Luminescence spectra of germanosilicate optical fibres I - radioluminescence and cathodoluminescence

Data are reported on the luminescence spectra generated by X-ray and electron irradiation of optical fibres, fibre preforms and silica. The impurities and imperfections in the fibre core have a higher luminescence efficiency than those in the substrate material. The core luminescence provides a major fraction of the total light emission, despite the fact that the core is a small fraction of the total fibre volume. A wide variety of overlapping emission bands are reported. The spectra are strongly temperature dependent but the component emission bands can generally be linked to either Ge impurities, giving the 400 nm band, exciton emission near 460 nm or other blue/UV bands linked to E'-type defects. Overall, the study of the fibre luminescence provides a sensitive technique for analysis d changes and repeatability of fibre fabrication

Cancer risk in hospitalised asthma patients

Asthma is an increasingly common disorder, affecting 5–10% of the population. It involves a dysregulated immune function, which may predispose to subsequent cancer. We examined cancer risk among Swedish subjects who had hospital admission once or multiple times for asthma. An asthma research database was created by identifying asthma patients from the Swedish Hospital Discharge Register and by linking them with the Cancer Registry. A total of 140 425 patients were hospitalised for asthma during 1965–2004, of whom 7421 patients developed cancer, giving an overall standardised incidence ratio (SIR) of 1.36. A significant increase was noted for most sites, with the exception of breast and ovarian cancers and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and myeloma. Patients with multiple hospital admissions showed a high risk, particularly for stomach (SIR 1.70) and colon (SIR 1.99) cancers. A significant decrease was noted for endometrial cancer and skin melanoma. Oesophageal and lung cancers showed high risks throughout the study period, whereas stomach cancer increased towards the end of the period. The relatively stable temporal trends suggest that the asthmatic condition rather than its medication is responsible for the observed associations

Positive psychology of Malaysian students: impacts of engagement, motivation, self-compassion and wellbeing on mental health

Malaysia plays a key role in education of the Asia Pacific, expanding its scholarly output rapidly. However, mental health of Malaysian students is challenging, and their help-seeking is low because of stigma. This study explored the relationships between mental health and positive psychological constructs (academic engagement, motivation, self-compassion, and wellbeing), and evaluated the relative contribution of each positive psychological construct to mental health in Malaysian students. An opportunity sample of 153 students completed the measures regarding these constructs. Correlation, regression, and mediation analyses were conducted. Engagement, amotivation, self-compassion, and wellbeing were associated with, and predicted large variance in mental health. Self-compassion was the strongest independent predictor of mental health among all the positive psychological constructs. Findings can imply the strong links between mental health and positive psychology, especially selfcompassion. Moreover, intervention studies to examine the effects of self-compassion training on mental health of Malaysian students appear to be warranted.N/

Differential Expression of Non-Coding RNAs and Continuous Evolution of the X Chromosome in Testicular Transcriptome of Two Mouse Species

BACKGROUND: Tight regulation of testicular gene expression is a prerequisite for male reproductive success, while differentiation of gene activity in spermatogenesis is important during speciation. Thus, comparison of testicular transcriptomes between closely related species can reveal unique regulatory patterns and shed light on evolutionary constraints separating the species. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Here, we compared testicular transcriptomes of two closely related mouse species, Mus musculus and Mus spretus, which diverged more than one million years ago. We analyzed testicular expression using tiling arrays overlapping Chromosomes 2, X, Y and mitochondrial genome. An excess of differentially regulated non-coding RNAs was found on Chromosome 2 including the intronic antisense RNAs, intergenic RNAs and premature forms of Piwi-interacting RNAs (piRNAs). Moreover, striking difference was found in the expression of X-linked G6pdx gene, the parental gene of the autosomal retrogene G6pd2. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: The prevalence of non-coding RNAs among differentially expressed transcripts indicates their role in species-specific regulation of spermatogenesis. The postmeiotic expression of G6pdx in Mus spretus points towards the continuous evolution of X-chromosome silencing and provides an example of expression change accompanying the out-of-the X-chromosomal retroposition

Genome-wide analysis of ivermectin response by Onchocerca volvulus reveals that genetic drift and soft selective sweeps contribute to loss of drug sensitivity

