Effects of Sodium Benzoate Using Zebrafish Animal Model

The advent of food preservation has solved many food borne diseases and it also increased the food security over the years around the globe. From traditional boiling to modern day artificial food additives, there are numerous ways of preserving food items. The one that concerns most of the people around the globe is the addition of chemicals as preservatives in food items like jams, pickles, beverages etc. The most used chemical preservative sodium benzoate (SB) has gained more lime light due to some of its controversial effects on human health. Our study aims to investigate the toxic effects of sodium benzoate on the development, behaviour and oxidative stress in zebrafish embryos. We exposed zebrafish larvae of 5 hpf with 100 to 2000 ppm of SB and studied developmental, behavioural and gene expression changes. Our studies indicated that SB induced morphological abnormalities like pericardial edema, Yolk sac edema and tail bending. The malformations were more pronounced with the increase in dose of SB and time of exposure and also SB was found to delay the hatching process. The LC50 was found to be around 400 ppm at 48 hours of drug exposure. The behavioural experiment indicated increased thigmotaxis in treated larvae and there was a two fold increase in the gene expression of (glutathione reductase) and no change in (glyoxalase1) expression Our study strongly supports the toxic effects on vertebrates at increasing doses. Thus, we suggest caution in the extensive use of this preservative in processed and convenience foods

What is the probability that a random integral quadratic form in nn variables has an integral zero?

We show that the density of quadratic forms in $n$ variables over $\mathbb Z_p$ that are isotropic is a rational function of $p$, where the rational function is independent of $p$, and we determine this rational function explicitly. When real quadratic forms in $n$ variables are distributed according to the Gaussian Orthogonal Ensemble (GOE) of random matrix theory, we determine explicitly the probability that a random such real quadratic form is isotropic (i.e., indefinite). As a consequence, for each $n$, we determine an exact expression for the probability that a random integral quadratic form in $n$ variables is isotropic (i.e., has a nontrivial zero over $\mathbb Z$), when these integral quadratic forms are chosen according to the GOE distribution. In particular, we find an exact expression for the probability that a random integral quaternary quadratic form has an integral zero; numerically, this probability is approximately $98.3\%$.Comment: 17 pages. This article supercedes arXiv:1311.554

Urologic manifestations of inflammatory pseudotumor: Report of 2 cases and review of the literature.

We report two adult patients with varied urologic symptoms who were found to have inflammatory pseudotumor on histopathology. The first patient had a large, solid, enhancing retroperitoneal mass lesion and presented with increased frequency of urination and recurrent urinary tract infections. The second patient had an obstructing left distal ureteric stricture and presented with painless hematuria. Though preoperative radiological diagnosis of this entity is not feasible, the present article illustrates the imaging findings in this unusual disease entity with review of the relevant literature

3 Dimensional Virtual Modelling of Human Femur Bone with Prosthetic Plate and Screws

Femur bone is the longest and stronger bone in the human body. This bone is contained a linear-elastic, isotropic and homogeneous material of calcium phosphate. It needs to support maximum weight of the body in between hip joint and knee joint during different mode of body posture. Firstly 3 dimension geometric model of femur bone, prosthetic plate and screw is generated in Solid works CAD software which seems to define high mode of difficulty for generating the bone model. The objective of femur bone CAD model is identified the maximum stresses and deformation zone by applying the static load into the finite element ANSYS software. Further femur bone is provided a single crack at maximum stressed zone implanted with prosthetic bone plate and screws

Food Insecurity and Cardiovascular Risk Factors in U.S. Adolescents

Introduction: Disparities in cardiovascular diseases are one of today’s most important public health challenges. Pathological processes related to modifiable cardiovascular risk factors have shown to begin in childhood and disparities in these risk factors have been reported in adolescence. Food insecurity is significantly associated with cardiovascular risk factors in adults; however, little is known about cardiovascular risk in food insecure adolescents. Objective: The objective of this study was to examine the relationship between food insecurity and cardiovascular risk factors in U.S. adolescents aged 12-17 years. Methods: Using cross-sectional data on 1,853 adolescents aged 12-17 years from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 2007-2012, we examined the association between food insecurity and cardiovascular risk factors. Food security status was measured using the validated 18-item Household Food Security Survey Module. Cardiovascular risk was measured based on American Heart Association’s Life’s Simple 7 factors (LS7; tobacco smoke exposure, diet quality, physical activity, body mass index, blood pressure, total cholesterol, blood glucose levels). Results: Nearly 10.0% of U.S. adolescents were food insecure. A total of 26.1% of adolescents failed to attain ideal scores on more than 5 LS7 components. In bivariate analyses, food secure, in comparison to food insecure adolescents, were more likely to have ideal scores on 5-7 LS7 components (75.1% vs. 63.0%, p = 0.0089). In multivariate models adjusted for demographic, socioeconomic, health, and health care access factors, food insecurity was not significantly associated with cardiovascular risk in adolescents. However, food insecure adolescents had significantly lower odds of attaining ideal levels of tobacco smoke exposure ([OR] = 0.54 [95% CI 0.31, 0. 94]) than food secure adolescents. Adolescents living in families with incomes below the Federal Poverty Level (Odds Ratio [OR] = 0.59 [95% CI 0.40,0.86]) had significantly lower odds of having ideal LS7 scores and lower odds of attaining ideal scores on tobacco smoke exposure ([OR] = 0.25 [95% CI 0.13, 0.49]) and physical activity ([OR] = 0.60 [95% CI 0.38, 0.95]). Conclusion: Although cardiovascular risk is not more pronounced in food insecure adolescents than their counterparts, adolescents from low SES households may be at particular risk of developing cardiovascular diseases. Multifaceted and tailored strategies inclusive of nutrition assistance are needed to facilitate effective cardiovascular risk prevention as these vulnerable populations transition into early adulthood

Infrared & Mossbauer Spectral Studies on Organic Base Hydroferrocyanides

523-52

Arithmetical Congruence Preservation: from Finite to Infinite

Various problems on integers lead to the class of congruence preserving functions on rings, i.e. functions verifying $a-b$ divides $f(a)-f(b)$ for all $a,b$. We characterized these classes of functions in terms of sums of rational polynomials (taking only integral values) and the function giving the least common multiple of $1,2,\ldots,k$. The tool used to obtain these characterizations is "lifting": if $\pi\colon X\to Y$ is a surjective morphism, and $f$ a function on $Y$ a lifting of $f$ is a function $F$ on $X$ such that $\pi\circ F=f\circ\pi$. In this paper we relate the finite and infinite notions by proving that the finite case can be lifted to the infinite one. For $p$-adic and profinite integers we get similar characterizations via lifting. We also prove that lattices of recognizable subsets of $Z$ are stable under inverse image by congruence preserving functions