Dydrogesterone and norethisterone regulate expression of lipoprotein lipase and hormones-sensitive lipase in human subcutaneous abdominal adipocytes

Aim: In premenopausal women, hyper-androgenicity is associated with central obesity and an increased cardiovascular risk. We investigated the effects of dydrogesterone (DYD)(a non-androgenic progestogen) and norethisterone (NET)(an androgenic progestogen) on lipoprotein lipase (LPL), hormone-sensitive lipase (HSL) and glycerol release in adipocytes isolated from subcutaneous abdominal adipose tissue. Methods: Adipose tissue was obtained from 12 non-diabetic women, mean age 51 years (range 37-78) and mean BMI 25.4kg/m2 (range 20.3-26.4). Adipocytes were treated with increasing doses of DYD and NET for 48 hours prior to protein extraction. Effects on lipogenesis and lipolysis were assessed using western blotting to determine the expression of key enzymes, LPL (56kDa) and HSL (84kDa) respectively. Measurement of glycerol release into the medium provided an assessment of lipolytic activity. Results: Expression of LPL was increased by DYD and NET (mean protein expression relative to control ± SEM); with greatest effect at 10-8M for DYD: 2.32±0.51(p0.05). Conclusions: DYD and NET significantly increased LPL expression relative to control whilst significantly reducing HSL expression. At the concentrations studied, similar effects were observed with the androgenic NET and the non-androgenic DYD despite differing effects on the lipid profile when taken in combination with estrogen. Further work in this area may improve knowledge about the effects of different progestogens on body fat distribution and enable progestogen use to be tailored to the individual to achieve maximal benefits

The Second Branch of Learning

Our society is peculiarly reluctant to acknowledge any debt to its forebears other than those of definitely western nature. Much is made of the Greek and Roman origins of our ideas and ideals, while the contribution of other, more eastern, societies is usually omitted or glossed over in the course of education and in no case is this better demonstrated than in the case of our debt to the once mighty and glittering civilization of the MoslemsCenturies of misunderstanding and resulting conflicts, culminating in the savage and bloody military failure that was the Crusades, and the westward surge of the Ottoman Turks who, by the late 17th century had reached as far as Vienna and were only narrowly repulsed, produced a torrent of propaganda from both sides which even now obscures the historical closeness of Christian and Islamic societies and the role of Moslem learning in promoting the great awakening that was the Renaissance. It comes as a surprise to many to find that while Europe was sunk into its “dark ages" there was a civilization in the Middle East with a stability, culture and level of achievement that the West was not to know till the 18th century. The caliphs in Baghdad, at the height of their power, ruled an empire of which it was said that a virgin with a sack of gold could walk from one border to the other without fear of molestation. Their capital was not only a city of glittering mosques and fountains, of paved and torch lit streets, but a city of universities, free hospitals, and public libraries. Islamic learning was so famed that at least one of the Popes, Sylvester II, attended a Moslem university to complete his education before his elevation to the pontificate. Curiously enough, of the great physicians of this period few were Arabs, though the majority were Moslems. The noted Avicenna (980-1036), and Rhazes (864-C.920) were Persian, while Averroes (Ibn-Rushd), 1126-1198, and Avenzoar (Ibn-Zuhr, 1109-1162) were Moors, and the philosopher and scientist Maimonides (1135-1204), whose medical writings alone would have been sufficient to ensure his immortality, was Jewish by both race and religion.

