Breastfeeding modifies the impact of diarrhoeal disease on relative weight: a longitudinal analysis of 2–12 month-old Filipino infants

Undernutrition and diarrhoeal disease are major causes of infant mortality. We investigated the combined roles of breastfeeding and diarrhoea on infant size in 2940 infants from the Cebu Longitudinal Health and Nutrition Survey. The study aimed to assess whether breastfeeding status modified the deficits associated with diarrhoeal disease. The primary exposures were combinations of current breastfeeding status (yes/no), the presence of diarrhoeal disease in previous week (yes/no) and a categorical survey variable (six surveys taken at bimonthly intervals when infants were 2–12 months of age). Relative weight (weight-for-length z-scores), calculated using the WHO growth standards, was estimated using sex-stratified, fixed-effects longitudinal models that also adjusted for energy from complementary foods. Post-estimation Wald tests were conducted to identify subgroup differences in relative weight. Diarrhoea was associated with reduced relative weight in both breastfed and non-breastfed infants of 6–12 months. Diarrhoea-related deficits in relative weight were significantly exacerbated in non-breastfed girls of 6 and 8 months. Importantly, in infants <6 months, being breastfed and having diarrhoea was still associated with greater relative weight compared with being non-breastfed and diarrhoea-free. Breastfeeding emerged as a strong contributor to relative weight in younger infants (<6 months) while diarrhoeal disease strongly contributed to deficits in relative weight in older infants (6–12 months). These findings underscore the importance of breastfeeding for promoting infant nutritional status in infants with or without diarrhoea from birth to 12 months

The EBV-encoded oncoprotein, LMP1, induces an epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT) via Its CTAR1 domain through integrin-mediated ERK-MAPK signalling

The Epstein⁻Barr virus (EBV)-encoded latent membrane protein 1 (LMP1) oncogene can induce profound effects on epithelial growth and differentiation including many of the features of the epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT). To better characterise these effects, we used the well-defined Madin Darby Canine Kidney (MDCK) epithelial cell model and found that LMP1 expression in these cells induces EMT as defined by characteristic morphological changes accompanied by loss of E-cadherin, desmosomal cadherin and tight junction protein expression. The induction of the EMT phenotype required a functional CTAR1 domain of LMP1 and studies using pharmacological inhibitors revealed contributions from signalling pathways commonly induced by integrin⁻ligand interactions: extracellular signal-regulated kinases/mitogen-activated protein kinases (ERK-MAPK), PI3-Kinase and tyrosine kinases, but not transforming growth factor beta (TGF&beta;). More detailed analysis implicated the CTAR1-mediated induction of Slug and Twist in LMP1-induced EMT. A key role for &beta;1 integrin signalling in LMP1-mediated ERK-MAPK and focal adhesion kianse (FAK) phosphorylation was observed, and &beta;1 integrin activation was found to enhance LMP1-induced cell viability and survival. These findings support an important role for LMP1 in disease pathogenesis through transcriptional reprogramming that enhances tumour cell survival and leads to a more invasive, metastatic phenotype

Scaling Flows and Dissipation in the Dilute Fermi Gas at Unitarity

We describe recent attempts to extract the shear viscosity of the dilute Fermi gas at unitarity from experiments involving scaling flows. A scaling flow is a solution of the hydrodynamic equations that preserves the shape of the density distribution. The scaling flows that have been explored in the laboratory are the transverse expansion from a deformed trap ("elliptic flow"), the expansion from a rotating trap, and collective oscillations. We discuss advantages and disadvantages of the different experiments, and point to improvements of the theoretical analysis that are needed in order to achieve definitive results. A conservative bound based on the current data is that the minimum of the shear viscosity to entropy density ration is that eta/s is less or equal to 0.5 hbar/k_B.Comment: 32 pages, prepared for "BCS-BEC crossoverand the Unitary Fermi Gas", Lecture Notes in Physics, W. Zwerger (editor), Fig. 5 corrected, note added; final version, corrected typo in equ. 9

Dermatological cancer screening: Evaluation of a new community pharmacy service

Background: Skin cancer accounts for one third of all cancers. Prognosis is inversely related to identification stage. Objectives: To describe a novel service, mole scans, performed in community pharmacy, the findings from the first 3.5 years it was in place, and to explore patient acceptability of the service. Methods: Norwegian Boots' pharmacies offer a mole scanning service in cooperation with ScreenCancer. Scans are undertaken within pharmacy consultation rooms. Image interpretation is undertaken remotely by a specialist. Number and result of scans performed from 2010 to 2014 are reported. A satisfaction questionnaire was returned by 10% of participants. Results: A total of 25836 scans were performed on 15777 individuals. Of these, 83.6% had normal scans, 1% had melanoma, and 15.4% had another skin condition. In 2014 the service identified 4.1% of melanoma cases registered in the Norwegian Cancer Registry. Most responders (88%) would use a similar service again. Nearly all (99%) felt the pharmacy was a suitable venue, and 95% would recommend the service to others. In total, 99% of respondents scored their overall satisfaction as “good” or higher. Conclusions: This approach was acceptable among participants who provided feedback. Providing mole scanning through pharmacies enables individuals to obtain a rapid check of moles causing concern, in an acceptable environment with a high level of satisfaction

