Enrichment of antioxidant capacity and vitamin E in pita made from barley

This study aimed to enhance total antioxidant and vitamin E content of pita bread, by replacing 50% of the standard baker's flour with flours milled from covered (WI2585 and Harrington) or hulless (Finniss) barley genotypes, previously shown to have high antioxidant and vitamin E levels at harvest. Pita breads were made from either 100% baker's flour (control) or 50% malt flour, whole-grain flour, or flour from barley grains pearled at 10%, 15%, and 20% grain weight. Antioxidant capacity and vitamin E content of flours and pitas were determined by their ability to scavenge 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl radicals and high performance liquid chromatography, respectively. The physical and sensory properties of the pitas were also assessed. All pitas made from either whole grain or pearled barley flour had a higher antioxidant capacity and most also had higher vitamin E content than standard pita. The antioxidant and vitamin E levels were reduced in pearled compared to whole grains, however the extent of that reduction varied among genotypes. The greatest antioxidant and vitamin E levels were found in pita made from malt flour or Finniss whole grain flour. Furthermore, sensory analysis suggested these pitas were acceptable to consumers and retained similar physical and sensory properties to those in the control pita.Thi Thu Dung Do, Beverly Muhlhausler, Amanda Box and Amanda J. Abl

A new concept for the combination of optical interferometers and high-resolution spectrographs

The combination of high spatial and spectral resolution in optical astronomy enables new observational approaches to many open problems in stellar and circumstellar astrophysics. However, constructing a high-resolution spectrograph for an interferometer is a costly and time-intensive undertaking. Our aim is to show that, by coupling existing high-resolution spectrographs to existing interferometers, one could observe in the domain of high spectral and spatial resolution, and avoid the construction of a new complex and expensive instrument. We investigate in this article the different challenges which arise from combining an interferometer with a high-resolution spectrograph. The requirements for the different sub-systems are determined, with special attention given to the problems of fringe tracking and dispersion. A concept study for the combination of the VLTI (Very Large Telescope Interferometer) with UVES (UV-Visual Echelle Spectrograph) is carried out, and several other specific instrument pairings are discussed. We show that the proposed combination of an interferometer with a high-resolution spectrograph is indeed feasible with current technology, for a fraction of the cost of building a whole new spectrograph. The impact on the existing instruments and their ongoing programs would be minimal.Comment: 27 pages, 9 figures, Experimental Astronomy; v2: accepted versio

Comparison of Two Quantitative Methods of Discerning Airspace Enlargement in Smoke-Exposed Mice

In this work, we compare two methods for evaluating and quantifying pulmonary airspace enlargement in a mouse model of chronic cigarette smoke exposure. Standard stereological sample preparation, sectioning, and imaging of mouse lung tissues were performed for semi-automated acquisition of mean linear intercept (Lm) data. After completion of the Lm measurements, D2, a metric of airspace enlargement, was measured in a blinded manner on the same lung images using a fully automated technique developed in-house. An analysis of variance (ANOVA) shows that although Lm was able to separate the smoke-exposed and control groups with statistical significance (p = 0.034), D2 was better able to differentiate the groups (p<0.001) and did so without any overlap between the control and smoke-exposed individual animal data. In addition, the fully automated implementation of D2 represented a time savings of at least 24x over semi-automated Lm measurements. Although D2 does not provide 3D stereological metrics of airspace dimensions as Lm does, results show that it has higher sensitivity and specificity for detecting the subtle airspace enlargement one would expect to find in mild or early stage emphysema. Therefore, D2 may serve as a more accurate screening measure for detecting early lung disease than Lm

Cancer risks following diagnostic and therapeutic radiation exposure in children

The growing use of interventional and fluoroscopic imaging in children represents a tremendous benefit for the diagnosis and treatment of benign conditions. Along with the increasing use and complexity of these procedures comes concern about the cancer risk associated with ionizing radiation exposure to children. Children are considerably more sensitive to the carcinogenic effects of ionizing radiation than adults, and children have a longer life expectancy in which to express risk. Numerous epidemiologic cohort studies of childhood exposure to radiation for treatment of benign diseases have demonstrated radiation-related risks of cancer of the thyroid, breast, brain and skin, as well as leukemia. Many fewer studies have evaluated cancer risk following diagnostic radiation exposure in children. Although radiation dose for a single procedure might be low, pediatric patients often receive repeated examinations over time to evaluate their conditions, which could result in relatively high cumulative doses. Several cohort studies of girls and young women subjected to multiple diagnostic radiation exposures have been informative about increased mortality from breast cancer with increasing radiation dose, and case-control studies of childhood leukemia and postnatal diagnostic radiation exposure have suggested increased risks with an increasing number of examinations. Only two long-term follow-up studies of cancer following cardiac catheterization in childhood have been conducted, and neither reported an overall increased risk of cancer. Most cancers can be induced by radiation, and a linear dose-response has been noted for most solid cancers. Risks of radiation-related cancer are greatest for those exposed early in life, and these risks appear to persist throughout life

Creationism and Intelligent Design

Until recently, little attention has been paid in the school classroom to creationism and almost none to intelligent design. However, creationism and intelligent design appear to be on the increase and there are indications that there are more countries in which schools are becoming battlegrounds over them. I begin by examining whether creationism and intelligent design are controversial issues, drawing on Robert Dearden’s epistemic criterion of the controversial and more recent responses to and defences of this. I then examine whether the notion of ‘worldviews’ in the context of creationism is a useful one by considering the film March of the Penguins. I conclude that the ‘worldviews’ perspective on creationism is useful for two reasons: first, it indicates the difficulty of using the criterion of reason to decide whether an issue is controversial or not; secondly, it suggests that standard ways of addressing the diversity of student views in a science classroom may be inadequate. I close by examining the implications of this view for teaching in science lessons and elsewhere, for example in religious education lessons and at primary level where subject divisions cannot be made in so clear-cut a manner

