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We evaluate whether human induced pluripotent stem cell-derived retinal pigment epithelium (iPSC-RPE) cells can be used to prioritize and functionally characterize causal variants at age-related macular degeneration (AMD) risk loci. We generated iPSC-RPE from six subjects and show that they have morphological and molecular characteristics similar to those of native RPE. We generated RNA-seq, ATAC-seq, and H3K27ac ChIP-seq data and observed high similarity in gene expression and enriched transcription factor motif profiles between iPSC-RPE and human fetal RPE. We performed fine mapping of AMD risk loci by integrating molecular data from the iPSC-RPE, adult retina, and adult RPE, which identified rs943080 as the probable causal variant at VEGFA. We show that rs943080 is associated with altered chromatin accessibility of a distal ATAC-seq peak, decreased overall gene expression of VEGFA, and allele-specific expression of a non-coding transcript. Our study thus provides a potential mechanism underlying the association of the VEGFA locus with AMD.

Introduction: This study aimed to investigate the immediate impact and long-term implications of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus on orthodontic practices in the United States in 2020.Methods: A 35-item survey was developed and validated to investigate the impact of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic on the orthodontic specialty. The survey contained 5 domains, including respondent's demographic information, COVID-19 information acquisition, practice ramifications of the COVID-19 pandemic, financial implications of the COVID-19 pandemic, and patient management strategies during the COVID-19 pandemic. This voluntary survey acquired responses from active orthodontists in the United States. Associations of demographic and practice characteristics with items related to COVID-19 were assessed using chi-square tests, with a 5% significance level.Results: The survey was disseminated to 5,694 orthodontists, and 507 complete surveys were obtained (response rate of 8.9%). Respondents indicated that they obtained the most useful information regarding the COVID-19 pandemic through professional associations and internet or online news resources. However, 30% of the orthodontists believed information regarding personal financial guidelines was lacking. Most respondents identified delayed treatment progress and temporary staff layoffs as the 2 most negative ramifications of mandated office closures. Approximately 93% of practices applied for and used some sort of stimulus funding offered through the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act. Respondents indicated that the COVID-19 related office closures resulted in an average of 50% decrease in net revenue.Conclusions: The survey found that the COVID-19 pandemic had a broad and significant impact on patient care and financial aspects of U.S. orthodontic practices in 2020. Although generally accepting of the federal and state recommendations, respondents appeared to desire more guidance during the early phase of the pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Introduction: Unintentional injuries are the leading cause of death in children around the world and are an underrecognized public health problem in the United States. Purpose: The purpose of this study was to highlight the nature of the problem in South Dakota and outline interventions that have been successful in reducing childhood injuries in other states. Methods: This quantitative retrospective study examined mortality files in South Dakota for children birth to 19 years of age who died between January 1, 2000 to December 28, 2007. Results: Although the number of deaths declined considerably from 2006 to 2007, South Dakota had the secondhighest rate in the nation of childhood unintentional injury deaths from all causes between 2000-2005. The majority of deaths occurred in males and were associated with transportation-related deaths. Suffocation was the leading cause of death for newborns to age 1 year. Conclusion: Childhood accidental death in South Dakota is clearly a critical public health problem. Intervention efforts to reduce deaths from unintentional injuries amongst children should be targeted as the leading causes of accidental death for specific age groups and American Indian youth. Physicians, health educators and policymakers must play a role in prevention targeting the high-risk groups in addition to advocating for policy changes to protect childhood safety. More stringent child restraint laws, graduated driving laws, smoking cessation programs for parents, creation of safer sleep environments and further investigation of why a high proportion of American Indian children die accidentally in South Dakota are all warranted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the health effects of aging on adults with cerebral palsy (CP). Secondary impairment caused by CP can worsen as a patient ages. Based on death records in California, cardiovascular related death rates among people aged 35 years and above were higher in population with CP than in the same-age general population. Another study showed that physical fatigue was higher in adults with CP.

