Is point of care testing for anaemia (HB) and microalbumin feasible in people with type 2 diabetes attending diabetes outpatient clinics?

Introduction: Diabetes is the major cause of chronic kidney disease (CKD) in Australia. Anaemia of CKD occurs earlier than in non-diabetics and is often insidious and undetected.Aim: A large, prospective, single-centre study was undertaken to determine the feasibility of point of care testing (POCT) haemoglobin (Hb) and microalbumin in people with type 2 diabetes (T2DM) attending routine outpatient clinic appointments (OPC).Method: Clinic nurses measured Hb and microalbumin using the HemoCue Haemoglobin Capillary Analyser and the HemoCue Urine Albumin Analyser (Medipac Scientific), respectively when they tested blood glucose, weight and blood pressure. The nurses were trained to use the analysers before the study commenced. Standard demographic data, duration of diabetes, treatment mode, and presence of complications, comorbidities, and HbA1c were ascertained from patients&rsquo; medical records.Results: Five hundred and fifty-four (80%) patients were screened. The nurses were able to perform the tests competently but testing, especially microalbumin, was time-consuming. Patients&rsquo; mean age was 62 years (11 SD): 230 females, mean blood glucose (BG) 10 (3.9 SD) mmol/L, mean haemoglobin 127.2 (16.3 SD) g/L; mean microalbumin 47.8 (58.7 SD) mg/L: 324 were males, mean BG 10.2 (3.9 SD) mmol/L, mean Hb 138.6 (18.8 SD) gm/L, and mean microalbumin 67.9 (73.9 SD) mg/L. 27% of males and 22% of females were anaemic. Of those with anaemia, 27% of females and 29% of males had microalbuminuria.Conclusions: POCT is feasible in routine outpatient clinics but is time-consuming. One in four T2DM attending OPC were anaemic. POCT Hb testing in OPC is feasible and could identify T2DM who need full haematological assessment.<br /

The possible effects of lunar mascons on lunar magnetic and electromagnetic experiments Final report

Electromagnetic and magnetic response study of lunar mascons using gravity mode

Journeys into perversion: vision, desire and economies of transgression in the films of Jess Franco

Due to their characteristic themes (such as 'perverse' desire and monstrosity) and form (incoherence and excess), exploitation films are often celebrated as inherently subversive or transgressive. I critically assess such claims through a close reading of the films of the Spanish 'sex and horror' specialist Jess Franco. My textual and contextual analysis shows that Franco's films are shaped by inter-relationships between authorship, international genre codes and the economic and ideological conditions of exploitation cinema. Within these conditions, Franco's treatment of 'aberrant' and gothic desiring subjectivities appears contradictory. Contestation and critique can, for example, be found in Franco's portrayal of emasculated male characters, and his female vampires may offer opportunities for resistant appropriation. But these possibilities do not amount to the 'radicality' sometimes attributed to the exploitation field. Focusing on international co-productions from early 1960s to mid 1970s, I discuss the ideological ambivalence of their fascination with 'perversity' and 'otherness'. Chapter 1 argues that The Awful Dr Orlof challenges dominant standards of quality in contemporary Spanish cinema, that its figuring of monstrosity contains a potential critique of Francisco Franco's dictatorship, and that it only partially destabilises the genre's traditional gender codes. Chapter 2 discusses femme fatale stereotypes and fantasy tropes in Venus in Furs. Mixing visual discourses of 'high' and 'low' culture in an evocation of male 'mad love', this film dramatises vision in a way which problematises the notion of the mastering, coherent gaze. Chapter 3 argues that Franco's female vampire films embody, while reflexively estranging, heteronormative male fascination with the 'otherness' of female/'lesbian' desire. Franco's supposed transgressivity is often referred to as Sadeian; through a reading of Demoniac and Franco's 'captive women' imagery, the final chapter therefore discusses the political possibilities, contradictions and limitations of Franco's Sadeian representations

The role of nicotine, a7 nicotinic acetylcholine receptors and extracellular matrix remodeling in pulmonary fibrosis.

