High Serum Uric Acid Increases the Risk for Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease: A Prospective Observational Study

Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is a common form of chronic liver disease, and serum uric acid is observed to be significantly elevated in NAFLD patients. However, whether this elevation is causal, a bystander, or a consequence of NAFLD remains unclear. We performed a population-based prospective study among the employees of Zhenhai Refining & Chemical Company Ltd., Ningbo, China to investigate whether the elevation of serum uric acid has a casual role for NAFLD. A total of 6890 initially NAFLD-free subjects were followed up for 3 years. Overall, 11.80% (813/6890) subjects developed NAFLD over 3 years of follow-up. The cumulative incidence of NAFLD increased with progressively higher baseline serum uric acid levels (the cumulative incidence was 7.2%, 9.5%, 11.5%, 13.8%, and 17.2% in quintile 1, quintile 2, 3, 4 and 5, respectively; P value for trend <0.001). Cox proportional hazards regression analyses showed that serum uric acid levels were independently and positively associated with the risk for incident NAFLD; the age-, gender- and metabolic syndrome adjusted hazard ratio (95% CI) for the subjects in quintile 2, 3, 4 and 5 versus quintile 1 was 1.18 (0.91–1.54), 1.32 (1.03–1.70), 1.39 (1.09–1.78) and 1.50 (1.18–1.92), respectively. Taken together, our prospective observational study showed that elevation of serum uric acid levels independently predicts increase risk for incident NAFLD

Researching Audio Description: Translation, Delivery and New Scenarios

This project, Researching Audio Description: Translation, Delivery and New Scenarios (RAD), is born in the field of media accessibility as part of the wider area of audiovisual translation, but it imports elements from other fields, such as linguistics or psychology. Although accessibility is the general framework, RAD focuses specifically on one of its modalities, audio description (AD). AD is an intersemiotic translation in which visuals are translated into words for those who cannot access the visuals, either because of a contextual situation (not being in front of the TV screen) or because of a disability (persons with sight loss). In particular, the project will focus on four main areas and objectives: a) the analysis of AD delivery, with a focus on prosodic features, and identifying user preferences in relation to voice delivery; b) the study of AD translation as a creation process in under researched language pairs, and testing user reception; c) the analysis of the presence and potential application of AD in a scenario typically addressed to younger adults (video games), identifying user needs and requirements; d) the study of AD in opera, a scenario typically addressed to older adults, identifying user needs and requirements. The methodology of the project will combine descriptive research and experimental tests with users by means of questionnaires, interviews and/or focus groups. It is important to stress that different profiles are targeted as users of the AD, depending on the content and language: technologically capable younger adults would be the target audience for accessible video games; culturally-sensitive older adults are the expected audience of audio described opera, and translations into Chinese would be addressed to Chinese migrants. These users have different capabilities (technical, linguistic, etc.) and it remains to be seen whether these capabilities may have a bigger impact on their interaction with AD than their so-called disability. The complementary knowledge gained in these less prototypical environments may help us gain a better understanding of AD as a whole and will allow us to work towards a new model that better explains this accessibility practice. Finally, apart from generating new knowledge on accessibility from various interdisciplinary perspectives, the project will continue to raise awareness about AD and transfer knowledge to society and educational environments, with an active standardisation activity