Coenzyme Q10 supplementation: Efficacy,safety, and formulation challenges

World population growth and aging are posing unprecedented challenges in sustaining the health of 9.1 billion people that will be occupying the planet by 2050. Although noncommunicable diseases such as cardiovascular and neurodegenerative diseases, cancer, and diabetes are among the top 10 global causes of death, they can be prevented by risk factor reduction, early detection, and adequate treatment. Since a healthy diet along with dietary supplementation could play an important role to reduce morbidity and cut off its associated health care costs, research in the food and nutrition area is required to find solutions to global challenges affecting health. As a result of the healthy living trend, dietary supplements category is growing fast, leading to an urgent need for dietitians, physicians, and policy makers to broaden the scientific evidence on the efficacy and safety of a wide range of active ingredients. Coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10), as the third most consumed dietary supplement, and as a potential candidate for the treatment of various noncommunicable diseases that are among the global top 10 causes of death, has gained interest over years. Scientific evidence regarding mainly CoQ10 efficacy and safety, as well as formulation challenges, is addressed in this review.     

N‐Oligo(3‐hydroxybutyrate)‐functionalized polypyrroles: towards bio‐erodible conducting copolymers

New copolymer materials have been prepared by chemical grafting of oligomeric 3‐hydroxybutyric acid (OHB) onto polypyrrole (PPy) derivatives. The influence of grafting density and molecular weight of OHB brushes on the physicochemical properties of prepared copolymers was investigated. PPy substrates were prepared by FeCl₃‐driven oxidative homopolymerization of N‐(2‐carboxyethyl)pyrrole or its copolymerization with pyrrole. The grafting method employed involved controlled anionic polymerization of β‐butyrolactone on pyrrole‐tethered potassium carboxylate active sites. Obtained PPy‐g‐OHB copolymers of varying grafting density and pendant polyester chain length were characterized and the observed structure–property relationships discussed. The impact of real time exposure to phosphate‐buffered saline environment was investigated and the residue products were characterized. Cross‐correlation of spectroscopic, thermal, electrical and elemental analysis data afforded comprehensive evaluation of the structure of prepared materials and their behaviour in hydrolytic medium. Erosion and degradation pathways have been identified, indicating ways to consciously tailor the physicochemical properties of these new biomimetic materials. © 2016 Society of Chemical Industry     

Carbon nanotubes play an important role in the spatial arrangement of calcium deposits in hydrogels for bone regeneration

Age related bone diseases such as osteoporosis are considered among the main causes of reduced bone mechanical stability and bone fractures. In order to restore both biological and mechanical function of diseased/fractured bones, novel bioactive scaffolds that mimic the bone structure are constantly under development in tissue engineering applications. Among the possible candidates, chitosan-based thermosensitive hydrogel scaffolds represent ideal systems due to their biocompatibility, biodegradability, enhanced antibacterial properties, promotion of osteoblast formation and ease of injection, which makes them suitable for less invasive surgical procedures. As a main drawback, these chitosan systems present poor mechanical performance that could not support load-bearing applications. In order to produce more mechanically-competent biomaterials, the combined addition of hydroxyapatite and carbon nanotubes (CNTs) is proposed in this study. Specifically, the aim of this work is to develop thermosensitive chitosan hydrogels containing stabilised single-walled and multi-walled CNTs, where their effect on the mechanical/physiochemical properties, calcium deposition patterns and ability to provide a platform for the controlled release of protein drugs was investigated. It was found that the addition of CNTs had a significant effect on the sol–gel transition time and significantly increased the resistance to compression for the hydrogels. Moreover, in vitro calcification studies revealed that CNTs played a major role in the spatial arrangements of newly formed calcium deposits in the composite materials studied, suggesting that they may have a role in the way the repair of fragile and/or fractured bones occurs in vivo.     

