Hubungan Antara Kadar Yodium Urin Dan Memori Jangka Pendek Pada Anak Sekolah Dasar Di Daerah Endemis Gaky

Background: Good short term memory ability is essential in order to improve children's academic achievement. Decrease in short term memory function can be found in children on Iodine Deficiency Disorders (IDD) endemic area. Urinary Iodine (UI) concentrations is the recommended method to determine status of IDD endemic area.Aim: To determine the correlation of urinary iodine concentrations and short term memory in elementary school children in IDD endemic area.Methods: This was an analytic observational study with cross sectional design. Samples were 50 elementary school children aged 9-11 years old who lived in IDD endemic area in Sub Kertek, Wonosobo Regency, Central Java Province. Short term memory function was evaluated by Digit Span test. Spot urine samples were retrieved to assess UI concentrations. Spearman test were used for statistical analysis.Results: Median ± deviation standard digit span forward score 4.00 ± 0.89, digit span backward score 2.00 ± 0.35, digit span scaled score 5.00 ± 1.64, and UI concentrations 287.00 ± 64.49 μg/L. There were significant correlation between UI concentrations with digit span forward score (p=0.009) and digit span scaled score (p=0.009) but not significant with digit span backward score (p=0.136)Conclusion: There were positive correlation between UI concentrations and short term memory in elementary school children on IDD endemic area

Hubungan Stimulasi Kognitif Dengan Prestasi Belajar Pada Anak Di Daerah Endemis Gaky

Background: More than 1,9 billion people in the world which 285 million of them are children, have inadequate iodine intake including Indonesia. Iodine Deficiency Disorder (IDD) cause many negative impacts which can directly affect the national human and health development because of low quality human resources. Cognitive stimulation plays an unignorable role in child's cognitive growth and development.Objective: To analyze the association between cognitive stimulation and academic achievement in children on endemic IDD area.Methods: This was an analytic observational study with cross sectional design. Samples were elementary school children who live in IDD area in Sub Kertek, Wonosobo Regency, Central Java Province. The data are subjects characteristics, cognitive stimulation using Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment-Short Form (HOME-SF) scores and academic achievement using report cards. Chi-square test and multivariate ordinal logistic regression test were used for statistical analysis.Results: Seventy six elementary children aged 9-11 years consisting 46,1 % boys and 53,9% grls were enrolled in this study. Bivariate chi-square test showed significant association between cognitive stimulation and academic achievement in children on IDD area (p <0.001). Bivariate test between maternal academic education and child's academic achievement also showed a significant association (p = 0.014) but it was nonsignificant as tested together with cognitive stimulation using regression analysis (p = 0.058). Multivariate analysis ordinal logistic regression showed a consistent association between cognitive stimulation and academic achievement (p = 0.006) with an odd ratio value 4.37 and pseudo-R2 value 23%.Conclusion: There is an association between cognitive stimulation and academic achievement in children in endemic IDD area

Dynamical Properties of a Haldane Gap Antiferromagnet

We study the dynamic spin correlation function of a spin one antiferromagnetic chain with easy-plane single-ion anisotropy. We use exact diagonalization by the Lancz\H os method for chains of lengths up to N=16 spins. We show that a single-mode approximation is an excellent description of the dynamical properties. A variational calculation allows us to clarify the nature of the excitations. The existence of a two-particle continuum near zero wavevector is clearly seen both in finite-size effects and in the dynamical structure factor. The recent neutron scattering experiments on the quasi-one-dimensional antiferromagnet NENP are fully explained by our results.Comment: 14 pages, SphT/92-135 plain tex with Postscript figures included. Postscipt file available by anonymous ftp at amoco.saclay.cea.fr by get pubs.spht/92-135.ps local_file (290 kb) or get pubs.spht/92-135.ps.Z local_file.Z (compressed - 120 kb

Arsenic trioxide down-regulates antiapoptotic genes and induces cell death in mycosis fungoides tumors in a mouse model

