A longitudinal study of migration propensities for mixed-ethnic unions in England and Wales

This research was funded by the ESRC under the Understanding Population Trends and Processes (UPTAP) programme (Award Ref: RES-163-25-0045).Most studies investigating residential segregation of ethnic minorities ignore the fact that the majority of adults live in couples. In recent years there has been a growth in the number of mixed-ethnic unions that involve a minority member and a white member. To our knowledge, hardly any research has been undertaken to explicitly examine whether the ethnic mix within households has an impact on the residential mobility of households in terms of the ethnic mix of destination neighbourhoods. Our study addresses this research gap and examines the tendencies of mobility among mixed-ethnic unions in comparison with their co-ethnic peers. We used data from the Longitudinal Study for England and Wales. Our statistical analysis supports the spatial assimilation theory; ethnic minorities move towards less deprived areas and to a lesser extent also towards less ethnically concentrated areas. However, the types of destination neighbourhood of minority people living in mixed-ethnic unions varied greatly with the ethnicity of the ethnic minority partner.PostprintPeer reviewe

Trends in Computer Network Modeling Towards the Future Internet

This article provides a taxonomy of current and past network modeling efforts. In all these efforts over the last few years we see a trend towards not only describing the network, but connected devices as well. This is especially current given the many Future Internet projects, which are combining different models, and resources in order to provide complete virtual infrastructures to users. An important mechanism for managing complexity is the creation of an abstract model, a step which has been undertaken in computer networks too. The fact that more and more devices are network capable, coupled with increasing popularity of the Internet, has made computer networks an important focus area for modeling. The large number of connected devices creates an increasing complexity which must be harnessed to keep the networks functioning. Over the years many different models for computer networks have been proposed, and used for different purposes. While for some time the community has moved away from the need of full topology exchange, this requirement resurfaced for optical networks. Subsequently, research on topology descriptions has seen a rise in the last few years. Many different models have been created and published, yet there is no publication that shows an overview of the different approaches.

Prenatal screening of sialic acid storage disease and confirmation in cultured fibroblasts by LC-MS/MS

Sialic acid storage disease (SASD) is an inborn error resulting from defects in the lysosomal membrane protein sialin. The SASD phenotypical spectrum ranges from a severe presentation, infantile sialic acid storage disease (ISSD) which may present as hydrops fetalis, to a relatively mild form, Salla disease. Screening for SASD is performed by determination of free sialic acid (FSA) in urine or amniotic fluid supernatant (AFS). Subsequent diagnosis of SASD is performed by quantification of FSA in cultured fibroblasts and by mutation analysis of the sialin gene, SLC17A5. We describe simple quantitative procedures to determine FSA as well as conjugated sialic acid in AFS, and FSA in cultured fibroblasts, using isotope dilution (13C3-sialic acid) and multiple reaction monitoring LC-ESI-MS/MS. The whole procedure can be performed in 2–4 h. Reference values in AFS were 0–8.2 μmol/L for 15–25 weeks of gestation and 3.2-12.0 μmol/L for 26–38 weeks of gestation. In AFS samples from five fetuses affected with ISSD FSA was 23.9-58.9 μmol/L demonstrating that this method is able to discriminate ISSD pregnancies from normal ones. The method was also validated for determination of FSA in fibroblast homogenates. FSA in SASD fibroblasts (ISSD; 20–154 nmol/mg protein, intermediate SASD; 12.9-15.1 nmol/mg, Salla disease; 5.9-7.4 nmol/mg) was clearly elevated compared to normal controls (0.3-2.2 nmol/mg). In conclusion, we report simple quantitative procedures to determine FSA in AFS and cultured fibroblasts improving both prenatal diagnostic efficacy for ISSD as well as confirmatory testing in cultured fibroblasts following initial screening in urine or AFS

Retinotopic Mapping of Categorical and Coordinate Spatial Relation Processing in Early Visual Cortex

Spatial relations are commonly divided in two global classes. Categorical relations concern abstract relations which define areas of spatial equivalence, whereas coordinate relations are metric and concern exact distances. Categorical and coordinate relation processing are thought to rely on at least partially separate neurocognitive mechanisms, as reflected by differential lateralization patterns, in particular in the parietal cortex. In this study we address this textbook principle from a new angle. We studied retinotopic activation in early visual cortex, as a reflection of attentional distribution, in a spatial working memory task with either a categorical or a coordinate instruction. Participants were asked to memorize a dot position, with regard to a central cross, and to indicate whether a subsequent dot position matched the first dot position, either categorically (opposite quadrant of the cross) or coordinately (same distance to the centre of the cross). BOLD responses across the retinotopic maps of V1, V2, and V3 indicate that the spatial distribution of cortical activity was different for categorical and coordinate instructions throughout the retention interval; a more local focus was found during categorical processing, whereas focus was more global for coordinate processing. This effect was strongest for V3, approached significance in V2 and was absent in V1. Furthermore, during stimulus presentation the two instructions led to different levels of activation in V3 during stimulus encoding; a stronger increase in activity was found for categorical processing. Together this is the first demonstration that instructions for specific types of spatial relations may yield distinct attentional patterns which are already reflected in activity early in the visual cortex

New mobilities across the lifecourse: A framework for analysing demographically-linked drivers of migration

Date of acceptance: 17/02/2015Taking the life course as the central concern, the authors set out a conceptual framework and define some key research questions for a programme of research that explores how the linked lives of mobile people are situated in time–space within the economic, social, and cultural structures of contemporary society. Drawing on methodologically innovative techniques, these perspectives can offer new insights into the changing nature and meanings of migration across the life course.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Gene network approach reveals co-expression patterns in nasal and bronchial epithelium

