Perception of intense precipitation events by public opinion

International audienceA survey of four years of local newspapers over the island of Sardinia was conducted. Articles were compared against meteorological observations in order to understand how efficiently intense precipitation events are perceived. The comparison showed that, on a wide and heterogeneous area, public opinion perceives correctly 44% of events and its perception is unbiased. If, however, the focus is placed upon urban areas, the ability to perceive grows to 66%, but an "overperception" of 33% arises. If focus is finally placed upon rural areas, skills worsen, several events are missed and a significant negative bias is detected

Persistent Hyperprolactinemia and Bilateral Galactocele in a Male Infant

Galactocele is a benign breast lesion, usually occurring in nursing women. This lesion is a rare cause of breast enlargement in children. In this paper we describe the case of an infant with hyperprolactinemia (which persisted throughout 15 years of clinical observation) and bilateral galactocele. We speculate that a congenital midline defect in our patient might have impaired the normal dopaminergic inhibitory tone on pituitary lactotroph cells, thus leading to an increased prolactin secretion by the pituitary gland; this, in turn, might have favored the development of the galactocele

Carotid beta stiffness association with thyroid function

Background: Thyroid hormone modulation of cardiovascular function has been associated with cardiovascular disease. Recent evidence suggests that free thyroxine (FT4) levels are associated with an increase in systemic arterial stiffness, but little is known about the effects of FT4 at the local level of the common carotid artery. β-stiffness index is a local elastic parameter usually determined by carotid ultrasound imaging. Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional analysis in the ProgeNIA cohort, including 4846 subjects across a broad age range. For the purpose of this study, we excluded subjects with increased thyrotropin (TSH) levels and those treated with levothyroxine or thyrostatic. We assessed β stiffness, strain, wall–lumen ratio, carotid cross-sectional area (CSA), and stress and flow in the right common carotid artery. We tested whether FT4, heart rate, and their interactions were associated with carotid parameters. Results: FT4 was positively and independently associated with β stiffness index (β = 0.026, p = 0.041), and had a negative association with strain (β = −0.025, p = 0.009). After adding heart rate and the interaction between FT4 and heart rate to the model, FT4 was still associated with the β stiffness index (β = 0.186, p = 0.06), heart rate was positively associated with the stiffness index (β = 0.389, p < 0.001) as well as their interaction (β = 0.271, p = 0.007). Conclusion: This study suggests that higher FT4 levels increase arterial stiffness at the common carotid level, consistent with a detrimental effect on elastic arteries. The effect of FT4 is likely to be primarily attributable to its effect on heart rate

Gender specific profiles of white coat and masked hypertension impacts on arterial structure and function in the SardiNIA study

Background: There is no definite consensus on the CV burden associated to Masked hypertension (MH) or White Coat Hypertension (WCH)-conditions that can be detected by out-of-office blood pressure measurements (24 hour Ambulatory Blood Pressure Monitoring, 24 h ABPM). Methods: We investigated the association of WCH and MH with arterial aging, indexed by a range of parameters of large artery structure and function in 2962 subjects, taking no antihypertensive medications, who are participating in a large community-based population of both men and women over a broad age range (14-102 years). Results: The overall prevalence of WCH was 9.5% and was 5.0% for MH, with 54.9% of subjects classified as true normotensive and 30.6% as true hypertensive. Both WCH and MH were associated with a stiffer aorta, a less distensible and thicker common carotid artery, and greater central BP than true normotensive subjects. Notably, the profile of arterial alterations in WCH and MH did not significantly differ from what was observed in true hypertensive subjects. The arterial changes accompanying WCH and MH differed in men and women, with women showing a greater tendency towards concentric remodeling, greater parietal wall stress, and PWV than men. Conclusion: Both WCH, and MH are associatedwith early arterial aging, and therefore, neither can be regarded as innocent conditions. Future studies are required to establish whether measurement of arterial aging parameters in subjects with WCH or MHwill identify subjects at higher risk of CV events and cognitive impairment, who may require more clinical attention and pharmacological intervention

