These results were also confirmed by instrumented impact tests. (C) 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 121: 2458-2466, 2011″
“The lethal mutagenesis Apoptosis inhibitor hypothesis states that

within-host populations of pathogens can be driven to extinction when the load of deleterious mutations is artificially increased with a mutagen, and becomes too high for the population to be maintained. Although chemical mutagens have been shown to lead to important reductions in viral titres for a wide variety of RNA viruses, the theoretical underpinnings of this process are still not clearly established. A few recent models sought to describe lethal mutagenesis but they often relied on restrictive assumptions. We extend this earlier work in two novel directions. First, we derive the dynamics of the genetic load in a multivariate Gaussian fitness landscape akin to classical quantitative genetics models. This fitness landscape yields

a continuous distribution of mutation effects on fitness, ranging from deleterious to beneficial (i.e. compensatory) mutations. We also include an additional class of lethal mutations. Second, we couple this evolutionary p38 MAPK phosphorylation model with an epidemiological model accounting for the within-host dynamics of the pathogen. We derive the epidemiological and evolutionary equilibrium of the system. At this equilibrium, the density of the pathogen is expected to decrease linearly with the genomic mutation rate U. We also provide a simple expression for the critical mutation rate leading to extinction. Stochastic simulations show that these predictions are accurate for a broad range of parameter values. As they depend on a small set of measurable epidemiological

and evolutionary parameters, we used available information on several viruses to make quantitative and testable predictions on critical mutation rates. In the light of this model, we discuss the feasibility of HDAC inhibitor lethal mutagenesis as an efficient therapeutic strategy.”
“Study Design. Cross-sectional study.

Objective. The aim of this study was to investigate the prevalence of lumbar scoliosis in postmenopausal women aged 50 years and older, and to determine the association of adult lumbar scoliosis with age, osteoporosis, and body mass index (BMI).

Summary of Background Data. Adult scoliosis prevalence has not been clearly determined. In addition, limited data are available on the correlation of adult scoliosis with age, bone mineral density, and BMI.

Methods. We studied 380 postmenopausal women aged 50 years and older, who were evaluated with dual-energy radiograph absorptiometry (DXA) scan images. The lumbar curvature magnitude in the coronal plane was measured in DXA images with Cobb’s method. Scoliosis was defined by the presence of a curvature 10 degrees or larger.