Anti-Diabetic Study of Flower Extract of Eugenia Jambolona In Rats

We are learning more about the role that integrated medicine plays in treating metabolic illnesses. This is partially based on an abundance of scientific data regarding therapeutic herbs, including those with promise to treat diabetes, and in part on the WHO's and other governmental organizations’ support for the practise. The anti-diabetic effect of number of flowers of Eugenia jambolana (EJA) was evaluated in the current study on streptozotocin-induced diabetic rats. The The study's primary goal was to look into the potential antidiabetic effects of sub-chronic oral administration of E. jambolana flowers infusion in rats with STZ-induced diabetes. In diabetic experimental rats, the floral extract considerably reduced blood sugar and cholesterol levels when given 400 mg/kg of body weight are the dosage. It also increased liver glycogen and total protein levels, enhanced reduced Hb1AC, serum level, and antioxidant levels, as well as impaired glucose tolerance. Additionally, it raised liver glycogen and total protein levels as well as glucose tolerance. A common hypoglycemic medication called Glibenclamide was used to compare the hypoglycemic efficacy.The preclinical investigation's results could be useful for phase 2 clinical studies that aim to reduce the morbidity and mortality of diabetes mellitus exacerbated by drug-induced hypoglycemia by implementing integrated medicine

The association between indices of obesity and common clinical measures in adults with and without type 2 diabetes

Background: The aim of this study was to determine the differences amongst the anthropometric measurements, lipid profile, blood pressure and body shape in diabetics as well as non-diabetics.Methods: This was a cross-sectional study comprised of 309 subjects with 91 males and 218 females. Of this, there were 217 diabetics and 92 non-diabetics. The sample was taken from three hospitals in Trinidad. Lipid profile and blood pressure were taken from each facility’s physician’s notes while anthropometric measurements were taken from the patients themselves.Results: The diabetic group had elevated body mass index and waist to hip ratios were significant (P <0.05) when compared to non-diabetics. There was no significant association of lipid profile, blood pressure, waist circumference and waist to height ratios between diabetics and non-diabetics. As age increased, the prevalence of type 2 diabetes mellitus was more common. Out of 217 diabetics, 173 were of East Indian descent. With regards to gender, more males were found to be diabetics resulting from having an android body shape as compared to females (gynoid body shape).Conclusion: It was found that of all the anthropometric measurements used, waist to hip ratio was found to be the most effective indicator of type 2 diabetes mellitus in Trinidadians, while body mass index was found to be the least effective indicator.

Mixed Effect Modeling of Dose and Linear Energy Transfer Correlations With Brain Image Changes After Intensity Modulated Proton Therapy for Skull Base Head and Neck Cancer

Purpose Intensity modulated proton therapy (IMPT) could yield high linear energy transfer (LET) in critical structures and increased biological effect. For head and neck cancers at the skull base this could potentially result in radiation-associated brain image change (RAIC). The purpose of the current study was to investigate voxel-wise dose and LET correlations with RAIC after IMPT. Methods and Materials For 15 patients with RAIC after IMPT, contrast enhancement observed on T1-weighted magnetic resonance imaging was contoured and coregistered to the planning computed tomography. Monte Carlo calculated dose and dose-averaged LET (LETd) distributions were extracted at voxel level and associations with RAIC were modelled using uni- and multivariate mixed effect logistic regression. Model performance was evaluated using the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve and precision-recall curve. Results An overall statistically significant RAIC association with dose and LETd was found in both the uni- and multivariate analysis. Patient heterogeneity was considerable, with standard deviation of the random effects of 1.81 (1.30-2.72) for dose and 2.68 (1.93-4.93) for LETd, respectively. Area under the receiver operating characteristic curve was 0.93 and 0.95 for the univariate dose-response model and multivariate model, respectively. Analysis of the LETd effect demonstrated increased risk of RAIC with increasing LETd for the majority of patients. Estimated probability of RAIC with LETd = 1 keV/µm was 4% (95% confidence interval, 0%, 0.44%) and 29% (95% confidence interval, 0.01%, 0.92%) for 60 and 70 Gy, respectively. The TD15 were estimated to be 63.6 and 50.1 Gy with LETd equal to 2 and 5 keV/µm, respectively. Conclusions Our results suggest that the LETd effect could be of clinical significance for some patients; LETd assessment in clinical treatment plans should therefore be taken into consideration.publishedVersio

Gevraagd: betere informatie van de overheid over dreigende ontwikkelingen in het aanbod van drugs

Om het potentieel gevaarlijk aanbod van oude en nieuwe drugs te kunnen opsporen en daarop snel te reageren, werken de lidstaten van de Europese Unie tegenwoordig met een ‘early warning system’. Zo’n systeem moet goed kunnen communiceren. Wij onderzochten de communicatieve prestaties van het Belgische systeem. Het kan beter, zowel wat algemene persberichten betreft als de interactie met specifieke doelgroepen

Utilisation of an operative difficulty grading scale for laparoscopic cholecystectomy

