Pedro Ximenez Abrill's Symphony No. 11: editorial research and performance considerations for modern premiere

This study presents editorial research on Pedro Ximenez Abrill's Symphony No. 11. The work was re-discovered in 2004 in Bolivia, where the composer worked as Kapellmeister for the Cathedral of Sucre between 1833 and 1856. The symphony was composed circa 1840 and, following its discovery after one and a half centuries of unknown existence, a set of manuscript orchestra parts was transcribed into an urtext score by Bolivian musicologist Carlos Seoane Urioste in 2010. The transcription of the separate instrumental parts rendered a score that reflects numerous inconsistencies and errors in notation including notes, accidentals, rhythmic values, dynamics, articulation, and ornamentation. This urtext score - while a valuable source for research - does not constitute a practical resource for the performance of this symphony given the amount of notation discrepancies in it. The purpose of this study was to research the urtext score, the composer, the historical context, and the technical aspects of this symphony in order to produce a set of score and parts edited to a point that would allow a historically informed performance of this work. With the edited materials, the symphony was given its modern premiere, conducted by the author of this document, in March 2012 at the University of North Carolina Greensboro. The research in this document is presented in three main parts. The first regards historical research on the composer and his works, as well as the recent discovery of a large collection of his compositions. The second is a performance-directed analysis of formal and technical elements in the symphony. The third explains, in detail, the editorial process that was necessary in order to bring the original source materials to a state of practical use for public performance

Children’s expressions of gratitude and their association with cultural values among Brazilians, Brazilians in the U. S., and U.S. ethnic groups

Gratitude has mostly been studied as a positive emotion, although scholars have suggested that this conceptualization is confounded with appreciation. In contrast, I define gratitude as a moral virtue; it occurs when one person receives a freely given benefit, recognizes the intentionality of the benefactor, and freely wishes to repay with something of benefit to the benefactor. Gratitude as a moral virtue involves autonomy and relatedness. The cultural dimensions proposed by Kagitçibasi’s (2007) were used here to understand potential cultural variations in the expression of gratitude. The present study aimed to investigate associations between parents’ values and children’s wishes with expressions of gratitude across both societies and groups within the United States. Children (aged 7 to 14) answered two open-ended questions: “What is your greatest wish?” and “What would you do for the person who granted you this wish?” Answers to the first question were categorized as (a) hedonistic, (b) self-, and (c) social-oriented wishes. Those to the second question were categorized as (a) verbal, (b) concrete, and (c) connective gratitude. Parents completed a questionnaire of values for their children with four sub-scales (autonomy, heteronomy, relatedness, and separateness). First, I conducted factor and mean structure analyses to examine differences and similarities in parents’ values within the U. S. (187 European American, 126 African American, 107 Brazilian immigrants, and 102 Hispanics) and across societies (192 Brazilian, 187 European American, and 107 Brazilian immigrants). Secondly, I used multi-group latent class analysis to explore differences in children’s expressions of gratitude across ethnic groups (N = 467; 148 European Americans, 110 Brazilians in the U. S., 106 Hispanics, and 103 African Americans) and societies (N = 614; 274 from Greensboro, 230 from Porto Alegre, and 110 Brazilian immigrants). Finally, I used multinomial logistic regression to explore associations of children’s wishes and parental values with children’s expressions of gratitude. Contrary to what I had expected, Brazilian parents (in the home country and in the United States) scored higher on autonomy than did European Americans; also, Brazilians in the U. S. scored higher in heteronomy than did European Americans and Brazilians. However, all these groups scored higher in both relatedness and autonomy than in heteronomy. Regarding gratitude expressions, with wishes as predictors, Brazilians in the U. S. were more likely than were European Americans to express gratitude verbally than concretely. Brazilians in their home country seemed to be more likely than were other groups to express more than one type of gratitude at the same time. Children expressing hedonistic wishes were less likely to express connective rather than verbal gratitude (for European Americans), and connective rather than verbal and concrete gratitude (for Brazilians in the U. S.). For African Americans, expressing verbal rather than concrete gratitude buffered the expression of hedonistic wishes. Finally, heteronomy was associated with the expression of verbal rather than concrete gratitude for Hispanics and Brazilians in their home country, suggesting a link between valuing to follow societal norms and expressing thanks verbally for those groups. In conclusion, this study advances research on gratitude by considering it as a moral virtue rather than simple appreciation. It also contributes for the knowledge in this topic, given that it includes a diverse sample drawn both from the United States and a non-Western country. Overall, the present study showed both similarities and differences in parental values and children’s gratitude expressions and their relations with children’s values (hedonistic, self-, and social oriented)

