New food composition data on selected ethnic foods consumed in Europe

Background: Reliable data on the composition of foods is needed to better understand individual diets, measure nutrient intakes and provide nutritional guidance for improving the health of the populations. Ethnic foods are becoming increasingly popular among all European consumers, and are the main source of nutrients in the diets of ethnic groups. However, there is limited information on the nutrient composition of ethnic foods in Europe. The objective of this study therefore was to generate new and reliable data on ethnic foods using harmonised methods for chemical analyses. Methods: New data on 128 ethnic foods were generated for inclusion in the national databases within the European Food Information Resource Network of Excellence through participants from France, Israel, Spain, Denmark, Italy, The Netherlands, Belgium and the United Kingdom. In each selected country, the list of prioritised foods and key nutrients, methods of analyses and quality assurance procedure were harmonised. Results: This paper presents the nutrient composition of 40 ethnic foods consumed in Europe. The nutrient composition of the foods varied widely because of the nature and variety of foods analysed, with energy content (kcal) ranging between 24 (biteku-teku, Blegium) and 495 (nachos, Italy) per 100 g of edible food. Polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fatty acids were generally higher in most ethnic foods consumed in Italy and Spain compared with ethnic foods of other countries. Conclusions: The new data were scrutinised and fully documented for inclusion in the national food composition databases. The data will aid effective diet and disease interventions, and enhance the provision of dietary advice, in all European consumers

Erosion and the sediment conveyor in central Australia

Why are the Neogene sedimentary fills across central Australia generally thin and discontinuous? One long-standing explanation is that sluggish tectonism and intensified aridity have combined to suppress rates of erosion and sediment production yielding a landscape crowded with inherited, preMiocene forms. Quantifying rates of sediment production, residence time and transport is possible with numerous methods, but the recent growth of cosmogenic nuclide (CN) analysis has provided unprecedented quantitative insights to rates of landscape evolution. Measurements of in situ produced cosmogenic 10Be and 26Al integrate rates of surface processes over million-year timescales—the last part of the Neogene in which aridity has strengthened across the continental interior. We present a compilation of ~600 published and unpublished 10Be and 26Al measurements from central Australia with a focus on the Neogene Eyre Basin and its periphery. Outlying and inlying bedrock uplands serve as engines of sediment production via erosion of bedrock. Surrounding the bedrock outcrops are vast sediment conveyors of varying efficiency and tempo: hillslopes, pediments, and alluvial fans are interim storage/burial zones for sediment in transit to the network of low-gradient rivers, dunes, and playas towards base level. Interactions between fluvial and aeolian processes are especially pertinent to sediment flux in the Eyre Basin. Major rivers such as the Cooper and Finke traverse dunefields in their lower reaches where quantities of alluvia are recirculated into dunes and vice versa. Tracking the trajectories of sediment from source-to-sink (including aeolian recirculation) remains a major challenge, but is central to unravelling the sedimentary dynamics of central Australia's Neogene basins. Based on the CN compilation we estimate 1) spatially averaged erosion rates at the scale of a hillslope or river catchment; 2) pointbased erosion rates on bedrock surfaces; 3) residence time of sediment in hillslope regolith and alluvial fans; and 4) cumulative burial history of sediments in transit. Catchment-scale erosion rates (n~100) are consistently low (<10 m/Myr) and include some of the lowest rates ever measured (~0.3 m/Myr); however, a small group of catchments in the Flinders Ras yield higher erosion rates (~30–60 m/Myr). Bedrock hillslopes (n~200) tend to erode even slower (<5 m/Myr), with a subset of Flinders Ras sites again being the exception (~10–30 m/Myr) and suggesting the influence of recent tectonism. Several CN depth-profiles measured on hillslopes and alluvial fans indicate sediment residence times >0.5 Myr, and high-resolution sampling along three hillslopes with differing morphology (linear, convex, and concave) reveals major variations in sediment production and transport rates that hint at the long-term evolution. In the rivers, fluvial sediments show a weak tendency to increase cumulative burial history downstream (1–2 Myr), consistent with the expanding accommodation space for storage and burial. Dune sediments sampled in the Simpson and Tirari dunefields (n~16) contain cumulative burial histories (up to 1.5 Myr) similar to that of the intersecting rivers. This points to an intimate mix of fluvial and aeolian processes in areas approaching base level. Curiously, these sediments occur in the lowest part of the continent and contain the longest histories of cumulative burial, yet do not form part of the thickest sedimentary fills in the Eyre Basin

