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Maintaining healthy body weight is increasingly difficult in our obesogenic environment. Dieting efforts are often overpowered by the internal drive to consume energy-dense foods. Although the selection of calorically rich substrates over healthier options is identifiable across species, the mechanisms behind this choice remain poorly understood. Using a passive devaluation paradigm, we found that exposure to high-fat diet (HFD) suppresses the intake of nutritionally balanced standard chow diet (SD) irrespective of age, sex, body mass accrual and functional leptin or melanocortin-4 receptor signaling. Longitudinal recordings revealed that this SD devaluation and subsequent shift toward HFD consumption is encoded at the level of hypothalamic agouti-related peptide neurons and mesolimbic dopamine signaling. Prior HFD consumption vastly diminished the capacity of SD to alleviate the negative valence associated with hunger and the rewarding properties of food discovery even after periods of HFD abstinence. These data reveal a neural basis behind the hardships of dieting.Mazzone and Liang-Guallpa et al. demonstrate that consuming high-fat foods rapidly and durably tunes parallel brain circuits to drive intake of a high-fat diet while devaluing a nutritionally balanced, standard diet even under states of intense hunger.

Recent studies from our group and many others have shown the ability of histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitors for retarding the growth of carcinomas of cervix, colon and rectum in vitro. A search for naturally occurring HDAC inhibitors continues due to the adverse effects associated with known HDAC inhibitors like SAHA and TSA. Therefore in the current study, naturally occurring cinnamic acids derivatives were screened for HDAC inhibitory effect using in silico docking method which identified cinnamic acids as potential candidates. Cinnamic acids (CA) are naturally occurring phenolic compounds known to exhibit anticancer properties. However, it is not clearly known whether the anticancer properties of CA derivatives are due to the inhibition of oncogenic HDACs, if so how the efficacy varies among various CA derivatives. Hence, the HDAC inhibitory potential of CA derivatives containing increasing number of hydroxylic groups or methoxy moieties was determined using Discovery Studio software and the most potent CA derivatives tested ex vivo (biochemical assay) as well as in vitro (using cell based assay). Among CA derivatives tested, dihydroxy cinnamic acid (DHCA, commonly known as caffeic acid) exhibited better interactions with HDAC2 (compared to other isoforms) in silico and inhibited its activity ex vivo as well as in vitro. Targeted reduction of HDAC activity using DHCA induced death of cancer cells by (a) generating reactive oxygen species, (b) arresting cells in S and G2/M phases; and (c) induction of caspase-3 mediated apoptosis. In conclusion, we demonstrated that DHCA inhibited cancer cell growth by binding to HDAC followed by the induction of apoptosis.

There are few studies that describe the medical treatment and colitis response rates among patients with a severe relapse of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) during pregnancy, and few studies of the effect of such a relapse on birth outcomes in these patients. To describe the treatment and response rates of severe colitis in pregnancy, and to assess the effects of a severe relapse of colitis during pregnancy on birth outcomes. We performed a case control study of pregnant patients with IBD hospitalized for a disease relapse at two large treatment centers between 1989 and 2001. Details of management of disease relapse and maternal and fetal outcomes were recorded. Eighteen patients (11 ulcerative colitis, 6 Crohn's disease, 1 indeterminate colitis), mean age 28.6 yr (range 19-38) formed the study group; 41 age-matched pregnant IBD patients without disease relapse formed the control group. Study patients were hospitalized at a mean of 15.9-wk gestation (range 8-35) for a mean of 10.4 days (range 3-31). All 18 patients received IV hydrocortisone (mean dose 199 mg/day) and 7 patients (39%) either continued taking or were commenced on immunomodulators: IV cyclosporine (5 patients) and azathioprine/6-MP (3 patients). Fifteen patients (83%) had a clinical response to these medical treatments, 3 patients required colectomy. There were significant differences between study and control groups in gestation period (35.0 wk vs 38.7 wk, respectively, P= 0.0001) and birth weight (2,001 g vs 3,018 g, respectively, P < 0.0001). Treatment with IV hydrocortisone and IV cyclosporine appears effective at inducing remission of colitis but their use must continue to be confined to severely ill patients being treated at specialized centers. Severe relapses of colitis during pregnancy increase the risk of preterm birth and low birth weight.

The sensing methods with multiple receive antennas  in the Cognitive Radio (CR) device, provide a promising solution for reducing the error rates in the detection of the Primary User (PU) signal. The received Signal to Noise Ratio at the CR receiver is enhanced using the diversity combiners. This paper proposes a statistical approach based on minimum Bayes factors and p-Values as diversity combiners in the spectrum sensing scenario. The effect of these statistical measures in sensing the spectrum in a CR environment is investigated. Through extensive Monte Carlo simulations it is shown that this novel statistical approach based on Bayes factors provides a promising solution to combine the test statistics from multiple receiver antennas and can be used as an alternative to the conventional hypothesis testing methods for spectrum sensing. The Bayesian results provide more accurate results when measuring the strength of the evidence against the hypothesis.

