Tech

Tropical Storm Vicente made landfall and weakened quickly to a tropical depression on Oct. 23. NOAA's GOES-West satellite captured a visible image of the fading, and now post-tropical storm raining on southwestern Mexico.

On Oct. 23 at 2 p.m. EDT (1800 UTC), NOAA's GOES-West satellite provided a visible image of Vicente. The storm appeared almost shapeless, but there was a larger concentration of thunderstorms near its circulation center. Vicente degenerated into a remnant low while moving inland over the Mexican state of Michoacan.

At 11 a.m. EDT (1500 UTC), the center of Post-Tropical Cyclone Vicente was located near latitude 18.4 degrees north, longitude 102.4 degrees west. The post-tropical cyclone is moving toward the north-northwest near 12 mph (19 kph) and this general motion is expected to continue today, bringing the system farther inland over Mexico. Maximum sustained winds have decreased to near 30 mph (45 kph) with higher gusts. The system is expected to dissipate later today. The estimated minimum central pressure is 1008 millibars.

Despite weakening, the NHC cautioned that Vicente's remnants are expected to produce 3 to 6 inches of rain with local amounts to 10 inches through today, Oct. 23, over portions of Guerrero, Michoacan, Colima, and Jalisco in Mexico. This rainfall could produce life-threatening flash flooding and landslides within mountainous terrain.

A KAIST research group presented a molecular sensor with a microbead format for the rapid in-situ detection of harmful molecules in biological fluids or foods in a collaboration with a Korea Institute of Materials Science (KIMS) research group. As the sensor is designed to selectively concentrate charged small molecules and amplify the Raman signal, no time-consuming pretreatment of samples is required.

Raman spectra are commonly known as molecular fingerprints. However, their low intensity has restricted their use in molecular detection, especially for low concentrations. Raman signals can be dramatically amplified by locating the molecules on the surface of metal nanostructures where the electromagnetic field is strongly localized. However, it is still challenging to use Raman signals for the detection of small molecules dissolved in complex biological fluids. Adhesive proteins irreversibly adsorb on the metal surface, which prevents the access of small target molecules onto the metal surface. Therefore, it was a prerequisite to purify the samples before analysis. However, it takes a long time and is expensive.

A joint team from Professor Shin-Hyun Kim's group in KAIST and Dr. Dong-Ho Kim's group in KIMS has addressed the issue by encapsulating agglomerates of gold nanoparticles using a hydrogel. The hydrogel has three-dimensional network structures so that molecules smaller than the mesh are selectively permeable. Therefore, the hydrogel can exclude relatively large proteins, while allowing the infusion of small molecules. Therefore, the surface of gold nanoparticles remains intact against proteins, which accommodates small molecules. In particular, the charged hydrogel enables the concentration of oppositely-charged small molecules. That is, the purification is autonomously done by the materials, removing the need for time-consuming pretreatment. As a result, the Raman signal of small molecules can be selectively amplified in the absence of adhesive proteins.

Using the molecular sensors, the research team demonstrated the direct detection of fipronil sulfone dissolved in an egg without sample pretreatment. Recently, insecticide-contaminated eggs have spread in Europe, South Korea, and other countries, threatening health and causing social chaos. Fipronil is one of the most commonly used insecticides for veterinary medicine to combat ?eas. The ?pronil is absorbed through the chicken skin, from which a metabolite, ?pronil sulfone, accumulates in the eggs. As the ?pronil sulfone carries partial negative charges, it can be concentrated using positively-charged microgels while excluding adhesive proteins in eggs, such as ovalbumin, ovoglobulin, and ovomucoid. Therefore, the Raman spectrum of fipronil sulfone can be directly measured. The limit of direct detection of fipronil sulfone dissolved in an egg was measured at 0.05 ppm.

Professor Kim said, "The molecular sensors can be used not only for the direct detection of harmful molecules in foods but also for residual drugs or biomarkers in blood or urine." Dr. Dong-Ho Kim said, "It will be possible to save time and cost as no sample treatment is required."

This research was led by graduate student Dong Jae Kim and an article entitled "SERS-Active Charged Microgels for Size- and Charge-Selective Molecular Analysis of Complex Biological Samples" was published on October 4, 2018 in Small and featured on the inside cover of the journal.

Many of the plants inhabiting northern mountains depend on the snow cover lingering until late spring or summer. Snow provides shelter for plants from winter-time extreme events but at the same time it shortens the length of growing season, which prevents the establishment of more southern plants. This is why the reduced snow cover may be an even larger threat to the Arctic plants than rising temperatures.

In a study published in the renowned scientific journal Nature Climate Change, researchers from the University of Helsinki and the Finnish Environment Institute analysed how projected changes in temperature and snow cover duration will affect the risk for extinction in northern flora. The results show that many plant species can benefit from a warmer climate, but the rapidly receding snow cover may irradicate a large part of the flora typical to northern mountains. Many of these species are already endangered, which makes their conservation an urgent challenge.

- Though the significance of snow is widely recognised, winter conditions are often ignored when studying the northern and mountainous areas, says Doctoral Student Pekka Niittynen from the University of Helsinki.

Help from remote sensing and satellite images

Gathering data in the winter used to be very difficult but remote sensing and satellite imaging have enabled detailed monitoring of the snow cover since the 1980s.

With the help of remote sensing and species distribution models, we showed that winter has an enormous significance for northern nature and the future of its organisms, says Niittynen.

