Genetic variation in the HLA region is associated with susceptibility to herpes zoster.

Herpes zoster, commonly referred to as shingles, is caused by the varicella zoster virus (VZV). VZV initially manifests as chicken pox, most commonly in childhood, can remain asymptomatically latent in nerve tissues for many years and often re-emerges as shingles. Although reactivation may be related to immune suppression, aging and female sex, most inter-individual variability in re-emergence risk has not been explained to date. We performed a genome-wide association analyses in 22,981 participants (2280 shingles cases) from the electronic Medical Records and Genomics Network. Using Cox survival and logistic regression, we identified a genomic region in the combined and European ancestry groups that has an age of onset effect reaching genome-wide significance (P>1.0 × 10(-8)). This region tags the non-coding gene HCP5 (HLA Complex P5) in the major histocompatibility complex. This gene is an endogenous retrovirus and likely influences viral activity through regulatory functions. Variants in this genetic region are known to be associated with delay in development of AIDS in people infected by HIV. Our study provides further suggestion that this region may have a critical role in viral suppression and could potentially harbor a clinically actionable variant for the shingles vaccine

Degeneracy: a link between evolvability, robustness and complexity in biological systems

A full accounting of biological robustness remains elusive; both in terms of the mechanisms by which robustness is achieved and the forces that have caused robustness to grow over evolutionary time. Although its importance to topics such as ecosystem services and resilience is well recognized, the broader relationship between robustness and evolution is only starting to be fully appreciated. A renewed interest in this relationship has been prompted by evidence that mutational robustness can play a positive role in the discovery of adaptive innovations (evolvability) and evidence of an intimate relationship between robustness and complexity in biology. This paper offers a new perspective on the mechanics of evolution and the origins of complexity, robustness, and evolvability. Here we explore the hypothesis that degeneracy, a partial overlap in the functioning of multi-functional components, plays a central role in the evolution and robustness of complex forms. In support of this hypothesis, we present evidence that degeneracy is a fundamental source of robustness, it is intimately tied to multi-scaled complexity, and it establishes conditions that are necessary for system evolvability

Evidence for solar cycles in a late Holocene speleothem record from Dongge Cave, China

The association between solar activity and Asian monsoon (AM) remains unclear. Here we evaluate the possible connection between them based on a precisely-dated, high-resolution speleothem oxygen isotope record from Dongge Cave, southwest China during the past 4.2 thousand years (ka). Without being adjusted chronologically to the solar signal, our record shows a distinct peak-to-peak correlation with cosmogenic nuclide 14C, total solar irradiance (TSI) and sunspot number (SN) at multi-decadal to centennial timescales. Further cross-wavelet analyses between our calcite δ18O and atmospheric 14C show statistically strong coherence at three typical periodicities of ~80, 200 and 340 years, suggesting important roles of solar activities in modulating AM changes at those timescales. Our result has further indicated a better correlation between our calcite δ18O record and atmospheric 14C than between our record and TSI. This better correlation may imply that the Sun–monsoon connection is dominated most likely by cosmic rays and oceanic circulation (both associated to atmospheric 14C), instead of the direct solar heating (TSI)

Biomarker discovery and redundancy reduction towards classification using a multi-factorial MALDI-TOF MS T2DM mouse model dataset

Diabetes like many diseases and biological processes is not mono-causal. On the one hand multifactorial studies with complex experimental design are required for its comprehensive analysis. On the other hand, the data from these studies often include a substantial amount of redundancy such as proteins that are typically represented by a multitude of peptides. Coping simultaneously with both complexities (experimental and technological) makes data analysis a challenge for Bioinformatics

Dynamic Assessment of Narrative Competence

In Developmental Education, language plays an essential role as a tool for communication (and thinking). Learning to produce coherent messages (“narratives”) with both cultural and personal value in the context of meaningful socio-cultural practices is considered as an important goal of Developmental Education. Narratives are essential for human action as they function as a tool for giving meaning to reality. Therefore, close observation and assessment of children’s narratives is essential in the context of Developmental Education. Over the past years we have developed a Dynamic Assessment (DA) instrument for assessing children’s narrative competence. This instrument combines two common approaches to DA, namely standardised interventionist DA and interactionist DA. With the help of this instrument, teachers are able to gain insight into children’s actual narrative competence as well as their developmental potential and their receptivity to certain forms of assistance to reach this potential. Our experience up to now shows that it is possible to assess children’s narrative competence in a valid and reliable manner

