Relative contributions of different food groups to vitamin D intake in Asian and Caucasian UK women: results from the Vitamin D, Food Intake, Nutrition and Exposure to Sunlight in Southern England (D-FINES) Study - Volume 69 Issue OCE1

For Caucasian premenopausal women, using hierarchical multiple regression analysis, the two variables of most interest were added first (UV and vitamin D intake), with other physiologically-relevant variables that showed a significant correlation with vitamin D status being added next. For UV exposure in step 1 the model explained 6.1 % of variance in vitamin D status, a significant change (F change P 0.05). In steps 3 and 4 factor of sunscreen used and total body fat mass were entered into the model, and added 3.4% and 2 % of variance respectively (F change P > 0.05). Ca intake and age were not entered into the model, as they were not found to be significantly correlated with vitamin D status in this data subset, as has been found in other studies (2) . For the model as a whole the total variance in vitamin D status explained was 8.3% (adjusted R 2 0.083; F 4,73; P = 0.035). Standardised b coefficients were 0.191 for UV, 0.121 for dietary intake of vitamin D, - 0.167 for factor of sunscreen used and - 0.147 for total fat mass. However, none of these four variables made a significant unique contribution (P > 0.05) to vitamin D status. Overall, the regression model suggests that UVB, dietary intake, factor of sunscreen and total body fat mass make a small but significant contribution to determining vitamin D status, explaining approximately 8% of variance. Further analysis of the dataset is underway to determine the relative contribution of UVB exposure and dietary vitamin D intake to 25OHD status in Asian premenopausal women and the two post-menopausal Asian and Caucasian subgroups as well as determining, if possible, the specific unique contributions of each factor.

The effects of body size and vitamin D status on bone mass of British women from South Asian and European origin: results from the Vitamin D, Food Intake, Nutrition and Exposure to Sunlight in Southern England (D-FINES) Study - Volume 69 Issue OCE1

The UK has insufficient intensity of sunlight at wavelengths 290–315nm to enable cutaneous synthesis of vitamin D from October to April. There are regional differences in UVB strength throughout the UK but whether this translates to differences in vitamin D status is not known. We have reported seasonal variations in a cross-sectional study of over 3000 Scottish women in Aberdeen. The aim of this longitudinal study was to compare the seasonal variation of serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D [25(OH)D] in postmenopausal women residing in Aberdeen (57°N) and Surrey (51°N). Women attended 3-monthly visits over 12 months, starting summer 2006. In Aberdeen, 338 Caucasian women (mean age±SD, 61.7±1.5 years); and at Surrey, 138 Caucasian women (61.4±4.5 years) and 35 Asian women (59.9±6.4 years) had serum 25(OH)D measured by IDS enzyme immunoassay. In winter/spring none of the Caucasian women living in Surrey had 25(OH)D<20nmol/L, but nearly a quarter of women in Aberdeen were vitamin D-deficient. This number decreased to 4.2% in summer/autumn. For the Asian women 17.1% were vitamin D-deficient in summer, increasing to 58.1% in winter. Using higher 25(OH)D deficiency cut-offs, the percentage of women affected was much higher. These longitudinal data show clear differences in vitamin D status between the north and south of the UK, and marked ethnic differences. They are consistent with our previous data and with cross-sectional data from the 1958 birth cohort. The low vitamin D status may have implications for bone health and other health outcomes, which is currently being investigated in this publication group. The extent of vitamin D deficiency in Asian women residing in the South of England is of concern.

In this paper, we describe the design of a scalable grid node to support computation on information stored in databases. It is envisaged that huge amounts of information, both structured and semi-structured, will be made available on The Grid. Simple client-server style access to the information server will be inadequate, as the network connecting the client to the server will not have the required bandwidth to support computations that may access more than Petabytes of data. A solution that allows clients to submit computations to be run locally to the data is therefore required. The Active Information Repository is designed for this. Data is stored in a scalable object database server and computations, in the form of agents, can be sent by clients for execution on a scalable agent execution server that is tightly coupled, through a high bandwidth network, to the database server. The paper describes the rationale for this approach, and describes the design of the major components: the parallel database server, and the parallel agent execution server.

Abstract: Object-oriented) language. HiPPO is unique in itscombination of a visual syntax with an object-orientedcomputation model based on the flow of object references.The paper describes some of the notations used in the languagewith particular emphasis on the features provided tosupport the exploitation of parallelism. Aspects of the runtimesupport for HiPPO programs will also be described.

Over many years research has addressed the problems of designing and implementing software systems. Supporting tools have been developed, but the increasingly complex demands of applications have kept the need for new tools and paradigms ahead of their supply. The objectoriented paradigm is one weapon in the software engineer’s arsenal, and is seen as a highly beneficial engineering methodology, with growing tool support, whose importance is unlikely to diminish.

