The Effects of Red Wine and Grape Juice Consumption in Overweight Individuals on Multiple Health Parameters

PURPOSE: To investigate the effects of muscadine red wine and grape juice on weight, body fat, lipids, inflammation, and antioxidant capacity in overweight individuals. METHODS: In a randomized crossover design, 19 subjects consumed 300 mL of wine (WG) or grape juice (JG) for two weeks and acutely upon returning to the lab. Blood was drawn at baseline, post two weeks, and acutely. The statistical design was a 2 (treatments) x 3 (times) repeated measures ANOVA. RESULTS: Overall weight gain occurred in both groups with treatment effect (P=0.044) and time effect (P=0.018). Significant weight gain was found in WG (P=0.027). Total fat mass percentage, C-reactive protein and lipids were not affected by red wine or grape juice consumption. Ferric reducing ability of plasma significantly increased after acute, but not chronic, consumption of red wine (P<0.001). Oxygen radical absorptive capacity of plasma did not change significantly for either treatment. CONCLUSION: Adding wine or grape juice to the diets of overweight sedentary individuals, with no other dietary alterations, resulted in significant weight gain. Acute consumption of red wine resulted in significant changes in antioxidant capacity which may confer potential benefits on health variables other than ones examined in the present study

Doxorubicin-induced cytotoxicity in rat myocardial H9c2 cells: the roles of reactive oxygen species and redox balance

Doxorubicin (Dox) is one of the most potent anti-neoplastic agents approved by the Food and Drug Administration. Its efficacy, however, is limited due to its well-documented cardiotoxic side effect. Since the first observation of this dosage-dependent side effect, the mechanisms and events leading to cardiotoxicity following exposure to doxorubicin have received much attention. However, the exact pathogenesis of Dox-induced cardiotoxicity remains to be elucidated. Although increased production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) from the redox cycling of Dox has been recognized as the primary mechanism of Dox-induced cardiotoxicity, it must be noted that many of the studies supporting the oxidative stress-induced cardiotoxicity hypothesis were conducted with supraclinical drug concentrations. This study examined the effect of clinically-relevant concentrations of Dox on H9c2 rat cardiomyoblasts. Through MTT-reduction cell viability assay, it was determined that exposure of H9c2 cells to Dox concentrations above 0.5 µM for more than 12 hours resulted in significant reduction in cell viability. To verify the role of oxidative stress on the development of cytotoxicity, ROS levels after exposure to low concentrations of Dox (less than 2 µM) were measured. Quantitative measurements of both cellular and mitochondrial ROS levels revealed no significant changes to superoxide presence while exhibiting significant decrease in hydrogen peroxide presence. However, despite the decreased presence of two major types of ROS, the potency of antioxidant responses from the H9c2 cells were found to have significantly increased. Also, exposure to Dox at clinically relevant concentrations led to significant increase in the gene expressions of vascular cell adhesion molecule 1 (VCAM-1) and intercellular adhesion molecule 1(ICAM-1), two key adhesion molecules that have been implicated in Dox-induced cardiotoxicity. These results suggest that lower concentrations of Dox can stimulate intracellular anti-oxidative response that may thwart intracellular ROS levels required for maintaining of proper cell functions, ultimately leading to redox imbalance and inflammation in cardiomyocytes. While attempting to further investigate into the specific mode of cell death induced by Dox treatment, it was found that the innate fluorescence of Dox may be potent enough to be recognized by various fluorescence-based detection methods. Dox was found to exhibit fluorescence spectra consisting of a maximum excitation wavelength of 493 nm and a maximum emission wavelength of 592 nm, which were similar to the fluorescence characteristics of common fluorescent markers such as FITC, PI, MitoSOX, and DCF-DA which are widely used to assess cell viability, as well as ROS production. Furthermore, nuclear accumulation of Dox was confirmed by fluorescence microscopy, and spectrofluorometric measurements which detected the cellular uptake of Dox. This suggests that the innate fluorescence of Dox can be a valid probe used for future investigations for the uptake, release and distribution of Dox both in vitro and in vivo. Altogether, this study demonstrated for the first time that exposure to Dox at clinically relevant plasma concentrations significantly decreased hydrogen peroxide levels below the basal levels in both intact H9c2 rat cardiomyocytes and in isolated mitochondria. Cells treated with Dox showed a significant increase in the expression of genes associated with anti-oxidative response and inflammation. Utilizing the intrinsic fluorescence of Dox, it was found that incubation of H9c2 cells with Dox resulted in time-dependent intracellular uptake of Dox. This study may contribute in advancing our understanding of mechanisms responsible for Dox-induced cardiotoxicity and thereby improving the efficacy of Dox, one of the most prominent components of many chemotherapy regimens

