Evaluation of air-displacement plethysmography in children aged 5-7 years using a three-component model of body composition

The aim of the present study was to evaluate air-displacement plethysmography (ADP) in children aged 5-7 years. Body-composition measurements were obtained by ADP, H-2 dilution and anthropometry in twenty-eight children. Calculation of body volume by ADP was undertaken using adult and children's equations for predicting lung volume and surface area. Fat-free mass (FFM) was calculated using a three-component model. Measured FFM hydration was then compared with values from the reference child. Differences between measured and reference hydration were back-extrapolated, to calculate the error in ADP that would account for any disagreement. Propagation of error was used to distinguish the contributions of methodological precision and biological variability to total hydration variability. The use of children's equations influenced the results for lung volume but not surface area. The mean difference between measured and reference hydration was 0.6 (SD 1.7) % (P<0.10), equivalent to an error in body volume of 0.04 (So 0.20) litres (P<0.30), and in percentage fat of 0.4 (SD 1.9) (P<0.28). The limits of agreement in individuals could be attributed to methodological precision and biological variability in hydration. It is concluded that accuracy of ADP was high for the whole group, with a mean bias of <0.5% fat using the three-component model, and after taking into account biological variability in hydration, the limits of agreement were around 2 % fat in individuals. Paediatric rather than adult equations for lung volume estimation should be used

Addressing the Theory-Practice Gap in Assessment

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Toward High-Precision Measures of Large-Scale Structure

I review some results of estimation of the power spectrum of density fluctuations from galaxy redshift surveys and discuss advances that may be possible with the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. I then examine the realities of power spectrum estimation in the presence of Galactic extinction, photometric errors, galaxy evolution, clustering evolution, and uncertainty about the background cosmology.Comment: 24 pages, including 11 postscript figures. Uses crckapb.sty (included in submission). To appear in ``Ringberg Workshop on Large-Scale Structure,'' ed D. Hamilton (Kluwer, Amsterdam), p. 39

Two rapid assays for screening of patulin biodegradation

Artículo sobre distintos ensayos para comprobar la biodegradación de la patulinaThe mycotoxin patulin is produced by the blue mould pathogen Penicillium expansum in rotting apples during postharvest storage. Patulin is toxic to a wide range of organisms, including humans, animals, fungi and bacteria. Wash water from apple packing and processing houses often harbours patulin and fungal spores, which can contaminate the environment. Ubiquitous epiphytic yeasts, such as Rhodosporidium kratochvilovae strain LS11 which is a biocontrol agent of P. expansum in apples, have the capacity to resist the toxicity of patulin and to biodegrade it. Two non-toxic products are formed. One is desoxypatulinic acid. The aim of the work was to develop rapid, high-throughput bioassays for monitoring patulin degradation in multiple samples. Escherichia coli was highly sensitive to patulin, but insensitive to desoxypatulinic acid. This was utilized to develop a detection test for patulin, replacing time-consuming thin layer chromatography or high-performance liquid chromatography. Two assays for patulin degradation were developed, one in liquid medium and the other in semi-solid medium. Both assays allow the contemporary screening of a large number of samples. The liquid medium assay utilizes 96-well microtiter plates and was optimized for using a minimum of patulin. The semisolid medium assay has the added advantage of slowing down the biodegradation, which allows the study and isolation of transient degradation products. The two assays are complementary and have several areas of utilization, from screening a bank of microorganisms for biodegradation ability to the study of biodegradation pathways

Preterm birth a long distance from home and its significant social and financial stress

The present paper reports a retrospective cohort of preterm infants admitted to our hospital who delivered outside the normal geographical catchment area of the mother's local level three neonatal nursery. Nineteen mothers had 21 preterm infants (23.1-34.9 weeks, 500-2330 g born) where 14 infants required ventilation (median 57 h, range 3-428). Eighteen survivors had a median length of stay of 41 days (range 3-91). Twelve of 19 mothers were interviewed: all described isolation, loneliness, poor social support and significant financial hardship related to getting their infants back to a local hospital or home. To avoid these problems, we recommend confining travel to within a short distance from home or local maternity unit after 22 weeks

