7,765 research outputs found
Sarcopenic Obesity and Depression: A Systematic Review
BACKGROUND: Sarcopenic obesity (SO) is a condition combining two important public health issues commonly seen amongst older individuals, obesity and sarcopenia. Depressive symptoms are common among older people, whose population is increasing worldwide. Obesity and sarcopenia alone, are clearly associated with depression while the coexistence of these two conditions (SO) upon depressive disorders is currently unclear. We aimed to systematically review the association between primary SO and depressive disorders. METHODS: Searches were run on MEDLINE, EMBASE, PsycINFO, and CINAHL (inception to June 2019). One reviewer screened titles, abstracts, and full-texts, with 10% checked independently by a second reviewer. Cohort and cross-sectional studies were included. Two reviewers independently assessed risk of bias using the Mixed Methods Appraisal Tool. Results were narratively synthesised. RESULTS: Out of the 7 studies eligible for inclusion, evidence of sarcopenic obesity as a predictor of depressive symptoms was found in two studies. The main observed trend was that diagnosing sarcopenia using muscle strength led to significant associations between sarcopenic obesity and depressive symptoms. Two cross-sectional studies found a significant association between SO and depressive symptoms, whilst three others found no statistically significant associations. All possessed some methodological limitations. DISCUSSION: This is the first review to systematically examine a potential relationship between sarcopenic obesity and depressive disorders. Currently, the results are heterogeneous due to the large variability in assessment methods and outcome measurements. Future longitudinal studies would achieve greater confidence in the provisional conclusion that sarcopenic obesity, when measured using muscle strength, is associated with depressive symptoms
Impact of sublethal levels of environmental pollutants found in sewage sludge on a novel Caenorhabditis elegans model biosensor
Peer reviewedPublisher PD
Ballistic Composite Fermions in Semiconductor Nanostructures
We report the results of two fundamental transport measurements at a Landau
level filling factor of 1/2. The well known ballistic electron transport
phenomena of quenching of the Hall effect in a mesoscopic cross-junction and
negative magnetoresistance of a constriction are observed close to B~=~0 and
. The experimental results demonstrate semi-classical charge
transport by composite fermions, which consist of electrons bound to an even
number of flux quanta.Comment: 9 pages TeX 3.1415 C version 6.1, 3 PostScript figure
Calorons in Weyl Gauge
We demonstrate by explicit construction that while the untwisted
Harrington-Shepard caloron is manifestly periodic in Euclidean time,
with period , when transformed to the Weyl () gauge,
the caloron gauge field is periodic only up to a large gauge
transformation, with winding number equal to the caloron's topological charge.
This helps clarify the tunneling interpretation of these solutions, and their
relation to Chern-Simons numbers and winding numbers.Comment: 10 pages, 10 figures, a sign typo in equation 27 is correcte
Does the Reading of Different Orthographies Produce Distinct Brain Activity Patterns? An ERP Study
Orthographies vary in the degree of transparency of spelling-sound correspondence. These range from shallow orthographies with transparent grapheme-phoneme relations, to deep orthographies, in which these relations are opaque. Only a few studies have examined whether orthographic depth is reflected in brain activity. In these studies a between-language design was applied, making it difficult to isolate the aspect of orthographic depth. In the present work this question was examined using a within-subject-and-language investigation. The participants were speakers of Hebrew, as they are skilled in reading two forms of script transcribing the same oral language. One form is the shallow pointed script (with diacritics), and the other is the deep unpointed script (without diacritics). Event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded while skilled readers carried out a lexical decision task in the two forms of script. A visual non-orthographic task controlled for the visual difference between the scripts (resulting from the addition of diacritics to the pointed script only). At an early visual-perceptual stage of processing (∼165 ms after target onset), the pointed script evoked larger amplitudes with longer latencies than the unpointed script at occipital-temporal sites. However, these effects were not restricted to orthographic processing, and may therefore have reflected, at least in part, the visual load imposed by the diacritics. Nevertheless, the results implied that distinct orthographic processing may have also contributed to these effects. At later stages (∼340 ms after target onset) the unpointed script elicited larger amplitudes than the pointed one with earlier latencies. As this latency has been linked to orthographic-linguistic processing and to the classification of stimuli, it is suggested that these differences are associated with distinct lexical processing of a shallow and a deep orthography