Many Arctic and mountain plants are specialised to grow and flower during very short summer. If snow cover duration shortens and summers lengthen, more southern species benefit and can compete the Arctic species to extinction.

According to the researchers, the climate of northern areas is changing more rapidly than in the rest of the world, and these changes are especially forceful during winter. This makes the current results all the more significant.

Hard to predict the effect of warming on snow cover

- We are worried that we don't know exactly how the snow will change as the climate warms up. We can predict temperatures fairly accurately, but it's more difficult to predict rainfall. With snow, it is even more uncertain. In parts of Siberia, for example, the amount of snow may increase due to more precipitation during winter, but the snow cover duration in the Northern countries is predicted to become much shorter, Pekka Niittynen says.

- Our findings show that the future changes in northern species populations may be abrupt, giving rise to ecological surprises that are hard to predict, such as fast eradication of populations in some places and the invasion of flexible species into new places, says Senior Researcher Risto Heikkinen from the Finnish Environment Institute.

Glacier buttercup and other Arctic and mountain plants need thick snowpacks

- Many iconic species of the Arctic areas, such as the glacier buttercup, will decrease significantly thanks to the changing snow situation, says Miska Luoto, professor of natural geography, University of Helsinki.

Many of the species in the northern mountains only thrive in areas with snowdrifts.

- Decreasing drifts will increase the risk for extinction for plants like the snow buttercup, mountain sorrel, and mossplant.

The newly published research focuses on plants, moss, and lichen, but the results will probably apply to many other organism populations in the Arctic. Many of the Arctic species are threatened by extinction if the species dependent on snow have no suitable areas in the vicinity where the snow cover will stay on the ground long enough in future. The means of adapting to changes in the snow coverage in Arctic areas may be few in practice. This is why the mitigation actions against climate change are vital for the preservation of northern nature.

A new study provides a more comprehensive accounting of the greenhouse gas emissions from EU diets. It shows that meat and dairy products are responsible for the lion's share of greenhouse emissions from the EU diet.

The average EU citizen has a food footprint of 1070 kg of CO2 equivalent per year when emissions from production, land use change and international transportation are taken into account, according to a new study published in the journal Global Food Security. That's about the same amount as the emissions caused by around 6,000 km driven in one passenger vehicle according to the European Commission -- and about a third more compared to production-based estimates of greenhouse gas emissions from food.

The study found that meat and dairy account for more than 75% of the impact from EU diets. That's because meat and dairy production causes not only direct emissions from animal production, but also contributes to deforestation from cropland expansion for feed, which is often produced outside of the EU.

Perhaps surprisingly, the study found that emissions related to international trade were marginal in comparison to other sources.

"Tracking the greenhouse gas emissions of food production is extremely complicated, and we need better methods to do this. Our goal in the study was to better understand the climate impact of EU diets, and how international trade affects our accounting of these emissions," says University of Helsinki doctoral student Vilma Sandström, who developed the study as part of the IIASA Young Scientists Summer Program.

On the surface, food production appears to be only a small portion of Europe's climate footprint: food production in the EU accounts for less than 5% of global emissions from the agricultural and land use sector. But since Europeans also eat products imported from all over the world, accounting for EU food emissions based only on EU food production leaves out a major piece of the puzzle.

Tracing food origin in greenhouse gas accounting is complex, and many previous studies did not trace the imports or used estimates only for few products or regions. The new study aims to balance depth and scale, providing a systematic approach. The researchers compared a large number of countries, various agriculture products from different origins, and integrated various sources of greenhouse gases. The researchers say the method could also be applicable in other countries and regions.

The new study could be useful for decision makers aiming to more accurately quantify greenhouse gas emissions. In addition it highlights the need for better tracking of the impacts of imported food. In particular, this study highlights the impact of imported livestock feed.

The research also provides more information for climate-conscious consumers, reinforcing previous research showing that eating less meat and dairy is one of the key actions individuals can take to reduce their climate footprint.

"People tend to think that consuming locally will be the solution to climate change, but it turns out that the type of product we eat is much more important for the overall impact," says IIASA researcher Hugo Valin, a study coauthor and Sandström's YSSP advisor. "Europeans are culturally attached to meat and dairy product consumption. Reducing our climate footprint does not necessarily require stopping eating these food products, but rather diversifying further our diets to reduce the share of these."

PHILADELPHIA - Researchers have discovered a way to grow human stem cells destined to become mature sperm in an effort to provide fertility options later in life to males who are diagnosed with cancer and undergo chemotherapy and radiation as children. The findings are published today in Nature Communications from a team led by Sandra Ryeom, PhD, an associate professor of Cancer Biology in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and co-leader of the Tumor Biology Program at the Abramson Cancer Center.

"For years researchers have been trying to find ways to grow and expand these cells from testicular biopsies donated by young patients prior to their cancer treatment, but until now, there has not been a consistently successful approach," said Ryeom.

According to the American Cancer Society, about 1 in 530 young adults between the ages of 20 and 39 years is a survivor of childhood cancer. Cancer treatments leave a majority of boys infertile, as chemotherapy and radiation often kill sperm-producing stem cells (SSCs). While there are ways to preserve fertility for boys diagnosed with cancer after puberty, no such options exist for prepubescent boys.

