A connectivity ­based parcellation of the left dorsal premotor cortex

peer reviewe

Longitudinal cohort of HIV-negative transgender women of colour in New York City: protocol for the TURNNT ('Trying to Understand Relationships, Networks and Neighbourhoods among Transgender women of colour') study.

IntroductionIn the USA, transgender women are among the most vulnerable to HIV. In particular, transgender women of colour face high rates of infection and low uptake of important HIV prevention tools, including pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP). This paper describes the design, sampling methods, data collection and analyses of the TURNNT ('Trying to Understand Relationships, Networks and Neighbourhoods among Transgender women of colour') study. In collaboration with communities of transgender women of colour, TURNNT aims to explore the complex social and environmental (ie, neighbourhood) structures that affect HIV prevention and other aspects of health in order to identify avenues for intervention.Methods and analysesTURNNT is a prospective cohort study, which will recruit 300 transgender women of colour (150 Black/African American, 100 Latina and 50 Asian/Pacific Islander participants) in New York City. There will be three waves of data collection separated by 6 months. At each wave, participants will provide information on their relationships, social and sexual networks, and neighbourhoods. Global position system technology will be used to generate individual daily path areas in order to estimate neighbourhood-level exposures. Multivariate analyses will be conducted to assess cross-sectional and longitudinal, independent and synergistic associations of personal relationships (notably individual social capital), social and sexual networks, and neighbourhood factors (notably neighbourhood-level social cohesion) with PrEP uptake and discontinuation.Ethics and disseminationThe TURNNT protocol was approved by the Columbia University Institutional Review Board (reference no. AAAS8164). This study will provide novel insights into the relationship, network and neighbourhood factors that influence HIV prevention behaviours among transgender women of colour and facilitate exploration of this population's health and well-being more broadly. Through community-based dissemination events and consultation with policy makers, this foundational work will be used to guide the development and implementation of future interventions with and for transgender women of colour

Blood-Lead Levels Of Fall Migrant Golden Eagles In West- Central Montana

Lead has long been documented as a serious environmental hazard to eagles and other predatory, opportunistic and scavenging avian species. The use of lead shotgun pellets for waterfowl hunting on federal and state lands was banned in 1991 due to lead poisoning in Bald Eagles (Haliaeetus leucocephalus), Golden Eagles (Aquila chrysaetos) and numerous waterfowl species. At that time, this was thought to be the only major source of the lead exposure. More recently, lead poisoning from ingested lead-bullet fragments and shotgun pellets has been identified as the leading cause of death in California Condors (Gymnogyps californianus), leading to the recent ban of lead ammunition within the “California Condor Recovery Zone.” Another on-going study on Common Ravens (Corvus corax) and Bald Eagles in Wyoming has shown a direct correlation between very high blood-lead levels and the on-set of rifle hunting season. Indeed, there is overwhelming evidence showing that lead toxicity is still prevalent in the environment and mounting data points to fragmented rifle bullets as the source. We sampled blood from 131 Golden Eagles captured on migration during the fall from 2006 and 2010 to quantify a suite of possible heavy metal contaminants, with an emphasis on lead

Искровое плазменное спекание - новый способ получения медь-молибденовой керамики

BACKGROUND & AIMS: Because the mechanisms leading to bile duct damage in sclerosing cholangitis are unknown, we aimed to determine the pathogenesis of bile duct injury in multidrug resistance gene (Mdr2) (Abcb4) knockout mice (Mdr2(-/-)) as a novel model of the disease. METHODS: Mdr2(-/-) and wild-type controls (Mdr2(+/+)) were studied at 2, 4, and 8 weeks of age. Liver histology, ultrastructure, immunofluorescence microscopy (to study inflammatory cells, tight junction protein ZO-1, basement membrane protein laminin, fluorescence-labeled ursodeoxycholic acid), immunohistochemistry (for alpha-smooth muscle actin, nitrotyrosine), sirius red staining, bacterial cultures of intra-abdominal organs, and polymerase chain reaction (PCR) for Helicobacter bilis DNA were compared between both genotypes. Hepatic cytokine expression was determined by reverse-transcription PCR. RESULTS: Bile ducts of Mdr2(-/-) showed disrupted tight junctions and basement membranes, bile acid leakage into portal tracts, induction of a portal inflammatory (CD11b, CD4-positive) infiltrate, and activation of proinflammatory (tumor necrosis factor [TNF]-alpha, interleukin [IL]-1beta) and profibrogenic cytokines (transforming growth factor [TGF]-beta1). This resulted in activation of periductal myofibroblasts, leading to periductal fibrosis, separating the peribiliary plexus from bile duct epithelial cells and, finally, causing atrophy and death of the bile duct epithelium. Bacterial translocation was not increased and H. bilis was not detectable in Mdr2(-/-). CONCLUSIONS: Sclerosing cholangitis in Mdr2(-/-) mice is a multistep process with regurgitation of bile from leaky ducts into the portal tracts, leading to induction of periductal inflammation, followed by activation of periductal fibrogenesis, finally causing obliterative cholangitis owing to atrophy and death of bile duct epithelial cells

Characterizing functional modules in the human thalamus: coactivation-based parcellation and systems-level functional decoding

