Diabetes burden in Brazil: fraction attributable to overweight, obesity, and excess weight

OBJECTIVE To estimate the burden of type 2 diabetes mellitus and its percentage attributable to overweight and obesity in Brazil. METHODS The burden of diabetes mellitus was described in terms of disability-adjusted life years, which is the sum of two components: years of life lost and years lived with disability. To calculate the fraction of diabetes mellitus attributable to overweight, obesity, and excess weight, we used the prevalence of these risk factors according to sex and age groups (>; 20 years) obtained from the 2008 Pesquisa Dimensões Sociais das Desigualdades (Social Dimensions of Inequality Survey) and the relative risks derived from the international literature. RESULTS Diabetes mellitus accounted for 5.4% of Brazilian disability-adjusted life years in 2008, with the largest fraction attributed to the morbidity component (years lived with disability). Women exhibited higher values for disability-adjusted life years. In Brazil, 49.2%, 58.3%, and 70.6% of diabetes mellitus in women was attributable to overweight, obesity, and excess weight, respectively. Among men, these percentages were 40.5%, 45.4%, and 60.3%, respectively. Differences were observed with respect to Brazilian regions and age groups. CONCLUSIONS A large fraction of diabetes mellitus was attributable to preventable individual risk factors and, in about six years, the contribution of these factors significant increased, particularly among men. Policies aimed at promoting healthy lifestyle habits, such as a balanced diet and physical activity, can have a significant impact on reducing the burden of diabetes mellitus in Brazil.OBJETIVO Estimar a carga do diabetes mellitus tipo 2 e sua fração atribuível ao sobrepeso e obesidade no Brasil. MÉTODOS A carga de diabetes mellitus foi descrita por meio dos anos de vida perdidos ajustados por incapacidade, a partir da soma de dois componentes: anos de vida perdidos por morte prematura e anos de vida perdidos devido à incapacidade. Para o cálculo da fração do diabetes mellitus devida ao sobrepeso, à obesidade e ao excesso de peso, foram utilizadas as prevalências desses fatores de risco por sexo e faixa etária (>; 20 anos), obtidas na Pesquisa Dimensões Sociais das Desigualdades, do ano de 2008, e os riscos relativos obtidos na literatura internacional. RESULTADOS Diabetes mellitus respondeu por 5,4% dos anos de vida perdidos ajustados por incapacidade em 2008, sendo a maior parcela atribuída ao componente de morbidade (anos de vida perdidos devido à incapacidade). As mulheres apresentaram maiores valores de anos de vida ajustados para incapacidade. No Brasil, 49,2%, 58,3% e 70,6% do diabetes mellitus no sexo feminino foram atribuíveis ao sobrepeso, à obesidade e ao excesso de peso, respectivamente. Entre os homens, esses percentuais foram 40,5%, 45,4% e 60,3%, respectivamente. Diferenças foram observadas no que tange às grandes regiões brasileiras e às faixas etárias. CONCLUSÕES Grande parte da carga do diabetes foi atribuível a fatores de risco modificáveis e, em aproximadamente seis anos, a contribuição desses fatores aumentou expressivamente, sobretudo entre os homens. Políticas voltadas à promoção de hábitos saudáveis de vida, como alimentação balanceada e prática de atividade física, podem ter um impacto significativo na redução da carga de diabetes mellitus no Brasil

Noise and Vibration Control in the Built Environment

With global urbanization rapidly rising and the increasing need of high-quality built environments, the requirement of achieving improved sound quality, both for outdoor and indoor environments, has received a lot of attention. This Special Issue collection reflects the current state of the art, with 12 papers covering environmental acoustics; the influence of soundscapes on people’s behavior; soundscape pleasantness estimation; tranquility; perceived quality of sonic environments; sound and vibration-related health complaints concerning tramways; and the disturbance of construction machines; as well as in building and room acoustics, including natural ventilation-enabling façade noise control devices; the effect of external shading devices; rating method of airborne sound insulation; water supply and drainage noise, and the effect of diffusive surfaces in auditoria. Some papers cover research on the engineering aspects of sound and vibration, such as sound propagation and noise control techniques, as well as perception aspects of sound, such as indoor acoustic comfort and environmental soundscapes. The book is prefaced by Prof. S Wu, entitled ‘Sustainable Urban Sound Environment’

Optimization of Electroencephalograph-Based Classification for Imaginary Motion Brain Computer Interface Study

