Cortical lens opacities in the young patient- an indication for a lipogram?

Aim. To determine the characteristics and prevalence of lenticular opacification in patients with underlying dyslipidaemia.Methods. Eighty patients of both genders and all ages (18- 90 years) were enrolled in the trial if they met the inclusion criteria for dyslipidaernia: Patients were included if their fasting serum cholesterol and triglyceride concentrations were > 5.2 mmol/l and > 2.3 mmol/l, respectively, when measured on three separate occasions over a 1-month period. Patients were excluded if they suffered from any condition known to cause or predispose them to elevated lipid levels or lenticular opacification. Lenticular changes were assessed by means of a slit-lamp through the fully dilated pupil and other physical signs were documented subsequent to thorough physical evaluation.Results. In addition to the classic clinic signs of dyslipidaemia, 31% of patients had cortical lens opacities. Cortical opacities were twice as prevalent as Achilles tendon thickening (16.3%) in our study, the second most prevalent sign of elevated lipid levels. In the subgroup of patients aged under 50 years, 55% had lenticular opacities, predominantly cortical (80%).Conclusions. Cortical lens opacification was the most prevalent sign of dyslipidaemia and it occurred at a relatively young age in our trial population in those patients who were affected. Cortical lenticular opacification should be regarded as an indication for blood lipid profile evaluation

In-line near infrared spectroscopy during freeze-drying as a tool to measure efficiency of hydrogen bond formation between protein and sugar, predictive of protein storage stability

Sugars are often used as stabilizers of protein formulations during freeze-drying. However, not all sugars are equally suitable for this purpose. Using in-line near-infrared spectroscopy during freeze-drying, it is shown here that hydrogen bond formation during freeze-drying, under secondary drying conditions in particular, can be related to the preservation of the functionality and structure of proteins during storage. The disaccharide trehalose was best capable of forming hydrogen bonds with the model protein, lactate dehydrogenase, thereby stabilizing it, followed by the molecularly flexible oligosaccharide inulin 4kDa. The molecularly rigid oligo- and polysaccharides dextran 5kDa and 70kDa, respectively, formed the least amount of hydrogen bonds and provided least stabilization of the protein. It is concluded that smaller and molecularly more flexible sugars are less affected by steric hindrance, allowing them to form more hydrogen bonds with the protein, thereby stabilizing it better

RAB25 expression is epigenetically downregulated in oral and oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma with lymph node metastasis

Oral and oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma (OOSCC) have a low survival rate, mainly due to metastasis to the regional lymph nodes. For optimal treatment of these metastases, a neck dissection is required; however, inaccurate detection methods results in under- and over-treatment. New DNA prognostic methylation biomarkers might improve lymph node metastases detection. To identify epigenetically regulated genes associated with lymph node metastases, genome-wide methylation analysis was performed on 6 OOSCC with (pN+) and 6 OOSCC without (pN0) lymph node metastases and combined with a gene expression signature predictive for pN+ status in OOSCC. Selected genes were validated using an independent OOSCC cohort by immunohistochemistry and pyrosequencing, and on data retrieved from The Cancer Genome Atlas. A two-step statistical selection of differentially methylated sequences revealed 14 genes with increased methylation status and mRNA downregulation in pN+ OOSCC. RAB25, a known tumor suppressor gene, was the highest-ranking gene in the discovery set. In the validation sets, both RAB25 mRNA (P = 0.015) and protein levels (P = 0.012) were lower in pN+ OOSCC. RAB25 mRNA levels were negatively correlated with RAB25 methylation levels (P < 0.001) but RAB25 protein expression was not. Our data revealed that promoter methylation is a mechanism resulting in downregulation of RAB25 expression in pN+ OOSCC and decreased expression is associated with lymph node metastasis. Detection of RAB25 methylation might contribute to lymph node metastasis diagnosis and serve as a potential new therapeutic target in OOSCC

The Wide Area VISTA Extra-galactic Survey (WAVES)

The "Wide Area VISTA Extra-galactic Survey" (WAVES) is a 4MOST Consortium Design Reference Survey which will use the VISTA/4MOST facility to spectroscopically survey ~2million galaxies to $r_{\rm AB} < 22$ mag. WAVES consists of two interlocking galaxy surveys ("WAVES-Deep" and "WAVES-Wide"), providing the next two steps beyond the highly successful 1M galaxy Sloan Digital Sky Survey and the 250k Galaxy And Mass Assembly survey. WAVES will enable an unprecedented study of the distribution and evolution of mass, energy, and structures extending from 1-kpc dwarf galaxies in the local void to the morphologies of 200-Mpc filaments at $z\sim1$. A key aim of both surveys will be to compare comprehensive empirical observations of the spatial properties of galaxies, groups, and filaments, against state-of-the-art numerical simulations to distinguish between various Dark Matter models

