Sleep quality in middle-aged and elderly Chinese: distribution, associated factors and associations with cardio-metabolic risk factors

Background Poor sleep quality has been associated with increased risk of heart disease, diabetes and mortality. However, limited information exists on the distribution and determinants of sleep quality and its associations with cardio-metabolic risk factors in Chinese populations. We aimed to evaluate this in the current study. Methods A cross-sectional survey conducted in 2005 of 1,458 men and 1,831 women aged 50–70 years from urban and rural areas of Beijing and Shanghai. Using a questionnaire, sleep quality was measured in levels of well, common and poor. Comprehensive measures of socio-demographical and health factors and biomarkers of cardio-metabolic disease were recorded. These were evaluated in association with sleep quality using logistic regression models. Results Half of the population reported good sleep quality. After adjusting for potential confounders, women and Beijing residents had almost half the probability to report good sleep quality. Good physical and mental health (good levels of self-rated health (OR 2.48; 95%CI 2.08 to 2.96) and no depression (OR 4.05; 95%CI 3.12 to 5.26)) related to an increased chance of reporting good sleep quality, whereas short sleep duration (<7 hrs OR 0.10; 95%CI 0.07 to 0.14)) decreased it substantially. There were significant associations between levels of sleep quality and concentrations of plasma insulin, total and LDL cholesterol, and index of insulin resistance. Conclusion Levels of good sleep quality in middle-age and elderly Chinese were low. Gender, geographical location, self-rated health, depression and sleep quantity were major factors associated with sleep quality. Prospective studies are required to distil the factors that determine sleep quality and the effects that sleep patterns exert on cardio-metabolic health

Siglecg Limits the Size of B1a B Cell Lineage by Down-Regulating NFκB Activation

BACKGROUND: B1 B cells are believed to be a unique lineage with a distinct developmental pathway, function and activation requirement. How this lineage is genetically determined remained largely obscure. METHODS AND PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Using the Siglecg-deficient mice with a knockin of green-fluorescent protein encoding sequence, we show here that, although the Siglecg gene is broadly expressed at high levels in all stages and/or lineages of B cells tested and at lower levels in other lineages, its deletion selectively expanded the B1a B cell lineages, including the frequency of the B1 cell progenitor in the bone marrow and the number of B1a cells in the peritoneal cavity, by postnatal expansion. The expansion of B1a B cells in the peritoneal correlated with enhanced activation of NFkappaB and was ablated by an IKK inhibitor. CONCLUSION AND SIGNIFICANCE: Our data revealed a critical role for Siglec G-NFkappaB pathway in regulating B1a B cell lineage. These data lead to a novel model of B1a lineage development that explains a large array of genetic data in this field

The Drosophila Anion Exchanger (DAE) lacks a detectable interaction with the spectrin cytoskeleton

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Current models suggest that the spectrin cytoskeleton stabilizes interacting ion transport proteins at the plasma membrane. The human erythrocyte anion exchanger (AE1) was the first membrane transport protein found to be associated with the spectrin cytoskeleton. Here we evaluated a conserved anion exchanger from Drosophila (DAE) as a marker for studies of the downstream effects of spectrin cytoskeleton mutations.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Sequence comparisons established that DAE belongs to the SLC4A1-3 subfamily of anion exchangers that includes human AE1. Striking sequence conservation was observed in the C-terminal membrane transport domain and parts of the N-terminal cytoplasmic domain, but not in the proposed ankyrin-binding site. Using an antibody raised against DAE and a recombinant transgene expressed in <it>Drosophila </it>S2 cells DAE was shown to be a 136 kd plasma membrane protein. A major site of expression was found in the stomach acid-secreting region of the larval midgut. DAE codistributed with an infolded subcompartment of the basal plasma membrane of interstitial cells. However, spectrin did not codistribute with DAE at this site or in anterior midgut cells that abundantly expressed both spectrin and DAE. Ubiquitous knockdown of DAE with dsRNA eliminated antibody staining and was lethal, indicating that DAE is an essential gene product in <it>Drosophila</it>.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Based on the lack of colocalization and the lack of sequence conservation at the ankyrin-binding site, it appears that the well-characterized interaction between AE1 and the spectrin cytoskeleton in erythrocytes is not conserved in <it>Drosophila</it>. The results establish a pattern in which most of the known interactions between the spectrin cytoskeleton and the plasma membrane in mammals do not appear to be conserved in <it>Drosophila</it>.</p

