Получение оксицеллюлозы из хлопковых волокон действием различных окислителей

Проблематика. Розробка технологій виробництва різних за призначенням матеріалів із альтернативних нафті й газу природних джерел сировини, зокрема з целюлози. Мета дослідження. Визначення оптимальних значень технологічних параметрів процесу окиснення бавовняних волокон дією різних окисників – пероксиду водню, Оксону, PINO – на показники якості оксицелюлози. Методика реалізації. Окиснення механічно подрібнених бавовняних волокон розчинами пероксиду водню, Оксону і PINO проводили з барботуванням повітря за допомогою компресора через розчин целюлози в круглодонній колбі, зануреній у водяну баню необхідної температури. Для визначення оптимальних параметрів процесу використовували методи планування експерименту та оптимізації. Результати дослідження. Досліджені окисники для одержання оксицелюлози із бавовняних волокон за збільшенням ефективності розміщуються в такий ряд: пероксид водню – Оксон – PINO. Методом повного факторного експерименту визначено рівняння регресії, які адекватно описують процес отримання оксицелюлози із волокон бавовни дією Оксону і PINO, а за допомогою методу Гаусса–Зейделя – оптимальні значення технологічних параметрів процесу одержання оксицелюлози. Показано, що проведення процесу окиснення бавовняних волокон за оптимальними значеннями технологічних параметрів дає змогу отримати бавовняну оксицелюлозу із вмістом карбоксильних груп до 3 %. Висновки. Одержана оксицелюлоза може використовуватися в медицині як один із компонентів нетоксичних, кровоспинних, антимікробних матеріалів.Background. Development of production technologies of materials for various purposes of alternatives to crude oil and natural gas sources of raw material, in particular cellulose. Objective. To determine the optimal values of technological parameters of cotton fiber oxidation by action of various oxidants — hydrogen peroxide, Oxone, PINO — on quality of oxycellulose. Methods. Oxidation of mechanically chopped cotton fibers by solution of hydrogen peroxide, Oxone and PINO was performed with air bubbling by the compressor through solution of cellulose in round-bottomed flask immersed in a water bath of the required temperature. The methods of experiment planning and optimization were used to determine the optimum process parameters. Results. Studied oxidants for oxycellulose of cotton fibers to increase efficiency are in the following order: hydrogen peroxide — Oxone — PINO. The method of full factorial experiment was used to determine the adequate regression equations that describe the process of oxycellulose obtaining by action of Oxone and PINO, and the Gauss-Seidel method was used to determine the optimal values of technological parameters of oxycellulose obtaining. It is shown that oxidation of cotton fibers for optimal values of technological parameters allows getting oxycellulose with the content of carboxyl groups to 3 %. Conclusions. The obtained oxycellulose can be used in medicine as a component of non-toxic, hemostatic, antimicrobial materials.Проблематика. Разработка технологий производства различных по назначению материалов из альтернативных нефти и газу природных источников сырья, в частности из целлюлозы. Цель исследования. Определение оптимальных значений технологических параметров процесса окисления хлопковых волокон действием различных окислителей – пероксида водорода, Оксона, PINO – на показатели качества оксицелюлозы. Методика реализации. Окисление механически измельченных хлопковых волокон растворами пероксида водорода, Оксона и PINO проводили с барботированием воздуха при помощи компрессора через раствор целлюлозы в круголодонной колбе, погруженной в водяную баню необходимой температуры. Для определения оптимальных параметров процесса использовали методы планирования эксперимента и оптимизации. Результаты исследования. Исследованные окислители для получения оксицеллюлозы из хлопковых волокон по увеличению эффективности располагаются в следующий ряд: пероксид водорода – Оксон – PINO. Методом полного факторного эксперимента определены уравнения регрессии, адекватно описывающие процесс получения оксицеллюлозы из волокон хлопка действием Оксона и PINO, а с помощью метода Гаусса–Зейделя – оптимальные значения технологических параметров процесса получения оксицеллюлозы. Показано, что проведение процесса окисления хлопковых волокон по оптимальным значениям технологических параметров позволяет получить оксицеллюлозу с содержанием карбоксильных групп до 3 %. Выводы. Полученная оксицеллюлоза может использоваться в медицине как один из компонентов нетоксичных, кровоостанавливающих, антимикробных материалов

Average Household Exposure to Newspaper Coverage about the Harmful Effects of Hormone Therapy and Population-Based Declines in Hormone Therapy Use

