Moderately elevated blood pressure during pregnancy and odds of hypertension later in life: the POUCHmoms longitudinal study

Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/138364/1/bjo14556-sup-0010-ICMJE7.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/138364/2/bjo14556-sup-0007-ICMJE4.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/138364/3/bjo14556.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/138364/4/bjo14556-sup-0008-ICMJE5.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/138364/5/bjo14556-sup-0001-TableS1.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/138364/6/bjo14556-sup-0002-TableS2.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/138364/7/bjo14556-sup-0005-ICMJE2.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/138364/8/bjo14556-sup-0003-TableS3.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/138364/9/bjo14556-sup-0006-ICMJE3.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/138364/10/bjo14556-sup-0009-ICMJE6.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/138364/11/bjo14556_am.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/138364/12/bjo14556-sup-0004-ICMJE1.pd

Preventing numerical oscillations in the flux-split based finite difference method for compressible flows with discontinuities

In simulating compressible flows with contact discontinuities or material interfaces, numerical pressure and velocity oscillations can be induced by point-wise flux vector splitting (FVS) or component-wise nonlinear difference discretization of convection terms. The current analysis showed that the oscillations are due to the incompatibility of the point-wise splitting of eigenvalues in FVS and the inconsistency of component-wise nonlinear difference discretization among equations of mass, momentum, energy, and even fluid composition for multi-material flows. Two practical principles are proposed to prevent these oscillations: (i) convective fluxes must be split by a global FVS, such as the global Lax-Friedrichs FVS, and (ii) consistent discretization between different equations must be guaranteed. The latter, however, is not compatible with component-wise nonlinear difference discretization. Therefore, a consistent discretization method that uses only one set of common weights is proposed for nonlinear weighted essentially non-oscillatory (WENO) schemes. One possible procedure to determine the common weights is presented that provided good results. The analysis and methods stated above are appropriate for both single- (e.g., contact discontinuity) and multi-material (e.g., material interface) discontinuities. For the latter, however, the additional fluid composition equation should be split and discretized consistently for compatibility with the other equations. Numerical tests including several contact discontinuities and multi-material flows confirmed the effectiveness, robustness, and low computation cost of the proposed method. (C) 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved

An improved accurate monotonicity-preserving scheme for the Euler equations

The accurate monotonicity-preserving (MP) scheme of Suresh and Huynh (1997) [5] is a high-order and high-resolution method for hyperbolic conservation laws. However, the robustness of the MP scheme is not very high. In this paper, a detailed analysis on this scheme is performed, and two potential causes which may account for the weak robustness are revealed. Furthermore, in order to enhance the robustness of the MP scheme, an improved version of the MP scheme is presented, in which a strict continuous total-variation-diminishing (TVD) numerical flux is used at a disturbed discontinuity so that oscillations cannot grow indefinitely without violating the TVD condition. Without destroying the very high resolution property, numerical tests show that the improved scheme shares a strong robustness in simulating extreme numerical tests. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

Interrupting seasonal transmission of Schistosoma haematobium and control of soil-transmitted helminthiasis in northern and central Côte d’Ivoire: a SCORE study protocol

© The Author(s). 2018 Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated. The attached file is the published version of the article

Nanoquartz in Late Permian C1 coal and the high incidence of female lung cancer in the Pearl River Origin area: a retrospective cohort study

