Leptin in Anorexia and Cachexia Syndrome

Leptin is a product of the obese (OB) gene secreted by adipocytes in proportion to fat mass. It decreases food intake and increases energy expenditure by affecting the balance between orexigenic and anorexigenic hypothalamic pathways. Low leptin levels are responsible for the compensatory increase in appetite and body weight and decreased energy expenditure (EE) following caloric deprivation. The anorexia-cachexia syndrome is a complication of many chronic conditions including cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, congestive heart failure, chronic kidney disease, and aging, where the decrease in body weight and food intake is not followed by a compensatory increase in appetite or decreased EE. Crosstalk between leptin and inflammatory signaling known to be activated in these conditions may be responsible for this paradox. This manuscript will review the evidence and potential mechanisms mediating changes in the leptin pathway in the setting of anorexia and cachexia associated with chronic diseases

Review of Flywheel based Internal Combustion Engine Hybrid Vehicles

Hybrid vehicles of different configurations and utilizing different energy storage systems have existed in development for many decades and more recently in limited production. They can be grouped as parallel, series or complex hybrids. Another classification is micro, mild and full hybrids which makes the distinction on the basis of functionality. The common energy storage systems in hybrid vehicles are batteries, supercapacitors and high speed flywheels. This paper aims to review a specific type of hybrid vehicle which involves the internal combustion engine (ICE) as the prime mover and the high speed flywheel as an energy storage device. Such hybrids are now attracting considerable interest given their potential for low cost. It is hence timely to produce a review of research and development in this subject. The flywheel is coupled to the drive line with a continuous variable transmission (CVT). The CVT can be of various types such as electrical, hydraulic or mechanical but usually in this case it is a non-electrical one. Different configurations are possible and the paper provides a timeline of the development of such powertrains with various examples. These types of hybrid vehicles have existed as prototypes for many decades and the authors believe that their development has reached levels where they can be considered serious contenders for production vehicles

Dark Energy and Gravity

I review the problem of dark energy focusing on the cosmological constant as the candidate and discuss its implications for the nature of gravity. Part 1 briefly overviews the currently popular `concordance cosmology' and summarises the evidence for dark energy. It also provides the observational and theoretical arguments in favour of the cosmological constant as the candidate and emphasises why no other approach really solves the conceptual problems usually attributed to the cosmological constant. Part 2 describes some of the approaches to understand the nature of the cosmological constant and attempts to extract the key ingredients which must be present in any viable solution. I argue that (i)the cosmological constant problem cannot be satisfactorily solved until gravitational action is made invariant under the shift of the matter lagrangian by a constant and (ii) this cannot happen if the metric is the dynamical variable. Hence the cosmological constant problem essentially has to do with our (mis)understanding of the nature of gravity. Part 3 discusses an alternative perspective on gravity in which the action is explicitly invariant under the above transformation. Extremizing this action leads to an equation determining the background geometry which gives Einstein's theory at the lowest order with Lanczos-Lovelock type corrections. (Condensed abstract).Comment: Invited Review for a special Gen.Rel.Grav. issue on Dark Energy, edited by G.F.R.Ellis, R.Maartens and H.Nicolai; revtex; 22 pages; 2 figure

Design and feasibility testing of a novel group intervention for young women who binge drink in groups

BackgroundYoung women frequently drink alcohol in groups and binge drinking within these natural drinking groups is common. This study describes the design of a theoretically and empirically based group intervention to reduce binge drinking among young women. It also evaluates their engagement with the intervention and the acceptability of the study methods.MethodsFriendship groups of women aged 18–35 years, who had two or more episodes of binge drinking (>6 UK units on one occasion; 48g of alcohol) in the previous 30 days, were recruited from the community. A face-to-face group intervention, based on the Health Action Process Approach, was delivered over three sessions. Components of the intervention were woven around fun activities, such as making alcohol free cocktails. Women were followed up four months after the intervention was delivered. Results The target of 24 groups (comprising 97 women) was recruited. The common pattern of drinking was infrequent, heavy drinking (mean consumption on the heaviest drinking day was UK 18.1 units). Process evaluation revealed that the intervention was delivered with high fidelity and acceptability of the study methods was high. The women engaged positively with intervention components and made group decisions about cutting down. Twenty two groups set goals to reduce their drinking, and these were translated into action plans. Retention of individuals at follow up was 87%.ConclusionsThis study successfully recruited groups of young women whose patterns of drinking place them at high risk of acute harm. This novel approach to delivering an alcohol intervention has potential to reduce binge drinking among young women. The high levels of engagement with key steps in the behavior change process suggests that the group intervention should be tested in a full randomised controlled trial

