The 2017 Magnetism Roadmap

Building upon the success and relevance of the 2014 Magnetism Roadmap, this 2017 Magnetism Roadmap edition follows a similar general layout, even if its focus is naturally shifted, and a different group of experts and, thus, viewpoints are being collected and presented. More importantly, key developments have changed the research landscape in very relevant ways, so that a novel view onto some of the most crucial developments is warranted, and thus, this 2017 Magnetism Roadmap article is a timely endeavour. The change in landscape is hereby not exclusively scientific, but also reflects the magnetism related industrial application portfolio. Specifically, Hard Disk Drive technology, which still dominates digital storage and will continue to do so for many years, if not decades, has now limited its footprint in the scientific and research community, whereas significantly growing interest in magnetism and magnetic materials in relation to energy applications is noticeable, and other technological fields are emerging as well. Also, more and more work is occurring in which complex topologies of magnetically ordered states are being explored, hereby aiming at a technological utilization of the very theoretical concepts that were recognised by the 2016 Nobel Prize in Physics. Given this somewhat shifted scenario, it seemed appropriate to select topics for this Roadmap article that represent the three core pillars of magnetism, namely magnetic materials, magnetic phenomena and associated characterization techniques, as well as applications of magnetism. While many of the contributions in this Roadmap have clearly overlapping relevance in all three fields, their relative focus is mostly associated to one of the three pillars. In this way, the interconnecting roles of having suitable magnetic materials, understanding (and being able to characterize) the underlying physics of their behaviour and utilizing them for applications and devices is well illustrated, thus giving an accurate snapshot of the world of magnetism in 2017. The article consists of 14 sections, each written by an expert in the field and addressing a specific subject on two pages. Evidently, the depth at which each contribution can describe the subject matter is limited and a full review of their statuses, advances, challenges and perspectives cannot be fully accomplished. Also, magnetism, as a vibrant research field, is too diverse, so that a number of areas will not be adequately represented here, leaving space for further Roadmap editions in the future. However, this 2017 Magnetism Roadmap article can provide a frame that will enable the reader to judge where each subject and magnetism research field stands overall today and which directions it might take in the foreseeable future. The first material focused pillar of the 2017 Magnetism Roadmap contains five articles, which address the questions of atomic scale confinement, 2D, curved and topological magnetic materials, as well as materials exhibiting unconventional magnetic phase transitions. The second pillar also has five contributions, which are devoted to advances in magnetic characterization, magneto-optics and magneto-plasmonics, ultrafast magnetization dynamics and magnonic transport. The final and application focused pillar has four contributions, which present non-volatile memory technology, antiferromagnetic spintronics, as well as magnet technology for energy and bio-related applications. As a whole, the 2017 Magnetism Roadmap article, just as with its 2014 predecessor, is intended to act as a reference point and guideline for emerging research directions in modern magnetism

Fifteen new risk loci for coronary artery disease highlight arterial-wall-specific mechanisms

Coronary artery disease (CAD) is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide. Although 58 genomic regions have been associated with CAD thus far, most of the heritability is unexplained, indicating that additional susceptibility loci await identification. An efficient discovery strategy may be larger-scale evaluation of promising associations suggested by genome-wide association studies (GWAS). Hence, we genotyped 56,309 participants using a targeted gene array derived from earlier GWAS results and performed meta-analysis of results with 194,427 participants previously genotyped, totaling 88,192 CAD cases and 162,544 controls. We identified 25 new SNP-CAD associations (P < 5 × 10(-8), in fixed-effects meta-analysis) from 15 genomic regions, including SNPs in or near genes involved in cellular adhesion, leukocyte migration and atherosclerosis (PECAM1, rs1867624), coagulation and inflammation (PROCR, rs867186 (p.Ser219Gly)) and vascular smooth muscle cell differentiation (LMOD1, rs2820315). Correlation of these regions with cell-type-specific gene expression and plasma protein levels sheds light on potential disease mechanisms

Chronic non-specific low back pain - sub-groups or a single mechanism?

