Effects of Vitamin D Supplementation

Vitamin D (1,25-dihydroxycholecalciferol) is known to be a fat soluble vitamin. We hypothesized that losing weight would thus cause an increase in serum vitamin D levels. To investigate this, a retrospective chart review was performed in which data including sex, age, race, serum Vitamin D levels, body weight and more, of 200 Rowan SOM Family Medicine patients for up to 6 doctor’s office visits each were collected. These data were then analyzed using Microsoft Excel and IBM SPSS. We found while there was a significant positive correlation between weight loss and serum Vitamin D levels, there was not a significant change in weight. We also found that patients that were taking Vitamin D supplements significantly raised their serum Vitamin D levels. This was not affected by any other variables such as sex, age, or race. We will perform further analysis of the data and hope our findings can be used by clinicians assisting patients losing weight

The Coumadin Ridge: Incidental Finding Mimicking Thrombus on Echocardiogram

The left atrial ridge or “coumadin ridge” is a cardiac anatomic structure located between the left pulmonary vein and the orfice of the left atrial appendage. Historically, patients were misdiagnosed with intra-atrial thrombus and were incorrectly placed on anticoagulation with warfarin, ultimately acquiring the name of the “coumadin ridge”. Fortunately this anatomical variant is now more commonly recognized, however when improperly identified can lead to unnecessary testing, cost, diagnosis anxiety, and inappropriate treatment for the patient. This purpose of this case is to bring awareness to this common clinical dilemma in an attempt to reduce ambiguity and unnecessary workups surrounding this anatomical variant

Optimized Basis Sets for the Environment in the Domain-Specific Basis Set Approach of the Incremental Scheme

Minimal basis sets, denoted DSBSenv, have been developed based on the segmented basis sets of Ahlrichs and co-workers for use as environmental basis set for the domain-specific basis set incremental scheme with the aim of decreasing the CPU requirements of the incremental scheme. The use of this minimal basis within explicitly correlated (F12) methods has been enabled by the optimization of matching auxiliary basis sets for use in density fitting of two-electron integrals and the resolution-of-the-identity. The accuracy of these auxiliary sets has been validated by calculations on a test set containing small- to medium-sized molecules. The errors due to density fitting are about two to four orders of magnitude smaller than the basis set incompleteness error of the DSBSenv orbital basis sets. Additional reductions in computational cost are tested with the reduced DSBSenv basis sets, where the highest angular momentum functions of the DSBSenv auxiliary basis sets have been removed. The optimized and reduced basis sets are used in the framework of the domain-specific basis set of the incremental scheme to decrease the computation time without significant loss of accuracy. The computation times and accuracy of the previously used environmental basis and that optimized in this work is validated with a test set of medium- to large-sized systems. The optimized and reduced DSBSenv basis sets decrease the CPU-time by about 15.4% and 19.4% compared to the old environmental basis and retains the accuracy in the absolute energy with a standard deviation of 0.99 and 1.06 kJ/mol, respectively

PHYSICAL ASPECTS OF REVERSIBLE INACTIVATION OF ENDOTOXIN *

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/74729/1/j.1749-6632.1966.tb52394.x.pd

The epigenetic impacts of social stress: how does social adversity become biologically embedded?

Epigenetic mechanisms are implicated in the processes through which social stressors erode health in humans and other animals. Here I review progress in elucidating the biological pathways underlying the social gradient in health, with particular emphasis on how behavioral stresses influence epigenomic variation linked to health. The evidence that epigenetic changes are involved in embedding of social status-linked chronic stress is reviewed in the context of current knowledge about behavior within animal dominance hierarchies and the impacts of social position on behaviors that affect health. The roles of epigenetic mechanisms in responses to trauma and the evidence for their involvement in intergenerational transmission of the biological impacts of traumatic stress are also considered. Taken together, the emerging insights have important implications for development of strategies to improve societal health and well-being

The Role of Early Life Experience and Species Differences in Alcohol Intake in Microtine Rodents

