High spectral resolution Fabry-Perot interferometer measurements of comet Halley at H-alpha and 6300 A

A 40.6 cm Newtonian telescope has been interfaced to the Fabry-Perot interferometer at the Arecibo Observatory to make high spectral resolution measurements of Comet Halley emissions at 6562.72 A (H-alpha) and 6300.3 A (OI). In March 1986 the H-alpha surface brightness for a 5'.9 field of view centered on the comet nucleus decreased from 39+/-7.8 rayleighs on 12 March to 16+/-3.8 rayleighs on 23 March. The atomic hydrogen production rate on 12 March 1986 was 1.62+/-0.5 x 1030 s-1, and on 23 March 1986 it was 6.76+/-2.3 x 1029 s-1. Using spectral resolution of 0.196 A, we found the atomic hydrogen outflow velocity to be approximately 7.9+/-1.0 km s-1. In general, the H-alpha spectra are highly structured, and indicative of a multiple component atomic hydrogen velocity distribution. An isotropic outflow of atomic hydrogen at various velocities is not adequate to explain the spectra measured at H-alpha. The 6300.3 A emission of O(1D) had a surface brightness of 81+/-16 rayleighs on 15 March 1986, and 95+/-11 rayleighs on 17 March 1986. After adjustment for atmospheric extinction, the implied O(1D) production rate on 15 March is 6.44+/-3.0 x 1028 s-1, and the production rate on 17 March is 5.66+/-2.7 x 1028 s-1. These spectra included a feature at 6300.8 A that we attribute to NH2. The brightness of this emission feature was 37+/-11 rayleighs on 15 March.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/25881/1/0000444.pd

Introducing CASCADEPOP: an open-source sociodemographic simulation platform for US health policy appraisal

Largescale individual-level and agent-based models are gaining importance in health policy appraisal and evaluation. Such models require the accurate depiction of the jurisdiction’s population over extended time periods to enable modeling of the development of non-communicable diseases under consideration of historical, sociodemographic developments. We developed CASCADEPOP to provide a readily available sociodemographic micro-synthesis and microsimulation platform for US populations. The micro-synthesis method used iterative proportional fitting to integrate data from the US Census, the American Community Survey, the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, Multiple Cause of Death Files, and several national surveys to produce a synthetic population aged 12 to 80 years on 01/01/1980 for five states (California, Minnesota, New York, Tennessee, and Texas) and the US. Characteristics include individuals’ age, sex, race/ethnicity, marital/employment/parental status, education, income and patterns of alcohol use as an exemplar health behavior. The microsimulation simulates individuals’ sociodemographic life trajectories over 35 years to 31/12/2015 accounting for population developments including births, deaths, and migration. Results comparing the 1980 micro-synthesis against observed data shows a successful depiction of state and US population characteristics and of drinking. Comparing the microsimulation over 30 years with Census data also showed the successful simulation of sociodemographic developments. The CASCADEPOP platform enables modelling of health behaviors across individuals’ life courses and at a population level. As it contains a large number of relevant sociodemographic characteristics it can be further developed by researchers to build US agent-based models and microsimulations to examine health behaviors, interventions, and policies

Social Media, Gender and the Mediatisation of War: Exploring the German Armed Forces’ Visual Representation of the Afghanistan Operation on Facebook

Studies on the mediatisation of war point to attempts of governments to regulate the visual perspective of their involvements in armed conflict – the most notable example being the practice of ‘embedded reporting’ in Iraq and Afghanistan. This paper focuses on a different strategy of visual meaning-making, namely, the publication of images on social media by armed forces themselves. Specifically, we argue that the mediatisation of war literature could profit from an increased engagement with feminist research, both within Critical Security/Critical Military Studies and within Science and Technology Studies that highlight the close connection between masculinity, technology and control. The article examines the German military mission in Afghanistan as represented on the German armed forces’ official Facebook page. Germany constitutes an interesting, and largely neglected, case for the growing literature on the mediatisation of war: its strong antimilitarist political culture makes the representation of war particularly delicate. The paper examines specific representational patterns of Germany’s involvement in Afghanistan and discusses the implications which arise from what is placed inside the frame of visibility and what remains out of its view

Meta-analysis of exome array data identifies six novel genetic loci for lung function

Background: Over 90 regions of the genome have been associated with lung function to date, many of which have also been implicated in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Methods: We carried out meta-analyses of exome array data and three lung function measures: forced expiratory volume in one second (FEV1), forced vital capacity (FVC) and the ratio of FEV1 to FVC (FEV1/FVC). These analyses by the SpiroMeta and CHARGE consortia included 60,749 individuals of European ancestry from 23 studies, and 7,721 individuals of African Ancestry from 5 studies in the discovery stage, with follow-up in up to 111,556 independent individuals. Results: We identified significant (P<2·8x10-7) associations with six SNPs: a nonsynonymous variant in RPAP1, which is predicted to be damaging, three intronic SNPs (SEC24C, CASC17 and UQCC1) and two intergenic SNPs near to LY86 and FGF10. Expression quantitative trait loci analyses found evidence for regulation of gene expression at three signals and implicated several genes, including TYRO3 and PLAU. Conclusions: Further interrogation of these loci could provide greater understanding of the determinants of lung function and pulmonary disease

