Structure stability evaluation of offshore heave compensator using multi-body dynamics analysis method

Heave compensator attenuate vessel heave motion during drilling operation of drillship. Heave compensator functions as damping form motion of drillship, such as principle spring of suspension system. The load transfers on the parts of heave compensator. Stress and deformation of all parts is evaluated to diagnose the stability of the compensator. This study makes a decision on the safety of structure. Results of analysis confirm the structure stability of heave compensator for simulation. This result can be used as data for structural analysis to determine safety of a structure

The Relation between Birth Weight and Insulin Resistance in Korean Adolescents

Low birth weight is associated with insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes in adults. The fetal programming hypothesis has shown that insulin resistance and its associated metabolic disturbances result from a poor gestational environment, for which low birth weight is a surrogate. An at-home questionnaire survey was performed on 660 middle school students (12-15 years) in Seoul, Korea, and 152 cases were randomly selected based on their birth weight. Subjects were divided into three groups according to birth weight. We recorded their birth weight and measured their current anthropometric data, blood pressure, lipid profile, HOMA-IR, and HOMA-β, and compared these parameters among the groups. The relation of birth weight to physiological characteristics in adolescence was examined. Systolic blood pressure, lipid profiles, and fasting plasma glucose, HOMA-β were not significantly different among the groups, but diastolic blood pressure was lower in the third tertile. Insulin, C-peptide, and HOMA-IR were higher in the lower birth weight tertile. After adjustment for confounding factors, birth weight was inversely related to diastolic blood pressure, insulin, C-peptide, and HOMA-IR. We conclude that low birth weight may predict the risk of the insulin resistance and its progression over age, and that adequate gestational nutrition is therefore necessary to prevent low birth weight

Comparative analysis of gut microbiota in elderly people of urbanized towns and longevity villages

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited.Background To understand differences in the gut microbiota between elderly people of urbanized town communities (UTC) and longevity village communities (LVC), we analyzed fecal microbiota collected from individuals living in 2 UTC (Seoul and Chuncheon) and 3 LVC (Gurye, Damyang, and Soonchang) selected on the basis of indices for superlongevity (the ratio of centenarians to the total population) and longevity (the ratio of those aged 85 years or greater to those aged 65 years or greater) in South Korea by 454 pyrosequencing. Results Taxonomy-based analysis showed that The relative abundance of Firmicutes, Tenericutes, and Actinobacteria was significantly lower in LVC than in UTC. Due to an increase of Firmicutes and a reduction of Bacteroidetes, the ratio of Firmicutes to Bacteroidetes in the gut microbiota was greater in UTC adults than in UTC children or LVC adults. The population levels of Bacteroides, Prevotella, and Lachnospira were significantly higher in LVC than in UTC, but the levels of Dialister, Subdoligranulum, Megamonas, EF401882_g, and AM275436_g were lower in LVC than in UTC. Although most of the species detected in LVC were detected in UTC, some Bacteroides spp. and Faecalibacterium spp. were detected only in LVC. Among Bacteroides spp., ACWH_s, EF403317_s, and EF403722_s were detected in children and LVC samples only but FJ363527_s, 4P000677_s, and 4P000015_s were detected in UTC samples. EF402172_s and EF404388_s, members of Faecalibacterium spp., which are known to have anti-inflammatory properties, were detected in LVC and children only (>3.9% of total sequence). In addition, the fecal lipopolysaccharides (LPS) content was significantly higher in UTC than in LVC. Conclusions These findings suggest that maintaining gut microbiota, including Faecalibacterium spp. EF402172_s and EF404388_s, as well as low LPS levels may play an important role in preserving residents health in LVC

Obesity and incidence of diabetes: Effect of absence of metabolic syndrome, insulin resistance, inflammation and fatty liver

Background and aimsObesity is frequently associated with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), insulin resistance (IR), inflammation and metabolic syndrome (MetS), all of which increase the risk of type 2 diabetes (T2DM). However, the role of these risk factors in mediating the effect of obesity remains unclear. We investigated the association between obesity and T2DM in the absence and presence of NAFLD, IR, inflammation and MetS components.Methods29,836 obese subjects without diabetes were studied in a Korean health screening program. Obesity was defined by the appropriate ethnic-specific body mass index (BMI) threshold ≥25 kg/m2. Hazard ratios (HRs and 95% confidence intervals, CIs) for incident T2DM were estimated for the group with no hypertension, dyslipidemia, impaired fasting glucose, fatty liver, IR, or inflammation (n = 1717), compared to the reference group, with one or more of these factors (n = 19,757).ResultsMean (SD) age at baseline was 37 (7) years and 1200 incident cases of diabetes occurred. Crude T2D incidence was 12.6/10,000 person-years in the group without metabolic abnormality and 143/10,000 person-years in the reference group. HR (95% CIs) for incident diabetes was 0.13 (0.06, 0.33) in the group without metabolic abnormality.ConclusionsObese subjects without components of the metabolic syndrome, IR, fatty liver and inflammation have an approximately 11-fold lower risk of incident type 2 diabetes than obese subjects who have these risk factors. These simple factors could be used to target limited resources in high risk obese subjects in the prevention of diabetes

