Pro-inflammatory cytokines in Turkish children with protein-energy malnutrition.

BACKGROUND: Protein-energy malnutrition (PEM) results from food insufficiency as well as from poor social and economic conditions. Development of PEM is due to insufficient nutrition. Children with PEM lose their resistance to infections because of a disordered immune system. It has been reported that the changes occurring in mediators referred to as cytokines in the immune system may be indicators of the disorders associated with PEM. AIMS: To determine the concentrations of pro-inflammatory cytokines in children with PEM, and to find out whether there was an association with the clinical presentation of PEM. METHODS: The levels of serum total protein, albumin, tumour necrosis factor-alpha, and interleukin-6 were measured in 25 patients with PEM and in 18 healthy children as a control group. PEM was divided into two groups as kwashiorkor and marasmus. The kwashiorkor group consisted of 15 children and the marasmus group consisted of 10 children. RESULTS: Levels of serum total protein and albumin of the kwashiorkor group were significantly lower than both the marasmus group and controls (p < 0.05). In view of tumour necrosis factor-alpha levels, there was no difference between groups (p > 0.05). While levels of interleukin-6 in both the marasmus group and the kwashiorkor group were significantly higher compared with controls (p < 0.05), there was no significant difference between the groups of marasmus and kwashiorkor (p > 0.05). CONCLUSIONS: It was observed that the inflammatory response had increased in children with malnutrition

Synthetic jets for electronics cooling applications

Paper presented at the 9th International Conference on Heat Transfer, Fluid Mechanics and Thermodynamics, Malta, 16-18 July, 2012.Compact, high functionality electronics resulted in high performance computing. These innovations lead to smaller electronic systems with higher heat fluxes than ever. However, thermal real estate has kept the same or even smaller for posing challenges to thermal scientists. Novel cooling techniques have been of interest to solve the demand. One of these technologies operates with microfludics principle creating vortex rings called synthetic jets. These jets are simply meso-scale devices operating at zero-net-mass-flux principle by ingesting and ejecting high velocity working fluid from a single opening. The ingestion/ejection produces periodic jet streams, which may have local velocities over 50 m/s. Based on the published literature, these jets can enhance the heat transfer in both natural and forced convection environments significantly. Recognizing the heat transfer physics over surfaces require a fundamental understanding of the flow physics caused by pulsating coolant flow. A computational study has been performed to understand the flow physics of a small scale synthetic jet. A second-order temporal implicit scheme was used for the unsteady terms to avoid stability issues. No secondary peaks are observed on the surface profiles, and the vortices created at the nozzle exit seem to have no effect on the surface profiles.dc201

Thermotunneling Based Cooling Systems for High Efficiency Buildings

GE Global Research's overall objective was to develop a novel thermotunneling-cooling device. The end use for these devices is the replacement of vapor cycle compression (VCC) units in residential and commercial cooling and refrigeration systems. Thermotunneling devices offer many advantages over vapor cycle compression cooling units. These include quiet, reliable, non-moving parts operation without refrigerant gases. Additionally theoretical calculations suggest that the efficiency of thermotunneling devices can be 1.5-2x that of VCC units. Given these attributes it can be seen that thermotunneling devices have the potential for dramatic energy savings and are environmentally friendly. A thermotunneling device consists of two low work function electrodes separated by a sub 10 nanometer-sized gap. Cooling by thermotunneling refers to the transport of hot electrons across the gap, from the object to be cooled (cathode) to the heat rejection electrode (anode), by an applied potential. GE Global Research's goal was to model, design, fabricate devices and demonstrate cooling base on the thermotunneling technology

Characteristics of food allergy in children: National multicenter study

Conference: Congress of the European-Academy-of-Allergy-and-Clinical-Immunology (EAACI) Location: Lisbon, PORTUGAL Date: JUN 01-05, 2019Background : Food allergies impose a significant burden on the life of the child and the family. In this study, to determine the demographic characteristics of food allergies, we investigated the characteristics of patients with food allergies in different regions of Pediatric Allergy- Immunology departments in Turkey. Method : Turkey ' s National Study of Allergy and Clinical Immunology Society has conducted a Study Group on Food Allergies. 25 centers participated in this multicenter, cross- sectional and descriptive study.European Academy of Allergy and Clinical Immunolog