The SYZ mirror symmetry and the BKMP remodeling conjecture

The Remodeling Conjecture proposed by Bouchard-Klemm-Mari\~{n}o-Pasquetti (BKMP) relates the A-model open and closed topological string amplitudes (open and closed Gromov-Witten invariants) of a symplectic toric Calabi-Yau 3-fold to Eynard-Orantin invariants of its mirror curve. The Remodeling Conjecture can be viewed as a version of all genus open-closed mirror symmetry. The SYZ conjecture explains mirror symmetry as $T$-duality. After a brief review on SYZ mirror symmetry and mirrors of symplectic toric Calabi-Yau 3-orbifolds, we give a non-technical exposition of our results on the Remodeling Conjecture for symplectic toric Calabi-Yau 3-orbifolds. In the end, we apply SYZ mirror symmetry to obtain the descendent version of the all genus mirror symmetry for toric Calabi-Yau 3-orbifolds.Comment: 18 pages. Exposition of arXiv:1604.0712

The Eynard-Orantin recursion and equivariant mirror symmetry for the projective line

We study the equivariantly perturbed mirror Landau-Ginzburg model of the projective line. We show that the Eynard-Orantin recursion on this model encodes all genus all descendants equivariant Gromov-Witten invariants of the projective line. The non-equivariant limit of this result is the Norbury-Scott conjecture, while by taking large radius limit we recover the Bouchard-Marino conjecture on simple Hurwitz numbers.Comment: 34 pages, 5 figures; references added, typos correcte

Need for and Access to Health Care and Medicines: Are There Gender Inequities?

Objective: Differences between women and men in political and economic empowerment, education, and health risks are well-documented. Similar gender inequities in access to care and medicines have been hypothesized but evidence is lacking. Methods: We analyzed 2002 World Health Survey data for 257,922 adult respondents and 80,932 children less than 5 years old from 53 mostly low and middle-income countries. We constructed indicators of need for, access to, and perceptions of care, and we described the number of countries with equal and statistically different proportions of women and men for each indicator. Using multivariate logistic regression models, we estimated effects of gender on our study outcomes, overall and by household poverty. Findings: Women reported significantly more need for care for three of six chronic conditions surveyed, and they were more likely to have at least one of the conditions (OR 1.41 [95% CI 1.38, 1.44]). Among those with reported need for care, there were no consistent differences in access to care between women and men overall (e.g., treatment for all reported chronic conditions, OR 1.00 [0.96, 1.04]) or by household poverty. Of concern, access to care for chronic conditions was distressingly low among both men and women in many countries, as was access to preventive services among boys and girls less than 5 years old. Conclusions: These cross-country results do not suggest a systematic disadvantage of women in access to curative care and medicines for treating selected chronic conditions or acute symptoms, or to preventive services among boys and girls

Discovery of a novel, liver-targeted thyroid hormone receptor-β agonist, CS271011, in the treatment of lipid metabolism disorders

IntroductionThyroid hormone receptor β (THR-β) plays a critical role in metabolism regulation and has become an attractive target for treating lipid metabolism disorders in recent years. Thus, in this study, we discovered CS271011, a novel THR-β agonist, and assessed the safety and efficiency of CS271011 compared to MGL-3196 in vitro and in vivo. MethodsWe conducted luciferase reporter gene assays to assess the activation of THR-β and α in vitro. C57BL/6J mice were fed a high-fat diet for 12 weeks, CS271011 was administered by gavage at the dose of 1 mg/kg and 3 mg/kg, and MGL-3196 was administered at the dose of 3 mg/kg for 10 weeks. Body weight, food intake, serum and hepatic parameters, histological analysis, pharmacokinetic studies, RNA sequencing of the liver and heart, and expression of hepatic lipid-metabolic genes were determined to evaluate the safety and efficiency of CS271011. ResultsCompared with MGL-3196, CS271011 showed higher THR-β activation in vitro. In the diet-induced obesity mice model, CS271011 demonstrated favourable pharmacokinetic properties in mice and was enriched in the liver. Finally, CS271011 improved dyslipidaemia and reduced liver steatosis in the diet-induced obesity murine model. Mechanistically, CS271011 and MGL-3196 showed potent regulation of lipid metabolism-related genes. ConclusionsCS271011 is a potent and liver-targeted THR-β agonist for treating lipid metabolism disorders

Atlantic circulation and ice sheet influences on upper South Atlantic temperatures during the last deglaciation

