STAT 5 activators can replace the requirement of FBS in the adipogenesis of 3T3-L1 cells

The 3T3-L1 cells differentiate into fat cells that have many properties of native adipocytes including: substantial lipid accumulation, insulin sensitivity, and the ability to secrete endocrine hormones. A substantial expense in using these cells is fetal bovine serum (FBS), a critical component of efficient adipogenesis. Our recent studies on STAT 5 proteins have revealed that these transcription factors are phosphorylated and translocate to the nucleus immediately after the initiation of differentiation. Studies by several other laboratories also suggest that STAT 5 proteins can have pro-adipogenic properties. Growth hormone (GH) and prolactin (PRL) are both potent activators of STAT 5A and STAT 5B proteins. Since, FBS has high concentrations of GH; we examined the ability of GH to replace FBS as a component of the differentiation cocktail for 3T3-L1 cells. Our studies revealed that FBS was not required for the adipogenesis of 3T3-L1 cells if GH or PRL was added to the differentiation cocktail. Adipogenesis was judged by Oil Red O staining and expression of adipocyte marker genes. Hence, we have developed a substantially less expensive method for differentiating 3T3-L1 cells without FBS, thiazolidinediones, or expensive cytokines. © 2004 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved

STAT5A expression in swiss 3T3 cells promotes adipogenesis in vivo in an athymic mice model system

Many studies from our laboratories and others have shown that STAT5 expression and activity are increased during adipogenesis of murine and human adipocytes. Ectopic expression of STAT5A in fibroblasts or preadipocytes can confer or enhance adipogenesis. To determine whether STAT5A also plays a role in adipogenesis in vivo, we injected athymic mice with Swiss 3T3 cells expressing an empty pBABE retrovirus, Swiss cells expressing a pBABE retrovirus-containing STAT5A, or 3T3-F442A preadipocytes. Athymic mice injected with either 3T3-F442A cells or Swiss 3T3 cells expressing STAT5A resulted in fat pad formation at the site of injection. However, mice injected with Swiss cells containing the parent retroviral vector did not have any observable fat pads. An analysis of the ectopic fat pads obtained from the Swiss 3T3 STAT5A mice revealed abundant expression of peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor-γ (PPAR-γ) and adiponectin. The protein levels of both of these fat cell markers were comparable to expression levels in epididymal fat pads. These results demonstrate that STAT5A can promote adipogenesis in vivo in this model system which supports a role of this transcription factor in adipocyte development in the whole animal. © 2011 The Obesity Society

Approaches to herbicide (MCPA) pollution mitigation in drinking water source catchments using enhanced space and time monitoring

Publication history: Accepted - 30 September 2020; Published online - 8 October 2020Freshwater occurrences of the selective acid herbicide 2-methyl-4-chloro-phenoxyacetic acid (MCPA) are an ongoing regulatory and financial issue for water utility industries as the number and magnitude of detections increase, particularly in surface water catchments. Assessments for mitigating pesticide pollution in catchments used as drinking water sources require a combination of catchment-based and water treatment solutions, but approaches are limited by a lack of empirical data. In this study, an enhanced spatial (11 locations) and temporal (7-hourly to daily sampling) monitoring approach was employed to address these issues in an exemplar surface water source catchment (384 km2). The spatial sampling revealed that MCPA was widespread, with occurrences above the 0.1 μg L−1 threshold for a single pesticide being highly positively correlated to sub-catchments with higher proportions of ‘Improved Grassland’ land use (r = 0.84). These data provide a strong foundation for targeting catchment-based mitigation solutions and also add to the debate on the ecosystems services provided by such catchments. Additionally, of the 999 temporal samples taken over 12 months from the catchment outlet, 25% were above the drinking water threshold of 0.1 μg L−1. This prevalence of high concentrations presents costly problems for source water treatment. Using these data, abstraction shutdowns were simulated for five scenarios using hydrometeorological data to explore the potential to avoid intake of high MCPA concentrations. The scenarios stopped abstraction for 4.2–9.3% of the April–October period and reduced intake of water containing over 0.1 μg L−1 of MCPA by 16–31%. This represents an important development for real-time proxy assessments for water abstraction in the absence of more direct pesticide monitoring data.This work was funded by the Source to Tap project (project reference IVA5018 – www.sourcetotap.eu). The Source to Tap project is supported by the European Union's INTERREG VA Programme, managed by the Special EU Programmes Body (SEUPB)

