Low-dose ursodeoxycholic acid prolongs cholesterol nucleation time in gallbladder bile of patients with cholesterol gallstones

The high rate of stone recurrence represents a drawback of non-surgical therapy of cholesterol gallstone disease. Although most studies report that long-term bile acid treatment does not have protective effects, preliminary results suggest that low-dose ursodeoxycholic acid decreases the rate of gallstone recurrence in a subgroup of younger patients. To clarify the underlying mechanism we investigated whether low-dose ursodeoxycholic acid treatment influences biliary cholesterol saturation and/or nucleation time of cholesterol. Ten patients with cholesterol gallstones and functioning gallbladder received 250 mg ursodeoxycholic acid/day at bedtime 6–10 days prior to cholecystectomy. Eleven patients with cholesterol gallstones without treatment served as controls. Cholesterol crystals were present in the gallbladder bile of 7 out of the 10 patients receiving ursodeoxycholic acid and in all control biles. Ursodeoxycholic acid treatment significantly (P < 0.02) decreased the cholesterol saturation index (mean ± S.E.: 0.94 ± 0.05 vs. 1.43 ± 0.18) and led to an approximately 5-fold prolongation (P < 0.005) of the cholesterol nucleation time (mean ± S.E.: 12.0 ± 2,4 vs. 2.3 ± 0.7 days). We conclude that lowdose ursodeoxycholic acid might be effective in the prevention of post-dissolution gallstone recurrence by both decreasing cholesterol saturation and prolonging cholesterol nucieation tim

Lipid composition and cholesterol nucleation time in gallbladder bile of patients with cholesterol gallstones under choleretic treatment with febuprol

The effect of a new potent choleretic drug (Febuprol) on lipid composition and cholesterol nucleation time in gallbladder bile was studied in 8 patients with cholesterol gallstones. Nine untreated patients with cholesterol cholecystolithiasis and functioning gallbladder served as controls. Under Febuprol treatment (3 X 100 mg for 6-10 days) mean concentrations of total bile acids (125.4 vs. 59.5 mmol/l), phospholipids (46.1 vs. 25.6 mmol/l) and total lipids (10.4 vs. 5.9 g/dl) were significantly higher (p less than 0.01) than in controls. No significant difference between both groups was calculated for the mean values of cholesterol (17.8 vs. 13.3 mmol/l), cholesterol saturation index (1.5 vs. 2.1) and cholesterol nucleation time (2.1 vs. 2.6 days). Our findings are compatible with a choleretic effect of Febuprol but no alteration of the rapid cholesterol crystallisation in gallbladder bile of patients with cholesterol gallstones was found

Objective Measures of Emotion Related to Brand Attitude: A New Way to Quantify Emotion-Related Aspects Relevant to Marketing

With this study we wanted to test the hypothesis that individual like and dislike as occurring in relation to brand attitude can be objectively assessed. First, individuals rated common brands with respect to subjective preference. Then, they volunteered in an experiment during which their most liked and disliked brand names were visually presented while three different objective measures were taken. Participant's eye blinks as responses to acoustic startle probes were registered with electromyography (EMG) (i) and their skin conductance (ii) and their heart rate (iii) were recorded. We found significantly reduced eye blink amplitudes related to liked brand names compared to disliked brand names. This finding suggests that visual perception of liked brand names elicits higher degrees of pleasantness, more positive emotion and approach-oriented motivation than visual perception of disliked brand names. Also, skin conductance and heart rate were both reduced in case of liked versus disliked brand names. We conclude that all our physiological measures highlight emotion-related differences depending on the like and dislike toward individual brands. We suggest that objective measures should be used more frequently to quantify emotion-related aspects of brand attitude. In particular, there might be potential interest to introduce startle reflex modulation to measure emotion-related impact during product development, product design and various further fields relevant to marketing. Our findings are discussed in relation to the idea that self reported measures are most often cognitively polluted

Primary cardiovascular risk prediction by LDL-cholesterol in Caucasian middle-aged and older adults: a joint analysis of three cohorts

