Does the inclusion of moderate amounts of red meat in the diet of exercising older women impact on faecal markers of bowel health, including faecal lactoferrin?

Background: High intakes of red meat may be associated with increased risk of colorectal cancer (CRC), however, to determine CRC risk, it is important to assess faecal changes related to protein and carbohydrate metabolism.Objective: To determine the influence of three weekly meals rich in red meat as opposed to a carbohydrate control diet on faecal markers which are involved in the aetiology of CRC.Design: Twenty post-menopausal women (aged 60-75) undertook, 3 times a week for 12 weeks, a 30 minute exercise session followed immediately by a cooked meal that was high in lean red meat, low in carbohydrate (n= 10) or low in lean red meat, high in carbohydrate (n=10). Dietary fibre intake and macronutrients were kept constant. At the beginning and end of the study, three-day faecal samples were collected and by-products of protein fermentation and carbohydrate metabolism, undigested fibre residues, and faecal output and colonic bacterial microbiota changes measured.Outcomes: No significant differences were observed in subjects on either diet when comparing faecal output, faecal pH, other faecal markers, nor faecal lactoferrin. There was a trend observed in changes in the population of colonic microbiota using FISH analysis. Bacteroides spp. and Prevotella spp. appeared to decrease in women consuming a high red meat diet compared with an increase in women consuming a high carbohydrate diet.Conclusions: In this pilot study the trend in colonic microbiota change is interesting and suggests that dietary influence of colonic microbiota, especially changes in Bacteroidetes, may be indicative of risk of gut damage and disease compared to other faecal markers.<br /

Impact of varying intensities of blue-light exposure on 3T3 cells

There is the need to develop a compatible sterilisation method for hybrid biomaterials. High-intensity blue light in the 405 nm region has been shown to be an effective bacterial decontamination method [1], to cause no noticeable damage to the gross structure of type-I collagen monomer (when treated at 10 mW/cm2) [2], and to have no noticeable effect on 3T3 cell viability, growth rate, redox state or lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) leakage (at 1.0 mW/cm2) [2]. The purpose of this research was to investigate the effect of varying the blue-light intensity on the 3T3 cell response parameters

Hydrothermal Surface-Wave Instability and the Kuramoto-Sivashinsky Equation

We consider a system formed by an infinite viscous liquid layer with a constant horizontal temperature gradient, and a basic nonlinear bulk velocity profile. In the limit of long-wavelength and large nondimensional surface tension, we show that hydrothermal surface-wave instabilities may give rise to disturbances governed by the Kuramoto-Sivashinsky equation. A possible connection to hot-wire experiments is also discussed.Comment: 11 pages, RevTex, no figure

Computationally efficient velocity profile solutions for cardiac haemodynamics

DOI: 10.1109/IEMBS.2004.1403316This paper reformulates the non-linear differential equations associated with time varying resistance in minimal cardio-vascular system models into a system of linear equations with an analytical solution. The importance of including time varying resistance is shown for a single chamber model where there is a 17.5% difference in cardiac output when compared with a constant resistance model. However, the increased complexity has significant extra computational cost. This new formulation provides a significant computational saving of 15x over the previous method. This improvement enables more physiological accuracy with minimal cost in computational time. As a result, the model can be used in clinical situations to aid diagnosis and therapy selection without compromising on physiological accuracy

Suppression of monocyte and neutrophil function by recombinant IL-2

Little IS known about the influence of IL-2 on phagocytes. We now describe the effects of human recombinant IL-2 on human neutrophil and monocyte functions related to mobility, phagocytosis, glucose uptake, respiration and degranulation. Neutrophil adherence and hexose monophosphate shunt activities were both suppressed after incubation with IL-2. IL-2 had no effect on neutrophil migration, phagocytosis, deoxyglucose uptake or degranulation, ionocytes demonstrated a greater sensitivity to IL-2 with suppression of monocyte adherence, random and stimulated migration, glucose uptake and hexose monophosphate shunt activity, even after addition of phorbol myristate acetate. Monocyte phagocytosis and degranulation were not affected. All of the effects observed were dose-dependent within a biologically active range for IL-2. These studies suggest that IL-2 may have an important down-regulatory role across a broad range of monocyte functions including movement, deoxyglucose uptake and respiration. However, its role in regulation of neutrophil function is limited to adherence and respiration. IL-2 may be a more versatile cytokine than has previously been appreciated