"We have never had any fertility preservation options for prepubescent boys," said study co-author Jill Ginsberg, MD, a pediatric oncologist and director of the Cancer Survivorship Program at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. "The findings in this work are a great first step forward for our youngest patients."

Researchers have known that the production of sperm could be restored in mice that were sterilized after treatment with the chemotherapeutic agent busulfan by injecting immature sperm cells from a donor into their seminiferous tubules--located in the testes. From this, oncologists suggested that SSCs might be harvested from boys before the start of chemotherapy and reintroduced into their testes when treatment was complete. However, the testes of prepubescent boys contain such a small number of SSCs that, in order for this approach to be successful, the cells would need to be grown and multiplied in the lab prior to subsequent reinjection.

Given these challenges, the team identified testicular endothelial cells as a critical niche population for the maintenance and expansion of human SSCs in the lab. More importantly, they also identified five growth factors produced by testicular endothelial cells that are necessary for keeping human and mouse SSC cultures alive over the long term. Eventually patient samples could be expanded then frozen until needed.

Mouse cells in long-term culture restored the ability of mice after chemotherapy-induced infertility to produce sperm. Ultimately the SSCs were functional as demonstrated by the birth of live pups after being fathered by mice with the transplanted SSCs and growth factors.

"Our next step is to determine whether we can re-inject or engraft the expanded SSCs into patients after they are cancer free," Ryeom said.

(PHILADELPHIA) - Pancreatic cancer is one of the most difficult cancers to treat and is a leading cause of cancer-related deaths. Now, Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center - Jefferson Health and Lankenau Institute for Medical Research scientists find that a gene involved in the immune system called IDO2 plays a significant role in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC), the most common type of pancreatic cancer. The discovery may help physicians provide better treatment options for patients.

"The findings could point to a therapeutic target or an important prognostic biomarker," said George Prendergast, PhD, President and CEO of the Lankenau Institute for Medical Research (LIMR) of Main Line Health who co-led the study with Jonathan Brody, PhD, Director of the Research Division and Professor of Surgery at Thomas Jefferson University, both of whom are members of the Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center -- Jefferson Health.

The team published the new work September 28 in the journal Clinical Cancer Research.

The IDO2 gene, which was first discovered by LIMR researchers in 2006, produces an enzyme that helps manage the immune system. During pregnancy, IDO2 and a related gene, IDO1, tone down the mother's immune system so it will not attack the fetus, for example. Cancer, however, hijacks the IDO genes' function. It uses IDO1 and 2 to conceal itself from the immune system. The researchers thought that shutting down the IDO enzymes could make the cancer visible to the immune system, thereby allowing the body's defenses the opportunity to fight the cancer. In fact, in previous research, the team found that mice lacking the IDO genes did not develop pancreatic cancer in a rodent model of the disease. The results suggested IDO genes are essential to pancreatic cancer progression.

Now, Drs. Brody and Prendergast find IDO2 spurs the formation of PDAC tumors. When the researchers induced the development of pancreatic cancer in mice, they found nearly 30 percent of rodents developed the invasive cancer. In mice that lack the IDO2 gene, however, the cancer grew in only 15 percent of the animals. Strikingly, all the mice lacking IDO2 that developed cancer were male. The results suggest IDO2's involvement in pancreatic cancer may affect females differently from males.

The researchers knew that many people in the general population have inherited, or germline, alterations in the IDO2 gene that turn off the gene's ability to mediate the immune system. So the scientists examined the IDO2 gene in a subgroup of pancreatic cancer patients from Thomas Jefferson University Hospital. Genetic testing is easy and cost effective, since researchers need only a sample of blood or cheek swab to detect this DNA.

"Besides IDO2's involvement in development of pancreatic cancer, we wanted to know whether IDO2 affects how patients respond to treatment," said Dr. Brody.

When the team compared patients' IDO2 genes with their prognosis, they found that patients with defunct IDO2 genes had more favorable outcomes.

"The patients in our small cohort actually do better in specific treatment settings," said Dr. Brody. "They have improved disease-free survival when they receive radiotherapy."

Patients with nonfunctional IDO2 who also received adjuvant radiation treatment lived cancer-free for almost twice as long as patients with a working version of the gene, the researchers found. The results suggest that people with a specific IDO2 gene status may respond better to radiotherapy for their disease. In fact, patients who had deficient IDO2 gene status and received radiotherapy had a markedly improved survival. Patients with a functioning IDO2 gene who had received radiation treatment did not demonstrate such benefits and nor did patients with an inactive IDO2 gene who did not receive radiotherapy.

Together, these initial findings suggest that IDO2 gene status has the potential to influence pancreatic care decision-making (i.e., precision therapy). In the future, physicians may be able to use the gene's status as a biomarker to inform their treatment recommendations.

"Developing new strategies to refine therapeutic options has been a top priority of our nationally recognized pancreatic cancer team at the Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center," says cancer researcher Karen Knudsen, PhD, Director of the Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center - Jefferson Health. "This breakthrough in understanding lays the foundation for determining what patients might most benefit from radiotherapy, and represents a major step forward toward the goal of precision oncology."

Although the researchers are excited about these findings, Dr. Brody suggests a lot of work needs to be done to validate the study in additional, larger cohorts, and ultimately, in a prospective clinical trial. If confirmed, Brody states, "With a simple blood test, physicians could determine a patient's IDO2 gene status and determine whether they should go on radiotherapy."