BACKGROUND: The news media facilitated the rapid dissemination of the findings from the estrogen plus progestin therapy arm of the Women’s Health Initiative (EPT-WHI). OBJECTIVE: To examine the relationship between the potential exposure to newspaper coverage and subsequent hormone therapy (HT) use. DESIGN/POPULATION: Population-based cohort of women receiving mammography at 7 sites (327,144 postmenopausal women). MEASUREMENTS: The outcome was the monthly prevalence of self-reported HT use. Circulation data for local, regional, and national newspapers was used to create zip-code level measures of the estimated average household exposure to newspaper coverage that reported the harmful effects of HT in July 2002. RESULTS: Women had an average potential household exposure of 1.4 articles. There was substantial variation in the level of average household exposure to newspaper coverage; women from rural sites received less than women from urban sites. Use of HT declined for all average potential exposure groups after the publication of the EPT-WHI. HT prevalence among women who lived in areas where there was an average household exposure of at least 3 articles declined significantly more (45 to 27%) compared to women who lived in areas with <1 article (43 to 31%) during each of the subsequent 5 months (relative risks 0.86–0.92; p < .006 for all). CONCLUSIONS: Greater average household exposure to newspaper coverage about the harms associated with HT was associated with a large population-based decline in HT use. Further studies should examine whether media coverage directly influences the health behavior of individual women

MRI roadmap-guided transendocardial delivery of exon-skipping recombinant adeno-associated virus restores dystrophin expression in a canine model of Duchenne muscular dystrophy

Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) cardiomyopathy patients currently have no therapeutic options. We evaluated catheter-based transendocardial delivery of a recombinant adeno-associated virus (rAAV) expressing a small nuclear U7 RNA (U7smOPT) complementary to specific cis-acting splicing signals. Eliminating specific exons restores the open-reading frame resulting in translation of truncated dystrophin protein. To test this approach in a clinically relevant DMD model, golden retriever muscular dystrophy (GRMD) dogs received serotype 6 rAAV-U7smOPT via the intracoronary or transendocardial route. Transendocardial injections were performed with an injection-tipped catheter and fluoroscopic guidance using X-ray fused with MRI (XFM) roadmaps. Three months after treatment, tissues were analyzed for DNA, RNA, dystrophin protein, and histology. Whereas intracoronary delivery did not result in effective transduction, transendocardial injections, XFM guidance, enabled 30±10 non-overlapping injections per animal. Vector DNA was detectable in all samples tested and ranged from 3000 vector genome copies per cell. RNA analysis, western blot analysis, and immunohistology demonstrated extensive expression of skipped RNA and dystrophin protein in the treated myocardium. Left ventricular function remained unchanged over a three-month follow-up. These results demonstrated that effective transendocardial delivery of rAAV-U7smOPT was achieved using XFM. This approach restores an open reading frame for dystrophin in affected dogs and has potential clinical utility

Estimation of Isolation Times of the Island Species in the Drosophila simulans Complex from Multilocus DNA Sequence Data

Background: The Drosophila simulans species complex continues to serve as an important model system for the study of new species formation. The complex is comprised of the cosmopolitan species, D. simulans, and two island endemics, D. mauritiana and D. sechellia. A substantial amount of effort has gone into reconstructing the natural history of the complex, in part to infer the context in which functional divergence among the species has arisen. In this regard, a key parameter to be estimated is the initial isolation time (t) of each island species. Loci in regions of low recombination have lower divergence within the complex than do other loci, yet divergence from D. melanogaster is similar for both classes. This might reflect gene flow of the lowrecombination loci subsequent to initial isolation, but it might also reflect differential effects of changing population size on the two recombination classes of loci when the low-recombination loci are subject to genetic hitchhiking or pseudohitchhiking Methodology/Principal Findings: New DNA sequence variation data for 17 loci corroborate the prior observation from 13 loci that DNA sequence divergence is reduced in genes of low recombination. Two models are presented to estimate t and other relevant parameters (substitution rate correction factors in lineages leading to the island species and, in the case of the 4-parameter model, the ratio of ancestral to extant effective population size) from the multilocus DNA sequence data. Conclusions/Significance: In general, it appears that both island species were isolated at about the same time, here estimated at,250,000 years ago. It also appears that the difference in divergence patterns of genes in regions of low an

Gene Expression Disruptions of Organism versus Organ in Drosophila Species Hybrids

