Dipeptidyl peptidase IV inhibitory activity of protein hydrolyzates from Amaranthus hypochondriacus L. Grain and their influence on postprandial glycemia in Streptozotocin-induced diabetic mice.

Background: Type 2 diabetes is a chronic metabolic disorder. Recently, dipeptidyl peptidase IV (DPP-IV) inhibitors that protect incretin hormones from being cleaved by DPP-IV have been used as drugs to control glycemia. This study examined the potential hypoglycemic effect of amaranth grain storage protein hydrolyzates to control postprandial glycemia in streptozotocin (STZ)-induced diabetic mice as a model system of diabetes, and their inhibition mode on the enzyme.Material and Methods: Amaranth grain proteins were isolated and hydrolyzed and fractionated by gel filtration. The DPP-IV inhibitory activity of hydrolyzates as well as their kinetic parameters were assessed. Selected hydrolyzates (300 mg/kg body weight) were administered in a single administration-study (SAS) or in the same concentration during a four-week chronic daily dosing study (FWCDDS) in order to observe the effect on postprandial glycemia of diabetic mice.Results: Albumin 1, Globulin and Glutelin hydrolyzates (GluH) competitively inhibited DPP-IV in vitro (Ki= 0.11-5.61 mg/mL). GluH called Glu.III (IC50= 0.12±0.01 mg/mL) considerably inhibited DPP-IV activity. GluH identified as GluH24 improved glucose tolerance significantly (p<0.05), with remarkable increments in plasma insulin in SAS and FWCDDS (1.25 and 2.25 mg/mL, respectively). This effect could be compared to the one obtained from the mice group that was administered Sitagliptin (580 mg/kg body weight) as positive control (p<0.05).Conclusion: Amaranth Glutelin hydrolyzates yielded the highest enzyme inhibitory activity reported not only in vitro, but also in the STZ-induced diabetic mice in order to control postprandial glycemia.Key words: Amaranth protein hydrolyzate, DPP-IV inhibitory activity, diabete

Review of 1,447 Breast Augmentation Patients Using PERTHESE Silicone Implants

Introduction A survey of surgeons in Brazil on their experience with PERTHESE silicone breast implants was performed. Materials and methods Surgeons that used PERTHESE implants between 2002 and 2008 were surveyed on the shape and volume of the implants used, surgical incision site, surgical plane of insertion, key postoperative complications, and surgeon and patient satisfaction. Results The survey had a response rate of 20%, with ten surgeons reporting data on 1447 patients. The majority of the implants used were 200-300 cc, round, and high profile. Preference for the traditional inframammary incision site (47% of patients) was favored over transaxillary (33%) and periareolar (19%), and both subglandular (55%) and submuscular (44%) planes of insertion were used. Over 97% of surgeons and patients were satisfied with the results and surgeons indicated that the implants were easy to use. Conclusions This review demonstrates that these implants are safe, maybe easier to introduce than other implants, and result in a high level of surgeon and patient satisfaction.341111

Learning to segment when experts disagree

Recent years have seen an increasing use of supervised learning methods for segmentation tasks. However, the predictive performance of these algorithms depend on the quality of labels, especially in medical image domain, where both the annotation cost and inter-observer variability are high. In a typical annotation collection process, different clinical experts provide their estimates of the “true” segmentation labels under the influence of their levels of expertise and biases. Treating these noisy labels blindly as the ground truth can adversely affect the performance of supervised segmentation models. In this work, we present a neural network architecture for jointly learning, from noisy observations alone, both the reliability of individual annotators and the true segmentation label distributions. The separation of the annotators’ characteristics and true segmentation label is achieved by encouraging the estimated annotators to be maximally unreliable while achieving high fidelity with the training data. Our method can also be viewed as a translation of STAPLE, an established label aggregation framework proposed in Warfield et al. [1] to the supervised learning paradigm. We demonstrate first on a generic segmentation task using MNIST data and then adapt for usage with MRI scans of multiple sclerosis (MS) patients for lesion labelling. Our method shows considerable improvement over the relevant baselines on both datasets in terms of segmentation accuracy and estimation of annotator reliability, particularly when only a single label is available per image. An open-source implementation of our approach can be found at https://github.com/UCLBrain/MSLS

Measurement of the inclusive and dijet cross-sections of b-jets in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV with the ATLAS detector

The inclusive and dijet production cross-sections have been measured for jets containing b-hadrons (b-jets) in proton-proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of sqrt(s) = 7 TeV, using the ATLAS detector at the LHC. The measurements use data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 34 pb^-1. The b-jets are identified using either a lifetime-based method, where secondary decay vertices of b-hadrons in jets are reconstructed using information from the tracking detectors, or a muon-based method where the presence of a muon is used to identify semileptonic decays of b-hadrons inside jets. The inclusive b-jet cross-section is measured as a function of transverse momentum in the range 20 < pT < 400 GeV and rapidity in the range |y| < 2.1. The bbbar-dijet cross-section is measured as a function of the dijet invariant mass in the range 110 < m_jj < 760 GeV, the azimuthal angle difference between the two jets and the angular variable chi in two dijet mass regions. The results are compared with next-to-leading-order QCD predictions. Good agreement is observed between the measured cross-sections and the predictions obtained using POWHEG + Pythia. MC@NLO + Herwig shows good agreement with the measured bbbar-dijet cross-section. However, it does not reproduce the measured inclusive cross-section well, particularly for central b-jets with large transverse momenta.Comment: 10 pages plus author list (21 pages total), 8 figures, 1 table, final version published in European Physical Journal