Conventional wisdom has it that volunteering is good for you, and a study at Hospital for Special Surgery (HSS) shows that to be true for people with lupus volunteering in a peer support and education program.

The study, "The Effect and Psychosocial Impact of a Longstanding Telephone Peer Counseling Service on Volunteers with Systemic Lupus Erythematos," was presented at the American College of Rheumatology/Association of Rheumatology Health Professionals annual meeting on October 22 in Chicago.

"Previous studies have demonstrated the value of peer counseling programs for people living with lupus and other chronic health conditions. In the current study, we set out to assess the impact on the volunteers themselves," said Priscilla Toral, LCSW, program manager of LupusLine®/Charla de Lupus (Lupus Chat)® at Hospital for Special Surgery. "We found that similar to the way the service helps callers, the counselor role positively impacts volunteers' ability to cope with and manage lupus and reduces isolation."

LupusLine® offers peer support and education to people with lupus and their families. Established in 1988, the service is available to the public with a toll-free phone number. In addition to the United States, volunteers have counseled callers from Canada, Europe, South America, Jamaica, China and India.

The study found that in addition to having the opportunity to help others, counselors gained valuable knowledge about lupus from the 18-hour volunteer training program. Monthly seminars helped them work through challenges and provided a space for them to reflect on their illness.

"While having lupus may affect one's self-esteem adversely, being able to use this experience to help others can be empowering," said Roberta Horton, LCSW, ACSW, assistant vice president, Department of Social Work Programs at Hospital for Special Surgery. "Volunteers also benefit from the feeling of mutual support, personal development, and further lupus knowledge gained through ongoing group meetings, educational seminars and individual supervision."

For their study, researchers distributed a 43-item online survey to volunteers. The counselors, all female, ranged in age from 30-79, with 30% between the ages of 60 and 69. They had served as a counselor for an average of 12 years.

The researchers reported the following findings:

In terms of satisfaction, 91% of counselors indicated they were very satisfied with their role.

The top reasons for becoming a counselor included an opportunity to help others affected by lupus (100% of respondents) and enhancing personal growth/development (73%).

When asked about their reasons for continuing as a counselor, 82% said it was to meet others impacted by lupus and 73% identified the support of program staff.

Most respondents (73%) reported that they had a better understanding of lupus since becoming a counselor.

In relation to coping, 64% indicated that they have coped better with lupus since becoming a counselor.

The majority of counselors (73%) reported feeling less alone since volunteering.

Almost half of the volunteers (46%) reported feeling less depressed since becoming a peer counselor.

When asked if monthly seminars help them to better cope with lupus, 78% agreed, and 89% of counselors reported that the seminars provide a space for them to reflect on their disease.

The volunteers indicated that the most rewarding part of their role was "educational information that helps me understand lupus better" and "the opportunity to be outside of my own illness and connect with others."

"The study reinforces the two-way flow of psychosocial support received by counselors through their support of callers and ongoing connections with peers and program staff via monthly seminars," said Toral. "Our findings also highlight the continued relevance of a phone support service to people with lupus and opportunities for further research on the volunteer impact of peer-staffed programs."

Results from a phase 3 clinical trial indicate that patients who have not benefited from standard therapy for ankylosing spondylitis (AS), a chronic inflammatory disease characterized by back pain and sacroiliac-joint damage, may have another treatment option in the biologic drug ixekizumab. The findings will be presented at the American College of Rheumatology's annual meeting in Chicago (October 20-24, 2018) and simultaneously published in the ACR journal, Arthritis & Rheumatology.

Approximately 30 to 40 percent of patients with AS do not achieve adequate disease control or symptom relief from tumor necrosis factor (TNF) inhibitors, the currently recommended treatment for AS. In addition, some patients may not be eligible to receive the recommended treatment due to contraindications. The cytokine IL-17 is thought to play a role in the development of AS, and IL-17 inhibitors are effective in some patients, but they have not been evaluated exclusively in patients who have not experienced symptom relief with TNF inhibitors.

To test the strategy in these patients, Atul Deodhar, MD, of Oregon Health & Science University in Portland, and his colleagues conducted a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled Phase 3 clinical trial of ixekizumab, a high-affinity monoclonal antibody that selectively targets IL-17A, in patients with AS who experienced a previous inadequate response or intolerance to TNF inhibitors. For the trial, 316 patients were randomized 1:1:1 to placebo, ixekizumab every 2 weeks (IXEQ2W), and ixekizumab every 4 weeks (IXEQ4W), with an 80-mg or 160-mg starting dose.

At week 16, 30.6 percent and 25.4 percent of patients in the IXEQ2W and IXEQ4W groups, respectively, demonstrated significant improvements in the signs and symptoms of AS, compared with 12.5 percent of patients in the placebo group. There were statistically significant differences reported as early as week 1 with ixekizumab treatment. Also, significant improvements in disease activity, function, quality of life, and spinal inflammation were observed with 16 weeks of ixekizumab treatment versus placebo. Treatment-related adverse events were more frequent with ixekizumab than with placebo. One death was reported, in the IXEQ2W group.

"Many people with this chronic, debilitating disease are still searching for an effective treatment. These positive results provide support for ixekizumab as a potential treatment option for patients with AS, including those who have had an inadequate response to treatment with TNF inhibitors, a difficult-to-treat population," said Dr. Deodhar.