Hybrid dysfunctions, such as sterility, may result in part from disruptions in the regulation of gene expression. Studies of hybrids within the Drosophila simulans clade have reported genes expressed above or below the expression observed in their parent species, and such misexpression is associated with male sterility in multigenerational backcross hybrids. However, these studies often examined whole bodies rather than testes or had limited replication using less-sensitive but global techniques. Here, we use a new RNA isolation technique to re-examine hybrid gene expression disruptions in both testes and whole bodies from single Drosophila males by real-time quantitative RT-PCR. We find two early-spermatogenesis transcripts are underexpressed in hybrid whole-bodies but not in assays of testes alone, while two late-spermatogenesis transcripts seem to be underexpressed in both whole-bodies and testes alone. Although the number of transcripts surveyed is limited, these results provide some support for a previous hypothesis that the spermatogenesis pathway in these sterile hybrids may be disrupted sometime after the expression of the early meiotic arrest genes

Risk of breast cancer in young women in relation to body size and weight gain in adolescence and early adulthood

Findings have been inconsistent on effects of adolescent body size and adult weight gain on risk of breast cancer in young women. These relations were examined in a population-based case control study of 1590 women less than 45 years of age newly diagnosed with breast cancer during 1990–1992 in three areas of the US and an age-matched control group of 1390 women. Height and weight were measured at interview and participants asked to recall information about earlier body size. Logistic regression was used to estimate the relative risk of breast cancer adjusted for other risk factors. Women who were either much heavier or lighter than average in adolescence or at age 20 were at reduced risk. Weight gain after age 20 resulted in reduced risk, but the effect was confined to early-stage and, more specifically, lower grade breast cancer. Neither the risk reduction nor the variation by breast cancer stage or grade was explained by the method of cancer detection or by prior mammography history. These findings suggest that relations between breast cancer risk in young women and body weight at different ages is complex and that the risk reduction with adult weight gain is confined to less aggressive cancers. © 1999 Cancer Research Campaig

Recent physician strike in Israel: a health system under stress?

In 2011, a series of physician strikes in Israel followed eight months of unsuccessful negotiations with the government (Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Finance). Strikes by physicians may be a warning that all is not well in a health system and protestors have claimed that they signify a system failure. In contrast, others argue that strikes have been a feature of the Israeli health system from its inception and should not be a cause for alarm. This paper analyses the Israeli health system from the perspective of the strikers' demands using the World Health Organisation's six health system building blocks as a framework, including: service delivery; health workforce; information; medical products, vaccines and technologies; leadership and governance; and financing. While we recognise that the immediate causes of the 2011 strikes were concerns about salaries and working conditions, we argue that a complex set of interacting factors underlie the strikers' demands, resonating with issues relating to five of the WHO building blocks. We argue that of the five, three are most significant and limit progress with all the others: a disgruntled health workforce, many of whom believe that striking is the only way to be heard; a lack of leadership by the government in understanding and responding to physicians' concerns; and a purported information insufficiency, manifest as a lack of critique and analysis that may have prevented those at the top from making a reliable diagnosis of the system's problems. This paper argues that there are cracks within the Israeli health system but that these are not irresolvable. The Israeli health system is a relatively new and popular health system, but there are no grounds for complacency

The impact of physical activity on fatigue and quality of life in lung cancer patients: a randomised controlled trial protocol

Background: People with lung cancer have substantial symptom burden and more unmet needs than the general cancer population. Physical activity (PA) has been shown to positively influence quality of life (QOL), fatigue and daily functioning in the curative treatment of people with breast and colorectal cancers and lung diseases, as well as in palliative settings. A randomised controlled trial (RCT) is needed to determine if lung cancer patients benefit from structured PA intervention. The Physical Activity in Lung Cancer (PAL) trial is designed to evaluate the impact of a 2-month PA intervention on fatigue and QOL in patients with non-resectable lung cancer. Biological mechanisms will also be studied.Methods/design: A multi-centre RCT with patients randomised to usual care or a 2-month PA programme, involving supervised PA sessions including a behavioural change component and home-based PA. QOL questionnaires, disease and functional status and body composition will be assessed at baseline, 2, 4 and 6 months follow-up. The primary endpoint is comparative levels of fatigue between the 2 arms. Secondary endpoints include: QOL, functional abilities and physical function. Exploratory endpoints include: anxiety, depression, distress, dyspnoea, PA behaviour, fitness, hospitalisations, survival, cytokines and insulin-like growth factor levels.Discussion: This study will provide high-level evidence of the effect of PA programmes on cancer-related fatigue and QOL in patients with advanced lung cancer. If positive, the study has the potential to change care for people with cancer using a simple, inexpensive intervention to improve their QOL and help them maintain independent function for as long as possible.Trial registration: Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry No. ACTRN12609000971235. © 2012 Dhillon et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd