Effects of Voids in Tensile Single-Crystal Cu Nanobeams

Molecular dynamic simulations of defect nanosized beams of single-crystal Cu, loaded in displacement controlled tension until rupture, have been performed. The defects are square-shaped, through-the-thickness voids of different sizes, placed centrally in the beams. Three different cross section sizes and two different crystallographic orientations are investigated. As expected, the sizes of the beam cross section and the void as well as the crystal orientation strongly influence both the elastic and the plastic behaviors of the beams. It was seen that the strain at plastic initiation increases with beam cross section size as well as with decreasing void size. It is further observed that the void deformed in different ways depending on cross section and void size. Sometimes void closure, leading to necking of the beam cross section followed by rupture occurred. In other cases, the void elongated leading to that the two ligaments above and below the void ruptured independently

Sexual obsessions in children and adolescents : Prevalence, clinical correlates, response to cognitive-behavior therapy and long-term follow up

No funding was received for this study. Publisher Copyright: © 2022 The AuthorsSexual obsessions occur in pediatric and adult OCD including thoughts about sexual acts with family members, sexually inappropriate behavior, or homosexual orientation. They may remain undiagnosed because of embarrassment to report thoughts that are perceived as unacceptable. Prevalence studies of sexual obsessions in pediatric populations are rare. The present study investigated prevalence of sexual obsessions and treatment outcome compared to youth with OCD without sexual obsessions in a large sample. Sexual obsessions and OCD severity were assessed with the Children's Yale-Brown Obsessive- Compulsive Scale in all 269 participants of the Nordic Longterm OCD Treatment study (mean age 12.8 years, 48.7% boys) at baseline, after treatment and three years follow-up. Treatment consisted in individual manualized CBT with exposure and response prevention. Patients with and without sexual obsessions were compared on clinical characteristics and treatment outcomes. Sexual obsessions were reported by 18%, those with sexual obsessions were slightly older (13.5 versus 12.7 years). Both groups had no difference in treatment outcome, suggesting that if addressed, the response to CBT is similar in sexual, as in other obsessions. Clinicians need to be aware that children may need help to disclose and to identify these thoughts as obsessions to address them in treatment.Peer reviewe

Effects of lifestyle intervention in persons at risk for type 2 diabetes mellitus - results from a randomised, controlled trial

Background: Lifestyle change is probably the most important single action to prevent type 2 diabetes mellitus. The purpose of this study was to assess the effects of a low-intensity individual lifestyle intervention by a physician and compare this to the same physician intervention combined with an interdisciplinary, group-based approach in a real-life setting. Methods: The “Finnish Diabetes Risk score” (FINDRISC) was used by GPs to identify individuals at high risk. A randomised, controlled design and an 18 month follow-up was used to assess the effect of individual lifestyle counselling by a physician (individual physician group, (IG)) every six months, with emphasis on diet and exercise, and compare this to the same individual lifestyle counselling combined with a group-based interdisciplinary program (individual and interdisciplinary group, (IIG)) provided over 16 weeks. Primary outcomes were changes in lifestyle indicated by weight reduction ≥ 5%, improvement in exercise capacity as assessed by VO2 max and diet improvements according to the Smart Diet Score (SDS). Results: 213 participants (104 in the IG and 109 in the IIG group, 50% women), with a mean age of 46 and mean body mass index 37, were included (inclusion rate > 91%) of whom 182 returned at follow-up (drop-out rate 15%). There were no significant differences in changes in lifestyle behaviours between the two groups. At baseline 57% (IG) and 53% (IIG) of participants had poor aerobic capacity and after intervention 35% and 33%, respectively, improved their aerobic capacity at least one metabolic equivalent. Unhealthy diets according to SDS were common in both groups at baseline, 61% (IG) and 60% (IIG), but uncommon at follow-up, 17% and 10%, respectively. At least 5% weight loss was achieved by 35% (IG) and 28% (IIG). In the combined IG and IIG group, at least one primary outcome was achieved by 93% while all primary outcomes were achieved by 6%. Most successful was the 78% reduction in the proportion of participants with unhealthy diet (almost 50% absolute reduction). Conclusion: It is possible to achieve important lifestyle changes in persons at risk for type 2 diabetes with modest clinical efforts. Group intervention yields no additional effects. The design of the study, with high inclusion and low dropout rates, should make the results applicable to ordinary clinical settings

