Imitative Obesity and Relative Utility

If human beings care about their relative weight, a form of imitative obesity can emerge (in which people subconsciously keep up with the weight of the Joneses). Using Eurobarometer data on 29 countries, this paper provides cross-sectional evidence that overweight perceptions and dieting are influenced by a personâs relative BMI, and longitudinal evidence from the German Socioeconomic Panel that well-being is influenced by relative BMI. Highly educated people see themselves as fatter − at any given actual weight − than those with low education. These results should be treated cautiously, and fixed-effects estimates are not always well-determined, but there are grounds to take seriously the possibility of socially contagious obesity.body mass index BMI, comparisons, imitation, happiness, peer effects, dieting, mental health, well-being, obesity

Imitative Obesity and Relative Utility

If human beings care about their relative weight, a form of imitative obesity can emerge (in which people subconsciously keep up with the weight of the Joneses). Using Eurobarometer data on 29 countries, this paper provides cross-sectional evidence that overweight perceptions and dieting are influenced by a person's relative BMI, and longitudinal evidence from the German Socioeconomic Panel that well-being is influenced by relative BMI. Highly educated people see themselves as fatter -- at any given actual weight -- than those with low education. These results should be treated cautiously, and fixed-effects estimates are not always well-determined, but there are grounds to take seriously the possibility of socially contagious obesity.

Microstructural evolution of a low-alloy steel / nickel superalloy dissimilar metal weld during post-weld heat treatment

The microstructural evolution of a dissimilar metal weld (DMW) obtained by narrow-gap gas tungsten arc welding (NG-GTAW) was investigated after it was subjected to a post-weld heat treatment (PWHT). The case studied here is a joint between low-alloy steel pipes and a stainless steel steam generator using a nickel based alloy as filler material. The fusion boundary that was the focus of this work was that between the low-alloy steel (2.25Cr-1Mo) and the nickel alloy (alloy 82). The difference in matrix phase and chemical composition between the two alloys leads to a large difference in chemical potential for carbon, which is mobile at the PWHT temperature. A number of advanced characterization techniques were used to assess the gradient of composition, hardness and microstructures across the fusion line, both as welded and after PWHT. This complete analysis permits to highlight and understand the main microstructural changes occurring during the PWHT

Amplified Sediment waves in the Irish Sea (AmSedIS)

Exceptionally high, straight-crested and trochoidal sediment waves have recently been observed on shelf seas world-wide, and reach heights of up to 36 m in the Irish Sea. It is uncertain how the interplay between geological, biogeochemical and hydrodynamic processes influences the migration and extreme growth of these sediment waves. The AmSedIS project thus sets out to (1) investigate the role of sediment granulometry and sedimentavailability on both “extreme” and “normal” sediment wave development and (2) investigate the potential association of methane derived carbonate formation with extreme sediment wave growth. The preliminary findings are: (1) The crests of unusually high and trochoidal sediment waves still migrate over several meters per year and they consist of coarser, more poorly sorted sediments in comparison to the "normal" sediments waves; (2) Methane seepage is not considered a factor in extreme sediment wave development; (3) The excess of mobile sediment supply seems to allow for "extreme" sediment wave growth, and is linked to palaeo-tunnel valleys and the finer sediments that fill them or with converging sediment transport pathways; (4) The variation in sediment from sediment wave trough to crest to trough will form the basis for more advanced numerical modelling

Cytokine Induction of Tumor Necrosis Factor Receptor 2 Is Mediated by STAT3 in Colon Cancer Cells

The IL-6/STAT3 and TNFα/NFκB pathways are emerging as critical mediators of inflammation-associated colon cancer. TNFR2 expression is increased in inflammatory bowel diseases, the azoxymethane/dextran sodium sulfate (AOM/DSS) model of colitis-associated cancer, and by combined IL-6 and TNFα. The molecular mechanisms that regulate TNFR2 remain undefined. This study used colon cancer cell lines to test the hypothesis that IL-6 and TNFα induce TNFR2 via STAT3 and/or NFκB. Basal and IL-6 + TNFα-induced TNFR2 were decreased by pharmacological STAT3 inhibition. NFκB inhibition had little effect on IL-6 + TNFα-induced TNFR2, but did inhibit induction of endogenous IL-6 and TNFR2 in cells treated with TNFα alone. Chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP) revealed cooperative effects of IL-6 + TNFα to induce STAT3 binding to a -1578 STAT response element in the TNFR2 promoter, but no effect on NFκB binding to consensus sites. Constitutively active STAT3 was sufficient to induce TNFR2 expression. Over-expression of SOCS3, a cytokine-inducible STAT3 inhibitor, which reduces tumorigenesis in preclinical models of colitis-associated cancer, decreased cytokine-induced TNFR2 expression and STAT3 binding to the -1578 STAT response element. SOCS3 over-expression also decreased proliferation of colon cancer cells and dramatically decreased anchorage-independent growth of colon cancer cells, even cells over-expressing TNFR2. Collectively, these studies demonstrate that IL-6 and TNFα-induced TNFR2 expression in colon cancer cells is mediated primarily by STAT3, and provide evidence that TNFR2 may contribute to the tumor-promoting roles of STAT3