Copyright 2008 Wand and O'Connell; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.Background: Low back pain is a substantial health problem and has subsequently attracted a considerable amount of research. Clinical trials evaluating the efficacy of a variety of interventions for chronic non-specific low back pain indicate limited effectiveness for most commonly applied interventions and approaches. Discussion: Many clinicians challenge the results of clinical trials as they feel that this lack of effectiveness is at odds with their clinical experience of managing patients with back pain. A common explanation for this discrepancy is the perceived heterogeneity of patients with chronic non-specific low back pain. It is felt that the effects of treatment may be diluted by the application of a single intervention to a complex, heterogeneous group with diverse treatment needs. This argument presupposes that current treatment is effective when applied to the correct patient. An alternative perspective is that the clinical trials are correct and current treatments have limited efficacy. Preoccupation with sub-grouping may stifle engagement with this view and it is important that the sub-grouping paradigm is closely examined. This paper argues that there are numerous problems with the sub-grouping approach and that it may not be an important reason for the disappointing results of clinical trials. We propose instead that current treatment may be ineffective because it has been misdirected. Recent evidence that demonstrates changes within the brain in chronic low back pain sufferers raises the possibility that persistent back pain may be a problem of cortical reorganisation and degeneration. This perspective offers interesting insights into the chronic low back pain experience and suggests alternative models of intervention. Summary: The disappointing results of clinical research are commonly explained by the failure of researchers to adequately attend to sub-grouping of the chronic non-specific low back pain population. Alternatively, current approaches may be ineffective and clinicians and researchers may need to radically rethink the nature of the problem and how it should best be managed

Melding Wildlife Surveys to Improve Conservation Inference

Integrated models are a popular tool for analyzing species of conservation concern. Species of conservation concern are often monitored by multiple entities that generate several datasets. Individually, these datasets may be insufficient for guiding management due to low spatio-temporal resolution, biased sampling, or large observational uncertainty. Integrated models provide an approach for assimilating multiple datasets in a coherent framework that can compensate for these deficiencies. While conventional integrated models have been used to assimilate count data with surveys of survival, fecundity, and harvest, they can also assimilate ecological surveys that have differing spatio-temporal regions and observational uncertainties. Motivated by independent aerial and ground surveys of lesser prairie-chicken abundance, we developed an integrated modeling approach that assimilates density estimates derived from surveys with distinct sources of observational error into a joint framework that provides shared inference on spatio-temporal trends. For implementation, we model these data using a Bayesian Markov melding approach and apply several data augmentation strategies for efficient sampling. Our integrated model decreased uncertainty in annual density estimates, facilitated prediction at unsampled regions, and quantified the inferential cost associated with reduced survey effort.Comment: 22 pages; 5 figures, 1 table, submitted to Biometric

Atmospheric Evolution

Earth's atmosphere has evolved as volatile species cycle between the atmosphere, ocean, biomass and the solid Earth. The geochemical, biological and astrophysical processes that control atmospheric evolution are reviewed from an "Earth Systems" perspective, with a view not only to understanding the history of Earth, but also to generalizing to other solar system planets and exoplanets.Comment: 34 pages, 3 figures, 2 tables. Accepted as a chapter in "Encyclopaedia of Geochemistry", Editor Bill White, Springer-Nature, 201

Toxoplasma Effector MAF1 Mediates Recruitment of Host Mitochondria and Impacts the Host Response

Recent information has revealed the functional diversity and importance of mitochondria in many cellular processes including orchestrating the innate immune response. Intriguingly, several infectious agents, such as Toxoplasma, Legionella, and Chlamydia, have been reported to grow within vacuoles surrounded by host mitochondria. Although many hypotheses have been proposed for the existence of host mitochondrial association (HMA), the causes and biological consequences of HMA have remained unanswered. Here we show that HMA is present in type I and III strains of Toxoplasma but missing in type II strains, both in vitro and in vivo. Analysis of F1 progeny from a type II×III cross revealed that HMA is a Mendelian trait that we could map. We use bioinformatics to select potential candidates and experimentally identify the polymorphic parasite protein involved, mitochondrial association factor 1 (MAF1). We show that introducing the type I (HMA+) MAF1 allele into type II (HMA-) parasites results in conversion to HMA+ and deletion of MAF1 in type I parasites results in a loss of HMA. We observe that the loss and gain of HMA are associated with alterations in the transcription of host cell immune genes and the in vivo cytokine response during murine infection. Lastly, we use exogenous expression of MAF1 to show that it binds host mitochondria and thus MAF1 is the parasite protein directly responsible for HMA. Our findings suggest that association with host mitochondria may represent a novel means by which Toxoplasma tachyzoites manipulate the host. The existence of naturally occurring HMA+ and HMA- strains of Toxoplasma, Legionella, and Chlamydia indicates the existence of evolutionary niches where HMA is either advantageous or disadvantageous, likely reflecting tradeoffs in metabolism, immune regulation, and other functions of mitochondria. © 2014 Pernas et al

Emerging New Crop Pests: Ecological Modelling and Analysis of the South American Potato Psyllid Russelliana solanicola (Hemiptera: Psylloidea) and Its Wild Relatives

© 2017 Syfert et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited

Post-transcriptional control of tumor cell autonomous metastatic potential by the CCR4-NOT deadenylase CNOT7

