Proximate, Mineral and Functional Properties of Maize Starch Complemented with Defatted Sesame Seed Flour

Background: Maize is known to be one of the major cereals used as indigenous breakfast meal and for infant weaning. It is high in carbohydrate with limited protein content and deficient in lysine. There is a need to complement its nutritional attributes with the inclusion of sesame seed flour known to be rich source of protein, fat and some essential minerals to maximize adequate nutrition and minimize mal nutrition that could result from the deficiency of these essential nutrients. Objectives: The physicochemical properties of maize starch complemented with defatted sesame seed flour were investigated.  Methods: Maize grains and sesame seed were processed into starch and flour respectively. The ratio of maize starch to sesame seed flour was 90:10, 85:15, with 100% maize starch as control and 100% maize flour as control. The samples were evaluated for proximate, mineral and functional properties using standard analytical procedure. Results: The proximate composition varies significantly (P≤0.05).The moisture content was in the range of (9.25 to 12.0%), protein (10.58 to 21.70%), crude fiber (0.50 to 3.0%), fat content(1.75 to 10.0%), ash content (1.35 to 3.45%) and carbohydrate (50.55 to 72.67%).The mineral composition shows no significant difference (P≤0.05). Copper was in the range of (0.29 to 0.33 mg/100g), potassium (2.08 to 2.13 mg/100g), sodium (3.67 to 3.72 mg/100g), magnesium (0.77 to 0.84 mg/100g) and manganese (1.47 to 1.54 mg/100g). Most of functional properties investigated show no significant difference (P≤0.05). Bulk density was in the range of (0.62 to 0.64g/ml), swelling power (4.75 to 8.56 g/ml), water absorption capacity (1.8 to 3.0 g/g), oil absorption capacity (1.35 to 1.70 g/g) and gelation capacity (8.20 to 11.90%). Conclusion: The inclusion of defatted sesame seed flour to maize starch during processing can significantly improve proximate, mineral and the functionality of the blends.    Keywords: Maize starch, physicochemical properties, sesame seed flour&nbsp

Conducting Health Research in Korean American Churches: Perspectives from Church Leaders

Korean Americans experience many challenges to obtaining adequate health care coverage and access to needed services. Because a large proportion of Korean Americans attend churches on a regular basis, churches may be a promising venue where health programs can be delivered. In order to gain an in-depth understanding of Korean American churches with respect to conducting future health intervention research, we conducted exploratory interviews and focus groups with 58 leaders from 23 Korean American churches and three community organizations. From these interviews and focus groups, we found that Korean churches and church leaders seek to meet a variety of social and health needs of their congregation and their surrounding community. Several leaders have stated that assisting with social and medical needs of their members is an important component of their current ministry. They described profound health needs of their congregations and have suggested various ways in which the university can partner with the local churches to help address these needs through research. Additionally, they described various resources churches can provide to researchers such as: their personal assistance, church volunteer base, church facility, and church network and contacts. Our findings suggest that Korean churches have a high potential to serve an important role in the health of Korean Americans. On the basis of the promising results of the present study, we are planning to conduct a cross sectional survey of Korean church leaders and members in Los Angeles County to substantiate our findings in a larger representative sample

Plasmonic nature of van der Waals forces between nanoparticles

We propose a new approach to calculate van der Waals forces between nanoparticles where the van der Waals energy can be reduced to the energy of elementary surface plasmon oscillations in nanoparticles. The general theory is applied to describe the interaction between 2 metallic nanoparticles and between a nanoparticle and a perfectly conducting plane. Our results could be used to prove experimentally the existence of plasmonic molecules and to elaborate new control mechanisms for the adherence of nanoparticles between each other or onto surfaces.Comment: 4 pages 5 figure

Determinants of Use of Insecticide Treated Nets for the Prevention of Malaria in Pregnancy: Jinja, Uganda