Measurement of the Bottom-Strange Meson Mixing Phase in the Full CDF Data Set

We report a measurement of the bottom-strange meson mixing phase \beta_s using the time evolution of B0_s -> J/\psi (->\mu+\mu-) \phi (-> K+ K-) decays in which the quark-flavor content of the bottom-strange meson is identified at production. This measurement uses the full data set of proton-antiproton collisions at sqrt(s)= 1.96 TeV collected by the Collider Detector experiment at the Fermilab Tevatron, corresponding to 9.6 fb-1 of integrated luminosity. We report confidence regions in the two-dimensional space of \beta_s and the B0_s decay-width difference \Delta\Gamma_s, and measure \beta_s in [-\pi/2, -1.51] U [-0.06, 0.30] U [1.26, \pi/2] at the 68% confidence level, in agreement with the standard model expectation. Assuming the standard model value of \beta_s, we also determine \Delta\Gamma_s = 0.068 +- 0.026 (stat) +- 0.009 (syst) ps-1 and the mean B0_s lifetime, \tau_s = 1.528 +- 0.019 (stat) +- 0.009 (syst) ps, which are consistent and competitive with determinations by other experiments.Comment: 8 pages, 2 figures, Phys. Rev. Lett 109, 171802 (2012

Positional cloning of rp2 QTL associates the P450 genes CYP6Z1, CYP6Z3 and CYP6M7 with pyrethroid resistance in the malaria vector Anopheles funestus

Pyrethroid resistance in Anopheles funestus is threatening malaria control in Africa. Elucidation of underlying resistance mechanisms is crucial to improve the success of future control programs. A positional cloning approach was used to identify genes conferring resistance in the uncharacterised rp2 quantitative trait locus (QTL) previously detected in this vector using F6 advanced intercross lines (AIL). A 113 kb BAC clone spanning rp2 was identified and sequenced revealing a cluster of 15 P450 genes and one salivary protein gene (SG7-2). Contrary to A. gambiae, AfCYP6M1 is triplicated in A. funestus, while AgCYP6Z2 orthologue is absent. Five hundred and sixty-five new single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs)were identified for genetic mapping from rp2 P450s and other genes revealing high genetic polymorphisms with one SNP every 36 bp. A significant genotype/phenotype association was detected for rp2 P450s but not for a cluster of cuticular protein genes previously associated with resistance in A. gambiae. QTL mapping using F6 AIL confirms the rp2 QTL with an increase logarithm of odds score of 5. Multiplex gene expression profiling of 15 P450s and other genes around rp2 followed by individual validation using qRT–PCR indicated a significant overexpression in the resistant FUMOZ-R strain of the P450s AfCYP6Z1, AfCYP6Z3, AfCYP6M7 and the glutathione-s-transferase GSTe2 with respective fold change of 11.2,6.3, 5.5 and 2.8. Polymorphisms analysis of AfCYP6Z1 and AfCYP6Z3 identified amino acid changes potentially associated with resistance further indicating that these genes are controlling the pyrethroid resistance explained by the rp2 QTL. The characterisation of this rp2 QTL significantly improves our understanding of resistance mechanisms in A. funestus

Individualized Cost-Effectiveness Analysis

John Ioannidis and Alan Garber discuss how to use incremental cost-effectiveness ratios (ICER) and related metrics so they can be useful for decision-making at the individual level, whether used by clinicians or individual patients

Residual effects of natural Zn chelates on navy bean response, Zn leaching and soil status

greenhouse experiment was conducted on weakly acidic and calcareous soils to evaluate the aging and residual effects of three natural organic Zn chelates [Zn-ethylenediaminedisuccinate (Zn-EDDS), Zn-polyhydroxyphenylcarboxylate and Zn-aminelignosulfonate] each administered in a single application to a first navy bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) crop at several different Zn application rates. In a second navy bean crop, we determined the following parameters: the extent of Zn leaching, the amount of available Zn remaining in soils, the amount of easily leachable Zn, the size of Zn fractions in soils, the pH and redox potential, the dry matter yield, and the soluble and total Zn concentrations in plants. The residual effect after 2 years of Zn fertilization mainly depended on the aging effect of Zn chelates and losses due to Zn leaching. The data relating to the evolution from the first to the second crop showed that the aging effect was noticeable in the calcareous soil. In the latter soil, the Zn-S,S-EDDS treatments showed greater decreases in the Zn uptake by plants than the other Zn treatments and the greatest Zn uptake by plants occurred when Zn was applied as Zn-aminelignosulfonate (10 mg Zn kg−1 rate, 6.85 mg Zn per lysimeter; 5 mg Zn kg−1 rate, 3.36 mg Zn per lysimeter). In contrast, in the calcareous soil, the maximum amount of Zn uptake, for the three chelates was 0.82 mg Zn per lysimeter. Consequently, a further application of Zn would be needed to prevent Zn deficiencies in the plants of a subsequent crop. The behaviour of the pH and Eh parameters in the soils and leachates did not depend on the natural Zn sources applied. In this study, the easily leachable Zn estimated by BaCl2 extraction was not adequate to predict Zn leaching from the soils in subsequent crops