Intergenerational Effects Of Adverse Birth Outcomes Of Parents And Offspring Autism Spectrum Disorder (asd) Risk In Denmark: A Population-Based Cohort Study

Abstract Introduction: Animal studies have suggested that exposure-induced epigenetic reprogramming of the germlines affects neurodevelopmental outcomes in the next generation, but possible transgenerational effects of parental adverse birth outcomes and offspring autism spectrum disorder (ASD) risk have not been studied in humans. Objective: To evaluate whether parents being born preterm or low birth weight were associated with risks for ASD in their offspring. Methods: We conducted a Danish population-based cohort study including mothers and fathers born since 1978 who also have had an offspring registered in Denmark during 1990-2013. Information on gestational age and birth weight were recorded in the Danish Medical Birth Register; ASD diagnoses of the offspring were ascertained using records from the Danish Central Psychiatric Registry. We identified 235,228 mother-child pairs and 161,606 father-child pairs for statistical analyses. We estimated Odds Ratio (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) for ASD according to parental preterm and low birth weight status, with or without adjustment for grand-maternal sociodemographic factors including age, parity and education level. Results: Of all parents included in the study, 5.4% mothers (12,749) and 4.4 % fathers (7,084) had low birth weight, and approximately 4.0% mothers (9,724) and fathers (7,413) were born preterm. Children of mothers with adverse birth outcomes had about 20% higher risk for ASD (low birth weight, OR=1.19, 95% CI: 1.03-1.38; preterm birth, OR=1.19, 95% CI= 1.01-1.40), compared with mothers born with normal birth weight or born at term. Paternal adverse birth outcomes were also associated with about 30% elevated risks for ASD in the offspring (low birth weight, OR=1.31, 95% CI= 1.07, 1.59; preterm birth, OR=1.29, 95% CI=1.06, 1.57). These associations were slightly attenuated upon adjustment for grandmaternal sociodemographic factors. Conclusions: Offspring of parents born with adverse outcomes showed slightly elevated risks for ASD. Several etiological pathways could potentially explain this association, including that adverse birth outcomes in parents might act as a proxy indicating complications or harmful in utero exposures that had affected the germlines of the parents, or that parents born disadvantaged also had poorer physical health and lower socioeconomic achievement persisted into adulthood, and that these mechanisms in combined influencing disease risks in their offspring

Internet protocol television (IPTV): The Killer application for the next-generation internet

Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) will be the killer application for the next-generation Internet and will provide exciting new revenue opportunities for service providers. However, to deploy IPTV services with a full quality of service (QoS) guarantee, many underlying technologies must be further studied. This article serves as a survey of IPTV services and the underlying technologies. Technical challenges also are identified

Measurement of solid–liquid mixing quality by using a uniform design method based on image analysis

Solid–liquid mixing has been a common industrial process operation. The measurement of solid–liquid mixing quality can help improve the efficiency of related industrial processes, but there is still a lack of an intuitive, accurate, and simple measurement method. As an important indicator to evaluate the solid–liquid mixing quality, the degree of solid suspension and the uniformity of solid distribution are directly related to mass transfer and reaction efficiency. Therefore, it is necessary to study the solid suspension and distribution in a solid–liquid system. In this work, the solid suspension and distribution of a solid–liquid system composed of glass beads–water stirred by the impeller are studied experimentally via digital image processing combined with statistical analysis. Specifically, images of solid–liquid mixing are first obtained using a camera and digitally processed. The area ratio of the solid in the image is proposed to reflect the degree of solid suspension, and the modified L2-star discrepancy (MD) is then used to quantify the uniformity of the solid distribution. Then, the solid–liquid mixing quality can be characterized by combining the area ratio and solid distribution. The feasibility of this method was proved by qualitative analysis of the solid–liquid mixing state and comparison with known studies. In addition, the effects of various stirring factors on the solid distribution were studied and discussed by using the proposed method. The results show that the method proposed in this paper can measure the quality of the solid–liquid mixing state more directly and is effective and accurate. Furthermore, it was used to find the best experimental parameters in this work. This method is also simpler and cheaper than many other methods. It is of great significance to improve the efficiency of chemical and metallurgical and other industrial processes

Crypto-ransomware Detection through Quantitative API-based Behavioral Profiling

With crypto-ransomware's unprecedented scope of impact and evolving level of sophistication, there is an urgent need to pinpoint the security gap and improve the effectiveness of defenses by identifying new detection approaches. Based on our characterization results on dynamic API behaviors of ransomware, we present a new API profiling-based detection mechanism. Our method involves two operations, namely consistency analysis and refinement. We evaluate it against a set of real-world ransomware and also benign samples. We are able to detect all ransomware executions in consistency analysis and reduce the false positive case in refinement. We also conduct in-depth case studies on the most informative API for detection with context