One established means of preventing the adverse consequences of malaria during pregnancy is sleeping under an insecticide treated net (ITN) throughout pregnancy. Despite increased access to this intervention over time, consistent ITN use during pregnancy remains relatively uncommon in sub-Saharan Africa.We sought to identify determinants of ITN use during pregnancy. Utilizing a population-based random sample, we interviewed 500 women living in Jinja, Uganda, who had been pregnant in the past year. ITN ownership at the start of pregnancy was reported by 359 women (72%) and 28 women (20%) acquired an ITN after the first trimester of pregnancy. Among 387 ITN owners, 73% reported either always sleeping under the ITN during all trimesters of pregnancy, or after acquiring their net. Owning more than 1 net was slightly associated with always sleeping under an ITN during pregnancy (RR: 1.13; 95% CI: 1.00, 1.28). Women who always slept under an ITN during pregnancy were more likely to be influenced by an advertisement on the radio/poster than being given an ITN free of charge (RR: 1.48; 95% CI: 1.24, 1.76). No differences were found between other socio-demographic factors, pregnancy history, ANC use or socio-cultural factors.While self-reported ITN ownership and use was common throughout pregnancy, we were unable to pinpoint why a sizable fraction of Ugandan women did not always adhere to recommendations for use of an ITN during pregnancy. More data are needed on the capacity of individual households to support the installation of ITNs which may provide insight into interventions targeted at improving the convenience and adherence of daily ITN use

Utility of WHOQOL-BREF in measuring quality of life in Sickle Cell Disease

BACKGROUND: Sickle cell disease is the commonest genetic disorder in Jamaica and most likely exerts numerous effects on quality of life (QOL) of those afflicted with it. The WHOQOL-Bref, which is a commonly utilized generic measure of quality of life, has never previously been utilized in this population. We have sought to study its utility in this disease population. METHODS: 491 patients with sickle cell disease were administered the questionnaire including demographics, WHOQOL-Bref, Short Form-36 (SF-36), Flanagan's quality of life scale (QOLS) and measures of disease severity at their routine health maintenance visits to the sickle cell unit. Internal consistency reliabilities, construct validity and "known groups" validity of the WHOQOL-Bref, and its domains, were examined; and then compared to those of the other instruments. RESULTS: All three instruments had good internal consistency, ranging from 0.70 to 0.93 for the WHOQOL-Bref (except the 'social relationships' domain), 0.86-0.93 for the SF-36 and 0.88 for the QOLS. None of the instruments showed any marked floor or ceiling effects except the SF-36 'physical health' and 'role limitations' domains. The WHOQOL-Bref scale also had moderate concurrent validity and showed strong "known groups" validity. CONCLUSION: This study has shown good psychometric properties of the WHOQOL-Bref instrument in determining QOL of those with sickle cell disease. Its utility in this regard is comparable to that of the SF-36 and QOLS.Originally published at http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1477-7525-7-75.pd

Association of Killer Cell Immunoglobulin-Like Receptor Genes with Hodgkin's Lymphoma in a Familial Study

BACKGROUND: Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) is the major environmental factor associated with Hodgkin's lymphoma (HL), a common lymphoma in young adults. Natural killer (NK) cells are key actors of the innate immune response against viruses. The regulation of NK cell function involves activating and inhibitory Killer cell Immunoglobulin-like receptors (KIRs), which are expressed in variable numbers on NK cells. Various viral and virus-related malignant disorders have been associated with the presence/absence of certain KIR genes in case/control studies. We investigated the role of the KIR cluster in HL in a family-based association study. METHODOLOGY: We included 90 families with 90 HL index cases (age 16–35 years) and 255 first-degree relatives (parents and siblings). We developed a procedure for reconstructing full genotypic information (number of gene copies) at each KIR locus from the standard KIR gene content. Out of the 90 collected families, 84 were informative and suitable for further analysis. An association study was then carried out with specific family-based analysis methods on these 84 families. PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Five KIR genes in strong linkage disequilibrium were found significantly associated with HL. Refined haplotype analysis showed that the association was supported by a dominant protective effect of KIR3DS1 and/or KIR2DS1, both of which are activating receptors. The odds ratios for developing HL in subjects with at least one copy of KIR3DS1 or KIR2DS1 with respect to subjects with neither of these genes were 0.44[95% confidence interval 0.23–0.85] and 0.42[0.21–0.85], respectively. No significant association was found in a tentative replication case/control study of 68 HL cases (age 18–71 years). In the familial study, the protective effect of KIR3DS1/KIR2DS1 tended to be stronger in HL patients with detectable EBV in blood or tumour cells. CONCLUSIONS: This work defines a template for family-based association studies based on full genotypic information for the KIR cluster, and provides the first evidence that activating KIRs can have a protective role in HL

HIV Risks and Seroprevalence Among Mexican American Injection Drug Users in California

