To treat or not to treat: comparison of different criteria used to determine whether weight loss is to be recommended

Background  

Excess body fat is a major risk factor for disease primarily due to its endocrine activity. In recent years several criteria have been introduced to evaluate this factor. Nevertheless, treatment need is currently assessed only on the basis of an individual's Body Mass Index (BMI), calculated as body weight (in kg) divided by height in m². The aim of our study was to determine whether application of the BMI, compared to adiposity-based criteria, results in underestimation of the number of subjects needing lifestyle intervention.     

Chronically Elevated Exogenous Glucose Elicits Antipodal Effects on the Proteome Signature of Differentiating Human iPSC-Derived Pancreatic Progenitors

The past decade revealed that cell identity changes, such as dedifferentiation or transdifferentiation, accompany the insulin-producing β-cell decay in most diabetes conditions. Mapping and controlling the mechanisms governing these processes is, thus, extremely valuable for managing the disease progression. Extracellular glucose is known to influence cell identity by impacting the redox balance. Here, we use global proteomics and pathway analysis to map the response of differentiating human pancreatic progenitors to chronically increased in vitro glucose levels. We show that exogenous high glucose levels impact different protein subsets in a concentration-dependent manner. In contrast, regardless of concentration, glucose elicits an antipodal effect on the proteome landscape, inducing both beneficial and detrimental changes in regard to achieving the desired islet cell fingerprint. Furthermore, we identified that only a subgroup of these effects and pathways are regulated by changes in redox balance. Our study highlights a complex effect of exogenous glucose on differentiating pancreas progenitors characterized by a distinct proteome signature.     

Homogeneous versus heterogeneous catalytic reactions to eliminate organics from waste water using H2O2

Homogeneous (Cu²⁺ ions) and heterogeneous (Cu²⁺-pillared clay) Fenton-like catalysts have been compared in the conversion of p-coumaric acid. The performances of the two classes of catalysts are similar for an analogous amount of copper, but there are some relevant differences in terms of (i) the presence of an induction time, (ii) the turnover frequency, (iii) the efficiency in the use of H₂O₂, (iv) the initial attack of p-coumaric acid (hydroxylation on the aromatic ring or oxidative attack on the double bond of the lateral chain), and (v) the effect of dissolved oxygen on the removal of total organic carbon (TOC). These differences were interpreted in terms of reaction network of generation of radical oxygen species and of organics conversion. The possible formation of a surface peroxo adduct coordinated to a copper binulcear site was also evidenced for the solid heterogeneous catalyst.     

Catalytic activity of dispersed CuO phases towards nitrogen oxides (N2O, NO, and NO2)

A systematic reactivity study of N₂O, NO, and NO₂ on highly dispersed CuO phases over modified silica supports (SiO₂–Al₂O₃, SiO₂–TiO₂, and SiO₂–ZrO₂) has been performed. Different reaction paths for the nitrogen oxide species abatement were studied: from direct decomposition (N₂O) to selective reductions by hydrocarbons (N₂O, NO, and NO₂) and oxidation (NO to NO₂). The oxygen concentration, temperature, and contact time, were varied within suitable ranges in order to investigate the activity and in particular the selectivity in the different reactions studied. The support deeply influenced the catalytic properties of the active copper phase. The most acidic supports, SiO₂–Al₂O₃ and SiO₂–ZrO₂, led to a better activity and selectivity of CuO for the reactions of N₂O, NO, and NO₂ reductions and N₂O decomposition than SiO₂–TiO₂. The catalytic results are discussed in terms of actual turnover frequencies starting from the knowledge of the copper dispersion values.     

The phase behavior,mechanical, and rheological characteristics of blends containing nitrile polymers and poly(ethylene-co-maleic anhydride)

The phase behavior of binary blends of acrylonitrile/methyl acrylate/butadiene terpolymer (B210) and poly(ethylene-co-maleic anhydride) (PEMA) was examined based on thermal analysis and optical microscopy. Miscibility of these polymer blends was recognized over a wide range of compositions. The appearance of phase separation during subsequent heatings above the glass transition temperature (T_g) of these blends was associated with a lower critical solution temperature (LCST) behavior. Rheological characteristics such as shear storage modulus (G′), loss modulus (G″) and complex viscosity have been shown to depend on the amount of PEMA in the blend. Mechanical properties including the tensile strength and flexural modulus also were found to be related to the composition of the blend. © 1993 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Motif patterns in 2D

Motif patterns consisting of sequences of intermixed solid and don’t-care characters have been introduced and studied in connection with pattern discovery problems of computational biology and other domains. In order to alleviate the exponential growth of such motifs, notions of maximal saturation and irredundancy have been formulated, whereby more or less compact subsets of the set of all motifs can be extracted, that are capable of expressing all others by suitable combinations. In this paper, we introduce the notion of maximal irredundant motifs in a two-dimensional array and develop initial properties and a combinatorial argument that poses a linear bound on the total number of such motifs. The remainder of the paper presents approaches to the discovery of irredundant motifs both by offline and incremental algorithms.     

High power GaN‐HEMT SPDT switches for microwave applications

In this article, the design, fabrication, and on‐wafer test of X‐Band and 2–18 GHz wideband high‐power SPDT MMIC switches in AlGaN/GaN technology are presented. The switches have demonstrated state‐of‐the‐art performance and RF fabrication yield better than 65%. Linear and power measurements for different control voltages have been reported and an explanation of the dependence of the power performances on the control voltage is given. In particular, the X‐band switch exhibits a 0.4 dB compression level at 10 GHz when driven by a 38 dBm input signal. The wideband switch shows a compression level of 1 dB at an input drive higher than 38 dBm across the entire bandwidth. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J RF and Microwave CAE, 2009.     

Spray-Coating of Superhydrophobic Coatings for Advanced Applications

Superhydrophobic coatings are widely applicable, e.g., as self-cleaning surfaces or water–oil separation membranes, yet their wider usage is impeded due to costs of fabrication, size, or substrate limitation. Spray-coating is a versatile coating procedures and might offer a good solution for the fabrication of these superhydrophobic coatings, due to the fact that coatings can be fabricated on various materials in a simple, fast, and inexpensive manner. Most procedures rely on hybrid coatings of hydrophobized nanoparticles and a polymeric matrix, which have several drawbacks including the easy loss of nanoparticles and difficult waste handling. Here, the fabrication of the superhydrophobic material, called Fluoropor, for the first time, by spray-coating on various substrates including metals, tissues, concrete, and glass is presented. It is fabricated by spray-coating a mixture of a highly fluorinated monomer blended with porogens followed by photopolymerization. The superhydrophobicity of the material relies on the porous structure on the micro-/nanoscale across the bulk material and does not require any nanoparticles. Excellent self-cleaning ability of these coatings, resistance against thermal and abrasive impact, and their application as oil–water separation membranes are shown. This versatile applicability is highly promising for real-world application as self-cleaning coatings or oil–water separating membranes.     

Rules and Strategies for Contextual Specialization of Constraint Logic Programs

We address the problem of specializing a constraint logic program w.r.t. a constrained atom which specifies the context of use of the program. We follow an approach based on transformation rules and strategies. We introduce a novel transformation rule, called contextual constraint replacement, to be combined with variants of the traditional unfolding and folding rules. We present a general Partial Evaluation Strategy for automating the application of these rules, and two additional strategies: the Context Propagation Strategy which is instrumental for the application of our contextual constraint replacement rule, and the Invariant Promotion Strategy for taking advantage of invariance properties of the computation. We show through some examples the power of our method and we compare it with existing methods for partial deduction of constraint logic programs based on extensions of Lloyd and Shepherdson's approach.