Under embargo until: 2022-06-01Aims Low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) is an established causal driver of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD), but its performance and age-dependency as a biomarker for incident events and mortality arising from ASCVD is less clear. The aim was to determine the value of LDL-C as a susceptibility/risk biomarker for incident coronary heart disease (CHD), ASCVD, and stroke events and deaths, for the age groups <50 and ≥50 years. Methods and results The performance of LDL-C was evaluated in three cohorts, FINRISK 2002 (n = 7709), HUSK (n = 5431), and ESTHER (n = 4559), by Cox proportional hazards models, C-statistics, and net reclassification index calculations. Additionally, the hazard ratios (HRs) for the three cohorts were pooled by meta-analysis. The most consistent association was observed for CHD [95% confidence interval (CI) for HRs per standard deviation ranging from 0.99 to 1.37], whereas the results were more modest for ASCVD (0.96–1.18) due to lack of association with stroke (0.77–1.24). The association and discriminatory value of LDL-C with all endpoints in FINRISK 2002 and HUSK were attenuated in subjects 50 years and older [HRs (95% CI) obtained from meta-analysis 1.11 (1.04–1.18) for CHD, 1.15 (1.02–1.29) for CHD death, 1.02 (0.98–1.06) for ASCVD, 1.12 (1.02–1.23) for ASCVD death, and 0.97 (0.89–1.05) for stroke]. Conclusion In middle-aged and older adults, associations between LDL-C and all the studied cardiovascular endpoints were relatively weak, while LDL-C showed stronger association with rare events of pre-mature CHD or ASCVD death among middle-aged adults. The predictive performance of LDL-C also depends on the studied cardiovascular endpoint.acceptedVersio

Polymorphisms in O-methyltransferase genes are associated with stover cell wall digestibility in European maize (Zea mays L.)

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>OMT (O-methyltransferase) genes are involved in lignin biosynthesis, which relates to stover cell wall digestibility. Reduced lignin content is an important determinant of both forage quality and ethanol conversion efficiency of maize stover.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Variation in genomic sequences coding for <it>COMT, CCoAOMT1</it>, and <it>CCoAOMT2 </it>was analyzed in relation to stover cell wall digestibility for a panel of 40 European forage maize inbred lines, and re-analyzed for a panel of 34 lines from a published French study. Different methodologies for association analysis were performed and compared. Across association methodologies, a total number of 25, 12, 1, 6 <it>COMT </it>polymorphic sites were significantly associated with DNDF, OMD, NDF, and WSC, respectively. Association analysis for <it>CCoAOMT1 </it>and <it>CCoAOMT2 </it>identified substantially fewer polymorphic sites (3 and 2, respectively) associated with the investigated traits. Our re-analysis on the 34 lines from a published French dataset identified 14 polymorphic sites significantly associated with cell wall digestibility, two of them were consistent with our study. Promising polymorphisms putatively causally associated with variability of cell wall digestibility were inferred from the total number of significantly associated SNPs/Indels.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Several polymorphic sites for three O-methyltransferase loci were associated with stover cell wall digestibility. All three tested genes seem to be involved in controlling DNDF, in particular <it>COMT</it>. Thus, considerable variation among <it>Bm3 </it>wildtype alleles can be exploited for improving cell-wall digestibility. Target sites for functional markers were identified enabling development of efficient marker-based selection strategies.</p

207-nm UV Light—A Promising Tool for Safe Low-Cost Reduction of Surgical Site Infections. II: In-Vivo Safety Studies

Background UVC light generated by conventional germicidal lamps is a well-established anti-microbial modality, effective against both bacteria and viruses. However, it is a human health hazard, being both carcinogenic and cataractogenic. Earlier studies showed that single-wavelength far-UVC light (207 nm) generated by excimer lamps kills bacteria without apparent harm to human skin tissue in vitro. The biophysical explanation is that, due to its extremely short range in biological material, 207 nm UV light cannot penetrate the human stratum corneum (the outer dead-cell skin layer, thickness 5–20 μm) nor even the cytoplasm of individual human cells. By contrast, 207 nm UV light can penetrate bacteria and viruses because these cells are physically much smaller. Aims To test the biophysically-based hypothesis that 207 nm UV light is not cytotoxic to exposed mammalian skin in vivo. Methods Hairless mice were exposed to a bactericidal UV fluence of 157 mJ/cm2 delivered by a filtered Kr-Br excimer lamp producing monoenergetic 207-nm UV light, or delivered by a conventional 254-nm UV germicidal lamp. Sham irradiations constituted the negative control. Eight relevant cellular and molecular damage endpoints including epidermal hyperplasia, pre-mutagenic UV-associated DNA lesions, skin inflammation, and normal cell proliferation and differentiation were evaluated in mice dorsal skin harvested 48 h after UV exposure. Results While conventional germicidal UV (254 nm) exposure produced significant effects for all the studied skin damage endpoints, the same fluence of 207 nm UV light produced results that were not statistically distinguishable from the zero exposure controls. Conclusions As predicted by biophysical considerations and in agreement with earlier in vitro studies, 207-nm light does not appear to be significantly cytotoxic to mouse skin. These results suggest that excimer-based far-UVC light could potentially be used for its anti-microbial properties, but without the associated hazards to skin of conventional germicidal UV lamps

