Heartburn, gastro-oesophageal reflux disease and non-erosive reflux disease

Reflux is a normal process that occurs in healthy infants, children and adults. Most episodes are short-lived and do not cause bothersome symptoms of complications. Gastro-oesophageal reflux disease (GORD) develops when the reflux of stomach acid causes troublesome reflux-associated symptoms and/or complications. The most common symptom of GORD is heartburn. Depending on how severe the symptoms of GORD are, treatment may involve one or more of the following: lifestyle changes, medications, or surgery. Acid suppressive medications include, in increasing order of potency, over-the-counter antacids, alginates and H2 antagonists at non-prescription strength, prescription strength H2 antagonists and proton pump inhibitors. In patients with mild to moderate GORD, symptom severity and previous treatments can guide the selection of an initial acid suppressive regimen. The most common and effective treatment of oesophagitis and GORD is to reduce gastric acid secretion with a protonpump inhibitor.Keywords: Non-erosive reflux disease, gastro-oesophageal reflux disease, proton pump inhibito

Ultraviolet Inkjet Ink: A Market and Audience Analysis for Kowa American

My report was commissioned to examine the market strategies and audience approaches implemented in the ultraviolet inkjet ink industry. My research juxtaposes the initiatives of leading ink investors with those of the monomer-producing corporation, Kowa American. My findings emphasize the discrepancies in competitive development between Kowa and similar globally innovative agencies. My research indicates that Kowa must capitalize on industry gaps, conduct environmental research, and minimize financial setbacks to obtain a competitive advantage in the current ink market. Further, Kowa must personalize customers’ buying experiences in order to expand its budding product lines and maximize profits

Synthesis of 4-Thiazolidinone Small Molecules as Potential Inhibitors of the Arp2/3 Complex

Life-essential cellular processes such as endocytosis, motility, and division rely on a cell’s ability to precisely regulate construction of actin filaments in response to external factors and signals. Intrinsically involved in this process is the Actin Related Protein 2/3 (Arp2/3) Complex, a seven-subunit ATPase that functions by nucleating a daughter branch of actin from the side of a pre-existing microfilament. Active Arp2/3 complex is necessary for the proliferation of certain metastatic cancers, and inhibition of Arp2/3 complex is emerging as a potentially useful treatment strategy for such cancers. We describe synthesis and in vitro assays of 4-thiazolidinones predicted by computational methods to inhibit of Arp2/3 Complex strongly, and therefore serve as potential lead compounds for drug development. Known Arp2/3 inhibitor CK-869 serves as the starting point for derivative synthesis. We discuss the efforts towards the synthesis of new compounds and the biochemical data collected about their potency

Comparison of Downstream Cell Survival Responses in HUVECs and HLECs During VEGF Signaling

Comparison of Downstream Cell Survival Responses in HUVECs and HLECs During VEGF Signaling Author: Haley M. Smith Mentor: Thomas L. Vandergon Angiogenesis and lymphangiogenesis are vital processes that allow the formation of new blood and lymph vessels from existing blood or lymph vessels. Formation of these vessels is essential to bring oxygen and nutrients to the body as well as maintaining tissue fluid balance. New blood or lymph vessel growth occurs in response to Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor (VEGF) signaling to vascular endothelial cells. The VEGF signal molecules bind to cell surface receptors and elicit a variety of responses including cell proliferation, migration and survival. Much is known about cell proliferation via VEGF signaling, but relatively little is known about cell survival, particularly if response cells are stressed. In this study Human Umbilical Vascular Endothelial Cells (HUVECs) and Human Lymphatic Endothelial Cells (HLECs) were stressed with tunicamycin while supplemented with various VEGF signals to examine how cell survival pathways might respond during VEGF signaling. Crystal violet proliferation assays were used to examine survival of cells and Western blot analyses were used to measure levels of downstream response proteins involved in survival pathways. HUVECs and HLECs under normal conditions showed enhanced growth with VEGF-A, VEGF-C, or A and C combined signaling. VEGF-A signaling does elicit a survival response countering tunicamycin stress at low and high stress levels, which was enhanced when VEGF-A and VEGF-C were added together. However, VEGF-C alone did not rescue cell growth in either cell line for a high stress condition. Our results strongly suggest that VEGF-C survival signaling pathways are independent of the VEGF-A survival signaling pathways

Acquisition of Financial Education Among College Students: How Attitudes and Future Expectations Shape Desire for Personal Finance Educatio

This study used a sample of undergraduate students at a public university to determine students’ interest in and views of personal finance. Students who were surveyed responded that personal finance topics are important, but they are not taking the initiative to learn about such issues. Additionally, this research found that females may be less motivated to learn about personal finance topics, perhaps because they expect to rely on their spouses, while males are more motivated to learn about personal finance topics, perhaps because they have higher expectations that they will make future financial decisions alone

The impacts of surface mining restoration efforts on soil dwelling nematode communities in the Appalachian region

