Despite increasing attention and investment for maternal, neonatal, and child health, stillbirths remain invisible—not counted in the Millennium Development Goals, nor tracked by the UN, nor in the ...Global Burden of Disease metrics. At least 2·65 million stillbirths (uncertainty range 2·08 million to 3·79 million) were estimated worldwide in 2008 (≥1000 g birthweight or ≥28 weeks of gestation). 98% of stillbirths occur in low-income and middle-income countries, and numbers vary from 2·0 per 1000 total births in Finland to more than 40 per 1000 total births in Nigeria and Pakistan. Worldwide, 67% of stillbirths occur in rural families, 55% in rural sub-Saharan Africa and south Asia, where skilled birth attendance and caesarean sections are much lower than that for urban births. In total, an estimated 1·19 million (range 0·82 million to 1·97 million) intrapartum stillbirths occur yearly. Most intrapartum stillbirths are associated with obstetric emergencies, whereas antepartum stillbirths are associated with maternal infections and fetal growth restriction. National estimates of causes of stillbirths are scarce, and multiple (>35) classification systems impede international comparison. Immediate data improvements are feasible through household surveys and facility audit, and improvements in vital registration, including specific perinatal certificates and revised International Classification of Disease codes, are needed. A simple, programme-relevant stillbirth classification that can be used with verbal autopsy would provide a basis for comparable national estimates. A new focus on all deaths around the time of birth is crucial to inform programmatic investment.
This book presents an analysis and synthesis of the key economic and management approaches to innovation, entrepreneurship, and technological change. The book provides precise definitions of key ...concepts, presents numerous historical examples to illustrate these concepts, outlines a framework for analyzing key topics, compares and contrasts different theoretical frameworks, and emphasizes international comparisons of innovation infrastructure and technology policy.
There has been continued interest in skew polynomial rings and related constructions since Ore's initial studies in the 1930s. New examples not covered by previous analyses have arisen in the current ...study of quantum groups. The aim of this work is to introduce and develop new techniques for understanding the prime ideals in skew polynomial rings $S=Ry;\tau, \delta$, for automorphisms $\tau$ and $\tau$-derivations $\delta$ of a noetherian coefficient ring $R$. Goodearl and Letzter give particular emphasis to the use of recently developed techniques from the theory of noncommutative noetherian rings. When $R$ is an algebra over a field $k$ on which $\tau$ and $\delta$ act trivially, a complete description of the prime ideals of $S$ is given under the additional assumption that $\tau {-1 \delta \tau = q\delta$ for some nonzero $q\in k$. This last hypothesis is an abstraction of behavior found in many quantum algebras, including $q$-Weyl algebras and coordinate rings of quantum matrices, and specific examples along these lines are considered in detail.
Endometrial cancer is the most common invasive gynaecological cancer in women, and relatively little is known about inherited risk factors for this disease. This is the first genome-wide study to ...explore the role of common and rare germline copy number variants (CNVs) in predisposition to endometrial cancer. CNVs were called from germline DNA of 1,209 endometrioid endometrial cancer cases and 528 cancer-unaffected female controls. Overall CNV load of deletions or DNA gains did not differ significantly between cases and controls (
P
> 0.05), but cases presented with an excess of rare germline deletions overlapping likely functional genomic regions including genes (
P
= 8 × 10
−10
), CpG islands (
P
= 1 × 10
−7
) and sno/miRNAs regions (
P
= 3 × 10
−9
). On average, at least one additional gene and two additional CpG islands were disrupted by rare deletions in cases compared to controls. The most pronounced difference was that over 30 sno/miRNAs were disrupted by rare deletions in cases for every single disruption event in controls. A total of 13 DNA repair genes were disrupted by rare deletions in 19/1,209 cases (1.6 %) compared to one gene in 1/528 controls (0.2 %;
P
= 0.007), and this increased DNA repair gene loss in cases persisted after excluding five individuals carrying CNVs disrupting mismatch repair genes
MLH1
,
MSH2
and
MSH6
(
P
= 0.03). There were 34 miRNA regions deleted in at least one case but not in controls, the most frequent of which encompassed hsa-mir-661 and hsa-mir-203. Our study implicates rare germline deletions of functional and regulatory regions as possible mechanisms conferring endometrial cancer risk, and has identified specific regulatory elements as candidates for further investigation.
Abstract : Studies on avocado oil have focused on the most common commercial cultivars, Hass, Fuerte, and Bacon, rather than the less common varieties, P. americana var. drymifolia and P. americana ...var. americana, even though the drymifolia variety has a higher oil content and the americana variety is the most common avocado grown in the tropics. The most abundant storage structures for plant oils are the oleosomes, and the aim of this study was to determine the oleosome size, oil yield, and fatty acid composition of the americana and drymifolia varieties, using the Hass cultivar as a reference. Differences were found between the three avocado types for 1) oil yield, with drymifolia having higher and americana lower oil content (p < 0.05%), 2) oleosome size, with Hass having a larger (41.53 μm) and americana a smaller (11.96 μm) size, and 3) fatty acid composition, with the americana and drymifolia varieties showing less monounsaturated fatty acids (oleic) and more polyunsaturated fatty acids (linoleic) and saturated fatty acids (palmitic) ; while Hass had a high level (60%) of monounsaturated fatty acids. Small but significant differences were also found between oleosome and mesocarp oils isolated from the drymifolia and Hass types.
Stem cells Stachowiak, Michal K; Tzanakakis, Emmanuel S
2011., 2011-12-19
eBook
Advances in stem cell biology and biotechnology have sparked hopes that therapies will soon be available for maladies which were considered incurable before. However, realization of the clinical ...potential of stem cells will require better understanding of stem cell physiology and the development of advanced technologies for their efficient differentiation in medically relevant quantities. Resolving these issues necessitates synergistic approaches from multiple fields. Systems biology can be employed to dissect the mechanisms regulating the genome and proteome of stem cells during self-renewal and commitment.
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