The median survival for idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) patients from diagnosis is a dismal 3 years. This condition is characterized by pulmonary fibroproliferation and excess production and disordered deposition of extracellular matrix (ECM) proteins resulting in obliteration of the original tissue architecture, loss of lung function and eventual death due to respiratory failure. The main hindrance to the development of effective treatments against pulmonary fibrosis is the late detection of its progression and is often of unknown cause. Tobacco smoke represents the most important environmental factor linked to the development of pulmonary fibrosis, with over 60% of IPF patients current or ex-smokers, yet exactly how tobacco influences lung injury and repair is unknown. Research in this area has been hampered by the fact that tobacco is a very complex substance, containing thousands of chemicals. Due to this complexity, I have pursued a different approach and focused on factors, specifically nicotine, which might render the lung susceptible to fibrosis and contribute to the early pathophysiology of IPF. In this dissertation, I extend the work of Dr. Jesse Roman’s lab to investigate additional extracellular matrix modifications via nicotine exposure, including collagen type I. Investigating the cellular receptors and molecular mechanisms mediating the effects of nicotine on fibroblast collagen production/deposition and the potential role of nicotine-induced remodeling in rendering the host susceptible to pulmonary fibrosis are explored through 5 chapters: 1) The effects of nicotine on lung fibroblast proliferation and collagen expression/deposition in vitro and in vivo, and the cholinergic receptors responsible for these effects. 2) The effects of chronic nicotine exposure on injury-induced fibrosis. 3) The impact of chronic nicotine exposure on survival after bleomycin-lung injury. 4) A new diagnostic physiological formula for earlier detection of pulmonary fibrosis progression in IPF patients. 5) A clinical review on Hermansky-Pudlak syndrome, an orphan disease characterized by the natural formation of pulmonary fibrosis. This work provides a detailed understanding of the mechanisms by which tobacco promotes lung remodeling, leading to the development of better tools for diagnostic tracking, care and treatment of these patients

Grinding out the Grindhouse: Exploitation, Myth and Memory

This chapter contributes to a significant and well-received volume  of new sholarshio on transnational and global exploitation cinemas. The chapter draws on recent work in memory studies to argue that the 'grindhouse' constitutes a memory-place of the imagination: one which evokes a mythologisation of pre-digital cinema going experiences. While the 'death' of analogue cinema and the 'grindhouse' were effectively predicted by a kind of pre-emptive nostalgia even during its suposed 'hey day', the nostalgic elements of the myth (far beyond the often radicality of the films) belie a conservative and masculinised desire for a a particular kind of hazardous cultural space.“ "The Grindhouse is a fascinating phenomenon but it is too often seen as a wild and eclectic one, something that is praised for being chaotic and anarchic. The current collection goes beyond this celebratory rhetoric to examine the multiple forms and histories that converge in the Grindhouse. It unpicks and unpacks the phenomenon in ways that demonstrate its richness and variety, but also make sense of that richness and variety. Most significantly, it does so without destroying the pleasures of the Grindhouse. On the contrary it manages to question the experience while preserving its sense of fascination. And that is a very rare thing.”–Mark Jancovich, Professor of Film and Television Studies, University of East Anglia, United Kingdom “Grindhousesets a new standard for the study of exploitation cinema history. In a time when grindhouse aesthetics have become retro chic, this book moves us beyond the seedy, cult mythologies of grindhouse. Examining grindhouse cinema beyond myth and morality, beyond genre conventions or industrial norms, and even beyond the U.S. context, this collection takes a nuanced look at this complex body-no cadaver-of film history. The book demands that we interrogate how the turbulent racial, national and sexual politics of the 1960s to 1980s gave birth to a movement in cinema whose significance to the popular and film cultures of today cannot be underestimated. A tour de force and a must read for anyone interested in film on the (not so) perverse margins of cinema history.”–Mireille Miller-Young, Associate Professor of Feminist Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara, US

On the Timescale for the Formation of Protostellar Cores in Magnetic Interstellar Clouds

We revisit the problem of the formation of dense protostellar cores due to ambipolar diffusion within magnetically supported molecular clouds, and derive an analytical expression for the core formation timescale. The resulting expression is similar to the canonical expression = t_{ff}^2/t_{ni} ~ 10 t_{ni} (where t_{ff} is the free-fall time and t_{ni} is the neutral-ion collision time), except that it is multiplied by a numerical factor C(\mu_{c0}), where \mu_{c0} is the initial central mass-to-flux ratio normalized to the critical value for gravitational collapse. C(\mu_{c0}) is typically ~ 1 in highly subcritical clouds (\mu_{c0} << 1), although certain conditions allow C(\mu_{c0}) >> 1. For clouds that are not highly subcritical, C(\mu_{c0}) can be much less than unity, with C(\mu_{c0}) --> 0 for \mu_{c0} --> 1, significantly reducing the time required to form a supercritical core. This, along with recent observations of clouds with mass-to-flux ratios close to the critical value, may reconcile the results of ambipolar diffusion models with statistical analyses of cores and YSO's which suggest an evolutionary timescale \~ 1 Myr for objects of mean density ~ 10^4 cm^{-3}. We compare our analytical relation to the results of numerical simulations, and also discuss the effects of dust grains on the core formation timescale.Comment: 11 pages, 2 figures, accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journa

Using the Scanning Fluid Dynamic Gauging Device to Understand the Cleaning of Baked Lard Soiling Layers.

