The genetics of cardiovascular disease

Recent advances in genotyping technology and insights into disease mechanisms have increased interest in the genetics of cardiovascular disease. Several candidate genes involved in cardiovascular diseases were identified from studies using animal models, and the translation of these findings to human disease is an exciting challenge. There is a trend towards large-scale genome-wide association studies that are subject to strict quality criteria with regard to both genotyping and phenotyping. Here, we review some of the strategies that have been developed to translate findings from experimental models to human disease and outline the need for optimizing global approaches to analyze such results. Findings from ongoing studies are interpreted in the context of disease pathways instead of the more traditional focus on single genetic variants

Rheumatoid arthritis, gold therapy, contact allergy and blood cytokines

OBJECTIVE: To study the clinical and biochemical effects of a low starting dose for gold therapy in rheumatoid arthritis patients with a contact allergy to gold. METHODS: Serum cytokines were assayed before and 24 h after the first injection of gold sodium thiomalate (GSTM). RESULTS: Contact allergy to gold was found in 4 of 19 patients. Compared to gold-negative patients (starting dose: 10 mg GSTM), there was a larger increase in serum TNFalpha (p < 0.05), sTNF-R1 (NS), and IL-1 ra (p < 0.05) in gold-allergic patients. CONCLUSIONS: Cytokines are released in blood by GSTM in RA patients with gold allergy. To minimize the risk of acute adverse reactions the starting dose of GSTM should be lowered to 5 mg. Alternatively, patients should be patch-tested before gold therapy; in test-positive cases, 5 mg is recommended as the first dose

High resolution scanning tunneling spectroscopy of ultrathin Pb on Si(111)-(6x6) substrate

The electronic structure of Si(111)-(6x6)Au surface covered with submonolayer amount of Pb is investigated using scanning tunneling spectroscopy. Already in small islands of Pb with thickness of 1 ML Pb$_{(111)}$ and with the diameter of only about 2 nm we detected the quantized electronic state with energy 0.55 eV below the Fermi level. Similarly, the I(V) characteristics made for the Si(111)-(6x6)Au surface reveal a localized energy state 0.3 eV below the Fermi level. These energies result from fitting of the theoretical curves to the experimental data. The calculations are based on tight binding Hubbard model. The theoretical calculations clearly show prominent modification of the I(V) curve due to variation of electronic and topographic properties of the STM tip apex.Comment: 7 pages, 7 figures, accepted for publication in Surface Scienc

Consideration of apllicability of stochastic tropical cyclone model for probability assessment of storm surge

Storm surge risk is basic and important information for design of coastal structure, but its probability assessment is difficult because the frequency of devastating TC is not so high. Furthermore, storm surge damage is very sensitive to not only its intensity but also its track and translation speed. Therefore, the estimation of occurrence probability of devastating disaster from our limited observation data has uncertainty. Recently, we have developed Global Stochastic Tropical cyclone Model (GSTM). The comparison of observation data and simulation results of GSTM showed the reasonable reproducibility of macroscopic statistics of TC parameters such as central pressure, translation direction and speed. However, the verification area of previous study was too large to consider the applicability to risk assessment of local bay scale. Therefore, the microscopic and detailed verification of GSTM is necessary. In this study, we tried to evaluation of reproducibility of TC parameters which was calculated by GSTM at small region as a local bay scale. Furthermore, we improved GSTM by implementation of the cluster analysis of observation data to the process of estimation of the joint Probability Density Function (joint PDF) of temporal correlation of TC parameters. At last of this study, a case study approach by storm surge simulation was performed in order to explain the practical meaning of GSTM. Synthetic TC data based on historical TC track was generated and they were used for input to numerical model for estimating the water height of storm surge at regional scale. Then, the TC track of the worst-case scenario for Yatsushiro bay located in center of west Kyushu Island was decided. Finally, the occurrence probability of the worst-case scenario was calculated from GSTM results