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Baricitinib, an oral Janus kinase (JAK) 1-2 inhibitor, is currently used along biologic DMARDs (bDMARDs) after the failure of methotrexate (MTX) in rheumatoid arthritis (RA). We investigated the efficacy and safety of baricitinib in real life.We prospectively enrolled 446 RA patients treated with baricitinib from 11 Italian centres. Patients were evaluated at baseline and after 3, 6, and 12 months. They were arrayed based on previous treatments as bDMARD-naïve and bDMARD-insufficient responders (IR) after the failure or intolerance to bDMARDs. A sub-analysis differentiated the effects of methotrexate (MTX) and the use of oral glucocorticoids (OGC).Our cohort included 150 (34%) bDMARD-naïve and 296 (66%) bDMARD-IR patients, with 217 (49%) using baricitinib as monotherapy. Considering DAS-28-CRP as the primary outcome, at 3 and 6 months, 114/314 (36%) and 149/289 (51.6%) patients achieved remission, while those in low disease activity (LDA) were 62/314 (20%) and 46/289 (15.9%), respectively; finally at 12 months 81/126 (64%) were in remission and 21/126 (17%) in LDA. At all-timepoints up to 12 months, bDMARDs-naïve patients demonstrated a better clinical response, independently of MTX. A significant reduction in the OGC dose was observed at 3 and 12 months in all groups. The serum positivity for both rheumatoid factors (RF) and anti-citrullinated protein antibodies (ACPA) conferred a lower risk of stopping baricitinib due to inefficacy. Fifty-eight (13%) patients discontinued baricitinib due to adverse events, including thrombotic events and herpes zoster reactivation.Real-life data confirm the efficacy and safety profiles of baricitinib in patients with RA and provide evidence that drug survival is higher in bDMARDs-naïve and seropositive patients.

Subunit vaccines based on the receptor-binding domain (RBD) of the spike protein of SARS-CoV-2, are among the most promising strategies to fight the COVID-19 pandemic. The detailed characterization of the protein primary structure by mass spectrometry (MS) is mandatory, as described in ICHQ6B guidelines. In this work, several recombinant RBD proteins produced in five expression systems were characterized using a non-conventional protocol known as in-solution buffer-free digestion (BFD). In a single ESI-MS spectrum, BFD allowed very high sequence coverage (≥ 99 %) and the detection of highly hydrophilic regions, including very short and hydrophilic peptides (2-8 amino acids), the His6-tagged C-terminal peptide carrying several post-translational modifications at Cys538 such as cysteinylation, glutathionylation, cyanilation, among others. The analysis using the conventional digestion protocol allowed lower sequence coverage (80-90 %) and did not detect peptides carrying some of the above-mentioned post-translational modifications. The two C-terminal peptides of a dimer [RBD(319-541)-(His)6]2 linked by an intermolecular disulfide bond (Cys538-Cys538) with twelve histidine residues were only detected by BFD. This protocol allows the detection of the four disulfide bonds present in the native RBD and the low-abundance scrambling variants, free cysteine residues, O-glycoforms and incomplete processing of the N-terminal end, if present. Artifacts that might be generated by the in-solution BFD protocol were also characterized. BFD can be easily implemented and we foresee that it can be also helpful to the characterization of mutated RBD.