Using Electroencephalography (EEG) to detect imaginary motions from brain waves, to interface human and computer is a very nascent and challenging field that started developing rapidly in the past few decades. The technique involves some electrodes attached on the scalp of the patient and the signals generated by the brain while the thought process of the patient is captured and recorded in a computer. This technique of human and computer interfacing is termed as Brain Computer Interface (BCI). Disability is a serious problem of our nation and hence BCI is extremely important in case of people who are incapable of communicating due to spinal cord injury. This technique uses the brain signals to make decisions, control objects and communicate with the world using brain integration with peripheral devices and systems. This requires some intelligence to classify these motions. Neural network have been used as a mean to classify motions, however, the accuracy of classification for certain motion was limited. The novelty of the proposed approach is in using a majority vote system for a network of artificial neural networks (ANNs) that is used to optimally classify imaginary motions performed by multiple subjects. Three kinds of imaginary motionswere classified which are imaginary left hand movement, imaginary right hand movement, and imagination of words starting with the same letter. Using an optimized set of electrodes, classification accuracywas optimized for the three users as a group and also individually. The optimization procedure was conducted based on the rank of the electrodes 2 according to their individual classification accuracy, and the eliminating electrodes with the lowest accuracies. The group optimization of 3 subjects altogether resulted in an electrode structure consisting of 15 electrodes with a relatively high classification accuracy of almost 80%. The individual optimization for each subject resulted in an electrode structure of 20 for subject 1 and subject 3 with classification accuracies of 63:63% and 84:33% respectively and single electrode structure for subject 2 with an accuracy of 94:01%. The overall average classification accuracy of all the users with the individual optimization of electrodes was as high as 82:32%

Colonization and Authentication of the Pyrethroid-Resistant Anopheles gambiae s.s. Muleba-Kis Strain; an Important Test System for Laboratory Screening of New Insecticides.

BACKGROUND: The emergence and spread of insecticide resistance in malaria vectors to major classes of insecticides call for urgent innovation and application of insecticides with novel modes of action. When evaluating new insecticides for public health, potential candidates need to be screened against both susceptible and resistant mosquitoes to determine efficacy and to identify potential cross-resistance to insecticides currently used for mosquito control. The challenges and lessons learned from establishing, maintaining, and authenticating the pyrethroid-resistant An. gambiae s.s. Muleba-Kis strain at the KCMUCo-PAMVERC Test Facility are described in this paper. METHODS: Male mosquitoes from the F1 generation of wild-pyrethroid resistant mosquitoes were cross-bred with susceptible female An. gambiae s.s. Kisumu laboratory strain followed by larval selection using a pyrethroid insecticide solution. Periodic screening for phenotypic and genotypic resistance was done. WHO susceptibility tests and bottle bioassays were used to assess the phenotypic resistance, while Taqman™ assays were used to screen for known target-site resistance alleles (kdr and ace-1). Additionally, the strains were periodically assessed for quality control by monitoring adult weight and wing length. RESULTS: By out-crossing the wild mosquitoes with an established lab strain, a successful resistant insectary colony was established. Intermittent selection pressure using alphacypermethrin has maintained high kdr mutation (leucine-serine) frequencies in the selected colony. There was consistency in the wing length and weight measurements from the year 2016 to 2020, with the exception that one out of four years was significantly different. Mean annual wing length varied between 0.0142-0.0028 mm compared to values obtained in 2016, except in 2019 where it varied by 0.0901 mm. Weight only varied by approximately 0.001 g across four years, except in 2017 where it differed by 0.005 g. Routine phenotypic characterization on Muleba-Kis against pyrethroids using the WHO susceptibility test indicated high susceptibility when type I pyrethroids were used compared to type II pyrethroids. Dynamics on susceptibility status also depended on the lapse time when the selection was last done. CONCLUSIONS: This study described the procedure for introducing, colonizing, and maintaining a resistant An. gambiae s.s. strain in the laboratory with leucine to serine substitution kdr allele which reflects the features of the wild-resistant population in East Africa. Challenges in colonizing a wild-resistant mosquito strain were overcome by out-crossing between mosquito strains of desired traits followed by intermittent insecticide selection at the larval stage to select for the resistant phenotype

Colonization and Authentication of the Pyrethroid-Resistant Anopheles gambiae s.s. Muleba-Kis Strain; an Important Test System for Laboratory Screening of New Insecticides

