The COllaborative project of Development of Anthropometrical measures in Twins (CODATwins) project is a large international collaborative effort to analyze individual-level phenotype data from twins in multiple cohorts from different environments. The main objective is to study factors that modify genetic and environmental variation of height, body mass index (BMI, kg/m2) and size at birth, and additionally to address other research questions such as long-term consequences of birth size. The project started in 2013 and is open to all twin projects in the world having height and weight measures on twins with information on zygosity. Thus far, 54 twin projects from 24 countries have provided individual-level data. The CODATwins database includes 489,981 twin individuals (228,635 complete twin pairs). Since many twin cohorts have collected longitudinal data, there is a total of 1,049,785 height and weight observations. For many cohorts, we also have information on birth weight and length, own smoking behavior and own or parental education. We found that the heritability estimates of height and BMI systematically changed from infancy to old age. Remarkably, only minor differences in the heritability estimates were found across cultural–geographic regions, measurement time and birth cohort for height and BMI. In addition to genetic epidemiological studies, we looked at associations of height and BMI with education, birth weight and smoking status. Within-family analyses examined differences within same-sex and opposite-sex dizygotic twins in birth size and later development. The CODATwins project demonstrates the feasibility and value of international collaboration to address gene-by-exposure interactions that require large sample sizes and address the effects of different exposures across time, geographical regions and socioeconomic status.

A trend toward greater body size in dizygotic (DZ) than in monozygotic (MZ) twins has been suggested by some but not all studies, and this difference may also vary by age. We analyzed zygosity differences in mean values and variances of height and body mass index (BMI) among male and female twins from infancy to old age. Data were derived from an international database of 54 twin cohorts participating in the COllaborative project of Development of Anthropometrical measures in Twins (CODATwins), and included 842,951 height and BMI measurements from twins aged 1 to 102 years. The results showed that DZ twins were consistently taller than MZ twins, with differences of up to 2.0 cm in childhood and adolescence and up to 0.9 cm in adulthood. Similarly, a greater mean BMI of up to 0.3 kg/m2 in childhood and adolescence and up to 0.2 kg/m2 in adulthood was observed in DZ twins, although the pattern was less consistent. DZ twins presented up to 1.7% greater height and 1.9% greater BMI than MZ twins; these percentage differences were largest in middle and late childhood and decreased with age in both sexes. The variance of height was similar in MZ and DZ twins at most ages. In contrast, the variance of BMI was significantly higher in DZ than in MZ twins, particularly in childhood. In conclusion, DZ twins were generally taller and had greater BMI than MZ twins, but the differences decreased with age in both sexes.

M105 in the Leo I Group is a textbook example of a standard elliptical galaxy. It is only one of the few elliptical galaxies for which we can study their stellar halos using the resolved stars. It is an ideal target to study the structure and composition of stellar halos in elliptical galaxies. We present photometry and metallicity of the resolved stars in the inner and outer regions of M105. These provide strong evidence that there are two distinct stellar halos in this galaxy, a metal-poor (blue) halo and a metal-rich (red) halo. Then we compare them with those in other early-type galaxies and use the dual halo mode formation scenario to describe how massive galaxies formed.

For over 100 years, the genetics of human anthropometric traits has attracted scientific interest. In particular, height and body mass index (BMI, calculated as kg/m2) have been under intensive genetic research. However, it is still largely unknown whether and how heritability estimates vary between human populations. Opportunities to address this question have increased recently because of the establishment of many new twin cohorts and the increasing accumulation of data in established twin cohorts. We started a new research project to analyze systematically (1) the variation of heritability estimates of height, BMI and their trajectories over the life course between birth cohorts, ethnicities and countries, and (2) to study the effects of birth-related factors, education and smoking on these anthropometric traits and whether these effects vary between twin cohorts. We identified 67 twin projects, including both monozygotic (MZ) and dizygotic (DZ) twins, using various sources. We asked for individual level data on height and weight including repeated measurements, birth related traits, background variables, education and smoking. By the end of 2014, 48 projects participated. Together, we have 893,458 height and weight measures (52% females) from 434,723 twin individuals, including 201,192 complete twin pairs (40% monozygotic, 40% same-sex dizygotic and 20% opposite-sex dizygotic) representing 22 countries. This project demonstrates that large-scale international twin studies are feasible and can promote the use of existing data for novel research purposes.

