A guide to laboratory use of the squid Loligo pealei

From the Preface: Unfortunately, a guide like this one does not happen simply. It is the product of polite requests (at first polite, anyway) from colleagues, of mutual nagging, and of wives with persistant memories. What we are attempting to achieve with this contribution is a consolidation of many years of personal experience with squid into a source of practical information hopefully useful to the increasing number of people working with the squid. One does not undertake the task of preparing such a guide for a limited audience with unreserved enthusiasm. It always seems the same amount of work could produce something for a larger audience and therefore, hopefully, of greater significance. On the other hand when the hours and days spent on developing handling procedures, techniques, and "tricks of the squid trade" are considered it seems untenable not to pass this otherwise unpublishable data on in hope of saving others like pain and time. Therefore, what we have attempted to do is informally put together information that should prove useful to people interested in all aspects of squid biology. In this way we hope to make the laboratory utilization of the squid more efficient not only from the standpoint of the investigator and the collector but also for the future of the species Loligo pealei

Chesapeake Bay Bibliography - Volume I The James River

The Chesapeake Bay Bibliography was initiated by the Virginia Institute of Marine Science in response to growing resource management problems of the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries. With these problems came the realization that planning and management of such a great natural resource is an overwhelming task requiring the best available information. This bibliography, therefore, was undertaken to document existing sources of information, to help identify research and data gathering needs, and to develop a comprehensive research and information services programs for individuals interested in research on, and management of the natural resources of the Chesapeake Bay region. The James River Bibliography is a subject index of literature concerning the James Basin. See also: Volumes II - Virginia (1972) focused the respective segments of the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries.Link Volume III - Maryland (1975) focused the respective segments of the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries. Link Volume IV - Virginia Waters (1976) includes and updates the water resource-oriented citations contained in Volumes I and II, and it also identifies information sources dealing with the land resources of Virginia\u27s nine coastal planning regions. Link Volume V - Virginia and Maryland Waters (1981) covers the entire Bay and its tributaries, from the fall line of the Susquehanna River, south through Maryland and Virginia to the Hampton Roads area and extends three miles into the territorial offshore waters of Virginia. The Virginia segment of the Eastern Shore on the Delmarva Peninsula is also included. Lin

Metabolic compensation activates pro-survival mTORC1 signaling upon 3-phosphoglycerate dehydrogenase inhibition in osteosarcoma

Osteosarcoma is the most common pediatric and adult primary malignant bone cancer. Curative regimens target the folate pathway, downstream of serine metabolism, with high-dose methotrexate. Here, the rate-limiting enzyme in the biosynthesis of serine from glucose, 3-phosphoglycerate dehydrogenase (PHGDH), is examined, and an inverse correlation between PHGDH expression and relapse-free and overall survival in osteosarcoma patients is found. PHGDH inhibition in osteosarcoma cell lines attenuated cellular proliferation without causing cell death, prompting a robust metabolic analysis to characterize pro-survival compensation. Using metabolomic and lipidomic profiling, cellular response to PHGDH inhibition is identified as accumulation of unsaturated lipids, branched chain amino acids, and methionine cycle intermediates, leading to activation of pro-survival mammalian target of rapamycin complex 1 (mTORC1) signaling. Increased mTORC1 activation sensitizes cells to mTORC1 pathway inhibition, resulting in significant, synergistic cell death in vitro and in vivo. Identifying a therapeutic combination for PHGDH-high cancers offers preclinical justification for a dual metabolism-based combination therapy for osteosarcoma

STAAR: a randomised controlled trial of electronic adherence monitoring with reminder alarms and feedback to improve clinical outcomes for children with asthma

