A genome-wide association meta-analysis identifies new childhood obesity loci

Multiple genetic variants have been associated with adult obesity and a few with severe obesity in childhood; however, less progress has been made in establishing genetic influences on common early-onset obesity. We performed a North American, Australian and European collaborative meta-analysis of 14 studies consisting of 5,530 cases (≥95th percentile of body mass index (BMI)) and 8,318 controls (<50th percentile of BMI) of European ancestry. Taking forward the eight newly discovered signals yielding association with P < 5 × 10(-6) in nine independent data sets (2,818 cases and 4,083 controls), we observed two loci that yielded genome-wide significant combined P values near OLFM4 at 13q14 (rs9568856; P = 1.82 × 10(-9); odds ratio (OR) = 1.22) and within HOXB5 at 17q21 (rs9299; P = 3.54 × 10(-9); OR = 1.14). Both loci continued to show association when two extreme childhood obesity cohorts were included (2,214 cases and 2,674 controls). These two loci also yielded directionally consistent associations in a previous meta-analysis of adult BMI(1).

“There’s something very familiar about all this”: generic play and performance in the Back to the Future trilogy (Robert Zemeckis, 1985, 1989, 1990)

The Back to the Future Trilogy incorporates several different generic elements, including aspects of the fifties teen movie, science fiction, comedy and the western. These different modes playfully intertwine with each other creating a complex world of repetitions, echoes and modulations. This essay seeks to interrogate the construction of generic elements and the play between them through a close analysis of a repeated performance. Genre is signalled through various strategies employed within the construction of mise-en-scène, a significant portion of this, as I would like to argue, is transmitted through performance. The material detail of a performance – incorporating gesture, movement, voice, and even surrounding elements such as costume – as well as the way it its presented within a film is key to the establishment, invocation and coherence of genre. Furthermore, attention to the complexity of performance details, particularly in the manner in which they reverberate across texts, demonstrates the intricacy of genre and its inherent mutability. The Back to the Future trilogy represents a specific interest in the flexibility of genre. Within each film, and especially across all three, aspects of various genres are interlaced through both visual and narrative detail, thus constructing a dense layer of references both within and without the texts. To explore this patterning in more detail I will interrogate the contribution of performance to generic play through close analysis of Thomas F. Wilson’s performance of Biff/Griff/Burford Tannen and his central encounter with Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) in each film. These moments take place in a fifties diner, a 1980s retro diner and a saloon respectively, each space contributing the similarities and differences in each repetition. Close attention to Wilson’s performance of each related character, which contains both modulations and repetitions used specifically to place each film’s central generic theme, demonstrates how embedded the play between genres and their flexibility is within the trilogy.

The composite-tendency Robert-Asselin-Williams (RAW) filter in semi-implicit integrations

Timediscretization in weatherandclimate modelsintroduces truncation errors that limit the accuracy of the simulations. Recent work has yielded a method for reducing the amplitude errors in leap-frog integrations from first-order to fifth-order.This improvement is achieved by replacing the Robert–Asselin filter with the Robert–Asselin–Williams (RAW) filter and using a linear combination of unfiltered and filtered states to compute the tendency term. The purpose of the present article is to apply the composite-tendency RAW-filtered leapfrog scheme to semi-implicit integrations. A theoretical analysis shows that the stability and accuracy are unaffected by the introduction of the implicitly treated mode. The scheme is tested in semi-implicit numerical integrations in both a simple nonlinear stiff system and a medium-complexity atmospheric general circulation model and yields substantial improvements in both cases. We conclude that the composite-tendency RAW-filtered leap-frog scheme is suitable for use in semi-implicit integrations.

Fuktutredning av massivträkonstruktion : Analys av vägg utan ångspärr

Rapporten ingår i ett FoU- projekt för Högskolan Dalarna, där målet är att ta fram en konstruktion utan ångspärr som ska klara dagens mått på lufttäthet och fuktkrav. Syftet med denna rapport är att utreda hur fukt påverkar en byggnad medmassivträstomme och olika isoleringsmaterial utan ångspärr. Mineralull och träfiberisolering jämförs mot varandra för att se hur dessa påverkarfuktbelastningen i en väggkonstruktion. Testobjektet är lokaliserat i Dalarna, inget fukttillskott har funnits inomhus i byggnaden. För att genomföra detta arbete har tre stycken olika metoder används. Ensimulering, verkliga uppmätta värden och en provtagning. Fuktsimuleringen genomfördes med hjälp av programmet WUFI, uppmätta värden i form av relativ fuktighet och temperatur har samlats in kontinuerligt under två års tid från väggkonstruktionen via mätsensorer. Provtagningen utfördes med ett fysiskt ingrepp på samma nivå i konstruktionen som mätsensorer var placerade. Resultat presenteras i form av diagram och tabeller där det går att avläsa konstruktionens nulägesstatus i form av relativ fuktighet, temperatur, fuktkvot och mikrobiologisk påväxt. Isoleringsmaterialen påvisar en hög relativ fuktighet under vinterhalvåret längst ut i konstruktionen mot utomhusklimatet. Utomhusklimatet har visats spela stor roll i detta. Ingen direkt mikrobiologisk påväxt har påträffats trots en hög halt av fukt. Resultaten visar att träfiberisoleringen har bättre förmåga att hantera fukt i jämförelse med mineralullen. En vidarestudie med fuktbelastning och 21 °C inomhus bör utföras. Men för att denna studie ska fungera rekommenderas en tvåstegstätad fasadlösning för att klara fuktbelastningen i väggkonstruktionen.

Robert Cornell, Technical Editor, Electronic Technician Magazine

New York Trade School graduate Robert Cornell is pictured at his desk in his position of Technical Editor, Electronic Technician Magazine. Original caption reads "Robert Cornell - Advanced Television 1954, was appointed Technical Editor of Electronic Technician Magazine in 1956 and has served with distinction since. He is President of CETA (Certified Electronic Technicians Association), which consists of alumni of the New York Trade School who are graduates of the Advanced Television Course. He was recently invited to serve a a member of the Attorney General's Committee seeking to establish safeguards to protect the public in the field of television servicing." Black and white photograph with caption to glued to reverse.