A survey on health-promoting lifestyle among community-dwelling older people with hypertension in Macau

2007-2008 > Academic research: refereed > Publication in refereed journalVersion of RecordPublishe

Energy Tunnels for Deicing of a Bridge Deck in Alpine Region

Roads and paved surfaces in cold climate are exposed to the formation of ice and snow deposition. These phenomena are related to high risks for vehicles and road users due to reduced friction. Deicing techniques are up to now mainly based on chemicals, especially salt. These substances induce chemical decay of concrete infrastructure elements and environmental harm. In order to overcome these drawbacks, the use of embedded hydraulic pipes with a hot carrier fluid below the paved surfaces has been proposed in last decades. This circuit can be part of a Ground Source Heat Pump (GSHP) system. Despite a number of examples of this technology have been proposed, very few of them included the application of energy tunnels. This paper focuses on the thermal activation of a tunnel lining in relation to an application for bridge deck deicing. A theoretical case study along an Alpine road has been considered as representative of a common situation of alternated bridges and tunnels. The numerical results show that the thermal activation of the tunnel lining can provide enough heat to keep the paved surface unfrozen even in protracted periods of low external temperatures

Maternal care in rural China: a case study from Anhui province

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Studies on prenatal care in China have focused on the timing and frequency of prenatal care and relatively little information can be found on how maternal care has been organized and funded or on the actual content of the visits, especially in the less developed rural areas. This study explored maternal care in a rural county from Anhui province in terms of care organization, provision and utilization.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A total of 699 mothers of infants under one year of age were interviewed with structured questionnaires; the county health bureau officials and managers of township hospitals (n = 10) and county level hospitals (n = 2) were interviewed; the process of the maternal care services was observed by the researchers. In addition, statistics from the local government were used.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The county level hospitals were well staffed and equipped and served as a referral centre for women with a high-risk pregnancy. Township hospitals had, on average, 1.7 midwives serving an average population of 15,000 people. Only 10–20% of the current costs in county level hospitals and township hospitals were funded by the local government, and women paid for delivery care. There was no systematic organized prenatal care and referrals were not mandatory. About half of the women had their first prenatal visit before the 13th gestational week, 36% had fewer than 5 prenatal visits, and about 9% had no prenatal visits. A major reason for not having prenatal care visits was that women considered it unnecessary. Most women (87%) gave birth in public health facilities, and the rest in a private clinic or at home. A total of 8% of births were delivered by caesarean section. Very few women had any postnatal visits. About half of the women received the recommended number of prenatal blood pressure and haemoglobin measurements.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Delivery care was better provided than both prenatal and postnatal care in the study area. Reliance on user fees gave the hospitals an incentive to put more emphasis on revenue generating activities such as delivery care instead of prenatal and postnatal care.</p

Light hadron, Charmonium(-like) and Bottomonium(-like) states

Hadron physics represents the study of strongly interacting matter in all its manifestations and the understanding of its properties and interactions. The interest on this field has been revitalized by the discovery of new light hadrons, charmonium- and bottomonium-like states. I review the most recent experimental results from different experiments.Comment: Presented at Lepton-Photon 2011, Mumbai, India; 21 pages, 18 figures; add more references; some correctio

Prognostic relevance of a T-type calcium channels gene signature in solid tumours: A correlation ready for clinical validation

BackgroundT-type calcium channels (TTCCs) mediate calcium influx across the cell membrane. TTCCs regulate numerous physiological processes including cardiac pacemaking and neuronal activity. In addition, they have been implicated in the proliferation, migration and differentiation of tumour tissues. Although the signalling events downstream of TTCC-mediated calcium influx are not fully elucidated, it is clear that variations in the expression of TTCCs promote tumour formation and hinder response to treatment.MethodsWe examined the expression of TTCC genes (all three subtypes; CACNA-1G, CACNA-1H and CACNA-1I) and their prognostic value in three major solid tumours (i.e. gastric, lung and ovarian cancers) via a publicly accessible database.ResultsIn gastric cancer, expression of all the CACNA genes was associated with overall survival (OS) among stage I-IV patients (all pConclusionsAlterations in CACNA gene expression are linked to tumour prognosis. Gastric cancer represents the most promising setting for further evaluation

Thermal stress induces glycolytic beige fat formation via a myogenic state.

