Convalescent plasma is a leading treatment for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), but there is a paucity of data identifying its therapeutic efficacy. Among 126 potential convalescent plasma ...donors, the humoral immune response was evaluated using a severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) virus neutralization assay with Vero-E6-TMPRSS2 cells; a commercial IgG and IgA ELISA to detect the spike (S) protein S1 domain (EUROIMMUN); IgA, IgG, and IgM indirect ELISAs to detect the full-length S protein or S receptor-binding domain (S-RBD); and an IgG avidity assay. We used multiple linear regression and predictive models to assess the correlations between antibody responses and demographic and clinical characteristics. IgG titers were greater than either IgM or IgA titers for S1, full-length S, and S-RBD in the overall population. Of the 126 plasma samples, 101 (80%) had detectable neutralizing antibody (nAb) titers. Using nAb titers as the reference, the IgG ELISAs confirmed 95%-98% of the nAb-positive samples, but 20%-32% of the nAb-negative samples were still IgG ELISA positive. Male sex, older age, and hospitalization for COVID-19 were associated with increased antibody responses across the serological assays. There was substantial heterogeneity in the antibody response among potential convalescent plasma donors, but sex, age, and hospitalization emerged as factors that can be used to identify individuals with a high likelihood of having strong antiviral antibody responses.
Acoustic telemetry is one of the primary technologies for studying the behavior and survival of fishes throughout the world. The size and performance of the transmitter are key limiting factors. The ...newly developed injectable transmitter is the first acoustic transmitter that can be implanted via injection instead of surgery. A two-part field study was conducted to evaluate the performance of the injectable transmitter and its effect on the survival of implanted fish. The injectable transmitter performed well and similarly to the proceeding generation of commercially-available JSATS transmitters tested concurrently. Snake River subyearling Chinook salmon smolts implanted with the injectable transmitter had a higher survival probability from release to each of eleven downstream detection arrays, because reach-specific survival estimates were significantly higher for the injectable group in three of the eleven reaches examined. Overall, the injectable group had a 0.263 (SE = 0.017) survival probability over the entire 500 km study area compared to 0.199 (0.012) for the surgically implanted group. The reduction in size and ability to implant the new transmitter via injection has reduced the tag or tagging effect bias associated with studying small fishes. The information gathered with this new technology is helping to evaluate the impacts of dams on fishes.
A novel human estrogen receptor
β (hER
β) was cloned from human testis mRNA, ovary and thymus cDNA utilizing PCR and 5′ RACE methods. The 5′ end of hER
β contained an additional open reading frame, ...in-frame and upstream of the published clones. hER
β encodes a protein of 530 amino acids with an approximate molecular weight of 63
kDa and is larger than the previously reported rat, mouse and human protein. To determine the functional role of additional N-terminal amino acids, we compared the transcription functions of receptor lacking (hER
β
T) and receptor containing (hER
β
L) this N-terminal extension. hER
β
L is more active than hER
β
T in transactivating ERE-based reporter genes. hER
β
L, but not hER
β
T, attenuated cytokine mediated NF
κB activation. Taken together, the additional N-terminal amino acids appear to play a role in modulating estrogen responsive gene expression
in vitro.
Background
Ageing is commonly associated with sarcopenia (SP) and osteoporosis (OP), both of which are associated with disability, impaired quality of life, and mortality. The aims of this study were ...to explore the relationships between SP, OP, frailty, and multimorbidity in community‐dwelling older adults participating in the Hertfordshire Cohort Study (HCS) and to determine whether coexistence of OP and SP was associated with a significantly heavier health burden.
Methods
At baseline, 405 participants self‐reported their comorbidities. Cut‐offs for low grip strength and appendicular lean mass index were used according to the EWSGOP2 criteria to define SP. OP was diagnosed when T‐scores of < −2.5 were present at the femoral neck or the participant reported use of the anti‐OP medications including hormone replacement therapy (HRT), raloxifene, or bisphosphonates. Frailty was defined using the standard Fried definition.
