Poolealvarez4589

Background In humans, stillbirth describes the death of a fetus before birth after 28 weeks gestation, and accounts for approximately 2.6 million deaths worldwide annually. In high-income countries, up to half of stillbirths have an unknown cause and are described as "unexplained stillbirths"; this lack of understanding impairs efforts to prevent stillbirth. There are also few animal models of stillbirth, but those that have been described usually have significant placental abnormalities. This study describes a novel mutant murine model of fetal death with atrial conduction block due to an ErbB2 missense mutation which is not associated with abnormal placental morphology. Methods Phenotypic characterisation and histological analysis of the mutant mouse model was conducted. The mRNA distribution of the early cardiomyocyte marker Nkx2-5 was assessed via in situ hybridisation. Cardiac structure was quantified and cellular morphology evaluated by electron microscopy. Immunostaining was employed to quantify placenardiac defects.Metal contamination of food and water resources is a known public health issue in Arctic and sub-Arctic communities due to the proximity of many communities to mining and drilling sites. In addition, permafrost thaw may release heavy metals sequestered in previously frozen soils, potentially contaminating food and water resources by increasing the concentration of metals in freshwater, plants, and wildlife. Here we assess the enrichment of selected heavy metals in Alaskan soils by synthesizing publicly available data of soil metal concentrations. We analyzed data of soil concentrations of arsenic, chromium, mercury, nickel, and lead from over 1,000 samples available through the USGS Alaskan Geochemical Database to evaluate 1) the spatial distribution of sampling locations for soil metal analysis, 2) metal concentrations in soils from different land cover types and depths, and 3) the occurrence of soils in Alaska with elevated metal concentrations relative to other soils. We found substantial clustering of sample sites in the southwestern portion of Alaska in discontinuous and sporadic permafrost, while the continuous permafrost zone in Northern Alaska and the more populous Interior are severely understudied. Metal concentration varied by land cover type but lacked consistent patterns. Concentrations of chromium, mercury, and lead were higher in soils below 10 cm depth, however these deeper soils are under-sampled. Arsenic, chromium, mercury, nickel and lead concentrations exceeded average values for US soils by one standard deviation or more in 3.7% to 18.7% of the samples in this dataset. Our analysis highlights critical gaps that impede understanding of how heavy metals in thawing permafrost soils may become mobilized and increase exposure risk for Arctic communities.For gait classification, hoof-on and hoof-off events are fundamental locomotion characteristics of interest. These events can be measured with inertial measurement units (IMUs) which measure the acceleration and angular velocity in three directions. The aim of this study was to present two algorithms for automatic detection of hoof-events from the acceleration and angular velocity signals measured by hoof-mounted IMUs in walk and trot on a hard surface. Seven Warmblood horses were equipped with two wireless IMUs, which were attached to the lateral wall of the right front (RF) and hind (RH) hooves. Horses were walked and trotted on a lead over a force plate for internal validation. The agreement between the algorithms for the acceleration and angular velocity signals with the force plate was evaluated by Bland Altman analysis and linear mixed model analysis. These analyses were performed for both hoof-on and hoof-off detection and for both algorithms separately. For the hoof-on detection, the angular velocity algorithm was the most accurate with an accuracy between 2.39 and 12.22 ms and a precision of around 13.80 ms, depending on gait and hoof. For hoof-off detection, the acceleration algorithm was the most accurate with an accuracy of 3.20 ms and precision of 6.39 ms, independent of gait and hoof. These algorithms look highly promising for gait classification purposes although the applicability of these algorithms should be investigated under different circumstances, such as different surfaces and different hoof trimming conditions.Bike share schemes are increasing in popularity. During 2013, New York City (NYC) launched a bike sharing scheme, Citi Bike, to provide users with the ability to cycle around the city. How these bikes are used is useful for understanding sustainability and infrastructure needs in urban cities. In this study spatial analysis methods were used to analyze space and time usage patterns during a 12 month period. We found that bike usage varied over the months with the lowest number of rentals occurring during the winter months (N = 200,000) and highest during the summer months (N > 1 million trips). Bike use varied spatially and temporally by user type (customer vs subscriber) and gender (male vs female). Over 100,000 unique routes (origin-destinations) were identified with the top five most popular routes starting and ending at the same station location. When comparison of existing bike distributions were made with bike use patterns, supply gaps were identified. The findings are useful for enhancing infrastructure needs and provide a basis for future comparisons to be made as the system changes over time.Radiocarbon dating is rarely applied in Classical and Post-Classical periods in the Eastern Mediterranean, as it is not considered precise enough to solve specific chronological questions, often causing the attribution of historic monuments to be based on circumstantial evidence. This research, applied in Jerusalem, presents a novel approach to solve this problem. Integrating fieldwork, stratigraphy, and