Mating system of the Eurasian badger, Meles meles, in a high density population

Badgers are facultatively social, forming large groups at high density. Group-living appears to have high reproductive costs for females, and may lead to increased levels of inbreeding. The extent of female competition for reproduction has been estimated from field data, but knowledge of male reproductive success and the extent of extra-group paternity remains limited. Combining field data with genetic data (16 microsatellite loci), we studied the mating system of 10 badger social groups across 14 years in a high-density population. From 923 badgers, including 425 cubs, we were able to assign maternity to 307 cubs, with both parents assigned to 199 cubs (47%) with 80% confidence, and 14% with 95% confidence. Age had a significant effect on the probability of reproduction, seemingly as a result of a deficit of individuals aged two years and greater than eight years attaining parentage. We estimate that approximately 30% of the female population successfully reproduced in any given year, with a similar proportion of the male population gaining paternity across the same area. While it was known there was a cost to female reproduction in high density populations, it appears that males suffer similar, but not greater, costs. Roughly half of assigned paternity was attributed to extra-group males, the majority of which were from neighbouring social groups. Few successful matings occurred between individuals born in the same social group (22%). The high rate of extra-group mating, previously unquantified, may help reduce inbreeding, potentially making philopatry a less costly strategy

Weinberg like sum rules revisited

The generalized Weinberg sum rules containing the difference of isovector vector and axial-vector spectral functions saturated by both finite and infinite number of narrow resonances are considered. We summarize the status of these sum rules and analyze their overall agreement with phenomenological Lagrangians, low-energy relations, parity doubling, hadron string models, and experimental data.Comment: 31 pages, noticed misprints are corrected, references are added, and other minor corrections are mad

Ecological commonalities among pelagic fishes: comparison of freshwater ciscoes and marine herring and sprat

Systematic comparisons of the ecology between functionally similar fish species from freshwater and marine aquatic systems are surprisingly rare. Here, we discuss commonalities and differences in evolutionary history, population genetics, reproduction and life history, ecological interactions, behavioural ecology and physiological ecology of temperate and Arctic freshwater coregonids (vendace and ciscoes, Coregonus spp.) and marine clupeids (herring, Clupea harengus, and sprat, Sprattus sprattus). We further elucidate potential effects of climate warming on these groups of fish based on the ecological features of coregonids and clupeids documented in the previous parts of the review. These freshwater and marine fishes share a surprisingly high number of similarities. Both groups are relatively short-lived, pelagic planktivorous fishes. The genetic differentiation of local populations is weak and seems to be in part correlated to an astonishing variability of spawning times. The discrete thermal window of each species influences habitat use, diel vertical migrations and supposedly also life history variations. Complex life cycles and preference for cool or cold water make all species vulnerable to the effects of global warming. It is suggested that future research on the functional interdependence between spawning time, life history characteristics, thermal windows and genetic differentiation may profit from a systematic comparison of the patterns found in either coregonids or clupeids

Management of Glaucoma in Pregnancy

Management of glaucoma during pregnancy represents a challenge for the physician. Important disease and patient health decisions begin even prior to conception and continue throughout pregnancy and breastfeeding. Data on this topic is limited due to ethical and legal constraints and challenges of conducting large, prospective, and randomized clinical trials on this patient population. Our review suggests that individually, intraocular pressure is lower in a pregnant woman when compared to a non-pregnant woman. Importantly, the medical management of glaucoma during pregnancy poses special challenges due to the possibility of adverse effects of medications on the fetus and newborn. Laser trabeculoplasty and traditional filtration surgery, as well as minimally invasive glaucoma surgery, represent non-drug management options. Thus, managing glaucoma in pregnancy is a delicate balance between treatment to prevent damage to the optic nerve in the mother and avoidance of interventions potentially harmful to the fetus. This literature review of published individual and population-based studies was performed in order to explore current knowledge and guidelines in the management of glaucoma in pregnancy

Most Antidepressant Use in Primary Care Is Justified; Results of the Netherlands Study of Depression and Anxiety

