Effect of changes in moderate or vigorous physical activity on changes in health-related quality of life of elderly British women over seven years.

PURPOSE: This study investigates the effect of changes in moderate or vigorous physical activity (MVPA) on trajectories in health-related quality of life (HR-QoL) over 7 years in British elderly women. METHODS: A total of 1,926 women from the British Women's Heart and Health Study with information on MVPA and HR-QoL [measured using Euro quality of life 5 dimension (EQ-5D)] at baseline and at 7 years of follow-up were included in the analysis. Baseline and 7-year follow-up MVPA values were categorised into 3 groups, generating 9 categories of change in MVPA. Logistic regression was used to obtain odds ratios (ORs) of maintaining or improving HR-QoL according to different patterns of change in MVPA level. RESULTS: Women who remained inactive over the 7 years of follow-up had the largest reduction in their EQ-5D scores. Compared to these women, women that increased their MPVA level from "inactive" to "low" or to "moderate-high" were more likely to maintain or improve their HR-QoL over 7 years (ORs 1.65 or 2.70, respectively, p value for trend <0.001). After adjustment for baseline EQ-5D score and a wide range of potential confounders, results remained largely unchanged, though precision of the estimates generally decreased. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings suggest that relatively regular MVPA, even taken up later in life, can help older women prevent a decline in HR-QoL and even improve their enjoyment of life

Effect of changes in moderate or vigorous physical activity on changes in health-related quality of life of elderly British women over seven years.

PURPOSE: This study investigates the effect of changes in moderate or vigorous physical activity (MVPA) on trajectories in health-related quality of life (HR-QoL) over 7 years in British elderly women. METHODS: A total of 1,926 women from the British Women's Heart and Health Study with information on MVPA and HR-QoL [measured using Euro quality of life 5 dimension (EQ-5D)] at baseline and at 7 years of follow-up were included in the analysis. Baseline and 7-year follow-up MVPA values were categorised into 3 groups, generating 9 categories of change in MVPA. Logistic regression was used to obtain odds ratios (ORs) of maintaining or improving HR-QoL according to different patterns of change in MVPA level. RESULTS: Women who remained inactive over the 7 years of follow-up had the largest reduction in their EQ-5D scores. Compared to these women, women that increased their MPVA level from "inactive" to "low" or to "moderate-high" were more likely to maintain or improve their HR-QoL over 7 years (ORs 1.65 or 2.70, respectively, p value for trend <0.001). After adjustment for baseline EQ-5D score and a wide range of potential confounders, results remained largely unchanged, though precision of the estimates generally decreased. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings suggest that relatively regular MVPA, even taken up later in life, can help older women prevent a decline in HR-QoL and even improve their enjoyment of life

Myosin IIA-mediated forces regulate multicellular integrity during vascular sprouting

Angiogenic sprouting is a critical process involved in vascular network formation within tissues. During sprouting, tip cells and ensuing stalk cells migrate collectively into the extracellular matrix while preserving cell-cell junctions, forming patent structures that support blood flow. Although several signaling pathways have been identified as controlling sprouting, it remains unclear to what extent this process is mechanoregulated. To address this question, we investigated the role of cellular contractility in sprout morphogenesis, using a biomimetic model of angiogenesis. Three-dimensional maps of mechanical deformations generated by sprouts revealed that mainly leader cells, not stalk cells, exert contractile forces on the surrounding matrix. Surprisingly, inhibiting cellular contractility with blebbistatin did not affect the extent of cellular invasion but resulted in cell-cell dissociation primarily between tip and stalk cells. Closer examination of cell-cell junctions revealed that blebbistatin impaired adherens-junction organization, particularly between tip and stalk cells. Using CRISPR/Cas9-mediated gene editing, we further identified NMIIA as the major isoform responsible for regulating multicellularity and cell contractility during sprouting. Together, these studies reveal a critical role for NMIIA-mediated contractile forces in maintaining multicellularity during sprouting and highlight the central role of forces in regulating cell-cell adhesions during collective motility.R01 EB000262 - NIBIB NIH HHS; R01 HL115553 - NHLBI NIH HHSPublished versio

Why do thin people have elevated all-cause mortality? Evidence on confounding and reverse causality in the association of adiposity and COPD from the British Women's Heart and Health Study.