Comparison of 5-year progression of retinitis pigmentosa involving the posterior pole among siblings by means of SD-OCT: a retrospective study

The blockchain technology promises to transform finance, money and evengovernments. However, analyses of blockchain applicability and robustness typicallyfocus on isolated systems whose actors contribute mainly by running the consensusalgorithm. Here, we highlight the importance of considering trustless platformswithin the broader ecosystem that includes social and communication networks. Asan example, we analyse the flash-crash observed on 21st June 2017 in the Ethereumplatform and show that a major phenomenon of social coordination led to acatastrophic cascade of events across several interconnected systems. We proposethe concept of “emergent centralisation” to describe situations where a single systembecomes critically important for the functioning of the whole ecosystem, and arguethat such situations are likely to become more and more frequent in interconnectedsocio-technical systems. We anticipate that the systemic approach we propose willhave implications for future assessments of trustless systems and call for the attentionof policy-makers on the fragility of our interconnected and rapidly changing world

Equilibrium configurations of two charged masses in General Relativity

An asymptotically flat static solution of Einstein-Maxwell equations which describes the field of two non-extreme Reissner - Nordstr\"om sources in equilibrium is presented. It is expressed in terms of physical parameters of the sources (their masses, charges and separating distance). Very simple analytical forms were found for the solution as well as for the equilibrium condition which guarantees the absence of any struts on the symmetry axis. This condition shows that the equilibrium is not possible for two black holes or for two naked singularities. However, in the case when one of the sources is a black hole and another one is a naked singularity, the equilibrium is possible at some distance separating the sources. It is interesting that for appropriately chosen parameters even a Schwarzschild black hole together with a naked singularity can be "suspended" freely in the superposition of their fields.Comment: 4 pages; accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.

Ears of the Armadillo: Global Health Research and Neglected Diseases in Texas

Neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) have\ud been recently identified as significant public\ud health problems in Texas and elsewhere in\ud the American South. A one-day forum on the\ud landscape of research and development and\ud the hidden burden of NTDs in Texas\ud explored the next steps to coordinate advocacy,\ud public health, and research into a\ud cogent health policy framework for the\ud American NTDs. It also highlighted how\ud U.S.-funded global health research can serve\ud to combat these health disparities in the\ud United States, in addition to benefiting\ud communities abroad

The Cosmic Infrared Background: Measurements and Implications

The cosmic infrared background records much of the radiant energy released by processes of structure formation that have occurred since the decoupling of matter and radiation following the Big Bang. In the past few years, data from the Cosmic Background Explorer mission provided the first measurements of this background, with additional constraints coming from studies of the attenuation of TeV gamma-rays. At the same time there has been rapid progress in resolving a significant fraction of this background with the deep galaxy counts at infrared wavelengths from the Infrared Space Observatory instruments and at submillimeter wavelengths from the Submillimeter Common User Bolometer Array instrument. This article reviews the measurements of the infrared background and sources contributing to it, and discusses the implications for past and present cosmic processes.Comment: 61 pages, incl. 9 figures, to be published in Annual Reviews of Astronomy and Astrophysics, 2001, Vol. 3

The genetic contribution of single male immigrants to small, inbred populations: A laboratory study using drosophila melanogaster

This study examined the genetic contribution of single male immigrants to small, inbred laboratory populations of Drosophila melanogaster. Genetic contribution was assessed by measuring the relative frequency of immigrant marker alleles in the first and second generations after immigration, while controlling for any selection effects at the marker locus, and for the experience of male immigrants. When immigrants were outbred, the mean frequency of the immigrant allele was significantly higher than its initial frequency, in both the first and second generations after immigration. There was no significant change in allele frequency for populations receiving inbred immigrants. The increase in allele frequency for outbred immigrants was attributed to an initial outbred vigour fitness advantage of immigrant males over resident males experiencing inbreeding depression. Hybrid vigour of immigrant progeny and the rare-male effect did not have a statistically significant role in the fitness advantage of the immigrant allele. The results suggest that inbreeding may have a considerable impact on the contribution of immigrants to the genetic diversity of populations