Understanding the genetic and environmental contributions to measures of brain structure such as surface area and cortical thickness is important for a better understanding of the nature of brain-behavior relationships and changes due to development or disease. Continuous spatial maps of genetic influences on these structural features can contribute to our understanding of regional patterns of heritability, since it remains to be seen whether genetic contributions to brain structure respect the boundaries of any traditional parcellation approaches. Using data from magnetic resonance imaging scans collected on a large sample of monozygotic and dizygotic twins in the Vietnam Era Twin Study of Aging, we created maps of the heritability of areal expansion (a vertex-based area measure) and cortical thickness and examined the degree to which these maps were affected by adjustment for total surface area and mean cortical thickness. We also compared the approach of estimating regional heritability based on the average heritability of vertices within the region to the more traditional region-of-interest (ROI)-based approach. The results suggested high heritability across the cortex for areal expansion and, to a slightly lesser degree, for cortical thickness. There was a great deal of genetic overlap between global and regional measures for surface area, so maps of region-specific genetic influences on surface area revealed more modest heritabilities. There was greater inter-regional variability in heritabilities when calculated using the traditional ROI-based approach compared to summarizing vertex-by-vertex heritabilities within regions. Discrepancies between the approaches were greatest in small regions and tended to be larger for surface area than for cortical thickness measures. Implications regarding brain phenotypes for future genetic association studies are discussed.

Energy metabolism, insulin resistance and adiposity have been implicated in breast cancer, but dietary interventions to reduce breast cancer morbidity and mortality have had limited success. MicroRNA (miRNA) are short, non-coding RNA that participate in the control of metabolic processes through the post-transcriptional modification of RNA. We investigated the effect of a low-glycaemic load dietary intervention on miRNA expression, with subsequent bioinformatics pathway analyses to explore metabolic pathways potentially affected by the diet. Total RNA, including miRNA, was isolated from the serum of fourteen otherwise healthy pre-menopausal women with a high breast cancer risk participating in a 12-month dietary intervention designed to lower glycaemic load by at least 15 % from baseline. Genome-wide miRNA expression was conducted using Illumina BeadChips. In the intervention subjects, three differentially expressed miRNA were validated by real-time (RT)-PCR, and in the twenty control participants, four top differentially expressed miRNA were evaluated to confirm a diet effect. In post-intervention v. baseline serum, twenty miRNA were found to be differentially expressed, with twelve up-regulated and eight down-regulated. These differentially expressed miRNA were predicted to be potentially associated with energy balance and cancer pathways based on exploratory enrichment analysis. Quantitative RT-PCR validations in the controls confirmed that the observed miRNA differential expression was dietary intervention induced. Manipulation of dietary glycaemic load has the potential to modify the expression of multiple miRNA predicted to be involved in energy balance and cancer pathways. Further research is necessary to confirm the role of these miRNA in the control of energy metabolism and relationships with cancer-related processes.

Background: Behavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia (BPSD) cause caregiver distress and earlier institutionalization. We compared the prevalence and characteristics of BPSD between institution residents and memory clinic outpatients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) to test the hypothesis that there is more BPSD among institution residents than among their outpatient counterparts.

Methods: We assessed BPSD by interviewing the patients’ principal caregivers, either family or professionals, using the Behavioral Pathology in Alzheimer's Disease Rating Scale (BEHAVE-AD). Data from 138 patients with probable AD from the memory clinic and 173 residents with possible AD living in the long-term care facilities were collected. The diagnoses followed the NINCDS-ADRDA criteria.

Results: BPSD profiles of the two groups were similar but not identical. The prevalence of at least one BPSD was high in both groups (community 81.9%, institution 74.9%). Activity disturbance was the most frequently reported BPSD in both groups (community 52.2%, institution 38.7%). Delusions, hallucinations, anxiety and aggressiveness were seen more frequently in memory clinic outpatients. The outpatients also had higher scores of BEHAVE-AD subscales in delusion/paranoid ideation, affective disturbance, and global rating of severity. With the increase of disease severity there were significantly more activity disturbance, psychosis, and aggressiveness in patients with AD.

Conclusions: Caregiver factor and institution effect were two possible reasons for the higher prevalence and the greater severity of BPSD in community patients. BPSD caused more distress to family caregivers than the professional caregivers. High levels of psychotropic prescriptions for patients living in the long-term care facilities may also play a role.

Due to the existence of singular configurations within the workspace for a platform- type parallel manipulator (PPM), the actuating force demands increase drastically as the PPM approaches or crosses singular points. Therefore, in this report, a numerical technique is presented to plan a singularity-free trajectory of the PPM for minimum actuating effort and reactions. By using the parametric trajectory representation, the singularity-free trajectory planning problem can be cast to the determination of undetermined control points, after which a particle swarm optimization algorithm is employed to find the optimal control points. This algorithm ensures that the obtained trajectories can avoid singular points within the workspace and that the PPM has the minimum actuating effort and reactions. Simulations and discussions are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the algorithm.

β-carotene was first identified from the vitreous asteroid bodies (ABs) excised from one patient with asteroid hyalosis (AH) by confocal Raman microspectroscopy and was also verified by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). Two patients had been diagnosed with AH and intervened by surgical vitrectomy due to blurred vision. The morphology and components of both AB specimens were observed by optical microscopy and determined by using confocal Raman microspectroscopy and HPLC analysis, respectively. Surprisingly, two unique peaks at 1528 and 1157 cm−1 were found in the Raman spectrum for the AB specimen of patient 1 alone, which were in close agreement with that of the Raman peaks at 1525 and 1158 cm−1 for β-carotene and/or lutein. However, HPLC analytical data clearly indicated that the retention time for the extracted sample from the AB specimen of patient 1 was observed at 13.685 min and just identical to that of β-carotene (13.759 min) rather than lutein (2.978 min). In addition, the lack of any peak in the HPLC profile for the AB specimen of patient 2 also confirmed the absence of Raman peaks at 1525 and 1158 cm−1. Thus this preliminary study strongly suggests that β-carotene as a unique component of ABs was specifically detected from the AB specimen of one AH patient by using confocal Raman microspectroscopy and HPLC analysis.

In this work, the charge-trapping distributions of polysilicon-oxide-nitride-oxide-silicon (SONOS) structure are studied. The trapping energy level of SiNx films with different composition ratio deposited by low-pressure chemical vapor deposition (LPCVD) were first characterized by photoluminescence (PL) measurement. Moreover, using F-N/CHE program and charge pumping techniques, the vertical location and the lateral distribution of programmed charges are investigated in the nitride films with different composition ratio. The study offers strong evidence that the density of charge-trapping levels in the Si-rich nitride is higher than the standard nitride. A simple qualitative model and calculation explains that the trapping level distributions in the SiNx films are shallower by increasing relative Si-content. Furthermore, we have observed the nitride trap vertical location was changed by adjusted Si/N composition ratio. And the lateral distribution of hot electron programmed charges in the modified nitride is broader than that in the standard nitride because it offered more charge-trapping sites and shallower charge-trapping levels. In summary, the study can help researchers to understand the nitride charge-trapping mechanism and the analysis of optical/electrical characteristics.