The use of retroviral gene delivery for development of a bovine cytotoxic T cell assay system

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/3801036

Quasinormal modes, Superradiance and Area Spectrum for 2+1 Acoustic Black Holes

We present an exact expression for the quasinormal modes of acoustic disturbances in a rotating 2+1 dimensional sonic black hole (draining bathtub fluid flow) in the low frequency limit and evaluate the adiabatic invariant proposed by Kunstatter. We also compute,via Bohr-Sommerfeld quantization rule the equivalent area spectrum for this acoustic black hole, and we compute the superradiance phenomena for pure spinning 2+1 black holes.Comment: 10 pages, Final version, an appendix and some references was added, accepted by Phys. Lett.

Achieving High-Performance the Functional Way: A Functional Pearl on Expressing High-Performance Optimizations as Rewrite Strategies

Optimizing programs to run efficiently on modern parallel hardware is hard but crucial for many applications. The predominantly used imperative languages - like C or OpenCL - force the programmer to intertwine the code describing functionality and optimizations. This results in a portability nightmare that is particularly problematic given the accelerating trend towards specialized hardware devices to further increase efficiency. Many emerging DSLs used in performance demanding domains such as deep learning or high-performance image processing attempt to simplify or even fully automate the optimization process. Using a high-level - often functional - language, programmers focus on describing functionality in a declarative way. In some systems such as Halide or TVM, a separate schedule specifies how the program should be optimized. Unfortunately, these schedules are not written in well-defined programming languages. Instead, they are implemented as a set of ad-hoc predefined APIs that the compiler writers have exposed. In this functional pearl, we show how to employ functional programming techniques to solve this challenge with elegance. We present two functional languages that work together - each addressing a separate concern. RISE is a functional language for expressing computations using well known functional data-parallel patterns. ELEVATE is a functional language for describing optimization strategies. A high-level RISE program is transformed into a low-level form using optimization strategies written in ELEVATE . From the rewritten low-level program high-performance parallel code is automatically generated. In contrast to existing high-performance domain-specific systems with scheduling APIs, in our approach programmers are not restricted to a set of built-in operations and optimizations but freely define their own computational patterns in RISE and optimization strategies in ELEVATE in a composable and reusable way. We show how our holistic functional approach achieves competitive performance with the state-of-the-art imperative systems Halide and TVM

Radiocarbon Analyses Quantify Peat Carbon Losses With Increasing Temperature in a Whole Ecosystem Warming Experiment

Climate warming is expected to accelerate peatland degradation and release rates of carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4). Spruce and Peatlands Responses Under Changing Environments is an ecosystem-scale climate manipulation experiment, designed to examine peatland ecosystem response to climate forcings. We examined whether heating up to +9 °C to 3 m-deep in a peat bog over a 7-year period led to higher C turnover and CO2 and CH4 emissions, by measuring 14C of solid peat, dissolved organic carbon (DOC), CH4, and dissolved CO2 (DIC). DOC, a major substrate for heterotrophic respiration, increased significantly with warming. There was no 7-year trend in the DI14 C of the ambient plots which remained similar to their DO14 C. At +6.75 °C and +9 °C, the 14C of DIC, a product of microbial respiration, initially resembled ambient plots but became more depleted over 7 years of warming. We attributed the shifts in DI14 C to the increasing importance of solid phase peat as a substrate for microbial respiration and quantified this shift via the radiocarbon mass balance. The mass-balance model revealed increases in peat-supported respiration of the catotelm depths in heated plots over time and relative to ambient enclosures, from a baseline of 20%–25% in ambient enclosures, to 35%–40% in the heated plots. We find that warming stimulates microorganisms to respire ancient peat C, deposited under prior climate (cooler) conditions. This apparent destabilization of the large peat C reservoir has implications for peatland-climate feedbacks especially if the balance of the peatland is tipped from net C sink to C source. Plain Language Summary Since the end of the last glacial period, about 20 thousand years ago, peatlands have taken up carbon and now store an amount nearly equivalent to the quantity in the atmosphere. Microorganisms consume and respire that peat C releasing it back to the atmosphere as CO2 and CH4. Until now, many studies have shown that microorganisms prefer to consume the most recently fixed carbon and that the deeply buried ancient peat carbon reservoir is relatively stable. However, climate warming is expected to upset that balance. The Spruce and Peatlands Responses Under Changing Environments is large-scale experimental warming of a Minnesota peatland designed to study these effects. We conducted radiocarbon analysis of the peat and the microbially produced CO2 and dissolved organic carbon in ambient and heated areas of the peatland and show that at warmer temperatures more of the ancient peat carbon is being mobilized and respired to CO2. This is troubling as it signifies a positive feedback loop wherein warming stimulates peat to produce more CO2 which further exacerbates climate change