Analysis of sedimentary materials using a portable luminescence reader (or portable optically stimulated luminescence reader POSL), is a useful, rapid (a few minutes per sample), cost-effective and safe (not requiring exposure to chemicals) way to establish relative sample age. Moving beyond information that guides initial field interpretations, or develops targeted sampling strategies for full laboratory-based dating protocols, toward rapid age assessment has been more challenging. This study is the first demonstration of a simple, elegant and practical calibration of POSL signals into sample age estimates. This involved measuring the POSL signals from 144 samples with established published ages from across southern Africa, and a regression analysis. The data show that a regional-specific approach to calibration is needed, with regional patterns in POSL signals that are supported by 148 further undated samples. Four broad regions are defined: the Namib Sand Sea (NSS), the northern Kalahari (barchan dunes on the floor of Makgadigadi) (Nnk-MBa), the western Kalahari (WK) and the southern Kalahari (SK). Sample composition data, such as quartz-to-feldspar ratios (Q/F) appears to account for the largest contrasts within the dataset, whilst inherent POSL signal brightness and grain coloured-coatings (iron and clay) may also influence signals. The strength of the regressions (R 2 of 0.99, 0.93, 0.81 and one moderate at 0.52 for the NSS, SK, WK and NnK-MBa respectively) between POSL signals and sample age, (for ages back to 118, 104 74 and 5 ka for the NSS, SK, WK and NnK-MBa respectively), demonstrates the practicality and huge value of this simple approach. The implication is that region-specific calibrations must be built prior to using the POSL reader for rapid age assessments. This approach is a cost and time-effective method for inter-dunefield landscape-scale analyses, which will cast light on the key climatic variables driving landscape change in sand-rich drylands during the Late Quaternary, and also has the potential for large-scale analysis within other geomorphic settings.

Objectives Mortality and worsening of organ function are desirable endpoints for clinical trials in systemic sclerosis (SSc). The aim of this study was to identify factors that allow enrichment of patients with these endpoints, in a population of patients from the European Scleroderma Trials and Research group database. Methods Inclusion criteria were diagnosis of diffuse SSc and follow-up over 12 +/- 3 months. Disease worsening/organ progression was fulfilled if any of the following events occurred: new renal crisis; decrease of lung or heart function; new echocardiography-suspected pulmonary hypertension or death. In total, 42 clinical parameters were chosen as predictors for the analysis by using (1) imputation of missing data on the basis of multivariate imputation and (2) least absolute shrinkage and selection operator regression. Results Of 1451 patients meeting the inclusion criteria, 706 had complete data on outcome parameters and were included in the analysis. Of the 42 outcome predictors, eight remained in the final regression model. There was substantial evidence for a strong association between disease progression and age, active digital ulcer (DU), lung fibrosis, muscle weakness and elevated C-reactive protein (CRP) level. Active DU, CRP elevation, lung fibrosis and muscle weakness were also associated with a significantly shorter time to disease progression. A bootstrap validation step with 10 000 repetitions successfully validated the model. Conclusions The use of the predictive factors presented here could enable cohort enrichment with patients at risk for overall disease worsening in SSc clinical trials.

BACKGROUND: The International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) Generic-30 Set (previously referred to as Rehabilitation Set) is a minimal set of ICF categories for reporting and assessing functioning and disability in clinical populations with different health conditions along the continuum of care. Recently, the Italian Society of Physical and Rehabilitation Medicine (SIMFER) developed an Italian modification of the simple and intuitive descriptions (SID) of these categories. This study was the first one to implement the use of the SID in practice. AIM: The main aims of this study are: 1) to implement the use of the ICF in clinical practice and research among Italian Residents in PRM, and 2) to verify if the SID made the application of ICF Generic 30 Set more user-friendly than the original descriptions; 3) to examine the prevalence of functioning problems of patients accessing Rehabilitation Services to serve as reference for the development of an ICF-based clinical data collection tool. DESIGN: Multicenter cross-sectional study. SETTING: Italian Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation (PRM) outpatient rehabilitation services. POPULATION: Patients referring to Italian PRM outpatient rehabilitation services and Italian Residents in PRM. METHODS: Each School of Specialization involved, randomly, received the ICF Generic-30 Set with the original descriptions or with the SID. Residents collected over a 4-month period (April-July 2016) patients data related to the ICF Generic-30 Set categories. Moreover, the residents self-assessed their difficulty in using the ICF Generic-30 Set with the original descriptions or with the SID, through a Numeric Rating Scale (NRS). RESULTS: Ninety-three residents collected functioning data of 864 patients (mean aged 57.7±19.3) with ICF Generic-30 Set: 304 with the original descriptions and 560 with SID. The difficulty in using the ICF Generic-30 Set with SID was rated as lower than using the original descriptions (NRS 2.8±2.5 vs. 3.5±3.1; P