This paper presents a comparative study of two learning pipelines that learn intelligent spectrum sensing from Quadrature Phase-Shift Keying (QPSK) In-phase/Quadrature (I/Q) data generated in GNU Radio. Both pipelines used two-band Short-Time Fourier Transform (STFT) features with pseudo-labeling based on energy detection. The first pipeline uses a classification approach using Random Forest (RF)on raw STFT features, whereas the second pipeline follows neuro-fuzzy processing of STFT features before classification within a Support Vector Machine (SVM) framework, hence the naming: Fuzzy STFT-SVM (FuST-SVM). Experiments conducted under low (-10dB), medium (5dB), and high (10dB) Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR) conditions reveal the dominance of FuST-SVM, with accuracy scores anywhere between 90.65 and 92.46%. The work demonstrates a highly effective and robust solution for the reliable sensing of the spectrum under harsh and heterogeneous noise environments.

This article is based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted with the Indian community in Houston, as part of a NIH-NHGRI-sponsored ethics study and sample collection initiative entitled \"Indian and Hindu Perspectives on Genetic Variation Research.\" At the heart of this research is one central exchange-blood samples donated for genetic research-that draws both the Indian community and a community of researchers into an encounter with bioethics. I consider the meanings that come to be associated with blood donation as it passes through various hands, agendas, and associated ethical filters on its way to the lab bench: how and why blood is solicited, how the giving and taking of blood is rationalized, how blood as material substance is alienated, processed, documented, and made available for the promised ends of basic science research. Examining corporeal substances and asking what sorts of gifts and problems these represent, I argue, sheds some light on two imbricated tensions expressed by a community of Indians, on the one hand, and of geneticists and basic science researchers, on the other hand: that gifts ought to be free (but are not), and that science ought to be pure (but is not). In this article, I explore how experiences of bioethics are variously shaped by the histories and habits of Indic giving, prior sample collection controversies, commitments to \"good science\" and the common \"good of humanity,\" and negotiations of the sites where research findings circulate.

The Physician's Desk Reference lists inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) as a possible adverse event associated with the use of isotretinoin, a popular acne prescription medication. Our aim was to perform a systematic examination of reports of IBD associated with isotretinoin use. All reports filed with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) via the MedWatch system were requested and reviewed. Strength of causality was determined using the Naranjo adverse drug reaction (ADR) probability scale. All of the adverse reports filed with the FDA between 1997 and 2002 were accessed and reviewed. Eighty-five cases of IBD associated with isotretinoin use were reported. According to the Naranjo ADR probability scale, 4 cases (5%) scored in the \"highly probable\" range for isotretinoin as the cause of IBD, 58 cases (68%) were \"probable,\" 23 cases (27%) were \"possible,\" and no cases were \"doubtful.\" In a subgroup of patients, isotretinoin might serve as a trigger for IBD.

What value does death acquire when body organs are pledged for transplantation? Deaths may be made public by a stated desire to donate, and a matter of public debate precisely because the desire is denied. This essay explores two case studies from India of attempts to donate organs: one of a condemned prisoner, and the other of a former Marxist chief minister of West Bengal. One of these attempts was idealized and exalted, the other thwarted; both gave rise to considerable public conversation. We treat the public nature of these deathbed wishes as moral dramas, for at the heart of each is a quite wrenching contest over the donor's soul-or its this-worldly equivalent, his legacy-that serves equally as an opportunity to reignite projects of social reform and (re)educate different social constituencies. We thus focus on the didactic functions of donation, where the principal issue at stake is the intention of the dying person to gift his or her organs. We ask, what does organ donation mean at the point of death? We argue that there is more at stake than just the possibilities of saving lives. Rather, these unfolding moral dramas become opportunities for, among other things, Brahminism to be rejected, superstition to be transcended, the values of a modernizing state to be reaffirmed, and a broad spectrum of civic virtues to be inculcated. Pledging one's body when death is imminent and inevitable becomes the final chance to rewrite the course of a life, to make a worthy biographical statement, and to turn the intimately personal into something of public value. How does the dying donor speak? As murderer, Marxist-or more?

The category of \"caste\" has had a long history both in and out of the Indian subcontinent, one that is frequently intertwined with that of \"race\" From H. H. Risley's use of late-nineteenth century European race science in anthropometric research, to Max Mueller's articulation of the Aryan theory of race and pan-Africanist expressions of racial solidarity with the lower castes of India, caste has frequently been redefined and politicized by being drawn into wider discourses about race. Informed by this complex history, this essay asks how \"race\" and \"caste\" have come to serve as key metaphors of socio-political struggle, illuminating one-another and emerging as potent rhetorical strategies of social critique, particularly in India but increasingly also in more global contexts. I argue that Dalit groups in contemporary India move their concerns into global forums such as the 2001 UN World Conference Against Racism by appropriating ideas about caste and religion that have long been used to mystify the local and \"native\" inhabitants-ideas that are themselves the subjects of established ethnographic critique. As such, this essay remains aware of the difficulties of bringing anthropological concerns to bear on analyses of on-going political struggle.