Spontaneous nocturnal growth hormone secretion in anorexia nervosa

In anorexia nervosa, serum GH levels are increased under basal conditions and respond abnormally to provocative stimuli. We report here, for the first time, an analysis of pulsatile GH secretion in these patients performed by Cluster algorithm. Seven anorectic and six normal weight, healthy women underwent serial blood sampling at 20-min intervals form 2030-0830 h for GH estimation. The total area under the curve (AUC; micrograms per L/min) was elevated 4-fold in anorectic patients compared to controls (4743.0 +/- 1520.09 vs. 1148.6 +/- 519.27; P < 0.01), largely due to an increase in the non-pulsatile fraction (3212.5 +/- 990.45 vs. 378.7 +/- 123.27; P < 0.01). Accordingly, the valley mean value was higher in anorectic than in control subjects (5.9 +/- 2.25 vs. 1.0 +/- 1.30 micrograms/L; P < 0.01). Furthermore, pulsatile AUC was also greater in anorectic patients (1530.4 +/- 654.72 vs. 769.8 +/- 404.02; P < 0.01) due to a significant increase in GH peak frequency (5.0 +/- 0.81 vs. 3.0 +/- 0.89; P < 0.01). No correlations were observed in these patients between body mass index and any of the parameters of spontaneous GH release, whereas a positive correlation was found between insulin-like growth factor I levels and pulsatile AUC (r2 = 0.583; P < 0.05), peak height (r2 = 0.743; P = 0.01), peak increment (r2 = 0.801; P < 0.01), and GH valley mean (r2 = 0.576; P < 0.05). In conclusion, it appears that the enhanced GH secretion in anorexia nervosa is the result of an increased frequency of secretory pulses superimposed on enhanced tonic GH secretion. Although this latter is consistent with a reduction of hypothalamic SRIH tone, the former may be accounted for by an increased number of GHRH discharges. Considering that in normal weight and obese subjects parameters of GH release are negatively correlated with adiposity indexes, the lack of such a negative correlation in our patients suggests that the enhancement of spontaneous GH release in anorectic patients is not merely the consequence of malnutrition-dependent impairment of insulin-like growth factor I production, but reflects a more complex hypothalamic dysregulation of GH release

In vitro human growth hormone increases human chorionic gonadotropin and progesterone secretion by human placenta at term: evidence of a modulatory role by opioids

We examined the in vitro effect of human growth hormone (hGH) on hormone placental production and the modulation by opioids of this function. Small placental fragments from 12 term placentas were incubated at 37 degrees C in a 95% air and 5% CO2 atmosphere for 4 h with various concentrations of hGH (1-1000 ng/ml) or naloxone (3-500 ng/ml). Both hGH and naloxone increased the concentrations of human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) and progesterone in the media. The effect of the hGH was dose-dependent and statistically significant at 10 ng/ml, while naloxone was able to increase hCG and progesterone production only at the highest doses (250-500 ng/ml). The concomitant treatment with ineffective doses of naloxone and hGH was able to enhance hCG and progesterone secretion reaching levels similar to those obtained with the highest doses of hGH alone. High naloxone concentrations significantly decreased both hCG and progesterone secretion induced by high doses of hGH. This study confirms the relevance of growth hormone in sustaining placental endocrine activities and indicates an effect of opioids in modulating these function

A kinetic equation for economic value estimation with irrationality and herding

A kinetic inhomogeneous Boltzmann-type equation is proposed to model the dynamics of the number of agents in a large market depending on the estimated value of an asset and the rationality of the agents. The interaction rules take into account the interplay of the agents with sources of public information, herding phenomena, and irrationality of the individuals. In the formal grazing collision limit, a nonlinear nonlocal Fokker-Planck equation with anisotropic (or incomplete) diffusion is derived. The existence of global-in-time weak solutions to the Fokker-Planck initial-boundary-value problem is proved. Numerical experiments for the Boltzmann equation highlight the importance of the reliability of public information in the formation of bubbles and crashes. The use of Bollinger bands in the simulations shows how herding may lead to strong trends with low volatility of the asset prices, but eventually also to abrupt corrections