Reduced intracellular drug retention has been recognized as a major characteristic of multidrug resistance (MDR) phenotype in a number of cell line models and has been associated to overexpression of a P-170 membrane glycoprotein. Although many studies have been performed on MDR cell lines, so far only few data have been presented utilizing fresh human tumor cells, leaving open the question of the relevance of reduction of intracellular drug exposure to clinical drug resistance. We chose to utilize blast cell samples obtained from patients with childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) to study their interaction with Doxorubicin (DX) and Daunorubicin (DN) as representative drugs, evaluating cellular drug uptake by flow cytometry. Aim of the work was to check possible difference of anthracycline fluorescence levels in clinically "potentially sensitive" (15 cases) and "potentially resistant" (11 cases) human leukemic blast cells. For this purpose, leukemic cells derived from peripheral blood of patients were exposed in vitro to DX and DN according to different schedules and analyses by flow cytometry. The calculated fluorescence levels associated with the different anthracycline treatment shows a wide interpatient spreading of values. The mean values in the potentially resistant group did not differ significantly from the mean values of the potentially sensitive group at any considered concentration, suggesting that biochemical mechanisms different from that involved in drug transport are responsible for the outcome of clinical drug resistance in childhood ALL.

[The Andean cordillera, the Himalayan collisionorogen, and the Apennine thrust belt are archetypes of different orogens associatedwith different sedimentary basins. Sediment storage capacity, maximum inforedeeps where slab retreat induces rapid subsidence of the downgoing plate, isminimum in broken retroarc basins where flat‐slab subduction leads to basininversion and uplift of basement blocks on the overriding plate. , Abstract Central Argentina from the Pampean flat‐slab segment to northern Patagonia (27°–41°S) represents a classic example of a broken retroarc basin with strong tectonic and climatic control on fluvial sediment transport. Combined with previous research focused on coastal sediments, this actualistic provenance study uses framework petrography and heavy‐mineral data to trace multistep dispersal of volcaniclastic detritus first eastwards across central Argentina for up to ca. 1,500 km and next northwards for another 760 km along the Atlantic coast. Although detritus generated in the Andes is largely derived from mesosilicic volcanic rocks of the cordillera, its compositional signatures reflect different tectono‐stratigraphic levels of the orogen uplifted along strike in response to varying subduction geometry as well as different character and crystallization condition of arc magmas through time and space. River sand, thus, changes from feldspatho‐litho‐quartzose or litho‐feldspatho‐quartzose in the north, where sedimentary detritus is more common, to mostly quartzo‐feldspatho‐lithic in the centre and to feldspatho‐lithic in the south, where volcanic detritus is dominant. The transparent‐heavy‐mineral suite changes markedly from amphibole ≫ clinopyroxene > orthopyroxene in the north, to amphibole ≈ clinopyroxene ≈ orthopyroxene in the centre and to orthopyroxene ≥ clinopyroxene ≫ amphibole in the south. In the presently dry climate, fluvial discharge is drastically reduced to the point that even the Desaguadero trunk river has become endorheic and orogenic detritus is dumped in the retroarc basin, reworked by winds and temporarily accumulated in dune fields. During the Quaternary, instead, much larger amounts of water were released by melting of the Cordilleran ice sheet or during pluvial events. The sediment‐laden waters of the Desaguadero and Colorado rivers then rushed from the tract of the Andes with greatest topographic and structural elevation, fostering alluvial fans inland and flowing in much larger valleys than today towards the Atlantic Ocean. Sand and gravel supply to the coast was high enough not only to promote rapid progradation of large deltaic lobes but also to feed a cell of littoral sediment transport extending as far north as the Rio de la Plata estuary.]

