The associations of adipokines with selected markers of the renin-angiotensinogen-aldosterone system: the multi-ethnic study of atherosclerosis.

Among obese individuals, increased sympathetic nervous system (SNS) activity results in increased renin and aldosterone production, as well as renal tubular sodium reabsorption. This study determined the associations between adipokines and selected measures of the renin-angiotensinogen-aldosterone system (RAAS). The sample consisted of 1970 men and women from the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis who were free of clinical cardiovascular disease at baseline and had blood assayed for adiponectin, leptin, plasma renin activity (PRA) and aldosterone. The mean age was 64.7 years and 50% were female. The mean (s.d.) PRA and aldosterone were 1.45 (0.56) ng ml(-1) and 150.1 (130.5) pg ml(-1), respectively. After multivariable adjustment, a 1-s.d. increment of leptin was associated with a 0.55 ng ml(-1) higher PRA and 8.4 pg ml(-1) higher aldosterone (P<0.01 for both). Although adiponectin was not significantly associated with PRA levels, the same increment in this adipokine was associated with lower aldosterone levels (-5.5 pg ml(-1), P=0.01). Notably, the associations between aldosterone and both leptin and adiponectin were not materially changed with additional adjustment for PRA. Exclusion of those taking antihypertensive medications modestly attenuated the associations. The associations between leptin and both PRA and aldosterone were not different by gender but were significantly stronger among non-Hispanic Whites and Chinese Americans than African and Hispanic Americans (P<0.01). The findings suggest that both adiponectin and leptin may be relevant to blood pressure regulation via the RAAS, in that the associations appear to be robust to antihypertension medication use and that the associations are likely different by ethnicity

Diverticular disease

PhD monograp

Enhanced Distributed Dynamic Skyline Query for Wireless Sensor Networks

Dynamic skyline query is one of the most popular and significant variants of skyline query in the field of multi-criteria decision-making. However, designing a distributed dynamic skyline query possesses greater challenge, especially for the distributed data centric storage within wireless sensor networks (WSNs). In this paper, a novel Enhanced Distributed Dynamic Skyline (EDDS) approach is proposed and implemented in Disk Based Data Centric Storage (DBDCS) architecture. DBDCS is an adaptation of magnetic disk storage platter consisting tracks and sectors. In DBDCS, the disc track and sector analogy is used to map data locations. A distance based indexing method is used for storing and querying multi-dimensional similar data. EDDS applies a threshold based hierarchical approach, which uses temporal correlation among sectors and sector segments to calculate a dynamic skyline. The efficiency and effectiveness of EDDS has been evaluated in terms of latency, energy consumption and accuracy through a simulation model developed in Castalia

A survey of smart grid architectures, applications, benefits and standardization

The successful transformation of conventional power grids into Smart Grids (SG) will require robust and scalable communication network infrastructure. The SGs will facilitate bidirectional electricity flow, advanced load management, a self-healing protection mechanism and advanced monitoring capabilities to make the power system more energy efficient and reliable. In this paper SG communication network architectures, standardization efforts and details of potential SG applications are identified. The future deployment of real-time or near-real-time SG applications is dependent on the introduction of a SG compatible communication system that includes a communication protocol for cross-domain traffic flows within the SG. This paper identifies the challenges within the cross-functional domains of the power and communication systems that current research aims to overcome. The status of SG related machine to machine communication system design is described and recommendations are provided for diverse new and innovative traffic features

Prognostic significance of del 17p, ZAP-70 and CD38 as independent indicators for B-CLL: Correlation to response to treatment and disease outcome