Social relationships have important effects on alcohol drinking. There are conflicting reports, however, about whether early-life family structure plays an important role in moderating alcohol use in humans. We have previously modeled social facilitation of alcohol drinking in peers in socially monogamous prairie voles. We have also modeled the effects of family structure on the development of adult social and emotional behaviors. Here we assessed whether alcohol intake would differ in prairie voles reared by both parents compared to those reared by a single mother. We also assessed whether meadow voles, a closely related species that do not form lasting reproductive partnerships, would differ in alcohol drinking or in the effect of social influence on drinking. Prairie voles were reared either bi-parentally (BP) or by a single mother (SM). BP- and SM-reared adult prairie voles and BP-reared adult meadow voles were given limited access to a choice between alcohol (10%) and water over four days and assessed for drinking behavior in social and non-social drinking environments. While alcohol preference was not different between species, meadow voles drank significantly lower doses than prairie voles. Meadow voles also had significantly higher blood ethanol concentrations than prairie voles after receiving the same dose, suggesting differences in ethanol metabolism. Both species, regardless of rearing condition, consumed more alcohol in the social drinking condition than the non-social condition. Early life family structure did not significantly affect any measure. Greater drinking in the social condition indicates that alcohol intake is influenced similarly in both species by the presence of a peer. While the ability of prairie voles to model humans may be limited, the lack of differences in alcohol drinking in BP- and SM-reared prairie voles lends biological support to human studies demonstrating no effect of single-parenting on alcohol abuse

Influence of auto-organization and fluctuation effects on the kinetics of a monomer-monomer catalytic scheme

We study analytically kinetics of an elementary bimolecular reaction scheme of the Langmuir-Hinshelwood type taking place on a d-dimensional catalytic substrate. We propose a general approach which takes into account explicitly the influence of spatial correlations on the time evolution of particles mean densities and allows for the analytical analysis. In terms of this approach we recover some of known results concerning the time evolution of particles mean densities and establish several new ones.Comment: Latex, 25 pages, one figure, submitted to J. Chem. Phy

Scaling properties of diffusion-limited reactions on fractal and euclidean geometries

We review our scaling results for the diffusion-limited reactions A + A → 0 and A+B→0 on Euclidean and fractal geometries. These scaling results embody the anomalies that are observed in these reactions in low dimensions; we collect these observations under a single phenomenological umbrella. Although we are not able to fix all the exponents in our scaling expressions from first principles, we establish bounds that bracket the observed numerical results.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/45166/1/10955_2005_Article_BF01049612.pd

Control of human endometrial stromal cell motility by PDGF-BB, HB-EGF and trophoblast-secreted factors

Human implantation involves extensive tissue remodeling at the fetal-maternal interface. It is becoming increasingly evident that not only trophoblast, but also decidualizing endometrial stromal cells are inherently motile and invasive, and likely contribute to the highly dynamic processes at the implantation site. The present study was undertaken to further characterize the mechanisms involved in the regulation of endometrial stromal cell motility and to identify trophoblast-derived factors that modulate migration. Among local growth factors known to be present at the time of implantation, heparin-binding epidermal growth factor-like growth factor (HB-EGF) triggered chemotaxis (directed locomotion), whereas platelet-derived growth factor (PDGF)-BB elicited both chemotaxis and chemokinesis (non-directed locomotion) of endometrial stromal cells. Supernatants of the trophoblast cell line AC-1M88 and of first trimester villous explant cultures stimulated chemotaxis but not chemokinesis. Proteome profiling for cytokines and angiogenesis factors revealed neither PDGF-BB nor HB-EGF in conditioned media from trophoblast cells or villous explants, while placental growth factor, vascular endothelial growth factor and PDGF-AA were identified as prominent secretory products. Among these, only PDGF-AA triggered endometrial stromal cell chemotaxis. Neutralization of PDGF-AA in trophoblast conditioned media, however, did not diminish chemoattractant activity, suggesting the presence of additional trophoblast-derived chemotactic factors. Pathway inhibitor studies revealed ERK1/2, PI3 kinase/Akt and p38 signaling as relevant for chemotactic motility, whereas chemokinesis depended primarily on PI3 kinase/Akt activation. Both chemotaxis and chemokinesis were stimulated upon inhibition of Rho-associated, coiled-coil containing protein kinase. The chemotactic response to trophoblast secretions was not blunted by inhibition of isolated signaling cascades, indicating activation of overlapping pathways in trophoblast-endometrial communication. In conclusion, trophoblast signals attract endometrial stromal cells, while PDGF-BB and HB-EGF, although not identified as trophoblast-derived, are local growth factors that may serve to fine-tune directed and non-directed migration at the implantation site