Age-related changes in porosity and mineralization and in-service damage accumulation.

It has been proposed that bone damageability (i.e. bone's susceptibility to formation of damage) increases with the elevation or suppression of bone turnover.

Reading achievement growth in children with language impairments.

Purpose: This study examined the reading achievement growth of children with language impairments (LI) across the school grades. The authors sought to determine whether children with LI demonstrate a delayed, deficit, or cumulative pattern of reading achievement growth when compared with children with typical language (TL).

Method: A group of 225 children with LI and a group of 379 children with TL were identified in kindergarten and were administered multiple measures of word recognition and reading comprehension in 2nd, 4th, 8th, and 10th grades.

Reproducibility of energy intake, gastric emptying, blood glucose, plasma insulin and cholecystokinin responses in healthy young males.

Gastric emptying, as well as intragastric meal distribution, and gastrointestinal hormones, including cholecystokinin (CCK), play an important role in appetite regulation. The evaluation of gastrointestinal factors regulating food intake is commonly performed in healthy, lean, young male participants. It has, however, been suggested that there is a marked interindividual variability in the effects of nutrient 'preloads' on energy intake in this group.

Temperature-dependent costs of parasitism and maintenance of polymorphism under genotype-by-environment interactions.

The maintenance of genetic variation for infection-related traits is often attributed to coevolution between hosts and parasites, but it can also be maintained by environmental variation if the relative fitness of different genotypes changes with environmental variation. To gain insight into how infection-related traits are sensitive to environmental variation, we exposed a single host genotype of the freshwater crustacean Daphnia magna to four parasite isolates (which we assume to represent different genotypes) of its naturally co-occurring parasite Pasteuria ramosa at 15, 20 and 25 degrees C. We found that the cost to the host of becoming infected varied with temperature, but the magnitude of this cost did not depend on the parasite isolate.

Comparative effects of intraduodenal infusions of lauric and oleic acids on antropyloroduodenal motility, plasma cholecystokinin and peptide YY, appetite, and energy intake in healthy men.

Background: The regulation of gastrointestinal function and energy intake by fatty acids depends on their chain length. Animal studies suggest that lauric acid (C12) may have more potent suppressive effects on energy intake than does oleic acid (C18).

Objective: We compared the effects of equicaloric loads of C12 and C18 on antropyloroduodenal (APD) motility, plasma concentrations of cholecystokinin (CCK) and peptide YY (PYY), appetite, and energy intake.

An animal model to evaluate the function and regulation of the adaptively evolving stress protein SEP53 in oesophageal bile damage responses.

Squamous epithelium in mammals has evolved an atypical stress response involving down-regulation of the classic HSP70 protein and induction of sets of proteins including one named SEP53. This atypical stress response might be due to the unusual environmental pressures placed on squamous tissue. In fact, SEP53 plays a role as an anti-apoptotic factor in response to DNA damage induced by deoxycholic acid stresses implicated in oesophageal reflux disease.

The Dscam homologue of the crustacean Daphnia is diversified by alternative splicing like in insects.

In insects, the homologue of the Down syndrome cell adhesion molecule (Dscam) is a unique case of a single-locus gene whose expression has extensive somatic diversification in both the nervous and immune systems. How this situation evolved is best understood through comparative studies. We describe structural, expression, and evolutionary aspects of a Dscam homolog in 2 species of the crustacean Daphnia.

Hormone profiles of mares affected by the mare reproductive loss syndrome.

While searching for the cause of the Mare Reproductive Loss syndrome (MRLS), we postulated that 1 of 3 tissues in 40-120 D pregnant mares was the likely primary target of the noxious factor that caused early abortions: The corpora lutea (CL), the endometrium or the fetus and/or its membranes. At this stage of gestation, progesterone (P4) is solely produced by luteal tissue, eCG by endometrial cups in the endometrium and oestrogens by the feto-placental unit. We determined whether concentrations of P4, eCG and/or total conjugated oestrogens (CE) would indicate which tissue was targeted during the MRLS.

AAOMPT clinical guidelines: A model for standardizing manipulation terminology in physical therapy practice.

We propose describing a manipulative technique using 6 characteristics: Rate of force application: Describe the rate at which the force was applied. Location in range of available movement: Describe whether motion was intended to occur only at the beginning of the available range of movement, towards the middle of the available range of movement, or at the end point of the available range of movement. Direction of force: Describe the direction in which the therapist imparts the force.

Internal dosimetry verification and validation database.

Simulated-data internal dosimetry cases for use in intercomparison exercises or as a software verification and validation tool have been published on the internet (www.lanl.gov/bayesian/software Bayesian software package II).

Pharmacological intervention to the inflammatory response from decompression sickness in rats.

Introduction: Venous bubbles resulting from experimental decompression sickness (DCS) may cause an inflammatory-like reaction with activation of granulocytes and release of metabolites from arachidonic acid. The release of cyclooxygenase and lipoxygenase pathway mediated metabolites, namely thromboxane B2 (TXB2) and leukotriene E4 (LTE4) likely contribute to this overall DCS response. In the present study we examined the effect on DCS outcome of several agents affecting both pathways.

Bayesian hypothesis testing-use in interpretation of measurements.

Bayesian hypothesis testing may be used to qualitatively interpret a dataset as indicating something "detected" or not. Hypothesis testing is shown to be equivalent to testing the posterior distribution for positive true amounts by redefining the prior to be a mixture of the original prior and a delta-function component at 0 representing the null hypothesis that nothing is truly present. The hypothesis-testing interpretation of the data is based on the posterior probability of the usual modeling hypothesis relative to the null hypothesis.