Results
One hundred ninety‐nine men and 206 women were included in the study. Baseline median (interquartile range) age of participants was 75.5 (73.4–77.9) years. Twenty‐six (8%) and 66 (21.4%) of the participants had SP and OP, respectively. Eighty‐three (20.5%) reported three or more comorbidities. The prevalence of pre‐frailty and frailty in the study sample was 57.5% and 8.1%, respectively. Having SP only was strongly associated with frailty odds ratio (OR) 8.28, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.27, 54.03; P = 0.027 while the association between having OP alone and frailty was weaker (OR 2.57, 95% CI 0.61, 10.78; P = 0.196). The likelihood of being frail was substantially higher in the presence of coexisting SP and OP (OR 26.15, 95% CI 3.13, 218.76; P = 0.003). SP alone and OP alone were both associated with having three or more comorbidities (OR 4.71, 95% CI 1.50, 14.76; P = 0.008 and OR 2.86, 95% CI 1.32, 6.22; P = 0.008, respectively) although the coexistence of SP and OP was not significantly associated with multimorbidity (OR 3.45, 95% CI 0.59, 20.26; P = 0.171).
Conclusions
Individuals living with frailty were often osteosarcopenic. Multimorbidity was common in individuals with either SP or OP. Early identification of SP and OP not only allows implementation of treatment strategies but also presents an opportunity to mitigate frailty risk.
Estrogen replacement therapy increases plasma concentrations of high density lipoprotein and its major protein constituent, apolipoprotein AI (apoAI). Studies with animal model systems, however, ...suggest opposite effects. In HepG2 cells stably expressing estrogen receptor α (ERα), 17β-estradiol (E2) potently inhibited apoAI mRNA steady state levels. ApoAI promoter deletion mapping experiments indicated that ERα plus E2 inhibited apoAI activity through the liver-specific enhancer. Although the ERα DNA binding domain was essential but not sufficient for apoAI enhancer inhibition, ERα binding to the apoAI enhancer could not be detected by electrophoretic mobility shift assays. Western blotting and cotransfection assays showed that ERα plus E2 did not influence the abundance or the activity of the hepatocyte-enriched factors HNF-3β and HNF-4, two transcription factors essential for apoAI enhancer function. Expression of the ERα coactivator RIP140 dramatically repressed apoAI enhancer function in cotransfection experiments, suggesting that RIP140 may also function as a coactivator on the apoAI enhancer. Moreover, estrogen regulation of apoAI enhancer activity was dependent upon the balance between ERα and RIP140 levels. At low ratios of RIP140 to ERα, E2 repressed apoAI enhancer activity, whereas at high ratios this repression was reversed. Regulation of the apoAI gene by estrogen may thus vary in direction and magnitude depending not only on the presence of ERα and E2 but also upon the intracellular balance of ERα and coactivators utilized by ERα and the apoAI enhancer.
The purpose of this article was to analyze more than a century of cycling hour records (CHR) to examine the effects of sex, age, and altitude on cycling performance. Our hypotheses were that men's ...performance (distance) would exceed those of women by more than 10% but would decline at similar rates with aging and that altitude would have a small benefit, which might reach a maximum.
Data were cultivated from the Facebook World Hour Record Discussion Group's crowd-sourced database of more than 600-known-hour records and verified through extensive online research and/or personal communication. Regression and statistical modeling were produced using STATA v15.0. R2 values were used to ascertain model quality, with four distinct models being produced for comparisons. Alpha was set at 0.05 significance for all tests.
R2 values ranged from 65% to 74.9%. Women's distances were 10.8% shorter ( P < 0.001) than those of men, but the difference was narrower than either the historical elite women's difference of 14.2% or the 2022 record difference of 13.3%. Age-related decline modeling indicates performance declines significantly past age 40 yr at a rate of 1.08% per year. Altitude had a significant ( P < 0.001) marginal improvement up to 1000 m before declining. The marginal benefits of altitude were small, but this is consistent with the finding benefits reach a maximum at a moderate altitude with "benefits" becoming ambiguous starting at ~1000 m. Technological advancement was estimated to be a small but significant ( P < 0.001) improvement of ~0.18% per year.
Across decades of CHR data in well-trained endurance cyclists, men are only ~11% faster, and this difference remains stable until at least age 80 yr. CHR attempts greater than 500 m likely offer at best a small advantage. Despite small year-on-year improvements, the CHR has likely improved more than 10 km because of technological advancements.