The Rich Structure of Gauss-Bonnet Holographic Superconductors

We study fully backreacting, Gauss-Bonnet (GB) holographic superconductors in 5 bulk spacetime dimensions. We explore the system's dependence on the scalar mass for both positive and negative GB coupling, $\alpha$. We find that when the mass approaches the Breitenlohner-Freedman (BF) bound and $\alpha\rightarrow L^2/4$ the effect of backreaction is to increase the critical temperature, $T_c$, of the system: the opposite of its effect in the rest of parameter space. We also find that reducing $\alpha$ below zero increases $T_c$ and that the effect of backreaction is diminished. We study the zero temperature limit, proving that this system does not permit regular solutions for a non-trivial, tachyonic scalar field and constrain possible solutions for fields with positive masses. We investigate singular, zero temperature solutions in the Einstein limit but find them to be incompatible with the concept of GB gravity being a perturbative expansion of Einstein gravity. We study the conductivity of the system, finding that the inclusion of backreaction hinders the development of poles in the conductivity that are associated with quasi-normal modes approaching the real axis from elsewhere in the complex plane.Comment: 26 pages, 11 figures, V3, Added discussion of non-tachyonic scalars, alterations to figures and tex

Phonon-assisted radiofrequency absorption by gold nanoparticles resulting in hyperthermia

It is suggested that in gold nanoparticles (GNPs) of about 5 nm sizes used in the radiofrequency (RF) hyperthermia, an absorption of the RF photon by the Fermi electron occurs with involvement of the longitudinal acoustic vibrational mode (LAVM), the dominating one in the distribution of vibrational density of states (VDOS). This physical mechanism helps to explain two observed phenomena: the size dependence of the heating rate (HR) in GNPs and reduced heat production in aggregated GNPs. The argumentation proceeds within the one-electron approximation, taking into account the discretenesses of energies and momenta of both electrons and LAVMs. The heating of GNPs is thought to consist of two consecutive processes: first, the Fermi electron absorbs simultaneously the RF photon and the LAVM available in the GNP; hereafter the excited electron gets relaxed within the GNP's boundary, exciting a LAVM with the energy higher than that of the previously absorbed LAVM. GNPs containing the Ta and/or Fe impurities are proposed for the RF hyperthermia as promising heaters with enhanced HRs, and GNPs with rare-earth impurity atoms are also brought into consideration. It is shown why the maximum HR values should be expected in GNPs with about 5-7 nm size.Comment: proceedings at the NATO Advanced Research workshop FANEM-2015 (Minsk, May 25-27, 2015). To be published in the final form in: "Fundamental and Applied NanoElectroMagnetics" (Springer Science + Business Media B.V.

Evidence for a fractional quantum Hall state with anisotropic longitudinal transport

At high magnetic fields, where the Fermi level lies in the N=0 lowest Landau level (LL), a clean two-dimensional electron system (2DES) exhibits numerous incompressible liquid phases which display the fractional quantized Hall effect (FQHE) (Das Sarma and Pinczuk, 1997). These liquid phases do not break rotational symmetry, exhibiting resistivities which are isotropic in the plane. In contrast, at lower fields, when the Fermi level lies in the $N\ge2$ third and several higher LLs, the 2DES displays a distinctly different class of collective states. In particular, near half filling of these high LLs the 2DES exhibits a strongly anisotropic longitudinal resistance at low temperatures (Lilly et al., 1999; Du et al., 1999). These "stripe" phases, which do not exhibit the quantized Hall effect, resemble nematic liquid crystals, possessing broken rotational symmetry and orientational order (Koulakov et al., 1996; Fogler et al., 1996; Moessner and Chalker, 1996; Fradkin and Kivelson, 1999; Fradkin et al, 2010). Here we report a surprising new observation: An electronic configuration in the N=1 second LL whose resistivity tensor simultaneously displays a robust fractionally quantized Hall plateau and a strongly anisotropic longitudinal resistance resembling that of the stripe phases.Comment: Nature Physics, (2011