Laser Multi-Pass Narrow-Gap Welding – A Promising Technology for Joining Thick-Walled Components of Future Power Plants

Today, the average worldwide efficiency of coal-fired power plants stands at about 33 percent. The consistent use of state of the art technologies would enable an increase of the average efficiency of up to 47 percent and thus a sharp reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. The importance of improvements in this field becomes apparent when reviewing e.g. plans in Europe in 2017 for new power plants to be built across the continent. About 44 percent of the envisaged 153 gigawatts are still to be generated by fossil-fuel power plants [1]. One technical solution is to increase the steam turbine inlet temperature to 700°C. This, however, requires the use of nickel-based superalloys. Only these alloys satisfy all the requirements with regard to high-temperature, corrosion and oxidation resistance and creep behavior [2], [3]. Due to their relatively poor machinability, forgeability and high material costs compared to the steel-based alloys they are to replace, a more effective welding technology is needed to overcome the disadvantages of conventional welding technologies, i.e. large quantities of filler metal required and high energy input per unit length resulting in distortion and the potential reduction of high-temperature properties

User, Use & Utility Research - The Digital User as New Design Perspective in Business and Information Systems Engineering

Business and Information Systems Engineer- ing (BISE) is at a turning point. Planning, de- signing, developing and operating IT used to be a management task of a few elites in pub- lic ad-ministrations and corporations. But the continuous digitization of nearly all areas of life changes the IT landscape fundamentally. Success in this new era requires putting the human perspective – the digital user – at the very heart of the new digitized service-led economy. BISE faces not just a temporary trend but a complex socio-technical phenomenon with far-reaching implications. The challenges are manifold and have major consequences for all stakeholders, both in information systems and management research as well as in practice. Corporate processes have to be re-designed from the ground up, starting with the user’s perspective, thus putting usage experience and utility of the individual center stage. The digital service economy leads to highly personalized application systems while orga- nizational functions are being fragmented. Entirely new ways of interacting with infor- mation systems, in particular beyond desk- top IT, are being invented and established. These fundamental challenges require novel approaches with regards to innovation and development methods as well as adequate concepts for enterprise or service system ar- chitectures. Gigantic amounts of data are be- ing generated at an accelerating rate by an in- creasing number of devices – data that need to be managed. In order to tackle these extraordinary chal- lenges we introduce ‘user, use & utility’ as a new field of BISE that focuses primarily on the digital user, his or her usage behavior and the utility associated with system usage in the digitized service-led economy. The research objectives encompass the de- velopment of theories, methods and tools for systematic requirement elicitation, sys- tems design, and business development for successful Business and Information Systems Engineering in a digitized economy – infor- mation systems that digital users enjoy us- ing. This challenge calls for leveraging in- sights from various scientific disciplines such as Design, Engineering, Computer Science, Psychology and Sociology. BISE can provide an integrated perspective, thereby assuming a pivotal role within the digitized service led economy

Fatal attraction: a critique of Carl Schmitt's international political and legal theory

The ongoing Schmitt revival has extended Carl Schmitt's reach over the fields of international legal and political theory. Neo-Schmittians suggest that his international thought provides a new reading of the history of international law and order, which validates the explanatory power of his theoretical premises – the concept of the political, political decisionism, and concrete-order-thinking. Against this background, this article mounts a systematic reappraisal of Schmitt's international thought in a historical perspective. The argument is that his work requires re-contextualization as the intellectual product of an ultra-intense moment in Schmitt's friend/enemy distinction. It inscribed Hitler's ‘spatial revolution’ into a full-scale reinterpretation of Europe's geopolitical history, grounded in land appropriations, which legitimized Nazi Germany's wars of conquest. Consequently, Schmitt's elevation of the early modern nomos as the model for civilized warfare – the ‘golden age’ of international law – against which American legal universalism can be portrayed as degenerated, is conceptually and empirically flawed. Schmitt devised a politically motivated set of theoretical premises to provide a historical counter-narrative against liberal normativism, which generated defective history. The reconstruction of this history reveals the explanatory limits of his theoretical vocabulary – friend/enemy binary, sovereignty-as-exception, nomos/universalism – for past and present analytical purposes. Schmitt's defective analytics and problematic history compromise the standing of his work for purposes of international theory