More than 25 million American children breathe polluted air on diesel school buses. Emission reduction policies exist, but the health impacts to individual children have not been evaluated.
Using a ...natural experiment, we characterized the exposures and health of 275 school bus riders before, during, and after the adoption of clean technologies and fuels between 2005 and 2009. Air pollution was measured during 597 trips on 188 school buses. Repeated measures of exhaled nitric oxide (FeNO), lung function (FEV1, FVC), and absenteeism were also collected monthly (1,768 visits). Mixed-effects models longitudinally related the adoption of diesel oxidation catalysts (DOCs), closed crankcase ventilation systems (CCVs), ultralow-sulfur diesel (ULSD), or biodiesel with exposures and health.
Fine and ultrafine particle concentrations were 10-50% lower on buses using ULSD, DOCs, and/or CCVs. ULSD adoption was also associated with reduced FeNO (-16% 95% confidence interval (CI), -21 to -10%), greater changes in FVC and FEV1 (0.02 95% CI, 0.003 to 0.05 and 0.01 95% CI, -0.006 to 0.03 L/yr, respectively), and lower absenteeism (-8% 95% CI, -16.0 to -0.7%), with stronger associations among patients with asthma. DOCs, and to a lesser extent CCVs, also were associated with improved FeNO, FVC growth, and absenteeism, but these findings were primarily restricted to patients with persistent asthma and were often sensitive to control for ULSD. No health benefits were noted for biodiesel. Extrapolating to the U.S. population, changed fuel/technologies likely reduced absenteeism by more than 14 million/yr.
National and local diesel policies appear to have reduced children's exposures and improved health.
Opioid effects are potentiated by cannabinoid agonists including anandamide, an endocannabinoid. Inter-individual variability in responses to opioids is a major clinical problem. Multiple deaths and ...anoxic brain injuries occur every year because of opioid-induced respiratory depression (RD) in surgical patients and drug abusers of opioids and cannabinoids. This study aimed to determine specific associations between genetic variants of fatty acid amide hydrolase (FAAH) and postoperative central opioid adverse effects in children undergoing tonsillectomy. This is a prospective genotype-blinded observational study in which 259 healthy children between 6 and 15 years of age who received standard perioperative care with a standard anesthetic and an intraoperative dose of morphine were enrolled. Associations between frequent polymorphisms of FAAH and central postoperative opioid adverse effects including, RD, postoperative nausea and vomiting (PONV) and prolonged stay in Post Anesthesia Recovery Room (postoperative anesthesia care unit, PACU) due to RD and PONV were analyzed. Five specific FAAH single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) had significant associations with more than twofold increased risk for refractory PONV (adjusted P<0.0018), and nominal associations (P<0.05) with RD and prolonged PACU stay in white children undergoing tonsillectomy. The FAAH SNP, rs324420, is a missense mutation with altered FAAH function and it is linked with other FAAH SNPs associated with PONV and RD in our cohort; association between PONV and rs324420 was confirmed in our extended cohort with additional 66 white children. Specific FAAH polymorphisms are associated with refractory PONV, opioid-related RD, and prolonged PACU stay due to opioid adverse effects in white children undergoing tonsillectomy.
Synthetic biology has the potential to transform cell‐ and gene‐based therapies for a variety of diseases. Sophisticated tools are now available for both eukaryotic and prokaryotic cells to engineer ...cells to selectively achieve therapeutic effects in response to one or more disease‐related signals, thus sparing healthy tissue from potentially cytotoxic effects. This report summarizes the Keystone eSymposium “Synthetic Biology: At the Crossroads of Genetic Engineering and Human Therapeutics,” which took place on May 3 and 4, 2021. Given that several therapies engineered using synthetic biology have entered clinical trials, there was a clear need for a synthetic biology symposium that emphasizes the therapeutic applications of synthetic biology as opposed to the technical aspects. Presenters discussed the use of synthetic biology to improve T cell, gene, and viral therapies, to engineer probiotics, and to expand upon existing modalities and functions of cell‐based therapies.
Synthetic biology‐based therapies typically consist of engineered bacteria; viruses; or implantable, circulating, or tissue‐resident cells that are armed with the ability to secrete effector molecules, perform complex enzymatic transformations, or activate cellular activities based on signals from the environment. Synthetic biology therapeutics thereby offer the potential for increased specificity, as well as tunability, that can improve their therapeutic effectiveness and safety profile relative to molecule‐based therapies. On Demand content: https://keysym.us/21EK41NYAS
A search for instability of nucleons bound in Xe136 nuclei is reported with 223 kg·yr exposure of Xe136 in the EXO-200 experiment. Lifetime limits of 3.3×1023 and 1.9×1023 yr are established for ...nucleon decay to Sb133 and Te133, respectively. These are the most stringent to date, exceeding the prior decay limits by a factor of 9 and 7, respectively.
Summary
This systematic review summarizes the effect of combined exercise and nutrition intervention on muscle mass and muscle function. A total of 37 RCTs were identified. Results indicate that ...physical exercise has a positive impact on muscle mass and muscle function in subjects aged 65 years and older. However, any interactive effect of dietary supplementation appears to be limited.
Introduction
In 2013, Denison et al. conducted a systematic review including 17 randomized controlled trials (RCTs) to explore the effect of combined exercise and nutrition intervention to improve muscle mass, muscle strength, or physical performance in older people. They concluded that further studies were needed to provide evidence upon which public health and clinical recommendations could be based. The purpose of the present work was to update the prior systematic review and include studies published up to October 2015.
