Is fruit and vegetable intake associated with asthma or chronic rhino-sinusitis in European adults? Results from the Global Allergy and Asthma Network of Excellence (GA(2)LEN) Survey

Background: Fruits and vegetables are rich in compounds with proposed antioxidant, anti-allergic and anti-inflammatory properties, which could contribute to reduce the prevalence of asthma and allergic diseases. Objective: We investigated the association between asthma, and chronic rhino-sinusitis (CRS) with intake of fruits and vegetables in European adults. Methods: A stratified random sample was drawn from the Global Allergy and Asthma Network of Excellence (GA(2)LEN) screening survey, in which 55,000 adults aged 15-75 answered a questionnaire on respiratory symptoms. Asthma score (derived from self-reported asthma symptoms) and CRS were the outcomes of interest. Dietary intake of 22 subgroups of fruits and vegetables was ascertained using the internationally validated GA(2)LEN Food Frequency Questionnaire. Adjusted associations were examined with negative binomial and multiple regressions. Simes procedure was used to control for multiple testing. Results: A total of 3206 individuals had valid data on asthma and dietary exposures of interest. 22.8% reported having at least 1 asthma symptom (asthma score >= 1), whilst 19.5% had CRS. After adjustment for potential confounders, asthma score was negatively associated with intake of dried fruits (beta-coefficient -2.34;95% confidence interval [CI] -4.09,-0.59), whilst CRS was statistically negatively associated with total intake of fruits (OR 0.73; 95% CI 0.55, 0.97). Conversely, a positive association was observed between asthma score and alliums vegetables (adjusted beta-coefficient 0.23; 95% CI 0.06, 0.40). None of these associations remained statistically significant after controlling for multiple testing. Conclusion and clinical relevance: There was no consistent evidence for an association of asthma or CRS with fruit and vegetable intake in this representative sample of European adults.Peer reviewe

Dietary Intake of Flavonoids and Ventilatory Function in European Adults : A GA(2)LEN Study

Background: Flavonoids exert anti-inflammatory properties and modulate oxidative stress in vitro, suggesting a protective effect on lung function, but epidemiological studies examining this association are scarce. Methods: A stratified random sample was drawn from the GA(2)LEN screening survey, in which 55,000 adults aged 15 to 75 answered a questionnaire on respiratory symptoms. Post-bronchodilator spirometry was obtained from 2850 subjects. Forced vital capacity (FVC), the ratio between the forced exhaled volume in 1 second (FEV1) and FVC (FEV1/FVC), FVC below lower limit of normal (FVC <LLN), and FEV1/FVC <LLN were calculated. Intake of the six main subclasses of flavonoids was estimated using the GA(2)LEN Food Frequency Questionnaire. Adjusted associations between outcomes and each subclass of flavonoids were examined with multivariate regressions. Simes' procedure was used to test for multiple comparisons. Results: A total of 2599 subjects had valid lung function and dietary data. A lower prevalence of FVC <LLN (airway restriction) was observed in those with higher total flavonoid (adjusted odds ratio (aOR), higher vs. lowest quintile intake 0.58; 95% Confidence Interval (CI) 0.36, 0.94), and pro-anthocyanidin intakes (aOR 0.47; 95% CI 0.27, 0.81). A higher FEV1/FVC was associated with higher intakes of total flavonoids and pro-anthocyanidins (adjusted correlation coefficient (a -coeff 0.33; 0.10, 0.57 and a -coeff 0.44; 95% CI 0.19, 0.69, respectively). After Simes' procedure, the statistical significance of each of these associations was attenuated but remained below 0.05, with the exception of total flavonoids and airway restriction. Conclusions: This population-based study in European adults provides cross-sectional evidence of a positive association of total flavonoid intake and pro-anthocyanidins and ventilatory function, and a negative association with spirometric restriction in European adults.Peer reviewe

The development of spontaneous facial responses to others’ emotions in infancy. An EMG study

