The Levo

The Levo is a performance tracking barbell attachment that will enhance and aid an athlete\u27s ability to understand their performance in the weight room. By tracking the movement of the barbell, several useful performance measurements can be extracted, analyzed and communicated to the athlete in a meaningful way. This document will state all requirements, their explanations, and expectations for the product at the alpha phase proof of concept, and beta phase prototype. Furthermore, it will also include the test plan, sustainability, safety, and engineering standards used to create the Levo

Unconventional secretion of Acb1 is mediated by autophagosomes

Evidence is presented for an unconventional protein secretion pathway that is conserved from yeast to Dictyostelium discoideum in which Acb1 may be sequestered into autophagosomal vesicles, which then fuse (either directly or indirectly) with the plasma membrane (see also the companion paper from Manjithaya et al. in this issue)

Mapping and linking supply- and demand-side measures in climate-smart agriculture. A review

Climate change and food security are two of humanity’s greatest challenges and are highly interlinked. On the one hand, climate change puts pressure on food security. On the other hand, farming significantly contributes to anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. This calls for climate-smart agriculture—agriculture that helps to mitigate and adapt to climate change. Climate-smart agriculture measures are diverse and include emission reductions, sink enhancements, and fossil fuel offsets for mitigation. Adaptation measures include technological advancements, adaptive farming practices, and financial management. Here, we review the potentials and trade-offs of climate-smart agricultural measures by producers and consumers. Our two main findings are as follows: (1) The benefits of measures are often site-dependent and differ according to agricultural practices (e.g., fertilizer use), environmental conditions (e.g., carbon sequestration potential), or the production and consumption of specific products (e.g., rice and meat). (2) Climate-smart agricultural measures on the supply side are likely to be insufficient or ineffective if not accompanied by changes in consumer behavior, as climate-smart agriculture will affect the supply of agricultural commodities and require changes on the demand side in response. Such linkages between demand and supply require simultaneous policy and market incentives. It, therefore, requires interdisciplinary cooperation to meet the twin challenge of climate change and food security. The link to consumer behavior is often neglected in research but regarded as an essential component of climate-smart agriculture. We argue for not solely focusing research and implementation on one-sided measures but designing good, site-specific combinations of both demand- and supply-side measures to use the potential of agriculture more effectively to mitigate and adapt to climate change

A multicentre comparative evaluation: washable pants with an integral pad for light incontinence

• The Continence Product Evaluation Network (CPE network) is funded by the Medical Devices Agency (MDA) of the Department of Health, to undertake comparative evaluations of continence products.• There are a wide variety of continence products on the UK market and very little information is available to aid product selection. The aim of this study was to evaluate washable pants with integral pads for women with light incontinence.• A randomized multiple cross-over design was used. Seventy-two women tested each of the 10 products that were available on the UK market at the time of the evaluation. Both subjective and objective outcome measures were used to evaluate the products.• Products performed similarly in terms of leakage but there were statistically significant differences in other performance aspects, e.g. fit and discreteness.• This study should be valuable in enabling purchasers, carers and users to make informed decisions when purchasing products

Glucose promotes cell proliferation, glucose uptake and invasion in endometrial cancer cells via AMPK/mTOR/S6 and MAPK signaling

OBJECTIVES: Obesity and diabetes are well-known risk factors for the development of endometrial cancer. A high rate of aerobic glycolysis represents a key mechanism by which endometrial cancer cells consume glucose as its primary energy source. The up-regulated glycolytic pathway is a common therapeutic target whose inhibition has implications for anti-tumor activity in cancer cells. This study aimed to investigate the effect of various concentrations of glucose on cell proliferation in endometrial cancer. METHODS: ECC-1 and Ishikawa cells were treated with low glucose (1mM), normal glucose (5mM) and high glucose (25mM), and cytotoxicity, apoptosis, cell cycle, adhesion/invasion, and changes of AMPK/mTOR/S6 and MAPK pathways were evaluated. RESULTS: Our results revealed that high glucose increased cell growth and clonogenicity in two endometrial cancer cell lines in a dose dependent manner. Low glucose induced the activity of cleaved caspase 3 and caused cell cycle G1 arrest. High glucose increased the ability of adhesion and invasion by decreasing E-Cadherin and increasing Snail expression. In addition, high glucose increased glucose uptake and glycolytic activity through modulating the AMPK/mTOR/S6 and MAPK pathways. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings suggest that glucose stimulated cell proliferation through multiple complex signaling pathways. Targeting glucose metabolism may be a promising therapeutic strategy in the treatment of endometrial cancer