BACKGROUND: Depression is a common illness, often treated in primary care. Many studies have reported undertreatment with antidepressants in primary care. Recently, some studies also reported overtreatment with antidepressants. The present study was designed to assess whether treatment with antidepressants in primary care is in accordance with current guidelines, with a special focus on overtreatment. METHODOLOGY: We used baseline data of primary care respondents from the Netherlands Study of Depression and Anxiety (NESDA) (n = 1610). Seventy-nine patients with treatment in secondary care were excluded. We assessed justification for treatment with antidepressant according to the Dutch primary care guidelines for depression and for anxiety disorders. Use of antidepressants was based on drug-container inspection or, if unavailable, on self-report. Results were recalculated to the original population of primary care patients from which the participants in NESDA were selected (n = 10,677). PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Of 1531 included primary care patients, 199 (13%) used an antidepressant, of whom 188 (94.5%) (possibly) justified. After recalculating these numbers to the original population (n = 10,677), we found 908 (95% CI 823 to 994) antidepressant users. Forty-nine (95% CI 20 to 78) of them (5.4%) had no current justification for an antidepressant, but 27 of them (54.5%) had a justified reason for an antidepressant at some earlier point in their life. CONCLUSIONS: We found that overtreatment with antidepressants in primary care is not a frequent problem. Too long continuation of treatment seems to explain the largest proportion of overtreatment as opposed to inappropriate initiation of treatment

Identifying Alternative Hyper-Splicing Signatures in MG-Thymoma by Exon Arrays

BACKGROUND: The vast majority of human genes (>70%) are alternatively spliced. Although alternative pre-mRNA processing is modified in multiple tumors, alternative hyper-splicing signatures specific to particular tumor types are still lacking. Here, we report the use of Affymetrix Human Exon Arrays to spot hyper-splicing events characteristic of myasthenia gravis (MG)-thymoma, thymic tumors which develop in patients with MG and discriminate them from colon cancer changes. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: We combined GO term to parent threshold-based and threshold-independent ad-hoc functional statistics with in-depth analysis of key modified transcripts to highlight various exon-specific changes. These denote alternative splicing in MG-thymoma tumors compared to healthy human thymus and to in-house and Affymetrix datasets from colon cancer and healthy tissues. By using both global and specific, term-to-parent Gene Ontology (GO) statistical comparisons, our functional integrative ad-hoc method allowed the detection of disease-relevant splicing events. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: Hyper-spliced transcripts spanned several categories, including the tumorogenic ERBB4 tyrosine kinase receptor and the connective tissue growth factor CTGF, as well as the immune function-related histocompatibility gene HLA-DRB1 and interleukin (IL)19, two muscle-specific collagens and one myosin heavy chain gene; intriguingly, a putative new exon was discovered in the MG-involved acetylcholinesterase ACHE gene. Corresponding changes in spliceosome composition were indicated by co-decreases in the splicing factors ASF/SF(2) and SC35. Parallel tumor-associated changes occurred in colon cancer as well, but the majority of the apparent hyper-splicing events were particular to MG-thymoma and could be validated by Fluorescent In-Situ Hybridization (FISH), Reverse Transcription-Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) and mass spectrometry (MS) followed by peptide sequencing. Our findings demonstrate a particular alternative hyper-splicing signature for transcripts over-expressed in MG-thymoma, supporting the hypothesis that alternative hyper-splicing contributes to shaping the biological functions of these and other specialized tumors and opening new venues for the development of diagnosis and treatment approaches

Modeling convergent ON and OFF pathways in the early visual system

For understanding the computation and function of single neurons in sensory systems, one needs to investigate how sensory stimuli are related to a neuron’s response and which biological mechanisms underlie this relationship. Mathematical models of the stimulus–response relationship have proved very useful in approaching these issues in a systematic, quantitative way. A starting point for many such analyses has been provided by phenomenological “linear–nonlinear” (LN) models, which comprise a linear filter followed by a static nonlinear transformation. The linear filter is often associated with the neuron’s receptive field. However, the structure of the receptive field is generally a result of inputs from many presynaptic neurons, which may form parallel signal processing pathways. In the retina, for example, certain ganglion cells receive excitatory inputs from ON-type as well as OFF-type bipolar cells. Recent experiments have shown that the convergence of these pathways leads to intriguing response characteristics that cannot be captured by a single linear filter. One approach to adjust the LN model to the biological circuit structure is to use multiple parallel filters that capture ON and OFF bipolar inputs. Here, we review these new developments in modeling neuronal responses in the early visual system and provide details about one particular technique for obtaining the required sets of parallel filters from experimental data

Proteogenomic Data and Resources for Pan-Cancer Analysis

The National Cancer Institute\u27s Clinical Proteomic Tumor Analysis Consortium (CPTAC) investigates tumors from a proteogenomic perspective, creating rich multi-omics datasets connecting genomic aberrations to cancer phenotypes. To facilitate pan-cancer investigations, we have generated harmonized genomic, transcriptomic, proteomic, and clinical data for \u3e1000 tumors in 10 cohorts to create a cohesive and powerful dataset for scientific discovery. We outline efforts by the CPTAC pan-cancer working group in data harmonization, data dissemination, and computational resources for aiding biological discoveries. We also discuss challenges for multi-omics data integration and analysis, specifically the unique challenges of working with both nucleotide sequencing and mass spectrometry proteomics data