The deuteron: structure and form factors

A brief review of the history of the discovery of the deuteron in provided. The current status of both experiment and theory for the elastic electron scattering is then presented.Comment: 80 pages, 33 figures, submited to Advances in Nuclear Physic

Ab initio alpha-alpha scattering

Processes involving alpha particles and alpha-like nuclei comprise a major part of stellar nucleosynthesis and hypothesized mechanisms for thermonuclear supernovae. In an effort towards understanding alpha processes from first principles, we describe in this letter the first ab initio calculation of alpha-alpha scattering. We use lattice effective field theory to describe the low-energy interactions of nucleons and apply a technique called the adiabatic projection method to reduce the eight-body system to an effective two-cluster system. We find good agreement between lattice results and experimental phase shifts for S-wave and D-wave scattering. The computational scaling with particle number suggests that alpha processes involving heavier nuclei are also within reach in the near future.Comment: 6 pages, 6 figure

Search for new phenomena in final states with an energetic jet and large missing transverse momentum in pp collisions at √ s = 8 TeV with the ATLAS detector

Results of a search for new phenomena in final states with an energetic jet and large missing transverse momentum are reported. The search uses 20.3 fb−1 of √ s = 8 TeV data collected in 2012 with the ATLAS detector at the LHC. Events are required to have at least one jet with pT > 120 GeV and no leptons. Nine signal regions are considered with increasing missing transverse momentum requirements between Emiss T > 150 GeV and Emiss T > 700 GeV. Good agreement is observed between the number of events in data and Standard Model expectations. The results are translated into exclusion limits on models with either large extra spatial dimensions, pair production of weakly interacting dark matter candidates, or production of very light gravitinos in a gauge-mediated supersymmetric model. In addition, limits on the production of an invisibly decaying Higgs-like boson leading to similar topologies in the final state are presente

Do tabloids poison the well of social media? Explaining democratically dysfunctional news sharing

This paper was accepted for publication in the journal New Media and Society and the definitive published version is available at https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444818769689The use of social media for sharing political information and the status of news as an essential raw material for good citizenship are both generating increasing public concern. We add to the debates about misinformation, disinformation, and “fake news” using a new theoretical framework and a unique research design integrating survey data and analysis of observed news sharing behaviors on social media. Using a media-as-resources perspective, we theorize that there are elective affinities between tabloid news and misinformation and disinformation behaviors on social media. Integrating four data sets we constructed during the 2017 UK election campaign—individual-level data on news sharing (N = 1,525,748 tweets), website data (N = 17,989 web domains), news article data (N = 641 articles), and data from a custom survey of Twitter users (N = 1313 respondents)—we find that sharing tabloid news on social media is a significant predictor of democratically dysfunctional misinformation and disinformation behaviors. We explain the consequences of this finding for the civic culture of social media and the direction of future scholarship on fake news

Sustainable development goal 2: improved targets and indicators for agriculture and food security

The pursuit of global food security and agricultural sustainability, the dual aim of the second Sustainable Development Goal (SDG-2), requires urgent and concerted action from developing and developed countries. This, in turn, depends on clear and universally applicable targets and indicators which are partially lacking. The novel and complex nature of the SDGs poses further challenges to their implementation on the ground, especially in the face of interlinkages across SDG objectives and scales. Here we review the existing SDG-2 indicators, propose improvements to facilitate their operationalization and illustrate their practical implementation in Nigeria, Brazil and the Netherlands. This exercise provides insights into the concrete actions needed to achieve SDG-2 across contrasting development contexts and highlights the challenges of addressing the links between targets and indicators within and beyond SDG-2. Ultimately, it underscores the need for integrated policies and reveals opportunities to leverage the fulfillment of SDG-2 worldwide