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The Pearl River Origin area, Qujing District of Yunnan Province, has one of the highest female lung cancer mortality rates in China. Smoking was excluded as a cause of the lung cancer excess because almost all women were non-smokers. Crystalline silica embedded in the soot emissions from coal combustion was found to be associated with the lung cancer risk in a geographical correlation study. Lung cancer rates tend to be higher in places where the Late Permian C1 coal is produced. Therefore, we have hypothesized the two processes: C1 coal combustion --> nanoquartz in ambient air --> lung cancer excess in non-smoking women.</p> <p>Methods/Design</p> <p>We propose to conduct a retrospective cohort study to test the hypothesis above. We will search historical records and compile an inventory of the coal mines in operation during 1930–2009. To estimate the study subjects' retrospective exposure, we will reconstruct the historical exposure scenario by burning the coal samples, collected from operating or deserted coal mines by coal geologists, in a traditional firepit of an old house. Indoor air particulate samples will be collected for nanoquartz and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) analyses. Bulk quartz content will be quantified by X-ray diffraction analysis. Size distribution of quartz will be examined by electron microscopes and by centrifugation techniques. Lifetime cumulative exposure to nanoquartz will be estimated for each subject. Using the epidemiology data, we will examine whether the use of C1 coal and the cumulative exposure to nanoquartz are associated with an elevated risk of lung cancer.</p> <p>Discussion</p> <p>The high incidence rate of lung cancer in Xuan Wei, one of the counties in the current study area, was once attributed to high indoor air concentrations of PAHs. The research results have been cited for qualitative and quantitative cancer risk assessment of PAHs by the World Health Organization and other agencies. If nanoquartz is found to be the main underlying cause of the lung cancer epidemic in the study area, cancer potency estimates for PAHs by the international agencies based on the lung cancer data in this study setting should then be updated.</p

Restrictions and extensions of semibounded operators

We study restriction and extension theory for semibounded Hermitian operators in the Hardy space of analytic functions on the disk D. Starting with the operator zd/dz, we show that, for every choice of a closed subset F in T=bd(D) of measure zero, there is a densely defined Hermitian restriction of zd/dz corresponding to boundary functions vanishing on F. For every such restriction operator, we classify all its selfadjoint extension, and for each we present a complete spectral picture. We prove that different sets F with the same cardinality can lead to quite different boundary-value problems, inequivalent selfadjoint extension operators, and quite different spectral configurations. As a tool in our analysis, we prove that the von Neumann deficiency spaces, for a fixed set F, have a natural presentation as reproducing kernel Hilbert spaces, with a Hurwitz zeta-function, restricted to FxF, as reproducing kernel.Comment: 63 pages, 11 figure

Hierarchical Equations of Motion Approach to Quantum Thermodynamics

We present a theoretical framework to investigate quantum thermodynamic processes under non-Markovian system-bath interactions on the basis of the hierarchical equations of motion (HEOM) approach, which is convenient to carry out numerically "exact" calculations. This formalism is valuable because it can be used to treat not only strong system-bath coupling but also system-bath correlation or entanglement, which will be essential to characterize the heat transport between the system and quantum heat baths. Using this formalism, we demonstrated an importance of the thermodynamic effect from the tri-partite correlations (TPC) for a two-level heat transfer model and a three-level autonomous heat engine model under the conditions that the conventional quantum master equation approaches are failed. Our numerical calculations show that TPC contributions, which distinguish the heat current from the energy current, have to be take into account to satisfy the thermodynamic laws.Comment: 9 pages, 4 figures. As a chapter of: F. Binder, L. A. Correa, C. Gogolin, J. Anders, and G. Adesso (eds.), "Thermodynamics in the quantum regime - Recent Progress and Outlook", (Springer International Publishing

Molecular characterization and distribution of Schistosoma cercariae collected from naturally infected bulinid snails in northern and central Côte d’Ivoire