Say NO to ROS: Their roles in embryonic heart development and pathogenesis of congenital heart defects in maternal diabetes

Congenital heart defects (CHDs) are the most prevalent and serious birth defect, occurring in 1% of all live births. Pregestational maternal diabetes is a known risk factor for the development of CHDs, elevating the risk in the child by more than four-fold. As the prevalence of diabetes rapidly rises among women of childbearing age, there is a need to investigate the mechanisms and potential preventative strategies for these defects. In experimental animal models of pregestational diabetes induced-CHDs, upwards of 50% of offspring display congenital malformations of the heart, including septal, valvular, and outflow tract defects. Specifically, the imbalance of nitric oxide (NO) and reactive oxygen species (ROS) signaling is a major driver of the development of CHDs in offspring of mice with pregestational diabetes. NO from endothelial nitric oxide synthase (eNOS) is crucial to cardiogenesis, regulating various cellular and molecular processes. In fact, deficiency in eNOS results in CHDs and coronary artery malformation. Embryonic hearts from diabetic dams exhibit eNOS uncoupling and oxidative stress. Maternal treatment with sapropterin, a cofactor of eNOS, and antioxidants such as N-acetylcysteine, vitamin E, and glutathione as well as maternal exercise have been shown to improve eNOS function, reduce oxidative stress, and lower the incidence CHDs in the offspring of mice with pregestational diabetes. This review summarizes recent data on pregestational diabetes-induced CHDs, and offers insights into the important roles of NO and ROS in embryonic heart development and pathogenesis of CHDs in maternal diabetes

Enhancing the performance of conventional solar still using the Nano-doped paint (NDP) coating

Nations are throughout the entire globe continuously confronting the problem of potable water shortage. Recently, it has been thought that using solar energy to desalinate brackish water offers a practical answer to the world\u27s water crises. The output of these stills, is meager, and academics haven\u27t done much to boost it in any way. Solar distillers have been proposed as an efficient method to produce potable water. In recent years, saltwater has produced drinking water by various ways. The efficiency of a solar distiller is significantly influenced by various factors, most important factor of them is the absorber surface. In this research, an effort is made to increase the efficiency of a traditional solar distiller by applying a thin coating of Nano-black paint to increase the thermal conductivity of the absorber surface. The absorber significantly affects how effectively the solar still functions. In the experiment described in this article, a layer of Nano-doped black paint (NDBP) was applied on that which absorbs a standard solar still in an effort to improve the device\u27s performance. The results showed that the nanocoating changed the condensation mechanism of all materials from film-wise to droplet-wise.It was also concluded that drip condensation at larger surface inclination angles leads to increased condensate water production.For example, the formation of condensation on the glass surface was increased by the 23rd nanocoating at a surface tilt angle of 50°. Additionally, an additional collector was used to estimate the droplet volume before and after the coating process. Also, The results indicated that, the productivity of the conventional solar still has been increased with about 25-32% when use the nano thermal coated. While the modification in design produces an average 18% improvement in fresh water productivit