Viewing facial expressions often evokes facial responses in the observer. These spontaneous facial reactions (SFRs) are believed to play an important role for social interactions. However, their developmental trajectory and the underlying neurocognitive mechanisms are still little understood. In the current study, 4- and 7-month old infants were presented with facial expressions of happiness, anger, and fear. Electromyography (EMG) was used to measure activation in muscles relevant for forming these expressions: zygomaticus major (smiling), corrugator supercilii (frowning), and frontalis (forehead raising). The results indicated no selective activation of the facial muscles for the expressions in 4-month-old infants. For 7-month-old infants, evidence for selective facial reactions was found especially for happy faces (leading to increased zygomaticus major activation) and fearful faces (leading to increased frontalis activation), while angry faces did not show a clear differential response. This suggests that emotional SFRs may be the result of complex neurocognitive mechanisms which lead to partial mimicry but are also likely to be influenced by evaluative processes. Such mechanisms seem to undergo important developments at least until the second half of the first year of life

As Far as the Eye Can See: Relationship between Psychopathic Traits and Pupil Response to Affective Stimuli

Psychopathic individuals show a range of affective processing deficits, typically associated with the interpersonal/affective component of psychopathy. However, previous research has been inconsistent as to whether psychopathy, within both offender and community populations, is associated with deficient autonomic responses to the simple presentation of affective stimuli. Changes in pupil diameter occur in response to emotionally arousing stimuli and can be used as an objective indicator of physiological reactivity to emotion. This study used pupillometry to explore whether psychopathic traits within a community sample were associated with hypo-responsivity to the affective content of stimuli. Pupil activity was recorded for 102 adult (52 female) community participants in response to affective (both negative and positive affect) and affectively neutral stimuli, that included images of scenes, static facial expressions, dynamic facial expressions and sound-clips. Psychopathic traits were measured using the Triarchic Psychopathy Measure. Pupil diameter was larger in response to negative stimuli, but comparable pupil size was demonstrated across pleasant and neutral stimuli. A linear relationship between subjective arousal and pupil diameter was found in response to sound-clips, but was not evident in response to scenes. Contrary to predictions, psychopathy was unrelated to emotional modulation of pupil diameter across all stimuli. The findings were the same when participant gender was considered. This suggests that psychopathy within a community sample is not associated with autonomic hypo-responsivity to affective stimuli, and this effect is discussed in relation to later defensive/appetitive mobilisation deficits

Motor signatures of emotional reactivity in frontotemporal dementia

Automatic motor mimicry is essential to the normal processing of perceived emotion, and disrupted automatic imitation might underpin socio-emotional deficits in neurodegenerative diseases, particularly the frontotemporal dementias. However, the pathophysiology of emotional reactivity in these diseases has not been elucidated. We studied facial electromyographic responses during emotion identification on viewing videos of dynamic facial expressions in 37 patients representing canonical frontotemporal dementia syndromes versus 21 healthy older individuals. Neuroanatomical associations of emotional expression identification accuracy and facial muscle reactivity were assessed using voxel-based morphometry. Controls showed characteristic profiles of automatic imitation, and this response predicted correct emotion identification. Automatic imitation was reduced in the behavioural and right temporal variant groups, while the normal coupling between imitation and correct identification was lost in the right temporal and semantic variant groups. Grey matter correlates of emotion identification and imitation were delineated within a distributed network including primary visual and motor, prefrontal, insular, anterior temporal and temporo-occipital junctional areas, with common involvement of supplementary motor cortex across syndromes. Impaired emotional mimesis may be a core mechanism of disordered emotional signal understanding and reactivity in frontotemporal dementia, with implications for the development of novel physiological biomarkers of socio-emotional dysfunction in these diseases

Zastosowanie neuronowej rekonstrukcji obrazów tomograficznych w problematyce niezawodności zabezpieczeń przeciwpowodziowych

