Menopause, postmenopausal hormone use and serum uric acid levels in US women--the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey.

INTRODUCTION: Despite the substantial prevalence of gout in the ageing female population, female hormonal influence has not been comprehensively examined. We evaluated and quantified the potential independent association between menopause, postmenopausal hormone use and serum uric acid levels in a nationally representative sample of women. METHODS: Using data from 7662 women aged 20 years and older in the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (1988 to 1994), we examined the relation between menopause, postmenopausal hormone use and serum uric acid levels. We used multivariate linear regression to adjust for other risk factors for hyperuricaemia such as dietary factors, age, adiposity, alcohol use, renal function, hypertension and diuretic use. RESULTS: Menopause was associated with higher serum uric acid levels. After adjusting for covariates, serum uric acid levels among women with natural menopause and surgical menopause were greater than premenopausal women by 0.34 mg/dl (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.19 to 0.49) and 0.36 mg/dl (95% CI, 0.14 to 0.57), respectively. Current postmenopausal hormone use was associated with a lower serum uric acid level among postmenopausal women (multivariate difference, 0.24 mg/dl [95% CI, 0.11 to 0.36]). The serum uric acid levels increased with increasing age categories (crude difference between 20 to 29 years and 70 years and over = 1.03 mg/dl, p for trend < 0.001), but this increase was not present after adjusting for other covariates (p for trend = 0.66). CONCLUSIONS: These findings from a nationally representative sample of US women indicate that menopause is independently associated with higher serum uric acid levels, whereas postmenopausal hormone use is associated with lower uric acid levels among postmenopausal women. The age-associated increase in serum uric acid levels in women may be explained by menopause and other age-related factors

CP asymmetries in the supersymmetric trilepton signal at the LHC

In the CP-violating Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model, we study the production of a neutralino-chargino pair at the LHC. For their decays into three leptons, we analyze CP asymmetries which are sensitive to the CP phases of the neutralino and chargino sector. We present analytical formulas for the entire production and decay process, and identify the CP-violating contributions in the spin correlation terms. This allows us to define the optimal CP asymmetries. We present a detailed numerical analysis of the cross sections, branching ratios, and the CP observables. For light neutralinos, charginos, and squarks, the asymmetries can reach several 10%. We estimate the discovery potential for the LHC to observe CP violation in the trilepton channel.Comment: 39 pages, 8 figures, version to appear in EPJC, discussion(s) added, typo in (D.79), (D.118) corrected, new Fig. 7; The European Physical Journal C, Volume 72, Issue 3, 201

Synergy: easier to say than to prove

Plant science

Flow boiling heat transfer and pressure drop of propane in smooth horizontal minichannels

Paper presented at the 5th International Conference on Heat Transfer, Fluid Mechanics and Thermodynamics, South Africa, 1-4 July, 2007.This study examined convective boiling heat transfer and pressure drop in horizontal minichannels using propane. The local heat transfer coefficients and pressure drop were obtained for heat fluxes ranging from 5-20 kW m-2, mass fluxes ranging from 50-400 kg m-2 s-1, saturation temperatures of 10, 5, and 0°C, and quality up to 1.0. The test section was made of stainless steel tubes with inner diameters of 1.5 mm and 3.0 mm, and lengths of 1000 mm and 2000 mm, respectively. The section was heated uniformly by applying an electric current to the tubes directly. The present study showed an effect of mass flux, heat flux, inner tube diameter, and saturation temperature on heat transfer coefficient and pressure drop. The experimental results were compared against several two-phase heat transfer coefficient and pressure drop prediction methods. A new boiling heat transfer coefficient correlation based on the superposition model for propane in minichannels was developed with a mean deviation of 8.27%

Metabolomics in the natural products field: a gateway to novel antibiotics

Microbial Biotechnolog

Flavour Symmetries and Kahler Operators

Any supersymmetric mechanism to solve the flavour puzzle would generate mixing both in the superpotential Yukawa couplings and in the Kahler potential. In this paper we study, in a model independent way, the impact of the nontrivial structure of the Kahler potential on the physical mixing matrix, after kinetic terms are canonically normalized. We undertake this analysis both for the quark sector and the neutrino sector. For the quark sector, and in view of the experimental values for the masses and mixing angles, we find that the effects of canonical normalization are subdominant. On the other hand, for the leptonic sector we obtain different conclusions depending on the spectrum of neutrinos. In the hierarchical case we obtain similar conclusion as in the quark sector, whereas in the degenerate and inversely hierarchical case, important changes in the mixing angles could be expected.Comment: 22 pages, LaTe

Revisiting the design intent concept in the context of mechanical CAD education

[EN] Design intent is generally understood simply as a CAD model¿s anticipated behavior when altered. However, this representation provides a simplified view of the model¿s construction and purpose, which may hinder its general understanding and future reusability. Our vision is that design intent communication may be improved by recognizing the multifaceted nature of design intent, and by instructing users to convey each facet of design intent through the better-fitted CAD resource. This paper reviews the current understanding of design intent and its relationship to design rationale and builds on the idea that communication of design intent conveyed via CAD models can be satisfied at three levels provided that specialized instruction is used to instruct users in selection of the most suitable level for each intent.Otey, J.; Company, P.; Contero, M.; Camba, J. (2018). Revisiting the design intent concept in the context of mechanical CAD education. Computer-Aided Design and Applications. 15(1):47-60. https://doi.org/10.1080/16864360.2017.1353733S476015

Near Horizon Analysis of Extremal AdS5 Black Holes

We study the near horizon geometry of extremal black holes in five dimensional gauged supergravity using Sen's entropy function formalism. Special attention is paid to the large black hole limit where the near horizon solution exhibits a universal dependence on the rotation. The physical properties of the large black hole solution are shown to agree with predictions from fluid mechanical description of the dual conformal field theory.Comment: 26 pages, 1 figure; v2. clarifications and references adde