Bladder exstrophy-epispadius complex. An overview of anaesthetic management

ntroduction The anaesthetic management of urinary bladder exstro- phy-epispadius complex is challenging. This paper de- scribes our experience of fifteen children operated in a workshop. Purpose We evaluated use of continuous caudal epidural infusion of bupivacaine and fentanyl with general anesthesia for urinary bladder exstrophy-epispadius surgery in chil- dren. Methods Fifteen patients, 1month - 9 years age, weighing 3 - 30 kg, ASA grade II to IV, for epispadias-exstrophy com- plex were treated. Anaesthetic management include a combined epidural and general anesthetic technique. Epidurally initial bolus 0.75 ml/kg of 0.125% bupiva caine with fentanyl 1μg/kg was given. Postoperative analgesia was maintained by continuous infusion of 0.0625% bupivacaine @ 0.1ml/kg/hr. in young children and 0.125% bupivacaine with fentanyl 1μg/kg in older children for 4-5days. Postoperative pain was assessed using face, legs, activity, cry and consolability (FLACC) pain scale and sedation score was assessed by using four point sedation score. Results Sacro-coccygeal anomaly was found in three patients. Epidural catheter was introduced through lum ber space (n=3) and caudal space (n=12). The caudal epidural space was identified on first or second attempt. Patients remained hemodynamically stable except occa- sional bradycardia. Duration of surgery was 5-7hours. Two patients for mechanical ventilation and two pa- tients for observation were shifted to neonatal ICU. Sedation score was below two and FLACC pain scale was below four. Conclusions Perioperative management with general anesthesia and epidural catheters for analgesia in bladder exstrophy surgery facilitates immobilization, analgesia and seda tion

PVP2008-61244 UNIQUE METHOD FOR GENERATING DESIGN EARTHQUAKE TIME HISTORY SEEDS

ABSTRACT A method has been developed which takes a single seed earthquake time history and produces multiple similar seed earthquake time histories. These new time histories possess important frequency and cumulative energy attributes of the original while having a correlation less than 30% (per the ASCE/SEI 43-05 Section 2.4 [1]). They are produced by taking the fast Fourier transform of the original seed. The averaged amplitudes are then pared with random phase angles and the inverse fast Fourier transform is taken to produce a new time history. The average amplitude through time is then adjusted to encourage a similar cumulative energy curve. Next, the displacement is modified to approximate the original curve using Fourier techniques. Finally, the correlation is checked to ensure it is less than 30%. This process does not guarantee that the correlation will be less than 30% for all of a given set of new curves. It does provide a simple tool where a few additional iterations of the process should produce a set of seed earthquake time histories meeting the correlation criteria. INTRODUCTION Time history analysis is an important technique for structural seismic analysis especially when the evaluated structural response is nonlinear. To perform such an analysis, a representative earthquake acceleration time history (or seed acceleration time history) is established for a structure being evaluated. Manipulations of the seed are then performed to create a modified acceleration time history (or design acceleration time history) that produces a design acceleration response (per the ASCE/SEI 43-05 Section 2.4 [1]). This design acceleration time history can then be used for seismic analysis. Depending on the type of seismic analysis being performed, several design acceleration time histories may be required. The method described in this paper is a way t

PVP2008-61243 UNIQUE METHOD FOR GENERATING DESIGN EARTHQUAKE TIME HISTORIES

ABSTRACT A method has been developed which takes a seed earthquake time history and modifies it to produce given design response spectra. It is a multi-step process with an initial scaling step and then multiple refinement steps. It is unique in the fact that both the acceleration and displacement response spectra are considered when performing the fit (which primarily improves the low frequency acceleration response spectrum accuracy). Additionally, no matrix inversion is needed. The features include encouraging the code acceleration, velocity, and displacement ratios and attempting to fit the pseudo velocity response spectrum. Also, "smoothing" is done to transition the modified time history to the seed time history at its start and end. This is done in the time history regions below a cumulative energy of 5% and above a cumulative energy of 95%. Finally, the modified acceleration, velocity, and displacement time histories are adjusted to start and end with an amplitude of zero (using Fourier transform techniques for integration). INTRODUCTION Time history analysis is an important technique for structural seismic analysis especially when the evaluated structural response is nonlinear. To perform such an analysis, a representative earthquake time history (or seed time history) is established for a structure being evaluated. To ensure that the variability in the response is addressed, a design response spectrum is then established using code guidance (e.g. ASCE 4-98 [1]). Because the design response spectrum does not match the response of the seed time history, the seed time history cannot be used for design evaluation. Instead, a modified time history must be used that is based on the seed time history, but provides a response defined by the design response spectrum. The method described in this paper is a way to modify the seed time history in such a way that it produces the design response