Assessing the General Public’s Awareness of the Pharmacological Benefits of Structured, Prescribed Exercise in the Treatment of Chronic Disease

Introduction This novel study sought to observe the general public’s beliefs on the comparison between pharmaceuticals and exercise for the management of chronic disease, as is consistent with the ACSM Exercise is Medicine (EIM) initiative. The EIM initiative seeks to establish physical activity as a standard of care alongside more traditional interventions such as pharmacology. Despite the established benefit of exercise, little is known about the general public\u27s awareness of the pharmacological benefits of structured, prescribed exercise in the treatment of chronic disease. Objective Exercise can be an effective intervention for chronic disease and in some cases, as effective as medication. The present study aimed to assess the beliefs of the public with regard to the efficacy of physical activity to augment chronic disease management. Participants Participants: 191 Age: 18 years or older Location: Minnesota State Fair Date: August 30th, 2021 Data collection: Conducted through an electronic survey Methods A descriptive-survey design research study was performed. The survey consisted of 14 items inquiring about the participants’ beliefs surrounding the relationship between exercise and various diseases from a pharmacological perspective. Demographics included gender, age, race, ethnicity, zip code and education level. Conclusion The general public views exercise as beneficial for their overall health; however, opinions on management of chronic disease differ across conditions. Clinical Relevance An increased awareness of the benefits of exercise in managing chronic disease may lead to fewer medicinal side effects, lower healthcare costs and higher quality of life

Evaluation of Chemcatcher® passive samplers for pesticide monitoring using high-frequency catchment scale data

Publication history: Accepted - 13 September 2022; Published online - 30 September 2022Passive samplers (PS) have been proposed as an enhanced water quality monitoring solution in rivers, but their performance against high-frequency data over the longer term has not been widely explored. This study compared the performance of Chemcatcher® passive sampling (PS) devices with high-frequency sampling (HFS: 7-hourly to daily) in two dynamic rivers over 16 months. The evaluation was based on the acid herbicides MCPA (2-methyl-4-chlorophenoxyacetic acid), mecoprop-P, fluroxypyr and triclopyr. The impact of river discharge parameters on Chemcatcher® device performance was also explored. Mixed effects modelling showed that time-weighted mean concentration (TWMC) and flow-weighted mean concentration (FWMC) values obtained by the HFS approach were both significantly higher (p 0.05). There was little indication that river flow parameters altered PS performance—some minor effects were not significant or consistent. Despite this, the PS recovery of very low concentrations indicated that Chemcatcher® devices may be used to evaluate the presence/absence and magnitude of acid herbicides in hydrologically dynamic rivers in synoptic type surveys where space and time coverage is required. However, a period of calibration of the devices in each river would be necessary if they were intended to provide a quantitative review of pesticide concentration as compared with HFS approaches.This work was funded in part by the Source to Tap project (project reference IVA5018 – http://www.sourcetotap.eu), supported by the European Union’s INTERREG VA Programme which is managed by the Special EU Programmes Body (SEUPB). The work was also part-funded by the FAIRWAY project (project reference 727984 - http://www.fair way-project.eu/). supported by the European Union’s HORIZON 2020 Programme

Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) as Predictor of On-Road Driving Ability

