Varicose Veins: Role of Mechanotransduction of Venous Hypertension

Varicose veins affect approximately one-third of the adult population and result in significant psychological, physical, and financial burden. Nevertheless, the molecular pathogenesis of varicose vein formation remains unidentified. Venous hypertension exerted on veins of the lower extremity is considered the principal factor in varicose vein formation. The role of mechanotransduction of the high venous pressure in the pathogenesis of varicose vein formation has not been adequately investigated despite a good progress in understanding the mechanomolecular mechanisms involved in transduction of high blood pressure in the arterial wall. Understanding the nature of the mechanical forces, the mechanosensors and mechanotransducers in the vein wall, and the downstream signaling pathways will provide new molecular targets for the prevention and treatment of varicose veins. This paper summarized the current understanding of mechano-molecular pathways involved in transduction of hemodynamic forces induced by blood pressure and tries to relate this information to setting of venous hypertension in varicose veins

Thermoelectric Cooling

In this chapter, design and analysis study of thermoelectric cooling systems are described. Thermoelectric (TE) cooling technology has many advantages over the conventional vapor-compression cooling systems. These include: they are more compacted devices with less maintenance necessities, have lower levels of vibration and noise, and have a more precise control over the temperature. These advantages have encouraged the development of new applications in the market. It is likely to use TE modules for cooling the indoor air and hence compete with conventional air-conditioning systems. These systems can include both cooling and heating of the conditioned space. In order to improve the performance of the TE cooling systems, the hot side of the TE should be directly connected to efficient heat exchangers for dissipation of the excessive heat. Finally, TE cooling systems can be supplied directly by photovoltaic to produce the required power to run these cooling systems

Lost at Sea: An Argument for Seaman Status for Fisheries Observers

This Comment addresses the question of how observers should be classified within the structures of maritime law. Part II discusses the importance of the fisheries observer program, as well as the federal authority that created it. Part III discusses the risks and remedies afforded to those who work upon the high seas and presents the policy reasons for granting observers seaman status. Part IV discusses the judicial debate surrounding this issue and presents the legal reasons for granting observers seaman status. Part V discusses how the reauthorization of the Magnuson Act provides an opportunity to clearly define the observer\u27s legal status. Finally, Part VI concludes that because observers are exposed to the same high rate of injury which plagues traditional seamen, and because observers satisfy the Supreme Court\u27s test for seaman status, observers should be provided the full panoply of remedies available to these traditional maritime employees

New Light on Methylthiolation Reactions

A novel enzyme, named RimO for ribosomal modification (Anton et al., 2008) catalyzes the methylthiolation of aspartate 88 of the S12 ribosomal protein in Escherichia coli and shows a strong similarity with the iron-sulfur enzyme MiaB involved in the methylthiolation of tRNAs

Ordered and chaotic vortex streets behind circular cylinders at low Reynolds numbers

We report some experiments undertaken to investigate the origin of ordered and chaotic laminar vortex streets behind circular cylinders at low Reynolds numbers. We made simultaneous measurements of near wake longitudinal velocity and cylinder lateral vibration amplitude spectra for cylinder Reynolds numbers in the range from 40 to 160. For a non-vibrating cylinder the velocity energy spectra contained only a single peak, at the Strouhal frequency. When the cylinder was observed to vibrate in response to forcing by the vortex wake, additional dominant spectral peaks appeared in the resulting ‘ordered’ velocity spectra. Cylinder vibrations too small to be noticed with the naked eye or from audible Aeolian tones produced a coupled wake-cylinder response with dramatic effects in hot-wire and cylinder vibration detector signals. The velocity spectra associated with these coupled motions had dominant peaks at the Strouhal frequency fs, at a frequency fc proportional to the fundamental cylinder vibration frequency, and at sum and difference combinations of multiples of fs and fc. In windows of chaos the velocity spectra were broadened by switching between different competing coupling modes. The velocity spectra were very sensitive to the nature of the boundary conditions at the ends of the cylinder. Our measurements strongly suggest that the very similar regions of ‘order’ and ‘chaos’ observed by Sreenivasan and interpreted by him as transition through quasi-periodic states in the sense of the Ruelle, Takens, and Newhouse theory were also due to aeroelastic coupling of the vortex wake with cylinder vibration modes

Rhabdomyolysis in an HIV cohort: epidemiology, causes and outcomes.

