Confounders in the assessment of the renal effects associated with low-level urinary cadmium: an analysis in industrial workers

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Associations of proteinuria with low-level urinary cadmium (Cd) are currently interpreted as the sign of renal dysfunction induced by Cd. Few studies have considered the possibility that these associations might be non causal and arise from confounding by factors influencing the renal excretion of Cd and proteins.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We examined 184 healthy male workers (mean age, 39.5 years) from a zinc smelter (n = 132) or a blanket factory (n = 52). We measured the concentrations of Cd in blood (B-Cd) and the urinary excretion of Cd (U-Cd), retinol-binding protein (RBP), protein HC and albumin. Associations between biomarkers of metal exposure and urinary proteins were assessed by simple and multiple regression analyses.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The medians (interquartile range) of B-Cd (μg/l) and U-Cd (μg/g creatinine) were 0.80 (0.45-1.16) and 0.70 (0.40-1.3) in smelter workers and 0.66 (0.47-0.87) and 0.55 (0.40-0.90) in blanket factory workers, respectively. Occupation had no influence on these values, which varied mainly with smoking habits. In univariate analysis, concentrations of RBP and protein HC in urine were significantly correlated with both U-Cd and B-Cd but these associations were substantially weakened by the adjustment for current smoking and the residual influence of diuresis after correction for urinary creatinine. Albumin in urine did not correlate with B-Cd but was consistently associated with U-Cd through a relationship, which was unaffected by smoking or diuresis. Further analyses showed that RBP and albumin in urine mutually distort their associations with U-Cd and that the relationship between RBP and Cd in urine was almost the replicate of that linking RBP to albumin</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Associations between proteinuria and low-level urinary Cd should be interpreted with caution as they appear to be largely driven by diuresis, current smoking and probably also the co-excretion of Cd with plasma proteins.</p

Relaxed energetic maps of -carrabiose: A DFT study

Posterno abstrac

Structural and electronic properties of ScYN alloys and superlattices

The ternary alloys and superlattices (SLs) of cubic rock-salt ScN and YN nitrides have been investigated using the first-principle full potential linear muffin-tin orbital (FPLMTO) method based on local-density approximation (LDA) and generalized gradient approximation (GGA96). The structural parameters as well as the electronic structures of these systems have been calculated and in the light of them, fundamental direct band gaps are expected, instead of the fact that ScN and YN are indirect band gap semiconductors

MP2 and DFT studies of beta-D-neocarrabiose and beta-D-neocarrabiose monohydrate

International audienceMP2 and density functional theory calculations have been carried out on beta-D-neocarrabiose and its mono hydrate in order to determine the conformational preferences of these molecules in the gas phase and in solvent. Relaxed iso-energetic maps were first obtained using B3LYP/6-31G(d). Then, the lower energy conformers were further fully optimized using B3LYP, B3PW91 and MP2 methods. Overall, it was demonstrated that a lower energy conformer corresponding to the couple of dihedral angles (Phi,Psi)= (69 degrees,-117 degrees) is detected either in the gas phase or in solvent provided that full optimizations are performed on the conformers corresponding to the minima detected from the iso-energetic maps. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved

Computational Investigation of Electronic and Optical Properties of Si, Ge and Si 1-x Ge x Alloys Using the FP-LMTO Method Augmented by a Plane-Wave Basis

Abstract An investigation into the structural, electronic and optical properties of Si, Ge, and Si 1-x Ge x for different compositions was conducted using first-principles calculations based on density functional theory (DFT). The total energies were calculated within the full -potential linear muffin-tin orbital (FP-LMTO) method augmented by a plane-wave basis (PLW), implemented in Lmtar code. The effects of the approximations to the exchange-correlation energy were treated by the local density approximation (LDA). From our simulation results, it is found that the theoretical ground-state parameters, the band structure, the density of states (DOS), the chemical bonding and the optical properties agree well with the experiment and other theoretical calculations. The accuracies found from the present calculations allow us to describe the properties of the electronic as well as the optoelectronic devices based on the Si 1-x Ge x alloy

Structural and thermal study of mesomorphic dodecylammonium carrageenates

Structural characteristics and thermal stability of a series of dodecylammonium carrageenates formed by stoichiometric complexation of dodecylammonium chloride and differently charged carrageenans (kappa-, iota- and lambda-carrageenan, respectively) were investigated. IR spectral analysis confirmed the electrostatic and hydrogen bond interactions between the dodecylammonium and carrageenan species. X-ray diffraction experiments show increased ordering in the complexes compared to that in the parent carrageenans. Dodecylammonium carrageenates have a layer structure, in which a polar sublayer contains layers of carrageenan chains and a nonpolar sublayer consists of conformationally disordered dodecylammonium chains electrostatically attached to the carrageenan backbone. The major factor that determines the dodecylammonium carrageenate structure is cationic surfactant, while the carrageenans moiety plays a major role in determining thermal properties. (C) 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved

Theoretical study of the NLO responses of some natural and unnatural amino acids used as probe molecules

International audienceno abstrac

Interaction between -carrabiose and some ions of alkali metals

Posterno abstrac