Insulin receptor isoform switching in intestinal stem cells, progenitors, differentiated lineages and tumors: evidence that IR-B limits proliferation

Despite evidence for the impact of insulin on intestinal epithelial physiology and pathophysiology, the expression patterns, roles, and regulation of insulin receptor (IR) and IR isoforms in the intestinal epithelium are not well characterized. IR-A is thought to mediate the proliferative effects of insulin or insulin growth factors (IGFs) in fetal or cancer cells. IR-B is considered to be the metabolic receptor for insulin in specialized tissues. This study used a novel Sox9-EGFP reporter mouse that permits isolation of intestinal epithelial stem cells (IESCs), progenitors, enteroendocrine cells and differentiated lineages, the ApcMin/+ mouse model of precancerous adenoma and normal human intestinal and colorectal cancer (CRC) cell lines. We tested the hypothesis that there is differential expression of IR-A or IR-B in stem and tumor cells versus differentiated intestinal epithelial cells (IECs) and that IR-B impacts cell proliferation. Our findings provide evidence that IR-B expression is significantly lower in highly proliferative IESCs and progenitor cells versus post-mitotic, differentiated IECs and in subconfluent and undifferentiated versus differentiated Caco-2 cells. IR-B is also reduced in ApcMin/+ tumors and highly tumorigenic CRC cells. These differences in IR-B were accompanied by altered levels of mRNAs encoding muscleblind-like 2 (MBNL2), a known regulator of IR alternative splicing. Forced IR-B expression in subconfluent and undifferentiated Caco-2 cells reduced proliferation and increased biomarkers of differentiation. Our findings indicate that the impact of insulin on different cell types in the intestinal epithelium might differ depending on relative IR-B∶ IR-A expression levels and provide new evidence for the roles of IR-B to limit proliferation of CRC cells

A Worldwide Survey of Human Male Demographic History Based on Y-SNP and Y-STR Data from the HGDP–CEPH Populations

We have investigated human male demographic history using 590 males from 51 populations in the Human Genome Diversity Project - Centre d’Étude du Polymorphisme Humain worldwide panel, typed with 37 Y-chromosomal Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms and 65 Y-chromosomal Short Tandem Repeats and analyzed with the program Bayesian Analysis of Trees With Internal Node Generation. The general patterns we observe show a gradient from the oldest population time to the most recent common ancestors (TMRCAs) and expansion times together with the largest effective population sizes in Africa, to the youngest times and smallest effective population sizes in the Americas. These parameters are significantly negatively correlated with distance from East Africa, and the patterns are consistent with most other studies of human variation and history. In contrast, growth rate showed a weaker correlation in the opposite direction. Y-lineage diversity and TMRCA also decrease with distance from East Africa, supporting a model of expansion with serial founder events starting from this source. A number of individual populations diverge from these general patterns, including previously documented examples such as recent expansions of the Yoruba in Africa, Basques in Europe, and Yakut in Northern Asia. However, some unexpected demographic histories were also found, including low growth rates in the Hazara and Kalash from Pakistan and recent expansion of the Mozabites in North Africa

Detecting modification of biomedical events using a deep parsing approach

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>This work describes a system for identifying event mentions in bio-molecular research abstracts that are either speculative (e.g. <it>analysis of IkappaBalpha phosphorylation</it>, where it is not specified whether phosphorylation did or did not occur) or negated (e.g. <it>inhibition of IkappaBalpha phosphorylation</it>, where phosphorylation did <it>not </it>occur). The data comes from a standard dataset created for the BioNLP 2009 Shared Task. The system uses a machine-learning approach, where the features used for classification are a combination of shallow features derived from the words of the sentences and more complex features based on the semantic outputs produced by a deep parser.</p> <p>Method</p> <p>To detect event modification, we use a Maximum Entropy learner with features extracted from the data relative to the trigger words of the events. The shallow features are bag-of-words features based on a small sliding context window of 3-4 tokens on either side of the trigger word. The deep parser features are derived from parses produced by the English Resource Grammar and the <it>RASP </it>parser. The outputs of these parsers are converted into the Minimal Recursion Semantics formalism, and from this, we extract features motivated by linguistics and the data itself. All of these features are combined to create training or test data for the machine learning algorithm.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Over the test data, our methods produce approximately a 4% absolute increase in F-score for detection of event modification compared to a baseline based only on the shallow bag-of-words features.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Our results indicate that grammar-based techniques can enhance the accuracy of methods for detecting event modification.</p