Prognostic markers as CD38 and ZAP-70 and specific chromosomal abnormalities as del 17p have now been developed to refine the risk of progressive disease in chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL). This study analyzed 40 recently diagnosed, untreated B-CLL patients for CD38 and ZAP-70 expression by flow cytometry and for del 17p by conventional cytogenetics (CCG) and by fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) technique to evaluate their effect on the clinical course of CLL and as risk factors for disease progression in addition to their impact on response to treatment and disease outcome. Twenty healthy age- and sex-matched subjects were included as a control. The results revealed that CD38 and ZAP-70 expression were detected in 42.5% and 47.5% of cases, respectively. They were associated with an unfavorable clinical course. Higher levels were significantly associated with increased risk of unfavorable response to treatment (P = 0.003), with poor clinical outcome (P = 0.0001). Del 17p was detected in 35% of cases by FISH technique and in 7.5% by CCG. The deletion was significantly associated with progressive clinical course; poor response to treatment (P = 0.007) but not with disease outcome (P = 0.103). Combined analysis of ZAP-70 and CD38 yielded concordantly negative results in 50% of patients and concordantly positive results in 40% of patients, while 10% were discordant. CD38+/ZAP-70+ patients were significantly associated with progressive disease (P < 0.05) and with del 17p than CD38-/ZAP-70- patients (P = 0.008). Time to disease progression (TDP) was 6 months among CD38+/ZAP-70+ patients as compared to 16 months in CD38-/ZAP-70- patients. In patients with discordant results, the TDP was 9 months. Over-representation of the three parameters (CD38, ZAP-70 and del 17p) was detected in 22.5% of cases, and pointed towards even shorter TDP (4.5 months), more aggressive disease; more resistance to chemotherapy and poor outcome thus providing a precise tool for identifying high-risk patients. In conclusion, the combined expression of CD38 and ZAP-70 together with del 17p in CLL is a precise diagnostic tool for identifying high-risk patients and convey rapid progression; they are accurate predictors of clinical outcome thus could be used to indicate when more novel chemotherapeutic approaches are needed and provided help in guiding individual patient treatment.Keywords: CLL; CD38; ZAP-70; Del 17p; Immunophenotyping; FISH; Survival stud

Software defined neighborhood area network for smart grid applications

Information gathered from the Smart Grid (SG) devices located in end user premises provides a valuable resource that can be used to modify the behavior of SG applications. Decentralized and distributed deployment of neighborhood area network (NAN) devices makes it a challenge to manage SG efficiently. The NAN communication network architecture should be designed to aggregate and disseminate information among different SG domains. In this paper, we present a communication framework for NAN based on wireless sensor networks using the software defined networking paradigm. The data plane devices, such as smart meters, intelligent electronic devices, sensors, and switches are controlled via an optimized controller hierarchy deployed using a separate control plane. An analytical model is developed to determine the number of switches and controllers required for the NAN and the results of several test scenarios are presented. A Castalia based simulation model was used to analyze the performance of modified NAN performance

Overexpression of connexin 43 using a retroviral vector improves electrical coupling of skeletal myoblasts with cardiac myocytes in vitro.

BACKGROUND: Organ transplantation is presently often the only available option to repair a damaged heart. As heart donors are scarce, engineering of cardiac grafts from autologous skeletal myoblasts is a promising novel therapeutic strategy. The functionality of skeletal muscle cells in the heart milieu is, however, limited because of their inability to integrate electrically and mechanically into the myocardium. Therefore, in pursuit of improved cardiac integration of skeletal muscle grafts we sought to modify primary skeletal myoblasts by overexpression of the main gap-junctional protein connexin 43 and to study electrical coupling of connexin 43 overexpressing myoblasts to cardiac myocytes in vitro. METHODS: To create an efficient means for overexpression of connexin 43 in skeletal myoblasts we constructed a bicistronic retroviral vector MLV-CX43-EGFP expressing the human connexin 43 cDNA and the marker EGFP gene. This vector was employed to transduce primary rat skeletal myoblasts in optimised conditions involving a concomitant use of the retrovirus immobilising protein RetroNectin and the polycation transduction enhancer Transfectam. The EGFP-positive transduced cells were then enriched by flow cytometry. RESULTS: More than four-fold overexpression of connexin 43 in the transduced skeletal myoblasts, compared with non-transduced cells, was shown by Western blotting. Functionality of the overexpressed connexin 43 was demonstrated by microinjection of a fluorescent dye showing enhanced gap-junctional intercellular transfer in connexin 43 transduced myoblasts compared with transfer in non-transduced myoblasts. Rat cardiac myocytes were cultured in multielectrode array culture dishes together with connexin 43/EGFP transduced skeletal myoblasts, control non-transduced skeletal myoblasts or alone. Extracellular field action potential activation rates in the co-cultures of connexin 43 transduced skeletal myoblasts with cardiac myocytes were significantly higher than in the co-cultures of non-transduced skeletal myoblasts with cardiac myocytes and similar to the rates in pure cultures of cardiac myocytes. CONCLUSION: The observed elevated field action potential activation rate in the co-cultures of cardiac myocytes with connexin 43 transduced skeletal myoblasts indicates enhanced cell-to-cell electrical coupling due to overexpression of connexin 43 in skeletal myoblasts. This study suggests that retroviral connexin 43 transduction can be employed to augment engineering of the electrocompetent cardiac grafts from patients own skeletal myoblasts