Search for new phenomena in final states with an energetic jet and large missing transverse momentum in pp collisions at √ s = 8 TeV with the ATLAS detector

Results of a search for new phenomena in final states with an energetic jet and large missing transverse momentum are reported. The search uses 20.3 fb−1 of √ s = 8 TeV data collected in 2012 with the ATLAS detector at the LHC. Events are required to have at least one jet with pT > 120 GeV and no leptons. Nine signal regions are considered with increasing missing transverse momentum requirements between Emiss T > 150 GeV and Emiss T > 700 GeV. Good agreement is observed between the number of events in data and Standard Model expectations. The results are translated into exclusion limits on models with either large extra spatial dimensions, pair production of weakly interacting dark matter candidates, or production of very light gravitinos in a gauge-mediated supersymmetric model. In addition, limits on the production of an invisibly decaying Higgs-like boson leading to similar topologies in the final state are presente

Jet energy measurement with the ATLAS detector in proton-proton collisions at root s=7 TeV

The jet energy scale and its systematic uncertainty are determined for jets measured with the ATLAS detector at the LHC in proton-proton collision data at a centre-of-mass energy of √s = 7TeV corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 38 pb-1. Jets are reconstructed with the anti-kt algorithm with distance parameters R=0. 4 or R=0. 6. Jet energy and angle corrections are determined from Monte Carlo simulations to calibrate jets with transverse momenta pT≥20 GeV and pseudorapidities {pipe}η{pipe}<4. 5. The jet energy systematic uncertainty is estimated using the single isolated hadron response measured in situ and in test-beams, exploiting the transverse momentum balance between central and forward jets in events with dijet topologies and studying systematic variations in Monte Carlo simulations. The jet energy uncertainty is less than 2. 5 % in the central calorimeter region ({pipe}η{pipe}<0. 8) for jets with 60≤pT<800 GeV, and is maximally 14 % for pT<30 GeV in the most forward region 3. 2≤{pipe}η{pipe}<4. 5. The jet energy is validated for jet transverse momenta up to 1 TeV to the level of a few percent using several in situ techniques by comparing a well-known reference such as the recoiling photon pT, the sum of the transverse momenta of tracks associated to the jet, or a system of low-pT jets recoiling against a high-pT jet. More sophisticated jet calibration schemes are presented based on calorimeter cell energy density weighting or hadronic properties of jets, aiming for an improved jet energy resolution and a reduced flavour dependence of the jet response. The systematic uncertainty of the jet energy determined from a combination of in situ techniques is consistent with the one derived from single hadron response measurements over a wide kinematic range. The nominal corrections and uncertainties are derived for isolated jets in an inclusive sample of high-pT jets. Special cases such as event topologies with close-by jets, or selections of samples with an enhanced content of jets originating from light quarks, heavy quarks or gluons are also discussed and the corresponding uncertainties are determined. © 2013 CERN for the benefit of the ATLAS collaboration

Search for R-parity-violating supersymmetry in events with four or more leptons in sqrt(s) =7 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector

A search for new phenomena in final states with four or more leptons (electrons or muons) is presented. The analysis is based on 4.7 fb−1 of $\sqrt{s}=7\;\mathrm{TeV}$ proton-proton collisions delivered by the Large Hadron Collider and recorded with the ATLAS detector. Observations are consistent with Standard Model expectations in two signal regions: one that requires moderate values of missing transverse momentum and another that requires large effective mass. The results are interpreted in a simplified model of R-parity-violating supersymmetry in which a 95% CL exclusion region is set for charged wino masses up to 540 GeV. In an R-parity-violating MSUGRA/CMSSM model, values of m 1/2 up to 820 GeV are excluded for 10 < tan β < 40

Search for high-mass resonances decaying to dilepton final states in pp collisions at s√=7 TeV with the ATLAS detector

The ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider is used to search for high-mass resonances decaying to an electron-positron pair or a muon-antimuon pair. The search is sensitive to heavy neutral Z′ gauge bosons, Randall-Sundrum gravitons, Z * bosons, techni-mesons, Kaluza-Klein Z/γ bosons, and bosons predicted by Torsion models. Results are presented based on an analysis of pp collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 7 TeV corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 4.9 fb−1 in the e + e − channel and 5.0 fb−1 in the μ + μ −channel. A Z ′ boson with Standard Model-like couplings is excluded at 95 % confidence level for masses below 2.22 TeV. A Randall-Sundrum graviton with coupling k/MPl=0.1 is excluded at 95 % confidence level for masses below 2.16 TeV. Limits on the other models are also presented, including Technicolor and Minimal Z′ Models