Painting experiences

In a short paper of "seven or eight pages," what? One point generalized or a generalized development of my painting? The latter will serve better. Therefore, four things will become apparent: the experiences, a chronology, the vocabulary and some speculation. This means that events happened to me in time and appear here within my meanings. Each experience was arrived at as a discovery, however prefaced. This paper then may indicate an approach to painting and a few basic steps therein. If so, my personal achievement could be a social contribution. Hence, into the generalization

Effective data parallel computing on multicore processors

The rise of chip multiprocessing or the integration of multiple general purpose processing cores on a single chip (multicores), has impacted all computing platforms including high performance, servers, desktops, mobile, and embedded processors. Programmers can no longer expect continued increases in software performance without developing parallel, memory hierarchy friendly software that can effectively exploit the chip level multiprocessing paradigm of multicores. The goal of this dissertation is to demonstrate a design process for data parallel problems that starts with a sequential algorithm and ends with a high performance implementation on a multicore platform. Our design process combines theoretical algorithm analysis with practical optimization techniques. Our target multicores are quad-core processors from Intel and the eight-SPE IBM Cell B.E. Target applications include Matrix Multiplications (MM), Finite Difference Time Domain (FDTD), LU Decomposition (LUD), and Power Flow Solver based on Gauss-Seidel (PFS-GS) algorithms. These applications are popular computation methods in science and engineering problems and are characterized by unit-stride (MM, LUD, and PFS-GS) or 2-point stencil (FDTD) memory access pattern. The main contributions of this dissertation include a cache- and space-efficient algorithm model, integrated data pre-fetching and caching strategies, and in-core optimization techniques. Our multicore efficient implementations of the above described applications outperform nai¨ve parallel implementations by at least 2x and scales well with problem size and with the number of processing cores

Myxomatous mitral valve disease with mitral valve prolapse and mitral annular disjunction: clinical and functional significance of the coincidence

The morphological changes that occur in myxomatous mitral valve disease (MMVD) involve various components, ultimately leading to the impairment of mitral valve (MV) function. In this context, intrinsic mitral annular abnormalities are increasingly recognized, such as a mitral annular disjunction (MAD), a specific anatomical abnormality whereby there is a distinct separation between the mitral annulus and the left atrial wall and the basal portion of the posterolateral left ventricular myocardium. In recent years, several studies have suggested that MAD contributes to myxomatous degeneration of the mitral leaflets, and there is growing evidence that MAD is associated with ventricular arrhythmias and sudden cardiac death. In this review, the morphological characteristics of MAD and imaging tools for diagnosis will be described, and the clinical and functional aspects of the coincidence of MAD and myxomatous MVP will be discussed

Kawasaki disease in Hong Kong, 1994 to 2000

OBJECTIVE. To describe the epidemiology, clinical characteristics, and management of Kawasaki disease in children in Hong Kong. DESIGN. Retrospective survey of medical records from July 1994 to June 1997, and prospective data collection from July 1997 to June 2000. SETTING. Hospitals with a paediatric unit in Hong Kong. PATIENTS. Patients diagnosed with Kawasaki disease between July 1994 and June 2000 in public hospitals in Hong Kong. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES. Incidence of Kawasaki disease and coronary artery aneurysm rates. RESULTS. A total of 696 cases of Kawasaki disease were reported. There were 435 (62.5%) boys and 261 (37.5%) girls giving a male to female ratio of 1.7:1. The age ranged from 1 month to 15 years 5 months with a median of 1.7 years. Infants (<1 year) constituted the largest group of patients (223,32.0%) and overall, 638 (91.7%) were younger than 5 years. Skin rash, conjunctivitis, and oral signs were among the principal clinical features present in over 80% of cases. Prominent cervical lymph nodes larger than 1.5 cm were less commonly found (24%). Coronary artery aneurysms or ectasia were present in 15.7% (109/696), 8.5% (59/696), and 5.0% (35/696) of patients at 2, 4, and 8 weeks, respectively. The incidence of Kawasaki disease per 100 000 children under 5 years was significantly higher in the prospective study period than in the retrospective period (39 vs 26, <0.001). CONCLUSION. The incidence of Kawasaki disease is high in Hong Kong and is 39 per 100 000 children below 5 years of age. The coronary artery aneurysm prevalence is 5%. Intravenous gamma-globulin and high-dose aspirin is the mainstay of treatment.published_or_final_versio

