Adiponectin and Cardiac Hypertrophy in Acromegaly

Background. Adiponectin is an adipocytes-derived hormone which has been shown to possess insulin-sensitizing, antiatherogenic, and anti-inflammatory properties. In acromegaly, the data on adiponectin is contradictory. The relationship between adiponectin levels and cardiac parameters has not been studied.Objectives. The aim of this study was to find out how adiponectin levels were affected in acromegalic patients and the relationship between adiponectin levels and cardiac parameters.Material and Methods. We included 30 subjects (15 male, 15 female), diagnosed with acromegaly and 30 healthy (10 male, 20 female) subjects. Serum glucose, insulin, GH, IGF-1 and adiponectin levels were obtained and the insulin resistance of the subjects was calculated. Echocardiographic studies of the subjects were performed.Results. We determined that adiponectin levels were significantly higher in the acromegalic group than the control group. In the acromegalic group, there was no statistically significant relation between serum adiponectin and growth hormone (GH), or insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1) levels (p = 0.3, p = 0.1). We demonstrated that cardiac function and structure are affected by acromegaly. IVST, PWT, LVMI, E/A ratio, DT, ET, IVRT, VPR, and LVESV values were increased and the results were statistically significant. In the acromegalic group, adiponectin levels were positively related with left ventricle mass index (LVMI) but this correlation was found to be statistically weak (p = 0.03). In our study, there was a positive correlation between VAI and LVM. We also could not find any correlation between VAI and adiponectin levels.Conclusions. Although insulin resistance and high insulin levels occur in active acromegaly patients, adiponectin levels were higher in our study as a consequence of GH lowering therapies. Our study showed that adiponectin levels may be an indicator of the cardiac involvement acromegaly. However, the usage of serum adiponectin levels in acromegalic patients as an indicator of cardiac involvement should be supported with other, wide, multi-centered studies

Quantum efficiency enhancement in nanocrystals using nonradiative energy transfer with optimized donor-acceptor ratio for hybrid LEDs

Cataloged from PDF version of article.The quantum efficiency enhancement in nanocrystal solids is critically important for their efficient use as luminophors on color-conversion light emitting diodes (LEDs). For this purpose, we investigate energy gradient mixture of nanocrystal solids for recycling their trapped excitons by varying their donor-acceptor nanocrystal ratios and study the resulting quantum efficiency enhancement as a function of the donor-acceptor ratio in the solid film for hybrid LEDs. We achieve a maximum quantum efficiency enhancement of 17% in these nanocrystal solids when the donor-acceptor ratio is 1:1, demonstrating their highly modified time-resolved photoluminescence decays to reveal the kinetics of strong energy transfer between them

Oscillation Criteria for a Certain Class of Second Order Emden-Fowler Dynamic Equations

By means of Riccati transformation techniques we establish some oscillation criteria for the second order Emden-Fowler dynamic equation on a time scale. Such equations contain the classical Emden-Fowler equation as well as their discrete counterparts. The classical oscillation results of Atkinson (in the superlinear case) and Belohorec (in the sublinear case) are extended in this paper to Emden-Fowler dynamic equations on any time scale

Lossless Text Compression Technique Using Syllable Based Morphology

In this paper, we present a new lossless text compression technique which utilizes syllable-based morphology of multi-syllabic languages. The proposed algorithm is designed to partition words into its syllables and then to produce their shorter bit representations for compression. The method has six main components namely source file, filtering unit, syllable unit, compression unit, dictionary file and target file. The number of bits in coding syllables depends on the number of entries in the dictionary file. The proposed algorithm is implemented and tested using 20 different texts of different lengths collected from different fields. The results indicated a compression of up to 43%

Production of ethanol from Carica papaya (pawpaw) agro waste: effect of saccharification and different treatments on ethanol yield

A study was carried out on yeast fermentation of carica papaya (pawpaw) agricultural waste using dried active baker\'s yeast and brewer\'s yeast strain (Sacchromyces cerevisiae). The pawpaw considered as an agricultural waste was the tapped ripe pawpaw fruit harvested after the tapping of papain. Effect of different yeast strains on the percentage yield of ethanol was investigated. The effects of yeast concentration, saccharification and different nutrient supplements as they relate to the optimization of the ethanol yield were also carried out. The fermented pawpaw yielded ethanol contents of 3.83 to 5.19% (v/v). The reducing sugar in the pawpaw was determined before and after saccharification. The reducing sugar was highest after 48 h of saccharification using Aspergillus niger. The value recorded was 7.6 to 13.6 g/100g. Brewers yeast gave a higher ethanol yield than bakers yeast. Saccharification for 48 h coupled with nutrient supplements significantly increased the ethanol yield.African Journal of Biotechnology Vol. 4 (7), pp. 657-659, 200

