The association of Social Anxiety Disorder, Alcohol Use Disorder and reproduction: Results from four nationally representative samples of adults in the USA.

Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD) and Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD) are highly prevalent and frequently co-occur. The results of population studies suggest that SAD tends to precede AUD, and the results of laboratory studies suggest that alcohol use facilitates social behaviors in socially anxious individuals. Therefore, we posited that, in a modern context, a tendency to consume alcohol may be positively selected for among socially anxious individuals by its effect on the likelihood of finding a partner and reproducing. We tested the hypothesis that a higher proportion of individuals with a lifetime diagnosis of SAD and AUD reproduce (i.e., have at least one child) relative to individuals with SAD absent AUD in an individual participant meta-analysis based on over 65,000 adults derived from four nationally representative cross-sectional samples. We then cross-validated these findings against the results of a 10-year follow up of one of these surveys. Lifetime history of SAD was not associated with reproduction whereas lifetime history of AUD was positively associated with reproduction. There was no statistically detectable difference in the proportion of individuals with a lifetime history of SAD with or without AUD who reproduced. There was considerable heterogeneity in all of the analyses involving SAD, suggesting that there are likely to be other pertinent variables relating to SAD and reproduction that should be delineated

Repair, regenerative and supportive therapies of the annulus fibrosus: achievements and challenges

Lumbar discectomy is a very effective therapy for neurological decompression in patients suffering from sciatica due to hernia nuclei pulposus. However, high recurrence rates and persisting post-operative low back pain in these patients require serious attention. In the past decade, tissue engineering strategies have been developed mainly targeted to the regeneration of the nucleus pulposus (NP) of the intervertebral disc. Accompanying techniques that deal with the damaged annulus fibrous are now increasingly recognised as mandatory in order to prevent re-herniation to increase the potential of NP repair and to confine NP replacement therapies. In the current review, the requirements, achievements and challenges in this quickly emerging field of research are discussed

Inflammatory mechanisms in ischemic stroke: therapeutic approaches

Acute ischemic stroke is the third leading cause of death in industrialized countries and the most frequent cause of permanent disability in adults worldwide. Despite advances in the understanding of the pathophysiology of cerebral ischemia, therapeutic options remain limited. Only recombinant tissue-plasminogen activator (rt-PA) for thrombolysis is currently approved for use in the treatment of this devastating disease. However, its use is limited by its short therapeutic window (three hours), complications derived essentially from the risk of hemorrhage, and the potential damage from reperfusion/ischemic injury. Two important pathophysiological mechanisms involved during ischemic stroke are oxidative stress and inflammation. Brain tissue is not well equipped with antioxidant defenses, so reactive oxygen species and other free radicals/oxidants, released by inflammatory cells, threaten tissue viability in the vicinity of the ischemic core. This review will discuss the molecular aspects of oxidative stress and inflammation in ischemic stroke and potential therapeutic strategies that target neuroinflammation and the innate immune system. Currently, little is known about endogenous counterregulatory immune mechanisms. However, recent studies showing that regulatory T cells are major cerebroprotective immunomodulators after stroke suggest that targeting the endogenous adaptive immune response may offer novel promising neuroprotectant therapies

Vowel reduction in word-final position by early and late Spanish-English bilinguals

Vowel reduction is a prominent feature of American English, as well as other stress-timed languages. As a phonological process, vowel reduction neutralizes multiple vowel quality contrasts in unstressed syllables. For bilinguals whose native language is not characterized by large spectral and durational differences between tonic and atonic vowels, systematically reducing unstressed vowels to the central vowel space can be problematic. Failure to maintain this pattern of stressed-unstressed syllables in American English is one key element that contributes to a ?foreign accent? in second language speakers. Reduced vowels, or ?schwas,? have also been identified as particularly vulnerable to the co-articulatory effects of adjacent consonants. The current study examined the effects of adjacent sounds on the spectral and temporal qualities of schwa in word-final position. Three groups of English-speaking adults were tested: Miami-based monolingual English speakers, early Spanish-English bilinguals, and late Spanish-English bilinguals. Subjects performed a reading task to examine their schwa productions in fluent speech when schwas were preceded by consonants from various points of articulation. Results indicated that monolingual English and late Spanish-English bilingual groups produced targeted vowel qualities for schwa, whereas early Spanish-English bilinguals lacked homogeneity in their vowel productions. This extends prior claims that schwa is targetless for F2 position for native speakers to highly-proficient bilingual speakers. Though spectral qualities lacked homogeneity for early Spanish-English bilinguals, early bilinguals produced schwas with near native-like vowel duration. In contrast, late bilinguals produced schwas with significantly longer durations than English monolinguals or early Spanish-English bilinguals. Our results suggest that the temporal properties of a language are better integrated into second language phonologies than spectral qualities. Finally, we examined the role of nonstructural variables (e.g. linguistic history measures) in predicting native-like vowel duration. These factors included: Age of L2 learning, amount of L1 use, and self-reported bilingual dominance. Our results suggested that different sociolinguistic factors predicted native-like reduced vowel duration than predicted native-like vowel qualities across multiple phonetic environments

