Determination Of Lipid Contents Of Two New Soy Bean Cultivars Using Gas Chromatography – Mass Spectrometry (GC-MS)

Determination of fatty acids and sterols in oil is very important as they serve as the vital indicators of the activity and purity, respectively of the oils. A qualitative Gas Chromatography – Mass Spectrometry study of oils from soy beans of two varieties (TGX 1802-1F, and TGX 1019-2EB) was done to determine their fatty acid, sterol and other compositions. The oils were extracted with n-hexane and concentrated in vacuo using rotary evaporator at 45 oC. The oils were slightly soluble in ethanol, insoluble in water and acetonitrile, and readily soluble in n-hexane, acetone, chloroform and benzene. The oils were preliminarily characterized using iodine value, acid value, specific gravity, volatile matter, saponification value and peroxide value. The acid values were 0.60 and 0.59 respectively, while the specific gravity at 30 oC was 0.919 for both samples. The volatile matters were 0.19 % and 0.17 %, and the peroxidevalues were 9.2 and 9.8 mEq/Kg respectively. Using an Agilient series 6890 Gas Chromatography system with a 5973 mass selective detector, the lipid composition of these oils was studied. Both cultivars were found to contain linoleic acid and pentadecadienoyl octadecadienoate. Palmitic acid and stearic acid were found in TGX 1802-1F, while TGX 1019-2EB was found to contain cholesterol and methyl octadecadienoate. This implies that TGX 1802-1F will be safe in applications where cholesterol free oils are desired. Also, the presence of linoleic acid in the oils indicate that they may be suitable as supplements for lowering the LDL cholesterol levels of the body as well as serve, via Gamma Linolenic Acid, in the biosynthesis of the very important anti – inflammatory 1 – series prostaglandins

Macrolides and community-acquired pneumonia: is quorum sensing the key?

Combination therapy with two antimicrobial agents is superior to monotherapy in severe community-acquired pneumonia, and recent data suggest that addition of a macrolide as the second antibiotic might be superior to other combinations. This observation requires confirmation in a randomised control trial, but this group of antibiotics have pleiotropic effects that extend beyond bacterial killing. Macrolides inhibit bacterial cell-to-cell communication or quorum sensing, which not only might be an important mechanism of action for these drugs in severe infections but may also provide a novel target for the development of new anti-infective drugs

Low cardiorespiratory fitness in people at risk for type 2 diabetes: early marker for insulin resistance

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Purpose</p> <p>There is a significant association between insulin resistance and low cardiorespiratory fitness in nondiabetic subjects. In a population with risk factors for type 2 diabetes (T2DM), before they are insulin resistant, we investigated low exercise capacity (VO2max) as an early marker of impaired insulin sensitivity in order to determine earlier interventions to prevent development of insulin resistance syndrome (IRS) and T2DM.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Cross-sectional analyses of data on 369 (78 men and 291 women) people at risk for IRS and T2DM, aged 45.6 +/- 10 years (20-65 years) old from the Community Diabetes Prevention Project in Minnesota were carried out. The cardiorespiratory fitness (VO2max) by respiratory gas exchange and bicycle ergometer were measured in our at risk non insulin resistant population and compared with a control group living in the same geographic area. Both groups were equally sedentary, matched for age, gender and BMI.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The most prevalent abnormality in the study population was markedly low VO2max when compared with general work site screening control group, (n = 177; 137F; 40 M, mean age 40 ± 11 years; BMI = 27.8 ± 6.1 kg/m²). Individuals at risk for IRS and T2DM had a VO2max (22 ± 6 ml/kg/min) 15% lower than the control group VO2max (26 ± 9 ml/kg/min) (p < 0.001). It was foun that VO₂max was inversely correlated with HOMA-IR (r = -0.30, p < 0.0001).</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Decreased VO2max is correlated with impaired insulin sensitivity and was the most prevalent abnormality in a population at risk for IRS and T2DM but without overt disease. This raises the possibility that decreased VO2 max is among the earliest indicators of IRS and T2DM therefore, an important risk factor for disease progression.</p

Seroprevalence of Hepatitis B Surface Antigen (HBsAg) among Children of Primary School Age in a Community, North-Central, Nigeria

Globally, Hepatitis B Virus has been identified as one of the most common infectious diseases and a major public health problem.This study was therefore carried out to assess the prevalence of Hepatitis B virus infection among primary school children attending LGE primary school, Sabon Pegi, Kuru, Nigeria. Three hundred and sixty (360) blood samples were collected from the pupils and sera separated and analyzed for HBsAg using one step Hepatitis B surface antigen test strip. Of the 360 samples screened, 35 (9.7%) were sero-positive. Pupils within the age 7-9 years had the highest prevalence of 3.9%. Male subjects recorded a prevalence of 6.1% compared to 3.6% for females. Risk factors such as blood transfusion recorded 1.6%. Furthermore, family history of HBV infection accounted for 3.6%, while male subjects that had traditional method of circumcision recorded a high prevalence of 3.3%. Unfortunately, the prevalence of this ravaging infectious agent appears to be high amongst the subjects studied. It is strongly suggested that public awareness be accorded urgent attention while socioeconomic development in these areas be given priority as a measure to preventing further spread of this virus amongst children, particularly the school age group. Key words: Children, HBsAg, Primary school, Seroprevalenc