Students met with a community OT practitioner who specializes in driving rehabilitation. The community practitioner identified a potential gap in referrals for individuals with cognitive impairment and on-road driving assessments. Due to the scarcity of driving rehabilitation practitioners, it is important to provide effective evaluation and interview. By identifying clients who are past the potential for safe on-road driving performance due to their score on a status examination, practitioners can reach more clients in a more efficacious manner. There exists a need for a more accurate screening measure to predict on road driving performance in individuals with cognitive impairment. The current most popular cognitive status examination used by physicians and neurologists is the Mini Mental Status Examination (MMSE). Therefore, our research question focuses on whether the MMSE can be used as a quality predictive measure for on-road performance in individuals with cognitive impairment. The databases were selected through the UTHSC library. These databases were associated with allied health, occupational therapy, mental health, and etc. Although research was mixed as to whether the MMSE was an accurate predictor of on-road driving performance, we conclude that the MMSE can be a valid quick screener for on-road driving performance. In order to provide best practice, it should not be used as a sole predictor of on-road driving abilities. Based upon conflicting research findings, we recommend using the MMSE with cautio

OSIA: Out-of-order scheduling for in-order arriving in concurrent multi-path transfer.

One major problem of concurrent multi-path transfer (CMT) scheme in multi-homed mobile networks is that the utilization of different paths with diverse delays may cause packet reordering among packets of the same ?ow. In the case of TCP-like, the reordering exacerbates the problem by bringing more timeouts and unnecessary retransmissions, which eventually degrades the throughput of connections considerably. To address this issue, we ?rst propose an Out-of-order Scheduling for In-order Arriving (OSIA), which exploits the sending time discrepancy to preserve the in-order packet arrival. Then, we formulate the optimal traf?c scheduling as a constrained optimization problem and derive its closedform solution by our proposed progressive water-?lling solution. We also present an implementation to enforce the optimal scheduling scheme using cascaded leaky buckets with multiple faucets, which provides simple guidelines on maximizing the utilization of aggregate bandwidth while decreasing the probability of triggering 3 dupACKs. Compared with previous work, the proposed scheme has lower computation complexity and can also provide the possibility for dynamic network adaptability and ?ner-grain load balancing. Simulation results show that our scheme signi?cantly alleviates reordering and enhances transmission performance

Surgical treatment of prosthetic valve endocarditis

AbstractFrom 1975 through 1992, we reoperated on 146 patients for the treatment of prosthetic valve endocarditis. Prosthetic valve endocarditis was considered to be early (<1 year after operation) in 46 cases and active in 103 cases. The extent of the infection was prosthesis only in 66 patients, anulus in 46, and cardiac invasion in 34. Surgical techniques evolved in the direction of increasingly radical débridement of infected tissue and reconstruction with biologic materials. All patients were treated with prolonged postoperative antibiotic therapy. There were 19 (13%) in-hospital deaths. Univariate analyses demonstrated trends toward increasing risk for patients with active endocarditis and extension of infection beyond the prosthesis; however, the only variables with a significant (p < 0.05) association with increased in-hospital mortality confirmed with multivariate testing were impaired left ventricular function, preoperative heart block, coronary artery disease, and culture of organisms from the surgical specimen. During the study period, mortality decreased from 20% (1975 to 1984) to 10% (1984 to 1992). For hospital survivors the mean length of stay was 25 days. Follow-up (mean interval 62 months) documented a late survival of 82% at 5 postoperative years and 60% at 10 years. Older age was the only factor associated (p = 0.006) with late death. Nineteen patients needed at least one further operation; reoperation-free survival was 75% at 5 and 50% at 10 postoperative years. Fever in the immediate preoperative period was the only factor associated with decreased late reoperation-free survival (p = 0.032). Prosthetic valve endocarditis remains a serious complication of valve replacement, but the in-hospital mortality of reoperations for prosthetic valve endocarditis has declined. With extensive débridement of infected tissue and postoperative antibiotic therapy, the extent and activity of prosthetic valve endocarditis does not appear to have a major impact on late outcome, and the majority of patients with this complication survive for 10 years after the operation. (J THORAC CARDIOVASC SURG 1996;111:198-210