Synoptic Patterns Associated With Wet Season Onset In The Tropical High Andes Of Southern Peru And Bolivia

In the outer tropical Andes where a clear distinction between the wet and dry season exist, precipitation is one of the most relevant factors in determining glacier mass balance. This study examines daily precipitation observations from 1979 to 2017 in southern Peru and Bolivia to identifies the wet season timing and examine its interannual variability and tendencies. The ERA-Interim Reanalysis (0.75° Lat/Lon - 6 hours) provides insights into atmospheric circulations related to the wet season timing. We identify spatiotemporal variations in the wet season timing mostly associated with the distance to the equator and to the Amazon basin, in which onset dates exhibits a pronounced variability. Significant trends showing a delay of the wet season onset in 0.4 to 0.8 days/year were found in the southwestern subregions, closely related with the occurrence of early/late wet season onset cases. Main features related to the wet season onset are a low-level northwesterly flow east of the Andes, an anticyclonic circulation in mid-troposphere, and northwesterly winds in the upper troposphere. Changes in the position and strength of these circulations are observed during early vs late wet season onset cases. This result has implications for improving seasonal precipitation predictions from tropical high Andes

The utilization of an ultrasound-guided 8-gauge vacuum-assisted breast biopsy system as an innovative approach to accomplishing complete eradication of multiple bilateral breast fibroadenomas

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Ultrasound-guided vacuum-assisted breast biopsy technology is extremely useful for diagnostic biopsy of suspicious breast lesions and for attempted complete excision of appropriately selected presumed benign breast lesions.</p> <p>Case presentation</p> <p>A female patient presented with 16 breast lesions (eight within each breast), documented on ultrasound and all presumed to be fibroadenomas. Over a ten and one-half month period of time, 14 of these 16 breast lesions were removed under ultrasound guidance during a total of 11 separate 8-gauge Mammotome^®excision procedures performed during seven separate sessions. Additionally, two of these 16 breast lesions were removed by open surgical excision. A histopathologic diagnosis of fibroadenoma and/or fibroadenomatous changes was confirmed at all lesion excision sites. Interval follow-up ultrasound imaging revealed no evidence of a residual lesion at the site of any of the 16 original breast lesions.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>This report describes an innovative approach of utilizing ultrasound-guided 8-gauge vacuum-assisted breast biopsy technology for assisting in achieving complete eradication of multiple bilateral fibroadenomas in a patient who presented with 16 documented breast lesions. As such, this innovative approach is highly recommended in similar appropriately selected patients.</p

Large-scale associations between the leukocyte transcriptome and BOLD responses to speech differ in autism early language outcome subtypes.

Heterogeneity in early language development in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is clinically important and may reflect neurobiologically distinct subtypes. Here, we identified a large-scale association between multiple coordinated blood leukocyte gene coexpression modules and the multivariate functional neuroimaging (fMRI) response to speech. Gene coexpression modules associated with the multivariate fMRI response to speech were different for all pairwise comparisons between typically developing toddlers and toddlers with ASD and poor versus good early language outcome. Associated coexpression modules were enriched in genes that are broadly expressed in the brain and many other tissues. These coexpression modules were also enriched in ASD-associated, prenatal, human-specific, and language-relevant genes. This work highlights distinctive neurobiology in ASD subtypes with different early language outcomes that is present well before such outcomes are known. Associations between neuroimaging measures and gene expression levels in blood leukocytes may offer a unique in vivo window into identifying brain-relevant molecular mechanisms in ASD

Benefits and risks of the hormetic effects of dietary isothiocyanates on cancer prevention

The isothiocyanate (ITC) sulforaphane (SFN) was shown at low levels (1-5 µM) to promote cell proliferation to 120-143% of the controls in a number of human cell lines, whilst at high levels (10-40 µM) it inhibited such cell proliferation. Similar dose responses were observed for cell migration, i.e. SFN at 2.5 µM increased cell migration in bladder cancer T24 cells to 128% whilst high levels inhibited cell migration. This hormetic action was also found in an angiogenesis assay where SFN at 2.5 µM promoted endothelial tube formation (118% of the control), whereas at 10-20 µM it caused significant inhibition. The precise mechanism by which SFN influences promotion of cell growth and migration is not known, but probably involves activation of autophagy since an autophagy inhibitor, 3-methyladenine, abolished the effect of SFN on cell migration. Moreover, low doses of SFN offered a protective effect against free-radical mediated cell death, an effect that was enhanced by co-treatment with selenium. These results suggest that SFN may either prevent or promote tumour cell growth depending on the dose and the nature of the target cells. In normal cells, the promotion of cell growth may be of benefit, but in transformed or cancer cells it may be an undesirable risk factor. In summary, ITCs have a biphasic effect on cell growth and migration. The benefits and risks of ITCs are not only determined by the doses, but are affected by interactions with Se and the measured endpoint

Rationale and design of a multicenter Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) and at-risk for CKD electronic health records-based registry: CURE-CKD.

