Chronic e-cigarette exposure alters the human bronchial epithelial proteome

Rationale: E-cigarettes vaporize propylene glycol/vegetable glycerin (PG/VG), nicotine, and flavorings. However, the long-term health effects of exposing lungs to vaped e-liquids are unknown. Objectives: To determine the effects of chronic vaping on pulmonary epithelia. Methods: We performed research bronchoscopies on healthy nonsmokers, cigarette smokers, and e-cigarette users (vapers) and obtained bronchial brush biopsies and lavage samples from these subjects for proteomic investigation. We further employed in vitro and murine exposure models to support our human findings. Measurements and Main Results: Visual inspection by bronchoscopy revealed that vaper airways appeared friable and erythematous. Epithelial cells from biopsy samples revealed approximately 300 proteins that were differentially expressed in smoker and vaper airways, with only 78 proteins being commonly altered in both groups and 113 uniquely altered in vapers. For example, CYP1B1 (cytochrome P450 family 1 subfamily B member 1), MUC5AC (mucin 5 AC), and MUC4 levels were increased in vapers. Aerosolized PG/VG alone significantly increasedMUC5AC protein in human airway epithelial cultures and in murine nasal epithelia in vivo.We also found that e-liquids rapidly entered cells and that PG/VG reduced membrane fluidity and impaired protein diffusion. Conclusions: We conclude that chronic vaping exerts marked biological effects on the lung and that these effects may in part be mediated by the PG/VG base. These changes are likely not harmless and may have clinical implications for the development of chronic lung disease. Further studies will be required to determine the full extent of vaping on the lung

Velocity-space sensitivity of the time-of-flight neutron spectrometer at JET

The velocity-space sensitivities of fast-ion diagnostics are often described by so-called weight functions. Recently, we formulated weight functions showing the velocity-space sensitivity of the often dominant beam-target part of neutron energy spectra. These weight functions for neutron emission spectrometry (NES) are independent of the particular NES diagnostic. Here we apply these NES weight functions to the time-of-flight spectrometer TOFOR at JET. By taking the instrumental response function of TOFOR into account, we calculate time-of-flight NES weight functions that enable us to directly determine the velocity-space sensitivity of a given part of a measured time-of-flight spectrum from TOFOR

On the mechanisms governing gas penetration into a tokamak plasma during a massive gas injection

A new 1D radial fluid code, IMAGINE, is used to simulate the penetration of gas into a tokamak plasma during a massive gas injection (MGI). The main result is that the gas is in general strongly braked as it reaches the plasma, due to mechanisms related to charge exchange and (to a smaller extent) recombination. As a result, only a fraction of the gas penetrates into the plasma. Also, a shock wave is created in the gas which propagates away from the plasma, braking and compressing the incoming gas. Simulation results are quantitatively consistent, at least in terms of orders of magnitude, with experimental data for a D 2 MGI into a JET Ohmic plasma. Simulations of MGI into the background plasma surrounding a runaway electron beam show that if the background electron density is too high, the gas may not penetrate, suggesting a possible explanation for the recent results of Reux et al in JET (2015 Nucl. Fusion 55 093013)

Systematic Review of Potential Health Risks Posed by Pharmaceutical, Occupational and Consumer Exposures to Metallic and Nanoscale Aluminum, Aluminum Oxides, Aluminum Hydroxide and Its Soluble Salts

Aluminum (Al) is a ubiquitous substance encountered both naturally (as the third most abundant element) and intentionally (used in water, foods, pharmaceuticals, and vaccines); it is also present in ambient and occupational airborne particulates. Existing data underscore the importance of Al physical and chemical forms in relation to its uptake, accumulation, and systemic bioavailability. The present review represents a systematic examination of the peer-reviewed literature on the adverse health effects of Al materials published since a previous critical evaluation compiled by Krewski et al. (2007). Challenges encountered in carrying out the present review reflected the experimental use of different physical and chemical Al forms, different routes of administration, and different target organs in relation to the magnitude, frequency, and duration of exposure. Wide variations in diet can result in Al intakes that are often higher than the World Health Organization provisional tolerable weekly intake (PTWI), which is based on studies with Al citrate. Comparing daily dietary Al exposures on the basis of “total Al”assumes that gastrointestinal bioavailability for all dietary Al forms is equivalent to that for Al citrate, an approach that requires validation. Current occupational exposure limits (OELs) for identical Al substances vary as much as 15-fold. The toxicity of different Al forms depends in large measure on their physical behavior and relative solubility in water. The toxicity of soluble Al forms depends upon the delivered dose of Al+ 3 to target tissues. Trivalent Al reacts with water to produce bidentate superoxide coordination spheres [Al(O2)(H2O4)+ 2 and Al(H2O)6 + 3] that after complexation with O2•−, generate Al superoxides [Al(O2•)](H2O5)]+ 2. Semireduced AlO2• radicals deplete mitochondrial Fe and promote generation of H2O2, O2 • − and OH•. Thus, it is the Al+ 3-induced formation of oxygen radicals that accounts for the oxidative damage that leads to intrinsic apoptosis. In contrast, the toxicity of the insoluble Al oxides depends primarily on their behavior as particulates. Aluminum has been held responsible for human morbidity and mortality, but there is no consistent and convincing evidence to associate the Al found in food and drinking water at the doses and chemical forms presently consumed by people living in North America and Western Europe with increased risk for Alzheimer\u27s disease (AD). Neither is there clear evidence to show use of Al-containing underarm antiperspirants or cosmetics increases the risk of AD or breast cancer. Metallic Al, its oxides, and common Al salts have not been shown to be either genotoxic or carcinogenic. Aluminum exposures during neonatal and pediatric parenteral nutrition (PN) can impair bone mineralization and delay neurological development. Adverse effects to vaccines with Al adjuvants have occurred; however, recent controlled trials found that the immunologic response to certain vaccines with Al adjuvants was no greater, and in some cases less than, that after identical vaccination without Al adjuvants. The scientific literature on the adverse health effects of Al is extensive. Health risk assessments for Al must take into account individual co-factors (e.g., age, renal function, diet, gastric pH). Conclusions from the current review point to the need for refinement of the PTWI, reduction of Al contamination in PN solutions, justification for routine addition of Al to vaccines, and harmonization of OELs for Al substances