Using GLUE to pull apart the provenance of atmospheric dust

© 2018 Identifying the sources of aeolian dust is a crucial step in mitigating the associated hazards. We apply a Generalized Likelihood Uncertainty Estimation (GLUE) model to constrain the uncertainties associated with sediment fingerprinting of atmospheric dust in the Sistan region on the Iran-Afghanistan border, one of the world's dustiest places. 57 dust samples were collected from the rooftop of the Zabol Department of Environmental Protection during a summer dusty period from June to October 2014, in addition to 31 surface soil samples collected from potential sources nearby, including cultivated land (n = 8), uncultivated rangeland (n = 7), and two dry lakes: Hamoun Puzak (n = 10) and Hamoun Saberi (n = 6). Dust and soil samples were analyzed for 24 tracers including 16 geochemical elements and 8 water-soluble ions. Five optimum composite fingerprints (Fe, Sr, Mn, Cr and Pb) were selected for discriminating sources by a two-stage statistical process involving a Kruskal-Wallis test and stepwise discriminant function analysis (DFA). Uncertainty ranges for source contributions of dust determined by the GLUE model showed that the dry lake Hamoun Puzak is the dominant source for all dust samples from Zabol and cultivated land is a secondary source. We found marked spatial variance in the importance of regional dry lake beds as dust sources, and temporal persistence in dust emissions from Hamoun Puzak, despite very large areas of adjacent lake beds drying during the study period. Aeolian sediment fingerprinting studies can benefit considerably from the constraints provided by modelling frameworks, such as GLUE, for quantifying the uncertainty in dust provenance data

Expression quantitative trait loci are highly sensitive to cellular differentiation state

Blood cell development from multipotent hematopoietic stem cells to specialized blood cells is accompanied by drastic changes in gene expression for which the triggers remain mostly unknown. Genetical genomics is an approach linking natural genetic variation to gene expression variation, thereby allowing the identification of genomic loci containing gene expression modulators (eQTLs). In this paper, we used a genetical genomics approach to analyze gene expression across four developmentally close blood cell types collected from a large number of genetically different but related mouse strains. We found that, while a significant number of eQTLs (365) had a consistent “static” regulatory effect on gene expression, an even larger number were found to be very sensitive to cell stage. As many as 1,283 eQTLs exhibited a “dynamic” behavior across cell types. By looking more closely at these dynamic eQTLs, we show that the sensitivity of eQTLs to cell stage is largely associated with gene expression changes in target genes. These results stress the importance of studying gene expression variation in well-defined cell populations. Only such studies will be able to reveal the important differences in gene regulation between different ce

Desertification of Iran in the early twenty-first century: assessment using climate and vegetation indices

AbstractRemote sensing of specific climatic and biogeographical parameters is an effective means of evaluating the large-scale desertification status of drylands affected by negative human impacts. Here, we identify and analyze desertification trends in Iran for the period 2001–2015 via a combination of three indices for vegetation (NPP—net primary production, NDVI—normalized difference vegetation index, LAI—leaf area index) and two climate indices (LST—land surface temperature, P—precipitation). We combine these indices to identify and map areas of Iran that are susceptible to land degradation. We then apply a simple linear regression method, the Mann–Kendall non-parametric test, and the Theil–Sen estimator to identify long-term temporal and spatial trends within the data. Based on desertification map, we find that 68% of Iran shows a high to very high susceptibility to desertification, representing an area of 1.1 million km2 (excluding 0.42 million km2 classified as unvegetated). Our results highlight the importance of scale in assessments of desertification, and the value of high-resolution data, in particular. Annually, no significant change is evident within any of the five indices, but significant changes (some positive, some negative) become apparent on a seasonal basis. Some observations follow expectations; for instance, NDVI is strongly associated with cooler, wet spring and summer seasons, and milder winters. Others require more explanation; for instance, vegetation appears decoupled from climatic forcing during autumn. Spatially, too, there is much local and regional variation, which is lost when the data are considered only at the largest nationwide scale. We identify a northwest–southeast belt spanning central Iran, which has experienced significant vegetation decline (2001–2015). We tentatively link this belt of land degradation with intensified agriculture in the hinterlands of Iran’s major cities. The spatial and temporal trends identified with the three vegetation and two climate indices afford a cost-effective framework for the prediction and management of future environmental trends in developing regions at risk of desertification.</jats:p

Between Metabolite Relationships: an essential aspect of metabolic change

Not only the levels of individual metabolites, but also the relations between the levels of different metabolites may indicate (experimentally induced) changes in a biological system. Component analysis methods in current ‘standard’ use for metabolomics, such as Principal Component Analysis (PCA), do not focus on changes in these relations. We therefore propose the concept of ‘Between Metabolite Relationships’ (BMRs): common changes in the covariance (or correlation) between all metabolites in an organism. Such structural changes may indicate metabolic change brought about by experimental manipulation but which are lost with standard data analysis methods. These BMRs can be analysed by the INdividual Differences SCALing (INDSCAL) method. First the BMR quantification is described and subsequently the INDSCAL method. Finally, two studies illustrate the power and the applicability of BMRs in metabolomics. The first study is about the induced plant response of cabbage to herbivory, of which BMRs are a considerable part. In the second study—a human nutritional intervention study of green tea extract—standard data analysis tools did not reveal any metabolic change, although the BMRs were considerably affected. The presented results show that BMRs can be easily implemented in a wide variety of metabolomic studies. They provide a new source of information to describe biological systems in a way that fits flawlessly into the next generation of systems biology questions, dealing with personalized responses

