Naresuan University Journal
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Quality of Methods Reporting in Animal Models of Colitis
No full textBackground: Current understanding of the onset of inflammatory bowel diseases relies heavily on data derived from animal models of colitis. However, the omission of information concerning the method used makes the interpretation of studies difficult or impossible. We assessed the current quality of methods reporting in 4 animal models of colitis that are used to inform clinical research into inflammatory bowel disease: dextran sulfate sodium, interleukin-10-/-, CD45RBhigh T cell transfer, and 2,4,6-trinitrobenzene sulfonic acid (TNBS). Methods: We performed a systematic review based on PRISMA guidelines, using a PubMed search (2000–2014) to obtain publications that used a microarray to describe gene expression in colitic tissue. Methods reporting quality was scored against a checklist of essential and desirable criteria. Results: Fifty-eight articles were identified and included in this review (29 dextran sulfate sodium, 15 interleukin-10-/-, 5 T cell transfer, and 16 TNBS; some articles use more than 1 colitis model). A mean of 81.7% (SD = ±7.038) of criteria were reported across all models. Only 1 of the 58 articles reported all essential criteria on our checklist. Animal age, gender, housing conditions, and mortality/morbidity were all poorly reported. Conclusions: Failure to include all essential criteria is a cause for concern; this failure can have large impact on the quality and replicability of published colitis experiments. We recommend adoption of our checklist as a requirement for publication to improve the quality, comparability, and standardization of colitis studies and will make interpretation and translation of data to human disease more reliable
Incorporation of stochastic variability in mechanistic population pharmacokinetic models: handling the physiological constraints using normal transformations
No full textThe effect of maternal depression, anxiety, and perceived stress during pregnancy on preterm birth: A systematic review
No full textObservations of Galactic star-forming regions with the Cosmic Background Imager at 31 GHz
No full textStudies of the diffuse Galactic radio emission are interesting both for better understanding the physical conditions in our Galaxy and for minimizing the contamination in cosmological measurements. Motivated by this, we present Cosmic Background Imager 31 GHz observations of the Galactic regions NGC 6357, NGC 6334, W51 and W40 at ˜4.5 arcmin resolution and conduct an investigation of the spectral emission process in the regions at 4.5 arcmin and 1° resolution. We find that most of the emission in the regions is due to optically thin free-free. For two sub-regions of NGC 6334 and for a sub-region of W51 though, at 4.5 arcmin resolution and at 31 GHz we detect less emission than expected from extrapolation of radio data at lower frequencies assuming a spectral index of -0.12 for optically thin free-free emission, at 3.3σ, 3.7σ and 6.5σ, respectively. We also detect excess emission in a sub-region of NCG 6334 at 6.4σ, after ruling out any possible contribution from ultra-compact H II regions. At 1° resolution, we detect a spinning dust component in the spectral energy distribution of W40 that accounts for 18 ± 7 per cent of the total flux density in the region at the peak frequency of 37 GHz. Comparison with 100 μm data indicates an average dust emissivity for the sub-regions of 0.5 ± 4.4 μK(MJy sr-1)-1. Finally, we translate the excess emission in the regions to an anomalous microwave emission (AME) emissivity relative to the optical depth at 250 μm. We find that this form of emissivity is independent of the AME significance and has a value somewhere in the order of 104 Jy
ModelOMatic: fast and automated model selection between RY, nucleotide, amino acid, and codon substitution models.