TRY plant trait database – enhanced coverage and open access

Plant traits—the morphological, anatomical, physiological, biochemical and phenological characteristics of plants—determine how plants respond to environmental factors, affect other trophic levels, and influence ecosystem properties and their benefits and detriments to people. Plant trait data thus represent the basis for a vast area of research spanning from evolutionary biology, community and functional ecology, to biodiversity conservation, ecosystem and landscape management, restoration, biogeography and earth system modelling. Since its foundation in 2007, the TRY database of plant traits has grown continuously. It now provides unprecedented data coverage under an open access data policy and is the main plant trait database used by the research community worldwide. Increasingly, the TRY database also supports new frontiers of trait‐based plant research, including the identification of data gaps and the subsequent mobilization or measurement of new data. To support this development, in this article we evaluate the extent of the trait data compiled in TRY and analyse emerging patterns of data coverage and representativeness. Best species coverage is achieved for categorical traits—almost complete coverage for ‘plant growth form’. However, most traits relevant for ecology and vegetation modelling are characterized by continuous intraspecific variation and trait–environmental relationships. These traits have to be measured on individual plants in their respective environment. Despite unprecedented data coverage, we observe a humbling lack of completeness and representativeness of these continuous traits in many aspects. We, therefore, conclude that reducing data gaps and biases in the TRY database remains a key challenge and requires a coordinated approach to data mobilization and trait measurements. This can only be achieved in collaboration with other initiatives

Relationship of edge localized mode burst times with divertor flux loop signal phase in JET

A phase relationship is identified between sequential edge localized modes (ELMs) occurrence times in a set of H-mode tokamak plasmas to the voltage measured in full flux azimuthal loops in the divertor region. We focus on plasmas in the Joint European Torus where a steady H-mode is sustained over several seconds, during which ELMs are observed in the Be II emission at the divertor. The ELMs analysed arise from intrinsic ELMing, in that there is no deliberate intent to control the ELMing process by external means. We use ELM timings derived from the Be II signal to perform direct time domain analysis of the full flux loop VLD2 and VLD3 signals, which provide a high cadence global measurement proportional to the voltage induced by changes in poloidal magnetic flux. Specifically, we examine how the time interval between pairs of successive ELMs is linked to the time-evolving phase of the full flux loop signals. Each ELM produces a clear early pulse in the full flux loop signals, whose peak time is used to condition our analysis. The arrival time of the following ELM, relative to this pulse, is found to fall into one of two categories: (i) prompt ELMs, which are directly paced by the initial response seen in the flux loop signals; and (ii) all other ELMs, which occur after the initial response of the full flux loop signals has decayed in amplitude. The times at which ELMs in category (ii) occur, relative to the first ELM of the pair, are clustered at times when the instantaneous phase of the full flux loop signal is close to its value at the time of the first ELM

Large expert-curated database for benchmarking document similarity detection in biomedical literature search

Document recommendation systems for locating relevant literature have mostly relied on methods developed a decade ago. This is largely due to the lack of a large offline gold-standard benchmark of relevant documents that cover a variety of research fields such that newly developed literature search techniques can be compared, improved and translated into practice. To overcome this bottleneck, we have established the RElevant LIterature SearcH consortium consisting of more than 1500 scientists from 84 countries, who have collectively annotated the relevance of over 180 000 PubMed-listed articles with regard to their respective seed (input) article/s. The majority of annotations were contributed by highly experienced, original authors of the seed articles. The collected data cover 76% of all unique PubMed Medical Subject Headings descriptors. No systematic biases were observed across different experience levels, research fields or time spent on annotations. More importantly, annotations of the same document pairs contributed by different scientists were highly concordant. We further show that the three representative baseline methods used to generate recommended articles for evaluation (Okapi Best Matching 25, Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency and PubMed Related Articles) had similar overall performances. Additionally, we found that these methods each tend to produce distinct collections of recommended articles, suggesting that a hybrid method may be required to completely capture all relevant articles. The established database server located at https://relishdb.ict.griffith.edu.au is freely available for the downloading of annotation data and the blind testing of new methods. We expect that this benchmark will be useful for stimulating the development of new powerful techniques for title and title/abstract-based search engines for relevant articles in biomedical research.Peer reviewe

Mouse Chromosome 3

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/46995/1/335_2004_Article_BF00648421.pd