Oxidative Balance Score and Chronic Kidney Disease

BACKGROUND: The Oxidative balance score (OBS) is a composite estimate of the overall pro- and antioxidant exposure status in an individual. The aim of this study was to determine the association between OBS and renal disease. METHODS: Using the Reasons for Geographic and Racial Differences in Stroke (REGARDS) cohort study, OBS was calculated by combining 13 a priori-defined pro- and antioxidant factors by using baseline dietary and lifestyle assessment. OBS was divided into quartiles (Q1–Q4) with the lowest, Q1 (predominance of pro-oxidants) as the reference. Multivariable logistic regression and cox proportional hazards models were used to estimate adjusted odds ratios (ORs) for albuminuria defined as urine albumin/creatinine ratio ≥ 30mg/g, macroalbuminuria defined as urine albumin/creatinine ratio >300mg/g and CKD defined as estimated glomerular filtration rate < 60ml/min/1.73m(2) (CKD-EPI) and hazard ratios (HRs) for ESRD, respectively. RESULTS: Of the 19,461 participants analyzed, 12.9% had albuminuria, 10.1% had CKD at baseline; over a median follow-up of 3.5 years (range 2.14–4.32 years) 0.46% developed ESRD. Higher OBS quartiles were associated with lower prevalence of CKD (OR vs. Q1: Q2=0.93, (95% CI, 0.80–1.08); Q3=0.90, (95% CI, 0.77–1.04); and Q4= 0.79 (95% C.I 0.67–0.92), p for trend <0.01). The associations between OBS and albuminuria (p for trend 0.31) and incident ESRD (p for trend 0.56) were not significant in the fully adjusted models. CONCLUSIONS: These findings suggest that higher OBS is associated with lower prevalence of CKD. Lack of association with ESRD incidence in the multivariable analyses indicates that temporal relation between OBS and renal damage remains unclear

Pulse shape discrimination capability of metal-loaded organic liquid scintillators for a short-baseline reactor neutrino experiment

A new short-baseline (SBL) reactor neutrino experiment is proposed to investigate a reactor anti-neutrino anomaly. A liquid scintillator (LS) is used to detect anti-neutrinos emitted from a Hanaro reactor, and the pulse shape discrimination (PSD) ability of the metal-loaded organic LSs is evaluated on small-scale laboratory samples. PSD can be affected by selecting different base solvents, and several of the LSs used two different organic base solvents, such as linear alkyl benzene and di-isopropylnaphthalene. For the metallic content, gadolinium (Gd) or lithium (6Li) was loaded into a home-made organic LS and into a commercially available liquid scintillation cocktail. A feasibility study was performed for the PSD using several different liquid scintillation cocktails. In this work, the preparation and the PSD characteristics of a promising candidate, which will be used in an above-ground environment, are summarized and presented. © 2015 The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences1481sciescopu

Alpha backgrounds in the AMoRE-Pilot experiment

© 2022, The Author(s).The Advanced Mo-based Rare process Experiment (AMoRE)-Pilot experiment is an initial phase of the AMoRE search for neutrinoless double beta decay of 100Mo, with the purpose of investigating the level and sources of backgrounds. Searches for neutrinoless double beta decay generally require ultimately low backgrounds. Surface α decays on the crystals themselves or nearby materials can deposit a continuum of energies that can be as high as the Q-value of the decay itself and may fall in the region of interest (ROI). To understand these background events, we studied backgrounds from radioactive contaminations internal to and on the surface of the crystals or nearby materials with Geant4-based Monte Carlo simulations. In this study, we report on the measured α energy spectra fitted with the corresponding simulated spectra for six crystal detectors, where sources of background contributions could be identified through high energy α peaks and continuum parts in the energy spectrum for both internal and surface contaminations. We determine the low-energy contributions from internal and surface α contaminations by extrapolating from the α background fitting model.11Nsciescopu

ENIGMA and global neuroscience: A decade of large-scale studies of the brain in health and disease across more than 40 countries

This review summarizes the last decade of work by the ENIGMA (Enhancing NeuroImaging Genetics through Meta Analysis) Consortium, a global alliance of over 1400 scientists across 43 countries, studying the human brain in health and disease. Building on large-scale genetic studies that discovered the first robustly replicated genetic loci associated with brain metrics, ENIGMA has diversified into over 50 working groups (WGs), pooling worldwide data and expertise to answer fundamental questions in neuroscience, psychiatry, neurology, and genetics. Most ENIGMA WGs focus on specific psychiatric and neurological conditions, other WGs study normal variation due to sex and gender differences, or development and aging; still other WGs develop methodological pipelines and tools to facilitate harmonized analyses of “big data” (i.e., genetic and epigenetic data, multimodal MRI, and electroencephalography data). These international efforts have yielded the largest neuroimaging studies to date in schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, major depressive disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, substance use disorders, obsessive-compulsive disorder, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, autism spectrum disorders, epilepsy, and 22q11.2 deletion syndrome. More recent ENIGMA WGs have formed to study anxiety disorders, suicidal thoughts and behavior, sleep and insomnia, eating disorders, irritability, brain injury, antisocial personality and conduct disorder, and dissociative identity disorder. Here, we summarize the first decade of ENIGMA’s activities and ongoing projects, and describe the successes and challenges encountered along the way. We highlight the advantages of collaborative large-scale coordinated data analyses for testing reproducibility and robustness of findings, offering the opportunity to identify brain systems involved in clinical syndromes across diverse samples and associated genetic, environmental, demographic, cognitive, and psychosocial factors