‘She was Like “Don’t Try This” and “Don’t Drink This” and “Don’t Mix These”’: Older Siblings and the Transmission of Embodied Knowledge Surrounding Alcohol Consumption

© 2019 Sage Publications and YOUNG Editorial Group. This article draws on qualitative research conducted with 40 young people, aged 15–24, in the Chorlton and Wythenshawe, Manchester, UK. With a focus on alcohol consumption, this article shows how older siblings transmit embodied knowledge to younger siblings. This article finds that older siblings are an important source of protection for younger siblings when starting their drinking careers. Moreover, they play a fundamental role in facilitating open intragenerational dialogue surrounding alcohol consumption. Through highlighting the important role of older siblings in transmitting embodied knowledge to younger siblings during the transition to adulthood, this article argues that there is a need to encourage greater involvement of siblings in formal educational settings surrounding learning about important issues, such as: alcohol consumption; drug consumption; and relationships and sex education, to help ensure consistent messages

Towards a Standard Psychometric Diagnostic Interview for Subjects at Ultra High Risk of Psychosis: CAARMS versus SIPS.

Background. Several psychometric instruments are available for the diagnostic interview of subjects at ultra high risk (UHR) of psychosis. Their diagnostic comparability is unknown. Methods. All referrals to the OASIS (London) or CAMEO (Cambridgeshire) UHR services from May 13 to Dec 14 were interviewed for a UHR state using both the CAARMS 12/2006 and the SIPS 5.0. Percent overall agreement, kappa, the McNemar-Bowker χ (2) test, equipercentile methods, and residual analyses were used to investigate diagnostic outcomes and symptoms severity or frequency. A conversion algorithm (CONVERT) was validated in an independent UHR sample from the Seoul Youth Clinic (Seoul). Results. There was overall substantial CAARMS-versus-SIPS agreement in the identification of UHR subjects (n = 212, percent overall agreement = 86%; kappa = 0.781, 95% CI from 0.684 to 0.878; McNemar-Bowker test = 0.069), with the exception of the brief limited intermittent psychotic symptoms (BLIPS) subgroup. Equipercentile-linking table linked symptoms severity and frequency across the CAARMS and SIPS. The conversion algorithm was validated in 93 UHR subjects, showing excellent diagnostic accuracy (CAARMS to SIPS: ROC area 0.929; SIPS to CAARMS: ROC area 0.903). Conclusions. This study provides initial comparability data between CAARMS and SIPS and will inform ongoing multicentre studies and clinical guidelines for the UHR psychometric diagnostic interview.Peer Reviewe

Enzymatic hydrolysis of sorghum straw using native cellulase produced by T. reesei NCIM 992 under solid state fermentation using rice straw

Cellulose is a major constituent of renewable lignocellulosic waste available in large quantities and is considered the most important reservoir of carbon for the production of glucose, for alternative fuel and as a chemical feedstock. Over the past decade, the emphasis has been on the enzymatic hydrolysis of cellulose to glucose and the efficiency of which depends on source of cellulosic substrate, its composition, structure, pretreatment process, and reactor design. In the present study, efforts were made to produce cellulase enzyme using rice straw. The produced enzyme was used for the hydrolysis of selected lignocellulosic substrate, i.e., sorghum straw. When rice straw was used as a substrate for cellulase production under solid state fermentation, the highest enzyme activity obtained was 30.7 FPU/gds, using T. reesei NCIM 992. 25 FPU/g of cellulase was added to differently treated (native, alkali treated, alkali treated followed by 3% acid treated and alkali treated followed by 3 and 5% acid treated) sorghum straw and hydrolysis was carried out at 50 °C for 60 h. 42.5% hydrolysis was obtained after 36 h of incubation. Optimization of enzyme loading, substrate concentration, temperature, time and buffer yielded a maximum of 546.00 ± 0.55 mg/g sugars (54.60 ± 0.44 g/l) with an improved hydrolysis efficiency of 70 ± 0.45%. The enzymatic hydrolyzate can be used for fermentation of ethanol by yeasts

Identification of emulsifier potato peptides by bioinformatics: application to omega-3 delivery emulsions and release from potato industry side streams

We are grateful for the financial support from Innovation Fund Denmark (Grant nr: 7045-00021B, PROVIDE project). We also acknowledge K.M.C. amba (Brande, Denmark) and A.K.V. amba (Langholt, Denmark) for providing the potato samples used in this study.In this work, we developed a novel approach combining bioinformatics, testing of functionality and bottom-up proteomics to obtain peptide emulsifiers from potato side-streams. This is a significant advancement in the process to obtain emulsifier peptides and it is applicable to any type of protein. Our results indicated that structure at the interface is the major determining factor of the emulsifying activity of peptide emulsifiers. Fish oil-in-water emulsions with high physical stability were stabilized with peptides to be predicted to have facial amphiphilicity: (i) peptides with predominantly α-helix conformation at the interface and having 18–29 amino acids, and (ii) peptides with predominantly β-strand conformation at the interface and having 13–15 amino acids. In addition, high physically stable emulsions were obtained with peptides that were predicted to have axial hydrophobic/hydrophilic regions. Peptides containing the sequence FCLKVGV showed high in vitro antioxidant activity and led to emulsions with high oxidative stability. Peptide-level proteomics data and sequence analysis revealed the feasibility to obtain the potent emulsifier peptides found in this study (e.g. γ-1) by trypsin-based hydrolysis of different side streams in the potato industry.Innovation Fund Denmark 7045-00021

Effect of allopurinol in addition to hypothermia treatment in neonates for hypoxic-ischemic brain injury on neurocognitive outcome (ALBINO): Study protocol of a blinded randomized placebo-controlled parallel group multicenter trial for superiority (phase III)