How do people type on mobile devices? Observations from a study with 37,000 volunteers

© 2019 Association for Computing Machinery. This paper presents a large-scale dataset on mobile text entry collected via a web-based transcription task performed by 37,370 volunteers. The average typing speed was 36.2 WPM with 2.3% uncorrected errors. The scale of the data enables powerful statistical analyses on the correlation between typing performance and various factors, such as demographics, finger usage, and use of intelligent text entry techniques. We report effects of age and finger usage on performance that correspond to previous studies. We also find evidence of relationships between performance and use of intelligent text entry techniques: auto-correct usage correlates positively with entry rates, whereas word prediction usage has a negative correlation. To aid further work on modeling, machine learning and design improvements in mobile text entry, we make the code and dataset openly available

Environmentally Sustainable Solvent-based Process Chemistry for Metals in Printed Circuit Boards

This chapter describes the development of several new processes relating to the fabrication, characterisation and recycling of printed circuit board (PCB) metal assemblies in alternative, sustainable solvent technologies based on an emergent class of liquids know as deep eutectic solvents (DES). It has been demonstrated that in many cases, the use of DES technologies can be disruptive to current process thinking and in principle can deliver benefits including increased efficiency,lower costs and better process control. These technologies offer the opportunity to incorporate new ideas into PCB fabrication and assembly that facilitate downstream, end-of-life recovery and separation consistent with a circular economy model. Current PCB manufacturing is carried out using many complex metal deposition processes involving aqueous solutions of toxic metal salts, strong inorganic acids, precious and expensive noble metals, and requires careful process control and monitoring. As a result, these processes are often costly to operate and inefficient. DES-based technologies can: (1) improve the economic and efficient use of essential metals; (2) reduce or eliminate use of precious and expensive metals; (3) reduce the use of complex and difficult to maintain process chemistry; (4) reduce reliance on toxic and noxious materials; and (5) improve recovery, recycling and reuse of PCB metals

Minimally invasive management of vital teeth requiring root canal therapy

The present study aimed to investigate the possible use of a non-instrumentation technique including blue light irradiation for root canal cleaning. Extracted human single rooted teeth were selected. Nine different groups included distilled water, NaOCl, intra-canal heated NaOCl, and NaOCl + EDTA irrigation after either instrumentation or non-instrumentation, and a laser application group following non-instrumentation technique. The chemical assessment of the root canal dentine was evaluated using EDS and FT-IR. Surface microstructural analyses were performed by using SEM. The antimicrobial efficacy of different preparation techniques was evaluated using microbial tests. Laser application didn’t change the Ca/P, carbonate/phosphate and amide I/phosphate ratios of the root canal dentin the root canal dentin preserved its original form after light application. The instrumentation decreased the carbonate/phosphate and amide I/phosphate ratios of the root canal dentin regardless of the irrigation solution or technique (p < 0.05). According to the microbiological tests, the light application could not provide antibacterial efficacy as much as NaOCl irrigation. The NaOCl irrigation both in the non-instrumentation and instrumentation groups significantly reduced the number of bacteria (p < 0,05). Minimally invasive root canal preparation techniques where the root canal is not instrumented and is disinfected by laser irradiation followed by obturation with a hydraulic cement sealer may be an attractive treatment option for management of vital teeth needing root canal therapy and does not have any detrimental effects on the chemical structure of dentin

Design and development of a new flowable and photocurable lactide and caprolactone-based polymer for bone repair and augmentation

With a global aging population, there is a high demand for new biomaterials that provide regenerative or fixation modalities following a bone injury. Here, the design and development of newly synthesised poly(l-lactic acid)-dimethacrylate (PLLA-DM) and poly(caprolactone-co-fumarate)-dimethacrylate (PCF-DM) monomer systems serves to address some of the main medical challenges and requirements of surgeons during application and better postoperative outcomes of new bone-healing biomaterials. Synthesis of PLLA-DM and PCF-DM via ring opening polymerisation (ROP) and polycondensation routes led to low MW ‘flowable’ and resorbable monomers that polymerise in-situ at up to 6 mm curing depth. Tensile testing of photocured PLLA-DM/PCF-DM formulations at strain rate 0.05 s−1, revealed elastic moduli of 4.4 ± 0.5 to 11.7 ± 2.5 (SD) GPa, with ultimate tensile strength ranging between 29.7 ± 4.9 to 76.1 ± 13.5 (SD) MPa. Resazurin-based metabolic activity studies via an indirect contact method involving Saos-2 osteoblast-like cell lines revealed enhanced cytocompatibility with metabolic activity of treated Saos-2 cells increasing by up to 20% compared with respective untreated control groups. Attachment of Saos-2 cells on PLLA-DM/PCF-DM specimen surfaces revealed cellular structures such as filopodia extending beyond lamellipodia, indicative of remarkable cell adhesion and favouring colonization. The initial development of the polymer chemistry presented here provides the potential for the design and further development towards a new resorbable biomaterial with enhanced mechanical properties for bone repair and augmentation involving both orthopaedic (bone cement) and restorative dentistry applications