Traditional restoration of post mining sites in the southeastern U.S. utilizes methods that discourage above and below-ground succession of native floral and faunal communities. Recent advances in mining restoration techniques proposed by the Appalachian Regional Reforestation Initiative (ARRI) have improved above-ground plant succession and growth rates in reclaimed sites by developing the Forestry Reclamation Approach (FRA), a process that discourages substrate compaction and encourages native plant succession. The below-ground component of these reclaimed areas remains undescribed, however. Below-ground invertebrate communities in mining restoration sites have been largely ignored, despite their potential importance to the long-term recovery of these profoundly disturbed sites. Nematode communities were measured in both traditional and FRA reclaimed sites using a chronosequence to measures community shifts over time, as well as intact un-mined forests. Nematodes were identified to morphospecies and by trophic groups. This study demonstrated that species richness, Shannon diversity, and abundance measures became similar to forested sites in reclaimed sites between nine and fifteen years since reclamation. Less coarse analyses, including abundance of indicator morphospecies and trophic abundances showed a deficit of nematode taxa remains, even in older sites. Bacteria-feeding nematodes increased over time in both FRA and traditional reclamation sites, while plant feeding nematodes increased later in the choronosequence of both treatments. Genera such as Ogma, Xiphinema, Teratocephalus, and Acrobeles were indicative of intact forest sites and were under-represented in disturbed sites. Nematode communities may have bottom-up effects on plants, and can have inhibitory effects on both the nutrient status and biomass of plants when nematode abundances are low or plant parasites abundances are high

Timing of poverty in childhood and adolescent health: Evidence from the US and UK

Childhood poverty is associated with poorer adolescent health and health behaviours, but the importance of the timing of poverty remains unclear. There may be critical or sensitive periods in early life or early adolescence, or poverty may have cumulative effects throughout childhood. Understanding when poverty is most important can support efficient timing of interventions to raise family income or buffer against the effects of low income, but answers may vary across social contexts. The US and the UK are a useful comparison with similar liberal approaches to cash transfers, but very different approaches to healthcare provision. Utilising data from large population studies in the US (n = 9408; born 1979–1996) and UK (n = 1204; born 1991–1997), this study employs a structured life course approach to compare competing hypotheses about the importance of the timing or pattern of childhood exposure to poverty in predicting adolescent health limitations, symptoms of psychiatric distress, and smoking at age 16 (age 15/16 in US). Household income histories identified experience of poverty (measured as <60% of the national median equivalised income for a given year) in early life (ages 0–5), mid-childhood (ages 6–10) and early adolescence (ages 11–15). The Bayesian Information Criterion (BIC) compared fit across models with variables representing different life course patterns of exposure to poverty. Adolescent distress was not associated with poverty in either country. In both countries, however, variables representing cumulative or persistent experiences of poverty exhibited optimal fit of all poverty exposure variables in predicting adolescent smoking and health limitations. There was also evidence of an early life sensitive period for smoking in the US. Poverty was more persistent in the US, but associations between poverty and outcomes were consistent across countries. Although poverty can have cumulative effects on health and behaviour, early interventions may offer the best long-term protection

Asian Americans, European White Americans, and the College Admissions Game Issue Brief

My issue brief investigates publically denied but clearly implicit racial quotas that Asian Americans are subject to in elite private university admissions, particularly in Ivy League schools. Such discrimination not only favors the admission of white applicants, particularly children of alumni, but also is misrepresentative of Asian academic achievement and the cultural and historical heterogeneity of individual Asian ethnic groups

The Three-Dimensional Structure of Interior Ejecta in Cassiopeia A at High Spectral Resolution

We used the Spitzer Space Telescope's Infrared Spectrograph to create a high resolution spectral map of the central region of the Cassiopeia A supernova remnant, allowing us to make a Doppler reconstruction of its 3D structure. The ejecta responsible for this emission have not yet encountered the remnant's reverse shock or the circumstellar medium, making it an ideal laboratory for exploring the dynamics of the supernova explosion itself. We observe that the O, Si, and S ejecta can form both sheet-like structures as well as filaments. Si and O, which come from different nucleosynthetic layers of the star, are observed to be coincident in velocity space in some regions, and separated by 500 km/s or more in others. Ejecta traveling toward us are, on average, ~900 km/s slower than the material traveling away from us. We compare our observations to recent supernova explosion models and find that no single model can simultaneously reproduce all the observed features. However, models of different supernova explosions can collectively produce the observed geometries and structures of the interior emission. We use the results from the models to address the conditions during the supernova explosion, concentrating on asymmetries in the shock structure. We also predict that the back surface of Cassiopeia A will begin brightening in ~30 years, and the front surface in ~100 years.Comment: 35 pages, 16 figures, accepted to Ap

Use of low-resolution burned area products and implications for fire risk assessment within the wildland-urban interface

The impacts of wildfires are socially, economically and ecologically vast and these impacts are often thought to be intensified within the wildland-urban interface (WUI) where structures intermingle with wildland vegetation. Because the WUI is expanding rapidly and ignitions within the WUI are said to occur more frequently, it is pertinent that fire scientists and land managers have access to accurate fire occurrence and burned area data within these regions. Burned area information is often accessed via remotely sensed burned area products of differing spatial resolutions. It is known that burned area products with coarse spatial resolution frequently underestimate burned area due to the omission of small fires; therefore, this thesis aims to explore how much burned area low-resolution BA products miss, where they miss burned area, and how different products detect burned area within the wildland-urban interface in Oklahoma, USA. In order to determine how much burned area is missed by these products and where the burned area is located in regards to the WUI, this project utilizes the MODIS MCD64A1 burned area product and the Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity (MTBS) data as a proxy for coarse-resolution burned area data and compares it to a higher-resolution dataset developed using Sentinel-2 imagery. We find that the low-resolution products are unable to detect a significant amount of burned area (Δ 57,000 acres) and may poorly depict the spatial distribution of fire as they were unable to detect major hotspots of fire occurrence. Additionally, we find that the majority of burned area within our study region (Eastern Oklahoma, USA) takes place outside of the WUI