Effect of cimetidine, ranitidine, famotidine and omeprazole on hepatocyte proliferation in vitro

Recently reports have indicated that both cimetidine and ranitidine delay cell proliferation in rats following 70% partial hepatectomy and result in an increased mortality following this procedure. The present study was designed to determine whether three H2 blocking agents (cimetidine, ranitidine, famotidine) and a new, powerful antisecretory drug (omeprazole) specifically influence hepatocyte proliferation in primary culture. Hepatocytes were isolated from livers of normal male rats by the standard collagenase perfusion technique. Hepatic DNA synthesis and percent of labelled nuclei were determined after 48 h incubation. Hepatocytes in culture were incubated with the H2 blocking agents and omeprazole or with different concentrations of serum obtained from shamoperated or 70% hepatectomized rats treated or not with the same agents. Rats were injected intraperitoneally at 8:00 a.m. on two consecutive days. In hepatectomized rats, the first dose was injected at 8:00 a.m. immediately after surgery, the second, 24 h later. The serum of sham-operated or 70% hepatectomized rats that did not receive drugs served as control. No changes in DNA synthesis, percentage of labelled nuclei and transaminase were detected when the agents were added to the hepatocytes in culture at concentrations within the effective pharmacological dosage and 30 times higher. Similarly, no changes in these parameters were obtained when different concentrations of serum obtained from sham-operated rats treated with H2 blocking agents or omeprazole were added to the basal culture medium. However, a significant inhibition of DNA synthesis and of percentage of labelled nuclei was observed when hepatocytes were incubated in the presence of serum from 70% hepatectomized rats that had been treated with cimetidine or with ranitidine. The serum of 70% hepatectomized rats treated with famotidine and omeprazole had no effect on hepatocyte proliferation in vitro. No effect on transaminase was found in these conditions. © 1989

Variants of ADRA2A are associated with fasting glucose, blood pressure, body mass index and type 2 diabetes risk: meta-analysis of four prospective studies

AIMS/HYPOTHESIS: We quantified the effect of ADRA2A (encoding α-2 adrenergic receptor) variants on metabolic traits and type 2 diabetes risk, as reported in four studies. METHODS: Genotype data for ADRA2A single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) rs553668 and rs10885122 were analysed in >17,000 individuals (1,307 type 2 diabetes cases) with regard to metabolic traits and type 2 diabetes risk. Two studies (n = 9,437), genotyped using the Human Cardiovascular Disease BeadChip, provided 12 additional ADRA2A SNPs. RESULTS: Rs553668 was associated with per allele effects on fasting glucose (0.03 mmol/l, p = 0.016) and type 2 diabetes risk (OR 1.17, 95% CI 1.04-1.31; p = 0.01). No significant association was observed with rs10885122. Of the 12 SNPs, several showed associations with metabolic traits. Overall, after variable selection, rs553668 was associated with type 2 diabetes risk (OR 1.38, 95% CI 1.09-1.73; p = 0.007). rs553668 (per allele difference 0.036 mmol/l, 95% CI 0.008-0.065) and rs17186196 (per allele difference 0.066 mmol/l, 95% CI 0.017-0.115) were independently associated with fasting glucose, and rs17186196 with fasting insulin and HOMA of insulin resistance (4.3%, 95% CI 0.6-8.1 and 4.9%, 95% CI 1.0-9.0, respectively, per allele). Per-allele effects of rs491589 on systolic and diastolic blood pressure were 1.19 mmHg (95% CI 0.43-1.95) and 0.61 mmHg (95% CI 0.11-1.10), respectively, and those of rs36022820 on BMI 0.58 kg/m(2) (95% CI 0.15-1.02). CONCLUSIONS/INTERPRETATION: Multiple ADRA2A SNPs are associated with metabolic traits, blood pressure and type 2 diabetes risk. The α-2 adrenergic receptor should be revisited as a therapeutic target for reduction of the adverse consequences of metabolic trait disorders and type 2 diabetes