Therapeutic Potential of Isoflavones with an Emphasis on Daidzein

Daidzein is a phytoestrogen isoflavone found in soybeans and other legumes. The chemical composition of daidzein is analogous to mammalian estrogens, and it could be useful with a dual-directional purpose by substituting/hindering with estrogen and estrogen receptor (ER) complex. Hence, daidzein puts forth shielding effects against a great number of diseases, especially those associated with the control of estrogen, such as breast cancer, diabetes, osteoporosis, and cardiovascular disease. However, daidzein also has other ER-independent biological activities, such as oxidative damage reduction acting as an antioxidant, immune regulator as an anti-inflammatory agent, and apoptosis regulation, directly linked to its potential anticancer effects. In this sense, the present review is aimed at providing a deepen analysis of daidzein pharmacodynamics and its implications in human health, from its best-known effects alleviating postmenopausal symptoms to its potential anticancer and antiaging properties.N.M. acknowledges the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology under the Horizon 2020 Program (PTDC/PSI-GER/28076/2017). M. T-M was funded by a grant from the Programa Postdoctoral Margalida Comas-Comunidad Autónoma de las Islas Baleares (PD/050/2020). The authors also acknowledge that some of the icons used in figures are adapted from Flaticon

Nomophobia: impact of cell phone use and time to rest among teacher students

To the researchers of the research group AREA (HUM-672). Research group by belonging to the Ministry of Education and Science of the Junta de Andalucía and based in the Department of Didactics and School Organization of the Faculty of Education Sciences of the University of Granada.Nomophobia is one of the modern pathologies that has been born as a consequence of the impact that portable technologies have had on society and the dependence generated among citizens, especially towards smartphones. This phobia manifests itself and is intensified by the loss of immediate access to information, to the network of contacts, as well as by the impossibility of contacting or being contacted by other people. All this ends up interfering with the development of the person's daily life (physical, physiological, psychological, social problems, among others). Although the research is in an incipient phase, the problem has not been studied with the teaching population, so we present a pioneering study with this group, the main objective being to analyze the prevalence of nomophobia in future teachers of Early Childhood and Primary Education, as well as to check the incidence of rest time in the levels of nomophobia. The study follows a descriptive, correlational, transversal and predictive design and a quantitative methodology. The standardized nomophobia questionnaire NMP-Q was used on a sample of n ¼ 849 future teachers. The results show average levels of nomophobia in most of the variables. However, the higher levels of nervousness, fear or anxiety stand out due to the inability to communicate instantaneously. Also, a higher prevalence of the problem is observed in the sector of the sample that claims to sacrifice rest time due to the use of their mobile phone. Although these numbers are not alarming, we must take into account that in some variables the prevalence is slightly higher, making it necessary to make educational interventions in this regard and to promote education for the responsible and critical use of media and technologies

Performance of CMS muon reconstruction in pp collision events at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV

The performance of muon reconstruction, identification, and triggering in CMS has been studied using 40 inverse picobarns of data collected in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV at the LHC in 2010. A few benchmark sets of selection criteria covering a wide range of physics analysis needs have been examined. For all considered selections, the efficiency to reconstruct and identify a muon with a transverse momentum pT larger than a few GeV is above 95% over the whole region of pseudorapidity covered by the CMS muon system, abs(eta) < 2.4, while the probability to misidentify a hadron as a muon is well below 1%. The efficiency to trigger on single muons with pT above a few GeV is higher than 90% over the full eta range, and typically substantially better. The overall momentum scale is measured to a precision of 0.2% with muons from Z decays. The transverse momentum resolution varies from 1% to 6% depending on pseudorapidity for muons with pT below 100 GeV and, using cosmic rays, it is shown to be better than 10% in the central region up to pT = 1 TeV. Observed distributions of all quantities are well reproduced by the Monte Carlo simulation.Comment: Replaced with published version. Added journal reference and DO

Multi-particle azimuthal correlations in p-Pb and Pb-Pb collisions at the CERN Large Hadron Collider

Measurements of multi-particle azimuthal correlations (cumulants) for charged particles in p-Pb and Pb-Pb collisions are presented. They help address the question of whether there is evidence for global, flow-like, azimuthal correlations in the p-Pb system. Comparisons are made to measurements from the larger Pb-Pb system, where such evidence is established. In particular, the second harmonic two-particle cumulants are found to decrease with multiplicity, characteristic of a dominance of few-particle correlations in p-Pb collisions. However, when a $|\Delta \eta|$ gap is placed to suppress such correlations, the two-particle cumulants begin to rise at high-multiplicity, indicating the presence of global azimuthal correlations. The Pb-Pb values are higher than the p-Pb values at similar multiplicities. In both systems, the second harmonic four-particle cumulants exhibit a transition from positive to negative values when the multiplicity increases. The negative values allow for a measurement of $v_{2}\{4\}$ to be made, which is found to be higher in Pb-Pb collisions at similar multiplicities. The second harmonic six-particle cumulants are also found to be higher in Pb-Pb collisions. In Pb-Pb collisions, we generally find $v_{2}\{4\} \simeq v_{2}\{6\}\neq 0$ which is indicative of a Bessel-Gaussian function for the $v_{2}$ distribution. For very high-multiplicity Pb-Pb collisions, we observe that the four- and six-particle cumulants become consistent with 0. Finally, third harmonic two-particle cumulants in p-Pb and Pb-Pb are measured. These are found to be similar for overlapping multiplicities, when a $|\Delta\eta| > 1.4$ gap is placed.Comment: 25 pages, 11 captioned figures, 3 tables, authors from page 20, published version, figures at http://aliceinfo.cern.ch/ArtSubmission/node/87

