The rapid pace of urbanization makes it imperative that we better understand the influence of climate forcing on urban malaria transmission. Despite extensive study of temperature effects in ...vector-borne infections in general, consideration of relative humidity remains limited. With process-based dynamical models informed by almost two decades of monthly surveillance data, we address the role of relative humidity in the interannual variability of epidemic malaria in two semi-arid cities of India. We show a strong and significant effect of humidity during the pre-transmission season on malaria burden in coastal Surat and more arid inland Ahmedabad. Simulations of the climate-driven transmission model with the MLE (Maximum Likelihood Estimates) of the parameters retrospectively capture the observed variability of disease incidence, and also prospectively predict that of 'out-of-fit' cases in more recent years, with high accuracy. Our findings indicate that relative humidity is a critical factor in the spread of urban malaria and potentially other vector-borne epidemics, and that climate change and lack of hydrological planning in cities might jeopardize malaria elimination efforts.
Background
Preventive measures to decrease the frequency and intensity of anaphylactic events are essential to provide optimal care for allergic patients. Aggravating factors may trigger or increase ...the severity of anaphylaxis and therefore need to be recognized and avoided.
Objective
To identify and prioritize factors associated with an increased risk of developing severe anaphylaxis.
Methods
Data from the Anaphylaxis Registry (122 centers in 11 European countries) were used in logistic regression models considering existing severity grading systems, elicitors, and symptoms to identify the relative risk of factors on the severity of anaphylaxis.
Results
We identified higher age and concomitant mastocytosis (OR: 3.1, CI: 2.6‐3.7) as the most important predictors for an increased risk of severe anaphylaxis. Vigorous physical exercise (OR: 1.5, CI: 1.3‐1.7), male sex (OR: 1.2, CI: 1.1‐1.3), and psychological burden (OR: 1.4, CI: 1.2‐1.6) were more often associated with severe reactions. Additionally, intake of beta‐blockers (OR: 1.9, CI: 1.5‐2.2) and ACE‐I (OR: 1.28, CI: 1.05, 1.51) in temporal proximity to allergen exposition was identified as an important factor in logistic regression analysis.
Conclusion
Our data suggest it may be possible to identify patients who require intensified preventive measures due to their relatively higher risk for severe anaphylaxis by considering endogenous and exogenous factors.
•Seawater percolates and interacts with mantle to >875°C on transform faults.•Mantle fracturing up to >875°C leads to deep fluid percolation in these faults.•Fluid-peridotite interaction leads to ...continuous hydrous phase crystallization.•Mantle serpentinization extends down to 11–13 km and hydration to >20–25 km.
Fluid-rock interaction on oceanic transform faults (OTFs) is important for both the deformation behavior of the lithosphere and volatile cycling in the Earth. Rocks deformed and exhumed at OTFs preserve information about the depth extent of fluid percolation and the nature of fluid-rock interactions within these fault zones. In this study, we focus on five dredges from the Shaka and Prince Edward OTFs on the ultraslow spreading Southwest Indian Ridge that recovered significant volumes of deformed mantle rocks. Samples are predominantly mylonites that have been deformed to high strains in the fault zone, but also contain several generations of fractures. Based on the mineral assemblages in fractures and shear bands combined with thermobarometry analysis, we identified three distinct temperature ranges of fluid-mantle interactions associated with deformation. At low temperature (LT), this leads to crystallization of serpentine (± talc ± amphibole ± chlorite) at <500–550°C. At medium temperature (MT), chlorite and amphibole crystallized at ∼500–750°C. At high temperature (HT), amphibole (± second generation peridotitic minerals) crystallized. The composition of minerals in HT fractures and shear bands indicates that fracturing and fluid flow occur up to temperatures of at least 850–875°C. Combining these results with modeled geotherms for both faults suggests that seawater percolation extended to depths of 20–25 km and that serpentinization extended to ∼11–13 km. The evolution of fault zone structure induced by deep fluid-rock interaction and progressive formation of LT, MT and HT mylonites on OTFs results in weakening and strain localization within the oceanic lithosphere, and suggests that the global transform system may represent a large reservoir of volatiles in the Earth's lithosphere.
