Bioclimatic, ecological, and phenotypic intermediacy and high genetic admixture in a natural hybrid of octoploid strawberries.

Premise Of The Study: Hybrid zones provide "natural laboratories" for understanding the processes of selection, reinforcement, and speciation. We sought to gain insight into the degree of introgression and the extent of ecological-phenotypic intermediacy in the natural hybrid strawberry, Fragaria × ananassa subsp. cuneifolia.

Third party involvement in barroom conflicts.

This study examines the effect of situational variables on whether third parties intervene in conflicts in barroom settings, and whether they are aggressive or not when they intervene. Based on research on bystander intervention in emergencies, we hypothesized that third parties would be most likely to become involved in incidents with features that convey greater danger of serious harm. The situational variables indicative of danger were severity of aggression, whether the aggression was one-sided or mutual, gender, and level of intoxication of the initial participants in the conflict.

Low diversity in the mitogenome of sperm whales revealed by next-generation sequencing.

Large population sizes and global distributions generally associate with high mitochondrial DNA control region (CR) diversity. The sperm whale (Physeter macrocephalus) is an exception, showing low CR diversity relative to other cetaceans; however, diversity levels throughout the remainder of the sperm whale mitogenome are unknown. We sequenced 20 mitogenomes from 17 sperm whales representative of worldwide diversity using Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) technologies (Illumina GAIIx, Roche 454 GS Junior).

Developing concurrency messages for the black community in Seattle, Washington.

In the United States, Blacks are disproportionately impacted by HIV/AIDS. Sexual networks and concurrent relationships have emerged as important contributors to the heterosexual transmission of HIV. To date, Africa is the only continent where an understanding of the impact of sexual concurrency has been conveyed in HIV prevention messaging.

Determination of time to onset and rate of action of insulin products: importance and new approaches.

One important aspect of insulin drug development is to ascertain that short-acting insulins mimic the normal mealtime insulin release in healthy subjects. Therefore, it is important to identify metrics that allow identification of unique characteristics of insulin products based on pharmacokinetic (PK) (time-concentration) or glucodynamic (time course of action) profiles. Current development programs use metrics such as "onset of action" to characterize insulin products, in addition to peak and area under the curve parameters for PK and glucodynamic profiles.

Improving low-wage, midsized employers' health promotion practices: a randomized controlled trial.

Background: The Guide to Community Preventive Services (Community Guide) offers evidence-based intervention strategies to prevent chronic disease. The American Cancer Society (ACS) and the University of Washington Health Promotion Research Center co-developed ACS Workplace Solutions (WPS) to improve workplaces' implementation of Community Guide strategies.

Purpose: To test the effectiveness of WPS for midsized employers in low-wage industries.

Separating the wheat from the chaff: mitigating the effects of noise in a plastome phylogenomic data set from Pinus L. (Pinaceae).

Background: Through next-generation sequencing, the amount of sequence data potentially available for phylogenetic analyses has increased exponentially in recent years. Simultaneously, the risk of incorporating 'noisy' data with misleading phylogenetic signal has also increased, and may disproportionately influence the topology of weakly supported nodes and lineages featuring rapid radiations and/or elevated rates of evolution.

Results: We investigated the influence of phylogenetic noise in large data sets by applying two fundamental strategies, variable site removal and long-branch exclusion, to the phylogenetic analysis of a full plastome alignment of 107 species of Pinus and six Pinaceae outgroups.

Toward Quantitative Coarse-Grained Models of Lipids with Fluids Density Functional Theory.

We describe methods to determine optimal coarse-grained models of lipid bilayers for use in fluids density functional theory (fluids-DFT) calculations. Both coarse-grained lipid architecture and optimal parametrizations of the models based on experimental measures are discussed in the context of dipalmitoylphosphatidylcholine (DPPC) lipid bilayers in water. The calculations are based on a combination of the modified-iSAFT theory for bonded systems and an accurate fundamental measures theory (FMT) for hard sphere reference fluids.

