1,443 research outputs found
Using monoclonal antibodies to prevent mucosal transmission of epidemic infectious diseases.
Passive immunization with antibodies has been shown to prevent a wide variety of diseases. Recent advances in monoclonal antibody technology are enabling the development of new methods for passive immunization of mucosal surfaces. Human monoclonal antibodies, produced rapidly, inexpensively, and in large quantities, may help prevent respiratory, diarrheal, and sexually transmitted diseases on a public health scale
The Association Between the Long-Term Change in Directly Measured Cardiorespiratory Fitness and Mortality Risk
Introduction: There is a strong inverse association between cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) and mortality outcomes. This relationship has predominantly been assessed cross-sectionally, however low CRF is a modifiable risk factor, thus assessing this association using a single baseline measure may be sub-optimal. Purpose: To examine the association of the long-term change in CRF, measured using cardiopulmonary exercise testing (CPX) with all-cause and disease-specific mortality.
Methods: Participants included 833 apparently healthy men and women (42.9±10.8 years) who underwent two maximal CPXs, the second CPX being â„ 1 year following the baseline assessment. Participants were followed for 17.7 ± 11.8 years for allcause, cardiovascular disease (CVD), and cancer mortality. Cox-proportional hazard models were performed to determine the association between the change in CRF, computed as visit 1 (V1) peak oxygen consumption (VO2peak (ml·kg-1·min-1)) â visit 2 (V2) VO2peak, and mortality outcomes.
Results: During follow-up, 172 participants died. Overall, the change in CPX-derived CRF was inversely related to all-cause, CVD, and cancer mortality (p\u3c0.05). Each 1 ml·kg-1·min-1 increase was associated with a 10.8, 14.7, and 15.9% reductions in allcause, CVD, and cancer mortality, respectively. The inverse relationship between CRF and all-cause mortality remained significant (p\u3c0.05) when men and women were examined independently, after adjusting for years since first CPX, baseline VO2peak, and age.
Conclusion: Long-term changes in CRF were inversely related to mortality outcomes, and mortality was better predicted by CRF measured at subsequent examination than baseline CRF. These findings support the recent American Heart Association scientific statement advocating CRF as a clinical vital sign that should be assessed routinely in clinical practice, as well as support regular participation in physical activity to maintain adequate CRF levels across the lifespan
Evolving a more Active Telomerase Enzyme in Saccharomyces Cerevisiae
https://scholarworks.moreheadstate.edu/student_scholarship_posters/1259/thumbnail.jp
Liquid meal composition, postprandial satiety hormones, and perceived appetite and satiety in obese women during acute caloric restriction
OBJECTIVE:
The purpose of this study was to compare postprandial satiety regulating hormone responses (pancreatic polypeptide (PP) and peptide tyrosine tyrosine (PYY)) and visual analog scale- (VAS) assessed perceived appetite and satiety between liquid high-protein (HP) and high-carbohydrate (HC) meals in obese women during acute (24-h) caloric restriction.
DESIGN:
Eleven obese premenopausal women completed two conditions in random order in which they consumed 1500 calories as six 250-calorie HP meals or six 250-calorie HC meals over a 12-h period. Blood samples were taken at baseline and every 20âmin thereafter and analyzed for PP and PYY concentrations. At these same points, perceived hunger and fullness were assessed with a VAS. The incremental area under the curve (iAUC) was used to compare postprandial responses.
RESULTS:
THE 12-H PP AND PYY IAUC WERE GREATER (P0.05) DURING THE HP CONDITION (PP: 4727±1306âpg/mlĂ12âh, PYY: 1373±357âpg/mlĂ12âh) compared with the HC condition (PP: 2300±528âpg/mlĂ12âh, PYY: 754±246âpg/mlĂ12âh). Perceived hunger and fullness were not different between conditions (P>0.05). The greatest changes in PYY and perceived fullness occurred after the morning meals during both conditions.