THE WAIT-AND-SEE OPTION IN ASCENDING PRICE AUCTIONS

Cake-cutting protocols aim at dividing a ``cake'' (i.e., a divisible resource) and assigning the resulting portions to several players in a way that each of the players feels to have received a ``fair'' amount of the cake. An important notion of fairness is envy-freeness: No player wishes to switch the portion of the cake received with another player's portion. Despite intense efforts in the past, it is still an open question whether there is a \emph{finite bounded} envy-free cake-cutting protocol for an arbitrary number of players, and even for four players. We introduce the notion of degree of guaranteed envy-freeness (DGEF) as a measure of how good a cake-cutting protocol can approximate the ideal of envy-freeness while keeping the protocol finite bounded (trading being disregarded). We propose a new finite bounded proportional protocol for any number n \geq 3 of players, and show that this protocol has a DGEF of 1 + \lceil (n^2)/2 \rceil. This is the currently best DGEF among known finite bounded cake-cutting protocols for an arbitrary number of players. We will make the case that improving the DGEF even further is a tough challenge, and determine, for comparison, the DGEF of selected known finite bounded cake-cutting protocols.Comment: 37 pages, 4 figure

Localized plasmon-engineered spontaneous emission of CdSe/ZnS nanocrystals closely-packed in the proximity of Ag nanoisland films for controlling emission linewidth, peak, and intensity

Cataloged from PDF version of article.Using metallic nanoislands, we demonstrate the localized plasmonic control and modification of the spontaneous emission from closely-packed nanocrystal emitters, leading to significant changes in their collective emission characteristics tuned spectrally and spatially by plasmon coupling. Using randomly-distributed silver nanoislands, we show that the emission linewidth of proximal CdSe/ZnS core-shell quantum dots is reduced by 22% and their peak emission wavelength is shifted by 14nm, while their ensemble photoluminescence is enhanced via radiative energy transfer by 21.6 and 15.1 times compared to the control groups of CdSe/ZnS nanocrystals with identical nano-silver but no dielectric spacer and the same nanocrystals alone, respectively. (C) 2007 Optical Society of America

Efektivitas Pseudomonas Fluorescens Dan Paenibacillus Polymyxa Terhadap Keparahan Penyakit Karat Dan Hawar Daun Serta Pertumbuhan Tanaman Jagung Manis (Zea Mays Var. Saccharata)

Penyakit penting pada tanaman jagung diantaranya adalah penyakit karat daun yang disebabkan oleh jamur Puccinia sorghi Schwein dan penyakit hawar daun yang disebabkan oleh jamur Helmithosporium turcicum Leonard et Suggs. Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk menguji keefektifan Pseudomonas fluorescens dan Paenibacillus polymyxa dalam menekan perkembangan penyakit karat dan hawar daun jagung serta memicu pertumbuhan tanaman jagung. Penelitian ini dilakukan pada bulan September sampai bulan Desember 2015 di Laboratorium Penyakit Tumbuhan Jurusan Agroteknologi dan di lahan petani di Kampung Baru Bandar Lampung. Perlakuan disusun dalam rancangan acak lengkap (RAL) terdiri atas lima perlakuan dan tiga ulangan. Perlakuan terdiri atas (1) P0 kontrol berupa tanaman jagung yang tidak diberi perlakuan fungisida, P. polymyxa dan P.fluorescens (2) P1 perendaman benih jagung dalam formulasi P. polymyxa selama 6 jam, (3) P2 perendaman benih jagungdalam formulasi P. fluorescensselama 6 jam, (4) P3 perendaman benih jagung dalam formulasi P. polymyxa danP.fluorescens selama 6 jam, (5) P4 perendaman benih jagung dalam fungisida propineb selama 6 jam. Data yang diperoleh kemudian dianalisis dengan menggunakan sidik ragam kemudian dilanjutkan dengan uji Beda Nyata Terkecil (BNT) pada tarif nyata 5%. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa (1) Aplikasi P. fluorescens dan P. polymyxa mampu menekan keparahan penyakit karat dan hawar daun jagung (2) Aplikasi P. polymyxa mampu meningkatkan tinggi tanaman dan jumlah daun jagung