Background: Perinatal asphyxia and resulting hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy is a major cause of death and long-term disability in term born neonates. Up to 20,000 infants each year are affected by HIE in Europe and even more in regions with lower level of perinatal care. The only established therapy to improve outcome in these infants is therapeutic hypothermia. Allopurinol is a xanthine oxidase inhibitor that reduces the production of oxygen radicals as superoxide, which contributes to secondary energy failure and apoptosis in neurons and glial cells after reperfusion of hypoxic brain tissue and may further improve outcome if administered in addition to therapeutic hypothermia. Methods: This study on the effects of ALlopurinol in addition to hypothermia treatment for hypoxic-ischemic Brain Injury on Neurocognitive Outcome (ALBINO), is a European double-blinded randomized placebo-controlled parallel group multicenter trial (Phase III) to evaluate the effect of postnatal allopurinol administered in addition to standard of care (including therapeutic hypothermia if indicated) on the incidence of death and severe neurodevelopmental impairment at 24 months of age in newborns with perinatal hypoxic-ischemic insult and signs of potentially evolving encephalopathy. Allopurinol or placebo will be given in addition to therapeutic hypothermia (where indicated) to infants with a gestational age 65 36 weeks and a birth weight 65 2500 g, with severe perinatal asphyxia and potentially evolving encephalopathy. The primary endpoint of this study will be death or severe neurodevelopmental impairment versus survival without severe neurodevelopmental impairment at the age of two years. Effects on brain injury by magnetic resonance imaging and cerebral ultrasound, electric brain activity, concentrations of peroxidation products and S100B, will also be studied along with effects on heart function and pharmacokinetics of allopurinol after iv-infusion. Discussion: This trial will provide data to assess the efficacy and safety of early postnatal allopurinol in term infants with evolving hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy. If proven efficacious and safe, allopurinol could become part of a neuroprotective pharmacological treatment strategy in addition to therapeutic hypothermia in children with perinatal asphyxia. Trial registration: NCT03162653, www.ClinicalTrials.gov, May 22, 2017

Effects of pretreatments of Napier Grass with deionized water, sulfuric acid and sodium hydroxide on pyrolysis oil characteristics

The depletion of fossil fuel reserves has led to increasing interest in liquid bio-fuel from renewable biomass. Biomass is a complex organic material consisting of different degrees of cellulose, hemicellulose, lignin, extractives and minerals. Some of the mineral elements tend to retard conversions, yield and selectivity during pyrolysis processing. This study is focused on the extraction of mineral retardants from Napier grass using deionized water, dilute sodium hydroxide and sulfuric acid and subsequent pyrolysis in a fixed bed reactor. The raw biomass was characterized before and after each pretreatment following standard procedure. Pyrolysis study was conducted in a fixed bed reactor at 600 o�C, 30 �C/min and 30 mL/min N2 flow. Pyrolysis oil (bio-oil) collected was analyzed using standard analytic techniques. The bio-oil yield and characteristics from each pretreated sample were compared with oil from the non-pretreated sample. Bio-oil yield from the raw sample was 32.06 wt% compared to 38.71, 33.28 and 29.27 wt% oil yield recorded from the sample pretreated with sulfuric acid, deionized water and sodium hydroxide respectively. GC–MS analysis of the oil samples revealed that the oil from all the pretreated biomass had more value added chemicals and less ketones and aldehydes. Pretreatment with neutral solvent generated valuable leachate, showed significant impact on the ash extraction, pyrolysis oil yield, and its composition and therefore can be regarded as more appropriate for thermochemical conversion of Napier grass

Focus on collagen: in vitro systems to study fibrogenesis and antifibrosis _ state of the art

Fibrosis represents a major global disease burden, yet a potent antifibrotic compound is still not in sight. Part of the explanation for this situation is the difficulties that both academic laboratories and research and development departments in the pharmaceutical industry have been facing in re-enacting the fibrotic process in vitro for screening procedures prior to animal testing. Effective in vitro characterization of antifibrotic compounds has been hampered by cell culture settings that are lacking crucial cofactors or are not holistic representations of the biosynthetic and depositional pathway leading to the formation of an insoluble pericellular collagen matrix. In order to appreciate the task which in vitro screening of antifibrotics is up against, we will first review the fibrotic process by categorizing it into events that are upstream of collagen biosynthesis and the actual biosynthetic and depositional cascade of collagen I. We point out oversights such as the omission of vitamin C, a vital cofactor for the production of stable procollagen molecules, as well as the little known in vitro tardy procollagen processing by collagen C-proteinase/BMP-1, another reason for minimal collagen deposition in cell culture. We review current methods of cell culture and collagen quantitation vis-à-vis the high content options and requirements for normalization against cell number for meaningful data retrieval. Only when collagen has formed a fibrillar matrix that becomes cross-linked, invested with ligands, and can be remodelled and resorbed, the complete picture of fibrogenesis can be reflected in vitro. We show here how this can be achieved. A well thought-out in vitro fibrogenesis system represents the missing link between brute force chemical library screens and rational animal experimentation, thus providing both cost-effectiveness and streamlined procedures towards the development of better antifibrotic drugs

Should patients with hip joint prosthesis receive antibiotic prophylaxis before dental treatment?

The safety committee of the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons (AAOS) recommended in 2009 that clinicians should consider antibiotic prophylaxis for all patients with total joint replacement before any invasive procedure that may cause bacteremia. This has aroused confusion and anger among dentists asking for the evidence. The present review deals with different aspects of the rationale for this recommendation giving attention to views both in favor of and against it