Application methods and selected properties of zinc flake coatings

This article presents examples of properties of nickel and silver coatings applied by galvanic method. For quality tests, profilometric and thermal expansion methods were used

Assessment of adipokines, adenine nucleotides and uric acid in the dynamics of coronary intervention

Introduction: The association of vaspin and visfatin, with a myocardial infarction is still not fully understood. Reduced levels of adenine nucleotides are hallmarks of chronic heart failure. There is little data concerning the relationship between these markers and their changes over time. Material/Methods: The concentration of adenine nucleotides, vaspin and visfatinwere assessed in 41 consecutive patients with acute myocardial infarction one before (day I) and four days after (day IV) percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) and a control group. Results: Visfatin concentrations were higher before and after PCI vs. control (visfatin I: median 25.55, 20.12 - 30.69 ng/ml; visfatin IV: median 20.79, 16.89 - 25.61 ng/ml vs. control: median 14.94, 10.66 - 25.25 ng/ml; p < 0.0001). Vaspin concentrations were lower before and after PCI vs. control (vaspin I: median 0.18, 0.11 - 0.44 ng/ml; vaspin IV: median 0.24, 0.15 - 0.58 ng/ml vs. control: median 1.303, 1.13 - 2.26 ng/ml, p < 0.00001). Concentrations of visfatin, day I, correlated well to vaspin concentrations (r2 = 0.201, p = 0.011). ATP levels were significantly lower in patients vs. controls (day I: p = 0.00012; day IV: p = 0.0001). Conclusions: Changes in the analyzed visfatin and vaspin concentrations can be used as potential MI markers. Visfatin serum concentration may be considered a potential marker to differentiate MI over time

Metabolic surgery in zucker rats influenced miRNA, caveolin-1 expression and lipid metabolism

Aims: A transposition of the long segment of distal ileum in obese Zucker rats improved glucose tolerance 6 months after IT. It was undertaken to compare the gene expression of miRNA-103, -107 and caveolin-1 in the liver of euglycemic groups of IT relative to SHAM operated rats. Main methods: Obese, male Zucker rats underwent either transposition of 50% distal ileum or sham surgery. For determining the gene expression, the Real-Time PCR for caveolin-1 and miRNA-103, -107 was performed. Plasma concentrations of LDL, HDL, TG and total cholesterol were measured with enzymatic colorimetric assays after optimization procedure. Key findings: The Cav-1 expression in liver tissue after ileal transposition was 1.22 times higher compared to the SHAM group (SHAM median 63.58, min 41.3, max 82.4; IT median 77.35, min 60.8, max 95.41, p < 0.001). miRNA-107 expression was significantly downregulated by 0.6-fold in the IT group compared to the SHAM group (SHAM median 507.51, min 236.42, max 721.29; IT median 355.2, min 278.15, max 478.15, p < 0.015. The level of TG was significantly higher after IT surgery (SHAM median 115, min 96, max 143; IT median 153, min 115, max 162, p = 0.001). The total cholesterol plasma levels decreased after IT (SHAM median 178, min 161, max 183; IT median 128, min 103, max 114, p < 0.000001). The LDL plasma level in IT was two-fold lower than in the SHAM (SHAM median 117, min 68, max 151; IT median 58, min 45, max 61, p < 0.000001). Significance: The transposition of 50% of the distal ileum lead to an increase in caveolin-1 and reduction in miR-107 expression compared to those of SHAM group. Endogenous miR-107 is more involved in regulation of the functions of insulin-target liver tissue than miRNA-103. Reduced LDL and cholesterol plasma levels suggest positive effects on lipid metabolism in long-term observations. The present study is the first to show a lack of IT effect regarding triglycerides six months after surgery

Strategic verbal rehearsal in adolescents with mild intellectual disabilities: A multi-centre European study

Background: There is a long-held view that verbal short-term memory problems of individuals with intellectual disabilities (ID) might be due to a deficit in verbal rehearsal. However, the evidence is inconclusive and word length effects as indicator of rehearsal have been criticised. Aim & Method: The aim of this multi-site European study was to investigate verbal rehearsal in adolescents with mild ID (n=90) and a comparison group of typically developing children matched individually for mental age (MA, n=90). The investigation involved: (1) a word length experiment with non-verbal recall using pointing and (2) ‘self-paced’ inspection times to infer whether verbal strategies were utilised when memorising a set of pictorial items. Results: The word length effect on recall did not interact with group, suggesting that adolescents with ID and MA comparisons used similar verbal strategies, possibly phonological recoding of picture names. The inspection time data suggested that high span individuals in both groups used verbal labelling or single item rehearsal on more demanding lists, as long named items had longer inspection times. Conclusions: The findings suggest that verbal strategy use is not specifically impaired in adolescents with mild ID and is mental age appropriate, supporting a developmental perspective

