Energy Costs of Chair Sitting and Standing Video Exercises in Chinese Older Adults, Ages 60 to 89 years

International Journal of Exercise Science 16(7): 814-827, 2023. Home-based video exercise interventions improve older adults’ physiological performance and functional capacity. Little is known about the energy costs of video exercises in older adults. The Compendium of Physical Activities (PAs) has few items with PA metabolic equivalents (METs) in older adults. This study measured the energy costs of four chair and two standing exercises (sitting Tai Chi, Yoga, mobility ball, aerobics: standing, slow aerobics, and fast aerobics). Fifteen females and 14 males, 62-87 years (M ± SD, 73 ± 7.7 years), were categorized into three age groups (60-69, 70-79, 80-89). Oxygen uptake (VO2, ml.min-1.kg-1) and heart rate (HR, b.min-1) were measured by indirect calorimetry and heart rate monitor. MET values were calculated as standard- (activity VO2/3.5), rounded- (significant digit rounded to 0, 3, 5, 8), and corrected METs (individual resting metabolism). Results showed chair Yoga, Tai Chi, and mobility ball ranged from 2.0 to 2.8 rounded METs (light intensity). Chair- and standing aerobics ranged from 3.0 to 4.3 rounded METs (moderate intensity). Averaged HR ranged from 91.9 ± 12.7 b.min-1 to 115.4 ± 19.1 b.min-1 for all PAs. Corrected METs were higher than standard METs (P \u3c .05). Standard METs were similar between age groups (P \u3e .05). In conclusion, this study is unique as it measures the energy costs of sitting and standing video exercises that can be performed by older adults at home or in an exercise facility. Knowing the energy costs of PAs for older adults can provide exercises interventions to prevent sedentary lifestyles

Long-term fenofibrate treatment impaired glucose-stimulated insulin secretion and up-regulated pancreatic NF-kappa B and iNOS expression in monosodium glutamate-induced obese rats: Is that a latent disadvantage?

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Fenofibrate, a PPAR alpha agonist, has been widely used in clinics as lipid-regulating agent. PPAR alpha is known to be expressed in many organs including pancreatic beta cells and regulate genes involved in fatty acid metabolism. Some reports based on cell lines or animals have provided evidences that PPAR alpha agonists may affect (increased or suppressed) beta cell insulin secretion, and several studies are producing interesting but still debated results.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>In this research, we investigated the long term effects of fenofibrate on beta cell function in a metabolic syndrome animal model, monosodium glutamate (MSG) induced obese rats. Obese MSG rats were administered by gavage with fenofibrate at a dose of 100 mg/kg for 12 weeks. Oral glucose tolerance and insulin tolerance tests were performed to evaluate glucose metabolism and insulin sensitivity. We have used the hyperglycemic clamp technique to evaluate the capacity of beta cell insulin secretion. This technique provides an unbiased approach to understand the beta cell function in vivo. The changes of gene and protein expression in the pancreas and islets were also analyzed by Real-Time-PCR, Western blot and immunostaining.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Fenofibrate reduced the plasma lipid levels within a few days, and showed no beneficial effects on glucose homeostasis or insulin sensitivity in obese MSG rats. But the animals treated with fenofibrate exhibited significantly decreased fasting plasma insulin and impaired insulin secretory response to glucose stimulation. Further studies confirmed that fenofibrate increased MDA level and decreased total ATPase activity in pancreatic mitochondrion, accompanied by the upregulation of iNOS and NF-kappa B and TNF alpha expression in pancreatic islets of obese MSG rats.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Long-term fenofibrate treatment disrupted beta cell function, and impaired glucose-stimulated insulin secretion in obese MSG rats, perhaps to some extent associated with the activated inflammatory pathway and increased formation of oxidative products, especially the up-regulation of NF-kappa B and iNOS expression in islets.</p

SHEARING BEHAVIOR OF STRUCTURAL INSULATED PANEL WALL SHELLED WITH BAMBOO SCRIMBER

In this study, shearing behavior of a structural insulated panel (SIP) wall, which consisted of a Styrofoam core board, shell panel of bamboo scrimber, and frame of Spruce–Pine–Fir dimension lumber, was tested under monotonic and cyclic loads. Results showed that the SIP wall failed at similar positions under two loading modes, although more serious destruction occurred under cyclic than monotonic load. There was a linear relationship between load and displacement at the initial loading stage, which indicated that the wall worked under the elastic state. At a later loading stage, bearing capacity and rigidity decreased as a result of wall slip. Shearing strength under monotonic and cyclic loads was 20.0 and 15.8 kNm-1, respectively, which met the requirement of the standard code for design of timber structures. Energy consumption of the SIP wall covered with bamboo scrimber was 11,556.6 Jm-1

Managing a mega-project to explore and enhance careers: insights from Global Entrepreneurial Talent Management 3

