597 research outputs found
Changes in prevalence and the cascade of care for type 2 diabetes over ten years (2005-2015): results of two nationally representative surveys in Mozambique
Background: Sub-Saharan Africa is predicted to have the steepest increase in the prevalence of diabetes in the next 25 years. The latest Mozambican population-based STEPS survey (STEPS 2005) estimated a 2.9% prevalence of diabetes in the adult population aged 25-64 years. We aimed to assess the change in prevalence, awareness, and management of diabetes in the national STEPS survey from 2014/2015 compared to 2005. Methods: We conducted an observational, quantitative, cross-sectional study following the WHO STEPS surveillance methodology in urban and rural settings, targeting the adult population of Mozambique in 2015. We collected sociodemographic data, anthropometric, and 12 hour fasting glucose blood samples in a sample of 1321 adults. The analysis consisted of descriptive measures of the prevalence of impaired fasting glucose (IFG), diabetes and related risk factors by age group, sex, and urban/rural residence and compared the findings to those of the 2005 survey results. Results: The prevalence of IFG and diabetes was 4.8% (95CI: 3.6-6.3) and 7.4% (95CI: 5.5-10.0), respectively. These prevalence of IFG and diabetes did not differ significantly between women and men. The prevalence of diabetes in participants classified with overweight/obesity [10.6% (95CI: 7.5-14.6)] and with central obesity (waist hip ratio) [11.0% (95CI: 7.4-16.1)] was almost double the prevalence of their leaner counterparts, [6.3% (95CI, 4.0-9.9)] and [5.2% (95CI: 3.2-8.6)], respectively. Diabetes prevalence increased with age. There were 50% more people with diabetes in urban areas than in rural. Only 10% of people with diabetes were aware of their disease, and only 44% of those taking oral glucose-lowering drugs. The prevalence of IFG over time [2.0% (95CI: 1.1-3.5) vs 4.8% (95CI: 3.6-6.3)] and diabetes [2.9% (95CI: 2.0-4.2) vs 7.4% (95CI: 5.5-10.0)] were more than twofold higher in 2014/2015 than in 2005. However, awareness of disease and being on medication decreased by 3% and by 50%, respectively. Though this was not statistically significant. Conclusions: While the prevalence of diabetes in Mozambique has increased from 2005 to 2015, awareness and medication use have declined considerably. There is an urgent need to improve the capacity of primary health care and communities to detect, manage and prevent the occurrence of NCDs and their risk factors. © 2022, The Author(s).The study was supported by the Mozambican Ministry of Health and by the WHO. Additionally, this research forms part of a thesis for a Doctoral degree funded by the COHESION Project financed by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) and the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNF), under the funding scheme r4d - Swiss Programme for Research on Global Issues for Development, grant number #160366
Hijacking the mustard-oil bomb: How a glucosinolate-sequestering flea beetle copes with plant myrosinases
Myrosinase enzymes play a key role in the chemical defense of plants of the order Brassicales. Upon herbivory, myrosinases hydrolyze the β-S-linked glucose moiety of glucosinolates, the characteristic secondary metabolites of brassicaceous plants, which leads to the formation of different toxic hydrolysis products. The specialist flea beetle, Phyllotreta armoraciae, is capable of accumulating high levels of glucosinolates in the body and can thus at least partially avoid plant myrosinase activity. In feeding experiments with the myrosinase-deficient Arabidopsis thaliana tgg1 × tgg2 (tgg) mutant and the corresponding Arabidopsis Col-0 wild type, we investigated the influence of plant myrosinase activity on the metabolic fate of ingested glucosinolates in adult P. armoraciae beetles. Arabidopsis myrosinases hydrolyzed a fraction of ingested glucosinolates and thereby reduced the glucosinolate sequestration rate by up to 50% in adult beetles. These results show that P. armoraciae cannot fully prevent glucosinolate hydrolysis; however, the exposure of adult beetles to glucosinolate hydrolysis products had no impact on the beetle’s energy budget under our experimental conditions. To understand how P. armoraciae can partially prevent glucosinolate hydrolysis, we analyzed the short-term fate of ingested glucosinolates and found them to be rapidly absorbed from the gut. In addition, we determined the fate of ingested Arabidopsis myrosinase enzymes in P. armoraciae. Although we detected Arabidopsis myrosinase protein in the feces, we found only traces of myrosinase activity, suggesting that P. armoraciae can inactivate plant myrosinases in the gut. Based on our findings, we propose that the ability to tolerate plant myrosinase activity and a fast glucosinolate uptake mechanism represent key adaptations of P. armoraciae to their brassicaceous host plants
Scaling of the distribution of fluctuations of financial market indices
We study the distribution of fluctuations over a time scale (i.e.,
the returns) of the S&P 500 index by analyzing three distinct databases.
