396 research outputs found
Urine albumin/creatinine ratio below 30mg/g is a predictor of incident hypertension and cardiovascular mortality
BackgroundMicroalbuminuria is associated with cardiovascular disease (CVD) mortality, but whether lower levels of urine albumin excretion similarly predict CVD is uncertain. We investigated associations between urine albumin:creatinine ratio (UACR) <30 mg/g, and incident hypertension, incident diabetes mellitus, and all?cause and CVD mortality, during a maximum of 11 years of follow?up.Methods and ResultsIndividuals (37 091) in a health screening program between 2002 and 2012 with baseline measurements of UACR were studied. Cox proportional hazards models were used to estimate hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% CIs for incident hypertension, incident diabetes mellitus, and mortality outcomes (lowest UACR quartile as reference) at follow?up. For linear risk trends, the quartile rank was used as a continuous variable in regression models. Nine?hundred sixty?three cases of incident hypertension, 511 cases of incident diabetes mellitus, and 349 deaths occurred during follow?up. In the fully adjusted models, there was a significant HR for the association between UACR and incident hypertension (highest UACR quartile HR 1.95 [95% CI 1.51, 2.53], P?value for trend across UACR quartiles P<0.001). In contrast, the association between UACR and incident diabetes mellitus was not significant (highest UACR quartile, HR 1.15 [95% CI 0.79, 1.66], P?value for trend P=0.20). For CVD mortality, with increasing UACR quartiles, there was a significant increase in HR across quartiles, P=0.029, (for all?cause mortality, P=0.078).ConclusionsLow levels of albuminuria, UACR below 30 mg/g, are associated with increased risk of incident hypertension and CVD mortality at follow?up, but are not associated with increased risk of incident diabetes mellitus
Charge ordering and chemical potential shift in LaSrNiO studied by photoemission spectroscopy
We have studied the chemical potential shift in LaSrNiO and
the charge ordering transition in LaSrNiO by
photoemission spectroscopy. The result shows a large ( 1 eV/hole)
downward shift of the chemical potential with hole doping in the high-doping
regime ( 0.33) while the shift is suppressed in the low-doping
regime ( 0.33). This suppression is attributed to a
segregation of doped holes on a microscopic scale when the hole concentration
is lower than . In the sample, the
photoemission intensity at the chemical potential vanishes below the charge
ordering transition temperature 240 K.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure
On the Recognition of Fan-Planar and Maximal Outer-Fan-Planar Graphs
Fan-planar graphs were recently introduced as a generalization of 1-planar
graphs. A graph is fan-planar if it can be embedded in the plane, such that
each edge that is crossed more than once, is crossed by a bundle of two or more
edges incident to a common vertex. A graph is outer-fan-planar if it has a
fan-planar embedding in which every vertex is on the outer face. If, in
addition, the insertion of an edge destroys its outer-fan-planarity, then it is
maximal outer-fan-planar. In this paper, we present a polynomial-time algorithm
to test whether a given graph is maximal outer-fan-planar. The algorithm can
also be employed to produce an outer-fan-planar embedding, if one exists. On
the negative side, we show that testing fan-planarity of a graph is NP-hard,
for the case where the rotation system (i.e., the cyclic order of the edges
around each vertex) is given
In vitro growth of human keratinocytes and oral cancer cells into microtissues: an aerosol-based microencapsulation technique
YesCells encapsulation is a micro-technology widely applied in cell and tissue research, tissue transplantation, and regenerative medicine. In this paper, we proposed a growth of microtissue model for the human keratinocytes (HaCaT) cell line and an oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) cell line (ORL-48) based on a simple aerosol microencapsulation technique. At an extrusion rate of 20 ÎŒL/min and air flow rate of 0.3 L/min programmed in the aerosol system, HaCaT and ORL-48 cells in alginate microcapsules were encapsulated in microcapsules with a diameter ranging from 200 to 300 ÎŒm. Both cell lines were successfully grown into microtissues in the microcapsules of alginate within 16 days of culture. The microtissues were characterized by using a live/dead cell viability assay, field emission-scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), fluorescence staining, and cell re-plating experiments. The microtissues of both cell types were viable after being extracted from the alginate membrane using alginate lyase. However, the microtissues of HaCaT and ORL-48 demonstrated differences in both nucleus size and morphology. The microtissues with re-associated cells in spheroids are potentially useful as a cell model for pharmacological studies.Malaysia Ministry of Education (Fundamental Research Grant Scheme, FRGS Vot. 1482 and IGSP Vot. 679)
In vitro growth of human keratinocytes and oral cancer cells into microtissues: an aerosol-based microencapsulation technique
YesCells encapsulation is a micro-technology widely applied in cell and tissue research, tissue transplantation, and regenerative medicine. In this paper, we proposed a growth of microtissue model for the human keratinocytes (HaCaT) cell line and an oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) cell line (ORL-48) based on a simple aerosol microencapsulation technique. At an extrusion rate of 20 ÎŒL/min and air flow rate of 0.3 L/min programmed in the aerosol system, HaCaT and ORL-48 cells in alginate microcapsules were encapsulated in microcapsules with a diameter ranging from 200 to 300 ÎŒm. Both cell lines were successfully grown into microtissues in the microcapsules of alginate within 16 days of culture. The microtissues were characterized by using a live/dead cell viability assay, field emission-scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), fluorescence staining, and cell re-plating experiments. The microtissues of both cell types were viable after being extracted from the alginate membrane using alginate lyase. However, the microtissues of HaCaT and ORL-48 demonstrated differences in both nucleus size and morphology. The microtissues with re-associated cells in spheroids are potentially useful as a cell model for pharmacological studies.Malaysia Ministry of Education (Fundamental Research Grant Scheme, FRGS Vot. 1482 and IGSP Vot. 679)
Electrode Polarization Effects in Broadband Dielectric Spectroscopy
In the present work, we provide broadband dielectric spectra showing strong
electrode polarization effects for various materials, belonging to very
different material classes. This includes both ionic and electronic conductors
as, e.g., salt solutions, ionic liquids, human blood, and
colossal-dielectric-constant materials. These data are intended to provide a
broad data base enabling a critical test of the validity of phenomenological
and microscopic models for electrode polarization. In the present work, the
results are analyzed using a simple phenomenological equivalent-circuit
description, involving a distributed parallel RC circuit element for the
modeling of the weakly conducting regions close to the electrodes. Excellent
fits of the experimental data are achieved in this way, demonstrating the
universal applicability of this approach. In the investigated ionically
conducting materials, we find the universal appearance of a second dispersion
region due to electrode polarization, which is only revealed if measuring down
to sufficiently low frequencies. This indicates the presence of a second
charge-transport process in ionic conductors with blocking electrodes.Comment: 9 pages, 6 figures, experimental data are provided in electronic form
(see "Data Conservancy"
Dispersion of Ordered Stripe Phases in the Cuprates
A phase separation model is presented for the stripe phase of the cuprates,
which allows the doping dependence of the photoemission spectra to be
calculated. The idealized limit of a well-ordered array of magnetic and charged
stripes is analyzed, including effects of long-range Coulomb repulsion.
