Beneficial Effect of Food Substitute Containing L-Arginine, ω-3 Poly Unsaturated Fatty Acid, and Ribonucleic Acid in Preventing or Improving Metabolic Syndrome: A Study in 15 Overweight Patients and a Study of Fatty Acid Metabolism in Animals

This study was conducted to investigate whether or not a food substitute (Dr. BAANs®) containing three bioactive components L-arginine, ω-3 polyunsaturated fatty acid, and ribonucleic acid, supplied orally to 15 overweight patients, may have efficacy to prevent or improve the metabolic syndrome of these patients. To provide supporting data for this clinical study, the in vivo fatty acid metabolism of obese mice was analyzed using 125I labeled 15-(p-iodophenyl)-9-methylpentadecanoic acid (9MPA) in the tissues’ lipid pool. After 3 months of intervention, the results showed that there were improvements observed in liver functions, lipid profiles and metabolic syndrome marker. Significant differences were also found in the values of blood pressure, body weight, percentage of body fat, and body mass index. In the animal study, the tissue uptake of 125I-9MPA at 10 min after injection was higher in obese mice than in the control mice and the treatment with Dr. BAANs® in obese mice decreased the uptake significantly. The final product metabolite of p-iodophenylacetic acid in obese mice was increased significantly by the treatment. In conclusion, this food substitute may have a beneficial effect for the prevention or improvement of metabolic syndrome

Haptic subitizing across the fingers

Numerosity judgments of small sets of items (≤ 3) are generally fast and errorfree, while response times and error rates increase rapidly for larger numbers of items. We investigated an efficient process used for judging small numbers of items (known as subitizing) in active touch. We hypothesized that this efficient process for numerosity judgment might be related to stimulus properties that allow for efficient (parallel) search. Our results showed that subitizing was not possible forraised lines among flat surfaces, whereas this type of stimulus could be detected in parallel over the fingers. However, subitizing was possible when the number of fingers touching a surface had to be judged while the other fingers were lowered in mid-air. In the latter case, the lack of tactile input is essential, since subitizing was not enabled by differences in proprioceptive information from the fingers. Our results show that subitizing using haptic information from the fingers is possible only whensome fingers receive tactile information while other fingers do not

The effect of feature saliency on haptic subitizing

‘Subitizing’ refers to fast and error-free numerosity judgment for small (<4) sets of items. For larger sets, the slower process of ‘counting’ is used. Counting has a serial character, whereas subitizing is believed to have a parallel character. While subitizing was initially found in vision, it has been shown to exist in touch as well. In vision, it has been demonstrated that adding distractor items to a set of target items influences numerosity judgment of the target items. Subitizing was in this case only possible if the distractor item is highly salient among the targets. In the present study, we investigated the effect of adding a distractor item on haptic judgement of a set of target items. To this end, we asked subjects to judge the number of spheres grasped in their hand. Either a cube or an ellipsoid could be added to the set. A cube among spheres has been shown to be highly salient, while an ellipsoid among spheres is not. Our results show that adding a distractor item led to an increase in the response time slopes regardless of the distractor shape. Subitizing was, however, only possible in the case of a salient distractor. This is in agreement with results from vision

Odor Removal Characteristics of a Laminated Film-Electrode Packed-Bed Nonthermal Plasma Reactor

Odor control has gained importance for ensuring a comfortable living environment. In this paper, the authors report the experimental results of a study on the detailed characteristics of a laminated film-electrode and a laminated film-electrode packed-bed nonthermal plasma reactor, which are types of dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) reactor used for odor control. These plasma reactors can be potentially used for the decomposition of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and reduction of NOx. The reactor is driven by a low-cost 60-Hz neon transformer. Removal efficiencies under various experimental conditions are studied. The complete decomposition of the main odor component, namely, NH3, is achieved in a dry environment. The retention times are investigated for the complete removal of NH3 in the case of the film-electrode plasma reactor and the film-electrode packed-bed plasma reactor. The removal efficiency of the former reactor is lower than that of the latter reactor. Mixing another odor component such as CH3CHO in the gas stream has no significant effect on NH3 removal efficiency

Chemotactic and osmotic signals share acGMP transduction pathway in Dictyostelium discoideum