Abstract The interaction of β -particles with the weakly ionized plasma background is an important mechanism for powering the kilonova (KN) transient signal from neutron star mergers. For this ...purpose, we present an implementation of the approximate fast-particle collision kernel, described by Inokuti following the seminal formulation of Bethe, in a spectral solver of the Vlasov–Maxwell–Boltzmann equation. In particular, we expand the fast-particle plane-wave atomic excitation kernel into coefficients of the Hermite basis, and derive the relevant discrete spectral system. In this fast-particle limit, the approach permits the direct use of atomic data, including optical oscillator strengths, normally applied to photon–matter interaction. The resulting spectral matrix is implemented in the MASS-APP spectral solver framework, in a way that avoids full matrix storage per spatial zone. We numerically verify aspects of the matrix construction, and present a proof-of-principle 3D simulation of a 2D axisymmetric KN ejecta snapshot. Our preliminary numerical results indicate that a reasonable choice of Hermite basis parameters for β -particles in the KN is a bulk velocity parameter u = 0, a thermal velocity parameter α = 0.5 c , and a 9 × 9 × 9 mode velocity basis set (Hermite orders of 0–8 in each dimension). For interior-ejecta sample zones, we estimate that the ratio of thermalization from large-angle (≳2.°5) bound excitation scattering to total thermalization is ∼0.002–0.003.
Prior studies have shown that people with aphasia (PWA) have demonstrated superior language performance for emotional compared to nonemotional stimuli on a range of tasks, including auditory ...comprehension, verbal pragmatics, repetition, reading, and writing. However, studies on word retrieval, specifically, have suggested a possible interference effect of emotion on naming. The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of the emotional valence of stimuli on word retrieval in a series of naming tasks in PWA.
Thirteen PWA and 13 neurotypical controls participated in four single-word naming tasks, including 1) object picture naming, 2) action picture naming, 3) category-member generation, and 4) verb generation. Each task included three valence sets of positively-, negatively-, and neutrally-rated pictures or words, which were obtained from the standardized International Affective Picture System (Lang et al., 2008) and the Affective Norms for Emotional Words (Bradley and Lang, 1999) databases. Accuracy and reaction time (RT) were measured and compared across groups, tasks, and valence sets.
Emotional stimuli, especially negative stimuli, resulted in worse naming performance, as measured by accuracy and RT, compared to nonemotional stimuli in PWA and neurotypical controls. This effect was relatively robust across the four naming tasks. In most cases, negative stimuli resulted in lower accuracy and slower RT than positive stimuli.
These findings suggest that stimulus valence may interfere with word retrieval for PWA and neurotypical adults and that this effect is robust across different types of naming tasks that vary by word class (nouns versus verbs) and stimulus type (pictures versus words). Negative stimuli resulted in worse naming performance than positive stimuli. These results suggest that emotionality of stimuli is an important variable to consider in word retrieval research.
The chemical relationships among particulate and colloidal organic material and dissolved fulvic acid were examined in an alpine and subalpine lake and two streams in Loch Vale Watershed, Rocky ...Mountain National Park. The alpine lake, Sky Pond, had the lowest dissolved organic carbon (DOC) (0.37 mgC/L), the highest particulate carbon (POC) (0.13 mgC/L), and high algal biomass. The watershed of Sky Pond is primarily talus slope, and DOC and POC may be autochthonous. Both Andrews Creek and Icy Brook gain DOC as they flow through wet sedge meadows. The subalpine lake, The Loch, receives additional organic material from the surrounding forest and had a higher DOC (0.66 mgC/L). Elemental analysis, stable carbon isotopic compositon, and 13C-NMR characterization showed that: 1) particulate material had relatively high inorganic contents and was heterogeneous in compositon, 2) colloidal material was primarily carbohydrate material with a low inorganic content at all sites; and 3) dissolved fulvic acid varied in compositon among sites. The low concentration and carbohydrate-rich character of the colloidal material suggests that this fraction is labile to microbial degradation and may be turning over more rapidly than particulate fractions or dissolved fulvic acid. Fulvic acid from Andrews Creek had the lowest N content and aromaticity, whereas Sky Pond fulvic acid had a higher N content and lower aromaticity than fulvic acid from The Loch. The UV-visible spectra of the fulvic acids demonstrate that variation in characteristics with sources of organic carbon can explain to some extent the observed nonlinear relationship between UV-B extinction coefficients and DOC concentrations in lakes.
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