Evaporation kinetics in swollen porous polymeric networks

Ponencia presentada en el Congreso Euromar 2014.Fil: Velasco, Manuel Isaac. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Instituto de Física Enrique Gaviola; Argentina.Fil: Silletta, Emilia Victoria. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Instituto de Física Enrique Gaviola; Argentina.Fil: Monti, Gustavo Alberto. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Instituto de Física Enrique Gaviola; Argentina.Fil: Acosta, Rodolfo Héctor. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Instituto de Física Enrique Gaviola; Argentina.Fil: Velasco, Manuel Isaac. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Facultad de Matemática, Astronomía y Física; Argentina.Fil: Silletta, Emilia Victoria. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Facultad de Matemática, Astronomía y Física; Argentina.Fil: Monti, Gustavo Alberto. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Facultad de Matemática, Astronomía y Física; Argentina.Fil: Acosta, Rodolfo Héctor. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Facultad de Matemática, Astronomía y Física; Argentina.Fil: Gomez, Cesar Gerardo. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Facultad de Ciencias Químicas. Departamento de Química Orgánica; Argentina.Fil: Strumia, Miriam Cristina. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Facultad de Ciencias Químicas. Departamento de Química Orgánica; Argentina.Fil: Gomez, Cesar Gerardo. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Instituto Multidisciplinario de Biología Vegetal; Argentina.Fil: Gomez, Cesar Gerardo. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Instituto Multidisciplinario de Biología Vegetal; Argentina.Fil: Strumia, Miriam Cristina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Instituto Multidisciplinario de Biología Vegetal; Argentina.Fil: Strumia, Miriam Cristina. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Instituto Multidisciplinario de Biología Vegetal; Argentina.Polymer matrices with well defined structure and pore sizes are widely used in several areas of chemistry such as catalysis, enzyme immobilization, HPLC, adsorbents or controlled drug release. These polymers have pores in its structure both in the dry and swollen state. Although it is well known that the structures and properties greatly differ between these two states, only few methods provide information about the swollen one, even though most of the applications involve the matrices in this situation. Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) is a suitable tool for the study of the molecular dynamics of different liquids spatially confined in macro, meso and nanopores, through changes in the relaxation times. In transverse relaxation experiments, either diffusion inside the pore, or relaxation induced by mobility restriction of the liquid near the wall, are additional sources of relaxation, which are extremely useful in the determination of structural and functional properties.Fil: Velasco, Manuel Isaac. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Instituto de Física Enrique Gaviola; Argentina.Fil: Silletta, Emilia Victoria. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Instituto de Física Enrique Gaviola; Argentina.Fil: Monti, Gustavo Alberto. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Instituto de Física Enrique Gaviola; Argentina.Fil: Acosta, Rodolfo Héctor. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Instituto de Física Enrique Gaviola; Argentina.Fil: Velasco, Manuel Isaac. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Facultad de Matemática, Astronomía y Física; Argentina.Fil: Silletta, Emilia Victoria. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Facultad de Matemática, Astronomía y Física; Argentina.Fil: Monti, Gustavo Alberto. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Facultad de Matemática, Astronomía y Física; Argentina.Fil: Acosta, Rodolfo Héctor. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Facultad de Matemática, Astronomía y Física; Argentina.Fil: Gomez, Cesar Gerardo. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Facultad de Ciencias Químicas. Departamento de Química Orgánica; Argentina.Fil: Strumia, Miriam Cristina. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Facultad de Ciencias Químicas. Departamento de Química Orgánica; Argentina.Fil: Gomez, Cesar Gerardo. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Instituto Multidisciplinario de Biología Vegetal; Argentina.Fil: Gomez, Cesar Gerardo. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Instituto Multidisciplinario de Biología Vegetal; Argentina.Fil: Strumia, Miriam Cristina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Instituto Multidisciplinario de Biología Vegetal; Argentina.Fil: Strumia, Miriam Cristina. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Instituto Multidisciplinario de Biología Vegetal; Argentina.Física de los Materiales Condensado