On Hierarchy and Equivalence of Relativistic Equations for Massive Fields

A non-canonical correspondence of the complete sets of solutions to the Dirac and Klein-Gordon free equations in Minkowski space-time is established. This allows for a novel viewpoint on the relationship of relativistic equations for different spins and on the origin of spinor transformations. In particular, starting from a solution to the Dirac equation, one obtains a chain of other solutions to both Dirac and Klein-Gordon equations. A comparison with the massless case is performed, and examples of non-trivial singular solutions are presented. A generalization to Riemannian space-time and inclusion of interactions are briefly discussed.Comment: 7 pages, twocolumn. Problem of construction the hierarchy of solutions in the massive case reformulate

Assessment of body composition and association with clinical outcomes in patients with lung and colorectal cancer

OBJECTIVES: To assess body composition in patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and colorectal cancer using whole-body MRI and relate this to clinical outcomes. METHODS: 53 patients with NSCLC (28 males, 25 females; mean age 66.9) and 74 patients with colorectal cancer (42 males, 32 females; mean age 62.9) underwent staging whole-body MRI scans, which were post-processed to derive fat mass (FM), fat free mass (FFM) and skeletal muscle (SM) indices and SM fat fraction (FF). These were compared between the two cancer cohorts using two-sided t-tests and the chi-squared test. Measurements of body composition were correlated with outcomes including length of hospital stay, metastatic status and mortality. RESULTS: Patients with NSCLC had significantly lower FFM (p = 0.0071) and SM (p = 0.0084) indices. Mean SM FF was greater in patients with NSCLC (p = 0.0124) and was associated with longer hospital stay (p = 0.035). There was no significant relationship between FM, FFM and SM indices and length of hospital stay, metastatic status or mortality. CONCLUSIONS: Patients with NSCLC had lower FFM and SM indices than patients with colorectal cancer and greater SMFF, indicating lower SM mass with fatty infiltration. These findings reflect differences in the phenotype of the two groups and suggest patients with lung cancer are more likely to require additional nutritional support. ADVANCES IN KNOWLEDGE: Body composition differs between NSCLC and colorectal cancer. Patients with NSCLC have both a reduced SM mass and greater SM FF suggesting that they are more nutritionally deplete than patients with colorectal cancer

Light dependence of selenium uptake by phytoplankton and implications for predicting selenium incorporation into food webs

The potentially toxic element selenium is first concentrated from solution to a large but highly variable degree by algae and bacteria before being passed on to consumers. The large loads of abiotic and detrital suspended particles often present in rivers and estuaries may obscure spatial and temporal patterns in Se concentrations at the base of the food web. We used radiotracers to estimate uptake of both selenite (Se(IV)) and C by intact plankton communities at two sites in the Sacramento/San Joaquin River Delta. Our goals were to determine (1) whether C and Se(IV) uptake were coupled, (2) the role of bacteria in Se(IV) uptake, and (3) the Se:C uptake ratio of newly produced organic material. Se(IV) uptake, like C uptake, was strongly related to irradiance. The shapes of both relationships were very similar except that at least 42-56% of Se(IV) uptake occurred in the dark, whereas C uptake in the dark was negligible. Of this dark Se(IV) uptake, 34-67% occurred in the 0.2-1.0-μm size fraction, indicating significant uptake by bacteria. In addition to dark uptake, total Se(IV) uptake consisted of a light-driven component that was in fixed proportion to C uptake. Our estimates of daily areal Se(IV):C uptake ratios agreed very well with particulate Se:C measured at a site dominated by phytoplankton biomass. Estimates of bacterial Se:C were 2.4-13 times higher than for the phytoplankton, suggesting that bacteriovores may be exposed to higher dietary Se concentrations than herbivores