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No full textThis piece is inspired by the sea and memories. It is a reflection on my relationship to both on the connections between them
MicroRNAs and Their Impact on Radiotherapy for Cancer
No full textPublished version made available in accordance with publisher copyright policy.Resistance to radiation is considered to be an important reason for local failure after radiotherapy and tumor recurrence. However, the exact mechanisms of tumor resistance remain poorly understood. Current investigations of microRNAs as potential diagnostic and therapeutic tools for cancer treatment have shown promising results. With respect to radiotherapy resistance and response, there is now emerging evidence that microRNAs modulate key cellular pathways that mediate response to radiation. These data suggest that microRNAs might have significant potential as targets for the development of new therapeutic strategies to overcome radioresistance in cancer. This review summarizes the current literature pertinent to the influence of microRNAs in the response to radiotherapy for cancer treatment, with an emphasis on microRNAs as novel diagnostic and prognostic markers, as well as their potential to alter radiosensitivity
Is increased antidepressant exposure a contributory factor to the obesity pandemic?
No full textThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Major depressive disorder (MDD) and obesity are both common heterogeneous disorders with complex aetiology, with a major
impact on public health. Antidepressant prescribing has risen nearly 400% since 1988, according to data from the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). In parallel, adult obesity rates have doubled since 1980, from 15 to 30 percent, while
childhood obesity rates have more than tripled. Rising obesity rates have significant health consequences, contributing to increased
rates of more than thirty serious diseases. Despite the concomitant rise of antidepressant use and of the obesity rates in Western
societies, the association between the two, as well as the mechanisms underlying antidepressant-induced weight gain, remain
under explored. In this review, we highlight the complex relationship between antidepressant use, MDD and weight gain. Clinical
findings have suggested that obesity may increase the risk of developing MDD, and vice versa. Hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal
(HPA) axis activation occurs in the state of stress; concurrently, the HPA axis is also dysregulated in obesity and metabolic
syndrome, making it the most well-understood shared common pathophysiological pathway with MDD. Numerous studies have
investigated the effects of different classes of antidepressants on body weight. Previous clinical studies suggest that the tricyclics
amitriptyline, nortriptyline and imipramine, and the serotonin norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor mirtazapine are associated with
weight gain. Despite the fact that selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) use has been associated with weight loss during
acute treatment, a number of studies have shown that SSRIs may be associated with long-term risk of weight gain; however,
because of high variability and multiple confounds in clinical studies, the long-term effect of SSRI treatment and SSRI exposure on
body weight remains unclear. A recently developed animal paradigm shows that the combination of stress and antidepressants
followed by long-term high-fat diet results, long after discontinuation of antidepressant treatment, in markedly increased weight, in
excess of what is caused by high-fat diet alone. On the basis of existing epidemiological, clinical and preclinical data, we have
generated the testable hypothesis that escalatin
The cranial endocast of Dipnorhynchus sussmilchi (Sarcopterygii: Dipnoi) and the interrelationships of stem-group lungfishes
No full textDistributed under Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0The first virtual cranial endocast of a lungfish from the Early Devonian, Dipnorhynchus sussmilchi, is described. Dipnorhynchus, only the fourth Devonian lungfish for which a near complete cranial endocast is known, is a key taxon for clarifying primitive character states within the group. A ventrally-expanded telencephalic cavity is present in the endocast of Dipnorhynchus demonstrating that this is the primitive state for "true'' Dipnoi. Dipnorhynchus also possesses a utricular recess differentiated from the sacculolagenar pouch like that seen in stratigraphically younger lungfish (Dipterus, Chirodipterus, Rhinodipterus), but absent from the dipnomorph Youngolepis. We do not find separate pineal and para-pineal canals in contrast to a reconstruction from previous authors. We conduct the first phylogenetic analysis of Dipnoi based purely on endocast characters, which supports a basal placement of Dipnorhynchus within the dipnoan stem group, in agreement with recent analyses. Our analysis demonstrates the value of endocast characters for inferring phylogenetic relationships
An early presence of Italians in the Australian film industry: The Pugliese family
No full textThis article attempts to trace the rise and fall of the Pugliese family which represents, perhaps, the earliest involvement of Italians in the Australian film business. An immigrant from Southern Italy, Antonio Pugliese arrived in New South Wales in 1881 and by the early 1900s had become a successful film exhibitor, owning and managing three cinemas in Sydney. Following his death, his family expanded its activities into film production, financing, among other things, one of Raymond Longford’s early triumphs. The move, originally crowned with success, ultimately proved to be ill-fated and the family eventually withdrew from the film business altogether
Taking the pulse: Gender, sexuality and social identity in the new millennium
No full textAt first glance, post-2000 Italian cinema may appear to be undergoing a new, though still limited, golden age, the main characteristics of which are an increased presence of women, the expression and portrayal of ‘alternative’ sexuality, and the representation of social identities sufficiently durable to survive (and possibly thrive in) the volatile present with its apparently limitless “liquid” flexibility, deregulation of social relationships, and loosening and transformation – if not total crumbling – of social, religious and working institutions that Zygmunt Bauman describes in his seminal 2003 book Liquid Modernity. This article offers an overview of gender, sexuality, and social identity in Italian cinema from 2000 to the present day, that by its very nature is not exhaustive but focuses on the most significant examples and trends in films and data, assessing the progress, or lack of it, achieved in that period
Health Care Seeking Behavior in Southwest Ethiopia
No full textThis is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.Background:
Rural and urban populations have disparate socio-demographic and economic characteristics, which have an influence on equity and their health seeking behavior. We examined and compared the health care seeking behavior for perceived morbidity between urban and rural households in Southwest Ethiopia.
