Budget impact model: epigenetic assay can help avoid unnecessary repeated prostate biopsies and reduce healthcare spending.

Background: The diagnosis of prostate cancer involves invasive, sometimes harmful, procedures that can entail negative quality-of-life implications to individuals and high additional costs to the US healthcare system when these procedures result in retesting and iatrogenic harms. It is estimated that $1.86 billion is spent annually on prostate-specific antigen (PSA) testing alone.

Intraseasonal variation in reproductive effort: young males finish last.

Age-dependent reproductive timing has been observed in females of a number of species; older females often breed earlier in the season and experience higher reproductive success as a result. However, to date, evidence for within-season variation in reproductive effort (RE) for males has been relatively weak. Males are expected to time RE in light of intraseasonal variations in the availability of receptive females and competition with other males.

Prey selection by an apex predator: the importance of sampling uncertainty.

The impact of predation on prey populations has long been a focus of ecologists, but a firm understanding of the factors influencing prey selection, a key predictor of that impact, remains elusive. High levels of variability observed in prey selection may reflect true differences in the ecology of different communities but might also reflect a failure to deal adequately with uncertainties in the underlying data. Indeed, our review showed that less than 10% of studies of European wolf predation accounted for sampling uncertainty.

The ACTIVE cognitive training interventions and trajectories of performance among older adults.

Objectives: Salthouse illustrated that among Advanced Cognitive Training for Independent and Vital Elderly (ACTIVE) participants, cognitive change accelerated following training. Our goal was to determine if this finding persists net of practice, training, and loss of training gains effects.

Methods: We evaluated change over 5 years following cognitive training among older adults (N = 1,659, age 65 to 94).

Autoantibodies produced at the site of tissue damage provide evidence of humoral autoimmunity in inclusion body myositis.

Inclusion body myositis (IBM) belongs to a group of muscle diseases known as the inflammatory myopathies. The presence of antibody-secreting plasma cells in IBM muscle implicates the humoral immune response in this disease. However, whether the humoral immune response actively contributes to IBM pathology has not been established.

Leadership success and the Uniformed Services University: perspectives of flag officer alumni.

Unlabelled: The Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USU) houses the nation's only federal medical school, the F. Edward Hébert School of Medicine. A key aspect of the curriculum at USU is leadership education as graduates go on to serve the Department of Defense through a variety of senior positions in the military.

Dynamic associations of change in physical activity and change in cognitive function: coordinated analyses of four longitudinal studies.

The present study used a coordinated analyses approach to examine the association of physical activity and cognitive change in four longitudinal studies. A series of multilevel growth models with physical activity included both as a fixed (between-person) and time-varying (within-person) predictor of four domains of cognitive function (reasoning, memory, fluency, and semantic knowledge) was used. Baseline physical activity predicted fluency, reasoning and memory in two studies.

Cognitively Stimulating Activities: Effects on Cognition across Four Studies with up to 21 Years of Longitudinal Data.

Engagement in cognitively stimulating activities has been considered to maintain or strengthen cognitive skills, thereby minimizing age-related cognitive decline. While the idea that there may be a modifiable behavior that could lower risk for cognitive decline is appealing and potentially empowering for older adults, research findings have not consistently supported the beneficial effects of engaging in cognitively stimulating tasks. Using observational studies of naturalistic cognitive activities, we report a series of mixed effects models that include baseline and change in cognitive activity predicting cognitive outcomes over up to 21 years in four longitudinal studies of aging.

Maturation of the Gag core decreases the stability of retroviral lipid membranes.

To better understand how detergents disrupt enveloped viruses, we monitored the biophysical stability of murine leukemia virus (MLV) virus-like particles (VLPs) against a panel of commonly used detergents using real-time biosensor measurements. Although exposure to many detergents, such as Triton X-100 and Empigen, results in lysis of VLP membranes, VLPs appeared resistant to complete membrane lysis by a significant number of detergents, including Tween 20, Tween 80, Lubrol, and Saponin. VLPs maintained their structural integrity after exposure to Tween 20 at concentrations up to 500-fold above its CMC.

Social activity and cognitive functioning over time: a coordinated analysis of four longitudinal studies.

Social activity is typically viewed as part of an engaged lifestyle that may help mitigate the deleterious effects of advanced age on cognitive function. As such, social activity has been examined in relation to cognitive abilities later in life. However, longitudinal evidence for this hypothesis thus far remains inconclusive.

Alcohol effects on cognitive change in middle-aged and older adults.

Objectives: This study examines cognitive outcomes for alcohol drinking status over time, across cognitive ability and age groups.

Methods: Data (1998-2005) from n = 571 Seattle Longitudinal Study participants aged 45+years (middle-aged: 45-64, young-old: 65-75, old-old: 75+) were analyzed to examine the alcohol drinking status effect (e.g.

Permanent genetic resources added to molecular ecology resources database 1 April 2012 - 31 May 2012.