Microstructure and texture evolutions in FeCrAl cladding tube during pilger processing

The microstructure of FeCrAl cladding tubes depends on the fabricating process history. In this study, the microstructural characteristics of wrought FeCrAl alloys during industrial pilger processing into thin-walled tubes were investigated. The hot extruded tube showed ∼100 μm equiaxed grains with weak α∗-fiber in {h11}<1/h12> texture, while pilger rolling process change the microstructure to fragmented and elongated grains along the rolling direction. The pilgered textures could be predicted with the VPSC model. The inter-pass annealing at 800–850 \ub0C for 1 h results in recovery and recrystallization of the ferric matrix and restoration of ductility. The final finished tube shows fine recrystallized grains (∼11 μm) with dominant γ-fiber in three dimensions. Pilger rolling enhanced α-fiber while annealing reduced α-fiber and enhanced γ-fiber. Microstructural evolution in the Laves precipitates followed the sequence of faceted needle-like → spherical → faceted ellipsoidal. Thermomechanical processing resulted in cladding tubes with an area fraction of ∼5% and a number density of 5 7 10−11 m−2 in Laves precipitates, which is half that of the first-pilgered tube. Laves precipitates pin the grain boundaries to control the microstructure and prevent grain coarsening

Spatial distribution of aloricate ciliates in the stratified water of the Cosmonaut and Cooperation Seas in the Southern Ocean

Aloricate ciliates are the main component of microzooplankton. They play important roles in the circulation of materials and flow of energy in marine pelagic ecosystems. To determine the distribution pattern and structure of the aloricate ciliate community in vertically stratified waters of the Southern Ocean, we collected data on aloricate ciliates in the Cosmonaut and Cooperation Seas during the 36th Chinese National Antarctic Research Expedition. The ranges of aloricate ciliate abundance and biomass were 5–3097 ind·L−1 and 0.01–11.40 μg C·L−1, respectively. Vertically, the average abundance of aloricate ciliates decreased from the surface to 200 m, while biomass was highest in the 50-m layer. The importance of aloricate ciliates <20 μm increased along the depth gradient. Their contribution to total abundance increased from 13.04% in the surface layer to 73.71% in the 200-m layer. This is the first study to explore the distribution characteristics of the aloricate ciliate community in a stratified water column of the Southern Ocean. Our results will be helpful for understanding the variation in the pelagic community in waters of the Southern Ocean with intensified stratification

On the Responses of Mesosphere and Lower Thermosphere Temperatures to Geomagnetic Storms at Low and Middle Latitudes

Observations from lidars and satellites have shown that large neutral temperature increases and decreases occur in the middle and low latitudes of the mesosphere and lower thermosphere region during geomagnetic storms. Here we undertake first-principles simulations of mesosphere and lower thermosphere temperature responses to storms using the Thermosphere Ionosphere Mesosphere Electrodynamics General Circulation Model to elucidate the nature and causes of these changes. Temperature variations were not uniform; instead, nighttime temperatures changed earlier than daytime temperatures, and temperatures changed earlier at high latitudes than at low ones. Furthermore, temperatures increased in some places/times and decreased in others. As the simulation behaves similar to observations, it provides an opportunity to understand physical processes that drive the observed changes. Our analysis has shown that they were produced mainly by adiabatic heating/cooling that was associated with vertical winds resulting from general circulation changes, with additional contributions from vertical heat advection

A photon counting reconstructive spectrometer combining metasurfaces and superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors

Faint light spectroscopy has many important applications such as fluorescence spectroscopy, lidar and astronomical observations. However, long measurement time limit its application on real-time measurement. In this work, a photon counting reconstructive spectrometer combining metasurfaces and superconducting nanowire single photon detectors (SNSPDs) was proposed. A prototype device was fabricated on a silicon on isolator (SOI) substrate, and its performance was characterized. Experiment results show that this device support spectral reconstruction of mono-color lights with a resolution of 2 nm in the wavelength region of 1500 nm ~ 1600 nm. The detection efficiency of this device is 1.4% ~ 3.2% in this wavelength region. The measurement time required by this photon counting reconstructive spectrometer was also investigated experimentally, showing its potential to be applied in the scenarios requiring real-time measurement