Monte Carlo simulation is an essential tool in emission tomography that can assist in the design of new medical imaging devices, the optimization of acquisition protocols and the development or ...assessment of image reconstruction algorithms and correction techniques. GATE, the Geant4 Application for Tomographic Emission, encapsulates the Geant4 libraries to achieve a modular, versatile, scripted simulation toolkit adapted to the field of nuclear medicine. In particular, GATE allows the description of time-dependent phenomena such as source or detector movement, and source decay kinetics. This feature makes it possible to simulate time curves under realistic acquisition conditions and to test dynamic reconstruction algorithms. This paper gives a detailed description of the design and development of GATE by the OpenGATE collaboration, whose continuing objective is to improve, document and validate GATE by simulating commercially available imaging systems for PET and SPECT. Large effort is also invested in the ability and the flexibility to model novel detection systems or systems still under design. A public release of GATE licensed under the GNU Lesser General Public License can be downloaded at http:/www-lphe.epfl.ch/GATE/. Two benchmarks developed for PET and SPECT to test the installation of GATE and to serve as a tutorial for the users are presented. Extensive validation of the GATE simulation platform has been started, comparing simulations and measurements on commercially available acquisition systems. References to those results are listed. The future prospects towards the gridification of GATE and its extension to other domains such as dosimetry are also discussed.
•Sequencing of the Alzheimer disease risk locus ABCA7 is performed.•Several Alzheimer’s disease risk variants are identified in the gene ABCA7.•Three previously associated ABCA7 variants are ...confirmed.•A 3′-UTR splice variant in ABCA7 is identified as a potential risk variant.
Several variants in the gene ABCA7 have been identified as potential causal variants for late-onset Alzheimer’s disease (LOAD). In order to replicate these findings, and search for novel causal variants, we performed targeted sequencing of this gene in cohorts of non-Hispanic White (NHW) and African-American (AA) LOAD cases and controls. We sequenced the gene ABCA7 in 291 NHW LOAD cases and 103 controls. Variants were prioritized for rare, damaging variants and previously reported variants associated with LOAD, and were follow-up genotyped in 4076 NHW and 1157 AA cases and controls. We confirm three previously associated ABCA7 risk variants and extend two of these associations to other populations, an intronic variant in NHW (P=3.0×10−3) (originally reported in a Belgian population), and a splice variant originally associated in the Icelandic population, which was significantly associated in the NHW cohort (P=1.2×10−6) and nominally associated in the AA cohort (P=0.017). We also identify a 3′-UTR splice variant that segregates in four siblings of one family and is nominally associated with LOAD (P=0.040). Multiple variants in ABCA7 contribute to LOAD risk.
Huntington's disease (HD) is characterized by early involvement of the striatum. It affects the pace of repetitive motor activity, as motor timing depends on basal ganglia activity. However, data are ...lacking on the impact of this process on auditory time perception in motor non-affected gene carriers.
This work aims to test the performance in time perception of a group of mutation carriers, either without motor symptoms or at an early stage of motor involvement. This should allow designing therapies targeting compensation strategies and possibly be used as a disease progression marker.
Time was assessed using two different tasks. An absolute, duration-based time perception was assessed in a first task and a relative, beat-based time perception was assessed in a second one. HD-mutation carriers with low-to-middle grades of motor involvement (HD-motor, n = 10) or without motor signs (HD-premotor n = 21), were compared with age- and sex-matched healthy controls (control (n = 27)). Thresholds of time difference perception where assessed.
For both tasks, poorer performances were found in HD-motor patients as compared with HD-premotor and controls. Thresholds of time difference perception correlated positively with the CAP score for the whole group of HD-gene carriers in both tasks. In a post-hoc exploratory analysis performed by a multiple regression, a negative correlation was found between the thresholds in both tasks and the Stroop interference test. Furthermore, in the first task, a positive correlation was found between thresholds and a trail making B test and a negative one with a total functional score.
Our data confirm that the impairment in time perception in persons affected by HD correlates with the advancing disease. They also suggest that time perception depends on similar cognitive mechanisms as the ones sub-serving the Stroop interference test.
