University of New Mexico

About: University of New Mexico is a education organization based out in Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Poison control. The organization has 28870 authors who have published 64767 publications receiving 2578371 citations. The organization is also known as: UNM & Universitatis Novus Mexico.

Darwinian aesthetics: sexual selection and the biology of beauty.

Abstract: Current theoretical and empirical findings suggest that mate preferences are mainly cued on visual, vocal and chemical cues that reveal health including developmental health. Beautiful and irresistible features have evolved numerous times in plants and animals due to sexual selection, and such preferences and beauty standards provide evidence for the claim that human beauty and obsession with bodily beauty are mirrored in analogous traits and tendencies throughout the plant and animal kingdoms. Human beauty standards reflect our evolutionary distant and recent past and emphasize the role of health assessment in mate choice as reflected by analyses of the attractiveness of visual characters of the face and the body, but also of vocal and olfactory signals. Although beauty standards may vary between cultures and between times, we show in this review that the underlying selection pressures, which shaped the standards, are the same. Moreover we show that it is not the content of the standards that show evidence of convergence – it is the rules or how we construct beauty ideals that have universalities across cultures. These findings have implications for medical, social and biological sciences.

Multiple processes in prospective memory retrieval: factors determining monitoring versus spontaneous retrieval.

Abstract: Theoretically, prospective memory retrieval can be accomplished either by controlled monitoring of the environment for a target event or by a more reflexive process that spontaneously responds to the presence of a target event. These views were evaluated in Experiments 1-4 by examining whether performing a prospective memory task produced costs on the speed of performing the ongoing task. In Experiment 5, the authors directly tested for the existence of spontaneous retrieval. The results supported the multiprocess theory (M. A. McDaniel & G. O. Einstein, 2000) predictions that (a) spontaneous retrieval can occur and can support good prospective memory and (b) depending on task demands and individual differences, people rely to different degrees on monitoring versus spontaneous retrieval for prospective remembering.

Fusion of the nucleoporin gene NUP98 to HOXA9 by the chromosome translocation t(7;11)(p15;p15) in human myeloid leukaemia

Abstract: Expression of HoxaT and Hoxa9 is activated by proviral integration in BXH2 murine myeloid leukaemias. This result, combined with the mapping of the HOXA locus to human chromosome 7p15, suggested that one of the HOXA genes might be involved in the t(7;11)(p15;p15) translocation found in some human myeloid leukaemia patients. Here we show that in three patients with t(7;11), the chromosome rearrangement creates a genomic fusion between the HOXA9 gene and the nucleoporin gene NUP98 on chromosome 11 p15. The translocation produces an invariant chimaeric NUP98/HOXA9 transcript containing the amino terminal half of NUP98 fused in frame to HOXA9. These studies identify HOXA9 as an important human myeloid leukaemia gene and suggest an important role for nucleoporins in human myeloid leukaemia given that a second nucleoporin, NUP214, has also been implicated in human myeloid leukaemia.

Multidrug Resistant Pulmonary Tuberculosis Treatment Regimens and Patient Outcomes: An Individual Patient Data Meta-analysis of 9,153 Patients

Abstract: Background Treatment of multidrug resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) is lengthy, toxic, expensive, and has generally poor outcomes. We undertook an individual patient data meta-analysis to assess the impact on outcomes of the type, number, and duration of drugs used to treat MDR-TB. Methods and Findings Three recent systematic reviews were used to identify studies reporting treatment outcomes of microbiologically confirmed MDR-TB. Study authors were contacted to solicit individual patient data including clinical characteristics, treatment given, and outcomes. Random effects multivariable logistic meta-regression was used to estimate adjusted odds of treatment success. Adequate treatment and outcome data were provided for 9,153 patients with MDR-TB from 32 observational studies. Treatment success, compared to failure/relapse, was associated with use of: later generation quinolones, (adjusted odds ratio [aOR]: 2.5 [95% CI 1.1–6.0]), ofloxacin (aOR: 2.5 [1.6–3.9]), ethionamide or prothionamide (aOR: 1.7 [1.3–2.3]), use of four or more likely effective drugs in the initial intensive phase (aOR: 2.3 [1.3–3.9]), and three or more likely effective drugs in the continuation phase (aOR: 2.7 [1.7–4.1]). Similar results were seen for the association of treatment success compared to failure/relapse or death: later generation quinolones, (aOR: 2.7 [1.7–4.3]), ofloxacin (aOR: 2.3 [1.3–3.8]), ethionamide or prothionamide (aOR: 1.7 [1.4–2.1]), use of four or more likely effective drugs in the initial intensive phase (aOR: 2.7 [1.9–3.9]), and three or more likely effective drugs in the continuation phase (aOR: 4.5 [3.4–6.0]). Conclusions In this individual patient data meta-analysis of observational data, improved MDR-TB treatment success and survival were associated with use of certain fluoroquinolones, ethionamide, or prothionamide, and greater total number of effective drugs. However, randomized trials are urgently needed to optimize MDR-TB treatment. Please see later in the article for the Editors' Summary.

Climate change increases the likelihood of catastrophic avian mortality events during extreme heat waves.

Abstract: Severe heat waves have occasionally led to catastrophic avian mortality in hot desert environments. Climate change models predict increases in the intensity, frequency and duration of heat waves. A model of avian evaporative water requirements and survival times during the hottest part of day reveals that the predicted increases in maximum air temperatures will result in large fractional increases in water requirements (in small birds, equivalent to 150–200 % of current values), which will severely reduce survival times during extremely hot weather. By the 2080s, desert birds will experience reduced survival times much more frequently during mid-summer, increasing the frequency of catastrophic mortality events.