WHAT: 11th World Stroke Congress brings together leading international stroke experts and an unparalleled scientific program covering epidemiology, prevention, acute care, recovery and rehabilitation in 100s of sessions and oral posters. Congress is attended by stroke professionals, researchers, policy makers, survivors and caregivers from around the world. #worldstroke2018

WHERE: Montreal, Canada, Palais des Congrès

WHEN: October 17 - 20, 2018

MEDIA OPPORTUNTIES: Stroke experts and people with lived experience of stroke will be available for interviews.

TODAY'S CONGRESS HIGHLIGHTS

Late-breaking trials

Basilar artery occlusion Endovascular intervention versus Standard medical Treatment (BEST) Trial: Primary results of a multi-centre randomized controlled trial. The BEST trial, a Chinese-government funded multi-centre trial, compares the benefit of endovascular treatment (ET) to standard medical care. Presenters Dr. Raul Nogueira of Emory University and Dr. Xinfeng Liu of Nanjing University (China) will present the study, which found patients treated with ET achieved significantly better outcomes. (11:10 am, Hall B)

Randomized controlled trial of the safety and efficacy of dabigatran etexilate vs. dose-adjusted warfarin in patients with cerebral venous thrombosis (RE-SPECT CVT) (11:30 am, Hall B)

EXtending the time for Thrombolysis in Emergency Neurological Deficits - EXTEND (11:50 am, Hall B)

Sphenopalatine ganglion stimulation to augment collateral perfusion primary in acute ischemic stroke: Primary results of the IMPACT-24B pivotal trial (12:10 pm, Hall B)

HOT TOPIC: Less wealthy countries struggle to meet greater need with far fewer resources

Why are low-and middle-income countries so hard hit by stroke and what can be done about it? This vital question will be discussed today at the World Stroke Congress in Montreal with the presentation of an action plan by Dr. Mayowa Owolabi of Nigeria, who leads the Lancet Neurology Commission on Stroke in Low- and Middle-Income Countries.

"Low- and middle-income countries bear over 80 per cent of the global burden of stroke, but have less than 20 per cent of the global resources to combat it," said Dr. Owolabi.

The aging population and the increases in risk factors such as high blood pressure, obesity and diabetes are driving up stroke rates. Strokes occur, on average, 15 years earlier in low- and middle-income countries than in high-income countries. Dr. Owolabi is championing a prevention and treatment action plan to reduce premature mortality from stroke by one-third by 2030 and fundamentally and substantially improve stroke services across the globe, particularly in low- and middle-income countries.

HOT TOPIC: Building momentum to address sex differences in stroke

Women bear a greater burden of stroke than men and leading stroke experts will look at incidence and mortality rates, the impact of traditional risk factors on women versus men, the quality of care women receive compared to men, and international efforts in Europe and North America to address the challenges. "There's no question that there is an urgent need for worldwide collaborations to develop better understanding about sex and gender differences in stroke incidence, presentation, prevention and treatments," said Dr. Aleksandra Pikula, a stroke neurologist with expertise in stroke in young adults/women at the University Health Network in Toronto. "Only successful collaborations can improve care and recovery, especially for women, who have poorer functional outcomes and lower quality of life than men after stroke."

When designing flying vehicles, there are many aspects of which we can be certain but there are also many uncertainties. Most are random, and others are just not well understood. University of Illinois Professor Harry Hilton brought together several mathematical and physical theories to help look at problems in more unified ways and solve physical engineering problems.

"There are many equations because there are many phenomena. They are an attempt to describe mathematically the physical phenomena so that you can solve these problems. Words alone won't solve the problem. In this case, the problem is how do to build the perfect flying vehicle for specific missions and purposes," said Harry Hilton, a professor emeritus in the Department of Aerospace Engineering in the College of Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Hilton looked at models independently of each other, then put them together.

"If you don't use the right model, the rest becomes an exercise in futility. It may be a model that's self-consistent but has no reality," he said. "Of course, the only way you can validate a model is to run experiments and even then, you're introducing another reality into the picture which is the experiment and not the real airplane. So each one of these is an idealization."

Hilton began by analyzing the da Vinci-Euler-Bernoulli theory of elastic bending. "It's deterministic, that is, determined that it is true with a probability of 1, based on a set of equations that give a set of answers," Hilton said.
Added to that is the Timoshenko theory that takes load and other realistic properties such as wind shear into consideration. Hilton merges those theories with properties of viscoelastic materials--which includes time dependent material behavior and is of particular importance in modern composite materials and metals at elevated temperatures.

On top of it all, there are probabilities that certain things will happen.

"We may assume that the loads and material properties are certain, but they're not. Think about wind gusts. They can be sudden and unpredictable in strength and direction," he said. "It's the difference between deterministic - which means the probability is one and events are going to happen as opposed to a probability between zero and 1 where zero is never and 1 is always.
"Probability happens in the real world. What's the probability of you getting hit by a car when you cross Green Street? Pretty high. When you cross Wright Street, maybe not as likely," he said.

Hilton's analysis provides a new model that takes into consideration as many, but still not all, known phenomena. These analyses, while more inclusive, form a linear beginning as a stepping stone to the real nonlinear random world.

"We use both math and physics in engineering, but within limitations. In physics, we don't always understand what's going on," he said. "That's the case here as well. There are pieces of principles that haven't been resolved. The mathematics are very exact but we tend to shade the equations in terms of what we can solve, rather than what it should be.

