Hypervitaminosis A : effects on reproduction and interactions with pyrrolizidine alkaloids

In the first experiment the minimum dietary toxic levels of vitamin A were determined in pregnant rabbits over three parities. The treatments consisted of basal diet plus 10,000, 30,000, 60,000, and 90,000 IU/Kg added vitamin A. The basal diet was formulated to be free of vitamin A and beta-carotene; rice hulls were used in place of alfalfa meal as the dietary fiber source. It was found that during storage, considerable destruction of vitamin A occured, probably stimulated by lipoxidases in the rice hulls. As a result, the 10,000 IU/Kg diet became deficient and the rabbits on this diet showed vitamin A deficiency symptoms such as fetal resorptions and fetal hydrocephalus. Rabbits on the 90,000 IU/Kg diet exhibited symptoms associated with toxicity. The diets with intermediate amounts of vitamin A supported relatively normal reproduction, and the does on these diets were healthier in terms of incidence of respiratory and enteric disease. Of these two diets the 30,000 IU/Kg yielded the highest total grams of kits weaned over three parities. The liver vitamin A reserves of the female rabbits increased with increasing dietary vitamin A levels; however, the plasma concentrations did not follow the same pattern. Plasma vitamin A concentrations increased significantly (P<.05) as the dietary levels increased from 10,000 to 30,000 IU/Kg. When these levels increased from the latter to 60,000 IU/Kg, the average plasma vitamin A levels increased, but the difference was not significant (P<.05). It was found that the plasma vitamin A concentrations dropped markedly in animals fed the 90,000 IU/Kg diet and became significantly (P<.05) lower than in those fed the 60,000 IU/Kg diet but not significantly (P<.05) different from the vitamin A deficient plasma samples. It was concluded that in rabbits vitamin A at high concentrations inhibits its own secretion from the liver into the circulation. The symptoms, although associated with low plasma vitamin A levels, are attributed to hypervitaminosis A. This might explain why the symptoms of hypo- and hyper-vitaminosis A in rabbits are similar. This condition could then be termed "Secondary hypovitaminosis A" since it is not caused by low vitamin A intake and the liver contains high amounts of the vitamin.In the second experiment the interactions between Sececio pyrrolizidine alkaloids (PA) present in Senecio jacobaea or tansy ragwort (TR) and vitamin A were investigated in rats. It was found that PA present in a 5% TR diet reduced both plasma and liver vitamin A levels significantly compared to the control (P<.05). Increasing the amount of TR in the diet from 5 to 10% did not make a significant change (P<.05); suggesting that 5% dietary TR was sufficient for this type of study. It was concluded that the reduction in hepatic and plasma vitamin A was due to either higher catabolism or lower intestinal absorption rate. In the third experiment the possibility of impaired fat and fat-soluble vitamin absorption was considered. The PA cause biliary hyperplasia and bile duct obstruction, hence reducing bile secretions into the small intestine. Because of the necessity of bile acids and fat emulsification in the small intestine for vitamin A and fat absorption, PA induced liver damage could thus impair absorption of these nutrients. Dietary PAs reduced fat absorption in 5% TR fed rats (P<.05) compared to the control

Effect of Quercus infectoria and Zataria multiflora extracts on the expression of Apo-B100 and PPAR-α in liver and adipose tissues in insulin resistant rats

Background: Insulin resistance can increase the risk of metabolic syndrome. Studies have shown that expression of PPAR alpha improved insulin function in patients with insulin resistance. Also ApoB100 is an essential ligand for the receptors of low-density lipoproteins (LDL). Increased plasma level of apoB100 is a risk factor for cardiovascular disease (CVD) and its increased production leads to insulin resistance. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of Q. Infectoria and Z. multiflora extracts on the expression of PPARα and Apo-B100 genes in adipose and hepatic tissues of insulin-resistant ratsMaterials and methods: Forty Wistar rats were divided into 1- healthy control, 2- high fat control, 3- fenofibrate,4- Q. Infectoria and 5- Z. multiflora groups. All groups were fed with high fat diet for 6 weeks expect for the healthy control. Glucose tolerance test was performed to confirm insulin resistance in rats. Then groups 3, 4, and 5 were treated by fenofibrate, Q. Infectoria and Z. multiflora extracts respectively. After sacrificing the rats, their liver and fat tissues were removed. Real-time PCR was used to assess PPARα and ApoB100 gene expressions. Results: All groups had significant weight gain after 8 weeks. Expression of PPAR-α and ApoB100 genes were the same in Q. Infectoria, Z. multiflora, fenofibrate and healthy control groups.Conclusion: In conclusion, Q. Infectoria and Z. multiflora extracts decreased ApoB100 and increased PPARα gene expressions but these changes were not statistically significant

Global, regional, and national incidence, prevalence, and years lived with disability for 354 diseases and injuries for 195 countries and territories, 1990-2017: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2017.

The Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries and Risk Factors 2017 includes a comprehensive assessment of incidence, prevalence, and years lived with disability (YLDs) for 354 causes in 195 countries and territories from 1990 to 2017. Previous GBD studies have shown how the decline of mortality rates from 1990 to 2016 has led to an increase in life expectancy, an ageing global population, and an expansion of the non-fatal burden of disease and injury. These studies have also shown how a substantial portion of the world's population experiences non-fatal health loss with considerable heterogeneity among different causes, locations, ages, and sexes. Ongoing objectives of the GBD study include increasing the level of estimation detail, improving analytical strategies, and increasing the amount of high-quality data. METHODS: We estimated incidence and prevalence for 354 diseases and injuries and 3484 sequelae. We used an updated and extensive body of literature studies, survey data, surveillance data, inpatient admission records, outpatient visit records, and health insurance claims, and additionally used results from cause of death models to inform estimates using a total of 68 781 data sources. Newly available clinical data from India, Iran, Japan, Jordan, Nepal, China, Brazil, Norway, and Italy were incorporated, as well as updated claims data from the USA and new claims data from Taiwan (province of China) and Singapore. We used DisMod-MR 2.1, a Bayesian meta-regression tool, as the main method of estimation, ensuring consistency between rates of incidence, prevalence, remission, and cause of death for each condition. YLDs were estimated as the product of a prevalence estimate and a disability weight for health states of each mutually exclusive sequela, adjusted for comorbidity. We updated the Socio-demographic Index (SDI), a summary development indicator of income per capita, years of schooling, and total fertility rate. Additionally, we calculated differences between male and female YLDs to identify divergent trends across sexes. GBD 2017 complies with the Guidelines for Accurate and Transparent Health Estimates Reporting

Global, regional, and national incidence, prevalence, and years lived with disability for 354 diseases and injuries for 195 countries and territories, 1990-2017: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2017

The Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study 2017 (GBD 2017) includes a comprehensive assessment of incidence, prevalence, and years lived with disability (YLDs) for 354 causes in 195 countries and territories from 1990 to 2017. Previous GBD studies have shown how the decline of mortality rates from 1990 to 2016 has led to an increase in life expectancy, an ageing global population, and an expansion of the non-fatal burden of disease and injury. These studies have also shown how a substantial portion of the world's population experiences non-fatal health loss with considerable heterogeneity among different causes, locations, ages, and sexes. Ongoing objectives of the GBD study include increasing the level of estimation detail, improving analytical strategies, and increasing the amount of high-quality data.; We estimated incidence and prevalence for 354 diseases and injuries and 3484 sequelae. We used an updated and extensive body of literature studies, survey data, surveillance data, inpatient admission records, outpatient visit records, and health insurance claims, and additionally used results from cause of death models to inform estimates using a total of 68 781 data sources. Newly available clinical data from India, Iran, Japan, Jordan, Nepal, China, Brazil, Norway, and Italy were incorporated, as well as updated claims data from the USA and new claims data from Taiwan (province of China) and Singapore. We used DisMod-MR 2.1, a Bayesian meta-regression tool, as the main method of estimation, ensuring consistency between rates of incidence, prevalence, remission, and cause of death for each condition. YLDs were estimated as the product of a prevalence estimate and a disability weight for health states of each mutually exclusive sequela, adjusted for comorbidity. We updated the Socio-demographic Index (SDI), a summary development indicator of income per capita, years of schooling, and total fertility rate. Additionally, we calculated differences between male and female YLDs to identify divergent trends across sexes. GBD 2017 complies with the Guidelines for Accurate and Transparent Health Estimates Reporting. Globally, for females, the causes with the greatest age-standardised prevalence were oral disorders, headache disorders, and haemoglobinopathies and haemolytic anaemias in both 1990 and 2017. For males, the causes with the greatest age-standardised prevalence were oral disorders, headache disorders, and tuberculosis including latent tuberculosis infection in both 1990 and 2017. In terms of YLDs, low back pain, headache disorders, and dietary iron deficiency were the leading Level 3 causes of YLD counts in 1990, whereas low back pain, headache disorders, and depressive disorders were the leading causes in 2017 for both sexes combined. All-cause age-standardised YLD rates decreased by 3·9% (95% uncertainty interval [UI] 3·1-4·6) from 1990 to 2017; however, the all-age YLD rate increased by 7·2% (6·0-8·4) while the total sum of global YLDs increased from 562 million (421-723) to 853 million (642-1100). The increases for males and females were similar, with increases in all-age YLD rates of 7·9% (6·6-9·2) for males and 6·5% (5·4-7·7) for females. We found significant differences between males and females in terms of age-standardised prevalence estimates for multiple causes. The causes with the greatest relative differences between sexes in 2017 included substance use disorders (3018 cases [95% UI 2782-3252] per 100 000 in males vs s1400 [1279-1524] per 100 000 in females), transport injuries (3322 [3082-3583] vs 2336 [2154-2535]), and self-harm and interpersonal violence (3265 [2943-3630] vs 5643 [5057-6302]). Global all-cause age-standardised YLD rates have improved only slightly over a period spanning nearly three decades. However, the magnitude of the non-fatal disease burden has expanded globally, with increasing numbers of people who have a wide spectrum of conditions. A subset of conditions has remained globally pervasive since 1990, whereas other conditions have displayed more dynamic trends, with different ages, sexes, and geographies across the globe experiencing varying burdens and trends of health loss. This study emphasises how global improvements in premature mortality for select conditions have led to older populations with complex and potentially expensive diseases, yet also highlights global achievements in certain domains of disease and injury

