| 1. |
- Blokland, G. A. M., et al.
(author)
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Sex-Dependent Shared and Nonshared Genetic Architecture Across Mood and Psychotic Disorders
- 2022
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In: Biological Psychiatry. - : Elsevier BV. - 0006-3223 .- 1873-2402. ; 91:1, s. 102-117
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Background: Sex differences in incidence and/or presentation of schizophrenia (SCZ), major depressive disorder (MDD), and bipolar disorder (BIP) are pervasive. Previous evidence for shared genetic risk and sex differences in brain abnormalities across disorders suggest possible shared sex-dependent genetic risk. Methods: We conducted the largest to date genome-wide genotype-by-sex (G×S) interaction of risk for these disorders using 85,735 cases (33,403 SCZ, 19,924 BIP, and 32,408 MDD) and 109,946 controls from the PGC (Psychiatric Genomics Consortium) and iPSYCH. Results: Across disorders, genome-wide significant single nucleotide polymorphism–by-sex interaction was detected for a locus encompassing NKAIN2 (rs117780815, p = 3.2 × 10−8), which interacts with sodium/potassium-transporting ATPase (adenosine triphosphatase) enzymes, implicating neuronal excitability. Three additional loci showed evidence (p < 1 × 10−6) for cross-disorder G×S interaction (rs7302529, p = 1.6 × 10−7; rs73033497, p = 8.8 × 10−7; rs7914279, p = 6.4 × 10−7), implicating various functions. Gene-based analyses identified G×S interaction across disorders (p = 8.97 × 10−7) with transcriptional inhibitor SLTM. Most significant in SCZ was a MOCOS gene locus (rs11665282, p = 1.5 × 10−7), implicating vascular endothelial cells. Secondary analysis of the PGC-SCZ dataset detected an interaction (rs13265509, p = 1.1 × 10−7) in a locus containing IDO2, a kynurenine pathway enzyme with immunoregulatory functions implicated in SCZ, BIP, and MDD. Pathway enrichment analysis detected significant G×S interaction of genes regulating vascular endothelial growth factor receptor signaling in MDD (false discovery rate-corrected p < .05). Conclusions: In the largest genome-wide G×S analysis of mood and psychotic disorders to date, there was substantial genetic overlap between the sexes. However, significant sex-dependent effects were enriched for genes related to neuronal development and immune and vascular functions across and within SCZ, BIP, and MDD at the variant, gene, and pathway levels. © 2021 Society of Biological Psychiatry
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| 7. |
- Rosser, Z H, et al.
(author)
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Y-chromosomal diversity in Europe is clinal and influenced primarily by geography, rather than by language.
- 2000
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In: American Journal of Human Genetics. - : Elsevier BV. - 0002-9297 .- 1537-6605. ; 67:6, s. 1526-43
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Clinal patterns of autosomal genetic diversity within Europe have been interpreted in previous studies in terms of a Neolithic demic diffusion model for the spread of agriculture; in contrast, studies using mtDNA have traced many founding lineages to the Paleolithic and have not shown strongly clinal variation. We have used 11 human Y-chromosomal biallelic polymorphisms, defining 10 haplogroups, to analyze a sample of 3,616 Y chromosomes belonging to 47 European and circum-European populations. Patterns of geographic differentiation are highly nonrandom, and, when they are assessed using spatial autocorrelation analysis, they show significant clines for five of six haplogroups analyzed. Clines for two haplogroups, representing 45% of the chromosomes, are continentwide and consistent with the demic diffusion hypothesis. Clines for three other haplogroups each have different foci and are more regionally restricted and are likely to reflect distinct population movements, including one from north of the Black Sea. Principal-components analysis suggests that populations are related primarily on the basis of geography, rather than on the basis of linguistic affinity. This is confirmed in Mantel tests, which show a strong and highly significant partial correlation between genetics and geography but a low, nonsignificant partial correlation between genetics and language. Genetic-barrier analysis also indicates the primacy of geography in the shaping of patterns of variation. These patterns retain a strong signal of expansion from the Near East but also suggest that the demographic history of Europe has been complex and influenced by other major population movements, as well as by linguistic and geographic heterogeneities and the effects of drift.