Influence of obesity-related risk factors in the aetiology of glioma

BACKGROUND: Obesity and related factors have been implicated as possible aetiological factors for the development of glioma in epidemiological observation studies. We used genetic markers in a Mendelian randomisation framework to examine whether obesity-related traits influence glioma risk. This methodology reduces bias from confounding and is not affected by reverse causation. METHODS: Genetic instruments were identified for 10 key obesity-related risk factors, and their association with glioma risk was evaluated using data from a genome-wide association study of 12,488 glioma patients and 18,169 controls. The estimated odds ratio of glioma associated with each of the genetically defined obesity-related traits was used to infer evidence for a causal relationship. RESULTS: No convincing association with glioma risk was seen for genetic instruments for body mass index, waist-to-hip ratio, lipids, type-2 diabetes, hyperglycaemia or insulin resistance. Similarly, we found no evidence to support a relationship between obesity-related traits with subtypes of glioma-glioblastoma (GBM) or non-GBM tumours. CONCLUSIONS: This study provides no evidence to implicate obesity-related factors as causes of glioma

Human immunoglobulin G levels of viruses and associated glioma risk

Few consistent etiological factors have been identified for primary brain tumors. Inverse associations to asthma and low levels of varicella-zoster virus, immunoglobulin (Ig) levels in prevalent cases have indicted a role for the immune system in the development of glioma. Because samples from prevalent cases of glioma could be influenced by treatments such as steroids and chemotherapy, we investigated pre-diagnostic samples from three large Scandinavian cohorts. To test the hypothesis that immune response levels to these viruses are associated etiologically with glioma risk, we investigated pre-diagnostic immunoglobulin levels for cytomegalovirus (CMV), varicella-zoster virus (VZV), adenovirus (Ad), and Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) including the nuclear antigen (EBNA1) using plasma samples from 197 cases of adult glioma and 394 controls collected from population-based cohorts in Sweden and Denmark. Low VZV IgG levels were marginally significantly more common in glioma cases than the controls (odds ratio (OR) = 0.68, 95% CI 0.41–1.13) for the fourth compared with the first quartile (p = 0.06 for trend). These results were more prominent when analyzing cases with blood sampling at least 2 years before diagnosis (OR = 0.63, 95% CI 0.37–1.08) (p = 0.03). No association with glioma risk was observed for CMV, EBV, and adenovirus

An original phylogenetic approach identified mitochondrial haplogroup T1a1 as inversely associated with breast cancer risk in BRCA2 mutation carriers

Introduction: Individuals carrying pathogenic mutations in the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes have a high lifetime risk of breast cancer. BRCA1 and BRCA2 are involved in DNA double-strand break repair, DNA alterations that can be caused by exposure to reactive oxygen species, a main source of which are mitochondria. Mitochondrial genome variations affect electron transport chain efficiency and reactive oxygen species production. Individuals with different mitochondrial haplogroups differ in their metabolism and sensitivity to oxidative stress. Variability in mitochondrial genetic background can alter reactive oxygen species production, leading to cancer risk. In the present study, we tested the hypothesis that mitochondrial haplogroups modify breast cancer risk in BRCA1/2 mutation carriers. Methods: We genotyped 22,214 (11,421 affected, 10,793 unaffected) mutation carriers belonging to the Consortium of Investigators of Modifiers of BRCA1/2 for 129 mitochondrial polymorphisms using the iCOGS array. Haplogroup inference and association detection were performed using a phylogenetic approach. ALTree was applied to explore the reference mitochondrial evolutionary tree and detect subclades enriched in affected or unaffected individuals. Results: We discovered that subclade T1a1 was depleted in affected BRCA2 mutation carriers compared with the rest of clade T (hazard ratio (HR) = 0.55; 95% confidence interval (CI), 0.34 to 0.88; P = 0.01). Compared with the most frequent haplogroup in the general population (that is, H and T clades), the T1a1 haplogroup has a HR of 0.62 (95% CI, 0.40 to 0.95; P = 0.03). We also identified three potential susceptibility loci, including G13708A/rs28359178, which has demonstrated an inverse association with familial breast cancer risk. Conclusions: This study illustrates how original approaches such as the phylogeny-based method we used can empower classical molecular epidemiological studies aimed at identifying association or risk modification effects.Peer reviewe