Thermohaline forcing and interannual variability of northwestern inflows into the northern North Sea

A long-established, 127 km-long hydrographic section in the northern North Sea at 59.28°N that runs from the eastern coast of Orkney (2.23°W) to the central North Sea (0°) crosses the path of the main inflows of Atlantic water. Data from 122 occupations between 1989 and 2015 are examined to determine the annual cycle and long-term trends of temperature, salinity and depth-varying geostrophic flow across the section. In an average year, the geostrophic flow referenced to the seafloor is at its narrowest (40 km) in winter, during which time it is driven by the strong horizontal salinity gradient; the horizontal temperature gradient is very weak. Velocity exceeds 4 cm s−1, but transport is at a minimum (0.11 Sv). In the deeper water in the east of the section, thermal stratification develops throughout summer and persists until October, whereas the west is tidally mixed all year. The bottom temperature gradient becomes the primary driver of the geostrophic flow, which is fastest (9 cm s−1) in September and broadest (100 km) in October. Maximum transport (0.36 Sv) occurs in October. Throughout the summer, the horizontal salinity gradient weakens, as does its contribution to the flow. However, it nevertheless acts to broaden the flow west of the location of the strongest horizontal temperature gradient. Section-mean de-seasoned temperature is found to be positively correlated to the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation and negatively correlated to the North Atlantic Oscillation. These results refine our understanding of the thermohaline forcing of Atlantic inflow into the northern North Sea, particularly in relation to the salinity distribution. Understanding the variability of this inflow is important for understanding the dynamics of the North Sea ecosystem

Combined visual and motor disorganization in patients with schizophrenia

Cognitive impairments are difficult to relate to clinical symptoms in schizophrenia, partly due to insufficient knowledge on how cognitive impairments interact with one another. Here, we devised a new sequential pointing task requiring both visual organization and motor sequencing. Six circles were presented simultaneously on a touch screen around a fixation point. Participants pointed with the finger each circle one after the other, in synchrony with auditory tones. We used an alternating rhythmic 300/600 ms pattern so that participants performed pairs of taps separated by short intervals of 300 ms. Visual organization was manipulated by using line-segments that grouped the circles two by two, yielding three pairs of connected circles, and three pairs of unconnected circles that belonged to different pairs. This led to three experimental conditions. In the “congruent condition,” the pairs of taps had to be executed on circles grouped by connecters. In the “non congruent condition,” they were to be executed on the unconnected circles that belonged to different pairs. In a neutral condition, there were no connecters. Twenty two patients with schizophrenia with mild symptoms and 22 control participants performed a series of 30 taps in each condition. Tap pairs were counted as errors when the produced rhythm was inverted (expected rhythm 600/300 = 2; inversed rhythm <1). Error rates in patients with a high level of clinical disorganization were significantly higher in the non-congruent condition than in the two other conditions, contrary to controls and the remaining patients. The tap-tone asynchrony increased in the presence of connecters in both patient groups, but not in the controls. Patients appeared not to integrate the visual organization during the planning phase of action, leading to a large difficulty during motor execution, especially in those patients revealing difficulties in visual organization. Visual motor tapping tasks may help detect those subgroups of patients

Income differences in food consumption in the 1995 Australian national nutrition survey

Objective: To assess the relationships between an index of per capita income and the intake of a variety of individual foods as well as groups of food for men and women in different age groups. Design: Cross-sectional national survey of free-living men and women. Subjects: A sample of 5053 males and 5701 females aged 18 y and over who completed the Australian National Nutrition Survey 1995. Methods: Information about the frequency of consumption of 88 food items was obtained. On the basis of scores on the Food Frequency Questionnaire, regular and irregular consumers of single foods were identified. The relationships between regularity of consumption of individual foods and per capita income were analysed via contingency tables. Food variety scores were derived by assigning individual foods to conventional food group taxonomies, and then summing up the dichotomised intake scores for individual foods within each food group. Two-way ANOVA (income age group) were performed on the food variety scores for males and females, respectively. Results: Per capita income was extensively related to the reported consumption of individual foods and to total and food group variety indices. Generally, both men and women in low income households had less varied diets than those in higher-income households. However, several traditional foods were consumed less often by young high-income respondents, especially young women. Conclusions: Major income differentials in food variety occur in Australia but they are moderated by age and gender. Younger high-income women, in particular, appear to have rejected a number of traditional foods, possibly on the basis of health beliefs. The findings also suggest that data aggregation has marked effects on income and food consumption relationships.<br /