Background A reliable system for grading operative difficulty of laparoscopic cholecystectomy would standardise description of findings and reporting of outcomes. The aim of this study was to validate a difficulty grading system (Nassar scale), testing its applicability and consistency in two large prospective datasets. Methods Patient and disease-related variables and 30-day outcomes were identified in two prospective cholecystectomy databases: the multi-centre prospective cohort of 8820 patients from the recent CholeS Study and the single-surgeon series containing 4089 patients. Operative data and patient outcomes were correlated with Nassar operative difficultly scale, using Kendall’s tau for dichotomous variables, or Jonckheere–Terpstra tests for continuous variables. A ROC curve analysis was performed, to quantify the predictive accuracy of the scale for each outcome, with continuous outcomes dichotomised, prior to analysis. Results A higher operative difficulty grade was consistently associated with worse outcomes for the patients in both the reference and CholeS cohorts. The median length of stay increased from 0 to 4 days, and the 30-day complication rate from 7.6 to 24.4% as the difficulty grade increased from 1 to 4/5 (both p < 0.001). In the CholeS cohort, a higher difficulty grade was found to be most strongly associated with conversion to open and 30-day mortality (AUROC = 0.903, 0.822, respectively). On multivariable analysis, the Nassar operative difficultly scale was found to be a significant independent predictor of operative duration, conversion to open surgery, 30-day complications and 30-day reintervention (all p < 0.001). Conclusion We have shown that an operative difficulty scale can standardise the description of operative findings by multiple grades of surgeons to facilitate audit, training assessment and research. It provides a tool for reporting operative findings, disease severity and technical difficulty and can be utilised in future research to reliably compare outcomes according to case mix and intra-operative difficulty

First narrow-band search for continuous gravitational waves from known pulsars in advanced detector data

Spinning neutron stars asymmetric with respect to their rotation axis are potential sources of continuous gravitational waves for ground-based interferometric detectors. In the case of known pulsars a fully coherent search, based on matched filtering, which uses the position and rotational parameters obtained from electromagnetic observations, can be carried out. Matched filtering maximizes the signalto- noise (SNR) ratio, but a large sensitivity loss is expected in case of even a very small mismatch between the assumed and the true signal parameters. For this reason, narrow-band analysis methods have been developed, allowing a fully coherent search for gravitational waves from known pulsars over a fraction of a hertz and several spin-down values. In this paper we describe a narrow-band search of 11 pulsars using data from Advanced LIGO’s first observing run. Although we have found several initial outliers, further studies show no significant evidence for the presence of a gravitational wave signal. Finally, we have placed upper limits on the signal strain amplitude lower than the spin-down limit for 5 of the 11 targets over the bands searched; in the case of J1813-1749 the spin-down limit has been beaten for the first time. For an additional 3 targets, the median upper limit across the search bands is below the spin-down limit. This is the most sensitive narrow-band search for continuous gravitational waves carried out so far

Action Group Reports

Action Group Report

Exothermic characteristics of aluminum based nanomaterials

Nano-structured energetic materials have been recently proposed as novel energy storage media where the exothermic reaction is the key to control the heat release process. The properties of nano-alloys, which can be engineered not only by the particle size, but also by varying their elemental compositions, are very appealing. This work conducted a comparative experimental study of the exothermic characteristics of two nanomaterials in the air, aluminum nanoparticles (nano-Al) and aluminum–copper nanoalloys (nano-AlCu) based on TGA/DSC studies. The results showed that the general exothermic characteristics of nano-AlCu were very similar to that of nano-Al but the nanoalloy was more reactive. The nano-AlCu was oxidized and ignited at lower temperature, and influenced by the heating rate. An early ignition was found for both nanomaterials, and the eutectic melting of the nano-alloy was believed to be mainly responsible for its early ignition

Calpain-mediated vimentin cleavage occurs upstream of MT1-MMP membrane translocation to facilitate endothelial sprout initiation

Endothelial cells normally line the vasculature and remain quiescent. However, these cells can be rapidly stimulated to undergo morphogenesis and initiate new blood vessel formation given the proper cues. This study reports a new mechanism for initiating angiogenic sprout formation that involves vimentin, the major intermediate filament protein in endothelial cells. Initial studies confirmed vimentin was required for sphingosine 1-phosphate (S1P)- and growth factor (GF)-induced endothelial cell invasion, and vimentin was cleaved by calpains during invasion. Calpains were predominantly activated by GF and were required for sprout initiation. Because others have reported membrane type 1-matrix metalloproteinase (MT1-MMP) is required for endothelial sprouting responses, we tested whether vimentin and calpain acted upstream of MT1-MMP. Both calpain and vimentin were required for successful MT1-MMP membrane translocation, which was stimulated by S1P. In addition, vimentin complexed with MT1-MMP in a manner that required both the cytoplasmic domain of MT1-MMP and calpain activation, which increased the soluble pool of vimentin in endothelial cells. Altogether, these data indicate that pro-angiogenic signals converge to activate calpain-dependent vimentin cleavage and increase vimentin solubility, which act upstream to facilitate MT1-MMP membrane translocation, resulting in successful endothelial sprout formation in three-dimensional collagen matrices. These findings help explain why S1P and GF synergize to stimulate robust sprouting in 3D collagen matrices