Individual differences in metabolomics: individualised responses and between-metabolite relationships

Many metabolomics studies aim to find ‘biomarkers’: sets of molecules that are consistently elevated or decreased upon experimental manipulation. Biological effects, however, often manifest themselves along a continuum of individual differences between the biological replicates in the experiment. Such differences are overlooked or even diminished by methods in standard use for metabolomics, although they may contain a wealth of information on the experiment. Properly understanding individual differences is crucial for generating knowledge in fields like personalised medicine, evolution and ecology. We propose to use simultaneous component analysis with individual differences constraints (SCA-IND), a data analysis method from psychology that focuses on these differences. This method constructs axes along the natural biochemical differences between biological replicates, comparable to principal components. The model may shed light on changes in the individual differences between experimental groups, but also on whether these differences correspond to, e.g., responders and non-responders or to distinct chemotypes. Moreover, SCA-IND reveals the individuals that respond most to a manipulation and are best suited for further experimentation. The method is illustrated by the analysis of individual differences in the metabolic response of cabbage plants to herbivory. The model reveals individual differences in the response to shoot herbivory, where two ‘response chemotypes’ may be identified. In the response to root herbivory the model shows that individual plants differ strongly in response dynamics. Thereby SCA-IND provides a hitherto unavailable view on the chemical diversity of the induced plant response, that greatly increases understanding of the system

‘Do i care?’ young adults' recalled experiences of early adolescent overweight and obesity: a qualitative study

&lt;p&gt;Objective: Individual behaviour change to reduce obesity requires awareness of, and concern about, weight. This paper therefore describes how young adults, known to have been overweight or obese during early adolescence, recalled early adolescent weight-related awareness and concerns. Associations between recalled concerns and weight-, health- and peer-related survey responses collected during adolescence are also examined.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;Design: Qualitative semi-structured interviews with young adults; data compared with responses to self-report questionnaires obtained in adolescence.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;Participants: A total of 35 participants, purposively sub-sampled at age 24 from a longitudinal study of a school year cohort, previously surveyed at ages 11, 13 and 15. Physical measures during previous surveys allowed identification of participants with a body mass index (BMI) indicative of overweight or obesity (based on British 1990 growth reference) during early adolescence. Overall, 26 had been obese, of whom 11 had BMI99.6th centile, whereas 9 had been overweight (BMI=95th–97.9th centile).&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;Measures: Qualitative interview responses describing teenage life, with prompts for school-, social- and health-related concerns. Early adolescent self-report questionnaire data on weight-worries, self-esteem, friends and victimisation (closed questions).&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;Results: Most, but not all recalled having been aware of their overweight. None referred to themselves as having been obese. None recalled weight-related health worries. Recollection of early adolescent obesity varied from major concerns impacting on much of an individual's life to almost no concern, with little relation to actual severity of overweight. Recalled concerns were not clearly patterned by gender, but young adult males recalling concerns had previously reported more worries about weight, lower self-esteem, fewer friends and more victimisation in early adolescence; no such pattern was seen among females. Conclusion: The popular image of the unhappy overweight teenager was not borne out. Many obese adolescents, although well aware of their overweight recalled neither major dissatisfaction nor concern. Weight-reduction behaviours are unlikely in such circumstances.&lt;/p&gt

Unusual characteristics of Codium fragile chloroplast DNA revealed by physical and gene mapping

A complete physical map of the Codium fragile chloroplast genome was constructed and the locations of a number of chloroplast genes were determined. Several features of this circular genome are unusual. At 89 kb in size, it is the smallest chloroplast genome known. Unlike most chloroplast genomes it lacks any large repeat elements. The 8 kb spacer region between the 16 S and 23 S rRNA genes is the largest such spacer characterized to date in chloroplast DNA. This spacer region is also unusual in that it contains the rps 12 gene or at least a portion thereof. Three regions polymorphic for size are present in the Codium chloroplast genome. The psb A and psb C genes map closely to one of these regions, another region is in the spacer between the 16 S and 23 S rRNA genes and the third is very close to or possibly within the 16 S rRNA gene. The gene order in the Codium genome bears no marked resemblance to either the “consensus” vascular plant order or to that of any green algal or bryophyte genome.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/47569/1/438_2004_Article_BF00334385.pd