Comparison of dose estimation from occupational exposure to 239Pu using different modelling approaches.

Several approaches are available for bioassay interpretation when assigning Pu doses to Mayak workers. First, a conventional approach is to apply ICRP models per se. An alternative method involves individualised fitting of bioassay data using Bayesian statistical methods.

Parasite variation and the evolution of virulence in a Daphnia-microparasite system.

Understanding genetic relationships amongst the life-history traits of parasites is crucial for testing hypotheses on the evolution of virulence. This study therefore examined variation between parasite isolates (the bacterium Pasteuria ramosa) from the crustacean Daphnia magna. From a single wild-caught infected host we obtained 2 P.

A high-fat diet raises fasting plasma CCK but does not affect upper gut motility, PYY, and ghrelin, or energy intake during CCK-8 infusion in lean men.

There is evidence from studies in animals that the effects of both fat and CCK on gastrointestinal function and energy intake are attenuated by consumption of a high-fat diet. In humans, the effects of exogenous CCK-8 on antropyloroduodenal motility, plasma CCK, peptide YY (PYY), and ghrelin concentrations, appetite, and energy intake are attenuated by a high-fat diet. Ten healthy lean males consumed isocaloric diets (~15,400 kJ per day), containing either 44% (high-fat, HF) or 9% (low-fat, LF) fat, for 21 days in single-blind, randomized, cross-over fashion.

Load-dependent effects of duodenal lipid on antropyloroduodenal motility, plasma CCK and PYY, and energy intake in healthy men.

Both load and duration of small intestinal lipid infusion affect antropyloroduodenal motility and CCK and peptide YY (PYY) release at loads comparable to and higher than the normal gastric emptying rate. We determined 1) the effects of intraduodenal lipid loads well below the mean rate of gastric emptying on, and 2) the relationships between antropyloroduodenal motility, CCK, PYY, appetite, and energy intake. Sixteen healthy males were studied on four occasions in double-blind, randomized fashion.

Adaptive evolution of a stress response protein.

Background: Some cancers are mediated by an interplay between tissue damage, pathogens and localised innate immune responses, but the mechanisms that underlie these linkages are only beginning to be unravelled.

Methods And Principal Findings: Here we identify a strong signature of adaptive evolution on the DNA sequence of the mammalian stress response gene SEP53, a member of the epidermal differentiation complex fused-gene family known for its role in suppressing cancers. The SEP53 gene appears to have been subject to adaptive evolution of a type that is commonly (though not exclusively) associated with coevolutionary arms races.

Internal dose assessment data management system for a large population of Pu workers.

This paper describes the design and implementation of the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) dose assessment (DA) data system. Dose calculations for the most important radionuclides at LANL, namely plutonium, americium, uranium and tritium, are performed through the Microsoft Access DA database. DA includes specially developed forms and macros that perform a variety of tasks, such as retrieving bioassay data, launching the FORTRAN internal dosimetry applications and displaying dose results in the form of text summaries and plots.

Evidence for a cost of immunity when the crustacean Daphnia magna is exposed to the bacterial pathogen Pasteuria ramosa.

The deployment of the immune system has the obvious potential to ameliorate infection outcomes, but immune responses can also harm hosts by either damaging host tissues or monopolizing resources, leading to enhanced mortality. To gain insight into such a 'cost of immunity' when the crustacean Daphnia magna is challenged with the bacterium Pasteuria ramosa, we measured survivorship among hosts that resisted infection following exposure to various strains and doses of the parasite. In the first of two experiments, these exposures were: single exposures with relatively non-aggressive strains, double exposures with non-aggressive strains, and exposure to aggressive strains.

Modulation by high-fat diets of gastrointestinal function and hormones associated with the regulation of energy intake: implications for the pathophysiology of obesity.

The presence of fat in the small intestine slows gastric emptying, stimulates the release of many gastrointestinal hormones, and suppresses appetite and energy intake as a result of the digestion of fats into free fatty acids; the effects of free fatty acids are, in turn, dependent on their chain length. Given these effects of fat, it is paradoxical that high dietary fat intakes have been linked to increased energy intake and body weight and are considered to play a significant role in the pathogenesis of obesity. However, increasing evidence indicates that a chronic increase in dietary fat is associated with an attenuation of the feedback signals arising from the small intestine induced by fat, with a consequent relative acceleration of gastric emptying, modulation of gastrointestinal hormone secretion, and attenuation of the suppression of energy intake.

Technical basis for using nose swab bioassay data for early internal dose assessment.

One of the challenges to the dose assessment team in response to an inhalation incident in the workplace is to provide the occupational physicians, operational radiation protection personnel and line managers with early estimates of radionuclide intakes so that appropriate consequence management and mitigation can be done. For radionuclides such as Pu, where in vivo counting is not adequately sensitive, other techniques such as the measurement of removable radionuclide from the nasal airway passages can be used. At Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), nose swabs of the ET1 region have been used routinely as a first response to airborne Pu releases in the workplace, as well as for other radionuclides.

Low back pain associated with internal snapping hip syndrome in a competitive cyclist.

Low back pain is a common complaint among cyclists. Here we present the case of a competitive master cyclist with low back pain and whose symptoms ultimately resolved when he was treated for internal snapping hip syndrome. Internal snapping hip syndrome is a painful lesion of the iliopsoas caused by snapping of the tendon over the iliopectineal eminence or anterior femoral head when the femur is extended from a flexed position.