Solid molecular hydrogen: The Broken Symmetry Phase

By performing constant-pressure variable-cell ab initio molecular dynamics simulations we find a quadrupolar orthorhombic structure, of $Pca2_1$ symmetry, for the broken symmetry phase (phase II) of solid H2 at T=0 and P =110 - 150 GPa. We present results for the equation of state, lattice parameters and vibronic frequencies, in very good agreement with experimental observations. Anharmonic quantum corrections to the vibrational frequencies are estimated using available data on H2 and D2. We assign the observed modes to specific symmetry representations.Comment: 5 pages (twocolumn), 4 Postscript figures. To appear in Phys. Rev. Let

Grip Force Reveals the Context Sensitivity of Language-Induced Motor Activity during “Action Words

Studies demonstrating the involvement of motor brain structures in language processing typically focus on \ud time windows beyond the latencies of lexical-semantic access. Consequently, such studies remain inconclusive regarding whether motor brain structures are recruited directly in language processing or through post-linguistic conceptual imagery. In the present study, we introduce a grip-force sensor that allows online measurements of language-induced motor activity during sentence listening. We use this tool to investigate whether language-induced motor activity remains constant or is modulated in negative, as opposed to affirmative, linguistic contexts. Our findings demonstrate that this simple experimental paradigm can be used to study the online crosstalk between language and the motor systems in an ecological and economical manner. Our data further confirm that the motor brain structures that can be called upon during action word processing are not mandatorily involved; the crosstalk is asymmetrically\ud governed by the linguistic context and not vice versa

Histological Responses of Stock (Matthiola incana) Seedlings Treated with B-Indolyl Acetic Acid

Kögl, Haagen Smit and Erxleben (1934) confirmed the finding of Salkowski and Salkowski in 1895 that urine contained B-indolyl acid, and found that this substance accounted for a portion of the activity of urine in promoting the growth of plants not accounted for by auxcntriolic acid and auxenolonic acid. Majima and Hoshino (1924) had already developed a method for the synthesis of B-indolyl-acetic acid so that it became evident to the authors that sufficient amounts of B-indolyl acetic could be made readily available for plant growth hormone studies

Mortality after admission for acute myocardial infarction in Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people in New South Wales, Australia: a multilevel data linkage study

Background - Heart disease is a leading cause of the gap in burden of disease between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australians. Our study investigated short- and long-term mortality after admission for Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people admitted with acute myocardial infarction (AMI) to public hospitals in New South Wales, Australia, and examined the impact of the hospital of admission on outcomes. Methods - Admission records were linked to mortality records for 60047 patients aged 25–84 years admitted with a diagnosis of AMI between July 2001 and December 2008. Multilevel logistic regression was used to estimate adjusted odds ratios (AOR) for 30- and 365-day all-cause mortality. Results - Aboriginal patients admitted with an AMI were younger than non-Aboriginal patients, and more likely to be admitted to lower volume, remote hospitals without on-site angiography. Adjusting for age, sex, year and hospital, Aboriginal patients had a similar 30-day mortality risk to non-Aboriginal patients (AOR: 1.07; 95% CI 0.83-1.37) but a higher risk of dying within 365 days (AOR: 1.34; 95% CI 1.10-1.63). The latter difference did not persist after adjustment for comorbid conditions (AOR: 1.12; 95% CI 0.91-1.38). Patients admitted to more remote hospitals, those with lower patient volume and those without on-site angiography had increased risk of short and long-term mortality regardless of Aboriginal status. Conclusions - Improving access to larger hospitals and those with specialist cardiac facilities could improve outcomes following AMI for all patients. However, major efforts to boost primary and secondary prevention of AMI are required to reduce the mortality gap between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people

Mutant Kras copy number defines metabolic reprogramming and therapeutic susceptibilities.