Extended or repeated heating of food fats promotes polymerisation reactions that produce difficult-to-remove soil layers. Cleaning of these baked-on/burnt-on fat deposits was investigated using model layers generated by baking lard on 316 stainless steel discs. Rigorous characterisation of the layer material was difficult, as it was insoluble in most solvents. Cleaning was studied using the scanning fluid dynamic gauging technique developed by Gordon et al. (Meas Sci Technol 21:85-103, 2010), which provides non-contact in situ measurement of layer thickness at several sites on a sample in real time. Tests at 50 [Formula: see text]C with alkali (sodium hydroxide, pH 10.4-11) and three surfactant solutions indicated two removal mechanisms, related to the (1) roll-up and (2) dispersion mechanisms reported for oily oils, namely (1) penetration of solvent at the soil-liquid interface, resulting in detachment of the soil layer as a coherent film, observed with linear alkylbenzene sulfonic acid (LAS) and Triton X-100 and aqueous sodium hydroxide at pH 10.4-11; and (2) the breakdown promoted by the agent penetrating through the layer, observed with cetyl trimethyl ammonium bromide (CTAB), in which CTAB antagonised the cleaning action of LAS.An EPSRC studentship for AA and project support from Procter and Gamble Ltd is gratefully acknowledged.This is the final version of the article. It first appeared from Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11743-015-1737-

Laser sterilization of microorganisms

The effect of light from a variety of laser sources was investigated in a microbicidal capacity under a number of different conditions. Initially, Escherichia coli, Serratia marcescens, Staphylococcus aureus, Deinococcus radiodurans, Micrococcus luteus, Bacillus subtilis, B. stearothermophilus, Candida albicans and Saccharomyces cerevisiae were exposed to near infrared light, from a high-powered, 1064 nm, Neodymium:Yttrium Aluminium Garnet (Nd:YAG) laser, as lawned cultures on agar plates. The effect of the different Nd:YAG laser operation parameters (pulse repetition frequency, pulse energy, pulse width and beam diameter) were also investigated on lawned cultures of E. coli. A system of quantifying the effect of the laser light on microorganisms lawned on agar plates, which utilised the non-uniform energy distribution of the laser beam, was developed and the different organisms and laser parameters were compared. Nd:YAG laser light killed all microorganisms mentioned above, producing clear areas within the microbial lawns. For each microbial species, a dose/response curve was obtained of area of clearing versus energy density (Jcm-2). The energy density that produced an inactivated/sterilized area (IA) equal to 50 percent of the beam area was designated the IA50-value and was plotted. Average IA50-values were all within a three fold range and varied from 1768 Jcm-2 for Serratia marcescens to 4489 Jcm-2 for vegetative cells of Bacillus stearothermophilus. The differences in sensitivity could not be attributed to cell shape, size, pigmentation, or Gram reaction. The PRF, pulse energy and beam diameter all affected the sterilization capability of Nd:YAG laser on a lawned culture of E. coli. The average IA50-value at a PRF of 10 Hz was 2800 Jcm-2 which was decreased to 2200 Jcm-2 as the PRF was increased to 30 Hz. Similarly, an increase in the pulse energy from 10 J to 30 J enhanced the sterilization efficiency of the Nd:YAG laser on E. coli lawned on agar surfaces with a reduction in the average IA50-value from 2700 Jcm-2 to 1850 Jcm-2 respectively. Variation in the beam diameter was shown to have a large effect on the threshold energy density (the lowest ED required to sterilize an area in the bacterial lawn). Laser light at a beam diameter of 2.75 cm had a threshold energy density of 1400 Jcm-2 which was reduced to 800 Jcm-2, with a beam diameter of 1.25 cm. There was not such a notable effect on the IA50-values with only 200 Jcm-2 separating both of these beam diameters. The pulse width of Nd:YAG laser light did not affect the bactericidal ability of laser light. At the lowest energy densities where sterilization was achieved for the majority of organisms (around 2000 Jcm-2), no effect was observed on the nutrient agar surface, but as the energy density was increased, a depression in the agar surface was formed, followed by localised melting of the agar. Also around the periphery of the cleared areas microcolonies were frequently observed which indicated sub-lethal damage to the microbial cells. Preliminary investigations indicate that these colonies contain auxotrophic organisms