In the ameboid eukaryote Dictyostelium discoideum, chemotactic stimulation by cAMP induces an increase of intracellular cGMP and subsequently the phosphorylation of myosin heavy chain II. Resistance to high osmotic stress also requires transient increases of intracellular cGMP and phosphorylation of myosin heavy chain II, although the kinetics is much slower than for chemotaxis. To examine if chemotaxis and osmotic stress share common signaling components we systematically analyzed the osmotic cGMP response and survival in chemotactic mutants with altered cGMP signaling. Null mutants with deletions of cell surface cAMP receptors or the associated GTP-binding proteins Gα2 and Gβ show no cAMP-induced cGMP response and chemotaxis; in contrast, osmotic stress induces the normal cGMP accumulation and survival. The same result was obtained with the non-chemotactic mutant KI-10, which lacks the activation of guanylyl cyclase by cAMP. This indicates that these components are required for chemotaxis but not osmotic cGMP signaling and survival. The potential guanylyl cyclase null mutant KI-8 shows no chemotaxis, no osmotic cGMP increase and reduced survival in high osmolarity. Two types of cGMP-binding protein mutants, KI-4 and KI-7, also show reduced tolerance during high osmotic stress. Taken together, these observations clarify that chemotactic and osmotic signals are detected by different mechanisms, but share a cGMP signaling pathway.

The HY5-PIF regulatory module coordinates light and temperature control of photosynthetic gene transcription

The ability to interpret daily and seasonal alterations in light and temperature signals is essential for plant survival. This is particularly important during seedling establishment when the phytochrome photoreceptors activate photosynthetic pigment production for photoautotrophic growth. Phytochromes accomplish this partly through the suppression of phytochrome interacting factors (PIFs), negative regulators of chlorophyll and carotenoid biosynthesis. While the bZIP transcription factor long hypocotyl 5 (HY5), a potent PIF antagonist, promotes photosynthetic pigment accumulation in response to light. Here we demonstrate that by directly targeting a common promoter cis-element (G-box), HY5 and PIFs form a dynamic activation-suppression transcriptional module responsive to light and temperature cues. This antagonistic regulatory module provides a simple, direct mechanism through which environmental change can redirect transcriptional control of genes required for photosynthesis and photoprotection. In the regulation of photopigment biosynthesis genes, HY5 and PIFs do not operate alone, but with the circadian clock. However, sudden changes in light or temperature conditions can trigger changes in HY5 and PIFs abundance that adjust the expression of common target genes to optimise photosynthetic performance and growth

Highly toughened polylactide with novel sliding graft copolymer by in situ reactive compatibilization, crosslinking and chain extension

YesThe “sliding graft copolymer” (SGC), in which many linear poly-ε-caprolactone (PCL) side chains are bound to cyclodextrin rings of a polyrotaxane (PR), was prepared and employed to toughen brittle polylactide (PLA) with methylene diphenyl diisocyanate (MDI) by reactive blending. The SGC was in situ crosslinked and therefore transformed from a crystallized plastic into a totally amorphous elastomer during reactive blending. Meanwhile, PLA-co-SGC copolymer was formed at interface to greatly improve the compatibility between PLA and SGC, and the chain extension of PLA also occurred, were confirmed by FTIR, GPC, SEM, and TEM. The resulting PLA/SGC/MDI blends displayed super impact toughness, elongation at break and nice biocompatibility. It was inferred from these results the crosslinked SGC (c-SGC) elastomeric particles with sliding crosslinking points performed as stress concentrators and absorbed considerable energy under impact and tension process.This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (50933001, 51221002 and 51320105012)

A negative screen for mutations in calstabin 1 and 2 genes in patients with dilated cardiomyopathy

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Calstabins 1 and 2 bind to Ryanodine receptors regulating muscle excitation-contraction coupling. Mutations in Ryanodine receptors affecting their interaction with calstabins lead to different cardiac pathologies. Animal studies suggest the involvement of calstabins with dilated cardiomyopathy.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We tested the hypothesis that calstabins mutations may cause dilated cardiomyopathy in humans screening 186 patients with idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy for genetic alterations in calstabins 1 and 2 genes (<it>FKBP12 </it>and <it>FKBP12.6)</it>. No missense variant was found. Five no-coding variations were found but not related to the disease.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>These data corroborate other studies suggesting that mutations in <it>FKBP12 </it>and <it>FKBP12.6 </it>genes are not commonly related to cardiac diseases.</p