The human thalamus relays sensory signals to the cortex and facilitates brain-wide communication. The thalamus is also more directly involved in sensorimotor and various cognitive functions but a full characterization of its functional repertoire, particularly in regard to its internal anatomical structure, is still outstanding. As a putative hub in the human connectome, the thalamus might reveal its functional profile only in conjunction with interconnected brain areas. We therefore developed a novel systems-level Bayesian reverse inference decoding that complements the traditional neuroinformatics approach towards a network account of thalamic function. The systems-level decoding considers the functional repertoire (i.e., the terms associated with a brain region) of all regions showing co-activations with a predefined seed region in a brain-wide fashion. Here, we used task-constrained meta-analytic connectivity-based parcellation (MACM-CBP) to identify thalamic subregions as seed regions and applied the systems-level decoding to these subregions in conjunction with functionally connected cortical regions. Our results confirm thalamic structure–function relationships known from animal and clinical studies and revealed further associations with language, memory, and locomotion that have not been detailed in the cognitive neuroscience literature before. The systems-level decoding further uncovered large systems engaged in autobiographical memory and nociception. We propose this novel decoding approach as a useful tool to detect previously unknown structure–function relationships at the brain network level, and to build viable starting points for future studies.Peer Reviewe

Open Data, Open Source and Open Standards in chemistry: The Blue Obelisk five years on

RIGHTS : This article is licensed under the BioMed Central licence at http://www.biomedcentral.com/about/license which is similar to the 'Creative Commons Attribution Licence'. In brief you may : copy, distribute, and display the work; make derivative works; or make commercial use of the work - under the following conditions: the original author must be given credit; for any reuse or distribution, it must be made clear to others what the license terms of this work are.Abstract Background The Blue Obelisk movement was established in 2005 as a response to the lack of Open Data, Open Standards and Open Source (ODOSOS) in chemistry. It aims to make it easier to carry out chemistry research by promoting interoperability between chemistry software, encouraging cooperation between Open Source developers, and developing community resources and Open Standards. Results This contribution looks back on the work carried out by the Blue Obelisk in the past 5 years and surveys progress and remaining challenges in the areas of Open Data, Open Standards, and Open Source in chemistry. Conclusions We show that the Blue Obelisk has been very successful in bringing together researchers and developers with common interests in ODOSOS, leading to development of many useful resources freely available to the chemistry community.Peer Reviewe

Editorial: Neural implementation of expertise

How the brain enables humans to reach an outstanding level of performance typical of expertise is of great interest to cognitive neuroscience, as demonstrated by the number and diversity of the articles in this Research Topic (RT). The RT presents a collection of 23 articles written by 80 authors on traditional expertise topics such as sport, board games, and music, but also on the expertise aspects of everyday skills, such as language and the perception of faces and objects. Just as the topics in the RT are diverse, so are the neuroimaging techniques employed and the article formats. Here we will briefly summarize the articles published in the RT

Update for the practicing pathologist: The International Consultation On Urologic Disease-European association of urology consultation on bladder cancer

The International Consultations on Urological Diseases are international consensus meetings, supported by the World Health Organization and the Union Internationale Contre le Cancer, which have occurred since 1981. Each consultation has the goal of convening experts to review data and provide evidence-based recommendations to improve practice. In 2012, the selected subject was bladder cancer, a disease which remains a major public health problem with little improvement in many years. The proceedings of the 2nd International Consultation on Bladder Cancer, which included a 'Pathology of Bladder Cancer Work Group,' have recently been published; herein, we provide a summary of developments and consensus relevant to the practicing pathologist. Although the published proceedings have tackled a comprehensive set of issues regarding the pathology of bladder cancer, this update summarizes the recommendations regarding selected issues for the practicing pathologist. These include guidelines for classification and grading of urothelial neoplasia, with particular emphasis on the approach to inverted lesions, the handling of incipient papillary lesions frequently seen during surveillance of bladder cancer patients, descriptions of newer variants, and terminology for urine cytology reporting

The Bird’s-Eye View Education Program: Using Bird Research To Educate The Public On The Importance Of Healthy Riparian Systems

The Upper Clark Fork River Basin (UCFRB) has been degraded by over 100 yrs of mining and smelting activities. The UCFRB is the largest contiguous complex of federal Superfund sites in the nation. Restoration and remediation efforts were initiated in the late 1980s and will continue, at a minimum, through 2030. Any restoration activity should include public education and outreach so that land-use decisions in the future do not compromise the integrity of the ecosystems that support the region. We have developed a program, the Bird’s-eye View Education Program, which integrates public education and research on the ecological health of the UCFRB. Specifically we focus on birds, inviting the public to observe research at songbird banding stations and Osprey (Pandion haliaetus) nests. Riparian-associated birds are likely to respond positively to riparian restoration activities and can be used as bio-indicators to measure success. In 2010 we operated three bird banding stations and monitored 19 Osprey nests. We captured 595 songbirds, collected 43 blood and feather samples from Osprey chicks, and served nearly 1000 participants. The program was an outstanding success and results from an assessment show that participants leave with a positive attitude toward the outdoor science experience and a general knowledge of Upper Clark Fork restoration, history, and its riparian ecosystems