The Clostridium-related poultry disease, necrotic enteritis (NE), causes substantial economic losses on a global scale. In the present study, a mixture of two plant-derived phytonutrients, Capsicum oleoresin and turmeric oleoresin (XT), was evaluated for its effects on local and systemic immune responses using a co-infection model of experimental NE in commercial broilers. Chickens were fed from hatch with a diet supplemented with XT, or with a non-supplemented control diet, and either uninfected or orally challenged with virulent Eimeria maxima oocysts at 14 d and Clostridium perfringens at 18 d of age. Parameters of protective immunity were as follows: (1) body weight; (2) gut lesions; (3) serum levels of C. perfringens α-toxin and NE B-like (NetB) toxin; (4) serum levels of antibodies to α-toxin and NetB toxin; (5) levels of gene transcripts encoding pro-inflammatory cytokines and chemokines in the intestine and spleen. Infected chickens fed the XT-supplemented diet had increased body weight and reduced gut lesion scores compared with infected birds given the non-supplemented diet. The XT-fed group also displayed decreased serum α-toxin levels and reduced intestinal IL-8, lipopolysaccharide-induced TNF-α factor (LITAF), IL-17A and IL-17F mRNA levels, while cytokine/chemokine levels in splenocytes increased in the XT-fed group, compared with the animals fed the control diet. In conclusion, the present study documents the molecular and cellular immune changes following dietary supplementation with extracts of Capsicum and turmeric that may be relevant to protective immunity against avian NE.

The effects of cinnamaldehyde (CINN) on in vitro parameters of immunity and in vivo protection against avian coccidiosis were evaluated. In vitro stimulation of chicken spleen lymphocytes with CINN (25–400 ng/ml) induced greater cell proliferation compared with the medium control (P < 0·001). CINN activated cultured macrophages to produce higher levels of NO at 1·2–5·0 μg/ml (P < 0·001), inhibited the growth of chicken tumour cells at 0·6–2·5 μg/ml (P < 0·001) and reduced the viability of Eimeriatenella parasites at 10 and 100 μg/ml (P < 0·05 and P < 0·001, respectively), compared with media controls. In chickens fed a diet supplemented with CINN at 14·4 mg/kg, the levels of IL-1β, IL-6, IL-15 and interferon-γ transcripts in intestinal lymphocytes were 2- to 47-fold higher (P < 0·001) compared with chickens given a non-supplemented diet. To determine the effect of CINN diets on avian coccidiosis, chickens were fed diets supplemented with CINN at 14·4 mg/kg (E. maxima or E. tenella) or 125 mg/kg (E. acervulina) from hatch for 24 d, and orally infected with 2·0 × 104 sporulated oocysts at age 14 d. CINN-fed chickens showed 16·5 and 41·6 % increased body-weight gains between 0–9 d post-infection (DPI) with E. acervulina or E. maxima, reduced E. acervulina oocyst shedding between 5–9 DPI and increased E. tenella-stimulated parasite antibody responses at 9 DPI compared with controls.

We successfully fabricated a-IGZO TFTs employing a Ti/Cu source/drain (S/D) and SiNx passivation in order to reduce the line-resistance, as compared to most oxide TFTs that use Mo (or TCO) and SiO2 for their S/D and passivation, respectively. Although passivated with SiNx, the TFT exhibits good transfer characteristics without a negative shift. However, the TFT employing a Mo S/D exhibited conductor-like characteristics when passivated with SiNx. Our investigation suggests that the IGZO oxygen vacancies found in the Ti/Cu S/D are controlled, resulting in low concentrations, and so prevent the SiNx-passivated TFT from having a negative shift.

Nitrogen-doped titania with a unique two-level hierarchical structure and visible light photocatalytic activity is reported. Thus, nitrogen-doped titanium oxide microrods decorated with N-doped titanium oxide nanosheets were synthesized by a hydrothermal reaction in NH4OH and postcalcination. During the calcination, the in situ incorporation of nitrogen atoms of ammonium ion into titania lattice was accompanied by the structural evolution from titanate to anatase titania. The morphological and structural evolution was monitored by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), x-ray diffraction (XRD), thermogravimetric analysis/differential thermal analysis (TGA/DTA), Raman, Fourier transform infrared (FTIR), x-ray absorption near edge structure (XANES), x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), and adsorption isotherms. The N-doping brought visible light absorption, and the material exhibited high photocatalytic activity in the decomposition of Orange II under visible light irradiation (λ ≥ 400 nm), especially when it was loaded with 1 wt% Pt as a cocatalyst.

Single-crystalline rock-salt PbS nanowires (NWs) were synthesized using three different routes; the solvothermal, chemical vapor transport, and gas-phase substitution reaction of pre-grown CdS NWs. They were uniformly grown with the [100] or [110], [112] direction in a controlled manner. In the solvothermal growth, the oriented attachment of the octylamine (OA) ligands enables the NWs to be produced with a controlled morphology and growth direction. As the concentration of OA increases, the growth direction evolves from the [100] to the higher surface-energy [110] and [112] directions. In the synthesis involving chemical vapor transport and the substitution reaction, the use of a lower growth temperature causes the higher surface-energy growth direction to change from [100] to [110]. We fabricated field effect transistors using single PbS NW, which showed intrinsic p-type semiconductor characteristics for all three routes. For the PbS NW with a thinner oxide layer, the carrier mobility was measured to be as high as 10 cm2V−1s−1.

Brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) signalling via tyrosine kinase B receptors may play an important role in ovarian development and function. It has been reported that metformin elevates the activity of Tyrosine kinase receptors and may amplify BDNF signalling. The objective of this study was to investigate the effect of BDNF during in vitro maturation (IVM) and/or in vitro culture (IVC) (Experiment 1), and to evaluate the collaborative effect of BDNF and metformin treatment on the developmental competence of bovine in vitro fertilized (IVF) embryos (Experiment 2). In Experiment 1, BDNF, which was added to our previously established IVM systems, significantly increased the proportions of MII oocytes at both 10 ng/ml (86.7%) and 100 ng/ml (85.4%) compared with the control (64.0%). However, there was no statistically significant difference in blastocyst development between the control or BDNF-supplemented groups. In Experiment 2, in order to investigate the effect of BDNF (10 ng/ml) and/or metformin (10−5 M) per se, TCM-199 without serum and hormones was used as the control IVM medium. The BDNF (48.3%) and BDNF plus metformin (56.5%) significantly enhanced the proportions of MII oocytes compared with the control (34.4%). Although, BDNF or metformin alone had no effect in embryo development, BDNF plus metformin significantly improved early embryo development to the 8–16-cell stage compared with the control (16.5 vs. 5.5%). In conclusion, the combination of BDNF and metformin may have a collaborative effect during the IVM period. These results could further contribute to the establishment of a more efficient bovine in vitro embryo production system.

Background: This study aims to establish the incidence rates of Alzheimer's disease (AD) and to understand the relations between illiteracy and AD in the Korean Yonchon survey cohort.

Methods: A community-based, dementia-free cohort of 966 people aged 65 years and older was followed up for an average of 5.4 ± 1.60 years to detect incident AD cases using a two-phase procedure. Age-specific incidence rates were calculated using a person-years approach with Poisson distribution confidence intervals. Data were analyzed using the Cox proportional hazards model to find the hazard ratio of illiteracy.

Results: The participating percentage of the survivors was 86.4% and 74 subjects were diagnosed with AD. Incidence rates per 1000 person-years were 20.99 (95% CI 16.48 to 26.35) for AD. The hazard ratio of illiteracy was 1.78 (95% CI 1.08 to 2.93) adjusted for age, sex, educational level. AD developed more rapidly with aging in the illiterate group than in the literate group.

Conclusions: Illiteracy is associated with a higher risk of AD and the risk increases with age.

To improve the IPD reliability of NAND flash memory, plasma oxidation was introduced as the post-treatment process of ONO (Oxide/Nitride/Oxide) IPD. The LP-CVD SiO2 modified by plasma oxidation showed the excellent electrical properties. e.g., low leakage current, high breakdown voltage etc. By the analysis of Tof-SIMS and XRR, we could observe the several changes of physical characteristics such as the reduction of impurities (H, N etc.), the increase of oxide density, and the improvement of oxide surface roughness. We found out the appropriate treatment condition to be able to densify oxide layer without the addition of ONO Equivalent Oxide Thickness (EOT). The LP-CVD SiO2 prepared by plasma oxidation was used for the ONO IPD of 50nm NAND flash device and also compared with the conventional LP-CVD SiO2 in the aspect of the IPD reliability.

To determine the effectiveness of infection control strategies to reduce transmission of vancomycin-resistant enterococci (VRE), a cohort study was performed in a university hospital. Contact precautions alone were not effective in reducing transmission of VRE. Strict isolation of affected patients in private rooms, in addition to use of contact precautions, showed a significantly improved reduction in the transmission of VRE.

Background: A fall experienced by an elderly person is of special note because it appears to hold a reciprocal causal association with the fear of falling. This study attempts to determine the temporal relationship between the fear of falling and falling among community-dwelling elderly.

Methods: Data on falls experienced during the previous three years were obtained from 732 community-dwelling elderly people. Participants were also asked to provide detailed information about their most recent fall, including the date, time of day, place, circumstances, consequences of the fall, fear of falling, and activity limitations due to fear of falling.

Results: Those who had fallen within the past six months had over four times greater odds of a fear of falling and approximately five times greater odds of activity restriction, compared with those who had not fallen. The association decreased linearly over time, and became nonsignificant for those who had not fallen during the past 25–36 months.

Conclusions: The experience of a fall is strongly associated with an increased fear of falling, and the association appears to persist for at least two years. An elderly person who has experienced a fall requires continuous attention to prevent the development of fear as another problem, together with early intervention to counter the fear of falling.