Background: The emergence and spread of insecticide resistance in malaria vectors to major classes of insecticides call for urgent innovation and application of insecticides with novel modes of action. When evaluating new insecticides for public health, potential candidates need to be screened against both susceptible and resistant mosquitoes to determine efficacy and to identify potential cross-resistance to insecticides currently used for mosquito control. The challenges and lessons learned from establishing, maintaining, and authenticating the pyrethroid-resistant An. gambiae s.s. Muleba-Kis strain at the KCMUCo-PAMVERC Test Facility are described in this paper. Methods: Male mosquitoes from the F1 generation of wild-pyrethroid resistant mosquitoes were cross-bred with susceptible female An. gambiae s.s. Kisumu laboratory strain followed by larval selection using a pyrethroid insecticide solution. Periodic screening for phenotypic and genotypic resistance was done. WHO susceptibility tests and bottle bioassays were used to assess the phenotypic resistance, while Taqman™ assays were used to screen for known target-site resistance alleles (kdr and ace-1). Additionally, the strains were periodically assessed for quality control by monitoring adult weight and wing length. Results: By out-crossing the wild mosquitoes with an established lab strain, a successful resistant insectary colony was established. Intermittent selection pressure using alphacypermethrin has maintained high kdr mutation (leucine-serine) frequencies in the selected colony. There was consistency in the wing length and weight measurements from the year 2016 to 2020, with the exception that one out of four years was significantly different. Mean annual wing length varied between 0.0142–0.0028 mm compared to values obtained in 2016, except in 2019 where it varied by 0.0901 mm. Weight only varied by approximately 0.001 g across four years, except in 2017 where it differed by 0.005 g. Routine phenotypic characterization on Muleba-Kis against pyrethroids using the WHO susceptibility test indicated high susceptibility when type I pyrethroids were used compared to type II pyrethroids. Dynamics on susceptibility status also depended on the lapse time when the selection was last done. Conclusions: This study described the procedure for introducing, colonizing, and maintaining a resistant An. gambiae s.s. strain in the laboratory with leucine to serine substitution kdr allele which reflects the features of the wild-resistant population in East Africa. Challenges in colonizing a wild-resistant mosquito strain were overcome by out-crossing between mosquito strains of desired traits followed by intermittent insecticide selection at the larval stage to select for the resistant phenotype

An FPGA-Based MIMO and Space-Time Processing Platform

Faced with the need to develop a research unit capable of up to twelve 20MHz bandwidth channels of real-time, space-time,and MIMO processing, the authors developed the STAR (space-time array research) platform. Analysis indicated that the possibledegree of processing complexity required in the platform was beyond that available from contemporary digital signal processors,and thus a novel approach was required toward the provision of baseband signal processing. This paper follows the analysis andthe consequential development of a flexible FPGA-based processing system. It describes the STAR platform and its use throughseveral novel implementations performed with it. Various pitfalls associated with the implementation of MIMO algorithms in realtime are highlighted, and finally, the development requirements for this FPGA-based solution are given to aid comparison withtraditional DSP development

Fatty Acid Profile, Tocopherol Content of Seed Oil, and Nutritional Analysis of Seed Cake of Wood Apple (Limonia acidissima L.), an Underutilized Fruit-Yielding Tree Species

The present study was aimed at analyzing the fatty acid composition, tocopherols, and physico-chemical characterization of wood apple (Limonia acidissima L.) seed oil and the nutritional profile of seed cake. The fatty acids in seed oil were analyzed by gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC-MS), and the total seed oil was 32.02 ± 0.08%, comprising oleic (21.56 ± 0.57%), alpha-linolenic (16.28 ± 0.29%), and linoleic acid (10.02 ± 0.43%), whereas saturated fatty acid content was 33.38 ± 0.60% including palmitic (17.68 ± 0.65%) and stearic acid (14.15 ± 0.27%). A greater amount of unsaturated fatty acids (52.37%) were noticed compared to saturated fatty acids (33.38%); hence the seed is highly suitable for nutritional and industrial applications. Gamma-tocopherol was present in a higher quantity (39.27 ± 0.07 mg/100 g) as compared to alpha (12.64 ± 0.01 mg/100 g) and delta (3.77 ± 0.00 mg/100 g) tocopherols, which are considered as natural antioxidants. The spectrophotometric technique was used for quantitative analysis of total phenolic content, and it revealed 135.42 ± 1.47 mg gallic acid equivalent /100 g DW in seed cake. All the results of the studied seed oil and cake showed a good source of natural functional ingredients for several health benefits.</jats:p

Nonparametric Econometric Methods and Application

The present Special Issue collects a number of new contributions both at the theoretical level and in terms of applications in the areas of nonparametric and semiparametric econometric methods. In particular, this collection of papers that cover areas such as developments in local smoothing techniques, splines, series estimators, and wavelets will add to the existing rich literature on these subjects and enhance our ability to use data to test economic hypotheses in a variety of fields, such as financial economics, microeconomics, macroeconomics, labor economics, and economic growth, to name a few