The Congo deep-sea fan, the largest on Earth fed entirely with anorogenic detritus, is characterized by quartzose to pure quartzose sand, reflecting multiple recycling coupled with extreme chemical weathering in cratonic equatorial Africa. The very youthful lower course of the Congo River connects directly to a steep canyon, where detritus including quartz grains up to a few millimeters in diameter is funneled towards Atlantic Ocean floors and deposited at abyssal depths more than a thousand kilometers away from shore. This article illustrates for the first time in detail the mineralogical and geochemical signatures of Congo Fan sands and discusses the factors controlling their intersample and intrasample variability as a key to understand how sediment is generated, recycled, and finally transferred to the deep sea. Compositional variability is largely grain-size-dependent. Combined petrographic and Raman spectroscopy analyses demonstrate that quartz increases in coarser samples and size classes, whereas feldspars are concentrated in finer sizes, plagioclase relative to K-feldspar and orthoclase relative to microcline, defining an order of mechanical and chemical durability among detrital tectosilicates. Because of overwhelming quartz abundance and very low heavy-mineral concentration, quartz contributes significantly to the REE budget and up to 40–50% of Nd in coarser samples, characterized by εNd values as low as –21. The strong grain-size-dependent variability of εNd suggests that quartz carries a markedly more negative εNd signature than monazite and other detrital components. This is chiefly ascribed to the durability of quartz grains, able to survive repeated cycles of weathering and diagenesis through Proterozoic and Phanerozoic time better than all other minerals. Neodymium model ages are influenced less by grain size and quartz abundance but more by the Sm/Nd ratio of different detrital components, and samples hydrodynamically enriched in LREE-rich minerals display TNd,CHUR and TNd,DM ages 1.2–1.4 Ga younger than samples enriched in HREE minerals. Not all detritus in the Congo Fan is supplied transversally by the Congo River. Forward-mixing calculations based on mineralogical data indicate that sand entrained northward by longshore currents mixes progressively with Congo River sand along the northernmost Angola coast, penetrates in the Soyo estuary, and is eventually captured in the canyon and transferred to the deep-sea fan, where it is estimated to represents 7 ± 2% of turbidite deposits.

Background: Successful rehabilitation is associated with physical, psychological, environmental, social, and personal factors based on the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) framework. The influence of age has been suggested as crucial personal factors that may affect rehabilitation needs in post-stroke survivors. The aim of this study was to investigate the qualifiers of the ICF core set for stroke to detect differences in rehabilitation needs and goals between older (O,&gt, 65 years old) and younger (Y,&le, 65 years old,) post-stroke individuals. Materials and methods: In this observational study, the comprehensive core set for stroke was filled during the rehabilitation period. Patient information was obtained using disability scales was translated into certain ICF categories using linking rules. Frequency, similarity, and linear regression analyses were performed for ICF qualifier profiles among Y and O patients. Results: Forty-eight ICF variables were significantly different between Y (n = 35, 46.17 &plusmn, 11.27 years old) and O (n = 35, 76.43 &plusmn, 6.77 years old) patients. Frequency analysis showed that activity of daily living and basic needs were more prevalent in O patients, whereas regaining of social role and social life were more prevalent in Y patients. The average Jaccard Index result (similarity analysis) was more homogeneous in O than in Y patients. Conclusions: ICF qualifiers are useful to design patient-centered care. Y patients have more heterogeneous needs and require more personalized program than O patients.

