The Effect of Food Supplement MalnuForte on the Quality of Life of Children who Suffered Malnutrition in the First 1000 Days of their lives: A Case Report (MalnuForte Case Study)

Objective: Malnutrition is a common worldwide problem and, for children, has a major impact on cognitive and physical development, productivity and health. The damage due to malnutrition is largest when it occurs in the first 1000 days of life. It is largely irreversible and has far-reaching consequences. There is as yet no known cure for the negative effects of malnutrition, while a cure for a large number of previously malnourished children worldwide would lead to better chances for them in life. This case study, therefore, examines the effect of a six-month treatment of MalnuForte on the quality of life of children between 5 and 11 years who suffered malnutrition in the first 1000 days of their livesMethods: The study subjects are five adopted children who suffered malnutrition in the first 1000 days of their lives and experienced problems or backlog in their quality of life. For six months, the children took one tablet of food supplement MalnuForte a day orally. To estimate the subjects' quality of life, a standardized and validated quality of life questionnaire for children was used, the PedsQL.Results: A higher quality of life after six months was found for all subjects. The mean total increase of the PedsQL scores between baseline and 6 months was 50%.Conclusion: In this case study, the intake of food supplement MalnuForte shows remarkable increases in the quality of life of five adopted children who had suffered from malnutrition during the first 1000 days of their lives

The reduction of the critical current in Nb3Sn cables under transverse loads

The degradation of the critical current of impregnated Rutherford type Nb3Sn cables was investigated as a function of the applied transverse load and magnetic field. The cable is made of modified jelly-roll-type strand material and has a keystone angle of 1.0°. The voltage-current characteristics were determined for the magnetic field ranging from 2 to 11 T and transverse pressure up to 250 MPa on the cable surface. It was found that the 48-strand cable, made of strands with six elements in the matrix, showed a larger critical current degradation than the 26-strand cable with 36 elements per strand. The global degradation of the 48-strand cable was 63% at 150 MPa, and 40% at 150 MPa for the 26-strand cable. Microanalysis of the cross-section before and after compression is presented, showing significant permanent damage to the superconducting strands

Vertical distribution of stars and gas in a galactic disk

We study the vertical density distribution of stars and gas (HI and H_2) in a galactic disk which is embedded in a dark matter halo. The new feature of this work is the inclusion of gas, and the gravitational coupling between stars and gas, which has led to a more realistic treatment of a multi-component galactic disk. The gas gravity is shown to be crucially important despite the low gas mass fraction. This approach physically explains the observed scaleheight distribution of all the three disk components, including the long-standing puzzle (Oort 1962) of a constant HI scaleheight observed in the inner Galaxy. The above model is applied to two external galaxies: NGC 891 and NGC 4565, and the stellar disk is shown to be not strictly flat as was long believed but rather it shows a moderate flaring of a factor of about 2 within the optical radius.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures; to appear in the Proceedings of "Island Universes: Structure and evolution of disk galaxies" (Terschelling, The Netherlands, July 2005), ed. R. de Jon

Symptomatic Skeletal Events and the Use of Bone Health Agents in a Real-World Treated Metastatic Castration Resistant Prostate Cancer Population:Results From the CAPRI-Study in the Netherlands

Background: Patients with metastatic castration resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC) are at risk of symptomatic skeletal events (SSE). Bone health agents (BHA, ie bisphosphonates and denosumab) and new life-prolonging drugs (LPDs) can delay SSEs. The aim of this study is to investigate the use of BHAs in relation to SSEs in treated real-world mCRPC population. Patients and Methods: We included patients from the CAPRI registry who were treated with at least one LPD and diagnosed with bone metastases prior to the start of first LPD (LPD1). Outcomes were SSEs (external beam radiation therapy (EBRT) to the bone, orthopedic surgery, pathologic fracture or spinal cord compression) and SSE-free survival (SSE-FS) since LPD1. Results: One-thousand nine hundred and twenty-three patients were included with a median follow-up from LPD1 of 16.7 months. Fifty-two percent (n = 996) started BHA prior or within 4 weeks after the start of LPD1 (early BHA). In total, 41% experienced at least one SSE. SSE incidence rate was 0.29 per patient year for patients without BHA and 0.27 for patients with early BHA. Median SSE-FS from LPD1 was 12.9 months. SSE-FS was longer in patients who started BHA early versus patients without BHA (13.2 vs. 11.0 months, P =.001). Conclusion: In a real-world population we observed an undertreatment with BHAs, although patients with early BHA use had lower incidence rates of SSEs and longer SSE-FS. This finding was irrespective of type of SSE and presence of risk factors. In addition to LPD treatment, timely initiation of BHAs is recommended in bone metastatic CRPC-patients with both pain and/or opioid use and prior SSE

Meta-analysis of genome-wide association studies of anxiety disorders.