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| 9. |
- Grigaleviciute, R, et al.
(author)
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The Influence of Feeding with Colostrum and Colostrum Replacer on Major Blood Biomarkers and Growth Performance in Dairy Calves
- 2023
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In: Veterinary sciences. - : MDPI AG. - 2306-7381. ; 10:2
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Bovine colostrum (BC) is the first milk produced by lactating cows after parturition. BC is rich in various amino acids, proteins, and fats essential for the nutrition of the neonate calves. Despite the evident beneficial effect of BC on calves, the effect of BC on blood biomarkers is poorly understood. Calves that received BC showed significantly higher body mass at days 7 and 30 (38.54 kg and 43.42 kg, respectively) compared to the colostrum replacer group (p = 0.0064). BC induced greater quantities of blood neutrophils (0.27 × 109/L) and monocytes (4.76 × 109/L) in comparison to the colostrum replacer (0.08 and 0.06 × 109/L, respectively) (p = 0.0001). Animals that received BC showed higher levels of total serum protein (59.16 g/L) and albumin (29.96 g/L) in comparison to the colostrum replacer group (44.34 g/L and 31.58 g/L, respectively). In addition, BC induced greater intestinal mucus production in the Wistar rat model. Collectively, these results demonstrate that BC is important for the growth of calves and that it provides a significant beneficial effect on morphological and biochemical blood parameters.
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| 10. |
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| 11. |
- Jordi, C, et al.
(author)
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The design and performance of the Gaia photometric system
- 2006
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In: Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. - : Oxford University Press (OUP). - 1365-2966 .- 0035-8711. ; 367:1, s. 290-314
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The European Gaia astrometry mission is due for launch in 2011. Gaia will rely on the proven principles of the ESA Hipparcos mission to create an all-sky survey of about one billion stars throughout our Galaxy and beyond, by observing all objects down to 20 mag. Through its massive measurement of stellar distances, motions and multicolour photometry, it will provide fundamental data necessary for unravelling the structure, formation and evolution of the Galaxy. This paper presents the design and performance of the broad- and medium-band set of photometric filters adopted as the baseline for Gaia. The 19 selected passbands (extending from the UV to the far-red), the criteria and the methodology on which this choice has been based are discussed in detail. We analyse the photometric capabilities for characterizing the luminosity, temperature, gravity and chemical composition of stars. We also discuss the automatic determination of these physical parameters for the large number of observations involved, for objects located throughout the entire Hertzsprung-Russell diagram. Finally, the capability of the photometric system (PS) to deal with the main Gaia science case is outlined.
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| 12. |
- Lazaridis, Iosif, et al.
(author)
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Ancient human genomes suggest three ancestral populations for present-day Europeans
- 2014
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In: Nature. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0028-0836 .- 1476-4687. ; 513:7518, s. 409-
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- We sequenced the genomes of a similar to 7,000-year-old farmer from Germany and eight similar to 8,000-year-old hunter-gatherers from Luxembourg and Sweden. We analysed these and other ancient genomes(1-4) with 2,345 contemporary humans to show that most present-day Europeans derive from at least three highly differentiated populations: west European hunter-gatherers, who contributed ancestry to all Europeans but not to Near Easterners; ancient north Eurasians related to Upper Palaeolithic Siberians(3), who contributed to both Europeans and Near Easterners; and early European farmers, who were mainly of Near Eastern origin but also harboured west European hunter-gatherer related ancestry. We model these populations' deep relationships and show that early European farmers had similar to 44% ancestry from a 'basal Eurasian' population that split before the diversification of other non-African lineages.
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| 13. |
- Cescutti, G., et al.