Quantum Conditions on Dynamics and Control in Open Systems

Quantum conditions on the control of dynamics of a system coupled to an environment are obtained. Specifically, consider a system initially in a system subspace $H_{0}$ of dimensionality $M_{0}$, which evolves to populate system subspaces $H_{1}$, $H_{2}$ of dimensionality $M_{1}$, $M_{2}$. Then there always exists an initial state in $H_0$ that does not evolve into $H_2$ if $M_{0}>dM_{2},$ where $2 \leq d \leq (M_0 +M_1 +M_2)^2$ is the number of operators in the Kraus representation. Note, significantly, that the maximum $d$ can be far smaller than the dimension of the bath. If this condition is not satisfied then dynamics from $H_{0}$ that avoids $H_{2}$ can only be attained physically under stringent conditions. An example from molecular dynamics and spectroscopy, i.e. donor to acceptor energy transfer, is provided.Comment: 4 pages, no figur

Local dominance unveils clusters in networks

Clusters or communities can provide a coarse-grained description of complex systems at multiple scales, but their detection remains challenging in practice. Community detection methods often define communities as dense subgraphs, or subgraphs with few connections in-between, via concepts such as the cut, conductance, or modularity. Here we consider another perspective built on the notion of local dominance, where low-degree nodes are assigned to the basin of influence of high-degree nodes, and design an efficient algorithm based on local information. Local dominance gives rises to community centers, and uncovers local hierarchies in the network. Community centers have a larger degree than their neighbors and are sufficiently distant from other centers. The strength of our framework is demonstrated on synthesized and empirical networks with ground-truth community labels. The notion of local dominance and the associated asymmetric relations between nodes are not restricted to community detection, and can be utilised in clustering problems, as we illustrate on networks derived from vector data

Duration and predictors of emergency surgical operations - basis for medical management of mass casualty incidents

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Hospitals have a critically important role in the management of mass causality incidents (MCI), yet there is little information to assist emergency planners. A significantly limiting factor of a hospital's capability to treat those affected is its surgical capacity. We therefore intended to provide data about the duration and predictors of life saving operations.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>The data of 20,815 predominantly blunt trauma patients recorded in the Trauma Registry of the German-Trauma-Society was retrospectively analyzed to calculate the duration of life-saving operations as well as their predictors. Inclusion criteria were an ISS ≥ 16 and the performance of relevant ICPM-coded procedures within 6 h of admission.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>From 1,228 patients fulfilling the inclusion criteria 1,793 operations could be identified as life-saving operations. Acute injuries to the abdomen accounted for 54.1% followed by head injuries (26.3%), pelvic injuries (11.5%), thoracic injuries (5.0%) and major amputations (3.1%). The mean cut to suture time was 130 min (IQR 65-165 min). Logistic regression revealed 8 variables associated with an emergency operation: AIS of abdomen ≥ 3 (OR 4,00), ISS ≥ 35 (OR 2,94), hemoglobin level ≤ 8 mg/dL (OR 1,40), pulse rate on hospital admission < 40 or > 120/min (OR 1,39), blood pressure on hospital admission < 90 mmHg (OR 1,35), prehospital infusion volume ≥ 2000 ml (OR 1,34), GCS ≤ 8 (OR 1,32) and anisocoria (OR 1,28) on-scene.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The mean operation time of 130 min calculated for emergency life-saving surgical operations provides a realistic guideline for the prospective treatment capacity which can be estimated and projected into an actual incident admission capacity. Knowledge of predictive factors for life-saving emergency operations helps to identify those patients that need most urgent operative treatment in case of blunt MCI.</p

Fate of the Josephson effect in thin-film superconductors

The dc Josephson effect refers to the dissipationless electrical current -- the supercurrent -- that can be sustained across a weak link connecting two bulk superconductors. This effect is a probe of the fundamental nature of the superconducting state. Here, we analyze the case of two superconducting thin films connected by a point contact. Remarkably, the Josephson effect is absent at nonzero temperature, and the resistance across the contact is nonzero. Moreover, the point contact resistance is found to vary with temperature in a nearly activated fashion, with a UNIVERSAL energy barrier determined only by the superfluid stiffness characterizing the films, an angle characterizing the geometry, and whether or not the Coulomb interaction between Cooper pairs is screened. This behavior reflects the subtle nature of the superconductivity in two-dimensional thin films, and should be testable in detail by future experiments.Comment: 16 + 8 pages. 1 figure, 1 tabl