Low adiposity has been linked to elevated mortality from several causes including respiratory disease. However, this could arise from confounding or reverse causality. We explore the association between two measures of adiposity (BMI and WHR) with COPD in the British Women's Heart and Health Study including a detailed assessment of the potential for confounding and reverse causality for each adiposity measure. Low BMI was found to be associated with increased COPD risk while low WHR was not (OR = 2.2; 95% CI 1.3-3.1 versus OR = 1.2; 95% CI 0.7-1.6). Potential confounding variables (e.g. smoking) and markers of ill-health (e.g. unintentional weight loss) were found to be higher in low BMI but not in low WHR. Women with low BMI have a detrimental profile across a broad range of health markers compared to women with low WHR, and women with low WHR do not appear to have an elevated COPD risk, lending support to the hypothesis that WHR is a less confounded measure of adiposity than BMI. Low adiposity does not in itself appear to increase the risk of respiratory disease, and the apparent adverse consequences of low BMI may be due to reverse causation and confounding

Design rules for self-assembled block copolymer patterns using tiled templates

Directed self-assembly of block copolymers has been used for fabricating various nanoscale patterns, ranging from periodic lines to simple bends. However, assemblies of dense bends, junctions and line segments in a single pattern have not been achieved by using sparse templates, because no systematic template design methods for achieving such complex patterns existed. To direct a complex pattern by using a sparse template, the template needs to encode the key information contained in the final pattern, without being a simple copy of the pattern. Here we develop a set of topographic template tiles consisting of square lattices of posts with a restricted range of geometric features. The block copolymer patterns resulting from all tile arrangements are determined. By combining tiles in different ways, it is possible to predict a relatively simple template that will direct the formation of non-trivial block copolymer patterns, providing a new template design method for a complex block copolymer pattern.Samsung Scholarship FoundationSemiconductor Research CorporationTokyo Electron LimitedTaiwan Semicondcutor Manufacturing CompanyNational Science Foundation (U.S.) (Award DMR1234169

First Top-Down Estimates of Anthropogenic NO_x Emissions Using High-Resolution Airborne Remote Sensing Observations

A number of satellite‐based instruments have become an essential part of monitoring emissions. Despite sound theoretical inversion techniques, the insufficient samples and the footprint size of current observations have introduced an obstacle to narrow the inversion window for regional models. These key limitations can be partially resolved by a set of modest high‐quality measurements from airborne remote sensing. This study illustrates the feasibility of nitrogen dioxide (NO_2) columns from the Geostationary Coastal and Air Pollution Events Airborne Simulator (GCAS) to constrain anthropogenic NO_x emissions in the Houston‐Galveston‐Brazoria area. We convert slant column densities to vertical columns using a radiative transfer model with (i) NO_2 profiles from a high‐resolution regional model (1 × 1 km^2) constrained by P‐3B aircraft measurements, (ii) the consideration of aerosol optical thickness impacts on radiance at NO_2 absorption line, and (iii) high‐resolution surface albedo constrained by ground‐based spectrometers. We characterize errors in the GCAS NO_2 columns by comparing them to Pandora measurements and find a striking correlation (r > 0.74) with an uncertainty of 3.5 × 10^(15) molecules cm^(−2). On 9 of 10 total days, the constrained anthropogenic emissions by a Kalman filter yield an overall 2–50% reduction in polluted areas, partly counterbalancing the well‐documented positive bias of the model. The inversion, however, boosts emissions by 94% in the same areas on a day when an unprecedented local emissions event potentially occurred, significantly mitigating the bias of the model. The capability of GCAS at detecting such an event ensures the significance of forthcoming geostationary satellites for timely estimates of top‐down emissions