Speeding Up Microevolution: The Effects of Increasing Temperature on Selection and Genetic Variance in a Wild Bird Population

The authors show that environmental variation may lead to a positive association between the annual strength of selection and expression of genetic variance in a wild bird population, which can speed up microevolution and have important consequences for how fast natural populations adapt to environmental changes

Influence of gestational age at initiation of antihypertensive therapy: Secondary analysis of CHIPS trial data (control of hypertension in pregnancy study).

For hypertensive women in CHIPS (Control of Hypertension in Pregnancy Study), we assessed whether the maternal benefits of tight control could be achieved, while minimizing any potentially negative effect on fetal growth, by delaying initiation of antihypertensive therapy until later in pregnancy. For the 981 women with nonsevere, chronic or gestational hypertension randomized to less-tight (target diastolic blood pressure, 100 mm Hg), or tight (target, 85 mm Hg) control, we used mixed-effects logistic regression to examine whether the effect of less-tight (versus tight) control on major outcomes was dependent on gestational age at randomization, adjusting for baseline factors as in the primary analysis and including an interaction term between gestational age at randomization and treatment allocation. Gestational age was considered categorically (quartiles) and continuously (linear or quadratic form), and the optimal functional form selected to provide the best fit to the data based on the Akaike information criterion. Randomization before (but not after) 24 weeks to less-tight (versus tight) control was associated with fewer babies with birth weight 48 hours (Pinteraction=0.354). For the mother, less-tight (versus tight) control was associated with more severe hypertension at all gestational ages but particularly so before 28 weeks (Pinteraction=0.076). In women with nonsevere, chronic, or gestational hypertension, there seems to be no gestational age at which less-tight (versus tight) control is the preferred management strategy to optimize maternal or perinatal outcomes

New genetic loci link adipose and insulin biology to body fat distribution.

Body fat distribution is a heritable trait and a well-established predictor of adverse metabolic outcomes, independent of overall adiposity. To increase our understanding of the genetic basis of body fat distribution and its molecular links to cardiometabolic traits, here we conduct genome-wide association meta-analyses of traits related to waist and hip circumferences in up to 224,459 individuals. We identify 49 loci (33 new) associated with waist-to-hip ratio adjusted for body mass index (BMI), and an additional 19 loci newly associated with related waist and hip circumference measures (P < 5 × 10(-8)). In total, 20 of the 49 waist-to-hip ratio adjusted for BMI loci show significant sexual dimorphism, 19 of which display a stronger effect in women. The identified loci were enriched for genes expressed in adipose tissue and for putative regulatory elements in adipocytes. Pathway analyses implicated adipogenesis, angiogenesis, transcriptional regulation and insulin resistance as processes affecting fat distribution, providing insight into potential pathophysiological mechanisms

Genetic correlation between amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and schizophrenia