Latinos in the United States are an ethnically diverse group disproportionately affected by HIV/AIDS. We describe HIV seroprevalence, HIV risk behaviors and utilization of health services among Mexican American injection drug users (IDUs) in California (n = 286) and compare them to White (n = 830) and African American (n = 314) IDUs. Study participants were recruited from syringe exchange programs (n = 24) in California. HIV seroprevalence among Mexican Americans (0.5%) was dramatically lower than Whites (5%) and African Americans (8%). Mexican Americans reported fewer sex-related risks than Whites and African Americans though injection-related risks remained high. Compared to Whites, Mexican Americans were more likely to participate in drug treatment during a 6 month period (AOR 1.5, 95% CI 1.1, 2.0) but less likely to receive any health care (AOR 0.6, 95% CI 0.5, 0.8). Exploring cultural and structural factors among Mexican American IDUs may offer new insights into how to maintain low rates of HIV seroprevalence and reduce barriers to health care utilization

Target enzyme mutations are the molecular basis for resistance towards pharmacological inhibition of nicotinamide phosphoribosyltransferase

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Inhibitors of nicotinamide phosphoribosyltransferase (NAMPT) are promising cancer drugs currently in clinical trials in oncology, including APO866, CHS-828 and the CHS-828 prodrug EB1627/GMX1777, but cancer cell resistance to these drugs has not been studied in detail.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Here, we introduce an analogue of CHS-828 called TP201565 with increased potency in cellular assays. Further, we describe and characterize a panel of cell lines with acquired stable resistance towards several NAMPT inhibitors of 18 to 20,000 fold compared to their parental cell lines.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We find that 4 out of 5 of the resistant sublines display mutations of NAMPT located in the vicinity of the active site or in the dimer interface of NAMPT. Furthermore, we show that these mutations are responsible for the resistance observed. All the resistant cell lines formed xenograft tumours <it>in vivo</it>. Also, we confirm CHS-828 and TP201565 as competitive inhibitors of NAMPT through docking studies and by NAMPT precipitation from cellular lysate by an analogue of TP201565 linked to sepharose. The NAMPT precipitation could be inhibited by addition of APO866.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>We found that CHS-828 and TP201565 are competitive inhibitors of NAMPT and that acquired resistance towards NAMPT inhibitors can be expected primarily to be caused by mutations in NAMPT.</p

CD6 and Syntaxin Binding Protein 6 Variants and Response to Tumor Necrosis Factor Alpha Inhibitors in Danish Patients with Rheumatoid Arthritis

<div><h3>Background</h3><p>TNFα inhibitor therapy has greatly improved the treatment of patients with rheumatoid arthritis, however at least 30% do not respond. We aimed to investigate insertions and deletions (INDELS) associated with response to TNFα inhibitors in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA).</p> <h3>Methodology and Principal Findings</h3><p>In the DANBIO Registry we identified 237 TNFα inhibitor naïve patients with RA (81% women; median age 56 years; disease duration 6 years) who initiated treatment with infliximab (n = 160), adalimumab (n = 56) or etanercept (n = 21) between 1999 and 2008 according to national treatment guidelines. Clinical response was assessed at week 26 using EULAR response criteria. Based on literature, we selected 213 INDELS potentially related to RA and treatment response using the GeneVa® (Compugen) <em>in silico</em> database of 350,000 genetic variations in the human genome. Genomic segments were amplified by polymerase chain reaction (PCR), and genotyped by Sanger sequencing or fragment analysis. We tested the association between genotypes and EULAR good response versus no response, and EULAR good response versus moderate/no response using Fisher’s exact test. At baseline the median DAS28 was 5.1. At week 26, 68 (29%) patients were EULAR good responders, while 81 (34%) and 88 (37%) patients were moderate and non-responders, respectively. A 19 base pair insertion within the CD6 gene was associated with EULAR good response vs. no response (OR = 4.43, 95% CI: 1.99–10.09, p = 7.211×10⁻⁵) and with EULAR good response vs. moderate/no response (OR = 4.54, 95% CI: 2.29–8.99, p = 3.336×10⁻⁶). A microsatellite within the syntaxin binding protein 6 (STXBP6) was associated with EULAR good response vs. no response (OR = 4.01, 95% CI: 1.92–8.49, p = 5.067×10⁻⁵).</p> <h3>Conclusion</h3><p>Genetic variations within CD6 and STXBP6 may influence response to TNFα inhibitors in patients with RA.</p> </div