Optimal staged self-assembly of linear assemblies

We analyze the complexity of building linear assemblies, sets of linear assemblies, and O(1)-scale general shapes in the staged tile assembly model. For systems with at most b bins and t tile types, we prove that the minimum number of stages to uniquely assemble a 1 n line is (logt n + logb n t + 1). Generalizing to O(1) n lines, we prove the minimum number of stages is O( log n tb t log t b2 + log log b log t ) and ( log n tb t log t b2 ). Next, we consider assembling sets of lines and general shapes using t = O(1) tile types. We prove that the minimum number of stages needed to assemble a set of k lines of size at most O(1) n is O( k log n b2 + k p log n b + log log n) and ( k log n b2 ). In the case that b = O( p k), the minimum number of stages is (log n). The upper bound in this special case is then used to assemble \hefty shapes of at least logarithmic edge-length-to- edge-count ratio at O(1)-scale using O( p k) bins and optimal O(log n) stages

Exploring high charge of phosphate as new draw solute in a forward osmosis-membrane distillation hybrid system for concentrating high-nutrient sludge

© 2016 Elsevier B.V. For the first time, a high charge of phosphate was used as the draw solute in a forward osmosis-membrane distillation (FO-MD) hybrid system for concentrating high-nutrient sludge. A high water flux (12.5 L/m2 h) and a low reverse salt flux (0.84 g/m2) were simultaneously achieved at pH 9 by using 0.1 M Na3PO4 as the draw solute and deionized water as the feed solution in the FO process. The specific reverse salt flux of 0.1 M Na3PO4 (Js/Jw = 0.07 g/L) was considerably less than that of 0.1 M NaCl (Js/Jw = 0.37 g/L) because the complexion between Na+ and HPO42- at pH 9 led to the reduction of free Na+ ions, which subsequently reduced the reverse salt diffusion substantially. Moreover, for a feed solution with an initial sludge concentration of 3500 mg/L, the sludge concentration could be concentrated to 19,800 and 22,000 mg/L in the pressure-retarded osmosis (PRO) and FO membrane orientations, respectively, after 15 h of operation. Four types of MD membranes were selected for draw solution recovery; of these, a polytetrafluoroethylene membrane with a pore size of 0.45 μm was the most effective in achieving a high water flux (10.28 L/m2 h) and high salt rejection (approximately 100%) in a diluted Na3PO4 draw solution

Trauma history and depression predict incomplete adherence to antiretroviral therapies in a low income country.

As antiretroviral therapy (ART) for HIV becomes increasingly available in low and middle income countries (LMICs), understanding reasons for lack of adherence is critical to stemming the tide of infections and improving health. Understanding the effect of psychosocial experiences and mental health symptomatology on ART adherence can help maximize the benefit of expanded ART programs by indicating types of services, which could be offered in combination with HIV care. The Coping with HIV/AIDS in Tanzania (CHAT) study is a longitudinal cohort study in the Kilimanjaro Region that included randomly selected HIV-infected (HIV+) participants from two local hospital-based HIV clinics and four free-standing voluntary HIV counselling and testing sites. Baseline data were collected in 2008 and 2009; this paper used data from 36 month follow-up interviews (N = 468). Regression analyses were used to predict factors associated with incomplete self-reported adherence to ART. INCOMPLETE ART ADHERENCE WAS SIGNIFICANTLY MORE LIKELY TO BE REPORTED AMONGST PARTICIPANTS WHO EXPERIENCED A GREATER NUMBER OF CHILDHOOD TRAUMATIC EVENTS: sexual abuse prior to puberty and the death in childhood of an immediate family member not from suicide or homicide were significantly more likely in the non-adherent group and other negative childhood events trended toward being more likely. Those with incomplete adherence had higher depressive symptom severity and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). In multivariable analyses, childhood trauma, depression, and financial sacrifice remained associated with incomplete adherence.\ud This is the first study to examine the effect of childhood trauma, depression and PTSD on HIV medication adherence in a low income country facing a significant burden of HIV. Allocating spending on HIV/AIDS toward integrating mental health services with HIV care is essential to the creation of systems that enhance medication adherence and maximize the potential of expanded antiretroviral access to improve health and reduce new infections

The counselling self-estimate inventory (COSE): Does it work in Chinese counsellors?

Counselling self-efficacy is an important construct for research and evaluation in counsellors' competencies and training effectiveness. Larson et al. developed the Counselling Self-Estimate Inventory (COSE) for counsellors in America and examined its factor structure using exploratory factor analysis. They recommended a five-factor model (microskills, counselling process, difficult client behaviour, cultural competence, and awareness of values) and the use of the COSE for future research. However, little research has investigated the validity of the COSE in the context of counselling Chinese students in schools. In the present study, the factor structure of responses to the Chinese version of the Counselling Self-Estimate Inventory in a sample of 578 Hong Kong secondary school guidance teachers was examined using the EQS approach to confirmatory factor analysis. The results showed that while a five-factor model was fairly able to fit the data, the deletion of items related to the awareness of values factor yielded a better fitting model. The discussion of potential uses and limitations of the C-COSE in the context of preparing and supervising school guidance personnel in student counselling is relevant to counselling psychologists and researchers in Hong Kong and other parts of the world.postprin