Targeted enrichment strategies for next-generation plant biology.

Premise Of The Study: The dramatic advances offered by modern DNA sequencers continue to redefine the limits of what can be accomplished in comparative plant biology. Even with recent achievements, however, plant genomes present obstacles that can make it difficult to execute large-scale population and phylogenetic studies on next-generation sequencing platforms. Factors like large genome size, extensive variation in the proportion of organellar DNA in total DNA, polyploidy, and gene number/redundancy contribute to these challenges, and they demand flexible targeted enrichment strategies to achieve the desired goals.

Navigating the tip of the genomic iceberg: Next-generation sequencing for plant systematics.

Premise Of The Study: Just as Sanger sequencing did more than 20 years ago, next-generation sequencing (NGS) is poised to revolutionize plant systematics. By combining multiplexing approaches with NGS throughput, systematists may no longer need to choose between more taxa or more characters. Here we describe a genome skimming (shallow sequencing) approach for plant systematics.

Reduced fronto-cerebellar functional connectivity in chronic alcoholic patients.

Background: Alcohol dependence is associated with neurocognitive deficits related to neuropathological changes in structure, metabolism, and function of the brain. Impairments of motor functioning in alcoholics have been attributed to well-characterized neuropathological brain abnormalities in cerebellum.

Methods: Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we studied in vivo the functional connectivity between cerebellar and cortical brain regions.

What opportunities are available for resident involvement in national orthopedic and subspecialty societies?

As physician involvement in health policy grows, there will be an increasing need for future leaders in orthopedics. Interested orthopedic residents may be unaware of opportunities for leadership involvement in professional and subspecialty organizations. This article investigates whether national and subspecialty organizations offer membership to residents, allow residents to participate in committees, and provide opportunities for scholarly activity and mentorship.

Paleoamerican diet, migration and morphology in Brazil: archaeological complexity of the earliest Americans.

During the early Holocene two main paleoamerican cultures thrived in Brazil: the Tradição Nordeste in the semi-desertic Sertão and the Tradição Itaparica in the high plains of the Planalto Central. Here we report on paleodietary singals of a Paleoamerican found in a third Brazilian ecological setting--a riverine shellmound, or sambaqui, located in the Atlantic forest. Most sambaquis are found along the coast.

Use of the chloroplast gene ycf1 for the genetic differentiation of pine nuts obtained from consumers experiencing dysgeusia.

Pine nuts are a part of traditional cooking in many parts of the world and have seen a significant increase in availability/use in the United States over the past 10 years. The U.S.

Vibrational and electronic spectra of 9,10-dihydrobenzo(a)pyren-7(8H)-one and 7,8,9,10-tetrahydrobenzo(a)pyrene: an experimental and computational study.

The molecular geometries, vibrational and UV-vis spectra of 9,10-dihydrobenzo(a)pyrene-7(8H)-one (9,10-H(2)BaP) and 7,8,9,10-tetrahydrobenzo(a)pyrene (7,8,9,10-H(4)BaP) were investigated using density functional theory (DFT-B3LYP), with the triple-ζ 6-311+G(d,p) and Dunning's cc-pVTZ basis sets. From the comparison of infrared experimental and calculated infrared, and Raman data comprehensive assignments are made. The calculated infrared frequencies below 1800 cm(-1) are in good agreement with experimental data, with an average deviation of <4 cm(-1).

Newly developed primers for complete ycf1 amplification in Pinus (Pinaceae) chloroplasts with possible family-wide utility.

Premise Of The Study: Primers were designed to amplify the highly variable locus ycf1 from all 11 subsections of Pinus to facilitate plastome assemblies based on short sequence reads as well as future phylogenetic and population genetic analyses.

Methods And Results: Primer design was based on alignment of 33 Pinus and four Pinaceae plastomes with mostly incomplete ycf1 sequences. Sanger sequencing of 12 Pinus accessions resulted in open reading frames ranging in size from 5.

