Can your arthritis patients get to the tablets? A study of medicine bottle opening

There has been increasing interest recently in the presentation and packaging of drugs for elderly patients and the manufacture of child-proof containers. This had led to the development of specially designed bottles or blister packs now commonly used fur over the counter analgesic preparations. Rheumatoid arthritis and osteoarthrosis are common diseases and many patients suffering from these diseases develop considerable deformities of the hand leading to an inability to perform activities of daily living. In a previous study (Mason et. al.) 200 patients with rheumatoid arthritis were shown to have difficulty in opening child-proof containers. In this study we decided to include patients with osteoarthrosis as well and to test the ability of both rheumatoid and osteoarthritic patients to open blister packs as well as child-proof containers

Gas-phase conversion of glycerol to methanol over magnesium oxide catalysts

The gas phase conversion of aqueous glycerol feedstocks to methanol has been investigated over a series of MgO catalysts, conducted at atmospheric pressure and in the absence of external reductants. MgO catalysts with characteristics altered by varying the preparation heat treatment temperature were studied. Glycerol reactions were carried out over the samples. The samples exhibited a complex product distribution. Major products observed included hydroxyacetone, ethylene glycol, acetaldehyde, acrolein and methanol. Gaps in the carbon mass balance occurred the catalysts. These were proposed to be due to high weight molecular products, which can form via bi-molecular condensation reactions. Promotion of condensation reactions was linked to strong O 2- basic sites on MgO. These are proposed to readily dissociate water, which can lead to hydroxylation of the sites in-situ. It was theorised that the hydroxylation of the catalysts surface promoted glycerol conversion and condensation reactions, due to substrate stabilisation. The catalyst treated at 650 °C was found to not require the dissociation of water to activate glycerol and exhibited more coke than the other samples. This was proposed to be linked to its morphology which differed from the others, resulting in a less prominent ratio of the O2- sites. This sample exhibited a high carbon mass balance over all conditions tested. This was concluded to be due to it suppressing the formation of high weight molecular products. The high carbon balance resulted in a higher yield to the identified products. The catalyst exhibited a higher methanol STY of 93 g h-1 kg cat-1 than the other catalysts tested. Finally, reactions investigating the mechanism were conducted using intermediates products. It was concluded that hydroxyacetone and glycolaldehyde C-C bond cleavage was unlikely to be the primary route to methanol. Instead, it is proposed to be the initial homolytic C-C cleavage of glycerol

Eat Smart. Play Hard™ San Luis Obispo: A Nutrition and Fitness Pilot Program for Young Children and Their Adult Buddies

Eat Smart. Play Hard™. San Luis Obispo!, a multi-component primary prevention program targeting low-income, Hispanic children 6-8 years, focuses on promoting healthy dietary and physical activity behaviors using an innovative child-adult buddy system approach. The child-adult buddies participate in multiple activities to increase their consumption of fruits and vegetables, and level of physical activity and decrease their consumption of sweetened beverages. The results of the pilot program show high program satisfaction and improvements in dietary and physical activity behaviors. Such programs provide an opportunity to establish and promote healthy behaviors among young children and ultimately prevent overweight development

Specific Heat of the Dilute Ising Magnet LiHox_xY1−x_{1-x}F4_4

We present specific heat data on three samples of the dilute Ising magnet \HoYLF with $x = 0.018$, 0.045 and 0.080. Previous measurements of the ac susceptibility of an $x = 0.045$ sample showed the Ho$^{3+}$ moments to remain dynamic down to very low temperatures and the specific heat was found to have unusually sharp features. In contrast, our measurements do not exhibit these sharp features in the specific heat and instead show a broad feature, for all three samples studied, which is qualitatively consistent with a spin glass state. Integrating $C/T$, however, reveals an increase in residual entropy with lower Ho concentration, consistent with recent Monte Carlo simulations showing a lack of spin glass transition for low x.Comment: 10 pages, 3 figurs, accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. Let

Modularity of plant metabolic gene clusters: a trio of linked genes that are collectively required for acylation of triterpenes in oat

Operon-like gene clusters are an emerging phenomenon in the field of plant natural products. The genes encoding some of the best-characterized plant secondary metabolite biosynthetic pathways are scattered across plant genomes. However, an increasing number of gene clusters encoding the synthesis of diverse natural products have recently been reported in plant genomes. These clusters have arisen through the neo-functionalization and relocation of existing genes within the genome, and not by horizontal gene transfer from microbes. The reasons for clustering are not yet clear, although this form of gene organization is likely to facilitate co-inheritance and co-regulation. Oats (Avena spp) synthesize antimicrobial triterpenoids (avenacins) that provide protection against disease. The synthesis of these compounds is encoded by a gene cluster. Here we show that a module of three adjacent genes within the wider biosynthetic gene cluster is required for avenacin acylation. Through the characterization of these genes and their encoded proteins we present a model of the subcellular organization of triterpenoid biosynthesis

Economics methods in Cochrane systematic reviews of health promotion and public health related interventions.

