Graphitizing anthracene-based cokes and non-graphitizing saccharose-based chars were processed at temperatures from 450°C to 2900°C at ambient pressure. This offers a whole set of samples that ...greatly differ in structure. Here, their structural evolution was monitored by combining XRD and visible (green) Raman spectroscopy as well as, for the first time, near-infrared Raman and synchrotron-based C-XANES spectroscopies. These different techniques provide complementary information especially regarding the spatial resolution they achieved. However, despite its importance, the quantitative comparison between the structural parameters extracted from these techniques is difficult. Based on a new signal deconvolution procedure to extract quantitative structural information from C-XANES data and the achievement of a new dataset on a complete series of graphitization, the reliability and the precision of the information which can be retrieved from each technique are discussed. C-XANES spectroscopy appears to provide reliable proxies for the extent of aromatic layers of graphitic compounds and an empirical calibration is proposed.
One of the major goals of pharmacogenetics is to elucidate mechanisms and identify patients at increased risk of adverse events (AEs). To date, however, there have been only a few successful examples ...of this type of approach. In this paper, we describe a retrospective case-control pharmacogenetic study of an AE of unknown mechanism, characterized by elevated levels of serum alanine aminotransferase (ALAT) during long-term treatment with the oral direct thrombin inhibitor ximelagatran. The study was based on 74 cases and 130 treated controls and included both a genome-wide tag single nucleotide polymorphism and large-scale candidate gene analysis. A strong genetic association between elevated ALAT and the MHC alleles DRB1(*)07 and DQA1(*)02 was discovered and replicated, suggesting a possible immune pathogenesis. Consistent with this hypothesis, immunological studies suggest that ximelagatran may have the ability to act as a contact sensitizer, and hence be able to stimulate an adaptive immune response.
Background: Whether bone markers have prognostic value in patients with bone metastases is unknown. We investigated this question in patients with bone metastases secondary to prostate cancer and to ...non–small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and other solid tumors assigned to the placebo arms of two phase III trials of zoledronic acid. Methods: Levels of the urinary bone resorption marker N-telopeptide and the serum bone formation marker bone-specific alkaline phosphatase were assessed every 3 months for patients with prostate cancer (n = 203) or NSCLC or other solid tumors (n = 238) and were categorized as low or high. Patients were monitored for skeletal-related events, bone disease progression, and death. The relative risks (RRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for these outcomes were estimated for patients with high versus low levels of each marker using intensity-based multiple event and Cox regression models. All statistical tests were two-sided. Results: In each disease group and overall, high levels of each marker at the beginning of the study were statistically significantly associated with an increased risk of negative outcomes. Use of recent marker assessments as time-dependent covariates gave even greater prognostic significance. High N-telopeptide levels were a stronger prognostic indicator of negative outcomes than bone-specific alkaline phosphatase levels. In recent assessments, patients with high N-telopeptide levels had an increased relative risk of skeletal-related events (prostate cancer, RR = 3.25, 95% CI = 2.26 to 4.68, P<.001; NSCLC and other solid tumors, RR = 1.79, 95% CI = 1.15 to 2.79, P = .010), disease progression (prostate cancer, RR = 2.02, 95% CI = 1.48 to 2.74, P<.001; NSCLC and other solid tumors, RR = 1.91, 95% CI = 1.16 to 3.15, P = .011), and death (prostate cancer, RR = 4.59, 95% CI = 2.82 to 7.46, P<.001; NSCLC and other solid tumors, RR = 2.67, 95% CI = 1.85 to 3.85, P<.001) compared with patients with low N-telopeptide levels. Conclusions: Baseline and recent bone marker levels were predictive of negative clinical outcomes in patients with bone metastases secondary to prostate cancer and to NSCLC and other solid tumors. N-telopeptide levels were more consistent prognostic indicators than bone-specific alkaline phosphatase for all tumor types, reflecting the key role of osteolysis in the development of skeletal complications.
Purpose
Rooted in a trans-territorial framework, the present study was designed to provide new evidence regarding the patterns of communication among Hurricane Maria survivors who migrated to the ...U.S. in the aftermath of the storm.
Methods
A total of 319 Hurricane Maria survivor adults ages 18 and older were recruited into the Adelante Boricua study between August 2020 and October 2021. Most participants had relocated to the U.S. between 2017 and 2018. We used latent profile analysis and multinomial regression to examine the relationship of technology-based communication with depressive symptoms, well-being, cultural connection, and migration stress.
Results
We identified a five-class solution, consisting of (1) moderate communication (32%), (2) disengaged (24%), (3) no social media (18%), (4) daily with family in Puerto Rico (6%), and (5) daily trans-territorial (13%) typologies. Participants in the disengaged class were more likely to report elevated depressive symptoms and limited English proficiency, lower prosocial behaviors, lower levels of religiosity, lower attendance at religious services in the U.S., and less engagement in social activities, compared to participants in the Moderate Communication class.
Conclusion
Roughly one in four individuals in our sample reported very limited technology-based communication with friends/family in their sending and new-receiving communities. As technology and smartphones continue to become integrated into 21st-century life, it is vital that researchers explore how the tremendous potential for connectedness relates to trans-territorial crisis migrants’ well-being and adaptation.
