A comparison of frailty indexes for prediction of adverse health outcomes in an elderly cohort

This study aimed to compare the predictive accuracy for several frailty-related adverse health outcomes of a cumulative index derived from the Italian population-based elderly cohort of the Conselice Study of Brain Aging (CSBA), which takes into account multiple different domains (demographic, clinical, functional, and nutritional parameters), with that of an index derived from the Study of Osteoporotic Fractures (SOF), modified for application to the CSBA database and henceforth called mSOF, which is exclusively focused on muscular fitness. Data are for 1007 CSBA participants aged >= 65 years. Investigated adverse outcomes included 4- and 7-year risk of death and 4-year risk of fractures, falls, disability, hospitalization, and nursing home placement. Accuracy for prediction of these outcomes was investigated using area under the curve (AUC) statistics. CSBA index performed better than mSOF index for prediction of mortality (p < 0.001), hospitalization (p = 0.002), and nursing home placement (p = 0.049). For all outcomes excluding falls, frailty defined by CSBA index had a slightly lower specificity but a much higher sensitivity than frailty defined by mSOF Index. In conclusion, in this elderly cohort, the multidimensional CSBA index is a better predictor of frailty-related adverse health outcomes than the unidimensional mSOF index

Uranium uptake by Montmorillonite-biomass complexes

Montmorillonite clays and biomass have noticeable metal sorption capacity. Clays or biomass are difficult to separate from the solution when used as sorbent materials. A methodology to retain biomass and improve separation processes is to generate clay biopolymers matrices from fungal biomass grown on a natural Montmorillonite (MMT). The objective of this study is to generate and characterize clay biopolymers matrices and evaluate their uranium adsorption capacity. The generated clay biopolymers (BMMTs) were characterized through X-ray diffraction, measurement of the apparent diameter of particles, and electrophoretic mobility. Some BMMTs showed greater Uranium-specific adsorption capacity than that found for MMT. The X-ray diffraction analysis indicated that the Uranium was located partially in the clay interlayer. The BMMT surfaces were more negatively charged than the MMT surface, thus favoring their uranium uptake. Also, immobilization of the biomass and better coagulation of the system were achieved. These preliminary studies indicate that BMMTs have a great potentiality for uranium uptake processes. © 2013 American Chemical Society.Fil: Olivelli, Melisa Soledad. Provincia de Buenos Aires. Gobernación. Comisión de Investigaciones Científicas. Centro de Tecnología de Recursos Minerales y Cerámica. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - La Plata. Centro de Tecnología de Recursos Minerales y Cerámica; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de San Martín. Escuela de Ciencia y Tecnología. Laboratorio de Análisis Ambiental; ArgentinaFil: Curutchet, Gustavo Andres. Universidad Nacional de San Martín. Escuela de Ciencia y Tecnología. Laboratorio de Análisis Ambiental; ArgentinaFil: Torres Sanchez, Rosa Maria. Provincia de Buenos Aires. Gobernación. Comisión de Investigaciones Científicas. Centro de Tecnología de Recursos Minerales y Cerámica. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - La Plata. Centro de Tecnología de Recursos Minerales y Cerámica; Argentin