Conclusions: The likelihood of a favorable outcome with intensive care can be better estimated by consideration of four factors in addition VX-770 nmr to gestational age: sex, exposure or nonexposure to antenatal corticosteroids, whether single or multiple birth, and birth weight. (ClinicalTrials.gov numbers, NCT00063063 and NCT00009633.).”
“Phylogenetic

diversity is a measure for describing how much of an evolutionary tree is spanned by a subset of species. If one applies this to the unknown subset of current species that will still be present at some future time, then this ‘future phylogenetic diversity’ provides a measure of the impact of various extinction scenarios in biodiversity conservation. In this paper, we study the distribution of future phylogenetic diversity under a simple model of extinction (a generalized ‘field

of bullets’ model). We show that the distribution of future phylogenetic diversity converges to a normal distribution as the number of species grows, under mild conditions, which are necessary. We also describe an algorithm to compute the distribution efficiently, provided the edge lengths are integral, and briefly outline the significance of our findings for biodiversity conservation. (C) 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.”
“Background: The chitinase-like protein YKL-40 is involved in inflammation and tissue remodeling. We recently showed Nec-1s that serum YKL-40 levels were elevated in patients with asthma and were correlated with severity, thickening of the subepithelial basement membrane, and pulmonary function. We hypothesized that single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) that affect YKL-40 levels also influence asthma status and lung function.

Methods: We carried out a genomewide association study of serum YKL-40 levels in a founder population of European descent, the Hutterites, and then tested for an association between an implicated SNP and asthma and lung function. One associated variant was genotyped

Ergoloid in a birth cohort at high risk for asthma, in which YKL-40 levels were measured from birth through 5 years of age, and in two populations of unrelated case patients of European descent with asthma and controls.

Results: A promoter SNP (-131C–>G) in CHI3L1, the chitinase 3-like 1 gene encoding YKL-40, was associated with elevated serum YKL-40 levels (P=1.1 x 10(-13)), asthma (P=0.047), bronchial hyperresponsiveness (P=0.002), and measures of pulmonary function (P=0.046 to 0.002) in the Hutterites. The same SNP could be used to predict the presence of asthma in the two case-control populations (combined P=1.2 x 10(-5)) and serum YKL-40 levels at birth (in cord-blood specimens) through 5 years of age in the birth cohort (P=8.9 x 10(-3) to 2.5 x 10(-4)).