Database (i) contains approximately 1 million records sampled at 1 min
intervals for the 13-year period 1984-1996, database (ii) contains 8686 daily
records for the 35-year period 1962-1996, and database (iii) contains 852
monthly records for the 71-year period 1926-1996. We compute the probability
distributions of returns over a time scale , where varies
approximately over a factor of 10^4 - from 1 min up to more than 1 month. We
find that the distributions for 4 days (1560 mins) are
consistent with a power-law asymptotic behavior, characterized by an exponent
, well outside the stable L\'evy regime . To
test the robustness of the S&P result, we perform a parallel analysis on two
other financial market indices. Database (iv) contains 3560 daily records of
the NIKKEI index for the 14-year period 1984-97, and database (v) contains 4649
daily records of the Hang-Seng index for the 18-year period 1980-97. We find
estimates of consistent with those describing the distribution of S&P
500 daily-returns. One possible reason for the scaling of these distributions
is the long persistence of the autocorrelation function of the volatility. For
time scales longer than days, our results are
consistent with slow convergence to Gaussian behavior.Comment: 12 pages in multicol LaTeX format with 27 postscript figures
(Submitted to PRE May 20, 1999). See
http://polymer.bu.edu/~amaral/Professional.html for more of our work on this
are
The Effective Fragment Molecular Orbital Method for Fragments Connected by Covalent Bonds
We extend the effective fragment molecular orbital method (EFMO) into
treating fragments connected by covalent bonds. The accuracy of EFMO is
compared to FMO and conventional ab initio electronic structure methods for
polypeptides including proteins. Errors in energy for RHF and MP2 are within 2
kcal/mol for neutral polypeptides and 6 kcal/mol for charged polypeptides
similar to FMO but obtained two to five times faster. For proteins, the errors
are also within a few kcal/mol of the FMO results. We developed both the RHF
and MP2 gradient for EFMO. Compared to ab initio, the EFMO optimized structures
had an RMSD of 0.40 and 0.44 {\AA} for RHF and MP2, respectively.Comment: Revised manuscrip
Transport properties of heterogeneous materials derived from Gaussian random fields: Bounds and Simulation
We investigate the effective conductivity () of a class of
amorphous media defined by the level-cut of a Gaussian random field. The three
point solid-solid correlation function is derived and utilised in the
evaluation of the Beran-Milton bounds. Simulations are used to calculate
for a variety of fields and volume fractions at several different
conductivity contrasts. Relatively large differences in are observed
between the Gaussian media and the identical overlapping sphere model used
previously as a `model' amorphous medium. In contrast shows little
variability between different Gaussian media.Comment: 15 pages, 14 figure
The Strongly Coupled 't Hooft Model on the Lattice
We study the strong coupling limit of the one-flavor and two-flavor massless
't Hooft models, -color , on a lattice. We use
staggered fermions and the Hamiltonian approach to lattice gauge theories. We
show that the one-flavor model is effectively described by the
antiferromagnetic Ising model, whose ground state is the vacuum of the gauge
model in the infinite coupling limit; expanding around this ground state we
derive a strong coupling expansion and compute the lowest lying hadron masses
as well as the chiral condensate of the gauge theory. Our lattice computation
well reproduces the results of the continuum theory. Baryons are massless in
the infinite coupling limit; they acquire a mass already at the second order in
the strong coupling expansion in agreement with the Witten argument that
baryons are the solitons.
The spectrum and chiral condensate of the two-flavor model are effectively
described in terms of observables of the quantum antiferromagnetic Heisenberg
model. We explicitly write the lowest lying hadron masses and chiral condensate
in terms of spin-spin correlators on the ground state of the spin model. We
show that the planar limit () of the gauge
model corresponds to the large spin limit () of the
antiferromagnet and compute the hadron mass spectrum in this limit finding
that, also in this model, the pattern of chiral symmetry breaking of the
continuum theory is well reproduced on the lattice.Comment: LaTex, 25 pages, no figure
Interplay between NS3 protease and human La protein regulates translation-replication switch of Hepatitis C virus
HCV NS3 protein plays a central role in viral polyprotein processing and RNA replication. We demonstrate that the NS3 protease (NS3pro) domain alone can specifically bind to HCV-IRES RNA, predominantly in the SLIV region. The cleavage activity of the NS3 protease domain is reduced upon HCV-RNA binding. More importantly, NS3pro binding to the SLIV hinders the interaction of La protein, a cellular IRES-trans acting factor required for HCV IRES-mediated translation, resulting in inhibition of HCV-IRES activity. Although overexpression of both NS3pro as well as the full length NS3 protein decreased the level of HCV IRES mediated translation, replication of HCV replicon RNA was enhanced significantly. These observations suggest that the NS3pro binding to HCV IRES reduces translation in favor of RNA replication. The competition between the host factor (La) and the viral protein (NS3) for binding to HCV IRES might regulate the molecular switch from translation to replication of HCV
Enumeration of Mycobacterium avium subsp. paratuberculosis by quantitative real-time PCR, culture on solid media and optical densitometry
<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Different approaches are used for determining the number of <it>Mycobacterium avium </it>subsp. <it>paratuberculosis </it>(MAP) cells in a suspension. The majority of them are based upon culture (determination of CFU) or visual/instrumental direct counting of MAP cells. In this study, we have compared the culture method with a previously published F57 based quantitative real-time PCR (F57qPCR) method, to determine their relative abilities to count the number of three different MAP isolates in suspensions with the same optical densities (OD). McFarland turbidity standards were also compared with F57qPCR and culture, due to its frequent inclusion and use in MAP studies.</p> <p>Findings</p> <p>The numbers of MAP in two-fold serial dilutions of isolates with respective OD measurements were determined by F57qPCR and culture. It was found that culture provided lower MAP CFU counts by approximately two log<sub>10</sub>, compared to F57qPCR. The McFarland standards (as defined for <it>E. coli</it>) showed an almost perfect fit with the enumeration of MAP performed by F57qPCR.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>It is recommended to use culture and/or qPCR estimations of MAP numbers in experiments where all subsequent counts are performed using the same method. It is certainly not recommended the use of culture as the standard for qPCR experiments and <it>vice versa</it>.</p
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