Anxiety disorders (ADs), namely generalized AD, panic disorder and phobias, are common, etiologically complex conditions with a partially genetic basis. Despite differing on diagnostic definitions based on clinical presentation, ADs likely represent various expressions of an underlying common diathesis of abnormal regulation of basic threat-response systems. We conducted genome-wide association analyses in nine samples of European ancestry from seven large, independent studies. To identify genetic variants contributing to genetic susceptibility shared across interview-generated DSM-based ADs, we applied two phenotypic approaches: (1) comparisons between categorical AD cases and supernormal controls, and (2) quantitative phenotypic factor scores (FS) derived from a multivariate analysis combining information across the clinical phenotypes. We used logistic and linear regression, respectively, to analyze the association between these phenotypes and genome-wide single nucleotide polymorphisms. Meta-analysis for each phenotype combined results across the nine samples for over 18 000 unrelated individuals. Each meta-analysis identified a different genome-wide significant region, with the following markers showing the strongest association: for case-control contrasts, rs1709393 located in an uncharacterized non-coding RNA locus on chromosomal band 3q12.3 (P=1.65 × 10(-8)); for FS, rs1067327 within CAMKMT encoding the calmodulin-lysine N-methyltransferase on chromosomal band 2p21 (P=2.86 × 10(-9)). Independent replication and further exploration of these findings are needed to more fully understand the role of these variants in risk and expression of ADs.Molecular Psychiatry advance online publication, 12 January 2016; doi:10.1038/mp.2015.197

Health-related Quality of Life and Pain in a Real-world Castration-resistant Prostate Cancer Population: Results From the PRO-CAPRI Study in the Netherlands

Background: The purpose of this study was to determine generic, cancer-specific, and prostate cancer-specific health-related quality of life (HRQoL), pain and changes over time in patients with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC) in daily practice. Patients and Methods: PRO-CAPRI is an observational, prospective study in 10 hospitals in the Netherlands. Patients with mCRPC completed the EQ-5D, European Organization for the Research and Treatment of Cancer Quality of Life Questionnaire (EORTC QLQ-C30), and Brief Pain Inventory-Short Form (BPI-SF) every 3 months and European Organization for the Research and Treatment of Cancer Quality of Life Questionnaire-Prostate Cancer Module (EORTC QLQ-PR25) every 6 months for a maximum of 2 years. Subgroups were identified based on chemotherapy pretreatment. Outcomes were generic, cancer-specific, and prostate cancer-specific HRQoL and self-reported pain. Descriptive statistics were performed including changes over time and minimal important differences (MID) between subgroups. Results: In total, 151 included patients answered 873 questionnaires. The median follow-up from the start of the study was 19.5 months, and 84% were treated with at least 1 life-prolonging agent. Overall, patients were in good clinical condition (Eatern Cooperative Oncology Group performance status 0-1 in 78%) with normal baseline hemoglobin, lactate dehydrogenase, and alkaline phosphatase. At inclusion, generic HRQoL was high with a mean EQ visual analog score of 73.2 out of 100. The lowest scores were reported on role and physical functioning (mean scores of 69 and 76 of 100, respectively), and fatigue, pain, and insomnia were the most impaired domai

Modelling Jets, Tori and Flares in Pulsar Wind Nebulae

In this contribution we review the recent progress in the modelling of Pulsar Wind Nebulae (PWN). We start with a brief overview of the relevant physical processes in the magnetosphere, the wind-zone and the inflated nebula bubble. Radiative signatures and particle transport processes obtained from 3D simulations of PWN are discussed in the context of optical and X-ray observations. We then proceed to consider particle acceleration in PWN and elaborate on what can be learned about the particle acceleration from the dynamical structures called GwispsG observed in the Crab nebula. We also discuss recent observational and theoretical results of gamma-ray flares and the inner knot of the Crab nebula, which had been proposed as the emission site of the flares. We extend the discussion to GeV flares from binary systems in which the pulsar wind interacts with the stellar wind from a companion star. The chapter concludes with a discussion of solved and unsolved problems posed by PWN