Supplementary data for the article: Dragelj, J. Lj.; Stanković, I. M.; Božinovski, D. M.; Meyer, T.; Veljković, D. Z.; Medaković, V. B.; Knapp, E.-W.; Zarić, S. D. C-H/O Interactions of Aromatic CH Donors within Proteins: A Crystallographic Study. Crystal Growth and Design 2016, 16 (4), 1948–1957. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.cgd.5b01543

Supplementary material for: [https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.cgd.5b01543]Related to published version: [http://cherry.chem.bg.ac.rs/handle/123456789/1910

Sexuality and Affection among Elderly German Men and Women in Long-Term Relationships: Results of a Prospective Population-Based Study

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.The study was funded by the German Federal Ministry for Families, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth (AZ 314-1722-102/16; AZ 301-1720-295/2), the Ministry for Science, Research and Art Baden-Württemberg, and the University of Rostock (FORUN 989020; 889048)

Antibacterial, Anti-HIV-1 Protease and Cytotoxic Activities of Aqueous Ethanolic Extracts from Combretum Adenogonium Steud. Ex A. Rich (Combretaceae).

\ud \ud Records have shown that Combretum adenogonium Steud. Ex A. Rich (Combretaceae) is used in traditional medicine systems of several tribes in Tanzania. This study focused on the investigation of antibacterial activity, anti-HIV-1 protease activity, toxicity properties and classes of phytochemicals in extracts from C. adenogonium Steud. Ex A. Rich (Combretaceae) to evaluate potential of these extracts for development as herbal remedies. Dried plant material were ground to fine powder and extracted using 80% aqueous ethanol to afford root, leaf and stem bark extracts. The extracts were assayed for anti-HIV-1 protease activities, antibacterial activities using microdilution methods and cytotoxicity using brine shrimps lethality assay. Screening for major phytochemical classes was carried out using standard chemical tests. All extracts exhibited antibacterial activity to at least one of the test bacteria with MIC-values ranging from 0.31-5.0 mg/ml. Two extracts, namely, root and stem bark exhibited anti-HIV-1 PR activity with IC50 values of 24.7 and 26.5 μg/ml, respectively. Stem bark and leaf extracts showed mild toxicity with LC50 values of 65.768 μg/ml and 76.965 μg/ml, respectively, whereas roots were relatively non-toxic (LC50 = 110.042 μg/ml). Phytochemical screening of the extracts indicated presence of flavonoids, terpenoids, alkaloids, tannins, glycosides and saponins. These results provide promising baseline information for the potential development of C. adenogonium extracts in treatment of bacterial and HIV/AIDS-related opportunistic infections

Moody Music Generator: Characterising Control Parameters Using Crowdsourcing.

Abstract. We characterise the expressive effects of a music generator capable of varying its moods through two control parameters. The two control parameters were constructed on the basis of existing work on va-lence and arousal in music, and intended to provide control over those two mood factors. In this paper we conduct a listener study to determine how people actually perceive the various moods the generator can produce. Rather than directly attempting to validate that our two control param-eters represent arousal and valence, instead we conduct an open-ended study to crowd-source labels characterising different parts of this two-dimensional control space. Our aim is to characterise perception of the generator’s expressive space, without constraining listeners ’ responses to labels specifically aimed at validating the original arousal/valence moti-vation. Subjects were asked to listen to clips of generated music over the Internet, and to describe the moods with free-text labels. We find that the arousal parameter does roughly map to perceived arousal, but that the nominal “valence ” parameter has strong interaction with the arousal parameter, and produces different effects in different parts of the con-trol space. We believe that the characterisation methodology described here is general and could be used to map the expressive range of other parameterisable generators.

A coupled optical-thermal-electrical model to predict the performance of hybrid PV/T-CCPC roof-top systems

A crossed compound parabolic concentrator (CCPC) is applied into a photovoltaic/thermal (PV/T) hybrid solar collector, i.e. concentrating PV/T (CPV/T) collector, to develop new hybrid roof-top CPV/T systems. However, to optimise the system configuration and operational parameters as well as to predict their performances, a coupled optical, thermal and electrical model is essential. We establish this model by integrating a number of submodels sourced from literature as well as from our recent work on incidence-dependent optical efficiency, six-parameter electrical model and scaling law for outdoor conditions. With the model, electrical performance and cell temperature are predicted on specific days for the roof-top systems installed in Glasgow, Penryn and Jaen. Results obtained by the proposed model reasonably agree with monitored data and it is also clarified that the systems operate under off-optimal operating condition. Long-term electric performance of the CPV/T systems is estimated as well. In addition, effects of transient terms in heat transfer and diffuse solar irradiance on electric energy are identified and discussed