Phytoestrogens

Collectively, plants contain several different families of natural products among which are compounds with weak estrogenic or antiestrogenic activity toward mammals. These compounds, termed phytoestrogens, include certain isoflavonoids, flavonoids, stilbenes, and lignans. The best-studied dietary phytoestrogens are the soy isoflavones and the flaxseed lignans. Their perceived health beneficial properties extend beyond hormone-dependent breast and prostate cancers and osteoporosis to include cognitive function, cardiovascular disease, immunity and inflammation, and reproduction and fertility. In the future, metabolic engineering of plants could generate novel and exquisitely controlled dietary sources with which to better assess the potential health beneficial effects of phytoestrogens

High-efficiency GaAs and GaInP solar cells grown by all solid-state molecular-beam-epitaxy

We report the initial results of GaAs and GaInP solar cells grown by all solid-state molecular-beam-epitaxy (MBE) technique. For GaAs single-junction solar cell, with the application of AlInP as the window layer and GaInP as the back surface field layer, the photovoltaic conversion efficiency of 26% at one sun concentration and air mass 1.5 global (AM1.5G) is realized. The efficiency of 16.4% is also reached for GaInP solar cell. Our results demonstrate that the MBE-grown phosphide-contained III-V compound semiconductor solar cell can be quite comparable to the metal-organic-chemical-vapor-deposition-grown high-efficiency solar cell

Benchmark performance of low-cost Sb2Se3 photocathodes for unassisted solar overall water splitting

Determining cost-effective semiconductors exhibiting desirable properties for commercial photoelectrochemical water splitting remains a challenge. Herein, we report a Sb2Se3 semiconductor that satisfies most requirements for an ideal high-performance photoelectrode, including a small band gap and favourable cost, optoelectronic properties, processability, and photocorrosion stability. Strong anisotropy, a major issue for Sb2Se3, is resolved by suppressing growth kinetics via close space sublimation to obtain high-quality compact thin films with favourable crystallographic orientation. The Sb2Se3 photocathode exhibits a high photocurrent density of almost 30mAcm(-2) at 0V against the reversible hydrogen electrode, the highest value so far. We demonstrate unassisted solar overall water splitting by combining the optimised Sb2Se3 photocathode with a BiVO4 photoanode, achieving a solar-to-hydrogen efficiency of 1.5% with stability over 10h under simulated 1 sun conditions employing a broad range of solar fluxes. Low-cost Sb2Se3 can thus be an attractive breakthrough material for commercial solar fuel production. While photoelectrochemical water splitting offers an integrated means to convert sunlight to a renewable fuel, cost-effective light-absorbers are rare. Here, authors report Sb2Se3 photocathodes for high-performance photoelectrochemical water splitting devices

Dynamical Patterns of Cattle Trade Movements

Despite their importance for the spread of zoonotic diseases, our understanding of the dynamical aspects characterizing the movements of farmed animal populations remains limited as these systems are traditionally studied as static objects and through simplified approximations. By leveraging on the network science approach, here we are able for the first time to fully analyze the longitudinal dataset of Italian cattle movements that reports the mobility of individual animals among farms on a daily basis. The complexity and inter-relations between topology, function and dynamical nature of the system are characterized at different spatial and time resolutions, in order to uncover patterns and vulnerabilities fundamental for the definition of targeted prevention and control measures for zoonotic diseases. Results show how the stationarity of statistical distributions coexists with a strong and non-trivial evolutionary dynamics at the node and link levels, on all timescales. Traditional static views of the displacement network hide important patterns of structural changes affecting nodes' centrality and farms' spreading potential, thus limiting the efficiency of interventions based on partial longitudinal information. By fully taking into account the longitudinal dimension, we propose a novel definition of dynamical motifs that is able to uncover the presence of a temporal arrow describing the evolution of the system and the causality patterns of its displacements, shedding light on mechanisms that may play a crucial role in the definition of preventive actions