The article presents an innovative concept of enhancing the flood embankments and landfills monitoring. The key advantage of such a solution is to obtain a more detailed distribution of components within a flood barrier. It leads to more early and sufficient threat detection, considering the exploitation of the building, thus - a vast enhancement of an embankment’s performance. The method is based on implementing a neural system, composed of a number of parallelly-working neural networks. Each of them generate a singular point of final output view. By implementing such monitoring measures it is possible to successfully reconstruct two-and-three dimensional models of flood barriers and dams - including possible breaches and damages within its inner structure. An important advantage of such a solution is the possibility of replacing the systems that monitor hydrotechnical facilities pixel-by- pixel by neural imaging. The performed research leads to solving the problem of low resolution of such images. As this problem was of crucial value to tomographic imaging method, it was a main obstacle to the development of neural reconstruction method. Moreover, as the results may be obtained in real-time and at various levels, these new functionalities stand out in comparison to currently used methods for monitoring protective banks.W artykule zaprezentowano nowatorską koncepcję usprawnienia monitoringu wałów i zapór przeciwpowodziowych. Główną przewagą nowego rozwiązania nad znanymi metodami jest uzyskanie dokładniejszego rozkładu komponentów wnętrza zapory, co zasadniczo przyczynia się do wczesnego i niezawodnego wykrycia zagrożeń związanych z eksploatacją tego typu budowli. Dzięki temu, zastosowanie nowej metody spowoduje wzrost niezawodności zabezpieczeń przeciwpowodziowych. W opisywanej metodzie założono wytrenowanie systemu neuronowego złożonego z wielu działających równolegle sieci neuronowych, z których każda generuje pojedynczy punkt obrazu wyjściowego. Powyższy sposób, uwzględniający jednoczesne zastosowanie wielu sieci neuronowych, umożliwia skuteczną realizację trudnych zagadnień rekonstrukcji obrazów dwu i trój-wymiarowych, w tym obrazowanie uszkodzeń i przecieków wnętrza zapór przeciwpowodziowych. Ważną zaletą prezentowanej metody jest możliwość zastąpienia obrazowaniem neuronowym wielu innych, obecnie stosowanych systemów, które monitorują budowle hydrotechniczne w sposób punktowy. Przeprowadzone badania umożliwiają rozwiązanie problemu niskiej rozdzielczości obrazów tomograficznych, co stanowi główną barierę rozwoju tych metod w odniesieniu do dużych budowli ziemnych. Poprawa rozdzielczości rekonstruowanych obrazów, a także możliwość ich uzyskiwania w różnych przekrojach w czasie rzeczywistym, są nowymi funkcjonalnościami, które wyróżniają obrazowanie neuronowe na tle obecnie stosowanych metod monitoringu wałów i zapór przeciwpowodziowych

Processing, Microstructure and Dielectric Properties of the Bi5Ti3FeO15Bi_5Ti_3FeO_{15} Ceramic

The aim of the present work is the analysis of microstructure, dielectric permittivity and thermal properties analysis of $Bi_5Ti_3FeO_{15}$ ceramics obtained by two methods. The studied $Bi_5Ti_3FeO_{15}$ ceramics were prepared by conventional synthesis and hot uniaxial pressing reaction from the conventional mixture of oxides, viz. $TiO_2$, $Fe_2O_3$, $Bi_2O_3$. The studied material has layered perovskite like structures, first described by Aurivillius in 1949 and Subbaro in 1969. The ceramic $Bi_5Ti_3FeO_{15}$ is known to contain a series of compounds with the general formula: $Bi_{m+1}Fe_{m-3}Ti_3O_{3m+3}$. The X-ray diffraction methods were used for qualitative phase analysis of studied samples. The morphology was analyzed by scanning electron microscopy method. The thermal properties of the studied materials were measured using the differential thermal analysis at a constant heating rate of 15 K/min under an argon protective atmosphere. Thermal dependence of dielectric permittivity was studied between room temperature and 1137 K

Processing, Microstructure and Dielectric Properties of the Bi 5

The aim of the present work is the analysis of microstructure, dielectric permittivity and thermal properties analysis of $Bi_5Ti_3FeO_{15}$ ceramics obtained by two methods. The studied $Bi_5Ti_3FeO_{15}$ ceramics were prepared by conventional synthesis and hot uniaxial pressing reaction from the conventional mixture of oxides, viz. $TiO_2$, $Fe_2O_3$, $Bi_2O_3$. The studied material has layered perovskite like structures, first described by Aurivillius in 1949 and Subbaro in 1969. The ceramic $Bi_5Ti_3FeO_{15}$ is known to contain a series of compounds with the general formula: $Bi_{m+1}Fe_{m-3}Ti_3O_{3m+3}$. The X-ray diffraction methods were used for qualitative phase analysis of studied samples. The morphology was analyzed by scanning electron microscopy method. The thermal properties of the studied materials were measured using the differential thermal analysis at a constant heating rate of 15 K/min under an argon protective atmosphere. Thermal dependence of dielectric permittivity was studied between room temperature and 1137 K