(author)
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MINCE I. Presentation of the project and of the first year sample
- 2022
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In: Astronomy and Astrophysics. - : EDP Sciences. - 0004-6361 .- 1432-0746. ; 668
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Context. In recent years, Galactic archaeology has become a particularly vibrant field of astronomy, with its main focus set on the oldest stars of our Galaxy. In most cases, these stars have been identified as the most metal-poor. However, the struggle to find these ancient fossils has produced an important bias in the observations - in particular, the intermediate metal-poor stars (-2.5 < [Fe/H] < -1.5) have been frequently overlooked. The missing information has consequences for the precise study of the chemical enrichment of our Galaxy, in particular for what concerns neutron capture elements and it will be only partially covered by future multi object spectroscopic surveys such as WEAVE and 4MOST.Aims. Measuring at Intermediate Metallicity Neutron Capture Elements (MINCE) is gathering the first high-quality spectra (high signal-to-noise ratio, S/N, and high resolution) for several hundreds of bright and metal-poor stars, mainly located in our Galactic halo.Methods. We compiled our selection mainly on the basis of Gaia data and determined the stellar atmospheres of our sample and the chemical abundances of each star.Results. In this paper, we present the first sample of 59 spectra of 46 stars. We measured the radial velocities and computed the Galactic orbits for all stars. We found that 8 stars belong to the thin disc, 15 to disrupted satellites, and the remaining cannot be associated to the mentioned structures, and we call them halo stars. For 33 of these stars, we provide abundances for the elements up to zinc. We also show the chemical evolution results for eleven chemical elements, based on recent models.Conclusions. Our observational strategy of using multiple telescopes and spectrographs to acquire high S/N and high-resolution spectra for intermediate-metallicity stars has proven to be very efficient, since the present sample was acquired over only about one year of observations. Finally, our target selection strategy, after an initial adjustment, proved satisfactory for our purposes.
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| 14. |
- Bonifacio, P., et al.
(author)
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Using CO5BOLD models to predict the effects of granulation on colours .
- 2017
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In: MEMORIE della Società Astronomica Italiana. - 0037-8720 .- 1824-016X. ; 88
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Journal article (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Abstract.In order to investigate the effects of granulation on fluxes and colours, we computedthe emerging fluxes from the models in theCO5BOLDgrid with metallicities [M/H]=0.0,–1.0,–2.0 and –3.0. These fluxes have been used to compute colours in different photometric systems.We explain here how our computations have been performed and provide some results.Key words.Convection – Hydrodynamics - Stars: atmosphere
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| 15. |
- Bonifacio, P., et al.
(author)
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Using the CIFIST grid of CO5BOLD 3D model atmospheres to study the effects of stellar granulation on photometric colours : I. Grids of 3D corrections in the UBVRI, 2MASS, HIPPARCOS, Gaia, and SDSS systems
- 2018
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In: Astronomy and Astrophysics. - : EDP Sciences. - 0004-6361 .- 1432-0746. ; 611:9
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Context. The atmospheres of cool stars are temporally and spatially inhomogeneous due to the effects of convection. The influence of this inhomogeneity, referred to as granulation, on colours has never been investigated over a large range of effective temperatures and gravities.Aim. We aim to study, in a quantitative way, the impact of granulation on colours.Methods. We use the CIFIST (Cosmological Impact of the FIrst Stars) grid of CO5BOLD (COnservative COde for the COmputation of COmpressible COnvection in a BOx of L Dimensions, L = 2, 3) hydrodynamical models to compute emerging fluxes. These in turn are used to compute theoretical colours in the UBV RI, 2MASS, HIPPARCOS, Gaia and SDSS systems. Every CO5BOLD model has a corresponding one dimensional (1D) plane-parallel LHD (Lagrangian HydroDynamics) model computed for the same atmospheric parameters, which we used to define a “3D correction” that can be applied to colours computed from fluxes computed from any 1D model atmosphere code. As an example, we illustrate these corrections applied to colours computed from ATLAS models.Results. The 3D corrections on colours are generally small, of the order of a few hundredths of a magnitude, yet they are far from negligible. We find that ignoring granulation effects can lead to underestimation of Teff by up to 200 K and overestimation of gravity by up to 0.5 dex, when using colours as diagnostics. We have identified a major shortcoming in how scattering is treated in the current version of the CIFIST grid, which could lead to offsets of the order 0.01 mag, especially for colours involving blue and UV bands. We have investigated the Gaia and HIPPARCOS photometric systems and found that the (G − Hp), (BP − RP) diagram is immune to the effects of granulation. In addition, we point to the potential of the RVS photometry as a metallicity diagnostic.Conclusions. Our investigation shows that the effects of granulation should not be neglected if one wants to use colours as diagnostics of the stellar parameters of F, G, K stars. A limitation is that scattering is treated as true absorption in our current computations, thus our 3D corrections are likely an upper limit to the true effect. We are already computing the next generation of the CIFIST grid, using an approximate treatment of scattering.