Estimating the effect of vaccination on antimicrobial-resistant typhoid fever in 73 countries supported by Gavi: a mathematical modelling study
BACKGROUND: Multidrug resistance and fluoroquinolone non-susceptibility (FQNS) are major concerns for the epidemiology and treatment of typhoid fever. The 2018 prequalification of the first typhoid conjugate vaccine (TCV) by WHO provides an opportunity to limit the transmission and burden of antimicrobial-resistant typhoid fever. METHODS: We combined output from mathematical models of typhoid transmission with estimates of antimicrobial resistance from meta-analyses to predict the burden of antimicrobial-resistant typhoid fever across 73 lower-income countries eligible for support from Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance. We considered FQNS and multidrug resistance separately. The effect of vaccination was predicted on the basis of forecasts of vaccine coverage. We explored how the potential effect of vaccination on the prevalence of antimicrobial resistance varied depending on key model parameters. FINDINGS: The introduction of routine immunisation with TCV at age 9 months with a catch-up campaign up to age 15 years was predicted to avert 46-74% of all typhoid fever cases in 73 countries eligible for Gavi support. Vaccination was predicted to reduce the relative prevalence of antimicrobial-resistant typhoid fever by 16% (95% prediction interval [PI] 0-49). TCV introduction with a catch-up campaign was predicted to avert 42.5 million (95% PI 24.8-62.8 million) cases and 506 000 (95% PI 187 000-1.9 million) deaths caused by FQNS typhoid fever, and 21.2 million (95% PI 16.4-26.5 million) cases and 342 000 (95% PI 135 000-1.5 million) deaths from multidrug-resistant typhoid fever over 10 years following introduction. INTERPRETATION: Our results indicate the benefits of prioritising TCV introduction for countries with a high avertable burden of antimicrobial-resistant typhoid fever. FUNDING: The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
Evolution and Nucleosynthesis of AGB stars in Three Magellanic Cloud Clusters
We present stellar evolutionary sequences for asymptotic giant branch (AGB)
stars in the Magellanic Cloud clusters NGC 1978, NGC 1846 and NGC 419. The new
stellar models for the three clusters match the observed effective temperatures
on the giant branches, the oxygen-rich to carbon-rich transition luminosities,
and the AGB-tip luminosities. A major finding is that a large amount of
convective overshoot (up to 3 pressure scale heights) is required at the base
of the convective envelope during third dredge-up in order to get the correct
oxygen-rich to carbon-rich transition luminosity. The stellar evolution
sequences are used as input for detailed nucleosynthesis calculations. For NGC
1978 and NGC 1846 we compare our model results to the observationally derived
abundances of carbon and oxygen. We find that additional mixing processes
(extra-mixing) are required to explain the observed abundance patterns. For NGC
1846 we conclude that non-convective extra-mixing processes are required on
both the RGB and the AGB, in agreement with previous studies. For NGC 1978 it
is possible to explain the C/O and 12C/13C abundances of both the O-rich and
the C-rich AGB stars by assuming that the material in the intershell region
contains high abundances of both C and O. This may occur during a thermal pulse
when convective overshoot at the inner edge of the flash-driven convective
pocket dredges C and O from the core to the intershell. For NGC 419 we provide
our predicted model abundance values although there are currently no published
observed abundance studies for the AGB stars in this cluster.Comment: 16 figures, 3 tables, Accepted for publication in Ap
Phase-field approach to heterogeneous nucleation
We consider the problem of heterogeneous nucleation and growth. The system is
described by a phase field model in which the temperature is included through
thermal noise. We show that this phase field approach is suitable to describe
homogeneous as well as heterogeneous nucleation starting from several general
hypotheses. Thus we can investigate the influence of grain boundaries,
localized impurities, or any general kind of imperfections in a systematic way.
We also put forward the applicability of our model to study other physical
situations such as island formation, amorphous crystallization, or
recrystallization.Comment: 8 pages including 7 figures. Accepted for publication in Physical
Review
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