Methods
Analytic cross-sectional study was conducted among urban and rural households living in Esera district of Southwest Ethiopia. A random sample of 388 head of households (126 urban and 262 rural) were selected. A pretested and structured questionnaire was used for data collection with face-to-face interview. In addition to descriptive methods, binary logistic regression was used to identify factors associated with health seeking behavior at p value of less than 0.05.
Results
Of the sample household heads, 377 (97.2%) (119 urban and 258 rural) were successfully interviewed. Among these, 58.4% (95% CI, 53.3–63.3%) of the households sought care from modern health care that was lower among rural (48.1%) than urban (80.7%) households. The prevalence of self-treatment was 35.3% in urban and 46.1% in rural households. Among the factors considered for modern health care utilization, higher monthly income (AOR, 5.6; 95% CI, 2.04–15.4), perceived severity of disease (AOR, 2.5; 95% CI, 1.1–5.8), acute duration of disease (AOR, 8.9; 95% CI, 2.4–33.3) and short distance from health facilities (AOR, 3; 95% CI, 1.2–8.4) among rural and being married (AOR, 11.3; 95% CI, 1.2–110.2) and perceived severity of disease (AOR, 6.6; 95% CI, 1.1–10.9) among urban households showed statistically significant association.
Conclusions
The general health seeking behavior of households on perceived morbidity was satisfactory but lower in rural compared to urban households. Self-medication was also widely practiced in the study area. The findings signal the need to work more on accessibility and promotion of healthcare seeking behavior especially among rural households
Both natural selection and isolation by distance explain phenotypic divergence in bill size and body mass between South Australian little penguin colonies
No full textThis is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.Morphological variation between populations of the same species can arise as a response to genetic variation, local environmental conditions, or a combination of both. In this study, I examined small-scale geographic variation in bill size and body mass in little penguins (Eudyptula minor) across five breeding colonies in South Australia separated by <150 km. To help understand patterns driving the differences, I investigated these variations in relation to environmental parameters (air temperature, sea surface temperature, and water depth) and geographic distances between the colonies. I found substantial morphological variation among the colonies for body mass and bill measurements (except bill length). Colonies further located from each other showed greater morphological divergence overall than adjacent colonies. In addition, phenotypic traits were somewhat correlated to environmental parameters. Birds at colonies surrounded by hotter sea surface temperatures were heavier with longer and larger bills. Birds with larger and longer bills were also found at colonies surrounded by shallower waters. Overall, the results suggest that both environmental factors (natural selection) and interpopulation distances (isolation by distance) are causes of phenotypic differentiation between South Australian little penguin colonies
Measurement of strains experienced by viscerofugal nerve cell bodies during mechanosensitive firing using digital image correlation.
Get PDF12 month embargo until 1 Nov 2017, as per publisher's policy.Mechanosensory neurons detect physical events in the local environments of the tissues that they innervate. Studies of mechanosensitivity of neurons or nerve endings in the gut have related their firing to strain, wall tension or pressure. Digital Image Correlation (DIC) is a technique from materials engineering that can be adapted to measure the local physical environments of afferent neurons at high resolution. Flat sheet preparations of guinea pig distal colon were set up with arrays of tissue markers, in vitro. Firing of single viscerofugal neurons was identified in extracellular colonic nerve recordings. The locations of viscerofugal nerve cell bodies were inferred by mapping firing responses to focal application of the nicotinic receptor agonist, DMPP. Mechanosensory firing was recorded during load-evoked uni-axial or bi-axial distensions. Distension caused movement of surface markers which was captured using video imaging. DIC tracked the markers, interpolating the mechanical state of the gut at the location of the viscerofugal nerve cell body. This technique revealed heterogeneous load-evoked strain within preparations. Local strains at viscerofugal nerve cell bodies were usually smaller than global strain measurements and correlated more closely with mechanosensitive firing. Both circumferential and longitudinal strain activated viscerofugal neurons. Simultaneous loading in circumferential and longitudinal axes, caused the highest levels of viscerofugal neuron firing. Multiaxial strains, reflecting tissue shearing and changing area, linearly correlated with mechanosensory firing of viscerofugal neurons. Viscerofugal neurons were mechanically sensitive to both local circumferential and local longitudinal gut strain, and appear to lack directionality in their stretch sensitivity