Myocardial insulin resistance in experimental uraemia

Cardiac complications are a major cause of death in patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD). Left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH) is a significant contributing factor to uraemic cardiomyopathy and results in significant molecular, cellular and metabolic remodelling. Progression of LVH leads to the development of insulin resistance, a feature common to CKD and heart failure, further jeopardising survival of the uraemic heart.The aim of this thesis was to investigate the effect of uraemia on cardiac physiology, function and metabolism. Specifically, the aim of the study was to examine the cellular mechanisms underlying the development of myocardial insulin resistance in uraemia.The experimental model was induced surgically via a two-stage 5/6 nephrectomy in adult male Sprague-Dawley rats over three, six weeks or nine weeks. An integrated experimental approach combining in vivo and ex vivo methods was used to characterize the morphology and physiology of the experimental model, examine myocardial function and energy provision; assess alterations in myocardial protein expression and determine potential mechanism involved in the development of insulin resistance.Uraemic animals exhibited impaired renal function (creatinine 69±2 vs. 40±2 uM n=41; p<0.05), cardiac hypertrophy (dry heart weight: tibia length 0.5±0.01 vs. 0.4±0.01 g/cm; n=30; p<0.05), impaired glucose tolerance, hyperinsulinaemia, anaemia and hypertension.In perfused hearts, uraemia caused a limited response of the uraemic heart to an increase in workload, demonstrated by cardiac dysfunction and metabolic adaptation. This profile was exacerbated in the presence of insulin. In vivo studies highlighted that insulin sensitivity was reduced in uraemic animals (HOMA-IR 1.27±0.3 vs. 0.58±0.1; n=8 p<0.02) and declined progressively with renal dysfunction. LV tissue from the uraemic model showed an increase in myocardial GLUT4 and normal insulin mediated translocation mechanism.In conclusion, uraemic animals exhibited a reduction in insulin sensitivity, glucose intolerance and hyperinsulinaemia, indicating onset of insulin resistance after 6 weeks of uraemia. Profile of myocardial GLUT4 expression and response to insulin stimulation suggested that insulin resistance is not a consequence of impaired translocation. The lack of overt metabolic remodelling suggests a compensatory phase of left ventricular hypertrophy

Local spatial distortion caused by simple geometrical figures

Dynamic distortion of the visual field has been shown to affect perceptual judgment of visual dimensions such as size, length, and distance. Here, we report four experiments demonstrating that the different aspects of a triangle differently influence judgments of distance. Specifically, when the base of the triangle faces the centre of the display, participants consistently underestimate and overestimate the distance of a small dot from the unmarked centre of the display relative to conditions in which the vertex of the triangle faces the centre. When the dot is close to the figure, the distance of the dot to the centre is underestimated. Conversely, when the dot is close to the figure, the distance to the centre is overestimated. The effect is replicated when the internal distances are equalized and when ellipses are used instead of triangles. These results support a ripple model of spatial distortion in which local curvature acts to attract or repel objects. In conclusion, we suggest some implications of our findings for theories of perceptual organization. </jats:p

HUMAN RESOURCES DEVELOPMENT OF REPUBLIC OF CROATIA AND PRIMORSKOGORANSKA COUNTY AND THEIR INFLUENCE ON ECONOMIC GROWTH

In the theoretical part of research authors will establish connections and diversities between human capital and human resources categories. In the empirical part of research, via HDI, it will be evaluated the development of human resources in Republic Of Croatia and in Primorsko-goranska County and in will be evaluated relation between HDI and GDP per capita of Croatia and in Primorsko-goranska County. Authors will also analyze how much development of human resources has contributed to the economic growth of Republic Of Croatia. In order to demonstrate this it will be measured influence of investment, employment and educational structures (the indirect indicator of development of human resources) on the growth of GDP in the period of 1997-2005 with usage of regression analyses

The use of Bluetooth Beacons in Maritime Emergencies Mobile safety and security - DigLogs pilot project by University of Trieste

The aim of this paper is to research and describe how the use of mobile technologies can help in reducing the time required for the ship evacuation and abandonment procedures, as it was identified within the scope of 2014 - 2020 Interreg V-A Italy - Croatia CBC Programme \u201cDigitalising Logistics processes - DIGLOGS\u201d project. Furthermore, main findings and opportunities for proving technical feasibility will be identified and presented along with a carefully selected and envisaged test scenario chosen to compare the standard evacuation time with the one related to the adoption of the mobile technologies, the final goal being the streamlined evacuation procedures, and the increase of the ship's security and target group stakeholders' satisfaction

