Expression and immunohistochemical localization of leptin in human periapical granulomas

Background: Leptin, initially described as an adipocyte-derived hormone to regulate weight control, is expressed in normal and inflamed human dental pulp, being up-regulated during pulp experimental inflammation. Leptin receptor (LER) has been identified in human periapical granulomas. The aim of this study was to analyze and characterize the expression of leptin in human periapical granulomas. Material and Methods: Fifteen periapical inflammatory lesions were obtained from extracted human teeth and teeth which underwent periapical surgery. After their morphological categorization as periapical granulomas and gradation of the inflammatory infiltrate, they were examined by immunohistochemistry using human leptin policlonal antibodies. Leptin mRNA expression was also determined by quantitative real-time PCR (qRT-PCR) and the amount of leptin protein was analyzed by immunoblot. Results: All periapical lesions exhibited the characteristic of chronic granulomatous inflammatory process with inflammatory infiltrate grade III. Leptin+ cells were detected in 13 periapical granulomas (86.6%). The median number of Leptin+ cells in periapical granulomas was 1.70 (0.00-7.4). Amongst the inflammatory cells in the periapical granulomas, only macrophages were reactive to leptin antibodies. Western blot analysis revealed the presence in all samples of a protein with apparent molecular weight of approximately 16 kDa, corresponding to the estimated molecular weights of leptin. The expression of leptin mRNA was confirmed by qRT-PCR analysis and the size of the amplified fragment (296 bp for leptin and 194 bp for cyclophilin) was assessed by agarose gel electrophoresis. Conclusions: For the first time, it has been demonstrated that human periapical granuloma expresses the adipokine leptin

Institutional determinants of public-private sector linkages

We estimate the probability of public sector leadership – defined as Granger causality from public to private sector wages – in a pool of 18 OECD countries as a function of countries’ institutional features. We find that public-private sector causality results are quite heterogeneous across countries. So, we investigate whether this is related to differences in labor and product market institutions, and notably wage-setting institutions, across countries. Government involvement in collective bargaining, bargaining centralization and collective bargaining systems with predominant regional levels’ systems are positively correlated with the probability of finding public wage leadership. Among the factors that reduce its probability we can underline the impact of globalization and a level of collective bargaining closer to the company one

Oscillating viscous flow past a streamwise linear array of circular cylinders

This paper addresses the viscous flow developing about an array of equally spaced identical circular cylinders aligned with an incompressible fluid stream whose velocity oscillates periodically in time. The focus of the analysis is on harmonically oscillating flows with stroke lengths that are comparable to or smaller than the cylinder radius, such that the flow remains two-dimensional, time-periodic and symmetric with respect to the centreline. Specific consideration is given to the limit of asymptotically small stroke lengths, in which the flow is harmonic at leading order, with the first-order corrections exhibiting a steady-streaming component, which is computed here along with the accompanying Stokes drift. As in the familiar case of oscillating flow over a single cylinder, for small stroke lengths, the associated time-averaged Lagrangian velocity field, given by the sum of the steady-streaming and Stokes-drift components, displays recirculating vortices, which are quantified for different values of the two relevant controlling parameters, namely, the Womersley number and the ratio of the inter-cylinder distance to the cylinder radius. Comparisons with results of direct numerical simulations indicate that the description of the Lagrangian mean flow for infinitesimally small values of the stroke length remains reasonably accurate even when the stroke length is comparable to the cylinder radius. The numerical integrations are also used to quantify the streamwise flow rate induced by the presence of the cylinder array in cases where the periodic surrounding motion is driven by an anharmonic pressure gradient, a problem of interest in connection with the oscillating flow of cerebrospinal fluid around the nerve roots located along the spinal canal.This work was supported by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke through contract no. 1R01NS120343-01 and by the National Science Foundation through grant no. 1853954. The work of W.C. was partially supported by the Spanish MICINN through the coordinated project PID2020-115961RB