Visual notations for constructing parallel programs have a number of potential advantages over traditional text-based forms, and several visual parallel programming languages have been proposed. This paper explores the design space for such visual languages, and presents a taxonomy that captures the salient underlying characteristics, with exemplification from a number of existing systems. 1. WHY VISUAL PARALLEL PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES? The exploration of visual representations as a replacement for the more normal textual form for constructing programs has been a topic of research for a number of years. In the field of parallel programming, that is the construction of software systems whose constituent parts may be executed in parallel, a number of research efforts have also turned to visual representations as a possible solution to mastering the complexities inherent in this activity. Parallel programming is difficult. For even the most skillful of software developers, the intricacies of developing parallel applications with traditional textual programming methods can be taxing, and error-prone. There are two main reasons why this is so: • Linearity of text-based source code, which does not offer an intuitive representation of the true concurrent flows of control in a parallel application. • Parallelism complexity, where on top of the complexities associated with the problem domain, the developer is forced to shoulder the burden of identifying and controlling the parallelism, sharing data, protecting access to shared resources and ensuring that critical sections of code are properly delimited. The benefits of applying a language with a visual syntax to parallel programming are that both disadvantages associated with textual parallel programming can be overcome. Firstly, since a visual language is not limited to one dimension, unlike a textual language, multiple concurrent flows of control can appear naturally side-byside. Secondly, the semantics of appropriate parts of the syntax of a visual language can be adapted to implicitly resolve a number of parallelism and concurrency control issues. The purpose of this paper is to explore the design space for visual parallel programming languages (VPPLs) and to present a taxonomy that captures the important characteristics that underlie VPPLs. A number of existing VPPLs will be used to exemplify the taxonomy, but the taxonomy will also be of use to future VPPL designers for highlighting possibilities that might not otherwise be considered. 1 Work supported by the EPSRC: PhD studentship (JW); and the HiPPO project.

This report looks back on 8 years of experience of using C++ as the initial language introducing programming to undergraduate and graduate students. The aims of the report are to explain the teaching approaches taken and to address questions that anyone considering adopting a similar language (including Java) might like answers to. 1. Why switch language? Choosing a programming language to use in University courses that are introducing imperative programming has always been an interesting task. In the 1970s the approach taken by many Departments/Schools of Computer Science (CS) was to design their own programming language and then to implement the compiler and run-time system. Subsequently, the need for more standardisation has prevailed, permitting (re)use of learning materials such as books and software, and avoiding the need for compiler implementation effort. Nowadays, a choice has to be made from the " standard " languages that are available. In the 1980s Pascal (and its derivatives) was the dominant imperative language chosen for introductory programming courses. While Pascal still has attractive characteristics for teaching, such as being a simple and straightforward language, the inevitable and rapid progress of software technologies has led many departments to look for a replacement language so, for example, that issues of object-oriented technology can be covered. In the quest for such a language, C++ has been a candidate for consideration, although views about its suitability are often rather polarised such that for some the consideration only lasts for a small number of seconds! On the surface it might seem that there is little cost in switching between programming languages, and therefore a choice which turns out to be wrong by some measure can easily be rectified. In practice there are considerable overheads in adopting a particular language: preparing lecture material; preparing projects and student exercises; evaluating software environments and establishing the chosen one; evaluating text books; training for personnel; and so on. These overheads generally dictate that care is taken with choosing a language as that choice is likely to be required to last for several years. This report addresses the issue of the suitability of C++ as an initial teaching programming language – for example, for use in the traditional CS1 course. It draws on the experience from our Department (now School) which switched to C++ in 1992, and used the language to teach over 1500 students, both undergraduate and postgraduate, from a variety of disciplines. …

Hepatitis B virus (HBV) is responsible for > 350 million cases of chronic hepatitis B worldwide and 1.2 million deaths each year. To explore the use of ribozymes as a novel therapy for HBV infection, nuclease-resistant ribozymes that target highly conserved regions of HBV RNA were screened in cell culture. These synthetic ribozymes have the potential to cleave all four major HBV RNA transcripts and to block the HBV lifecycle by cleavage of the pregenomic RNA. A number of the screened ribozymes demonstrate activity in cell culture systems, as measured by decreased levels of HBV surface antigen, HBV e antigen and HBV DNA. In addition, a lead anti-HBV ribozyme maintains activity against a lamivudine-resistant HBV variant in cell culture. Treatment of HBV transgenic mice with lead anti-HBV ribozymes significantly reduced viraemia compared with saline-treated animals and was as effective as treatment with lamivudine. In conclusion, the therapeutic use of a ribozyme alone or in combination with current therapies (lamivudine or interferons) may lead to improved HBV therapy.

This paper introduces a new set of moment functions based on Chebyshev polynomials which are orthogonal in the discrete domain of the image coordinate space. Chebyshev moments eliminate the problems associated with conventional orthogonal image moments such as the Legendre moments and the Zernike moments. The theoretical framework of discrete orthogonal moments is given, and their superior feature representation capability is demonstrated.

Since we are interested in developing skills in object orientation the main abstractions we are concerned with are those for types and objects. Our type design notation, adapted from that for algorithm design, emphasises type interface design without reference to details of implementation (e.g. in C++). It avoids having to show, and explain at the design stage, the ‘concrete representation’ of a type its ‘attributes’ (private member variables). Chris Phillips Department of Computing Science University of Newcastle upon Tyne

The distribution of dimethylsulphide (DMS), together with the precursor dimethylsulphonio-propionate (DMSP) and the oxidation product dimethylsulphoxide (DMSO), was measured in melt waters on the McMurdo Ice Shelf in the immediate vicinity of Bratina Island. Conductivity in these sulphate dominated ponds was extremely variable, ranging from 0.106–52.3 mS cm−1. Similarly, chlorophyll a concentrations in the pond waters (1–150 μg 1−1) and mats (1.4–33 μg cm−2) differed considerably. The biomass was dominated by benthic felts of phototrophic cyanobacteria, which might act as a source of biogenic sulphur compounds in the ponds. The mean (and ranges) of concentrations of dissolved sulphur compounds (nmol 1−1) were: CS2 0.16 (<0.04–1.29); DMSPd 0.6 (<0.07–8.4); DMS 3.5 (<0.07–183); DMSO 27.9 (15.5–184.5). Very high concentrations of DMSO were ubiquitous in the ponds in the ice-cored moraine region of the ice shelf, with dissolved concentrations having been 1–2 orders of magnitude greater than those of DMS or DMSPd. It is difficult to ascribe the formation of DMSO solely to the conventionally accepted pathways of DMS oxidation by either bacterial activity or photochemical reactions. A direct biosynthetic production from phytoplankton or bacteria might be involved which means that DMSO in aquatic environments could act as a significant source of DMS rather than as a sink as generally supposed.

From the Publisher:The Apprentice C++ Programmer introduces fundamental aspects of object-oriented programming and design, using C++ as a vehicle. Assuming no prior programming knowledge, and recognizing that there is more to programming than just writing code, the book also covers principles of software engineering, primarily those of problem solving, abstraction, design and testing - developing Apprentice Software Engineers who see these aspects as a natural and inherent part of constructing software systems. Features: Introduces fundamental aspects of object-oriented programming using C++ as the vehicle. Stresses the need for design before implementation. Programming language concepts are explained in general, everyday terms. Introduces fundamental principles of software engineering as a natural and inherent part of constructing software systems. Carefully avoids the potential pitfalls of C++, adopting programming style rules to help the unwary. Numerous exercises, examples and worked-through projects are used throughout to aid understanding. A Lab Manual is available to support practical lab classes. An accompanying disk contains an extensive set of support software.

GnRH analogs are now preferred therapy for central precocious puberty (CPP). Although short term trials of the depot preparation of leuprolide acetate (TAP Pharmaceuticals, Inc.) have been reported, results from large series of patients are unavailable. We report the results of GnRH stimulation tests in 127 patients in screening for CPP at 9 centers over a 20 month period. Fifty-three patients (49 F, mean age 7.0 yr) with peak stimulated LH >10 IU/L (DELFIA) and bone age (BA) advancement >1 yr were enrolled in a protocol initiating 300 ug/kg IM q4wk (7.5-15 mg) before age 9 yr in females and 10 yr in males. Follow-up GnRH stimulation tests were performed at 4, 12, 24, 36, 48, and every 24 weeks thereafter; BA was evaluated q24wk. Comparing baseline and 24wk serum levels (mean±SE), estradiol fell from 19.5±4.9 to <5 pg/ml, peak FSH from 13.3±1.1 to 1.1±0.1 IU/L, and peak LH from 33.1±4.4 to 0.8±0.2 IU/L. Peak LH did not suppress (<1.75 IU/L) in one 13 mo' old female until 36 weeks of therapy. No females had detectable estradiol (>5 pg/ml) during therapy, but 3/4 males had transient delectable testosterone (>10 ng/dl). 86% of subjects showed regression or no change in Tanner breast (or genital) stage. Height velocity diminished from 11.5±0.8 to 6.5±0.7 cm/yr, but BA/CA was unchanged in the first 6 mo. There were no local injection reactions. We conclude that depot leuprolide is immediately effective in suppression of pubertal progression and gonadotropin and sex steroid production, but bone age advancement continues in the initial treatment period. Further data will assess the effect of long term therapy upon predicted and final heights.