Background: Mycosis fungoides (MF) is the most frequent cutaneous T-cell lymphoma (CTCL). Arsenic trioxide (As2O3) has recently been shown to be effective against leukemias, so we studied whether As2O3 induces apoptosis of CTCL cells in vitro. We further investigated if As2O3 is effective in a MF mouse model. Material and methods: Annexin V/7-amino-actinomycin-D stainings were carried out to investigate if As2O3 induced apoptosis of CTCL cell lines. To study the underlying mechanisms, the effects of As2O3 on various transcription factors and apoptosis regulating proteins were analyzed by western blots, electrophoretic mobility shift assays and transcription factor enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays. The ability of As2O3 to induce tumor regression was investigated in a MF mouse model. Results: As2O3-induced apoptosis was paralleled by a reduction of the DNA-binding activities of transcription factors of the NFkB and signal transducer and activator of transcription gene families and reduced expression of the antiapoptotic proteins bcl-1, bcl-xL and mcl-1. Local injections of 200 μM As2O3 into tumors caused complete remissions in five of six mice and one partial remission. Conclusions: As2O3 induced apoptosis of CTCL cells by the down-regulation of transcription factors that stimulate the expression of antiapoptotic genes. Local injection of As2O3 into MF tumor-bearing mice resulted in tumor regressio

Examining theories of cognitive ageing using the false memory paradigm

Changes in memory performance with advancing age have been well-documented, even in the absence of brain injury or dementia. The mechanisms underlying cognitive ageing are still a matter of debate. The current paper describes a comparison between young (18-25 year old) and older (60+ years) adults using the Deese-Roediger-McDermott false memory paradigm and manipulating the number of words included in the memory lists. Two key theories of cognitive ageing (the Inhibitory Deficit Hypothesis and the Transmission Deficit Hypothesis) predict opposing patterns on this task. Results showed that longer lists increase the likelihood that a lure is retrieved and that older adults are more susceptible to false memories than are younger adults. We argue that these findings are supportive of the Inhibitory Deficit Hypothesis and cannot easily be reconciled with the Transmission Deficit Hypothesis account

Phase variable DNA repeats in 'Neisseria gonorrhoeae' influence transcription, translation, and protein sequence variation

There are many types of repeated DNA sequences in the genomes of the species of the genus Neisseria, from homopolymeric tracts to tandem repeats of hundreds of bases. Some of these have roles in the phase-variable expression of genes. When a repeat mediates phase variation, reversible switching between tract lengths occurs, which in the species of the genus Neisseria most often causes the gene to switch between on and off states through frame shifting of the open reading frame. Changes in repeat tract lengths may also influence the strength of transcription from a promoter. For phenotypes that can be readily observed, such as expression of the surface-expressed Opa proteins or pili, verification that repeats are mediating phase variation is relatively straightforward. For other genes, particularly those where the function has not been identified, gathering evidence of repeat tract changes can be more difficult. Here we present analysis of the repetitive sequences that could mediate phase variation in the Neisseria gonorrhoeae strain NCCP11945 genome sequence and compare these results with other gonococcal genome sequences. Evidence is presented for an updated phase-variable gene repertoire in this species, including a class of phase variation that causes amino acid changes at the C-terminus of the protein, not previously described in N. gonorrhoeae

Magnetic excitations in coupled Haldane spin chains near the quantum critical point

Two quasi-1-dimensional S=1 quantum antiferromagnetic materials, PbNi2V2O8 and SrNi2V2O8, are studied by inelastic neutron scattering on powder samples. While magnetic interactions in the two systems are found to be very similar, subtle differences in inter-chain interaction strengths and magnetic anisotropy are detected. The latter are shown to be responsible for qualitatively different ground state properties: magnetic long-range order in SrNi2V2O8 and disordered ``spin liquid'' Haldane-gap state in PbNi2V2O8.Comment: 15 figures, Figs. 5,9, and 10 in color. Some figures in JPEG format. Complete PostScript and PDF available from http://papillon.phy.bnl.gov/publicat.ht

Neutron scattering search for static magnetism in oxygen ordered YBa2Cu3O6.5

We present elastic and inelastic neutron scattering results on highly oxygen ordered YBa2Cu3O6.5 ortho-II. We find no evidence for the presence of ordered magnetic moments to a sensitivity of 0.003 Bohr magnetons, an order of magnitude smaller than has been suggested in theories of orbital or d-density-wave (DDW) currents. The absence of sharp elastic peaks, shows that the d-density-wave phase is not present, at least for the superconductor with the doping of 6.5 and the ordered ortho-II structure. We cannot exclude the possibility that a broad peak may exist with extremely short-range DDW correlations. For less ordered or more doped crystals it is possible that disorder may lead to static magnetism. We have also searched for the large normal state spin gap that is predicted to exist in an ordered DDW phase. Instead of a gap we find that the Q-correlated spin susceptibility persists to the lowest energies studied, 6 meV. Our results are compatible with the coexistence of superconductivity with orbital currents, but only if they are dynamic, and exclude a sharp phase transition to an ordered d-density-wave phase.Comment: 6 pages 4 figures RevTex Submitted to Phys Rev B January 23, 200