Environmental cues profoundly affect cellular plasticity in multicellular organisms. For instance, exercise promotes a glycolytic-to-oxidative fibre-type switch in skeletal muscle, and cold acclimation induces beige adipocyte biogenesis in adipose tissue. However, the molecular mechanisms by which physiological or pathological cues evoke developmental plasticity remain incompletely understood. Here we report a type of beige adipocyte that has a critical role in chronic cold adaptation in the absence of β-adrenergic receptor signalling. This beige fat is distinct from conventional beige fat with respect to developmental origin and regulation, and displays enhanced glucose oxidation. We therefore refer to it as glycolytic beige fat. Mechanistically, we identify GA-binding protein α as a regulator of glycolytic beige adipocyte differentiation through a myogenic intermediate. Our study reveals a non-canonical adaptive mechanism by which thermal stress induces progenitor cell plasticity and recruits a distinct form of thermogenic cell that is required for energy homeostasis and survival

Inactivation of SAM-methyltransferase is the mechanism of attenuation of a historic louse borne typhus vaccine strain

Louse borne typhus (also called epidemic typhus) was one of man's major scourges, and epidemics of the disease can be reignited when social, economic, or political systems are disrupted. The fear of a bioterrorist attack using the etiologic agent of typhus, Rickettsia prowazekii, was a reality. An attenuated typhus vaccine, R. prowazekii Madrid E strain, was observed to revert to virulence as demonstrated by isolation of the virulent revertant Evir strain from animals which were inoculated with Madrid E strain. The mechanism of the mutation in R. prowazekii that affects the virulence of the vaccine was not known. We sequenced the genome of the virulent revertant Evir strain and compared its genome sequence with the genome sequences of its parental strain, Madrid E. We found that only a single nucleotide in the entire genome was different between the vaccine strain Madrid E and its virulent revertant strain Evir. The mutation is a single nucleotide insertion in the methyltransferase gene (also known as PR028) in the vaccine strain that inactivated the gene. We also confirmed that the vaccine strain E did not cause fever in guinea pigs and the virulent revertant strain Evir caused fever in guinea pigs. We concluded that a single nucleotide insertion in the methyltransferase gene of R. prowazekii attenuated the R. prowazekii vaccine strain E. This suggested that an irreversible insertion or deletion mutation in the methyl transferase gene of R. prowazekii is required for Madrid E to be considered a safe vaccine

Prognostic significance of the expression of GFRα1, GFRα3 and Syndecan-3, Proteins binding ARTEMIN, In mammary carcinoma

10.1186/1471-2407-13-34BMC Cancer13-BCMA

Electrically controlled long-distance spin transport through an antiferromagnetic insulator

Spintronics uses spins, the intrinsic angular momentum of electrons, as an alternative for the electron charge. Its long-term goal is in the development of beyond-Moore low dissipation technology devices. Recent progress demonstrated the long-distance transport of spin signals across ferromagnetic insulators. Antiferromagnetically ordered materials are however the most common class of magnetic materials with several crucial advantages over ferromagnetic systems. In contrast to the latter, antiferromagnets exhibit no net magnetic moment, which renders them stable and impervious to external fields. In addition, they can be operated at THz frequencies. While fundamentally their properties bode well for spin transport, previous indirect observations indicate that spin transmission through antiferromagnets is limited to short distances of a few nanometers. Here we demonstrate the long-distance, over tens of micrometers, propagation of spin currents through hematite (\alpha-Fe2O3), the most common antiferromagnetic iron oxide, exploiting the spin Hall effect for spin injection. We control the spin current flow by the interfacial spin-bias and by tuning the antiferromagnetic resonance frequency with an external magnetic field. This simple antiferromagnetic insulator is shown to convey spin information parallel to the compensated moment (N\'eel order) over distances exceeding tens of micrometers. This newly-discovered mechanism transports spin as efficiently as the net magnetic moments in the best-suited complex ferromagnets. Our results pave the way to ultra-fast, low-power antiferromagnet-insulator-based spin-logic devices that operate at room temperature and in the absence of magnetic fields

Adsorption and reduction of palladium (Pd2+) by Bacillus licheniformis R08

Preliminary study on the mechanism of Pd2+ biosorption by resting cells of Bacillus licheniformis R08 biomass has been carried out by means of chemical kinetics and AAS, TEM, XRD and FTIR methods. The results showed that at 30degreesC and PH 3.5, when dry R08 biomass powder (800 mg/L) was mixed with Pd2+ (100 mg/L) for 45 min, the rate constant k of biosorption of Pd2+ attained a maximum of 5.97 x 10(-2) min(-1) and the half life period of the reaction reached 12 min. The part of Pd2+ adsorbed by R08 biomass was reduced to elemental, cell-bound Pd-0 at the same condition. The cell wall of R08 biomass was the primary location for accumulating Pd2+, and aldoses, i. e. hydrolysate of a part of polysaccharides on the peptidoglycan layer in the acidic medium, serving as the electron donor, in situ reduced the Pd2+ to Pd-0