Treatment of onchocerciasis using mass ivermectin administration has reduced morbidity and transmission throughout Africa and Central/South America. Mass drug administration is likely to exert selection pressure on parasites, and phenotypic and genetic changes in several Onchocerca volvulus populations from Cameroon and Ghana-exposed to more than a decade of regular ivermectin treatment-have raised concern that sub-optimal responses to ivermectin's anti-fecundity effect are becoming more frequent and may spread.Pooled next generation sequencing (Pool-seq) was used to characterise genetic diversity within and between 108 adult female worms differing in ivermectin treatment history and response. Genome-wide analyses revealed genetic variation that significantly differentiated good responder (GR) and sub-optimal responder (SOR) parasites. These variants were not randomly distributed but clustered in ~31 quantitative trait loci (QTLs), with little overlap in putative QTL position and gene content between the two countries. Published candidate ivermectin SOR genes were largely absent in these regions; QTLs differentiating GR and SOR worms were enriched for genes in molecular pathways associated with neurotransmission, development, and stress responses. Finally, single worm genotyping demonstrated that geographic isolation and genetic change over time (in the presence of drug exposure) had a significantly greater role in shaping genetic diversity than the evolution of SOR.This study is one of the first genome-wide association analyses in a parasitic nematode, and provides insight into the genomics of ivermectin response and population structure of O. volvulus. We argue that ivermectin response is a polygenically-determined quantitative trait (QT) whereby identical or related molecular pathways but not necessarily individual genes are likely to determine the extent of ivermectin response in different parasite populations. Furthermore, we propose that genetic drift rather than genetic selection of SOR is the underlying driver of population differentiation, which has significant implications for the emergence and potential spread of SOR within and between these parasite populations

Functional characterisation of the amyotrophic lateral sclerosis risk locus GPX3/TNIP1

Background: Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a complex, late-onset, neurodegenerative disease with a genetic contribution to disease liability. Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have identified ten risk loci to date, including the TNIP1/GPX3 locus on chromosome five. Given association analysis data alone cannot determine the most plausible risk gene for this locus, we undertook a comprehensive suite of in silico, in vivo and in vitro studies to address this. // Methods: The Functional Mapping and Annotation (FUMA) pipeline and five tools (conditional and joint analysis (GCTA-COJO), Stratified Linkage Disequilibrium Score Regression (S-LDSC), Polygenic Priority Scoring (PoPS), Summary-based Mendelian Randomisation (SMR-HEIDI) and transcriptome-wide association study (TWAS) analyses) were used to perform bioinformatic integration of GWAS data (Ncases = 20,806, Ncontrols = 59,804) with ‘omics reference datasets including the blood (eQTLgen consortium N = 31,684) and brain (N = 2581). This was followed up by specific expression studies in ALS case-control cohorts (microarray Ntotal = 942, protein Ntotal = 300) and gene knockdown (KD) studies of human neuronal iPSC cells and zebrafish-morpholinos (MO). // Results: SMR analyses implicated both TNIP1 and GPX3 (p < 1.15 × 10−6), but there was no simple SNP/expression relationship. Integrating multiple datasets using PoPS supported GPX3 but not TNIP1. In vivo expression analyses from blood in ALS cases identified that lower GPX3 expression correlated with a more progressed disease (ALS functional rating score, p = 5.5 × 10−3, adjusted R2 = 0.042, Beffect = 27.4 ± 13.3 ng/ml/ALSFRS unit) with microarray and protein data suggesting lower expression with risk allele (recessive model p = 0.06, p = 0.02 respectively). Validation in vivo indicated gpx3 KD caused significant motor deficits in zebrafish-MO (mean difference vs. control ± 95% CI, vs. control, swim distance = 112 ± 28 mm, time = 1.29 ± 0.59 s, speed = 32.0 ± 2.53 mm/s, respectively, p for all < 0.0001), which were rescued with gpx3 expression, with no phenotype identified with tnip1 KD or gpx3 overexpression. // Conclusions: These results support GPX3 as a lead ALS risk gene in this locus, with more data needed to confirm/reject a role for TNIP1. This has implications for understanding disease mechanisms (GPX3 acts in the same pathway as SOD1, a well-established ALS-associated gene) and identifying new therapeutic approaches. Few previous examples of in-depth investigations of risk loci in ALS exist and a similar approach could be applied to investigate future expected GWAS findings