© The Author(s), 2019. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Umling, N. E., Oppo, D. W., Chen, P., Yu, J., Liu, Z., Yan, M., Gebbie, G., Lund, D. C., Pietro, K. R., Jin, Z. D., Huang, K., Costa, K. B., & Toledo, F. A. L. Atlantic circulation and ice sheet influences on upper South Atlantic temperatures during the last deglaciation. Paleoceanography and Paleoclimatology, 34(6), (2019): 990-1005, doi:10.1029/2019PA003558.Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) disruption during the last deglaciation is hypothesized to have caused large subsurface ocean temperature anomalies, but records from key regions are not available to test this hypothesis, and other possible drivers of warming have not been fully considered. Here, we present the first reliable evidence for subsurface warming in the South Atlantic during Heinrich Stadial 1, confirming the link between large‐scale heat redistribution and AMOC. Warming extends across the Bølling‐Allerød despite predicted cooling at this time, thus spanning intervals of both weak and strong AMOC indicating another forcing mechanism that may have been previously overlooked. Transient model simulations and quasi‐conservative water mass tracers suggest that reduced northward upper ocean heat transport was responsible for the early deglacial (Heinrich Stadial 1) accumulation of heat at our shallower (~1,100 m) site. In contrast, the results suggest that warming at our deeper site (~1,900 m) site was dominated by southward advection of North Atlantic middepth heat anomalies. During the Bølling‐Allerød, the demise of ice sheets resulted in oceanographic changes in the North Atlantic that reduced convective heat loss to the atmosphere, causing subsurface warming that overwhelmed the cooling expected from an AMOC reinvigoration. The data and simulations suggest that rising atmospheric CO2 did not contribute significantly to deglacial subsurface warming at our sites.We thank H. Abrams, G. Swarr, and J. Watson for technical assistance. This work was funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation grant OCE15‐558341, the Investment in Science Fund at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, and an Australian Research Council Future Fellowship (FT140100993). The data are included in the supporting information and are available online (https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/study/26530)

Functional Properties of Protein Hydrolysates on Growth, Digestive Enzyme Activities, Protein Metabolism, and Intestinal Health of Larval Largemouth Bass (Micropterus salmoides)

The present study was conducted to investigate the effects of dietary inclusion of protein hydrolysates on growth performance, digestive enzyme activities, protein metabolism, and intestinal health in larval largemouth bass (Micropterus salmoides). The experimental feeding trial presented in this study was based on five isonitrogenous and isolipidic diets formulated with graded inclusion levels of protein hydrolysates, and it showed that protein hydrolysates improved growth performance, reduced larval deformity rate, and increased the activity of digestive enzymes, including pepsin and trypsin. Gene expression results revealed that the supplementation of protein hydrolysates upregulated the expression of intestinal amino acid transporters LAT2 and peptide transporter 2 (PepT2), as well as the amino acid transporters LAT1 in muscle. Dietary provision of protein hydrolysates activated the target of rapamycin (TOR) pathway including the up-regulation of TOR and AKT1, and down-regulation of 4EBP1. Additionally, the expression of genes involved in the amino acids response (AAR) pathway, ATF4 and REDD1, were inhibited. Protein hydrolysates inhibited the transcription of some pro-inflammatory cytokines, including IL-8 and 5-LOX, but promoted the expression of anti-inflammatory cytokines TGF-β and IL-10. The 16S rRNA analysis, using V3-V4 region, indicated that dietary protein hydrolysates supplementation reduced the diversity of the intestine microbial community, increased the enrichment of Plesiomonas and reduced the enrichment of Staphylococcus at the genus level. In summary, protein hydrolysates have been shown to be an active and useful supplement to positively complement other protein sources in the diets for largemouth bass larvae, and this study provided novel insights on the beneficial roles and possible mechanisms of action of dietary protein hydrolysates in improving the overall performance of fish larvae

Estimating cancer incidence based on claims data from medical insurance systems in two areas lacking cancer registries in China.

BACKGROUND: We aimed to establish a Medical-Insurance-System-based Cancer Surveillance System (MIS-CASS) in China and evaluate the completeness and timeliness of this system through reporting cancer incidence rates using claims data in two regions in northern and southern China. METHODS: We extracted claims data from medical insurance systems in Hua County of Henan Province, and Shantou City in Guangdong Province in China from Jan 1, 2012 to Jun 30, 2019. These two regions have been considered to be high risk regions for oesophageal cancer. We developed a rigorous procedure to establish the MIS-CASS, which includes data extraction, cleaning, processing, case ascertainment, privacy protection, etc. Text-based diagnosis in conjunction with ICD-10 codes were used to determine cancer diagnosis. FINDINGS: In 2018, the overall age-standardised (Segi population) incidence rates (ASR World) of cancer in Hua County and Shantou City were 167·39/100,000 and 159·78/100,000 respectively. In both of these areas, lung cancer and breast cancer were the most common cancers in males and females respectively. Hua County is a high-risk region for oesophageal cancer (ASR World: 25·95/100,000), whereas Shantou City is not a high-risk region for oesophageal cancer (ASR World: 11·43/100,000). However, Nanao island had the highest incidence of oesophageal cancer among all districts and counties in Shantou (ASR World: 36·39/100,000). The age-standardised male-to-female ratio for oesophageal cancer was lower in Hua County than in Shantou (1·69 vs. 4·02). A six-month lag time was needed to report these cancer incidences for the MIS-CASS. INTERPRETATION: MIS-CASS efficiently reflects cancer burden in real-time, and has the potential to provide insight for improvement of cancer surveillance in China. FUNDING: The National Key R&D Program of China (2016YFC0901404), the Digestive Medical Coordinated Development Center of Beijing Municipal Administration of Hospitals (XXZ0204), the Sanming Project of Shenzhen (SZSM201612061), and the Shantou Science and Technology Bureau (190829105556145, 180918114960704)