A. Palotie on työryhmän Schizophrenia Working Grp Psychiat jäsen.We have previously shown higher-than-expected rates of schizophrenia in relatives of patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), suggesting an aetiological relationship between the diseases. Here, we investigate the genetic relationship between ALS and schizophrenia using genome-wide association study data from over 100,000 unique individuals. Using linkage disequilibrium score regression, we estimate the genetic correlation between ALS and schizophrenia to be 14.3% (7.05-21.6; P = 1 x 10(-4)) with schizophrenia polygenic risk scores explaining up to 0.12% of the variance in ALS (P = 8.4 x 10(-7)). A modest increase in comorbidity of ALS and schizophrenia is expected given these findings (odds ratio 1.08-1.26) but this would require very large studies to observe epidemiologically. We identify five potential novel ALS-associated loci using conditional false discovery rate analysis. It is likely that shared neurobiological mechanisms between these two disorders will engender novel hypotheses in future preclinical and clinical studies.Peer reviewe

Height and body-mass index trajectories of school-aged children and adolescents from 1985 to 2019 in 200 countries and territories: a pooled analysis of 2181 population-based studies with 65 million participants

Summary Background Comparable global data on health and nutrition of school-aged children and adolescents are scarce. We aimed to estimate age trajectories and time trends in mean height and mean body-mass index (BMI), which measures weight gain beyond what is expected from height gain, for school-aged children and adolescents. Methods For this pooled analysis, we used a database of cardiometabolic risk factors collated by the Non-Communicable Disease Risk Factor Collaboration. We applied a Bayesian hierarchical model to estimate trends from 1985 to 2019 in mean height and mean BMI in 1-year age groups for ages 5–19 years. The model allowed for non-linear changes over time in mean height and mean BMI and for non-linear changes with age of children and adolescents, including periods of rapid growth during adolescence. Findings We pooled data from 2181 population-based studies, with measurements of height and weight in 65 million participants in 200 countries and territories. In 2019, we estimated a difference of 20 cm or higher in mean height of 19-year-old adolescents between countries with the tallest populations (the Netherlands, Montenegro, Estonia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina for boys; and the Netherlands, Montenegro, Denmark, and Iceland for girls) and those with the shortest populations (Timor-Leste, Laos, Solomon Islands, and Papua New Guinea for boys; and Guatemala, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Timor-Leste for girls). In the same year, the difference between the highest mean BMI (in Pacific island countries, Kuwait, Bahrain, The Bahamas, Chile, the USA, and New Zealand for both boys and girls and in South Africa for girls) and lowest mean BMI (in India, Bangladesh, Timor-Leste, Ethiopia, and Chad for boys and girls; and in Japan and Romania for girls) was approximately 9–10 kg/m2. In some countries, children aged 5 years started with healthier height or BMI than the global median and, in some cases, as healthy as the best performing countries, but they became progressively less healthy compared with their comparators as they grew older by not growing as tall (eg, boys in Austria and Barbados, and girls in Belgium and Puerto Rico) or gaining too much weight for their height (eg, girls and boys in Kuwait, Bahrain, Fiji, Jamaica, and Mexico; and girls in South Africa and New Zealand). In other countries, growing children overtook the height of their comparators (eg, Latvia, Czech Republic, Morocco, and Iran) or curbed their weight gain (eg, Italy, France, and Croatia) in late childhood and adolescence. When changes in both height and BMI were considered, girls in South Korea, Vietnam, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and some central Asian countries (eg, Armenia and Azerbaijan), and boys in central and western Europe (eg, Portugal, Denmark, Poland, and Montenegro) had the healthiest changes in anthropometric status over the past 3·5 decades because, compared with children and adolescents in other countries, they had a much larger gain in height than they did in BMI. The unhealthiest changes—gaining too little height, too much weight for their height compared with children in other countries, or both—occurred in many countries in sub-Saharan Africa, New Zealand, and the USA for boys and girls; in Malaysia and some Pacific island nations for boys; and in Mexico for girls. Interpretation The height and BMI trajectories over age and time of school-aged children and adolescents are highly variable across countries, which indicates heterogeneous nutritional quality and lifelong health advantages and risks