Brown University

About: Brown University is a education organization based out in Providence, Rhode Island, United States. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Poison control. The organization has 35778 authors who have published 90896 publications receiving 4471489 citations. The organization is also known as: brown.edu & Brown.

The human colon cancer methylome shows similar hypo- and hypermethylation at conserved tissue-specific CpG island shores.

Abstract: For the past 25 years, it has been known that alterations in DNA methylation (DNAm) occur in cancer, including hypomethylation of oncogenes and hypermethylation of tumor suppressor genes. However, most studies of cancer methylation have assumed that functionally important DNAm will occur in promoters, and that most DNAm changes in cancer occur in CpG islands. Here we show that most methylation alterations in colon cancer occur not in promoters, and also not in CpG islands, but in sequences up to 2 kb distant, which we term 'CpG island shores'. CpG island shore methylation was strongly related to gene expression, and it was highly conserved in mouse, discriminating tissue types regardless of species of origin. There was a notable overlap (45-65%) of the locations of colon cancer-related methylation changes with those that distinguished normal tissues, with hypermethylation enriched closer to the associated CpG islands, and hypomethylation enriched further from the associated CpG island and resembling that of noncolon normal tissues. Thus, methylation changes in cancer are at sites that vary normally in tissue differentiation, consistent with the epigenetic progenitor model of cancer, which proposes that epigenetic alterations affecting tissue-specific differentiation are the predominant mechanism by which epigenetic changes cause cancer.

Low-dimensional procedure for the characterization of human faces

Abstract: A method is presented for the representation of (pictures of) faces. Within a specified framework the representation is ideal. This results in the characterization of a face, to within an error bound, by a relatively low-dimensional vector. The method is illustrated in detail by the use of an ensemble of pictures taken for this purpose.

Assessing Self‐maintenance: Activities of Daily Living, Mobility, and Instrumental Activities of Daily Living

Abstract: The aging of the population of the United States and a concern for the well-being of older people have hastened the emergence of measures of functional health. Among these, measures of basic activities of daily living, mobility, and instrumental activities of daily living have been particularly useful and are now widely available. Many are defined in similar terms and are built into available comprehensive instruments. Although studies of reliability and validity continue to be needed, especially of predictive validity, there is documented evidence that these measures of self-maintaining function can be reliably used in clinical evaluations as well as in program evaluations and in planning. Current scientific evidence indicates that evaluation by these measures helps to identify problems that require treatment or care. Such evaluation also produces useful information about prognosis and is important in monitoring the health and illness of elderly people.

Stress Waves in Solids

Abstract: A large and growing number of original papers on both the experimental and the theoretical aspects of stress wave propagation is appearing in the scientific literature, and two international conferences solely concerned with the subject have been held during the last five years. The purpose of this paper is to review recent experimental and theoretical advances in the propagation of deformation waves of arbitrary shape through elastic and anelastic solids, and also to attempt to outline the problems on which present efforts are being directed and to predict probable lines of future development.

Genetic relationship between five psychiatric disorders estimated from genome-wide SNPs

Abstract: Most psychiatric disorders are moderately to highly heritable. The degree to which genetic variation is unique to individual disorders or shared across disorders is unclear. To examine shared genetic etiology, we use genome-wide genotype data from the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium (PGC) for cases and controls in schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, major depressive disorder, autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). We apply univariate and bivariate methods for the estimation of genetic variation within and covariation between disorders. SNPs explained 17-29% of the variance in liability. The genetic correlation calculated using common SNPs was high between schizophrenia and bipolar disorder (0.68 ± 0.04 s.e.), moderate between schizophrenia and major depressive disorder (0.43 ± 0.06 s.e.), bipolar disorder and major depressive disorder (0.47 ± 0.06 s.e.), and ADHD and major depressive disorder (0.32 ± 0.07 s.e.), low between schizophrenia and ASD (0.16 ± 0.06 s.e.) and non-significant for other pairs of disorders as well as between psychiatric disorders and the negative control of Crohn's disease. This empirical evidence of shared genetic etiology for psychiatric disorders can inform nosology and encourages the investigation of common pathophysiologies for related disorders.