Association of Abdominal Obesity with Atherosclerosis in Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus (T2DM) in Korea

The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between obesity, insulin resistance and atherosclerosis in type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) patients. Total 530 patients with T2DM were included. To evaluate the severity of atherosclerosis, we measured the coronary artery calcification (CAC) score, intima-media thickness (IMT) of the common carotid artery, and the ankle-brachial pressure index (ABPI). Subjects were classified according to body mass index (BMI), a marker of general obesity, and waist-to-hip ratio (WHR), a marker of regional obesity. The insulin sensitivity index (ISI) was measured by the short insulin tolerance test. All subjects were classified into four groups, according to BMI: the under-weight group, the normal-weight (NW) group, the over-weight (OW) group, and the obese (OB) group. WHR and systolic blood pressure, triglycerides (TG), HDL-cholesterol (HDL-C), free fatty acids (FFA), fibrinogen, and fasting c-peptide levels were significantly different between BMI groups. TG, HDL-C, FFA, fibrinogen and ISI were significantly different between patients with and without abdominal obesity. In the OW group as well as in the NW group, carotid IMT, ABPI and CAC score were significantly different between patients with and without abdominal obesity. This study indicates that abdominal obesity was associated with atherosclerosis in T2DM patients

Protective and therapeutic effects of an extract mixture of alder tree, labiate herb, milk thistle green bean-rice bran fermentation, and turnip against ethanol-induced toxicity in the rat

An herbal extract mixture and yogurt added to the herbal extract mixture were tested for their protective and therapeutic effects on ethanol-induced liver injury. The herbal extract mixture, yogurt and commercial drugs were used for treatment for two weeks prior to administering a single oral dose of ethanol (3 g/kg body weight). The herbal extract mixture and yogurt added to the herbal extract mixture were found to provide protection against ethanol-induced toxicity comparable to the commercial drug treatment, according to the serum and histopathological analysis. It was also shown that co-treatment with herbal extract mixture and yogurt against a triple oral dose of ethanol (2 g/kg body weight, over one week) provided protection against ethanol toxicity. After the initial set of experiments, the herbal extract mixture and yogurt treatments were extended for three more weeks. When compared to the positive control, further treatment with both the herbal extract and yogurt significantly reduced liver injury and resulted in a lower grade of lipid deposition

Characteristics of Type 2 Diabetes in Terms of Insulin Resistance in Korea

The aim of this study was to assess the implications of insulin resistance on the clinical and biochemical profiles of Korean type 2 diabetic patients. 122 patients with type 2 diabetes underwent a short insulin tolerance test to assess insulin resistance. Subjects were classified in tertiles according to ISI (insulin sensitivity index), and the tertile I (the insulin-resistant group) and tertile III (the insulin-sensitive group) clinical and biochemical parameters were compared. Age, waist circumference (WC), systolic blood pressure (SBP), HbA1c, body fat content, and fasting plasma glucose were significantly higher in tertile I than tertile III (all p < 0.05). The frequency of hypertension and family history of cerebrovascular disease (CVD) were greater in tertile I than III (p < 0.05). To evaluate the factors affecting ISI, multiple regression was performed, and age, WC, SBP, HbA1c, and body fat content were found to be independently related to insulin resistance (p < 0.05). Old age, hypertension, central obesity, and poor glycemic control were identified as clinical parameters of insulin resistance in Korean type 2 diabetic patients

Disease-specific induced pluripotent stem cells: a platform for human disease modeling and drug discovery

The generation of disease-specific induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) lines from patients with incurable diseases is a promising approach for studying disease mechanisms and drug screening. Such innovation enables to obtain autologous cell sources in regenerative medicine. Herein, we report the generation and characterization of iPSCs from fibroblasts of patients with sporadic or familial diseases, including Parkinson's disease (PD), Alzheimer's disease (AD), juvenile-onset, type I diabetes mellitus (JDM), and Duchenne type muscular dystrophy (DMD), as well as from normal human fibroblasts (WT). As an example to modeling disease using disease-specific iPSCs, we also discuss the previously established childhood cerebral adrenoleukodystrophy (CCALD)- and adrenomyeloneuropathy (AMN)-iPSCs by our group. Through DNA fingerprinting analysis, the origins of generated disease-specific iPSC lines were identified. Each iPSC line exhibited an intense alkaline phosphatase activity, expression of pluripotent markers, and the potential to differentiate into all three embryonic germ layers: the ectoderm, endoderm, and mesoderm. Expression of endogenous pluripotent markers and downregulation of retrovirus-delivered transgenes [OCT4 (POU5F1), SOX2, KLF4, and c-MYC] were observed in the generated iPSCs. Collectively, our results demonstrated that disease-specific iPSC lines characteristically resembled hESC lines. Furthermore, we were able to differentiate PD-iPSCs, one of the disease-specific-iPSC lines we generated, into dopaminergic (DA) neurons, the cell type mostly affected by PD. These PD-specific DA neurons along with other examples of cell models derived from disease-specific iPSCs would provide a powerful platform for examining the pathophysiology of relevant diseases at the cellular and molecular levels and for developing new drugs and therapeutic regimens