"The probabilistic analyses really pay off when designing a missile because you have just one flight to get it right. Either it hits the target or it doesn't. But it never comes back and is reused."

About his merging of models and its potential impact, Hilton quoted Winston Churchill from a speech he gave in 1942 concerning the Second Battle of El Alamein.
"Churchill said, 'It's not the beginning of the end but the end of the beginning.' You could look at it that way. We're so far from the total knowledge that any one of these types of fundamental analytical papers is an end of the beginning."

The paper, "A Unified Linear Bending/Shear Beam (Spar) Theory: From Deterministic da Vinci-Euler-Bernoulli Elastic Beams to Nonhomogeneous Generalized Linear Viscoelastic Timoshenko ones with Random Properties, Loads and Realistic Physical Starting Transients, and Including Moving Shear Centers and Neutral Axes, Part I:Theoretical Modeling and Analyses," was written by Harry H. Hilton. It appears in MESA, the international journal of Mathematics in Engineering, Science and Aerospace.

Florida has become a haven for invasive species in the United States, but perhaps the most well-known of the State's alien residents is the Burmese python. These giant snakes, native to Southeast Asia, have become well-established over the past few decades and even flourish in their new environment.

"In Burmese pythons, we observed the rapid establishment and expansion of an invasive population in Florida, which is quite ecologically distinct from Southeast Asia and likely imposes significant ecological selection on the invasive Burmese python population," said Todd Castoe, biology professor at the University of Texas at Arlington and director of the Castoe Lab. "This situation had all of the hallmarks of a system where rapid adaptation could occur, so we were excited to test for this possibility using cutting-edge genomic approaches."

The researchers originally set out to determine whether pythons could have adapted to an extreme Florida freeze event in 2010. They generated data for dozens of samples before and after the freeze event. By scanning regions of the Burmese python genome, they identified parts of the genome that changed significantly between the two time periods, providing clear evidence of evolution occurring over a very short time scale in this population.

"The 2010 Florida freeze event led to a 40 percent to 90 percent documented field mortality in invasive Burmese pythons, so if evolution and adaptation were to be occurring, we knew we should see it over this time period that imposed a very strong bottleneck of selection," Castoe said.

"We employed a technique commonly referred to as a genome scan, which identifies regions of the genome that appear to be under strong natural selection, which could contain genes important in adaptation that may have allowed a subset of this population to survive these freeze events," he added.

The researchers expected to find genes in these regions that are important for potential adaptation to cold, but as they further scrutinized the data, a different signal began to emerge that told a more broad story about adaptation in this invasive population.

"We kept seeing evidence of adaptation in genes related to cell division, organ growth, and tissue development, which admittedly puzzled us at first. However, it eventually occurred to us that there was a connection with a parallel project in the lab that uses Burmese pythons as a model system for understanding regenerative organ growth, where tissues are downregulated when fasting and then regenerated in cyclical patterns corresponding with feeding cycles of most pythons. We began to wonder whether the signal we were seeing in the genome of Florida Burmese pythons was linked to adaptation in how they regenerated organ systems based on their feeding ecology," said Daren Card, a recently graduated Ph.D. student in the Castoe lab who worked on this project for his dissertation.

Armed with a working hypothesis that invasive Burmese pythons may be adapting to more regular feeding opportunity in Florida, the researchers gathered further ecological, functional genomic, and morphological data to understand the frequency at which pythons are feeding and whether there are physiological changes consistent with more regular feeding.

"These additional analyses showed that Burmese pythons in Florida are constantly feeding and that tissue morphological and gene expression patterns support a more up-regulated physiological state in fasted pythons - Florida pythons appear to have adapted to regulating their digestive physiology to more efficiently eat prey constantly. This is alarming because these snakes have already been shown to have major negative impacts on endemic mammalian and bird populations in South Florida, including Everglades National Park, and our data was suggesting that, through rapid adaptation, they are only 'getting better' at being an effective invasive predator," Card added.

UTA biology chair Clay Clark congratulated the team on this work, which provides tangible evidence that evolution can occur extremely rapidly in natural populations, and that such rapid evolution can result in major changes in very complex traits that impact the physiology and ecology of vertebrates.

"These results provide an unprecedented perspective at how quickly a vertebrate population can evolve, while also providing new links between genomic adaptation and complex physiological change related to the ecological impacts of invasive species," Clark said. "It is particularly important work given UTA's strategic focus on global environmental impact."

Munich, Germany, 20 October 2018 - Chemotherapy is known to have a negative impact on the reproductive potential of young breast cancer patients. Its effects on women's post-treatment fertility, however, are still poorly understood. A study (1) to be presented at the ESMO 2018 Congress in Munich, has confirmed that natural pregnancies are possible after chemotherapy but that survivors' desire to have children decreases greatly after treatment, calling into question the need for systematic recourse to fertility preservation measures.

Fertility preservation today is based on harvesting and freezing eggs or embryos after in vitro fertilisation. It is commonly offered to breast cancer patients under 40 during the first consultations following diagnosis. Globally, women in this age group represent less than 7% of breast cancer diagnoses, (2) and survivors have a 70% lower chance of pregnancy compared with the general population. (3) According to study author, Dr. Jerome Martin-Babau from Centre Armoricain de Radiotherapie, Imagerie Medicale et Oncologie in Plerin, France, "the main barrier to accessing fertility preservation measures for patients in France is that it requires lab facilities and medical expertise that are only available at larger hospitals. Women may have to travel further than their usual cancer centre for the procedure."

