Boundary and expansion effects on two-pion correlation functions in relativistic heavy-ion collisions

We examine the effects that a confining boundary together with hydrodynamical expansion play on two-pion distributions in relativistic heavy-ion collisions. We show that the effects arise from the introduction of further correlations due both to collective motion and the system's finite size. As is well known, the former leads to a reduction in the apparent source radius with increasing average pair momentum K. However, for small K, the presence of the boundary leads to a decrease of the apparent source radius with decreasing K. These two competing effects produce a maximum for the effective source radius as a function of K.Comment: 6 pages, 5 Eps figures, uses RevTeX and epsfi

Repositioning of the global epicentre of non-optimal cholesterol

High blood cholesterol is typically considered a feature of wealthy western countries1,2. However, dietary and behavioural determinants of blood cholesterol are changing rapidly throughout the world3 and countries are using lipid-lowering medications at varying rates. These changes can have distinct effects on the levels of high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol and non-HDL cholesterol, which have different effects on human health4,5. However, the trends of HDL and non-HDL cholesterol levels over time have not been previously reported in a global analysis. Here we pooled 1,127 population-based studies that measured blood lipids in 102.6 million individuals aged 18 years and older to estimate trends from 1980 to 2018 in mean total, non-HDL and HDL cholesterol levels for 200 countries. Globally, there was little change in total or non-HDL cholesterol from 1980 to 2018. This was a net effect of increases in low- and middle-income countries, especially in east and southeast Asia, and decreases in high-income western countries, especially those in northwestern Europe, and in central and eastern Europe. As a result, countries with the highest level of non-HDL cholesterol—which is a marker of cardiovascular risk—changed from those in western Europe such as Belgium, Finland, Greenland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and Malta in 1980 to those in Asia and the Pacific, such as Tokelau, Malaysia, The Philippines and Thailand. In 2017, high non-HDL cholesterol was responsible for an estimated 3.9 million (95% credible interval 3.7 million–4.2 million) worldwide deaths, half of which occurred in east, southeast and south Asia. The global repositioning of lipid-related risk, with non-optimal cholesterol shifting from a distinct feature of high-income countries in northwestern Europe, north America and Australasia to one that affects countries in east and southeast Asia and Oceania should motivate the use of population-based policies and personal interventions to improve nutrition and enhance access to treatment throughout the world.</p

A century of trends in adult human height

Being taller is associated with enhanced longevity, and higher education and earnings. We reanalysed 1472 population-based studies, with measurement of height on more than 18.6 million participants to estimate mean height for people born between 1896 and 1996 in 200 countries. The largest gain in adult height over the past century has occurred in South Korean women and Iranian men, who became 20.2 cm (95% credible interval 17.5-22.7) and 16.5 cm (13.3-19.7) taller, respectively. In contrast, there was little change in adult height in some sub-Saharan African countries and in South Asia over the century of analysis. The tallest people over these 100 years are men born in the Netherlands in the last quarter of 20th century, whose average heights surpassed 182.5 cm, and the shortest were women born in Guatemala in 1896 (140.3 cm; 135.8-144.8). The height differential between the tallest and shortest populations was 19-20 cm a century ago, and has remained the same for women and increased for men a century later despite substantial changes in the ranking of countries

Repositioning of the global epicentre of non-optimal cholesterol

High blood cholesterol is typically considered a feature of wealthy western countries1,2. However, dietary and behavioural determinants of blood cholesterol are changing rapidly throughout the world3 and countries are using lipid-lowering medications at varying rates. These changes can have distinct effects on the levels of high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol and non-HDL cholesterol, which have different effects on human health4,5. However, the trends of HDL and non-HDL cholesterol levels over time have not been previously reported in a global analysis. Here we pooled 1,127 population-based studies that measured blood lipids in 102.6 million individuals aged 18 years and older to estimate trends from 1980 to 2018 in mean total, non-HDL and HDL cholesterol levels for 200 countries. Globally, there was little change in total or non-HDL cholesterol from 1980 to 2018. This was a net effect of increases in low- and middle-income countries, especially in east and southeast Asia, and decreases in high-income western countries, especially those in northwestern Europe, and in central and eastern Europe. As a result, countries with the highest level of non-HDL cholesterol�which is a marker of cardiovascular risk�changed from those in western Europe such as Belgium, Finland, Greenland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and Malta in 1980 to those in Asia and the Pacific, such as Tokelau, Malaysia, The Philippines and Thailand. In 2017, high non-HDL cholesterol was responsible for an estimated 3.9 million (95 credible interval 3.7 million�4.2 million) worldwide deaths, half of which occurred in east, southeast and south Asia. The global repositioning of lipid-related risk, with non-optimal cholesterol shifting from a distinct feature of high-income countries in northwestern Europe, north America and Australasia to one that affects countries in east and southeast Asia and Oceania should motivate the use of population-based policies and personal interventions to improve nutrition and enhance access to treatment throughout the world. © 2020, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited

Rising rural body-mass index is the main driver of the global obesity epidemic in adults