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| 16. |
- Cuttini, M., et al.
(author)
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Should euthanasia be legal? An international survey of neonatal intensive care units staff
- 2004
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In: Archives of Disease in Childhood. - 0003-9888 .- 1468-2044. ; 89:1
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Objective: To present the views of a representative sample of neonatal doctors and nurses in 10 European countries on the moral acceptability of active euthanasia and its legal regulation. Design: A total of 142 neonatal intensive care units were recruited by census (in the Netherlands, Sweden, Hungary, and the Baltic countries) or random sampling (in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom), 1391 doctors and 3410 nurses completed an anonymous questionnaire (response rates 89% and 86% respectively). Main outcome measure: The staff opinion that the law in their country should be changed to allow active euthanasia "more than now". Results: Active euthanasia appeared to be both acceptable and practiced in the Netherlands, France, and to a lesser extent Lithuania, and less acceptable in Sweden, Hungary, Italy, and Spain. More then half (53%) of the doctors in the Netherlands, but only a quarter (24%) in France felt that the law should be changed to allow active euthanasia "more than now". For 40% of French doctors, end of life issues should not be regulated by law. Being male, regular involvement in research, less than six years professional experience, and having ever participated in a decision of active euthanasia were positively associated with an opinion favouring relaxation of legal constraints. Having had children, religiousness, and believing in the absolute value of human life showed a negative association. Nurses were slightly more likely to consider active euthanasia acceptable in selected circumstances, and to feel that the law should be changed to allow it more than now. Conclusions: Opinions of health professionals vary widely between countries, and, even where neonatal euthanasia is already practiced, do not uniformly support its legalisation.
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| 17. |
- Deshmukh, S. A., et al.
(author)
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The solar photospheric silicon abundance according to (COBOLD)-B-5 : Investigating line broadening, magnetic fields, and model effects
- 2022
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In: Astronomy and Astrophysics. - : EDP Sciences. - 0004-6361 .- 1432-0746. ; 668
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Context. In this work, we present a photospheric solar silicon abundance derived using (COBOLD)-B-5 model atmospheres and the LINFOR3D spectral synthesis code. Previous works have differed in their choice of a spectral line sample and model atmosphere as well as their treatment of observational material, and the solar silicon abundance has undergone a downward revision in recent years. We additionally show the effects of the chosen line sample, broadening due to velocity fields, collisional broadening, model spatial resolution, and magnetic fields. Aims. Our main aim is to derive the photospheric solar silicon abundance using updated oscillator strengths and to mitigate model shortcomings such as over-broadening of synthetic spectra. We also aim to investigate the effects of different line samples, fitting configurations, and magnetic fields on the fitted abundance and broadening values. Methods. (COBOLD)-B-5 model atmospheres for the Sun were used in conjunction with the LINFOR3D spectral synthesis code to generate model spectra, which were then fit to observations in the Hamburg solar atlas. We took pixel-to-pixel signal correlations into account by means of a correlated noise model. The choice of line sample is crucial to determining abundances, and we present a sample of 11 carefully selected lines (from an initial choice of 39 lines) in both the optical and infrared, which has been made possible with newly determined oscillator strengths for the majority of these lines. Our final sample includes seven optical Si I lines, three infrared Si I lines, and one optical Si II line. Results. We derived a photospheric solar silicon abundance of log epsilon(Si) = 7.57 +/- 0.04, including a -0.01 dex correction from Non-Local Thermodynamic Equilibrium (NLTE) effects. Combining this with meteoritic abundances and previously determined photospheric abundances results in a metal mass fraction Z/X = 0.0220 +/- 0.0020. We found a tendency of obtaining overly broad synthetic lines. We mitigated the impact of this by devising a de-broadening procedure. The over-broadening of synthetic lines does not substantially affect the abundance determined in the end. It is primarily the line selection that affects the final fitted abundance.