The French National Cancer Plan prioritises this solution as a key service to be rolled out nationwide. "We wanted to find out whether the need and demand for it among breast cancer survivors was on a par with the level of investment and organisation called for by the policymakers," Martin-Babau continued.

In the course of the study, 96 eligible patients aged between 18 and 40 years and treated by chemotherapy for non-metastatic breast cancer were identified - 60 agreed to participate in the survey. "We based our questionnaire on existing tools found in the literature and added a dedicated section on the changes in patients' menstrual cycles," Martin-Babau reported.

Participants' median age at diagnosis was 36 years, and the median time between the end of their chemotherapy and participation in the study was 57 months. In over half of cases, the cancer had spread to the lymph nodes at the time of diagnosis, which means it had a higher risk of recurrence. Triple negative tumours (4) were diagnosed in 10 women: their prognosis is worsened by the fact that they cannot receive the anti-hormonal treatment usually prescribed after chemotherapy. All patients, however, were in complete remission by the time of the survey.

The results showed that 83% of participants experienced amenorrhea - a complete absence of menstruation - during their treatment with chemotherapy. "This was an expected finding," said Martin-Babau. "What we didn't expect was that 86% of these patients also reported their menstrual cycle returning to normal within the following year after the end of chemo - an indication that the treatment had not completely damaged their ovaries."

The evolution of patients' desire to bear children over the course of the disease was also assessed: more than one third of women reported having had plans to become pregnant before beginning treatment. By contrast, only one in ten stated that they still had this wish after the end of their chemotherapy.

"Of the six patients who did still want to have children, four women actually managed to get pregnant, although two eventually miscarried," Martin-Babau reported. The assumption that it is difficult to achieve pregnancy naturally after breast cancer was thus belied in this patient cohort.

"Of course, our study was limited to one centre and reflects the activity of just a few doctors - the reality may be quite different elsewhere. In addition, one third of patients we identified didn't respond to the survey, possibly due to frustration with their personal situation. Their participation may have changed our results," Martin-Babau cautioned.

Drawing conclusions from the findings, he observed: "The fact is that most forms of breast cancer are stimulated by hormones. The implantation of in vitro produced embryos requires women to take additional hormones that could potentially play a role in disease recurrence - we currently have limited data to alleviate this concern."

"In a context, then, where it turns out that natural pregnancies are still possible after treatment, and where the actual demand for fertility preservation measures seems to be relatively low, we as clinicians need to think about how to provide the most balanced information possible during the onco-fertility counselling of these young patients," he said.

Commenting on the study for ESMO, Dr. Matteo Lambertini, ESMO fellow at the Institut Jules Bordet in Brussels, Belgium, said: "Previous data (5,6) have shown that only a small proportion of women actually choose to undergo fertility preservation measures at the time of breast cancer diagnosis. The present findings, though based on a small patient cohort, additionally tell us that breast cancer survivors' desire to have children decreases by the time they finish treatment, while simultaneously confirming that natural pregnancies are still possible after chemotherapy. However, this does not mean that oncologists shouldn't talk about fertility preservation measures with their patients, including in cases where their cancer centre doesn't offer fertility services onsite: indeed, the minority of women who are interested will gladly travel to the nearest facility that does."

"As physicians, we must continue to discuss the potential loss of ovarian function and fertility with every one of our breast cancer patients, just like we would do with any other side-effect of treatment: as early and extensively as possible," Lambertini added. "It is important for oncologists to be aware of existing ESMO Clinical Practice Guidelines on the subject (7) and to be attuned to the specific circumstances of each patient. Whilst this study reminds us that the need for fertility preservation measures should not be overestimated, we should also be careful not to exaggerate the risk of such a procedure to women when we offer them these options."

Scientists at Newcastle University have revealed the mechanism which allows a commonly prescribed drug for Type 2 diabetes to prevent heart disease in patients with Type 1 diabetes -and could lead to the development of new treatments.

Metformin is an inexpensive treatment that is often used for Type 2 diabetes to lower blood sugar levels by reducing glucose production in the liver. The drug is not regularly given to patients with Type 1 diabetes.

A clinical trial has revealed metformin can promote a patient's ability to repair their own damaged blood vessels by decreasing the presence of microRNAs (miRs) which increases the growth of blood vessels - in addition to improving glucose levels.

These microRNAs are messenger molecules which with regulate different genes in different cells.

Dr Jolanta Weaver, Senior Lecturer in Diabetes Medicine at Newcastle University and Honorary Consultant Diabetologist at Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Gateshead, led the clinical trial at the Gateshead hospital and is lead author of the work being published today in the International Journal of Molecular Sciences. She said: "This is an exciting development as understanding this underlying mechanism opens up the possibility of new forms of treatment which will lower the chances of patients with Type 1 diabetes developing heart disease.

"As the outcomes of heart disease are worse in diabetic patients compared to people who don't have diabetes, there is a need to identify additional treatment options.

"Our previous study showed that the vascular stem cells were improved by metformin so this was the first example how metformin improved heart disease as well as lowering glucose levels.

"Now we know that the drug metformin was able to do this by lowering the presence of microRNAs."

A previous study revealed the potential of metformin to slow the development or delay heart disease however, this is the first time that the potential of miRs in preventing heart disease have been identified.