The objective of this study was to evaluate the chemical composition and in situ degradability of elephant grass silage dry matter with increasing levels of sugarcane bagasse. A completely randomized design was adopted with five treatments: 0, 5, 10, 15, and 20% inclusion of sugarcane bagasse on an as-fed matter basis, with five replications, totalling 25 experimental units. The increasing proportion of sugarcane bagasse analysed was favourable only in increasing the concentration of dry matter and fibre of silages and in maintaining a considerable crude protein content. In the in situ degradation assay, the addition of sugarcane bagasse in silage decreased the ruminal degradability of dry matter, and as the passage rates increased, the effective degradability decreased. In the in vitro gas production assay, the total production of gases was decreased with the inclusion of sugarcane bagasse, as did the degradability of organic matter and neutral detergent fibre. The recommendation for the inclusion of sugarcane bagasse should be analysed according to the desired objective, emphasizing that values higher than 5% can greatly compromise the final nutritive value of elephant grass silage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two experiments aimed to evaluate the effects of supplement type and amount on milk production in Brazil. In each experiment, eight Holstein cows (517±40 kg) were allotted in two 4 x 4 Latin squares, in four periods of 14 days. The Exp. 1 was conducted on pasture of Elephant grass (Pennisetum purpureum, Schum) in the rainy season, and the treatments included a control (mineral mixture - MM) and supplements with 24% CP in dry matter at levels of 1.25, 2.5, and 5.0 kg/animal/day, based on corn meal, soybean meal, urea and MM. The Exp. 2 happened in the dry season, in which the cows received 40 kg/day of chopped sugarcane plus 0.25% urea as fed basis and the treatments consisted of a control (MM) and supplement levels of 1.25, 2.5, and 5.0 kg/animal/day, based on MM (12.5, 5.7, and 2.9%, respectively), urea (11.6, 5.9, and 2.9%, respectively), corn meal and soybean meal, in which the protein sources were used to reach 12.2% CP in the total diet. The experiments were analyzed as Latin square design including effects of treatments, Latin square, animal within Latin square and period. There was no treatment effect (P>.05) on both experiments due to high coefficient of variation. In spite of that, the milk responses to supplementation were curvilinear in both experiments, following a Michaelis-Menten relationship of enzymatic systems and were explained by equations of Lineweaver-Burk as seen bellow: The theoretical maximum milk production (1/a) were 12.1 and 9.7 kg/animal/day, respectively, and the half maximum milk production (b/a) was verified with 5.2% of the supplementation necessary to reach 95% maximum response. Therefore, the marginal increase in milk production reduces with increasing supplementation, different of the 2001 dairy NRC that consider linear responses for both energy and protein supplies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two experiments were conducted to evaluate the effects of supplements on performance of finishing cattle on pasture of Brachiaria brizantha Stapf. The supplements were fed at levels of 0.05, 0.25, 0.5, 1.0, 2.0, and 4.0 kg/animal/day, and were based on mineral mixture (100, 25, 15, 10, 5, and 2.5%, respectively), urea (0, 25, 15, 10, 5, and 2.5%, respectively), corn meal and soybean meal. The protein sources were used in the amount necessary to reach approximately 10 and 13% CP levels in the total diet of the first and second experiment, respectively. This was possible based in estimatives of pasture and supplement intakes, in which the last one was controlled by the mineral and urea levels in the supplements. Each experiment contained 48 Nellore steers (412 + 16 kg) allotted at random in six paddocks of 90,000 m2. The animals and supplements switched three times among the paddocks at each 21 days. The average daily gain (ADG) and carcass weight (CW), both in kilograms, responded linearly to supplement intake (SI), in kg, as follow: 1st Experiment: ADG = 0.207 + 0.0739 SI, r2 = 0.43; CW = 240 + 3.83 SI, r2 = 0.21. 2nd Experiment: ADG = 0.174 + 0.0994 SI, r2 = 0.45; CW = 239 + 6.20 SI, r2 = 0.41. The supplement conversions (kg of supplement as fed/kg of ADG), obtained by the reciprocal of the coefficients of the linear regressions, were 13.5 and 10.1 for the experiment 1 and 2, respectively. The carcass yield was 56 ± 0.7% and fat thickness 2.0 ± 0.4 mm, with low effect of supplementation. The high cost of concentrate feeds compared to the pasture and the low efficiency of the concentrate conversion in weight gain even under tropical pastures can explain the low use of concentrate by Brazilian farmers, which can have greater profitability in spite of low cattle performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]