CONCLUSIONS:
These data suggest that in obese women during acute caloric restriction before weight loss, i) liquid HP meals, compared with HC meals, result in greater postprandial PP and PYY concentrations, an effect not associated with differential appetite or satiety responses, and ii) meal-induced changes in PYY and satiety are greatest during the morning period, regardless of dietary macronutrient composition
A measurement-based measure of the size of macroscopic quantum superpositions
Recent experiments claiming formation of quantum superposition states in near
macroscopic sys- tems raise the question of how the sizes of general quantum
superposition states in an interacting system are to be quantified. We propose
here a measure of size for such superposition states that is based on what
measurements can be performed to probe and distinguish the different branches
of the state. The measure allows comparison of the effective size for
superposition states in very different physical systems. It can be applied to a
very general class of superposition states and reproduces known results for
near-ideal cases. Comparison with a prior measure based on analy- sis of
coherence between branches indicates that significantly smaller effective
superposition sizes result from our measurement-based measure. Application to a
system of interacting bosons in a double-well trapping potential shows that the
effective superposition size is strongly dependent on the relative magnitude of
the barrier height and interparticle interaction.Comment: 21 pages, 20 figures. Accepted by Phys. Rev. A. Replaced old version
with accepted version. Significant changes and improvements, particularly to
section on 1-particle measurement
A Quantum Random Walk Search Algorithm
Quantum random walks on graphs have been shown to display many interesting
properties, including exponentially fast hitting times when compared with their
classical counterparts. However, it is still unclear how to use these novel
properties to gain an algorithmic speed-up over classical algorithms. In this
paper, we present a quantum search algorithm based on the quantum random walk
architecture that provides such a speed-up. It will be shown that this
algorithm performs an oracle search on a database of items with
calls to the oracle, yielding a speed-up similar to other quantum
search algorithms. It appears that the quantum random walk formulation has
considerable flexibility, presenting interesting opportunities for development
of other, possibly novel quantum algorithms.Comment: 13 pages, 3 figure
Electronic structure of superposition states in flux qubits
Flux qubits, small superconducting loops interrupted by Josephson junctions,
are successful realizations of quantum coherence for macroscopic variables.
Superconductivity in these loops is carried by --
electrons, which has been interpreted as suggesting that coherent
superpositions of such current states are macroscopic superpositions analogous
to Schr\"odinger's cat. We provide a full microscopic analysis of such qubits,
from which the macroscopic quantum description can be derived. This reveals
that the number of microscopic constituents participating in superposition
states for experimentally accessible flux qubits is surprisingly but not
trivially small. The combination of this relatively small size with large
differences between macroscopic observables in the two branches is seen to
result from the Fermi statistics of the electrons and the large disparity
between the values of superfluid and Fermi velocity in these systems.Comment: Minor cosmetic changes. Published version
The Anthropometry of Forest Machine Operators in the Southern USA
Anthropometric dimensions critical to the design of operator workspaces and cab access in grapple skidders were collected from a sample of Southern United States loggers. The data were then compared to existing SAE and ILO anthropometric recommendations and data. Results indicated that southern grapple skidder operators are generally taller in stature, sitting height and seated eye height than the worldwide population measured to determine the SAE and ILO guides. Southern operators are also heavier than subjects measured for the SAE recommendations
Microscopic model of critical current noise in Josephson-junction qubits: Subgap resonances and Andreev bound states
We propose a microscopic model of critical current noise in
Josephson-junctions based on individual trapping-centers in the tunnel barrier
hybridized with electrons in the superconducting leads. We calculate the noise
exactly in the limit of no on-site Coulomb repulsion. Our result reveals a
noise spectrum that is dramatically different from the usual Lorentzian assumed
in simple models. We show that the noise is dominated by sharp subgap
resonances associated to the formation of pairs of Andreev bound states, thus
providing a possible explanation for the spurious two-level systems
(microresonators) observed in Josephson junction qubits [R.W. Simmonds et al.,
Phys. Rev. Lett. 93, 077003 (2004)]. Another implication of our model is that
each trapping-center will contribute a sharp dielectric resonance only in the
superconducting phase, providing an effective way to validate our results
experimentally. We derive an effective Hamiltonian for a qubit interacting with
Andreev bound states, establishing a direct connection between phenomenological
models and the microscopic parameters of a Fermionic bath.Comment: 11 pages, 8 figure
LINVIEW: Incremental View Maintenance for Complex Analytical Queries
Many analytics tasks and machine learning problems can be naturally expressed
by iterative linear algebra programs. In this paper, we study the incremental
view maintenance problem for such complex analytical queries. We develop a
framework, called LINVIEW, for capturing deltas of linear algebra programs and
understanding their computational cost. Linear algebra operations tend to cause
an avalanche effect where even very local changes to the input matrices spread
out and infect all of the intermediate results and the final view, causing
incremental view maintenance to lose its performance benefit over
re-evaluation. We develop techniques based on matrix factorizations to contain
such epidemics of change. As a consequence, our techniques make incremental
view maintenance of linear algebra practical and usually substantially cheaper
than re-evaluation. We show, both analytically and experimentally, the
usefulness of these techniques when applied to standard analytics tasks. Our
evaluation demonstrates the efficiency of LINVIEW in generating parallel
incremental programs that outperform re-evaluation techniques by more than an
order of magnitude.Comment: 14 pages, SIGMO
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