100 GHz electrically tunable planar Bragg grating via nematic liquid crystal overlay towards reconfigurable WDM networks

Novel liquid crystal-based integrated optical devices with &gt;140GHz electrical tuning are presented for application towards reconfigurable wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) networks. Initial results with Bragg wavelength tuning covering five 25GHz WDM channel spacing have been achieved with 170V (peak-to-peak) sinusoidal voltages applied across electro-patterned ITO-covered glass electrodes placed 60µm apart. These prototype devices were fabricated using direct UV grating writing, with an evanescent field coupling into a liquid crystal overlay through an etched window. Electrically controlled liquid crystal birefringence modifies the waveguide effective index, resulting in Bragg wavelength shift. Merck 18523 nematic liquid crystals are used, exhibiting compatible refractive index values to that of silica (no=1.44, ne=1.49 at lambda=1550nm). Homeotropic alignment of the liquid crystal is provided by application of a surfactant layer.The inherent refractive index sensitivity of our etched direct-UV-written structures allows observation of previously unreported liquid crystal surface-behaviour, such as multi-threshold points during variation of the applied field. Continued optimisation based on evanescent field penetration, electrode layout, and surface interaction will allow implementation towards a variety of novel liquid crystal applications and devices. For example, a cascaded architecture of these integrated liquid crystal devices operating at different Bragg wavelengths would pave the way towards true colorless add/drop modules for dense optical networks

Minimising colonic fermentation of high fructan foods : using food processing techniques to reduce levels of fructans in onion and garlic

Background: Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) is a chronic functional disorder of the bowel, affecting up to 15% of Australian adults. Dietary triggers need to be identified and controlled. Researchers have shown that short chain carbohydrates, fructans (high in onion and garlic) play a major role in triggering IBS symptoms. Current dietary management aims to limit the intake of fructans in the diet. Another approach may be to use simple food processing to reduce fructans in foods.Objective: To investigate if pickling will reduce fructan levels in garlic and shallots, and if pickled garlic and shallots reduce colonic fermentation, and&nbsp; abdominal symptoms in human volunteers.Design: Fructan levels of the garlic and shallots were measured using the Megazyme fructan assay. 18 volunteers (13 healthy and 5 IBS) participated in a single blinded, randomised cross over study. Subjects were randomly assigned to receive a breakfast (potato and salmon patty) that was either high (unprocessed) or low (processed/pickled) in garlic and shallots. Breath hydrogen was measured every hour over a ten hour period, and abdominal symptoms were assessed using validated questionnaires.Outcomes: Pickling over a 12 day period significantly reduced fructan levels in both garlic (p=.0.00) and shallots (p=0.00). Consumption of the low fructan breakfast resulted in significantly lower breath hydrogen (p=0.05), abdominal pain (p=0.032), and wind (p=0.04).Conclusion: Pickling results in significantly lowered fructan levels in problem foods- shallots and garlic, and lowered colonic fermentation and abdominal symptoms in both healthy and IBS volunteers. This study provides another dietary strategy for dietetic counselling of patients with IBS.<br /

Negative time delay for wave reflection from a one-dimensional semi-harmonic well

It is reported that the phase time of particles which are reflected by a one-dimensional semi-harmonic well includes a time delay term which is negative for definite intervals of the incoming energy. In this interval, the absolute value of the negative time delay becomes larger as the incident energy becomes smaller. The model is a rectangular well with zero potential energy at its right and a harmonic-like interaction at its left.Comment: 6 pages, 5 eps figures. Talk presented at the XXX Workshop on Geometric Methods in Physics, Bialowieza, Poland, 201

Perturbative spectrum of Trapped Weakly Interacting Bosons in Two Dimensions

We study a trapped Bose-Einstein condensate under rotation in the limit of weak, translational and rotational invariant two-particle interactions. We use the perturbation-theory approach (the large-N expansion) to calculate the ground-state energy and the excitation spectrum in the asymptotic limit where the total number of particles N goes to infinity while keeping the total angular momentum L finite. Calculating the probabilities of different configurations of angular momentum in the exact eigenstates gives us a clear view of the physical content of excitations. We briefly discuss the case of repulsive contact interaction.Comment: Revtex, 10 pages, 1 table, to appear in Phys. Rev.