Ascomycetes From North Temperate Lakes in Wisconsin

190 p.Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1999.A comprehensive study of freshwater ascomycetes in seven lakes in northern Wisconsin was carried out. These lakes are part of the Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) project and have been the subject of limnological studies since the early 1900's. Our knowledge of freshwater ascomycetes is fairly recent and based on studies done in the past 50 years. Freshwater ascomycetes are defined as species that occur on submerged or partially submerged substrata in aquatic habitats. To date, no studies focusing on systematic collection of freshwater ascomycetes in lentic habitats throughout a year exist. Thus, little or no information is available regarding their frequencies and distributions from season to season. In this study, monthly samples of submerged substrata were collected and examined for freshwater ascomycetes from 1994 to 1997. Eighty-two ascomycetes on different substrata were reported from the lakes. Eleven species and 2 genera are described as new. Two discomycetes, Dasyscyphus controversa and Hymenoscyphus scutulus; two pyrenomycetes, Gnomonia petiolorum and Phomatospora berkeleyi; and six loculoascomycetes, Chaetomastia typhicola , Macrospora typhicola, Massarina eburnea , Melanomma pulvis-pyrius, Phaeosphaeria caricis, and Roussoella intermedia were new records for freshwater. One discomycete, Lambertella advenula, and a loculoascomycete, R. intermedia, were reported for the first time from North America. The ratio of species of Discomycetes: Pyrenomycetes: Loculoascomycetes was 19: 35: 28. Pyrenomycetes were mostly restricted to woody substrata and Loculoascomycetes to herbaceous substrata. Species occurrences were not well correlated with changes in temperature, but pH may be an important factor in fungal distribution patterns among the lakes. In many cases, the distribution of species depended on the distribution of their substrata.U of I OnlyRestricted to the U of I community idenfinitely during batch ingest of legacy ETD