This Nile Delta case study provides quantitative information on a process that we must understand and consider in full before attempting provenance interpretation of ancient clastic wedges. Petrographic and heavy-mineral data on partly lithified sand, silt, and mud samples cored from the up to 8.5 km-thick post-Eocene succession of the offshore Nile Delta document systematic unidirectional trends. With increasing age and burial depth, quartz increases at the expense of feldspars and especially of mafic volcanic rock fragments. Heavy-mineral concentration decreases drastically, transparent heavy minerals represent progressively lower percentages of the heavy fraction, and zircon, tourmaline, rutile, apatite, monazite, and Cr-spinel relatively increase at the expense mainly of amphibole in Pliocene sediments and of epidote in Miocene sediments. Recent studies have shown that the entire succession of the Nile Delta was deposited by a long drainage system connected with the Ethiopian volcanic highlands similar to the modern Nile since the lower Oligocene. The original mineralogy should thus have resembled that of modern Delta sand much more closely than the present quartzose residue containing only chemically durable heavy minerals. Stratigraphic compositional trends, although controlled by a complex interplay of different factors, document a selective exponential decay of non-durable species through the cored succession that explains up to 95% of the observed mineralogical variability. Our calculations suggest that heavy minerals may not represent >20% of the original assemblage in sediments buried less than ~1.5 km, >5% in sediments buried between 1.5 and 2.5 km, and >1% for sediments buried >4.5 km. No remarkable difference is detected in the intensity of mineral dissolution in mud, silt, and sand samples, which argues against the widely held idea that unstable minerals are prone to be preserved better in finer-grained and therefore presumably less permeable layers. Intrastratal dissolution, acting through long periods of time at the progressively higher temperatures reached during burial, can modify very drastically the relative abundance of detrital components in sedimentary rocks. Failure to recognize such a fundamental diagenetic bias leads to grossly mistaken paleogeographic reconstructions, as documented paradigmatically by previous provenance studies of ancient Nile sediments.

This study illustrates the petrographic, heavy-mineral, geochemical and geochronological signatures of sand transported by various branches of the Irrawaddy (Ayeyarwadi) River, one of the first in the world for sediment flux. Intrasample and intersample compositional variability, weathering and hydraulic-sorting controls are also discussed. Feldspatho-quartzose sand in Irrawaddy headwaters is largely derived first-cycle from mid-crustal metamorphic and plutonic rocks of the Mogok Belt and Lohit complex, whereas feldspatho-litho-quartzose Chindwin sand is largely recycled from supracrustal, sedimentary and very low-grade metasedimentary units. Additional mafic to ultramafic detritus is derived from ophiolites and blueschists exposed from the Indo-Burman Ranges to the Jade Mines and Myitkyina belts, linked northward to the Yarlung-Tsangpo suture of the Himalaya. Volcanic detritus derived from the Popa-Wuntho arc or recycled from forearc-basin strata also occurs. Decreasing concentration of most chemical elements along the Irrawaddy reflects progressive addition of detritus recycled from sedimentary rocks, most evident downstream of the Chindwin confluence. REE patterns with LREE enrichment and negative Eu anomaly reflect the occurrence of allanite, largely derived from granitoid rocks in the Mali catchment. Chemical indices indicate moderate weathering in the monsoon-dominated climate of Myanmar. Young U-Pb ages (15–170 Ma) represent 85% of detrital zircons in Irrawaddy headwater branches, reflecting long-lasting subduction-related magmatism along a ring of fire connecting with the southern and central Lhasa batholiths in Tibet and polyphase metamorphism in the Mogok belt. Chindwin sand contains larger amounts of finer-grained, recycled pre-Mesozoic zircons, also yielding early Mesoproterozoic to Archean ages. Such different petrographic, heavy-mineral, geochemical and geochronological fingerprints characterizing sand in different river branches allowed us to calculate bulk-sediment and zircon-provenance budgets that converge to indicate equivalent sand supply from the Nmai and Mali Rivers to the upper Irrawaddy, and from the Chindwin and upper Irrawaddy to the lower Irrawaddy. This implies that despite of higher erosion potential indicated by stream-profile analysis in high-relief Irrawaddy headwaters, sediment yields and erosion rates are detectably higher in the Chindwin catchment, which is mainly ascribed to higher erodibility of widely exposed siliciclastic rocks. Quantifying sediment provenance and defining erosion patterns based on an integrated compositional database in a big-river system such as the mighty Irrawaddy allows us to expand our understanding of sediment-generation processes with the ultimate goal to increase our capacity to read into the stratigraphic record.