On Conceptually Simple Algorithms for Variants of Online Bipartite Matching

We present a series of results regarding conceptually simple algorithms for bipartite matching in various online and related models. We first consider a deterministic adversarial model. The best approximation ratio possible for a one-pass deterministic online algorithm is $1/2$, which is achieved by any greedy algorithm. D\"urr et al. recently presented a $2$-pass algorithm called Category-Advice that achieves approximation ratio $3/5$. We extend their algorithm to multiple passes. We prove the exact approximation ratio for the $k$-pass Category-Advice algorithm for all $k \ge 1$, and show that the approximation ratio converges to the inverse of the golden ratio $2/(1+\sqrt{5}) \approx 0.618$ as $k$ goes to infinity. The convergence is extremely fast --- the $5$-pass Category-Advice algorithm is already within $0.01\%$ of the inverse of the golden ratio. We then consider a natural greedy algorithm in the online stochastic IID model---MinDegree. This algorithm is an online version of a well-known and extensively studied offline algorithm MinGreedy. We show that MinDegree cannot achieve an approximation ratio better than $1-1/e$, which is guaranteed by any consistent greedy algorithm in the known IID model. Finally, following the work in Besser and Poloczek, we depart from an adversarial or stochastic ordering and investigate a natural randomized algorithm (MinRanking) in the priority model. Although the priority model allows the algorithm to choose the input ordering in a general but well defined way, this natural algorithm cannot obtain the approximation of the Ranking algorithm in the ROM model

Lexical access speed and the development of phonological recoding during immediate serial recall

A recent Registered Replication Report (RRR) of the development of verbal rehearsal during serial recall revealed that children verbalized at younger ages than previously thought, but did not identify sources of individual differences. Here, we use mediation analysis to reanalyze data from the 934 children ranging from 5 to 10 years old from the RRR for that purpose. From ages 5 to 7, the time taken for a child to label pictures (i.e. isolated naming speed) predicted the child’s spontaneous use of labels during a visually presented serial reconstruction task, despite no need for spoken responses. For 6- and 7-year-olds, isolated naming speed also predicted recall. The degree to which verbalization mediated the relation between isolated naming speed and recall changed across development. All relations dissipated by age 10. The same general pattern was observed in an exploratory analysis of delayed recall for which greater demands are placed on rehearsal for item maintenance. Overall, our findings suggest that spontaneous phonological recoding during a standard short-term memory task emerges around age 5, increases in efficiency during the early elementary school years, and is sufficiently automatic by age 10 to support immediate serial recall in most children. Moreover, the findings highlight the need to distinguish between phonological recoding and rehearsal in developmental studies of short-term memory

Multilab Direct Replication of Flavell, Beach, and Chinsky (1966): Spontaneous Verbal Rehearsal in a Memory Task as a Function of Age

Work by Flavell, Beach, and Chinsky indicated a change in the spontaneous production of overt verbalization behaviors when comparing young children (age 5) with older children (age 10). Despite the critical role that this evidence of a change in verbalization behaviors plays in modern theories of cognitive development and working memory, there has been only one other published near replication of this work. In this Registered Replication Report, we relied on researchers from 17 labs who contributed their results to a larger and more comprehensive sample of children. We assessed memory performance and the presence or absence of verbalization behaviors of young children at different ages and determined that the original pattern of findings was largely upheld: Older children were more likely to verbalize, and their memory spans improved. We confirmed that 5- and 6-year-old children who verbalized recalled more than children who did not verbalize. However, unlike Flavell et al., substantial proportions of our 5- and 6-year-old samples overtly verbalized at least sometimes during the picture memory task. In addition, continuous increase in overt verbalization from 7 to 10 years old was not consistently evident in our samples. These robust findings should be weighed when considering theories of cognitive development, particularly theories concerning when verbal rehearsal emerges and relations between speech and memory

ACE gene insertion/deletion polymorphism has a mild influence on the acute development of left ventricular dysfunction in patients with ST elevation myocardial infarction treated with primary PCI

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>We evaluated the associations among angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) gene insertion/deletion (I/D) polymorphism, ACE activity and post-myocardial infarction (MI) left ventricular dysfunction and acute heart failure (AHF) early after presentation with MI with ST-segment elevation (STEMI).</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A total of 556 patients with STEMI treated by primary PCI (421 patients without AHF and 135 patients with AHF) were the study population. The activity of BNP, NT-ProBNP and ACE were measured at hospital admission and 24 h after MI onset. Left ventricular angiography was done before PCI; echocardiography was undertaken between the third and fifth day after MI.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>In comparison with the II genotypes group, the DD/ID group had a higher level of ACE activity upon hospital admission (p < 0.001). We found a significantly higher level of ACE activity in patients with moderate LV dysfunction (EF 40-54%) in comparison both with patients with preserved LV function (EF ≥55%) and with patients with severe LV dysfunction (p = 0.028). A non-significant trend towards a higher incidence of mild AHF (22.1% vs. 16.02%, p = 0,093), a significantly higher value of end-systolic volume (ESV/BSA) (30.0 ± 12.3 vs. 28.5 ± 13.0; p < 0.05) and lower EF (50.2 ± 11.1 vs. 52.7 ± 11.7; p < 0.05) in the DD/ID genotypes group was noted. Even after multiple adjustments according to multivariate models, the EF for the DD/ID group remained significantly lower (p = 0,033). The DD/ID genotypes were associated with a significantly higher risk of EF <45% (OR 2.04 [95% CI 1.28; 3.25]).</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>These results suggest that the I/D polymorphism of ACE is associated with the development of LV dysfunction in the acute phase after STEMI. We demonstrated for the first time an association of the low ACE activity with the severe LV dysfunction, although patients with moderate LV dysfunction had higher level ACE activity than patients with preserved LV function.</p