Time for Change: Implementation of Aksentijevic-Gibson Complexity in Psychology

Given that complexity is critical for psychological processing, it is somewhat surprising that the field was dominated for a long time by probabilistic methods that focus on the quantitative aspects of the source/output. Although the more recent approaches based on the Minimum Description Length principle have produced interesting and useful models of psychological complexity, they have not directly defined the meaning and quantitative unit of complexity measurement. Contrasted to these mathematical approaches are various ad hoc measures based on different aspects of structure, which can work well but suffer from the same problem. The present manuscript is composed of two self-sufficient, yet related sections. In Section 1, we describe a complexity measure for binary strings which satisfies both these conditions (Aksentijevic&ndash;Gibson complexity; AG). We test the measure on a number of classic studies employing both short and long strings and draw attention to an important feature&mdash;a complexity profile&mdash;that could be of interest in modelling the psychological processing of structure as well as analysis of strings of any length. In Section 2 we discuss different factors affecting the complexity of visual form and showcase a 2D generalization of AG complexity. In addition, we provide algorithms in R that compute the AG complexity for binary strings and matrices and demonstrate their effectiveness on examples involving complexity judgments, symmetry perception, perceptual grouping, entropy, and elementary cellular automata. Finally, we enclose a repository of codes, data and stimuli for our example in order to facilitate experimentation and application of the measure in sciences outside psychology

Ribose supplementation alone or with elevated creatine does not preserve high energy nucleotides or cardiac function in the failing mouse heart

Background: Reduced levels of creatine and total adenine nucleotides (sum of ATP, ADP and AMP) are hallmarks of chronic heart failure and restoring these pools is predicted to be beneficial by maintaining the diseased heart in a more favourable energy state. Ribose supplementation is thought to support both salvage and re-synthesis of adenine nucleotides by bypassing the rate-limiting step. We therefore tested whether ribose would be beneficial in chronic heart failure in control mice and in mice with elevated myocardial creatine due to overexpression of the creatine transporter (CrT-OE). Methods and Results: Four groups were studied: sham; myocardial infarction (MI); MI+ribose; MI+CrT-OE+ribose. In a pilot study, ribose given in drinking water was bioavailable, resulting in a two-fold increase in myocardial ribose-5-phosphate levels. However, 8 weeks post-surgery, total adenine nucleotide (TAN) pool was decreased to a similar amount (8–14%) in all infarcted groups irrespective of the treatment received. All infarcted groups also presented with a similar and substantial degree of left ventricular (LV) dysfunction (3-fold reduction in ejection fraction) and LV hypertrophy (32–47% increased mass). Ejection fraction closely correlated with infarct size independently of treatment (r2 = 0.63, p&lt;0.0001), but did not correlate with myocardial creatine or TAN levels. Conclusion: Elevating myocardial ribose and creatine levels failed to maintain TAN pool or improve post-infarction LV remodeling and function. This suggests that ribose is not rate-limiting for purine nucleotide biosynthesis in the chronically failing mouse heart and that alternative strategies to preserve TAN pool should be investigated

Determinants of COVID-19 immunisation uptake in a country with high mortality and a low vaccination rate

Background Research concerned with attitudes towards COVID-19 vaccination in upper middle-income countries such as Bosnia and Herzegovina (B&H) is scarce. Currently, B&H has the lowest number of fully vaccinated adults in Europe, and the highest cumulative number of COVID-19 deaths and SARS-CoV-2 infected individuals. The aim of our study was to examine the factors associated with COVID-19 vaccination status in B&H. Methods An online survey among 1304 B&H adults was conducted in October 2021 evaluating vaccine acceptance, together with socio-demographic variables, attitudes and beliefs related to COVID-19 vaccination. Results The results from a binary logistic regression indicate that those who believed that the COVID-19 vaccine was effective were 45 times more likely to be vaccinated compared to those who did not. We also show that those who had received childhood immunisations were 41 times more likely to be vaccinated against COVID-19 compared to those who had never been previously immunised. Other significant factors were related to respondents’ trust in government institutions and healthcare policymakers as well as trust in public healthcare workers. Conclusion We suggest that future vaccination campaigns should be aimed at educating the public regarding the importance and safety of vaccines, together with strengthening trust in the public health system

Immunometabolic cross-talk in the inflamed heart.

Inflammatory processes underlie many diseases associated with injury of the heart muscle, including conditions without an obvious inflammatory pathogenic component such as hypertensive and diabetic cardiomyopathy. Persistence of cardiac inflammation can cause irreversible structural and functional deficits. Some are induced by direct damage of the heart muscle by cellular and soluble mediators but also by metabolic adaptations sustained by the inflammatory microenvironment. It is well established that both cardiomyocytes and immune cells undergo metabolic reprogramming in the site of inflammation, which allow them to deal with decreased availability of nutrients and oxygen. However, like in cancer, competition for nutrients and increased production of signalling metabolites such as lactate initiate a metabolic cross-talk between immune cells and cardiomyocytes which, we propose, might tip the balance between resolution of the inflammation versus adverse cardiac remodeling. Here we review our current understanding of the metabolic reprogramming of both heart tissue and immune cells during inflammation, and we discuss potential key mechanisms by which these metabolic responses intersect and influence each other and ultimately define the prognosis of the inflammatory process in the heart