Cretaceous age, composition, and microstructure of pseudotachylyte in the Otago Schist, New Zealand

At Tucker Hill, in Central Otago, New Zealand, a series of pseudotachylyte veins are hosted in quartzofeldspathic schist. Chilled margins, microlites, flow banding, and the crystallisation of mineral phases absent from the host rock provide unequivocal evidence for melting during pseudotachylyte formation. Whole rock analyses of pseudotachylyte reveal c. 3 enrichment of K2O, Ba, and Rb, and similar depletion of Na2O, CaO, Sr, and Eu, as compared to host schist. Formation age of pseudotachylyte is 95.9±1.8 Ma as measured by total fusion 40Ar/39Ar analyses. Stepwise heating of pseudotachylyte matrix yields an excellently defined 40Ar/39Ar plateau age of 96.0±0.3 Ma. These well-defined ages are attributed to the presence of potassium feldspar, low abundance of inherited lithic material from the host rock, and few fluid inclusions containing extraneous Ar. We propose that formation of these pseudotachylyte veins was related to Cretaceous extensional uplift and exhumation of the Otago Schist

Designing Plasmon-Enhanced Thermochromic Films Using a Vanadium Dioxide Nanoparticle Elastomeric Composite

Vanadium dioxide (VO2) is a common material for use in thermochromic windows due to a semiconductor-to-metal transition (SMT) that is coupled with a change in infrared opacity. Commercialization of VO2-based thermochromic technology is hampered by relatively expensive synthesis and film fabrication techniques as well as overall low performance as a window material. Here, simulations that indicate the plasmon resonance of VO2 nanoparticles in a composite film, which can be tuned to achieve record performance values, are reported. These simulations are experimentally verified by fabricating a VO2 nanoparticle composite in an elastomeric matrix using low-temperature and atmospheric processing conditions. The optical properties of the films are analyzed, yielding visible transmittance and infrared modulation values within the range of top-performing thermochromic windows. In addition, an improvement in performance is observed upon stretching the films, an effect that can be attributed to a local refractive index modulation. The results highlight the potential use of elastomeric composites as a low-cost route to higher-performance smart windows

Clustering of Alpers disease mutations and catalytic defects in biochemical variants reveal new features of molecular mechanism of hte human mitochondrial replicase, Pol gamma

Peer reviewe

Theoretical analysis, infrared and structural investigations of energy dissipation in metals under cyclic loading

The infrared and structural investigations of energy dissipation processes in metals subjected to cyclic loading have given impetus to the development of a new thermodynamic model with the capability of describing the energy balance under plastic deformation. The model is based on the statistical description of the mesodefect ensemble evolution and its influence on the dissipation ability of the material. Constitutive equations have been formulated for plastic and structural strains, which allow us to describe the stored and dissipated parts of energy under plastic flow. Numerical results indicate that theoretical predictions are in good agreement with the experimentally observed temperature data.The work was partly supported by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research (grant no. 04-01-00009, grant no. 05-08-33652). Dr. Plekhov acknowledges the Science Support Foundation (grant for talented young researches) and CRDF for grant PE-009-0 (Y2-EMP-09-03)