Ascomycetes From North Temperate Lakes in Wisconsin

190 p.Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1999.A comprehensive study of freshwater ascomycetes in seven lakes in northern Wisconsin was carried out. These lakes are part of the Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) project and have been the subject of limnological studies since the early 1900's. Our knowledge of freshwater ascomycetes is fairly recent and based on studies done in the past 50 years. Freshwater ascomycetes are defined as species that occur on submerged or partially submerged substrata in aquatic habitats. To date, no studies focusing on systematic collection of freshwater ascomycetes in lentic habitats throughout a year exist. Thus, little or no information is available regarding their frequencies and distributions from season to season. In this study, monthly samples of submerged substrata were collected and examined for freshwater ascomycetes from 1994 to 1997. Eighty-two ascomycetes on different substrata were reported from the lakes. Eleven species and 2 genera are described as new. Two discomycetes, Dasyscyphus controversa and Hymenoscyphus scutulus; two pyrenomycetes, Gnomonia petiolorum and Phomatospora berkeleyi; and six loculoascomycetes, Chaetomastia typhicola , Macrospora typhicola, Massarina eburnea , Melanomma pulvis-pyrius, Phaeosphaeria caricis, and Roussoella intermedia were new records for freshwater. One discomycete, Lambertella advenula, and a loculoascomycete, R. intermedia, were reported for the first time from North America. The ratio of species of Discomycetes: Pyrenomycetes: Loculoascomycetes was 19: 35: 28. Pyrenomycetes were mostly restricted to woody substrata and Loculoascomycetes to herbaceous substrata. Species occurrences were not well correlated with changes in temperature, but pH may be an important factor in fungal distribution patterns among the lakes. In many cases, the distribution of species depended on the distribution of their substrata.U of I OnlyRestricted to the U of I community idenfinitely during batch ingest of legacy ETD

A Fuzzy Two-Echelon Model to Optimize Energy Consumption in an Urban Logistics Network with Electric Vehicles

With the increase in pollutants, the need to use electric vehicles (EVs) in various urban logistics activities is an increasingly important issue. Currently, there are issues with the efficiency of transport companies in recognizing the effects of uncertain factors in daily logistics operations. Thus, this research proposes a novel fuzzy two-echelon vehicle routing problem involving heterogeneous fleet EVs and internal combustion vehicles (ICVs). The first echelon is recyclable wastes collected from waste pickup points and transported to the primary centers by EVs. The second echelon is transporting recyclable wastes to recycling centers by ICVs. In the proposed models, fuzzy numbers are used to express the rate and energy consumption depending on the amount of load, vehicle speed, and recyclable waste. In addition, a penalty cost of the time windows is considered in both echelons. The models are solved by CPLEX and two meta-heuristic algorithms, gray wolf optimizer (GWO) and tabu search (TS), based on different instance sizes. The results show the efficiency of the proposed algorithms

A Fuzzy Two-Echelon Model to Optimize Energy Consumption in an Urban Logistics Network with Electric Vehicles

With the increase in pollutants, the need to use electric vehicles (EVs) in various urban logistics activities is an increasingly important issue. Currently, there are issues with the efficiency of transport companies in recognizing the effects of uncertain factors in daily logistics operations. Thus, this research proposes a novel fuzzy two-echelon vehicle routing problem involving heterogeneous fleet EVs and internal combustion vehicles (ICVs). The first echelon is recyclable wastes collected from waste pickup points and transported to the primary centers by EVs. The second echelon is transporting recyclable wastes to recycling centers by ICVs. In the proposed models, fuzzy numbers are used to express the rate and energy consumption depending on the amount of load, vehicle speed, and recyclable waste. In addition, a penalty cost of the time windows is considered in both echelons. The models are solved by CPLEX and two meta-heuristic algorithms, gray wolf optimizer (GWO) and tabu search (TS), based on different instance sizes. The results show the efficiency of the proposed algorithms

Mathematical modeling of a bi-objective hub location-routing problem for rapid transit networks

This paper aims to develop a mathematical model for rapid transit networks based on a hub and spoke model, comprising stopovers (stations) in the hub and non-hub (spoke) alignments. Due to the use of rapid transit systems in both the hub-level sub-network (i.e., the network among the hub nodes) and the spoke-level sub-network (i.e., the network which connect the spoke nodes to each other and to the hub nodes), the proposed model relaxes some of the usual assumptions in classical hub location models. In the proposed model, the transshipment of flows among the spoke nodes is possible, the setup costs of all the hub and spoke nodes and edges are considerable, and both hub and spoke edges have capacity constraints. In addition to the network infrastructure designed through decisions about the locations of the hub and spoke nodes and edges, the hub and spoke rapid transit lines are determined along with the routes of demands in those lines. The model incorporates profit and service time criteria. An adaptive large neighborhood search solution algorithm is developed whose efficiency is proved by the computational results. Some managerial insight is also provided through the analysis of the resulting networks under various parameter settings