Not All Fruits and Vegetables are Equal: Colors of Fruits and Vegetables and Diabetes Risk in the U.S. Latino Population

Objectives: Fruits and vegetables (FV) play an important role in people’s health. The current study aimed to identify if specific colors of FVs are associated with type 2 diabetes (DM) risk in the United States Hispanic/Latino population. Methods: This study used a subgroup of participants from the Hispanic Community Health Study/Study of Latinos (HCHS/SOL). This is a multi-center, prospective cohort study with 16,415 self-identified Hispanic/Latino individuals from 2008-2011. Data collected include anthropometrics, OGTT, dietary intake, medical history, physical activity, and sociodemographic information. FVs are categorized into five color groups: green, white, yellow/orange, red/purple, and uncategorized. Results: Total 5,740 participants (ages 18-74, BMI 29.5, female 55.2%, US born 21.4%, confirmed DM 13.6%) were included in the analysis. Across all heritage groups, the red/purple FV were the least consumed. Excluding the uncategorized group, white FV had the highest consumption across all groups. Puerto Ricans consume the least FV compared to other heritage groups. When assessing the association between FV colors and the level of cardiometabolic risk factors, higher intake of red/purple FVs is associated with lower BMI, lower insulin levels and higher HDL levels. A higher intake of white FVs is associated with a higher OGTT glucose and triglyceride levels. Consumption of a higher amount of white FVs daily has higher odds of having diabetes (OR=1.25, p=0.03). Conclusions: More research is needed to confirm results. Education should focus on varying fruit and vegetable intake and identify causes of low fruit and vegetable intake in Hispanic/Latino groups living in the US

A CAD-oriented modeling approach of frequency-dependent behavior of substrate noise coupling for mixed-signal IC design

A simple, efficient CAD-oriented equivalent circuit modeling approach of frequency-dependent behavior of substrate noise coupling is presented. It is shown that the substrate exhibits significant frequency-dependent characteristics for high frequency applications using epitaxial layers on a highly doped substrate. Using the proposed modeling approach, circuit topographies consisting of only ideal lumped circuit elements can be synthesized to accurately represent the frequency response using y-parameters. The proposed model is well-suited for use in standard circuit simulators. The extracted model is shown to be in good agreement with rigorous 3D device simulation results. 1

Isoliquiritigenin inhibits the survival of diffuse large B-cell lymphoma cells by regulating Akt/mTOR signaling pathway

Purpose: To investigate the effect of isoliquiritigenin (ISL) on diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) cells and its underlying mechanism of action.Methods: The DLBCL cell line OCI-Ly19 was used in this study. Cell proliferation was measured by MTT assay. Apoptosis was evaluated using flow cytometry. Phosphorylation of Akt and mTOR was assessed using Western blotting.Results: DLBCL cell proliferation was suppressed by ISL in a concentration-dependent manner. The number of apoptotic cells increased following ISL treatment in a concentration-dependent manner (p < 0.05). ISL treatment also stopped the cell cycle at the G1 phase in a concentration-dependent manner. Western blot analysis indicated that there was no significant Akt and mTOR expression in cells treated with 10, 20, or 50 μM ISL (p < 0.05). However, Akt and mTOR phosphorylation was upregulated following treatment with 10, 20, or 50 μM ISL in a concentration-dependent manner (p < 0.05).Conclusion: The results demonstrate that ISL inhibits DLBCL cell proliferation and promotes cell apoptosis by blocking the cell cycle transition from the G1 to S phase, which is mediated by the inactivation of the Akt/mTOR signaling pathway. Keywords: Isoliquiritigenin, Cell survival, Diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, Akt/mTOR signaling pathwa

Orthorexia Nervosa in College Students: Eating Disorder History, Gender, and Dieting Behaviors

Objective: College students are at higher risk for the development of orthorexia nervosa (ON), a term used to describe the pathological obsession with healthy eating. This study aimed to assess how the factors of eating disorder (ED) history, gender, and dieting behaviors affect the ON in this population. Methods: Students 18 years or older in a southeastern university were invited to take an online survey. Survey questions include Bratman Orthorexia Test (BOT), Eating Attitude Test-26 (EAT-26) and participant characteristics. Results: 411 students (ages 18-65, BMI 15.1-55.5, female 75.2%, white 75.6%, graduate students 16.1%) have completed the survey. Comparing to students without ED history, students with ED history had higher ON risk (5.6 vs. 4.3, p Conclusion: Understanding the characteristics associated with ON among college students would be important for assessment, prevention and treatment of ON and ED in this population

Highly efficient vortex four-wave mixing in asymmetric semiconductor quantum wells

© 2020 Optical Society of America under the terms of the OSA Open Access Publishing Agreement Orbital angular momentum (OAM) is an important property of vortex light, which provides a valuable tool to manipulate the light-matter interaction in the study of classical and quantum optics. Here we propose a scheme to generate vortex light fields via four-wave mixing (FWM) in asymmetric semiconductor quantum wells. By tailoring the probe-field and control-field detunings, we can effectively manipulate the helical phase and intensity of the FWM field. Particularly, when probe field and control field have identical detuning, we find that both the absorption and phase twist of the generated FWM field are significantly suppressed. Consequently, the highly efficient vortex FWM is realized, where the maximum conversion efficiency reaches around 50%. Our study provides a tool to transfer vortex wavefronts from input to output fields in an efficient way, which may find potential applications in solid-state quantum optics and quantum information processing

A potential explanation for the effect of carbon source on the characteristics of acetate-fed and glucose-fed aerobic granules

This paper proposes a new theory to account for the effect of carbon source on the characteristics of acetate-fed and glucose-fed aerobic granules. It is well known that reactor pH can vary in response to the oxidation of glucose or sodium acetate. As such, the effects associated with the carbon sources may be explained by the changed pH. The proposal was explored by experiments. Aerobic granules were cultivated in three identical sequencing batch reactors (SBRs, R1, R2 and R3), fed with sodium acetate, glucose, glucose and maintained pH at 4.5 - 5.5 (the variation of reactor pH in the oxidation of glucose), 4.5 - 5.5 and 7.5 - 8.5 (the variation of reactor pH in the oxidation of sodium acetate), respectively, and the effects of carbon source and reactor pH on the characteristics of aerobic granules were assessed. The results showed that the characteristics of aerobic granules, including microbial structure, mixed liquor suspended solids (MLSS), sludge volume index (SVI) and nitrification-denitrification, were strongly affected by reactor pH, but were independent with the carbon source supplied. These results fully supported the validity of the new theory. The theory suggests that the cultivation of aerobic granules with glucose or sodium acetate should take more attention to reactor pH rather than carbon source itself. The implications of this theory are discussed with regards to the other common carbon sources as well as better understanding of the mechanisms of aerobic granulation.Keywords: Acetate-fed granules, glucose-fed granules, reactor pH, carbon source, characteristicsAfrican Journal of Biotechnology Vol. 9(33), pp. 5357-5365, 16 August, 201