Contemporary careers are changing and face many challenges. This creates a need for innovative cross-cultural and multidisciplinary research. In this chapter, twenty-three participants in a European/South Korean research mega-project provide an overview of their diverse experiences of trans-national, trans-sectoral, and trans-generational work. First, the project’s architects explore the context and rationale in five countries, selection of partners, securing funding and the underpinning principles of ‘strategic entrepreneurship’ and ‘multi-sociation’. Key workstream leaders then outline the project content, including diplomacy in research design, reflecting gender, ensuring impact, capturing learning, communicating to various audiences. Major aspects of Implementation are described: quality management, managing academics and risk, transnational and trans-sectorial working (between academia and industry), novel methodologies and finally the career implications for PhD students involved. These are honest and pragmatic reflections on the way to best practice

TLE3 represses colorectal cancer proliferation by inhibiting MAPK and AKT signaling pathways

Primer Sequences used for RT-qPCR (5’ to 3’). (DOCX 13 kb

An integrated bioinformatics analysis reveals divergent evolutionary pattern of oil biosynthesis in high- and low-oil plants

Seed oils provide a renewable source of food, biofuel and industrial raw materials that is important for humans. Although many genes and pathways for acyl-lipid metabolism have been identified, little is known about whether there is a specific mechanism for high-oil content in high-oil plants. Based on the distinct differences in seed oil content between four high-oil dicots (20~50%) and three low-oil grasses (<3%), comparative genome, transcriptome and differential expression analyses were used to investigate this mechanism. Among 4,051 dicot-specific soybean genes identified from 252,443 genes in the seven species, 54 genes were shown to directly participate in acyl-lipid metabolism, and 93 genes were found to be associated with acyl-lipid metabolism. Among the 93 dicot-specific genes, 42 and 27 genes, including CBM20-like SBDs and GPT2, participate in carbohydrate degradation and transport, respectively. 40 genes highly up-regulated during seed oil rapid accumulation period are mainly involved in initial fatty acid synthesis, triacylglyceride assembly and oil-body formation, for example, ACCase, PP, DGAT1, PDAT1, OLEs and STEROs, which were also found to be differentially expressed between high- and low-oil soybean accessions. Phylogenetic analysis revealed distinct differences of oleosin in patterns of gene duplication and loss between high-oil dicots and low-oil grasses. In addition, seed-specific GmGRF5, ABI5 and GmTZF4 were predicted to be candidate regulators in seed oil accumulation. This study facilitates future research on lipid biosynthesis and potential genetic improvement of seed oil content

Potential of Core-Collapse Supernova Neutrino Detection at JUNO

JUNO is an underground neutrino observatory under construction in Jiangmen, China. It uses 20kton liquid scintillator as target, which enables it to detect supernova burst neutrinos of a large statistics for the next galactic core-collapse supernova (CCSN) and also pre-supernova neutrinos from the nearby CCSN progenitors. All flavors of supernova burst neutrinos can be detected by JUNO via several interaction channels, including inverse beta decay, elastic scattering on electron and proton, interactions on C12 nuclei, etc. This retains the possibility for JUNO to reconstruct the energy spectra of supernova burst neutrinos of all flavors. The real time monitoring systems based on FPGA and DAQ are under development in JUNO, which allow prompt alert and trigger-less data acquisition of CCSN events. The alert performances of both monitoring systems have been thoroughly studied using simulations. Moreover, once a CCSN is tagged, the system can give fast characterizations, such as directionality and light curve

Detection of the Diffuse Supernova Neutrino Background with JUNO

As an underground multi-purpose neutrino detector with 20 kton liquid scintillator, Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory (JUNO) is competitive with and complementary to the water-Cherenkov detectors on the search for the diffuse supernova neutrino background (DSNB). Typical supernova models predict 2-4 events per year within the optimal observation window in the JUNO detector. The dominant background is from the neutral-current (NC) interaction of atmospheric neutrinos with 12C nuclei, which surpasses the DSNB by more than one order of magnitude. We evaluated the systematic uncertainty of NC background from the spread of a variety of data-driven models and further developed a method to determine NC background within 15\% with {\it{in}} {\it{situ}} measurements after ten years of running. Besides, the NC-like backgrounds can be effectively suppressed by the intrinsic pulse-shape discrimination (PSD) capabilities of liquid scintillators. In this talk, I will present in detail the improvements on NC background uncertainty evaluation, PSD discriminator development, and finally, the potential of DSNB sensitivity in JUNO

Robust estimation of bacterial cell count from optical density

Optical density (OD) is widely used to estimate the density of cells in liquid culture, but cannot be compared between instruments without a standardized calibration protocol and is challenging to relate to actual cell count. We address this with an interlaboratory study comparing three simple, low-cost, and highly accessible OD calibration protocols across 244 laboratories, applied to eight strains of constitutive GFP-expressing E. coli. Based on our results, we recommend calibrating OD to estimated cell count using serial dilution of silica microspheres, which produces highly precise calibration (95.5% of residuals &lt;1.2-fold), is easily assessed for quality control, also assesses instrument effective linear range, and can be combined with fluorescence calibration to obtain units of Molecules of Equivalent Fluorescein (MEFL) per cell, allowing direct comparison and data fusion with flow cytometry measurements: in our study, fluorescence per cell measurements showed only a 1.07-fold mean difference between plate reader and flow cytometry data