Methods
Using the electronic databases MEDLINE and EMBASE, we identified RCTs which assessed the combined effect of exercise training and nutritional supplementation on muscle strength, muscle mass, or physical performance in subjects aged 60 years and over. Study selection and data extraction were performed by two independent reviewers.
Results
The search strategy identified 21 additional RCTs giving a total of 37 RCTs. Studies were heterogeneous in terms of protocols for physical exercise and dietary supplementation (proteins, essential amino acids, creatine, β-hydroxy-β-methylbuthyrate, vitamin D, multi-nutrients, or other). In 79% of the studies (27/34 RCTs), muscle mass increased with exercise but an additional effect of nutrition was only found in 8 RCTs (23.5%). Muscle strength increased in 82.8% of the studies (29/35 RCTs) following exercise intervention, and dietary supplementation showed additional benefits in only a small number of studies (8/35 RCTS, 22.8%). Finally, the majority of studies showed an increase of physical performance following exercise intervention (26/28 RCTs, 92.8%) but interaction with nutrition supplementation was only found in 14.3% of these studies (4/28 RCTs).
Conclusion
Physical exercise has a positive impact on muscle mass and muscle function in healthy subjects aged 60 years and older. The biggest effect of exercise intervention, of any type, has been seen on physical performance (gait speed, chair rising test, balance, SPPB test, etc.). We observed huge variations in regard to the dietary supplementation protocols. Based on the included studies, mainly performed on well-nourished subjects, the interactive effect of dietary supplementation on muscle function appears limited.
To assess the efficacy of conservation translocations, survival of released individuals is typically compared to that of control groups. Such comparisons assume that treatment groups consist of ...otherwise equivalent individuals. When that assumption is unmet, incorporating physiological parameters may improve assessment of translocation programs. During 2012–2014, 19 weaned female Hawaiian monk seal pups were translocated to sites where survival prospects were expected to be more favorable than at their natal locations. We compared survival from weaning to age two years of translocated pups to two control groups; pups remaining at source sites and pups native to destination sites. To account for the known relationship between weaning girth and survival, we generated probability distributions of the number of survivors at source and destination sites given the weaning girths of translocated seals. Data were available to calculate girth‐adjusted survival probabilities for 13 of the translocated pups. Of these, we estimated that only one pup would have been expected to have survived had the translocated pups remained at their natal site. Seven of the 13 translocated seals survived, a value just below the median (eight) expected to have survived at the destination site. Thus, translocation substantially improved survival. Had we not accounted for weaning girth effects on survival, we would have erroneously concluded that the translocation program had yielded no survival benefit. Identifying and integrating correlates of survival into quantitative analyses associated with conservation translocations can reduce bias and lead to greater success.
We evaluated whether conservation translocations designed to improve the survival of Hawaiian monk seal were successful. We compared survival of translocated pups to control groups, while accounting for relationships between body condition at weaning and early survival. Translocation substantially improved survival. Had we not accounted for body condition, we would have erroneously concluded that the translocation program had yielded no benefit.
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•We present a new and simple design of an RF-only ion funnel.•Longitudinal ion transport is provided by the residual gas flow through the funnel thus no DC drag field is required.•The ...presented ion funnel allows for ion extraction from argon and xenon gas from up to 10bar to 10−3mbar in only one step with very high efficiency.•First experimental results of ion extraction from high-pressure noble gas have been performed and are compared with gas dynamic and ion trajectory calculations.
An RF ion-funnel technique has been developed to extract ions from a high-pressure (10bar) noble-gas environment into a vacuum (10−6mbar). Detailed simulations have been performed and a prototype has been developed for the purpose of extracting 136Ba ions from Xe gas with high efficiency. With this prototype, ions have been extracted for the first time from high-pressure xenon gas and argon gas. Systematic studies have been carried out and compared to simulations. This demonstration of extraction of ions, with mass comparable to that of the gas generating the high-pressure, has applications to Ba tagging from a Xe-gas time-projection chamber for double-beta decay, as well as to the general problem of recovering trace amounts of an ionized element in a heavy (m>40u) carrier gas.
TNFAIP3 encodes the ubiquitin-modifying enzyme, A20, a key regulator of inflammatory signaling pathways. We previously reported association between TNFAIP3 variants and systemic lupus erythematosus ...(SLE). To further localize the risk variant(s), we performed a meta-analysis using genetic data available from two Caucasian case-control datasets (1453 total cases, 3381 total control subjects) and 713 SLE trio families. The best result was found at rs5029939 (P=1.67 x 10(-14), odds ratio=2.09, 95% confidence interval 1.68-2.60). We then imputed single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) from the CEU Phase II HapMap using genotypes from 431 SLE cases and 2155 control subjects. Imputation identified 11 SNPs in addition to three observed SNPs, which together, defined a 109 kb SLE risk segment surrounding TNFAIP3. When evaluating whether the rs5029939 risk allele was associated with SLE clinical manifestations, we observed that heterozygous carriers of the TNFAIP3 risk allele at rs5029939 have a twofold increased risk of developing renal or hematologic manifestations compared to homozygous non-risk subjects. In summary, our study strengthens the genetic evidence that variants in the region of TNFAIP3 influence risk for SLE, particularly in patients with renal and hematologic manifestations, and narrows the risk effect to a 109 kb DNA segment that spans the TNFAIP3 gene.
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