number of stage transitions. For WASO bouts, previously attributed to a power law process, a multi-exponential decay described the data well. Simulations demonstrated that a multi-exponential process can mimic a power law distribution.OSA alters sleep architecture dynamics by decreasing the temporal stability of NREM and REM sleep bouts. Multi-exponential fitting is superior to routine mono-exponential fitting, and may thus provide improved predictive metrics of sleep continuity. However, because a single night of sleep contains insufficient transitions to characterize these dynamics, extended monitoring of sleep, probably at home, would be necessary for individualized clinical application

The United States of America and Scientific Research

To gauge the current commitment to scientific research in the United States of America (US), we compared federal research funding (FRF) with the US gross domestic product (GDP) and industry research spending during the past six decades. In order to address the recent globalization of scientific research, we also focused on four key indicators of research activities: research and development (R&D) funding, total science and engineering doctoral degrees, patents, and scientific publications. We compared these indicators across three major population and economic regions: the US, the European Union (EU) and the People's Republic of China (China) over the past decade. We discovered a number of interesting trends with direct relevance for science policy. The level of US FRF has varied between 0.2% and 0.6% of the GDP during the last six decades. Since the 1960s, the US FRF contribution has fallen from twice that of industrial research funding to roughly equal. Also, in the last two decades, the portion of the US government R&D spending devoted to research has increased. Although well below the US and the EU in overall funding, the current growth rate for R&D funding in China greatly exceeds that of both. Finally, the EU currently produces more science and engineering doctoral graduates and scientific publications than the US in absolute terms, but not per capita. This study's aim is to facilitate a serious discussion of key questions by the research community and federal policy makers. In particular, our results raise two questions with respect to: a) the increasing globalization of science: “What role is the US playing now, and what role will it play in the future of international science?”; and b) the ability to produce beneficial innovations for society: “How will the US continue to foster its strengths?

Validation of a screening questionnaire for hip and knee osteoarthritis in old people

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>To develop a sensitive and specific screening tool for knee and hip osteoarthritis in the general population of elderly people.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>The Knee and Hip OsteoArthritis Screening Questionnaire (KHOA-SQ) was developed based on previous studies and observed data and sent to 11,002 people aged 60 to 90 years, stratified by age and gender, who were selected by random sampling. Algorithms of the KHOA-SQ were created. Respondents positive for knee or hip OA on the KHOA-SQ were invited to be evaluated by an orthopedic surgeon. A sample of 300 individuals negative for knee or hip OA on the KHOA-SQ were also invited for evaluation. Sensitivity and specificity were determined for the KHOA-SQ, as well as for KHOA-SQ questions. Classification and Regression Tree analysis was used to find alternative screening algorithms from the questionnaire.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Of 11,002 individuals contacted, 7,577 completed the KHOA-SQ. Of 1,115 positive for knee OA, on the KHOA-SQ, 710 (63.6%) were diagnosed with it. For hip OA, 339 of the 772 who screened positive (43.9%) were diagnosed it. Sensitivity for the hip algorithm was 87.4% and specificity 59.8%; for the knee, sensitivity was 94.5% and specificity 43.8%. Two alternative algorithms provided lower specificity.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The KHOA-SQ offers high sensitivity and moderate specificity. Although this tool correctly identifies individuals with knee or hip OA, the high false positive rate could pose problems. Based on our questions, no better algorithm was found.</p

Neural responses in parietal and occipital areas in response to visual events are modulated by prior multisensory stimuli

The effect of multi-modal vs uni-modal prior stimuli on the subsequent processing of a simple flash stimulus was studied in the context of the audio-visual 'flash-beep' illusion, in which the number of flashes a person sees is influenced by accompanying beep stimuli. EEG recordings were made while combinations of simple visual and audio-visual stimuli were presented. The experiments found that the electric field strength related to a flash stimulus was stronger when it was preceded by a multi-modal flash/beep stimulus, compared to when it was preceded by another uni-modal flash stimulus. This difference was found to be significant in two distinct timeframes--an early timeframe, from 130-160 ms, and a late timeframe, from 300-320 ms. Source localisation analysis found that the increased activity in the early interval was localised to an area centred on the inferior and superior parietal lobes, whereas the later increase was associated with stronger activity in an area centred on primary and secondary visual cortex, in the occipital lobe. The results suggest that processing of a visual stimulus can be affected by the presence of an immediately prior multisensory event. Relatively long-lasting interactions generated by the initial auditory and visual stimuli altered the processing of a subsequent visual stimulus.status: publishe

Genetic Anticipation Is Associated with Telomere Shortening in Hereditary Breast Cancer