microarchaeology analyses with intense radiocarbon dating of charred remains in building materials beneath Wilson's Arch, we absolutely dated monumental structures to very narrow windows of time-even to specific rulers. Wilson's Arch was initiated by Herod the Great and enlarged during the Roman Procurators, such as Pontius Pilatus, in a range of 70 years, rather than 700 years, as previously discussed by scholars. The theater-like structure is dated to the days of Emperor Hadrian and left unfinished before 132-136 AD. SecinH3 Through this approach, it is possible to solve archaeological riddles in intensely urban environments in the historical periods.The newly discovered plattenkalk (platy limestone) locality of Wattendorf, southern Germany, has yielded a diverse fauna and flora dated to the base of the late Kimmeridgian, Late Jurassic. We here describe three fossil turtle specimens that were recovered during systematic excavations of a distinct, 15 cm thick package of plattenkalks by the Naturkunde-Museum Bamberg. The first specimen is a large shell of Achelonia formosa, a taxon that is based on material from the late Kimmeridgian of Cerin, France. The new specimen suggests synonymy with Enaliochelys chelonia from the late Kimmeridgian of the United Kingdom. The second is a near-complete skeleton of the enigmatic Tropidemys seebachi, which was previously known only from the late Kimmeridgian of Hannover, northern Germany. The third specimen is a partial skeleton of Eurysternum wagleri, which had previously been known only from the early Tithonian of the Solnhofen region, southern Germany. In addition to new anatomical insights, the new material provides further evidence for spatial links during the late Kimmeridgian between northern and southern Germany, France, and the United Kingdom and temporal link from the late Kimmeridgian to the early Tithonian. The prevalence of partial, though articulated specimens is suggestive of predation by an unknown large marine reptile.It is hypothesized that same driver gene mutations should be present in both oral leukoplakia and cancer tissues. So, we attempted to find out mutations at one of the driver genes, CASP8, in cancer and adjacent leukoplakia tissues. Patients (n = 27), affected by both of cancer and adjacent leukoplakia, were recruited for the study. Blood and tissue DNA samples were used to identify somatic mutations at CASP8 by next generation sequencing method. In total, 56% (15 out of 27) cancer and 30% (8 out of 27) leukoplakia tissues had CASP8 somatic mutations. In 8 patients, both cancer and adjacent leukoplakia tissues, located within 2-5 cm of tumor sites, had identical somatic mutations. But, in 7 patients, cancer samples had somatic mutations but none of the leukoplakia tissues, located beyond 5cm of tumor sites, had somatic mutations. Mutated allele frequencies at CASP8 were found to be more in cancer compared to adjacent leukoplakia tissues. This study provides mutational evidence that oral cancer might have progressed from previously grown leukoplakia lesion. Leukoplakia tissues, located beyond 5cm of cancer sites, were free from mutation. The study implies that CASP8 mutation could be one of the signatures for some of the leukoplakia to progress to oral cancer.Walking stability is achieved by adjusting the medio-lateral and anterior-posterior dimensions of the base of support (step length and step width, respectively) to contain an extrapolated center of mass. We aimed to calculate total recovery time after different types of perturbations during walking, and use it to compare young and older adults following different types of perturbations. Walking trials were performed in 12 young (age 26.92 ± 3.40 years) and 12 older (age 66.83 ± 1.60 years) adults. Perturbations were introduced at different phases of the gait cycle, on both legs and in anterior-posterior or medio-lateral directions, in random order. A novel algorithm was developed to determine total recovery time values for regaining stable step length and step width parameters following the different perturbations, and compared between the two participant groups under low and high cognitive load conditions, using principal component analysis (PCA). We analyzed 829 perturbations each for step length and step width. The algorithm successfully estimated total recovery time in 91.07% of the runs. PCA and statistical comparisons showed significant differences in step length and step width recovery times between anterior-posterior and medio-lateral perturbations, but no age-related differences. Initial analyses demonstrated the feasibility of comparisons based on total recovery time calculated using our algorithm.Tenure-track faculty members in the United States are evaluated on their performance in both research and teaching. In spite of accusations of bias and invalidity, student evaluations of teaching have dominated teaching evaluation at U.S. universities. However, studies on the topic have tended to be limited to particular institutional and disciplinary contexts. Moreover, in spite of the idealistic assumption that research and teaching are mutually beneficial, few studies have examined the link between research performance and student evaluations of teaching. In this study, we conduct a large scale exploratory analysis of the factors associated with student evaluations of teachers, controlling for heterogeneous institutional and disciplinary contexts. We source public student evaluations of teaching from RateMyProfessor.com and information regarding career and contemporary research performance indicators from the company Academic Analytics. The factors most associated with higher student ratings were the attractiveness of the faculty and the student's interest in the class; the factors most associated with lower student ratings were course difficulty and whether student comments mentioned an accent or a teaching assistant.