BackgroundThe Literature on rhabdomyolysis in the HIV-positive population is sparse and limited. We aimed to explore the incidence, patient characteristics, etiologies and outcomes of rhabdomyolysis in a cohort of HIV-positive patients identified through the Johns Hopkins HIV clinical registry between June 1992 and April 2014.MethodsA retrospective analysis of 362 HIV-positive patients with non-cardiac CK elevation ≥1000 IU/L was performed. Both inpatients and outpatients were included. Incidence rate and potential etiologies for rhabdomyolysis were ascertained. The development of acute kidney injury (AKI, defined as doubling of serum creatinine), need for dialysis, and death in the setting of rhabdomyolysis were determined. Logistic regression was used to evaluate the association of peak CK level with the development of AKI.ResultsThree hundred sixty two cases of rhabdomyolysis were identified in a cohort of 7079 patients with a 38,382 person years follow-up time. The incidence rate was nine cases per 1000 person-years (95% CI: 8.5-10.5). Infection was the most common etiology followed by compression injury and drug/alcohol use. One-third of cases had multiple potential etiologies. AKI developed in 46% of cases; 20% of which required dialysis. Thirteen percent died during follow-up. After adjustment, AKI was associated with higher CK (OR 2.05 for each 1-log increase in CK [95% CI: 1.40-2.99]), infection (OR 5.48 [95% CI 2.65-11.31]) and higher HIV viral load (OR 1.22 per 1-log increase [95% CI: 1.03-1.45]).ConclusionRhabdomyolysis in the HIV-positive population has many possible causes and is frequently multifactorial. HIV-positive individuals with rhabdomyolysis have a high risk of AKI and mortality

A Comparison Study on the Performances Of X , EWMA and CUSUM Control Charts for Skewed Distributions Using Weighted Standard Deviations Methods

In many statistical process control (SPC) applications, the ease of use of control charts leads to ignoring the fact that the process population of the quality characteristic being measured may be highly skewed. However, in many situations, the normality assumption is usually violated. Among the recent heuristic charts for skewed distributions proposed in the literature are those based on the weighted standard deviation (WSD) method. Thus, this paper compares the performances of certain WSD charts, such as WSD X , WSD Exponential weighted moving Average (WSDEWMA) and WSD Cumulative Sum (WSD-CUSUM) charts for skewed distributions. The skewed distributions being considered are weibull, gamma and lognormal. The false alarm and mean shift detection rates were computed so as to evaluate the performances of the WSD charts. The WSD X chart was found to have the lowest false alarm rate in cases of known and unknown parameters. Moreover, when parameters are known and unknown, the WSD-CUSUM provided the highest mean shift detection rates. The chart with the lowest false alarm and the highest mean shift detection rates for most level of skewness and sample size, n is assumed to be have a better performance

GENDER COMPARISON STUDY OF ACHIEVEMENT MOTIVATION AMONG UNIVERSITY LEVEL BASKETBALL

The purpose of the current research is to explore the difference in the achievement Motivation level between male and female basketball players of Pakistan. The Achievement motivation is one of the types of motivation, which resolves around athlete’s persistence in the face of failure, willingness to approach the success, and experience of pride after the task accomplishment. People, who are achievement motivated, are very wise in their goal setting, they set moderate to difficult goals. The Sports Orientation questionnaire (SOQ) developed by Gill & Deeter (1988) was used to investigate the answer of “which gender has more achievement motivation for basketball at intervarsity level”. A total of 150 university level male & female students have voluntarily participated in the present research study. For statistical procedure, independent t-test at the set level of significance 0.05 was used to test the hypothesis. The Findings showed no consequential difference in the achievement motivation and mean score of male and female university level basketball players