There is increasing evidence suggesting that short telomeres and subsequent genomic instability contribute to malignant transformation. Telomere shortening has been described as a mechanism to explain genetic anticipation in dyskeratosis congenita and Li-Fraumeni syndrome. Since genetic anticipation has been observed in familial breast cancer, we aimed to study telomere length in familial breast cancer patients and hypothesized that genetic defects causing this disease would affect telomere maintenance resulting in shortened telomeres. Here, we first investigated age anticipation in mother-daughter pairs with breast cancer in 623 breast cancer families, classified as BRCA1, BRCA2, and BRCAX. Moreover, we analyzed telomere length in DNA from peripheral blood leukocytes by quantitative PCR in a set of 198 hereditary breast cancer patients, and compared them with 267 control samples and 71 sporadic breast cancer patients. Changes in telomere length in mother-daughter pairs from breast cancer families and controls were also evaluated to address differences through generations. We demonstrated that short telomeres characterize hereditary but not sporadic breast cancer. We have defined a group of BRCAX families with short telomeres, suggesting that telomere maintenance genes might be susceptibility genes for breast cancer. Significantly, we described that progressive telomere shortening is associated with earlier onset of breast cancer in successive generations of affected families. Our results provide evidence that telomere shortening is associated with earlier age of cancer onset in successive generations, suggesting that it might be a mechanism of genetic anticipation in hereditary breast cancer

Crystal structure of tarocystatin–papain complex: implications for the inhibition property of group-2 phytocystatins

Tarocystatin (CeCPI) from taro (Colocasia esculenta cv. Kaohsiung no. 1), a group-2 phytocystatin, shares a conserved N-terminal cystatin domain (NtD) with other phytocystatins but contains a C-terminal cystatin-like extension (CtE). The structure of the tarocystatin–papain complex and the domain interaction between NtD and CtE in tarocystatin have not been determined. We resolved the crystal structure of the phytocystatin–papain complex at resolution 2.03 Å. Surprisingly, the structure of the NtD–papain complex in a stoichiometry of 1:1 could be built, with no CtE observed. Only two remnant residues of CtE could be built in the structure of the CtE–papain complex. Therefore, CtE is easily digested by papain. To further characterize the interaction between NtD and CtE, three segments of tarocystatin, including the full-length (FL), NtD and CtE, were used to analyze the domain–domain interaction and the inhibition ability. The results from glutaraldehyde cross-linking and yeast two-hybrid assay indicated the existence of an intrinsic flexibility in the region linking NtD and CtE for most tarocystatin molecules. In the inhibition activity assay, the glutathione-S-transferase (GST)-fused FL showed the highest inhibition ability without residual peptidase activity, and GST-NtD and FL showed almost the same inhibition ability, which was higher than with NtD alone. On the basis of the structures, the linker flexibility and inhibition activity of tarocystatins, we propose that the overhangs from the cystatin domain may enhance the inhibition ability of the cystatin domain against papain

Divergent Cortical Generators of MEG and EEG during Human Sleep Spindles Suggested by Distributed Source Modeling

Background: Sleep spindles are,1-second bursts of 10–15 Hz activity, occurring during normal stage 2 sleep. In animals, sleep spindles can be synchronous across multiple cortical and thalamic locations, suggesting a distributed stable phaselocked generating system. The high synchrony of spindles across scalp EEG sites suggests that this may also be true in humans. However, prior MEG studies suggest multiple and varying generators. Methodology/Principal Findings: We recorded 306 channels of MEG simultaneously with 60 channels of EEG during naturally occurring spindles of stage 2 sleep in 7 healthy subjects. High-resolution structural MRI was obtained in each subject, to define the shells for a boundary element forward solution and to reconstruct the cortex providing the solution space for a noise-normalized minimum norm source estimation procedure. Integrated across the entire duration of all spindles, sources estimated from EEG and MEG are similar, diffuse and widespread, including all lobes from both hemispheres. However, the locations, phase and amplitude of sources simultaneously estimated from MEG versus EEG are highly distinct during the same spindles. Specifically, the sources estimated from EEG are highly synchronous across the cortex, whereas those from MEG rapidly shift in phase, hemisphere, and the location within the hemisphere. Conclusions/Significance: The heterogeneity of MEG sources implies that multiple generators are active during huma

A genetic locus and gene expression patterns associated with the priming effect on lettuce seed germination at elevated temperatures

Seeds of most cultivated varieties of lettuce (Lactuca sativa L.) fail to germinate at warm temperatures (i.e., above 25–30°C). Seed priming (controlled hydration followed by drying) alleviates this thermoinhibition by increasing the maximum germination temperature. We conducted a quantitative trait locus (QTL) analysis of seed germination responses to priming using a recombinant inbred line (RIL) population derived from a cross between L. sativa cv. Salinas and L. serriola accession UC96US23. Priming significantly increased the maximum germination temperature of the RIL population, and a single major QTL was responsible for 47% of the phenotypic variation due to priming. This QTL collocated with Htg6.1, a major QTL from UC96US23 associated with high temperature germination capacity. Seeds of three near-isogenic lines (NILs) carrying an Htg6.1 introgression from UC96US23 in a Salinas genetic background exhibited synergistic increases in maximum germination temperature in response to priming. LsNCED4, a gene encoding a key enzyme (9-cis-epoxycarotinoid dioxygenase) in the abscisic acid biosynthetic pathway, maps precisely with Htg6.1. Expression of LsNCED4 after imbibition for 24 h at high temperature was greater in non-primed seeds of Salinas, of a second cultivar (Titan) and of NILs containing Htg6.1 compared to primed seeds of the same genotypes. In contrast, expression of genes encoding regulated enzymes in the gibberellin and ethylene biosynthetic pathways (LsGA3ox1 and LsACS1, respectively) was enhanced by priming and suppressed by imbibition at elevated temperatures. Developmental and temperature regulation of hormonal biosynthetic pathways is associated with seed priming effects on germination temperature sensitivity