BACKGROUND: Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is a global public health problem, exhibiting sharp increases in incidence, prevalence, and attributable morbidity and mortality. There is a critical need to better understand the demographics, clinical characteristics, and key risk factors for CKD; and to develop platforms for testing novel interventions to improve modifiable risk factors, particularly for the CKD patients with a rapid decline in kidney function. METHODS: We describe a novel collaboration between two large healthcare systems (Providence St. Joseph Health and University of California, Los Angeles Health) supported by leadership from both institutions, which was created to develop harmonized cohorts of patients with CKD or those at increased risk for CKD (hypertension/HTN, diabetes/DM, pre-diabetes) from electronic health record data. RESULTS: The combined repository of candidate records included more than 3.3 million patients with at least a single qualifying measure for CKD and/or at-risk for CKD. The CURE-CKD registry includes over 2.6 million patients with and/or at-risk for CKD identified by stricter guide-line based criteria using a combination of administrative encounter codes, physical examinations, laboratory values and medication use. Notably, data based on race/ethnicity and geography in part, will enable robust analyses to study traditionally disadvantaged or marginalized patients not typically included in clinical trials. DISCUSSION: CURE-CKD project is a unique multidisciplinary collaboration between nephrologists, endocrinologists, primary care physicians with health services research skills, health economists, and those with expertise in statistics, bio-informatics and machine learning. The CURE-CKD registry uses curated observations from real-world settings across two large healthcare systems and has great potential to provide important contributions for healthcare and for improving clinical outcomes in patients with and at-risk for CKD

A Cytochrome b561 with Ferric Reductase Activity from the Parasitic Blood Fluke, Schistosoma japonicum

Parasites acquire their food from their hosts, either by feeding directly on tissues of the host, or by competing for ingested food. Adult schistosomes live within the vasculature of humans and rely on the blood cells and plasma they ingest and dissolved solutes they derive across their body surface, the tegument, for their nutrition. Schistosomes require host trace elements, notably iron, which is used as a co-factor in many biological reactions. Iron is especially important for schistosomes, for it has a significant role in egg formation and embryogenesis. In human tissues, iron predominates in the trivalent (ferric) form; however, it is the divalent (ferrous) form that is used as an essential co-factor for multiple biomolecules and enzymes. In order to be acquired from the host environment, the valency of iron must be modified to render it suitable for transport across the parasite membrane. This paper describes the molecular characterisation of a schistosome molecule that is crucial for bringing about this change in iron. Schistosoma japonicum Cytb561 is the first ferric reductase characterised in any parasitic helminth and emphasises the importance of iron, and other divalent cations, in these organisms

Treatment With Simvastatin and Rifaximin Restores the Plasma Metabolomic Profile in Patients With Decompensated Cirrhosis

Patients with decompensated cirrhosis, particularly those with acute-on-chronic liver failure (ACLF), show profound alterations in plasma metabolomics. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of treatment with simvastatin and rifaximin on plasma metabolites of patients with decompensated cirrhosis, specifically on compounds characteristic of the ACLF plasma metabolomic profile. Two cohorts of patients were investigated. The first was a descriptive cohort of patients with decompensated cirrhosis (n = 42), with and without ACLF. The second was an intervention cohort from the LIVERHOPE-SAFETY randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial treated with simvastatin 20 mg/day plus rifaximin 1,200 mg/day (n = 12) or matching placebo (n = 13) for 3 months. Plasma samples were analyzed using ultrahigh performance liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectroscopy for plasma metabolomics characterization. ACLF was characterized by intense proteolysis and lipid alterations, specifically in pathways associated with inflammation and mitochondrial dysfunction, such as the tryptophan–kynurenine and carnitine beta-oxidation pathways. An ACLF-specific signature was identified. Treatment with simvastatin and rifaximin was associated with changes in 161 of 985 metabolites in comparison to treatment with placebo. A remarkable reduction in levels of metabolites from the tryptophan–kynurenine and carnitine pathways was found. Notably, 18 of the 32 metabolites of the ACLF signature were affected by the treatment. Conclusion: Treatment with simvastatin and rifaximin modulates some of the pathways that appear to be key in ACLF development. This study unveils some of the mechanisms involved in the effects of treatment with simvastatin and rifaximin in decompensated cirrhosis and sets the stage for the use of metabolomics to investigate new targeted therapies in cirrhosis to prevent ACLF development