The RAS/MAPK (mitogen-activated protein kinase) signalling pathway is frequently deregulated in non-small-cell lung cancer, often through KRAS activating mutations. A single endogenous mutant Kras allele is sufficient to promote lung tumour formation in mice but malignant progression requires additional genetic alterations. We recently showed that advanced lung tumours from Kras(G12D/+);p53-null mice frequently exhibit Kras(G12D) allelic enrichment (Kras(G12D)/Kras(wild-type) > 1) (ref. 7), implying that mutant Kras copy gains are positively selected during progression. Here we show, through a comprehensive analysis of mutant Kras homozygous and heterozygous mouse embryonic fibroblasts and lung cancer cells, that these genotypes are phenotypically distinct. In particular, Kras(G12D/G12D) cells exhibit a glycolytic switch coupled to increased channelling of glucose-derived metabolites into the tricarboxylic acid cycle and glutathione biosynthesis, resulting in enhanced glutathione-mediated detoxification. This metabolic rewiring is recapitulated in mutant KRAS homozygous non-small-cell lung cancer cells and in vivo, in spontaneous advanced murine lung tumours (which display a high frequency of Kras(G12D) copy gain), but not in the corresponding early tumours (Kras(G12D) heterozygous). Finally, we demonstrate that mutant Kras copy gain creates unique metabolic dependences that can be exploited to selectively target these aggressive mutant Kras tumours. Our data demonstrate that mutant Kras lung tumours are not a single disease but rather a heterogeneous group comprising two classes of tumours with distinct metabolic profiles, prognosis and therapeutic susceptibility, which can be discriminated on the basis of their relative mutant allelic content. We also provide the first, to our knowledge, in vivo evidence of metabolic rewiring during lung cancer malignant progression.We thank T. Jacks (Kras^LSL-G12D), A. Berns (p53^Fx) and the NIH Mouse repository for mice. We also thank Sam Kleeman and Patricia Ogger for assistance with redox cell profiling and cell viability assays, respectively. We are very thankful to CRUK CI BRU staff for support with in vivo work and all the members of the Martins lab for critical comments and advice. This work was supported by the Medical Research Council.This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available at http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v531/n7592/full/nature16967.html

Social disparities in food preparation behaviours: a DEDIPAC study

BACKGROUND: The specific role of major socio-economic indicators in influencing food preparation behaviours could reveal distinct socio-economic patterns, thus enabling mechanisms to be understood that contribute to social inequalities in health. This study investigated whether there was an independent association of each socio-economic indicator (education, occupation, income) with food preparation behaviours. METHODS: A total of 62,373 adults participating in the web-based NutriNet-Santé cohort study were included in our cross-sectional analyses. Cooking skills, preparation from scratch and kitchen equipment were assessed using a 0-10-point score; frequency of meal preparation, enjoyment of cooking and willingness to cook better/more frequently were categorical variables. Independent associations between socio-economic factors (education, income and occupation) and food preparation behaviours were assessed using analysis of covariance and logistic regression models stratified by sex. The models simultaneously included the three socio-economic indicators, adjusting for age, household composition and whether or not they were the main cook in the household. RESULTS: Participants with the lowest education, the lowest income group and female manual and office workers spent more time preparing food daily than participants with the highest education, those with the highest income and managerial staff (P < 0.0001). The lowest educated individuals were more likely to be non-cooks than those with the highest education level (Women: OR = 3.36 (1.69;6.69); Men: OR = 1.83 (1.07;3.16)) while female manual and office workers and the never-employed were less likely to be non-cooks (OR = 0.52 (0.28;0.97); OR = 0.30 (0.11;0.77)). Female manual and office workers had lower scores of preparation from scratch and were less likely to want to cook more frequently than managerial staff (P < 0.001 and P < 0.001). Women belonging to the lowest income group had a lower score of kitchen equipment (P < 0.0001) and were less likely to enjoy cooking meal daily (OR = 0.68 (0.45;0.86)) than those with the highest income. CONCLUSION: Lowest socio-economic groups, particularly women, spend more time preparing food than high socioeconomic groups. However, female manual and office workers used less raw or fresh ingredients to prepare meals than managerial staff. In the unfavourable context in France with reduced time spent preparing meals over last decades, our findings showed socioeconomic disparities in food preparation behaviours in women, whereas few differences were observed in men

Packaging code and data for reproducible research: A case study of journey time statistics

The effective and ethical use of data to inform decision-making offers huge value to the public sector, especially when delivered by transparent, reproducible, and robust data processing workflows. One way that governments are unlocking this value is through making their data publicly available, allowing more people and organisations to derive insights. However, open data is not enough in many cases: publicly available datasets need to be accessible in an analysis-ready form from popular data science tools, such as R and Python, for them to realise their full potential. This paper explores ways to maximise the impact of open data with reference to a case study of packaging code to facilitate reproducible analysis. We present the jtstats project, which consists of a main Python package, and a smaller R version, for importing, processing, and visualising large and complex datasets representing journey times, for many transport modes and trip purposes at multiple geographic levels, released by the UK Department for Transport (DfT). jtstats shows how domain specific packages can enable reproducible research within the public sector and beyond, saving duplicated effort and reducing the risks of errors from repeated analyses. We hope that the jtstats project inspires others, particularly those in the public sector, to add value to their data sets by making them more accessible