Clustering Algorithms: Their Application to Gene Expression Data

Gene expression data hide vital information required to understand the biological process that takes place in a particular organism in relation to its environment. Deciphering the hidden patterns in gene expression data proffers a prodigious preference to strengthen the understanding of functional genomics. The complexity of biological networks and the volume of genes present increase the challenges of comprehending and interpretation of the resulting mass of data, which consists of millions of measurements; these data also inhibit vagueness, imprecision, and noise. Therefore, the use of clustering techniques is a first step toward addressing these challenges, which is essential in the data mining process to reveal natural structures and iden-tify interesting patterns in the underlying data. The clustering of gene expression data has been proven to be useful in making known the natural structure inherent in gene expression data, understanding gene functions, cellular processes, and subtypes of cells, mining useful information from noisy data, and understanding gene regulation. The other benefit of clustering gene expression data is the identification of homology, which is very important in vaccine design. This review examines the various clustering algorithms applicable to the gene expression data in order to discover and provide useful knowledge of the appropriate clustering technique that will guarantee stability and high degree of accuracy in its analysis procedure

Track D Social Science, Human Rights and Political Science

Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/138414/1/jia218442.pd

Risk profiles and one-year outcomes of patients with newly diagnosed atrial fibrillation in India: Insights from the GARFIELD-AF Registry.

BACKGROUND: The Global Anticoagulant Registry in the FIELD-Atrial Fibrillation (GARFIELD-AF) is an ongoing prospective noninterventional registry, which is providing important information on the baseline characteristics, treatment patterns, and 1-year outcomes in patients with newly diagnosed non-valvular atrial fibrillation (NVAF). This report describes data from Indian patients recruited in this registry. METHODS AND RESULTS: A total of 52,014 patients with newly diagnosed AF were enrolled globally; of these, 1388 patients were recruited from 26 sites within India (2012-2016). In India, the mean age was 65.8 years at diagnosis of NVAF. Hypertension was the most prevalent risk factor for AF, present in 68.5% of patients from India and in 76.3% of patients globally (P < 0.001). Diabetes and coronary artery disease (CAD) were prevalent in 36.2% and 28.1% of patients as compared with global prevalence of 22.2% and 21.6%, respectively (P < 0.001 for both). Antiplatelet therapy was the most common antithrombotic treatment in India. With increasing stroke risk, however, patients were more likely to receive oral anticoagulant therapy [mainly vitamin K antagonist (VKA)], but average international normalized ratio (INR) was lower among Indian patients [median INR value 1.6 (interquartile range {IQR}: 1.3-2.3) versus 2.3 (IQR 1.8-2.8) (P < 0.001)]. Compared with other countries, patients from India had markedly higher rates of all-cause mortality [7.68 per 100 person-years (95% confidence interval 6.32-9.35) vs 4.34 (4.16-4.53), P < 0.0001], while rates of stroke/systemic embolism and major bleeding were lower after 1 year of follow-up. CONCLUSION: Compared to previously published registries from India, the GARFIELD-AF registry describes clinical profiles and outcomes in Indian patients with AF of a different etiology. The registry data show that compared to the rest of the world, Indian AF patients are younger in age and have more diabetes and CAD. Patients with a higher stroke risk are more likely to receive anticoagulation therapy with VKA but are underdosed compared with the global average in the GARFIELD-AF. CLINICAL TRIAL REGISTRATION-URL: http://www.clinicaltrials.gov. Unique identifier: NCT01090362

Multi-ancestry genome-wide association analyses improve resolution of genes and pathways influencing lung function and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease risk.

Lung-function impairment underlies chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and predicts mortality. In the largest multi-ancestry genome-wide association meta-analysis of lung function to date, comprising 580,869 participants, we identified 1,020 independent association signals implicating 559 genes supported by ≥2 criteria from a systematic variant-to-gene mapping framework. These genes were enriched in 29 pathways. Individual variants showed heterogeneity across ancestries, age and smoking groups, and collectively as a genetic risk score showed strong association with COPD across ancestry groups. We undertook phenome-wide association studies for selected associated variants as well as trait and pathway-specific genetic risk scores to infer possible consequences of intervening in pathways underlying lung function. We highlight new putative causal variants, genes, proteins and pathways, including those targeted by existing drugs. These findings bring us closer to understanding the mechanisms underlying lung function and COPD, and should inform functional genomics experiments and potentially future COPD therapies