Remarkably, down to the limit of two-cell wide stripes, the dispersion can be
interpreted as essentially a superposition of the two end-phase dispersions,
with superposed minigaps associated with the lattice periodicity. The largest
minigap falls near the Fermi level; it can be enhanced by proximity to a (bulk)
Van Hove singularity. The calculated spectra are dominated by two features --
this charge stripe minigap plus the magnetic stripe Hubbard gap. There is a
strong correlation between these two features and the experimental
photoemission results of a two-peak dispersion in LaSrCuO, and
the peak-dip-hump spectra in BiSrCaCuO. The
differences are suggestive of the role of increasing stripe fluctuations. The
1/8 anomaly is associated with a quantum critical point, here expressed as a
percolation-like crossover. A model is proposed for the limiting minority
magnetic phase as an isolated two-leg ladder.Comment: 24 pages, 26 PS figure
Double-exchange model study of multiferroic MnO perovskites
In this proceeding, recent theoretical investigations by the authors on the
multiferroic MnO perovskites are briefly reviewed at first. Using the
double-exchange model, the realistic spiral spin order in undoped manganites
such as TbMnO and DyMnO is well reproduced by incorporating a weak
next-nearest neighbor superexchange ( of nearest neighbor
superexchange) and moderate Jahn-Teller distortion. The phase transitions from
the A-type antiferromagnet (as in LaMnO), to the spiral phase (as in
TbMnO), and finally to the E-type antiferromagnet (as in HoMnO), with
decreasing size of the ions, were also explained. Moreover, new results of
phase diagram of the three-dimensional lattice are also included. The
ferromagnetic tendency recently discovered in the LaMnO and TbMnO thin
films is explained by considering the substrate stress. Finally, the
relationship between our double-exchange model and a previously used
-- model is further discussed from the perspective of spin wave
excitations.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures; Proceeding of the Workshop on Magnetoelectric
Interaction Phenomena in Crystals (MEIPIC-6); To be appeared in European
Physical Journal
Search for displaced vertices arising from decays of new heavy particles in 7 TeV pp collisions at ATLAS
We present the results of a search for new, heavy particles that decay at a
significant distance from their production point into a final state containing
charged hadrons in association with a high-momentum muon. The search is
conducted in a pp-collision data sample with a center-of-mass energy of 7 TeV
and an integrated luminosity of 33 pb^-1 collected in 2010 by the ATLAS
detector operating at the Large Hadron Collider. Production of such particles
is expected in various scenarios of physics beyond the standard model. We
observe no signal and place limits on the production cross-section of
supersymmetric particles in an R-parity-violating scenario as a function of the
neutralino lifetime. Limits are presented for different squark and neutralino
masses, enabling extension of the limits to a variety of other models.Comment: 8 pages plus author list (20 pages total), 8 figures, 1 table, final
version to appear in Physics Letters
Measurement of the polarisation of W bosons produced with large transverse momentum in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV with the ATLAS experiment
This paper describes an analysis of the angular distribution of W->enu and
W->munu decays, using data from pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV recorded with
the ATLAS detector at the LHC in 2010, corresponding to an integrated
luminosity of about 35 pb^-1. Using the decay lepton transverse momentum and
the missing transverse energy, the W decay angular distribution projected onto
the transverse plane is obtained and analysed in terms of helicity fractions
f0, fL and fR over two ranges of W transverse momentum (ptw): 35 < ptw < 50 GeV
and ptw > 50 GeV. Good agreement is found with theoretical predictions. For ptw
> 50 GeV, the values of f0 and fL-fR, averaged over charge and lepton flavour,
are measured to be : f0 = 0.127 +/- 0.030 +/- 0.108 and fL-fR = 0.252 +/- 0.017
+/- 0.030, where the first uncertainties are statistical, and the second
include all systematic effects.Comment: 19 pages plus author list (34 pages total), 9 figures, 11 tables,
revised author list, matches European Journal of Physics C versio
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