Accumulating evidence supports the role of an aberrant transcriptome as a driver of metastatic potential. Deadenylation is a general regulatory node for post-transcriptional control by microRNAs and other determinants of RNA stability. Previously, we demonstrated that the CCR4-NOT scaffold component Cnot2 is an inherited metastasis susceptibility gene. In this study, using orthotopic metastasis assays and genetically engineered mouse models, we show that one of the enzymatic subunits of the CCR4-NOT complex, Cnot7, is also a metastasis modifying gene. We demonstrate that higher expression of Cnot7 drives tumor cell autonomous metastatic potential, which requires its deadenylase activity. Furthermore, metastasis promotion by CNOT7 is dependent on interaction with CNOT1 and TOB1. CNOT7 ribonucleoprotein-immunoprecipitation (RIP) and integrated transcriptome wide analyses reveal that CNOT7-regulated transcripts are enriched for a tripartite 3’UTR motif bound by RNA-binding proteins known to complex with CNOT7, TOB1, and CNOT1. Collectively, our data support a model of CNOT7, TOB1, CNOT1, and RNA-binding proteins collectively exerting post-transcriptional control on a metastasis suppressive transcriptional program to drive tumor cell metastasis

Minimal invasive horizontal ridge augmentation using subperiosteal tunneling technique

BACKGROUND: The goal of this study was to retrospectively evaluate the prognosis of minimal invasive horizontal ridge augmentation (MIHRA) technique using small incision and subperiosteal tunneling technique. METHODS: This study targeted 25 partially edentulous patients (10 males and 15 females, mean age 48.8 ± 19.7 years) who needed bone graft for installation of the implants due to alveolar bone deficiency. The patients took the radiographic exam, panoramic and periapical view at first visit, and had implant fixture installation surgery. All patients received immediate or delayed implant surgery with bone graft using U-shaped incision and tunneling technique. After an average of 2.8 months, the prosthesis was connected and functioned. The clinical prognosis was recorded by observation of the peri-implant tissue at every visit. A year after restoration, the crestal bone loss around the implant was measured by taking the follow-up radiographs. One patient took 3D-CT before bone graft, after bone graft, and 2 years after restoration to compare and analyze change of alveolar bone width. RESULTS: This study included 25 patients and 39 implants. Thirty eight implants (97.4 %) survived. As for postoperative complications, five patients showed minor infection symptoms, like swelling and tenderness after bone graft. The other one had buccal fenestration, and secondary bone graft was done by the same technique. No complications related with bone graft were found except in these patients. The mean crestal bone loss around the implants was 0.03 mm 1 year after restoration, and this was an adequate clinical prognosis. A patient took 3D-CT after bone graft, and the width of alveolar bone increased 4.32 mm added to 4.6 mm of former alveolar bone width. Two years after bone graft, the width of alveolar bone was 8.13 mm, and this suggested that the resorption rate of bone graft material was 18.29 % during 2 years. CONCLUSIONS: The bone graft material retained within a pouch formed using U-shaped incision and tunneling technique resulted with a few complications, and the prognosis of the implants placed above the alveolar bone was adequate

Multi-messenger observations of a binary neutron star merger

On 2017 August 17 a binary neutron star coalescence candidate (later designated GW170817) with merger time 12:41:04 UTC was observed through gravitational waves by the Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo detectors. The Fermi Gamma-ray Burst Monitor independently detected a gamma-ray burst (GRB 170817A) with a time delay of ~1.7 s with respect to the merger time. From the gravitational-wave signal, the source was initially localized to a sky region of 31 deg2 at a luminosity distance of 40+8-8 Mpc and with component masses consistent with neutron stars. The component masses were later measured to be in the range 0.86 to 2.26 Mo. An extensive observing campaign was launched across the electromagnetic spectrum leading to the discovery of a bright optical transient (SSS17a, now with the IAU identification of AT 2017gfo) in NGC 4993 (at ~40 Mpc) less than 11 hours after the merger by the One- Meter, Two Hemisphere (1M2H) team using the 1 m Swope Telescope. The optical transient was independently detected by multiple teams within an hour. Subsequent observations targeted the object and its environment. Early ultraviolet observations revealed a blue transient that faded within 48 hours. Optical and infrared observations showed a redward evolution over ~10 days. Following early non-detections, X-ray and radio emission were discovered at the transient’s position ~9 and ~16 days, respectively, after the merger. Both the X-ray and radio emission likely arise from a physical process that is distinct from the one that generates the UV/optical/near-infrared emission. No ultra-high-energy gamma-rays and no neutrino candidates consistent with the source were found in follow-up searches. These observations support the hypothesis that GW170817 was produced by the merger of two neutron stars in NGC4993 followed by a short gamma-ray burst (GRB 170817A) and a kilonova/macronova powered by the radioactive decay of r-process nuclei synthesized in the ejecta