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| 18. |
- Rebagliato, Marisa, et al.
(author)
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Neonatal end-of-life decision making : physicians' attitudes and relationship with self-reported practices in 10 European countries
- 2000
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In: Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). - Chicago : American Medical Association. - 0098-7484 .- 1538-3598. ; 284:19, s. 2451-2459
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Context: The ethical issues surrounding end-of-life decision making for infants with adverse prognoses are controversial. Little empirical evidence is available on the attitudes and values that underlie such decisions in different countries and cultures. Objective: To explore the variability of neonatal physicians' attitudes among 10 European countries and the relationship between such attitudes and self-reported practice of end-of-life decisions. Design and Setting: Survey conducted during 1996-1997 in 10 European countries (France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom, Estonia, Hungary, and Lithuania). Participants: A total of 1391 physicians (response rate, 89%) regularly employed in 142 neonatal intensive care units (NICUs). Main Outcome Measures: Scores on an attitude scale, which measured views regarding absolute value of life (score of 0) vs value of quality of life (score of 10), self-report of having ever set limits to intensive neonatal interventions in cases of poor neurological prognosis. Results: Physicians more likely to agree with statements consistent with preserving life at any cost were from Hungary (mean attitude scores, 5.2 [95% confidence interval {Cl}, 4.9-5.5]), Estonia (4.9 [95% Cl, 4.3-5.5]), Lithuania (5.5 [95% Cl, 4.8-6.1]), and Italy (5.7 [95% Cl, 5.3-6.0]), while physicians more likely to agree with the idea that quality of life must be taken into account were from the United Kingdom (attitude scores, 7.4 [95% Cl, 7.1-7.7]), the Netherlands (7.3 [95% Cl, 7.1-7.5]), and Sweden (6.8 [95% Cl, 6.4-7.3]). Other factors associated with having a pro-quality-of-life view were being female, having had no children, being Protestant or having no religious background, considering religion as not important, and working in an NICU with a high number of very low-birth-weight newborns. Physicians with scores reflecting a more quality-of-life view were more likely to report that in their practice, they had set limits to intensive interventions in cases of poor neurological prognosis, with an adjusted odds ratio of 1.5 (95% Cl, 1.3-1.7) per unit change in attitude score. Conclusions: In our study, physicians' likelihood of reporting setting limits to intensive neonatal interventions in cases of poor neurological prognosis is related to their attitudes. After adjusting for potential confounders, country remained the most important predictor of physicians' attitudes and practices.
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| 19. |
- Budriunas, R., et al.
(author)
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Broadband noncollinear optical parametric amplification in GaSe pumped at 1.5μm
- 2018
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In: Optics InfoBase Conference Papers. - : OSA - The Optical Society. - 9781557528209
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Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- We demonstrate broadband parametric amplification in GaSe crystal in noncollinear geometry. Seed pulses spanning 1.5-2.6μm are produced by cascaded χ(2) nonlinearity in a periodically poled Rb:KTP crystal. Amplified pulse bandwidths supporting 10-15fs transformlimited pulse durations at ~2μm central wavelength are achieved.
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| 21. |
- Kucinskas, A., et al.
(author)
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Magnitude And Color Transformations Between Sirius And 2Mass Photometric Systems
- 2008
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In: Baltic Astronomy. - 1392-0049. ; 17:3-4, s. 283-292
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- We provide magnitude and color transformations between two near-infrared photometric systems, 2MASS and SIRIUS, the latter currently implemented with the three-Channel SIRIUS camera on 1.4 m Infrared Survey Facility telescope at the South African Astronomical Observatory. The transformation equations are derived using a carefully selected sample of 32 770 stars in the. Large and Small Magellanic Clouds that have high quality observations available in both photometric systems. The derived transformations are valid in the color range -0.1 < (J - H)(SIRIUS) < 1.15, -0.05 < (H - K-s)(SIRIUS) < 0.7 and -0.1 < (J - K-s)(SIRIUS) < 1.7.
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