Building a model: developing genomic resources for common milkweed (Asclepias syriaca) with low coverage genome sequencing.

Background: Milkweeds (Asclepias L.) have been extensively investigated in diverse areas of evolutionary biology and ecology; however, there are few genetic resources available to facilitate and compliment these studies. This study explored how low coverage genome sequencing of the common milkweed (Asclepias syriaca L.

Carbon flux rerouting during Mycobacterium tuberculosis growth arrest.

A hallmark of the Mycobacterium tuberculosis life cycle is the pathogen's ability to switch between replicative and non-replicative states in response to host immunity. Transcriptional profiling by qPCR of ∼ 50 M. tuberculosis genes involved in central and lipid metabolism revealed a re-routing of carbon flow associated with bacterial growth arrest during mouse lung infection.

Retrieved highly crosslinked UHMWPE acetabular liners have similar wear damage as conventional UHMWPE.

Background: Highly crosslinked UHMWPE is associated with increased wear resistance in hip simulator and clinical studies. Laboratory and case studies, however, have described rim fracture in crosslinked acetabular liners. Controversy exists, therefore, on the relative merits of crosslinked liners over conventional liners in terms of wear performance versus resistance to fatigue cracking.

2-Methoxyestradiol: new perspectives in colon carcinoma treatment.

Colon carcinoma represents a major problem in oncology, since this type of cancer responds poorly to conventional chemotherapy. Many groups are actively involved in the search of new experimental strategies to bypass this problem. We investigated the effects of 2-methoxyestradiol (2-ME), which derives from the NADPH-dependent cytochrome P450 metabolism of 17β-estradiol.

Recruitment of additional brain regions to accomplish simple motor tasks in chronic alcohol-dependent patients.

Background: Chronic alcohol-dependent patients (ALC) exhibit neurocognitive impairments attributed to alcohol-induced fronto-cerebellar damage. Deficits are typically found in complex task performance, whereas simple tasks may not be significantly compromised, perhaps because of little understood compensatory changes.

Methods: We compared finger tapping with either hand at externally paced (EP) or maximal self-paced (SP) rates and concomitant brain activation in ten pairs of right-hand dominant, age-, and gender-matched, severe, uncomplicated ALC and normal controls (NC) using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).

Finding a (pine) needle in a haystack: chloroplast genome sequence divergence in rare and widespread pines.

Critical to conservation efforts and other investigations at low taxonomic levels, DNA sequence data offer important insights into the distinctiveness, biogeographic partitioning and evolutionary histories of species. The resolving power of DNA sequences is often limited by insufficient variability at the intraspecific level. This is particularly true of studies involving plant organelles, as the conservative mutation rate of chloroplasts and mitochondria makes it difficult to detect polymorphisms necessary to track genealogical relationships among individuals, populations and closely related taxa, through space and time.

Shifts in propylthiouracil and methimazole prescribing practices: antithyroid drug use in the United States from 1991 to 2008.

Context: The thionamide antithyroid drugs methimazole and propylthiouracil are the mainstay of pharmacologic therapy for Graves' disease. However, little is known about the rate of use of these drugs and the prescribing practices of physicians treating hyperthyroidism.

Objective: The objective of the study was to examine the frequency of methimazole and propylthiouracil use from years 1991 to 2008.

Impact of cardiovascular outcomes on the development and approval of medications for the treatment of diabetes mellitus.

All medications currently approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the treatment of type 2 diabetes mellitus are indicated to improve glycemic control. Since 1995, FDA has used HbA1c as the primary basis for approval of these therapies because a reduction in blood glucose lessens the symptoms of hyperglycemia and lowering of HbA1c has been shown to reduce the risk for some of the chronic complications of diabetes. Despite evidence of clinical benefit with therapies that reduce HbA1c, concerns have been raised that some diabetes medications may increase cardiovascular risk in a patient population that is already vulnerable to cardiovascular disease.