The Changjiang, the fourth longest river on Earth and the largest in Eurasia, has a complex sediment-routing system presently interrupted by the Three Gorges Dam, the world's largest hydroelectric engineering project. To study sediment-generation processes in the huge catchment and compare the different erosion patterns obtained by different methodological approaches, high-resolution petrographic and heavy-mineral analyses were performed on sands from the trunk river and its major tributaries. The frequency distributions of diverse groups of detrital amphiboles were also investigated. Rigorous statistical methods were used to define end-members, evaluate mineralogical variability, assess similarities among samples, and eventually calculate the relative contributions from each major tributary to the trunk river by forward end-member modelling of integrated compositional data. The litho-quartzose sand with few heavy minerals generated in Tibetan headwaters evolves downstream to feldspatho-litho-quartzose with medium-rank metamorphic rock fragments and moderately rich amphibole-epidote suites. Sand across the Sichuan basin and as far as the Three Gorges Dam is enriched in mafic volcanic, clinopyroxene, and carbonate grains eroded from Permian basalts and Paleozoic strata of the South China Block. The final (Yangtze) tract is characterized by litho-feldspatho-quartzose sand with moderately poor, amphibole-dominated suites with epidote, clinopyroxene, and garnet. The orogenic compositional signature acquired in the upper part of the basin is thus carried all the way to the Chinese passive margin, as observed also for the Yellow River in the north. Even after long-distance transport across wide continental areas, detrital modes thus reveal the tectonic character of the source rather than the geodynamic environment of the sink. Quantitative provenance analysis indicates that left-bank tributaries draining the Longmen and Qinlin mountains supply most of the sand reaching the East China Sea. Contributions from Tibetan headwaters are negligible, as those from right-bank tributaries in the middle-lower part of the basin. Sediment budgets and erosion patterns inferred from our integrated petrographic and heavy-mineral data set contrast with those based on detrital-zircon geochronology but agree with stream-profile analysis, revealing close correspondence with slope steepness, precipitation, stream power, tectonic activity, and frequency of major earthquakes. Sediment budgets based on amphibole groups are poorly constrained. We conclude that provenance budgets based on single-mineral species are typically unrobust, particularly because they suffer from inaccurate estimates of mineral concentration in the end-member sources. Exploring in detail a millesimal part of the sediment (typically 1/5000 in the case of zircon) is a risky strategy that may return a distorted picture of reality.

Antisynthetase syndrome (ASSD) is a rare clinical condition that is characterized by the occurrence of a classic clinical triad, encompassing myositis, arthritis, and interstitial lung disease (ILD), along with specific autoantibodies that are addressed to different aminoacyl tRNA synthetases (ARS). Until now, it has been unknown whether the presence of a different ARS might affect the clinical presentation, evolution, and outcome of ASSD. In this study, we retrospectively recorded the time of onset, characteristics, clustering of triad findings, and survival of 828 ASSD patients (593 anti-Jo1, 95 anti-PL7, 84 anti-PL12, 38 anti-EJ, and 18 anti-OJ), referring to AENEAS (American and European NEtwork of Antisynthetase Syndrome) collaborative group's cohort. Comparisons were performed first between all ARS cases and then, in the case of significance, while using anti-Jo1 positive patients as the reference group. The characteristics of triad findings were similar and the onset mainly began with a single triad finding in all groups despite some differences in overall prevalence. The "ex-novo" occurrence of triad findings was only reduced in the anti-PL12-positive cohort, however, it occurred in a clinically relevant percentage of patients (30%). Moreover, survival was not influenced by the underlying anti-aminoacyl tRNA synthetase antibodies' positivity, which confirmed that antisynthetase syndrome is a heterogeneous condition and that antibody specificity only partially influences the clinical presentation and evolution of this condition. ispartof: JOURNAL OF CLINICAL MEDICINE vol:8 issue:11 ispartof: location:Switzerland status: published