© 2019, The Author(s). Nasal gene expression profiling is a new approach to investigate the airway epithelium as a biomarker to study the activity and treatment responses of obstructive pulmonary diseases. We investigated to what extent gene expression profiling of nasal brushings is similar to that of bronchial brushings. We performed genome wide gene expression profiling on matched nasal and bronchial epithelial brushes from 77 respiratory healthy individuals. To investigate differences and similarities among regulatory modules, network analysis was performed on correlated, differentially expressed and smoking-related genes using Gaussian Graphical Models. Between nasal and bronchial brushes, 619 genes were correlated and 1692 genes were differentially expressed (false discovery rate 2). Network analysis of correlated genes showed pro-inflammatory pathways to be similar between the two locations. Focusing on smoking-related genes, cytochrome-P450 pathway related genes were found to be similar, supporting the concept of a detoxifying response to tobacco exposure throughout the airways. In contrast, cilia-related pathways were decreased in nasal compared to bronchial brushes when focusing on differentially expressed genes. Collectively, while there are substantial differences in gene expression between nasal and bronchial brushes, we also found similarities, especially in the response to the external factors such as smoking

Energy efficiency considerations in integrated IT and optical network resilient infrastructures

The European Integrated Project GEYSERS - Generalised Architecture for Dynamic Infrastructure Services - is concentrating on infrastructures incorporating integrated optical network and IT resources in support of the Future Internet with special emphasis on cloud computing. More specifically GEYSERS proposes the concept of Virtual Infrastructures over one or more interconnected Physical Infrastructures comprising both network and IT resources. Taking into consideration the energy consumption levels associated with the ICT today and the expansion of the Internet in size and complexity, that incurring increased energy consumption of both IT and network resources, energy efficient infrastructure design becomes critical. To address this need, in the framework of GEYSERS, we propose energy efficient design of infrastructures incorporating integrated optical network and IT resources, supporting resilient end-to-end services. Our modeling results quantify significant energy savings of the proposed solution by jointly optimizing the allocation of both network and IT resources

The role of intratidal oscillations in sediment resuspension in a diurnal, partially mixed estuary

Using detailed observations of the mean and turbulent properties of flow, salinity and turbidity that spanned 2001/02, we examined the physical mechanisms underpinning sediment resuspension in the low-energy Swan River estuary, Western Australia. In this diurnal tidally-dominated estuary, the presence of intratidal oscillations, a tidal inequality lasting 2 to 3 hours on the flood tide, generated by interactions of the four main diurnal and semidiurnal astronomical constituents, K₁, O₁, M₂, and S₂, played a major role in modifying vertical stratification and mixing. These intratidal oscillations are controlled by phase differences between the tropic and synodic months rather than being temporally-fixed by bed friction, as occurs in semidiurnal estuaries. Intratidal oscillations are largest, at around 0.1 m, near to the Austral solstice when the lunar and solar declination are in-phase. Despite the seemingly small change in water level, shear-induced interfacial mixing caused destratification of the water column with the top-to-bottom salinity (ΔS) difference of 3.5 present early in the flood tide eroded to less than 0.3 by the end of the intratidal oscillation. High turbidity peaks, of 250 nephelometric turbidity units, coincided with these intratidal oscillations and could not be explained by bed friction since shear stress from mean flow did not exceed threshold criteria. High Reynolds stresses of ∼1 Nm⁻² did, however, exceed τcr and together with negative Reynolds fluxes indicate a net downward transport of material. Destratification of the water column induced by shear instabilities resulted in large overturns capable of moving in situ material towards the bed during intratidal oscillations and these turbidities were ∼10 times greater than those from bed-generated resuspension observed later during the flood tide

Understanding acute metabolic decompensation in propionic and methylmalonic acidemias: A deep metabolic phenotyping approach

Background: Pathophysiology of life-threatening acute metabolic decompensations (AMD) in propionic acidemia (PA) and isolated methylmalonic acidemia (MMA) is insufficiently understood. Here, we study the metabolomes of PA and MMA patients over time, to improve insight in which biochemical processes are at play during AMD. Methods: Longitudinal data from clinical chemistry analyses and metabolic assays over the life-course of 11 PA and 13 MMA patients were studied retrospectively. Direct-infusion high-resolution mass spectrometry was performed on 234 and 154 remnant dried blood spot and plasma samples of PA and MMA patients, respectively. In addition, a systematic literature search was performed on reported biomarkers. All results were integrated in an assessment of biochemical processes at play during AMD. Results: We confirmed many of the metabolite alterations reported in literature, including increases of plasma valine and isoleucine during AMD in PA patients. We revealed that plasma leucine and phenylalanine, and urinary pyruvic acid were increased during AMD in PA patients. 3-hydroxyisovaleric acid correlated positively with plasma ammonia. We found that known diagnostic biomarkers were not significantly further increased, while intermediates of the branched-chain amino acid (BCAA) degradation pathway were significantly increased during AMD. Conclusions: We revealed that during AMD in PA and MMA, BCAA and BCAA intermediates accumulate, while known diagnostic biomarkers remain essentially unaltered. This implies that these acidic BCAA intermediates are responsible for metabolic acidosis. Based on this, we suggest to measure plasma 3-hydroxyisovaleric acid and urinary ketones or 3-hydroxybutyric acid for the biochemical follow-up of a patient's metabolic stability