Background Suboptimal adherence to inhaled steroids is common in children with asthma and is associated with poor disease control, reduced quality of life and even death. Previous studies using feedback of electronically monitored adherence data have demonstrated improved adherence, but have not demonstrated a significant impact on clinical outcomes. The aim of this study was to determine whether introduction of this approach into routine practice would result in improved clinical outcomes. Methods Children with asthma aged 6–16 years were randomised to the active intervention consisting of electronic adherence monitoring with daily reminder alarms together with feedback in the clinic regarding their inhaled corticosteroid (ICS) use or to the usual care arm with adherence monitoring alone. All children had poorly controlled asthma at baseline, taking ICS and long-acting β-agonists. Subjects were seen in routine clinics every 3 months for 1 year. The primary outcome was the Asthma Control Questionnaire (ACQ) score. Secondary outcomes included adherence and markers of asthma morbidity. Results 77 of 90 children completed the study (39 interventions, 38 controls). Adherence in the intervention group was 70% vs 49% in the control group (p≤0.001). There was no significant difference in the change in ACQ, but children in the intervention group required significantly fewer courses of oral steroids (p=0.008) and fewer hospital admissions (p≤0.001). Conclusions The results indicate that electronic adherence monitoring with feedback is likely to be of significant benefit in the routine management of poorly controlled asthmatic subjects

Genetic Analysis Workshop 15: gene expression analysis and approaches to detecting multiple functional loci

National Institutes of Health (AR44422, N01-AR-7-2232, 5R01-HL049609-14, IR01-AG021917-01A1); Genome Canada and Associations AFP; Polyarctique-Groupe Taitbout; Rhumatisme et Travail; Arthritis Research Campaign; Unversity of Minnesota; Minnesota Supercomputing Institute; National Institute of General Medical Sciences (R01 GM31575

Enhanced genetic maps from family-based disease studies: population-specific comparisons

Abstract Background Accurate genetic maps are required for successful and efficient linkage mapping of disease genes. However, most available genome-wide genetic maps were built using only small collections of pedigrees, and therefore have large sampling errors. A large set of genetic studies genotyped by the NHLBI Mammalian Genotyping Service (MGS) provide appropriate data for generating more accurate maps. Results We collected a large sample of uncleaned genotype data for 461 markers generated by the MGS using the Weber screening sets 9 and 10. This collection includes genotypes for over 4,400 pedigrees containing over 17,000 genotyped individuals from different populations. We identified and cleaned numerous relationship and genotyping errors, as well as verified the marker orders. We used this dataset to test for population-specific genetic maps, and to re-estimate the genetic map distances with greater precision; standard errors for all intervals are provided. The map-interval sizes from the European (or European descent), Chinese, and Hispanic samples are in quite good agreement with each other. We found one map interval on chromosome 8p with a statistically significant size difference between the European and Chinese samples, and several map intervals with significant size differences between the African American and Chinese samples. When comparing Palauan with European samples, a statistically significant difference was detected at the telomeric region of chromosome 11p. Several significant differences were also identified between populations in chromosomal and genome lengths. Conclusions Our new population-specific screening set maps can be used to improve the accuracy of disease-mapping studies. As a result of the large sample size, the average length of the 95% confidence interval (CI) for a 10 cM map interval is only 2.4 cM, which is considerably smaller than on previously published maps.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/112826/1/12881_2010_Article_748.pd