Accurate identification of schistosome species infecting intermediate host snails is important for understanding parasite transmission, schistosomiasis control and elimination. Cercariae emerging from infected snails cannot be precisely identified morphologically to the species level. We used molecular tools to clarify the distribution of the Schistosoma haematobium group species infecting bulinid snails in a large part of Côte d’Ivoire and confirmed the presence of interspecific hybrid schistosomes. Methods Between June 2016 and March 2017, Bulinus snails were sampled in 164 human-water contact sites from 22 villages of the northern and central parts of Côte d’Ivoire. Multi-locus genetic analysis (mitochondrial cox1 and nuclear ITS) was performed on individual schistosome cercariae shed from snails, in the morning and in the afternoon, for species and hybrid identification. Results Overall, 1923 Bulinus truncatus, 255 Bulinus globosus and 1424 Bulinus forskalii were obtained. Among 2417 Bulinus screened, 25 specimens (18 B. truncatus and seven B. globosus) shed schistosomes, with up to 14% infection prevalence per site and time point. Globally, infection rates per time point ranged between 0.6 and 4%. Schistosoma bovis, S. haematobium and S. bovis × S. haematobium hybrids infected 0.5%, 0.2% and 0.4% of the snails screened, respectively. Schistosoma bovis and hybrids were more prevalent in B. truncatus, whereas S. haematobium and hybrid infections were more prevalent in B. globosus. Schistosoma bovis-infected Bulinus were predominantly found in northern sites, while S. haematobium and hybrid infected snails were mainly found in central parts of Côte d’Ivoire. Conclusions The data highlight the necessity of using molecular tools to identify and understand which schistosome species are transmitted by specific intermediate host snails. The study deepens our understanding of the epidemiology and transmission dynamics of S. haematobium and S. bovis in Côte d’Ivoire and provides the first conclusive evidence for the transmission of S. haematobium × S. bovis hybrids in this West African country. Trial registration ISRCTN, ISRCTN10926858. Registered 21 December 2016; retrospectively registered (see: http://www.isrctn.com/ISRCTN10926858)Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated. The attached file is the published pdf

Primary extraskeletal osteosarcoma of omentum majus

Extraskeletal osteosarcoma is a rare malignant soft tissue tumor. Here we present a case of a primary extraskeletal osteosarcoma arising from omentum majus in a 40-year-old Chinese woman. Ultrasonography of the pelvic cavity showed a large soft tissue mass with marked calcification. Complete surgical resection of the primary tumor was performed and the histopathological diagnosis was extraskeletal osteosarcoma of omentum majus. She was followed up without adjuvant radiotherapy and chemotherapy, and died from widespread intra-abdominal, lung and liver metastases 7 months postoperatively

Interactions between Schistosoma haematobium group species and their Bulinus spp. intermediate hosts along the Niger River Valley

Background Urogenital schistosomiasis, caused by infection with Schistosoma haematobium, is endemic in Niger but complicated by the presence of Schistosoma bovis, Schistosoma curassoni and S. haematobium group hybrids along with various Bulinus snail intermediate host species. Establishing the schistosomes and snails involved in transmission aids disease surveillance whilst providing insights into snail-schistosome interactions/compatibilities and biology. Methods Infected Bulinus spp. were collected from 16 villages north and south of the Niamey region, Niger, between 2011 and 2015. From each Bulinus spp., 20–52 cercariae shed were analysed using microsatellite markers and a subset identified using the mitochondrial (mt) cox1 and nuclear ITS1 + 2 and 18S DNA regions. Infected Bulinus spp. were identified using both morphological and molecular analysis (partial mt cox1 region). Results A total of 87 infected Bulinus from 24 sites were found, 29 were molecularly confirmed as B. truncatus, three as B. forskalii and four as B. globosus. The remaining samples were morphologically identified as B. truncatus (n = 49) and B. forskalii (n = 2). The microsatellite analysis of 1124 cercariae revealed 186 cercarial multilocus genotypes (MLGs). Identical cercarial genotypes were frequently (60%) identified from the same snail (clonal populations from a single miracidia); however, several (40%) of the snails had cercariae of different genotypes (2–10 MLG’s) indicating multiple miracidial infections. Fifty-seven of the B. truncatus and all of the B. forskalii and B. globosus were shedding the Bovid schistosome S. bovis. The other B. truncatus were shedding the human schistosomes, S. haematobium (n = 6) and the S. haematobium group hybrids (n = 13). Two B. truncatus had co-infections with S. haematobium and S. haematobium group hybrids whilst no co-infections with S. bovis were observed. Conclusions This study has advanced our understanding of human and bovid schistosomiasis transmission in the Niger River Valley region. Human Schistosoma species/forms (S. haematobium and S. haematobium hybrids) were found transmitted only in five villages whereas those causing veterinary schistosomiasis (S. bovis), were found in most villages. Bulinus truncatus was most abundant, transmitting all Schistosoma species, while the less abundant B. forskalii and B. globosus, only transmitted S. bovis. Our data suggest that species-specific biological traits may exist in relation to co-infections, snail-schistosome compatibility and intramolluscan schistosome development