Anthropometric characteristics of young elite sailors based on performance level

Background: /Objectives: The aim of the present study was to analyse possible differences in anthropo-metric characteristics of elite sailors based on categories and performance level.Methods: MODIFIER LETTER TRIANGULAR COLON A total of 42 young (aged 12-18 years) elite sailors (men = 31; women = 11) of the Monohull (n = 21) and Windsurfing (n = 21) categories composed the study sample. Testing was per-formed in one session the day before the start of an official and international competition. Body composition was measured using an octopolar and multi-frequency electrical bioimpedance analyser, and height was recorded using a telescopic measuring instrument. Cross-sectional study. The total sample was divided into two groups based on their performance level (ranking), 50th percentile (P1), and 100th percentile (P2).Results: MODIFIER LETTER TRIANGULAR COLON P1 presented a lower BMI, total body fat mass, and body fat mass in the trunk, arms, and legs (p < 0.05). Similarly, P1 reported a higher total body muscle mass and body muscle mass on the trunk, arms, and legs compared to the less level performance group (p < 0.05). In addition, P2 sailors were taller and heavier (p < 0.05). Regarding categories, the Windsurf sailors presented statistically significantly lower arm fat mass than the Monohull (p < 0.05). The Windsurf sailors showed differences between the two performance-level groups (p < 0.05). Additionally, comparing the high-level performance group in both categories, higher arm muscle mass on the Windsurfing sailors was detected (p < 0.05).Conclusions: MODIFIER LETTER TRIANGULAR COLON These findings could help to differentiate the anthropometric variables that determine sport performance in young elite sailors and could be used to differentiate the anthropometric variables in each category.(c) 2022 The Society of Chinese Scholars on Exercise Physiology and Fitness. Published by Elsevier (Singapore) Pte Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommo ns.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)

Design and technical evaluation of an enhanced location-awareness service enabler for spatial disorientation management of elderly with mild cognitive impairment

The progressive ageing of population has turned the mild cognitive impairment (MCI) into a prevalent disease suffered by elderly. Consequently, the spatial disorientation has become a significant problem for older people and their caregivers. The ambient-assisted living applications are offering location-based services for empowering elderly to go outside and encouraging a greater independence. Therefore, this paper describes the design and technical evaluation of a location-awareness service enabler aimed at supporting and managing probable wandering situations of a person with MCI. Through the presence capabilities of the IP multimedia subsystem (IMS) architecture, the service will alert patient's contacts if a hazardous situation is detected depending on his location. Furthermore, information about the older person's security areas has been included in the user profile managed by IMS. In doing so, the service enabler introduced contribute to “context-awareness” paradigm allowing the adaptation and personalization of services depending on user's context and specific conditions or preferences

AALUMO: a user model ontology for ambient assisted living services supported in next-generation networks

Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) services are emerging as context-awareness solutions to support elderly people?s autonomy. The context-aware paradigm makes applications more user-adaptive. In this way, context and user models expressed in ontologies are employed by applications to describe user and environment characteristics. The rapid advance of technology allows creating context server to relieve applications of context reasoning techniques. Specifically, the Next Generation Networks (NGN) provides by means of the presence service a framework to manage the current user's state as well as the user's profile information extracted from Internet and mobile context. This paper propose a user modeling ontology for AAL services which can be deployed in a NGN environment with the aim at adapting their functionalities to the elderly's context information and state

Searching for gene clusters related to virulence by coding sequence conservation

Motivation: Due to the increasing world population, the need to improve food production is growing. This can be helped byfighting the pathogens which affect the main crops as maize, wheat, barley and sugar cane. Among those, biotrophic parasitessuch as smut fungi can be found. To study how those microorganisms infect their host, the model system Ustilago maydis canbe used.U. maydis secretes protein effectors to infect its host, and at least 25% of them are known to be grouped in 13 different geneclusters. In addition to these characterized clusters, 7 new clusters have been described in the bibliography but notexperimentally tested. The aim of this work is to find out new clusters with features similar to the known ones (controls), mainlylow conservation, which can affect the infection process.Methods: To achieve this goal, candidate gene clusters were initially discovered based on coding sequence conservation viathe computational tool AnABlast [1], which highlitghted genomic coding region with conservation signal similar to the initialcontrols. Then, the candidates were functionally annotated using the tool Sma3s_v2 [2]. To select the best candidates, aprincipal component analysis (PCA) was done using the following factors, which were trained with the controls: sequenceconservation obtained by a similarity search by Blast against close organisms (Ensembl fungi phylogeny), expression dataduring infection, and signal peptide presence (SignalP and TargetP), usually present in effectors.Currently, a laboratory experiment has been began to elucidate if the chosen candidates affect the pathogenity, deleting themby homologous recombination.Results: We have been able to identify 49 new clusters by comparing their coding signal with those already known. After thesubsequent analysis three of them, and one from the bibliography have been chosen to be tested in laboratory to elucidatetheir virulence phenotype (swelling and tumors).In the PCA our best candidate is located among the clusters previously described as pathogenic, showing genes beingsecreted with high levels of expressionConclusions: In brief, we propose that putative cluster of virulence sequences could be found by the presented strategy. So,it could constitute a new silico approach to find out specific genes involved in different biological processes such as inffection