Four ways blue foods can help achieve food system ambitions across nations

Blue foods, sourced in aquatic environments, are important for the economies, livelihoods, nutritional security and cultures of people in many nations. They are often nutrient rich, generate lower emissions and impacts on land and water than many terrestrial meats, and contribute to the health, wellbeing and livelihoods of many rural communities4. The Blue Food Assessment recently evaluated nutritional, environmental, economic and justice dimensions of blue foods globally. Here we integrate these findings and translate them into four policy objectives to help realize the contributions that blue foods can make to national food systems around the world: ensuring supplies of critical nutrients, providing healthy alternatives to terrestrial meat, reducing dietary environmental footprints and safeguarding blue food contributions to nutrition, just economies and livelihoods under a changing climate. To account for how context-specific environmental, socio-economic and cultural aspects affect this contribution, we assess the relevance of each policy objective for individual countries, and examine associated co-benefits and trade-offs at national and international scales. We find that in many African and South American nations, facilitating consumption of culturally relevant blue food, especially among nutritionally vulnerable population segments, could address vitamin B12 and omega-3 deficiencies. Meanwhile, in many global North nations, cardiovascular disease rates and large greenhouse gas footprints from ruminant meat intake could be lowered through moderate consumption of seafood with low environmental impact. The analytical framework we provide also identifies countries with high future risk, for whom climate adaptation of blue food systems will be particularly important. Overall the framework helps decision makers to assess the blue food policy objectives most relevant to their geographies, and to compare and contrast the benefits and trade-offs associated with pursuing these objectives

The Neural Representation of Prospective Choice during Spatial Planning and Decisions

We are remarkably adept at inferring the consequences of our actions, yet the neuronal mechanisms that allow us to plan a sequence of novel choices remain unclear. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate how the human brain plans the shortest path to a goal in novel mazes with one (shallow maze) or two (deep maze) choice points. We observed two distinct anterior prefrontal responses to demanding choices at the second choice point: one in rostrodorsal medial prefrontal cortex (rd-mPFC)/superior frontal gyrus (SFG) that was also sensitive to (deactivated by) demanding initial choices and another in lateral frontopolar cortex (lFPC), which was only engaged by demanding choices at the second choice point. Furthermore, we identified hippocampal responses during planning that correlated with subsequent choice accuracy and response time, particularly in mazes affording sequential choices. Psychophysiological interaction (PPI) analyses showed that coupling between the hippocampus and rd-mPFC increases during sequential (deep versus shallow) planning and is higher before correct versus incorrect choices. In short, using a naturalistic spatial planning paradigm, we reveal how the human brain represents sequential choices during planning without extensive training. Our data highlight a network centred on the cortical midline and hippocampus that allows us to make prospective choices while maintaining initial choices during planning in novel environments

Search of the Orion spur for continuous gravitational waves using a loosely coherent algorithm on data from LIGO interferometers

We report results of a wideband search for periodic gravitational waves from isolated neutron stars within the Orion spur towards both the inner and outer regions of our Galaxy. As gravitational waves interact very weakly with matter, the search is unimpeded by dust and concentrations of stars. One search disk (A) is 6.87° in diameter and centered on 20h10m54.71s+33°33′25.29′′, and the other (B) is 7.45° in diameter and centered on 8h35m20.61s-46°49′25.151′′. We explored the frequency range of 50-1500 Hz and frequency derivative from 0 to -5×10-9 Hz/s. A multistage, loosely coherent search program allowed probing more deeply than before in these two regions, while increasing coherence length with every stage. Rigorous follow-up parameters have winnowed the initial coincidence set to only 70 candidates, to be examined manually. None of those 70 candidates proved to be consistent with an isolated gravitational-wave emitter, and 95% confidence level upper limits were placed on continuous-wave strain amplitudes. Near 169 Hz we achieve our lowest 95% C.L. upper limit on the worst-case linearly polarized strain amplitude h0 of 6.3×10-25, while at the high end of our frequency range we achieve a worst-case upper limit of 3.4×10-24 for all polarizations and sky locations. © 2016 American Physical Society

A Cryogenic Silicon Interferometer for Gravitational-wave Detection

The detection of gravitational waves from compact binary mergers by LIGO has opened the era of gravitational wave astronomy, revealing a previously hidden side of the cosmos. To maximize the reach of the existing LIGO observatory facilities, we have designed a new instrument that will have 5 times the range of Advanced LIGO, or greater than 100 times the event rate. Observations with this new instrument will make possible dramatic steps toward understanding the physics of the nearby universe, as well as observing the universe out to cosmological distances by the detection of binary black hole coalescences. This article presents the instrument design and a quantitative analysis of the anticipated noise floor