•Cortico-striatal pathways are involved in time perception.•Time perception is impaired in HD, in line with striatal involvement early in disease process.•Impaired time perception is related to the disease burden.•Assessment of time perception might be helpful in measuring disease progression.
A simple, selective, precise and stability-indicating high-performance thin-layer chromatographic method of analysis of curcumin both as a bulk drug and in formulations was developed and validated. ...The method employed TLC aluminium plates precoated with silica gel 60F-254 as the stationary phase. The solvent system consisted of chloroform:methanol (9.25:0.75
v/v). This system was found to give compact spots for curcumin (
R
f value of 0.48
±
0.02). Densitometric analysis of curcumin was carried out in the absorbance mode at 430
nm. The linear regression analysis data for the calibration plots showed good linear relationship with
r
=
0.996 and 0.994 with respect to peak height and peak area, respectively, in the concentration range 50–300
ng per spot. The mean value
±
S.D. of slope and intercept were 1.08
±
0.01, 51.93
±
0.54 and 8.39
±
0.21, 311.55
±
3.23 with respect to peak height and area, respectively. The method was validated for precision, recovery and robustness. The limits of detection and quantitation were 8 and 25
ng per spot, respectively. Curcumin was subjected to acid and alkali hydrolysis, oxidation and photodegradation. The drug undergoes degradation under acidic, basic, light and oxidation conditions. This indicates that the drug is susceptible to acid, base hydrolysis, oxidation and photo oxidation. Statistical analysis proves that the method is repeatable, selective and accurate for the estimation of said drug. As the method could effectively separate the drug from its degradation product, it can be employed as a stability-indicating one.
The case of combined drought and salinity stress is increasingly becoming a constraint to rice production, especially in coastal areas and river deltas where low rainfall not only reduces soil ...moisture levels but also reduces the flow of river water, resulting in intrusion of saline sea-water. A standardized screening method is needed in order to systematically evaluate rice cultivars under combined drought+salinity at the same time because sequential stress of salinity followed by drought or vice-versa is not similar to simultaneous stress effects. Therefore, we aimed to develop a screening protocol for combined drought+salinity stress applied to soil-grown plants at seedling stage.
The study system used 30-L soil-filled boxes, which allowed a comparison of plant growth under control conditions, individual drought and salinity stress, as well as combined drought+salinity. A set of salinity tolerant and drought tolerant cultivars were tested, together with several popular but salinity and drought-susceptible varieties that are grown in regions prone to combined drought+salinity. A range of treatments were tested including different timings of the drought and salinity application, and different severities of stress, in order to determine the most effective that resulted in visible distinction among cultivars. The challenges related to determining a protocol with repeatable seedling stage stress treatment effects while achieving a uniform plant stand are described here.
The optimized protocol simultaneously applied both stresses by planting into saline soil at 75% of field capacity which was then allowed to undergo progressive drydown. Meanwhile, physiological characterization revealed that chlorophyll fluorescence at seedling stage correlated well with grain yield when drought stress was applied to vegetative stage only.
The drought+salinity protocol developed here can be used for screening rice breeding populations as part of a pipeline to develop new rice varieties with improved adaptation to combined stresses.
The lifetime prevalence of panic disorder (PD) is up to 4% worldwide and there is substantial evidence that genetic factors contribute to the development of PD. Single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) ...in TMEM132D, identified in a whole-genome association study (GWAS), were found to be associated with PD in three independent samples, with a two-SNP haplotype associated in each of three samples in the same direction, and with a P-value of 1.2e-7 in the combined sample (909 cases and 915 controls). Independent SNPs in this gene were also associated with the severity of anxiety symptoms in patients affected by PD or panic attacks as well as in patients suffering from unipolar depression. Risk genotypes for PD were associated with higher TMEM132D mRNA expression levels in the frontal cortex. In parallel, using a mouse model of extremes in trait anxiety, we could further show that anxiety-related behavior was positively correlated with Tmem132d mRNA expression in the anterior cingulate cortex, central to the processing of anxiety/fear-related stimuli, and that in this animal model a Tmem132d SNP is associated with anxiety-related behavior in an F2 panel. TMEM132D may thus be an important new candidate gene for PD as well as more generally for anxiety-related behavior.
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