Luteinizing Hormone and Alzheimer’s Disease: Impact and Possibilities of Treatment

Alzheimer’s disease is a common neurodegenerative disease that is the 6th leading cause of death in the United States. An estimated 5 million Americans are afflicted nationwide and the cost to the economy is valued at 259 billion dollars. Additionally, unlike other major causes of death in the United States, there is no treatment for Alzheimer’s Disease. Alzheimer’s is a progressive disease and it is strongly tied to aging. In most cases symptoms make their first appearance in the late 60’s and gradually worsen, eventually leading to a loss of cognitive function and death. The two outstanding changes in the brain associated with Alzheimer’s disease are neurofibrillary tangles and beta amyloid plaque. The presence of these is used to diagnose Alzheimer’s disease after death. Certain hormonal changes that are associated with age, such as a rise in luteinizing hormone levels, are strong contenders for the age-related causes of Alzheimer’s disease. Elevated gonadotropin levels have been shown in studies to correlate with amyloid beta accumulation in human and animal brains. The precise mechanism of action and the causation are not yet fully understood. Nevertheless, some studies have shown that lowering levels of gonadotropin-releasing hormone (which releases luteinizing hormone) through the treatment with leuprolide acetate, a gonadotropin-releasing hormone agonist, have led to lowered risk of mortality by Alzheimer’s disease in both mice and humans. This paper will discuss the association between elevated luteinizing hormone levels and Alzheimer’s disease as well as the possibility of a gonadotropin-releasing-hormone blocking based treatment for Alzheimer’s

Approaches to teaching: Current opinions and related research

Three approaches to teaching and learning are introduced. Each approach has its relative merits and disadvantages. Ideally, each approach should not be used in isolation. The use of facilitatory approaches to teaching and learning should be encouraged to assist the development of problem solving, decision making skills and creative and critical thinking in nurses, particularly those studying on competency-based education and training courses and programme

Safe Streets, Safe Communities: Walking and Biking Infrastructure in Gulfton

Efforts to improve street safety in the Houston region are tied to residents’ ability to access socioeconomic opportunities using different travel modes. Gulfton has the potential to be a more walkable neighborhood because various community resources, commercial activities, schools and residential units are often within walking or biking distance. However, 149 people were either killed or injured while walking between 2010 – 2017 according to TxDOT. This report provides insights into concerns about the availability and conditions of biking and walking facilities and infrastructure in the neighborhood. Several neighborhood walks were organized so that community leaders and citizen volunteers can participate in assessing availability and conditions of existing sidewalks, bikeways and other street elements such as street lighting and building conditions. The project aims to build an inventory of sidewalks, intersections and bikeways in different neighborhoods in Houston

Redistributional Preferences and Imposed Institutions

To what extent do imposed institutions shape preferences? We consider this issue by comparing the market-versus-state attitudes of respondents from a capitalist country, Finland, and an ex-communist group of Baltic countries, and by arguing that the period of communist rule can be viewed as an 'experiment' in institutional imposition. We find that, consistent with some earlier related work, citizens from ex-communist countries tend to be more supportive of state ownership than respondents from capitalist economies. However, they also favor increasing inequality and competition as the means to enhance incentives. We conclude that, in some important relevant dimensions, institutional imposition (which lasted for about 50 years) had a limited effect on preferences. The lessons for Latin America are straightforward

Kinetic and N.M.R. Studies of Carbon Acids in Basic Media.

The thesis is divided into four chapters. Chapter one is concerned with the detritiation from labelled compounds containing more than one exchangeable site. The compounds chosen for study were m-dinitrobenzene and a variety of amino acids. The amino acids were labelled using enzyme catalysed exchange and the various kinetics of enzyme catalysed detritiation were studied. The computer programme used was successful in evaluating the kinetics of detritiation of m-dinitrobenzene and L-alanine labelled in two positions and a mixture of aspartic and glutamic acids each labelled in only one position. Chapter two is concerned with a variety of methods that were used to label some polynitrobenzenes and polynitro naphthalenes. The labelling patterns were determined using tritium nmr spectroscopy. A variety of different labelling patterns were obtained and some of the reasons for this are discussed. The preparation of the "Meisenheimer" complex of s-trinitrobenzene and the tritium nmr spectrum of this complex is described. Chapter three is concerned with kinetic methods of observing ion pairing in solution. The reactions studied were simple detritiation or cleavage reactions in isopropanol, as catalysed by sodium and potassium isopropoxide. Some attempts were made to quantify the free ion and ion pair rate constants in these media. Difficulties were encountered when sodium and potassium tetraphenylboron were used as salts in these media and some experiments are described which highlight the problems involved and which also suggest methods of circumventing them. Finally, in chapter four, a study is described of experiments carried out on a variety of different detritiation reactions catalysed by sodium hydroxide in water and sodium alkoxides in methanol, ethanol, isopropanol and t-butanol. The carbon acids studied are chloroform, s-trinitrobenzene, acetophenone, p-dimethylaminoaceto-phenone, dimethylsulphone and phenylacetylene. The cleavage reaction of p-nitrobenzyltrimethylsilane was also studied in these media. Correlations with dielectric constant of the medium and with H are described