This article documents the addition of 123 microsatellite marker loci to the Molecular Ecology Resources Database. Loci were developed for the following species: Brenthis ino, Cichla orinocensis, Cichla temensis, Epinephelus striatus, Gobio gobio, Liocarcinus depurator, Macrolophus pygmaeus, Monilinia vaccinii-corymbosi, Pelochelys cantorii, Philotrypesis josephi, Romanogobio vladykovi, Takydromus luyeanus and Takydromus viridipunctatus. These loci were cross-tested on the following species: Cichla intermedia, Cichla ocellaris, Cichla pinima, Epinephelus acanthistius, Gobio carpathicus, Gobio obtusirostris, Gobio sp.

BioJava: an open-source framework for bioinformatics in 2012.

Unlabelled: BioJava is an open-source project for processing of biological data in the Java programming language. We have recently released a new version (3.0.

Simultaneous delimitation of species and quantification of interspecific hybridization in Amazonian peacock cichlids (genus cichla) using multi-locus data.

Background: Introgression likely plays a significant role in evolution, but understanding the extent and consequences of this process requires a clear identification of species boundaries in each focal group. The delimitation of species, however, is a contentious endeavor. This is true not only because of the inadequacy of current tools to identify species lineages, but also because of the inherent ambiguity between natural populations and species paradigms.

HDX workbench: software for the analysis of H/D exchange MS data.

Hydrogen/deuterium exchange mass spectrometry (HDX-MS) is an established method for the interrogation of protein conformation and dynamics. While the data analysis challenge of HDX-MS has been addressed by a number of software packages, new computational tools are needed to keep pace with the improved methods and throughput of this technique. To address these needs, we report an integrated desktop program titled HDX Workbench, which facilitates automation, management, visualization, and statistical cross-comparison of large HDX data sets.

Species-level phylogeny of 'Satan's perches' based on discordant gene trees (Teleostei: Cichlidae: Satanoperca Günther 1862).

Neotropical rivers are home to the largest assemblage of freshwater fishes, but little is known about the phylogeny of these fishes at the species level using multi-locus molecular markers. Here, we present a phylogeny for all known species of the genus Satanoperca, a widespread group of Neotropical cichlid fishes, based on analysis of six unlinked genetic loci. To test nominal and proposed species limits for this group, we surveyed mtDNA sequence variation among 320 individuals representing all know species.

Sharing programming resources between Bio* projects through remote procedure call and native call stack strategies.

Open-source software (OSS) encourages computer programmers to reuse software components written by others. In evolutionary bioinformatics, OSS comes in a broad range of programming languages, including C/C++, Perl, Python, Ruby, Java, and R. To avoid writing the same functionality multiple times for different languages, it is possible to share components by bridging computer languages and Bio* projects, such as BioPerl, Biopython, BioRuby, BioJava, and R/Bioconductor.

Comparison between three different endurance tests in professional soccer players.

The aims of this study were (a) to assess and correlate interval shuttle run test (ISRT) performance, maximum oxygen uptake (V[Combining Dot Above]O(2)max), running economy (RE), running velocity at the first rise in blood lactate concentrations above baseline (vLT) and running velocity at 4 mmol·L(-1) blood lactate concentration (v4) in professional soccer players and (b) to investigate whether a correlation exists between the respective results of time to exhaustion (T(lim)) from continuous and intermittent endurance tests, respectively. Eleven male professional field soccer players (mean ± SD: age 23.8 ± 3.

The transitional heterojunction behavior of PbS/ZnO colloidal quantum dot solar cells.

The nature of charge separation at the heterojunction interface of solution processed lead sulphide-zinc oxide colloidal quantum dot solar cells is investigated using impedance spectroscopy and external quantum efficiency measurements to examine the effect of varying the zinc oxide doping density. Without doping, the device behaves excitonically with no depletion region in the PbS layer such that only charge carriers generated within a diffusion length of the PbS/ZnO interface have a good probability of being harvested. After the ZnO is photodoped such that the doping density is near or greater than that of the PbS, a significant portion of the depletion region is found to lie within the PbS layer increasing charge extraction (p-n operation).

Triheptanoin in acute mouse seizure models.

Triheptanoin, the triglyceride of heptanoate, is used to treat certain hereditary metabolic diseases in USA because of its anaplerotic potential. In two chronic mouse seizure models this clear tasteless oil was found to be reproducibly anticonvulsant. Here we investigated the effects of triheptanoin feeding in C3H and CD1 mice using standard acute seizure models.

Impact of using the Model of Human Occupation: a survey of occupational therapy mental health practitioners' perceptions.

Aim: While little is known about how occupational therapists perceive the use of occupation-focused theory in their practice, evidence indicates that it has been called for in the profession. To date, the Model of Human Occupation (MOHO) is the most widely used model internationally. The aim of this study is to document practitioners' perceptions of how using MOHO impacted on their practice.

Radiopaque drug-eluting beads for transcatheter embolotherapy: experimental study of drug penetration and coverage in swine.

Purpose: To determine local doxorubicin levels surrounding radiopaque drug-eluting beads (DEBs) in normal swine liver and kidney following transcatheter arterial chemoembolization. The influence of bead size (70-150 μm or 100-300 μm) was compared with regard to tissue penetration and spatial distribution of the bead, as well as eventual drug coverage (ie, amount of tissue exposed to drug).

Materials And Methods: Radiopaque DEBs were synthesized by suspension polymerization followed by incorporation of iodized oil and doxorubicin.