Subduction complexes large enough to be exposed subaerially and become significant sources of terrigenous detritus are formed by tectonic accretion above trenches choked with thick sections of remnant-ocean turbidites. They thus need to be connected along strike to a major collision zone, where huge volumes of orogenic detritus are produced and conveyed via a major fluvio-deltaic system to the deep sea. In this article we investigate sediment generation and recycling in the archetype of such settings, the eastern prolongation of the Himalayan collisional system. We illustrate the petrographic and heavy-mineral suites of modern sands produced all along the Indo-Burman-Andaman-Nicobar subduction complex, which includes accreted abyssal-plain sediments overthrust by ophiolites and unconformably overlain by volcaniclastic forearc strata. "Subduction Complex Provenance" is thus composite, and overwhelmingly consists of detritus recycled from largely turbiditic parent rocks (Recycled Clastic Provenance), with local supply from obducted ultramafic and mafic rocks of forearc lithosphere (Ophiolite Provenance) or recycled paleovolcanic to neovolcanic sources (Volcanic Arc Provenance). In order to specifically investigate the effect of recycling, we characterize the diverse detrital signatures of Cenozoic sandstones originally deposited during subsequent stages of "soft" and "hard" Himalayan collision and presently exposed from Bangladesh to the Andaman Islands, and discuss the reasons for compositional discrepancies between parent sandstones and their recycled daughter sands. Long-distance, multistep and multicyclic sediment transfer along and across convergent plate boundaries follows complex trajectories in space and time, which must be resolved whenever we want to obtain a reasonably faithful paleogeographic reconstruction for the recent and less recent geological past. © 2013 Elsevier B.V.

A practical classification of surface textures observed on detrital grains in sands and sandstones is proposed, in order to enhance data reproducibility among operators and to implement the use of high-resolution heavy-mineral data in studies of sediment-generation, provenance, and diagenesis. Five stages of progressive weathering (unweathered, corroded, etched, deeply etched, skeletal) are recognized for diverse detrital minerals. Archetypal grains displaying increasing degrees of corrosion are illustrated in numerous color tables for visual comparison. This catalog, specifically devised to systematically collect valuable information for paleoclimatic or diagenetic interpretation during routine grain-counting under the microscope, is here shown to represent a useful subsidiary tool to reveal the different degrees of weathering for diverse minerals in modern sands of equatorial Africa, and to identify post-depositional modifications of detrital assemblages in buried orogenic sediments of the Bengal Basin. The data thus obtained need to be interpreted by carefully considering the concentration of heavy minerals in each sample, which provides the fundamental clue to quantify the degree of heavy-mineral depletion caused by either pre-depositional or post-depositional processes. The scrutiny of dissolution effects has applications in the study of the chemical properties of minerals and of diagenetic evolution, helping us to understand the development of secondary porosity and to assess the potential of water and hydrocarbon reservoirs.

Marine accumulations of terrigenous sediment are widely assumed to accurately record climatic- and tectonic-controlled mountain denudation and play an important role in understanding late Cenozoic mountain uplift and global cooling. Underpinning this is the assumption that the majority of sediment eroded from hinterland orogenic belts is transported to and ultimately stored in marine basins with little lag between erosion and deposition. Here we use a detailed and multi-technique sedimentary provenance dataset from the Yellow River to show that substantial amounts of sediment eroded from Northeast Tibet and carried by the river's upper reach are stored in the Chinese Loess Plateau and the western Mu Us desert. This finding revises our understanding of the origin of the Chinese Loess Plateau and provides a potential solution for mismatches between late Cenozoic terrestrial sedimentation and marine geochemistry records, as well as between global CO2 and erosion records., Theories of Cenozoic mountain uplift and associated global cooling assume that eroded mountain sediments are stored in marine basins. Here, based on detailed provenance data, Nie et al. show that Northeast Tibetan sediments are in fact stored inland, in the Chinese Loess Plateau and Mu Us desert.