Performance of CMS muon reconstruction in pp collision events at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV

The performance of muon reconstruction, identification, and triggering in CMS has been studied using 40 inverse picobarns of data collected in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV at the LHC in 2010. A few benchmark sets of selection criteria covering a wide range of physics analysis needs have been examined. For all considered selections, the efficiency to reconstruct and identify a muon with a transverse momentum pT larger than a few GeV is above 95% over the whole region of pseudorapidity covered by the CMS muon system, abs(eta) < 2.4, while the probability to misidentify a hadron as a muon is well below 1%. The efficiency to trigger on single muons with pT above a few GeV is higher than 90% over the full eta range, and typically substantially better. The overall momentum scale is measured to a precision of 0.2% with muons from Z decays. The transverse momentum resolution varies from 1% to 6% depending on pseudorapidity for muons with pT below 100 GeV and, using cosmic rays, it is shown to be better than 10% in the central region up to pT = 1 TeV. Observed distributions of all quantities are well reproduced by the Monte Carlo simulation.Comment: Replaced with published version. Added journal reference and DO

Compressed representation of a partially defined integer function over multiple arguments

In OLAP (OnLine Analitical Processing) data are analysed in an n-dimensional cube. The cube may be represented as a partially defined function over n arguments. Considering that often the function is not defined everywhere, we ask: is there a known way of representing the function or the points in which it is defined, in a more compact manner than the trivial one

Prevalence of metabolic syndrome-related disorders in a large adult population in Turkey

BACKGROUND: There are few existing large population studies on the epidemiology of metabolic syndrome-related disorders of Turkey. The purpose of this study was to assess the prevalence of metabolic syndrome-related disorders in the Turkish adult population, to address sex, age, educational and geographical differences, and to examine blood pressure, body mass index, fasting blood glucose and serum lipids in Turkey. METHODS: This study was executed under the population study "The Healthy Nutrition for Healthy Heart Study" conducted between December 2000 and December 2002 by the Health Ministry of Turkey. Overall, 15,468 Caucasian inhabitants aged over 30 were recruited in 14 centers in the seven main different regions of Turkey. The data were analyzed with the Students' t, ANOVA or Chi-Square tests. RESULTS: Overall, more than one-third (35.08 %) of the participants was obese. The hypertensive people ratio in the population was 13.66 %, while these ratios for DM and metabolic syndrome were 4.16 % and 17.91 %, respectively. The prevalence of hypertension, metabolic syndrome and obesity were higher in females than males, whereas diabetes mellitus was higher in males than females. The prevalence of metabolic syndrome and related disorders were found to be significantly different across educational attainments for both men and women. The prevalence of hypertension increased with age, while it was remarkable that in the age group of 60–69 years, prevalence of diabetes mellitus and metabolic syndrome reached a peak value and than decreased. For obesity, the peak prevalence occurred in the 50–59 year old group. The prevalence of metabolic syndrome and related disorders were found to be significantly different according to geographical region. CONCLUSION: In conclusion, high prevalence of obesity and metabolic syndrome, particularly among women, is one of the major public health problems in Turkey. Interestingly, obesity prevalence is relatively high, but the prevalence of hypertension and hypercholesterolemia is relatively low in Turkish people. Future studies may focus on elucidating the reasons behind this controversy. Our findings may be helpful in formulating public health policy and prevention strategies on future health in Turkey

Search for the standard model Higgs boson in the H to ZZ to 2l 2nu channel in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV

A search for the standard model Higgs boson in the H to ZZ to 2l 2nu decay channel, where l = e or mu, in pp collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 7 TeV is presented. The data were collected at the LHC, with the CMS detector, and correspond to an integrated luminosity of 4.6 inverse femtobarns. No significant excess is observed above the background expectation, and upper limits are set on the Higgs boson production cross section. The presence of the standard model Higgs boson with a mass in the 270-440 GeV range is excluded at 95% confidence level.Comment: Submitted to JHE

Combined search for the quarks of a sequential fourth generation

Results are presented from a search for a fourth generation of quarks produced singly or in pairs in a data set corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 5 inverse femtobarns recorded by the CMS experiment at the LHC in 2011. A novel strategy has been developed for a combined search for quarks of the up and down type in decay channels with at least one isolated muon or electron. Limits on the mass of the fourth-generation quarks and the relevant Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa matrix elements are derived in the context of a simple extension of the standard model with a sequential fourth generation of fermions. The existence of mass-degenerate fourth-generation quarks with masses below 685 GeV is excluded at 95% confidence level for minimal off-diagonal mixing between the third- and the fourth-generation quarks. With a mass difference of 25 GeV between the quark masses, the obtained limit on the masses of the fourth-generation quarks shifts by about +/- 20 GeV. These results significantly reduce the allowed parameter space for a fourth generation of fermions.Comment: Replaced with published version. Added journal reference and DO