Ultrastructural and developmental toxicity of potato and tomato leaf extracts to beet armyworm,Spodoptera exigua (lepidoptera: noctuidae)

Beet Armyworm, Spodoptera exigua is a herbivorous moth and a serious pest of many economically important plants, which are used as food sources. Because of rigorous standards of food quality, usage of synthetic insecticides in crop protection, against pests, is limited. Solanaceae plant extracts may be a relatively cheap source of efficient natural insecticides that can limit usage of synthetic substances. Their biological activity is not fully known. In particular, ultrastructural studies, using transmission electron microscopy, are not usual. In the present article we describe the effects of sublethal concentrations of tomato and potato leaf extracts against S. exigua. Acute lethal effects were not observed. Both extracts exerted similar effects within midgut and fat body cells. Midgut cells were not significantly altered while fat body cells showed prominent swelling of nuclear envelope and endoplasmic reticulum, vacuolization of mitochondria and fusion of fat droplets. These changes were much more intensive within groups exposed to potato than tomato extracts at highest concentration at least. Light microscopy was used to observe and document developmental alterations of S. exigua exposed to potato and tomato leaf extracts. Potato leaf extracts significantly decreased hatching success and caused morphological malformations of imagoes. Among them, malformations of wings were the most prominent. Interestingly, these effects were not observed within populations exposed to tomato extracts at highest concentration at least.     

Non-Intensive Care Unit Acquired Pneumonia: A New Clinical Entity?

Hospital-acquired pneumonia (HAP) is a frequent cause of nosocomial infections, responsible for great morbidity and mortality worldwide. The majority of studies on HAP have been conducted in patients hospitalized in the intensive care unit (ICU), as mechanical ventilation represents a major risk factor for nosocomial pneumonia and specifically for ventilator-associated pneumonia. However, epidemiological data seem to be different between patients acquiring HAP in the ICU vs. general wards, suggesting the importance of identifying non ICU-acquired pneumonia (NIAP) as a clinical distinct entity in terms of both etiology and management. Early detection of NIAP, along with an individualized management, is needed to reduce antibiotic use and side effects, bacterial resistance and mortality. The present article reviews the pathophysiology, diagnosis, treatment and prevention of NIAP.     

Check Your Biosignals Here: A new dataset for off-the-person ECG biometrics

The Check Your Biosignals Here initiative (CYBHi) was developed as a way of creating a dataset and consistently repeatable acquisition framework, to further extend research in electrocardiographic (ECG) biometrics. In particular, our work targets the novel trend towards off-the-person data acquisition, which opens a broad new set of challenges and opportunities both for research and industry. While datasets with ECG signals collected using medical grade equipment at the chest can be easily found, for off-the-person ECG data the solution is generally for each team to collect their own corpus at considerable expense of resources. In this paper we describe the context, experimental considerations, methods, and preliminary findings of two public datasets created by our team, one for short-term and another for long-term assessment, with ECG data collected at the hand palms and fingers.     

Difference equation matrix model (DEMM) for the control of wind turbines

In this paper, a new algorithm, difference equation matrix model (DEMM), in the framework of model predictive control (MPC) is introduced. Instead of the standard dynamic matrix control (DMC), which is based upon step response method that has been used in most research works, we propose a new approach based upon a DEMM for model prediction. It has shown that DEMM has proven to be less computational and thus faster than the original DMC for real time applications. Thus, the drawbacks of DMC for online identification or adaptive design could be avoided. The control of wind turbines is carried out in order to decrease the cost of wind energy by increasing the efficiency, and thus the energy capture, or by reducing structural loading and increasing the lifetimes of the components and turbine structures. Modeling of wind turbine has been carried out. Effect of noise and disturbance on the system has been also studied. The results obtained show that the proposed DEMM minimizes the effect of the disturbance and produces an accurate and smooth control. Significant improvements in the regulation of rotor speed at high wind speeds are obtained from the proposed DEMM, where control set points are obtained ahead of the disturbance, saving the turbine of the negative effects of them and thus increasing its lifetime. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.