Homocysteine and Coronary Heart Disease: Meta-analysis of MTHFR Case-Control Studies, Avoiding Publication Bias

Robert Clarke and colleagues conduct a meta-analysis of unpublished datasets to examine the causal relationship between elevation of homocysteine levels in the blood and the risk of coronary heart disease. Their data suggest that an increase in homocysteine levels is not likely to result in an increase in risk of coronary heart disease

Entwicklung elektrochromer Elemente zur Strahlungsregelung von Solarfassaden Abschlussbericht

The development of the solar cladding panel is based upon the well known technology of electrochromic (EC-) glasses. It had to be investigated whether there is sense of proportion to apply EC-elements as solar cladding panels to control the absorption and reflection properties of a facade. A substantial result of the technical investigation was the realisation of an integrated diffuse reflector made of a highly pigmented solid electrolyte. Furthermore, a new sol-gel thin film process has been developed to coat large substrates with homogeneous and high quality optical films. This in combination with a highly transport UV curing polymeric electrolyte results in a economical process which is totally based on chemical treatment with exception of the ITO-electrode. However, the use of the ITO-front electrode limits the modulation depth of the cell to 20%. Simulation calculations show that 20% control level affects the temperature in a building sensitively but nevertheless the relatively low energy savings don't justify the application of these elements. At Dornier an advantageous alternative element was invented with transmissive-reflective switching characteristics which promises an increased efficiency when mounted in front of a facade. (orig.)Die Entwicklung der Solarfassade geht von der bekannten Technik der elektrochromen (EC-)Glaeser aus. Insbesondere sollte untersucht werden, ob sich EC-Elemente als Regelelemente mit Absorption-Reflexions-Schaltverhalten darstellen lassen und ob sich ein technisch und wirtschaftlich sinnvoller Einsatz in Fassaden ableiten laesst. Ein wesentliches Ergebnis der technologischen Arbeiten ist die Darstellung von Zellen mit integriertem Reflektor in Form hochpigmentierter remittierender Festelektrolyten. Sie zeigen geringe optische Verluste und gute elektrochemische Bestaendigkeit. Desweiteren ist es gelungen, zur Herstellung der Funktionsschichten Sol-Gel-Tauchverfahren zu entwickeln, mit denen sich auch grossflaechig sehr homogene und optisch hochwertige Filme abscheiden lassen. Zusammen mit einem hochtransparenten TV-aushaertbaren Polymerelektrolyten ergibt sich damit ein rationelles, mit Ausnahme der ITO-Elektroden, ganz auf chemischen Prozessen beruhendes Fertigungsverahren. Nicht zufriedenstellend geloest ist die Auslegung der transparenten ITO-Frontelektrode, die den energetischen Schalthub der hergestellten Elemente auf Werte von derzeit etwa 20% begrenzt. Simulationsrechnungen zeigen, dass mit einem Hub von 20% durchaus Regelungseffekte am Gebaeude erzielen lassen, jedoch reichen die vorliegenden Ergebnisse nicht aus, um den Einsatz von teuren EC-Absorbern zu rechtfertigen. Attraktiver erscheinen dagegen Elemente mit transmissiv-reflektiver Schaltfunktion, welche vor der Fassade angebracht werden und damit grundsaetzlich hoehere Systemwirkungsgrade vermitteln. (orig.)SIGLEAvailable from TIB Hannover: F96B725+a / FIZ - Fachinformationszzentrum Karlsruhe / TIB - Technische InformationsbibliothekBundesministerium fuer Bildung, Wissenschaft, Forschung und Technologie, Bonn (Germany)DEGerman