Number of Inmates with Life Sentences Leveling Off, April 2013, Corrections, Department of

For over three decades, the number of Iowa inmates with life sentences has shown a steady increase. As the chart below shows, that number has risen from 111 in 1980 to 680 in 2012 (data for 1987 is unavailable due to transitioning to new data systems)

Friday Facts, April 19, 2013, Vol. 173

Bureau of Nutrition and Health Promotion part of the Iowa Department of Public Health produces of weekly newsletter about the Iowa WIC Program for the State of Iowa citizen.

Friday Facts, April 26, 2013, Vol. 174

Bureau of Nutrition and Health Promotion part of the Iowa Department of Public Health produces of weekly newsletter about the Iowa WIC Program for the State of Iowa citizen.

The number of Toll-like receptor 9-agonist motifs in the adenovirus genome correlates with induction of dendritic cell maturation by adenovirus immune complexes.

Adenovirus serotype 5 (Ad5) vectors and specific neutralizing antibodies (NAbs) generate immune complexes (ICs) which are potent inducers of dendritic cell (DC) maturation. Here we show that ICs generated with rare Ad vector serotypes, such as Ad26 and Ad35, which are lead candidates in HIV vaccine development, are poor inducers of DC maturation and that their potency in inducing DC maturation strongly correlated with the number of Toll-like receptor 9 (TLR9)-agonist motifs present in the Ad vector's genome. In addition, we showed that antihexon but not antifiber antibodies are responsible for the induction of Ad IC-mediated DC maturation.

Stereologic estimates of total spinophilin-immunoreactive spine number in area 9 and the CA1 field: Relationship with the progression of Alzheimer's disease

The loss of presynaptic markers is thought to represent a strong pathologic correlate of cognitive decline in Alzheimer's disease (AD). Spinophilin is a postsynaptic marker mainly located to the heads of dendritic spines. We assessed total numbers of spinophilin-immunoreactive puncta. in the CA I and CA3 fields of hippocampus and area 9 in 18 elderly individuals with various degrees of cognitive decline. The decrease in spinophilin-immunoreactivity was significantly related to both Braak neurofibrillary tangle (NFT) staging and clinical severity but not A beta deposition staging. The total number of spinophilin-immunoreactive puncta in CA I field and area 9 were significantly related to MMSE scores and predicted 23.5 and 61.9% of its variability. The relationship between total number of spinophilin-immunoreactive puncta in CA I field and MMSE scores did not persist when adjusting for Braak NFT staging. In contrast, the total number of spinophilin-immunoreactive puncta in area 9 was still significantly related to the cognitive outcome explaining an extra 9.6% of MMSE and 25.6% of the Clinical Dementia Rating scores variability. Our data suggest that neocortical dendritic spine loss is an independent parameter to consider in AD clinicopathologic correlations.

Identification and validation of copy number variants using SNP genotyping arrays from a large clinical cohort.

BACKGROUND: Genotypes obtained with commercial SNP arrays have been extensively used in many large case-control or population-based cohorts for SNP-based genome-wide association studies for a multitude of traits. Yet, these genotypes capture only a small fraction of the variance of the studied traits. Genomic structural variants (GSV) such as Copy Number Variation (CNV) may account for part of the missing heritability, but their comprehensive detection requires either next-generation arrays or sequencing. Sophisticated algorithms that infer CNVs by combining the intensities from SNP-probes for the two alleles can already be used to extract a partial view of such GSV from existing data sets. RESULTS: Here we present several advances to facilitate the latter approach. First, we introduce a novel CNV detection method based on a Gaussian Mixture Model. Second, we propose a new algorithm, PCA merge, for combining copy-number profiles from many individuals into consensus regions. We applied both our new methods as well as existing ones to data from 5612 individuals from the CoLaus study who were genotyped on Affymetrix 500K arrays. We developed a number of procedures in order to evaluate the performance of the different methods. This includes comparison with previously published CNVs as well as using a replication sample of 239 individuals, genotyped with Illumina 550K arrays. We also established a new evaluation procedure that employs the fact that related individuals are expected to share their CNVs more frequently than randomly selected individuals. The ability to detect both rare and common CNVs provides a valuable resource that will facilitate association studies exploring potential phenotypic associations with CNVs. CONCLUSION: Our new methodologies for CNV detection and their evaluation will help in extracting additional information from the large amount of SNP-genotyping data on various cohorts and use this to explore structural variants and their impact on complex traits.

Quick Facts, July 2012

A "quick" view of facts and figures for Iowa's Department of Corrections Prisons and Community Based Corrections.

Executive Order Number Eighty-One May 15, 2013

This order strengthens the Governor's Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) Advisory Council.

Friday Facts, May 24, 2013, Vol. 175

Bureau of Nutrition and Health Promotion part of the Iowa Department of Public Health produces of weekly newsletter about the Iowa WIC Program for the State of Iowa citizen.

Friday Facts, May 31, 2013, Vol. 176

Bureau of Nutrition and Health Promotion part of the Iowa Department of Public Health produces of weekly newsletter about the Iowa WIC Program for the State of Iowa citizen.

Friday Facts, August 9, 2013, Vol. 181

Bureau of Nutrition and Health Promotion part of the Iowa Department of Public Health produces of weekly newsletter about the Iowa WIC Program for the State of Iowa citizen.

Friday Facts, June 14, 2013, Vol. 177

Bureau of Nutrition and Health Promotion part of the Iowa Department of Public Health produces of weekly newsletter about the Iowa WIC Program for the State of Iowa citizen.

Executive Order Number Eighty-Two August 20, 2013

This order has developed a Task Force for the Department of Human Services to schedule trauma-informed care training for staff at the Iowa Juvenile Home within 30 days. Titled Iowa Juvenile Home protection Task Force.

Friday Facts, August 2, 2013, Vol. 180

Bureau of Nutrition and Health Promotion part of the Iowa Department of Public Health produces of weekly newsletter about the Iowa WIC Program for the State of Iowa citizen.

Friday Facts, July 26, 2013, Vol. 179

Bureau of Nutrition and Health Promotion part of the Iowa Department of Public Health produces of weekly newsletter about the Iowa WIC Program for the State of Iowa citizen.