Clinical trial

The study - known as MERIT - was the first to test metformin for the cardioprotective effects in Type 1 diabetes patients. In an open label, case-controlled study, the treatment group consisted of 23 people, aged between 19 and 65, with Type 1 diabetes who were free of cardiovascular disease. They were treated with metformin for 8 weeks.

Patients in the treatment group were matched with a standard group of nine Type 1 diabetic patients taking standard insulin. Additionally, there were 23 participants in the "healthy" control group without diabetes.

At the start of the study, the anti-angiogenic microRNAs, miR-222, miR-195, and miR-21a were detected to be higher in type 1 diabetic patients compared to the control group. However, metformin treatment successfully reduced the levels of miR-222, miR-195, and miR-21a.

Moreover, as the levels of miR-222 lowered, there was a corresponding decrease in the amount of circulating endothelial cells, which indicates an improvement in vascular repair.

Dr Weaver adds: "These results confirm that as well as improving a patient's blood sugar control, metformin is working to protect the heart."

The team will now be working to further the work with the goal of developing new therapies based on regulating the levels of microRNAs.

New Rochelle, NY, October 18, 2018--A new study describes the mechanistic relationship between the cytokine interleukin-1ß, (IL-1ß) and obesity, showing that when IL-1ß levels are increased in obesity, IL-1 receptor signaling activates multiple pathways leading to colon cancer. The study shows that obesity is linked with systemic increases in IL-1ß, activation of Wnt, and proliferation of mouse colon cells, as reported in an article published in Journal of Interferon & Cytokine Research (JICR) from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. Click here to read the full-text article free on the Journal of Interferon & Cytokine Research (JICR) website through November 18, 2018.

Joel Mason, Tufts University and Tufts University School of Medicine, Boston MA, and colleagues from Tufts University, coauthored the article entitled "Interleukin-1 Signaling Mediates Obesity-Promoted Elevations in Inflammatory Cytokines, Wnt Activation, and Epithelial Proliferation in the Mouse Colon."

The researchers set out to define the role of IL-1ß in mediating the events leading up to obesity-promoted colorectal cancer. They compared the role of IL-1ß in mice fed either a high-fat (obese) or low-fat (lean) diet. Among the changes they found were that obese mice had 30-80% greater concentrations of IL-1ß in the colonic mucosa, a significant increase in the Wnt signaling cascade, and a significant expansion in the proliferation zone of the colonic crypt.

"This study reveals the close linkage of obesity and the inflammatory response and reflects the broad actions of IL-1ß that define obesity as one of many inflammatory diseases," says Journal of Interferon & Cytokine Research Editor-in-Chief Michael Gale Jr., Department of Immunology, University of Washington, Center for Innate Immunity and Immune Disease.

A study led by Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, has shown that carbon fibres can work as battery electrodes, storing energy directly. This opens up new opportunities for structural batteries, where the carbon fibre becomes part of the energy system. The use of this type of multifunctional material can contribute to a significant weight-reduction in the aircraft and vehicles of the future - a key challenge for electrification.

Passenger aircraft need to be much lighter than they are today in order to be powered by electricity. A reduction in weight is also very important for vehicles in order to extend the driving distance per battery charge.

Leif Asp, Professor of Material and Computational Mechanics at Chalmers University of Technology, conducts research into the ability of carbon fibres to perform more tasks than simply to act as a reinforcing material. They can store energy, for example.

"A car body would then be not simply a load-bearing element, but also act as a battery," he says. "It will also be possible to use the carbon fibre for other purposes such as harvesting kinetic energy, for sensors or for conductors of both energy and data. If all these functions were part of a car or aircraft body, this could reduce the weight by up to 50 percent."

Asp headed up a multidisciplinary group of researchers who recently published a study on how the microstructure of carbon fibres affects their electrochemical properties - that is, their ability to operate as electrodes in a lithium-ion battery. So far this has been an unexplored research field.

The researchers studied the microstructure of different types of commercially available carbon fibres. They discovered that carbon fibres with small and poorly oriented crystals have good electrochemical properties but a lower stiffness in relative terms. If you compare this with carbon fibres that have large, highly oriented crystals, they have greater stiffness, but the electrochemical properties are too low for use in structural batteries.

"We now know how multifunctional carbon fibres should be manufactured to attain a high energy storage capacity, while also ensuring sufficient stiffness," Asp says. "A slight reduction in stiffness is not a problem for many applications such as cars. The market is currently dominated by expensive carbon fibre composites whose stiffness is tailored to aircraft use. There is therefore some potential here for carbon fibre manufacturers to extend their utilisation."

In the study the types of carbon fibre with good electrochemical properties had a slightly higher stiffness than steel, whereas the types whose electrochemical properties were poor are just over twice as rigid as steel.

The researchers are collaborating with both the automotive and aviation industries. Leif Asp explains that for the aviation industry, it may be necessary to increase the thickness of carbon fibre composites, to compensate for the reduced stiffness of structural batteries. This would, in turn, also increase their energy storage capacity.

"The key is to optimise vehicles at system level - based on the weight, strength, stiffness and electrochemical properties. That is something of a new way of thinking for the automotive sector, which is more used to optimising individual components. Structural batteries may perhaps not become as efficient as traditional batteries, but since they have a structural load-bearing capability, very large gains can be made at system level."

He continues, "In addition, the lower energy density of structural batteries would make them safer than standard batteries, especially as they would also not contain any volatile substances."