Galaxy And Mass Assembly (GAMA): detection of low-surface-brightness galaxies from SDSS data

We report on a search for new low-surface-brightness galaxies (LSBGs) using Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) data within the Galaxy And Mass Assembly (GAMA) equatorial fields. The search method consisted of masking objects detected with SDSS PHOTO, combining gri images weighted to maximize the expected signal-to-noise ratio, and smoothing the images. The processed images were then run through a detection algorithm that finds all pixels above a set threshold and groups them based on their proximity to one another. The list of detections was cleaned of contaminants such as diffraction spikes and the faint wings of masked objects. From these, selecting potentially the brightest in terms of total flux, a list of 343 LSBGs was produced having been confirmed using VISTA Kilo-degree Infrared Galaxy Survey (VIKING) imaging. The photometry of this sample was refined using the deeper VIKING Z band as the aperture-defining band. Measuring their g − i and J − K colours shows that most are consistent with being at redshifts less than 0.2. The photometry is carried out using an AUTO aperture for each detection giving surface brightnesses of μr ≳ 25 mag arcsec−2 and magnitudes of r > 19.8 mag. None of these galaxies are bright enough to be within the GAMA main survey limit but could be part of future deeper surveys to measure the low-mass end of the galaxy stellar mass function

Regulation of WNT Signaling by VSX2 During Optic Vesicle Patterning in Human Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells

Few gene targets of Visual System Homeobox 2 (VSX2) have been identified despite its broad and critical role in the maintenance of neural retina (NR) fate during early retinogenesis. We performed VSX2 ChIP-seq and ChIP-PCR assays on early stage optic vesicle-like structures (OVs) derived from human iPS cells (hiPSCs), which highlighted WNT pathway genes as direct regulatory targets of VSX2. Examination of early NR patterning in hiPSC-OVs from a patient with a functional null mutation in VSX2 revealed mis-expression and upregulation of WNT pathway components and retinal pigmented epithelium (RPE) markers in comparison to control hiPSCOVs. Furthermore, pharmacological inhibition of WNT signaling rescued the early mutant phenotype, whereas augmentation of WNT signaling in control hiPSC-OVs phenocopied the mutant. These findings reveal an important role for VSX2 as a regulator of WNT signaling and suggest that VSX2 may act to maintain NR identity at the expense of RPE in part by direct repression of WNT pathway constituents

Did the London Initiative Zone investment programme affect general practice structure and performance in East London? A time series analysis of cervical screening coverage and asthma prescribing

A programme of incentives was set up in the London Initiative Zones to improve primary care in inner London based on the findings of the Tomlinson Enquiry in 1992. This descriptive study is a 4-y time series analysis of changes in general practice structure in East London as the result of London Initiative Zone investment, and an exploration of the possible effect of investment on practice performance.We used routinely available administrative data for the whole analysis. General practice characteristics and two selected performance indicators: the asthma prophylaxis to bronchodilator ratio and cervical cytology screening rate, for all practices in the East London and the City Health Authority for 4 y, 1993-1996, were used. Both reflect practice efficiency, but relate to different aspects of practice performance. The prescribing indicator is more indicative of the quality of clinical practise, whereas cervical screening coverage relates more to the characteristics of the practice population and to practice organisation. Repeated measures analyses were used to identify trends and to explore the relationship between changes in practice characteristics and performance. Graphical methods were used to compare East London trends with the rest of England.There were significant improvements in practice structure as the consequence of London Initiative Zone investment. There was a positive association with improvements in practice performance, but East London still lagged some way behind national patterns. The findings suggest that while improvements in asthma prescribing follow the national trend, practices have difficulty in achieving and sustaining the 80% target for cervical cytology screening, and that an overall population coverage of 80% may be in doubt.Increased investment in practice staffing may be influential in improving some aspects of performance. However, in common with other inner cities, a greater effort and more innovative strategies may be needed to achieve a standard of performance equal to the best

Precision Measurement of the Proton and Deuteron Spin Structure Functions g2 and Asymmetries A2

We have measured the spin structure functions g2p and g2d and the virtual photon asymmetries A2p and A2d over the kinematic range 0.02 < x < 0.8 and 0.7 < Q^2 < 20 GeV^2 by scattering 29.1 and 32.3 GeV longitudinally polarized electrons from transversely polarized NH3 and 6LiD targets. Our measured g2 approximately follows the twist-2 Wandzura-Wilczek calculation. The twist-3 reduced matrix elements d2p and d2n are less than two standard deviations from zero. The data are inconsistent with the Burkhardt-Cottingham sum rule if there is no pathological behavior as x->0. The Efremov-Leader-Teryaev integral is consistent with zero within our measured kinematic range. The absolute value of A2 is significantly smaller than the sqrt[R(1+A1)/2] limit.Comment: 12 pages, 4 figures, 2 table