No full textMolecular phylogenetics is a powerful tool for inferring both the process and pattern of evolution from genomic sequence data. Statistical approaches, such as maximum likelihood and Bayesian inference, are now established as the preferred methods of inference. The choice of models that a researcher uses for inference is of critical importance, and there are established methods for model selection conditioned on a particular type of data, such as nucleotides, amino acids, or codons. A major limitation of existing model selection approaches is that they can only compare models acting upon a single type of data. Here, we extend model selection to allow comparisons between models describing different types of data by introducing the idea of adapter functions, which project aggregated models onto the originally observed sequence data. These projections are implemented in the program ModelOMatic and used to perform model selection on 3722 families from the PANDIT database, 68 genes from an arthropod phylogenomic data set, and 248 genes from a vertebrate phylogenomic data set. For the PANDIT and arthropod data, we find that amino acid models are selected for the overwhelming majority of alignments; with progressively smaller numbers of alignments selecting codon and nucleotide models, and no families selecting RY-based models. In contrast, nearly all alignments from the vertebrate data set select codon-based models. The sequence divergence, the number of sequences, and the degree of selection acting upon the protein sequences may contribute to explaining this variation in model selection. Our ModelOMatic program is fast, with most families from PANDIT taking fewer than 150 s to complete, and should therefore be easily incorporated into existing phylogenetic pipelines. ModelOMatic is available at https://code.google.com/p/modelomatic/
Protecting aesthetic innovations? An exploration of the use of Registered Community Designs
No full textA decade after their introduction, approximately three-quarters of a million European Registered Community Designs (RCDs) have been filed, and recent court cases suggest firms regard them as important for competition. This paper reviews design protection in Europe, discusses this legal instrument to protect designs and design innovations in the EU, and provides an overview of how they are used by firms from different countries and industries. To develop a more detailed understanding of their usage, we also report an exploratory qualitative study on the use of RCDs by German firms in three industries: footwear, car manufacturing and tool-making. This revealed some important differences in behaviors, notably between judicious filing and “all you can file” strategies, which imply that future research using this instrument requires attention be paid to firm behaviors. We develop a set of propositions, and set out a research agenda for future research
A search for high-mass resonances decaying to in collisions at TeV with the ATLAS detector
No full textEthyl-eicosapentaenoic acid treatment in Huntington's disease: A placebo-controlled clinical trial.
No full textBACKGROUND: It has been suggested that treatment with ethyl-eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) may improve motor function in patients with Huntington's disease (HD) with cytosine-adenine-guanine repeat numbers o
Political capabilities for democratisation in Uganda: good governance or popular organisation building?
No full textOpinion is divided about the capacity of civil society organisations (CSOs) to enhance the political capabilities of disadvantaged groups in neo-patrimonial contexts, and particularly through a hegemonic paradigm which seeks to advance poverty reduction through good governance. Drawing on a qualitative study of CSOs in western Uganda, this paper argues that strategies focused on increasing the participation of rural citizens in formal decentralised planning spaces may be less effective in enhancing their political capabilities than those facilitating social mobilisation through the formation of producer groups and federations. This has important implications for thinking and practice around popular empowerment in sub-Saharan Africa
Electrochemical investigation of the corrosion of different microstructural phases of X65 pipeline steel under saturated carbon dioxide conditions
No full textThe aim of this research was to investigate the influence of metallurgy on the corrosion behaviour of separate weld zone (WZ) and parent plate (PP) regions of X65 pipeline steel in a solution of deionised water saturated with CO2, at two different temperatures (55 °C and 80 °C) and at initial pH~4.0. In addition, a non-electrochemical immersion experiment was also performed at 80 °C in CO2, on a sample portion of X65 pipeline containing part of a weld section, together with adjacent heat affected zones (HAZ) and parent material. Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) was used to evaluate the corrosion behaviour of the separate weld and parent plate samples. This study seeks to understand the significance of the different microstructures within the different zones of the welded X65 pipe in CO2 environments on corrosion performance; with particular attention given to the formation of surface scales; and their composition/significance. The results obtained from grazing incidence X-ray diffraction (GIXRD) measurements suggest that, post immersion, the parent plate substrate is scale free, with only features arising from ferrite (α-Fe) and cementite (Fe3C) apparent. In contrast, at 80 °C, GIXRD from the weld zone substrate, and weld zone/heat affected zone of the non-electrochemical sample indicates the presence of siderite (FeCO3) and chukanovite (Fe2CO3(OH)2) phases. Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) on this surface confirmed the presence of characteristic discrete cube-shaped crystallites of siderite together with plate-like clusters of chukanovite