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Optimizing Crowdsourced Land Use and Land Cover Data Collection: A Two-Stage Approach

Citizen science has become an increasingly popular approach to scientific data collection, where classification tasks involving visual interpretation of images is one prominent area of application, e.g., to support the production of land cover and land-use maps. Achieving a minimum accuracy in these classification tasks at a minimum cost is the subject of this study. A Bayesian approach provides an intuitive and reasonably straightforward solution to achieve this objective. However, its application requires additional information, such as the relative frequency of the classes and the accuracy of each user. While the former is often available, the latter requires additional data collection. In this paper, we present a two-stage approach to gathering this additional information. We demonstrate its application using a hypothetical two-class example and then apply it to an actual crowdsourced dataset with five classes, which was taken from a previous Geo-Wiki crowdsourcing campaign on identifying the size of agricultural fields from very high-resolution satellite imagery. We also attach the R code for the implementation of the newly presented approach

Inhibition of αvβ5 Integrin Attenuates Vascular Permeability and Protects against Renal Ischemia-Reperfusion Injury

Ischemia-reperfusion injury (IRI) is a leading cause of AKI. This common clinical complication lacks effective therapies and can lead to the development of CKD. The αvβ5 integrin may have an important role in acute injury, including septic shock and acute lung injury. To examine its function in AKI, we utilized a specific function-blocking antibody to inhibit αvβ5 in a rat model of renal IRI. Pretreatment with this anti-αvβ5 antibody significantly reduced serum creatinine levels, diminished renal damage detected by histopathologic evaluation, and decreased levels of injury biomarkers. Notably, therapeutic treatment with the αvβ5 antibody 8 hours after IRI also provided protection from injury. Global gene expression profiling of post-ischemic kidneys showed that αvβ5 inhibition affected established injury markers and induced pathway alterations previously shown to be protective. Intravital imaging of post-ischemic kidneys revealed reduced vascular leak with αvβ5 antibody treatment. Immunostaining for αvβ5 in the kidney detected evident expression in perivascular cells, with negligible expression in the endothelium. Studies in a three-dimensional microfluidics system identified a pericyte-dependent role for αvβ5 in modulating vascular leak. Additional studies showed αvβ5 functions in the adhesion and migration of kidney pericytes in vitro Initial studies monitoring renal blood flow after IRI did not find significant effects with αvβ5 inhibition; however, future studies should explore the contribution of vasomotor effects. These studies identify a role for αvβ5 in modulating injury-induced renal vascular leak, possibly through effects on pericyte adhesion and migration, and reveal αvβ5 inhibition as a promising therapeutic strategy for AKI

Intrinsic Epithelial Cells Repair the Kidney after Injury

SummaryUnderstanding the mechanisms of nephron repair is critical for the design of new therapeutic approaches to treat kidney disease. The kidney can repair after even a severe insult, but whether adult stem or progenitor cells contribute to epithelial renewal after injury and the cellular origin of regenerating cells remain controversial. Using genetic fate-mapping techniques, we generated transgenic mice in which 94%–95% of tubular epithelial cells, but no interstitial cells, were labeled with either β-galactosidase (lacZ) or red fluorescent protein (RFP). Two days after ischemia-reperfusion injury (IRI), 50.5% of outer medullary epithelial cells coexpress Ki67 and RFP, indicating that differentiated epithelial cells that survived injury undergo proliferative expansion. After repair was complete, 66.9% of epithelial cells had incorporated BrdU, compared to only 3.5% of cells in the uninjured kidney. Despite this extensive cell proliferation, no dilution of either cell-fate marker was observed after repair. These results indicate that regeneration by surviving tubular epithelial cells is the predominant mechanism of repair after ischemic tubular injury in the adult mammalian kidney