•Concussions impair sensory processing at early cortical processing stages.•These effects appear to be chronic, lasting several years following the injury.•The behavioural cost is likely minimal, ...suggesting compensatory mechanisms.
The purpose of this investigation was to better understand the effects of concussions on the ability to selectively up or down-regulate incoming somatosensory information based on relevance.
Median nerve somatosensory-evoked potentials (SEPs) were elicited from electrical stimulation and recorded from scalp electrodes while participants completed tasks that altered the relevance of specific somatosensory information being conveyed along the stimulated nerve.
Within the control group, SEP amplitudes for task-relevant somatosensory information were significantly greater than for non-relevant somatosensory information at the earliest cortical processing potentials (N20-P27). Alternatively, the concussion history group showed similar SEP amplitudes for all conditions at early processing potentials, however a pattern similar to controls emerged later in the processing stream (P100) where both movement-related gating and facilitation of task-relevant information were present.
Previously concussed participants demonstrated impairments in the ability to up-regulate relevant somatosensory information at early processing stages. These effects appear to be chronic, as this pattern was observed on average several years after participants’ most recent concussion.
Given the role of the prefrontal cortex in relevancy-based facilitation during movement-related gating, these findings lend support to the notion that this brain area may be particularly vulnerable to concussive forces.
Vitamin C (VitC), in addition to its role as a general antioxidant, has long been considered to possess direct anti-cancer activity at high doses. VitC acts through oxidant and epigenetic mechanisms, ...which at high doses can exert direct killing of tumor cells
and delay tumor growth
. Recently, it has also been shown that pharmacologic-dose VitC can contribute to control of tumors by modulating the immune system, and studies have been done interrogating the role of physiologic-dose VitC on novel adoptive cellular therapies (ACTs). In this review, we discuss the effects of VitC on anti-tumor immune cells, as well as the mechanisms underlying those effects. We address important unanswered questions concerning both VitC and ACTs, and outline challenges and opportunities facing the use of VitC in the clinical setting as an adjunct to immune-based anti-cancer therapies.
North Africa, the world's largest dust source, is non-uniform, consisting of a permanently arid region (Sahara), a semi-arid region (Sahel), and a relatively moist vegetated region (Savanna), each ...with very different rainfall patterns and surface conditions. This study aims to better understand the controlling factors that determine the variation of dust emission in North Africa over a 27-year period from 1982 to 2008, using observational data and model simulations. The results show that the model-derived Saharan dust emission is only correlated with the 10-m winds (W10m) obtained from reanalysis data, but the model-derived Sahel dust emission is correlated with both W10m and the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) that is obtained from satellite. While the Saharan dust accounts for 82% of the continental North Africa dust emission (1340–1570 Tg year−1) in the 27-year average, the Sahel accounts for 17% with a larger seasonal and inter-annual variation (230–380 Tg year−1), contributing about a quarter of the transatlantic dust transported to the northern part of South America. The decreasing dust emission trend over the 27-year period is highly correlated with W10m over the Sahara (R = 0.92). Over the Sahel, the dust emission is correlated with W10m (R = 0.69) but is also anti-correlated with the trend of NDVI (R = -0.65). W10m is decreasing over both the Sahara and the Sahel between 1982 and 2008, and the trends are correlated (R = 0.53), suggesting that Saharan/Sahelian surface winds are a coupled system, driving the inter-annual variation of dust emission.
•Vegetation modulates bareness over Sahel and is anti-correlated with emission.•Surface wind drives the inter-annual variation of Saharan/Sahelian dust emission.•The Sahara and Sahel account for 82% and 17% of North Africa dust emission.
In some gonochoristic species, sex is influenced not only by genotype at conception but also by the environment that offspring experience during early ontogeny (termed environmental sex determination ...or ESD). ESD is thought to be adaptive when seasonal variations in environmental conditions provide a sex-specific fitness advantage. In vertebrates, temperature is the most common determinant of sex, and seasonal variation in temperature serves as a temporal cue of environmental quality such as length of the growing season. Some environments, however, lack strong seasonal temperature fluctuations and other cues, particularly photoperiod, may provide a more reliable indicator of the environment offspring enter. We tested this hypothesis by rearing the offspring of the California grunion (Leuresthes tenuis, Ayres), which experiences low seasonal temperature variation in nature, under common garden conditions at three temperature and two photoperiod treatments. Our experiments revealed that both temperature and photoperiod significantly affected sex ratios in L. tenuis. More females were produced at cooler temperatures and longer day lengths, which is consistent with female-biased sex ratios early in the breeding season, and likely adaptive through increased female size and fecundity. To our knowledge, this is the first documented case of photoperiod-dependent sex determination in a gonochoristic vertebrate.
•Experiments show temperature and photoperiod affect sex ratios in Leuresthes tenuis.•More females produced at cooler temperatures and longer day lengths.•First evidence of photoperiod-dependent sex determination in a vertebrate.•Photoperiod may provide a more reliable environmental cue that temperature alone.•Production of females early in the breeding season likely enhances female fitness.
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