Body-mass index (BMI) has increased steadily in most countries in parallel with a rise in the proportion of the population who live in cities 1,2 . This has led to a widely reported view that urbanization is one of the most important drivers of the global rise in obesity 3�6 . Here we use 2,009 population-based studies, with measurements of height and weight in more than 112 million adults, to report national, regional and global trends in mean BMI segregated by place of residence (a rural or urban area) from 1985 to 2017. We show that, contrary to the dominant paradigm, more than 55 of the global rise in mean BMI from 1985 to 2017�and more than 80 in some low- and middle-income regions�was due to increases in BMI in rural areas. This large contribution stems from the fact that, with the exception of women in sub-Saharan Africa, BMI is increasing at the same rate or faster in rural areas than in cities in low- and middle-income regions. These trends have in turn resulted in a closing�and in some countries reversal�of the gap in BMI between urban and rural areas in low- and middle-income countries, especially for women. In high-income and industrialized countries, we noted a persistently higher rural BMI, especially for women. There is an urgent need for an integrated approach to rural nutrition that enhances financial and physical access to healthy foods, to avoid replacing the rural undernutrition disadvantage in poor countries with a more general malnutrition disadvantage that entails excessive consumption of low-quality calories. © 2019, The Author(s)

Effect of the human leukocyte antigen HLA-DRB1 and anti-cyclic citrullinated peptide on the outcome of rheumatoid arthritis patients

Our objective was to determine whether the presence of the human leukocyte antigen HLA-DRB1 locus is associated with production of anti-cyclic citrullinated peptide antibodies (anti-CCP Abs) and to what extent they are associated with increased susceptibility to and severity of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) in Egyptian patients. Twenty-nine RA patients gave informed consent to participate in a case-control study that was approved by the Ain Shams University Medical Ethics Committee. RA disease activity and severity were determined using the simplified disease activity index and Larsen scores, respectively. We used a wide scale national study on the pattern of HLA typing in normal Egyptians as a control study. Anti-CCP Abs and HLA-DRB1 typing were determined for all subjects. The alleles most strongly associated with RA were HLA-DRB1 [*01 , *04 and *06] (41.4%). RA patients with serum anti-CCP Ab titers above 60 U/mL had a significantly higher frequency of HLA-DRB1*01 (58.3%) and HLA-DRB1*04 alleles (83.3%). Significant positive correlations were found between serum and synovial anti-CCP Ab titer, RA disease activity, and severity (r = 0.87, 0.66 and 0.63, respectively; P < 0.05). HLA-DRB1 SE+ alleles [*01 and *04] were highly expressed among Egyptian RA patients. The presence of these alleles was associated with higher anti-CCP Ab titer, active and severe RA disease. Early determination of HLA-DRB1 SE+ alleles and serum anti-CCP Ab could facilitate the prediction of the clinical course and prognosis of RA when first evaluated leading to better disease control

Elucidation of the role of α-lipoic acid and vitamin C in methotrexate-induced hepatoxicity in mice

OBJECTIVE: Although methotrexate (MTX) is used to treat several malignancies and chronic inflammatory diseases, its clinical use is constrained because of its negative side effects, the most prevalent of which are hepatotoxicity and nephrotoxicity. So, this study aims to determine whether α-lipoic acid (ALA) and vitamin C can protect mice against the liver damage that methotrexate causes. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A total of 49 male mice were divided into seven groups at random. Group I received sodium bicarbonate, while groups II to VII received an intraperitoneal injection of MTX (20 mg/kg) on the tenth day, following ten days of pretreatment with ALA (60 mg/Kg), ALA (120 mg/Kg), vitamin C (100 mg/Kg), vitamin C (200 mg/Kg), ALA (60 mg/Kg), and vitamin C (100 mg/kg). RESULTS: When compared to mice in group I, mice in group II (the control group) had significantly higher levels of the enzymes malondialdehyde (MDA), alanine transaminase (ALT), alkaline phosphatase (ALP), and lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) and significantly lower (p <0.05) levels of the enzymes superoxide dismutase (SOD) and glutathione (GSH). As compared to the control group, pretreatment groups with ALA and vitamin C showed a dose-dependent substantial rise (p <0.05) in GSH and SOD levels, a dose-dependent notable decrease (p <0.05) in MDA, ALT, ALP, and LDH levels, and better liver histological architecture. In order to increase the antioxidant capacity, pretreatment with ALA and vitamin C may be able to prevent MTX-induced hepatotoxicity. CONCLUSIONS: These results imply that ALA and vitamin C are useful in the treatment of MTX-induced liver damage

Accurate and Efficient Search Prediction Using Fuzzy Matching and Outcome Feedback

While search engines have demonstrated improvement in both speed and accuracy, the response time to queries is prohibitively long for applications that require immediate and accurate responses to search queries. Examples include identification of multimedia resources related to the subject matter of a particular class, as it is in session. This paper begins with a survey of recommendation and prediction algorithms, each of which applies a different method to predict future search activity based on the search history of a user. To address the shortcomings identified in existing techniques, we draw inspiration from bioinformatics and latent semantic indexing to propose a novel predictive approach based on local alignment and feedback-based neighborhood refinement. We validate our proposed approach with tests on real-world search data. The results support our hypothesis that a majority of users exhibit search behavior that is predictable. Modeling this behavior enables our predictive search engine to bypass the common query-response model and proactively deliver a list of resources to the user