Effects of n‐3 PUFA on insulin resistance after an oral fat load

The aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of ω‐3 PUFA (n‐3 PUFA) on lipid profile and insulin resistance biomarkers. Patients were assigned to receive placebo or n‐3 PUFA 1 g three times a day, during the meals, for 6 months. We evaluated: body mass index (BMI), body weight, fasting plasma glucose (FPG), fasting plasma insulin (FPI), homeostasis model assessment insulin resistance index (HOMA‐IR), blood pressure, lipid profile, resistin (r), retinol binding protein‐4 (RBP‐4), adiponectin (ADN), visfatin, and vaspin. Furthermore patients underwent an oral fat load (OFL) and an euglycemic hyperinsulinemic clamp to evaluate M value, and total glucose requirement (TGR). Triglycerides value obtained with n‐3 PUFA was lower, while HDL‐C, and ADN values were higher compared to placebo. After the OFL, and comparing the OFL performed at the baseline and at the end of the study, there was a decrease of triglycerides (Tg), resistin (r), and RBP‐4 values, and an increase of ADN value with n‐3 PUFA, but not with placebo. We conclude that the treatment with n‐3 PUFA resulted in a greater improvement of lipid profile and ADN compared to placebo in a baseline condition, and an improvement of all insulin resistance parameters after an OFL. Practical applications: The inverse association between dietary intake of n‐3 PUFA and cardiovascular disease morbidity/mortality was primarily established following the observation that the Greenland Inuits had low mortality from coronary heart disease despite a fat‐rich diet. Our group has already shown that n‐3 PUFA improved the lipid profile and the coagulation, fibrinolytic, and inflammatory parameters compared to placebo. We also observed that highly purified n‐3 PUFA supplementation significantly reduced the blood pressure, pulse pressure, and basal heart rate in hypertriglyceridemic patients with normal‐high blood pressure. The current study showed that treatment with n‐3 PUFA not only improved lipid profile in a baseline situation, but it also improved all insulin resistance parameters in a post‐prandial situation simulated with an OFL. This is another important action of the n‐3 PUFA which can increase their utility in the clinical practice.     

Molecular Chaperones and miRNAs in Epilepsy: Pathogenic Implications and Therapeutic Prospects

Epilepsy is a pathologic condition with high prevalence and devastating consequences for the patient and its entourage. Means for accurate diagnosis of type, patient monitoring for predicting seizures and follow up, and efficacious treatment are desperately needed. To improve this adverse outcome, miRNAs and the chaperone system (CS) are promising targets to understand pathogenic mechanisms and for developing theranostics applications. miRNAs implicated in conditions known or suspected to favor seizures such as neuroinflammation, to promote epileptic tolerance and neuronal survival, to regulate seizures, and others showing variations in expression levels related to seizures are promising candidates as useful biomarkers for diagnosis and patient monitoring, and as targets for developing novel therapies. Components of the CS are also promising as biomarkers and as therapeutic targets, since they participate in epileptogenic pathways and in cytoprotective mechanisms in various epileptogenic brain areas, even if what they do and how is not yet clear. The data in this review should help in the identification of molecular targets among the discussed miRNAs and CS components for research aiming at understanding epileptogenic mechanisms and, subsequently, develop means for predicting/preventing seizures and treating the disease.     

Emotional Intelligence and Leadership Styles in Construction Project Management

Human factors are of paramount importance to the success of projects. Although a lot of studies have been carried out on human factors in project management, not much research has been done on emotional intelligence (EI). Studies have shown that EI is beneficial to both the individual and the organization. The benefits of EI to project management were investigated in terms of the style of leadership. The study was conducted in Thailand by interviewing project managers and engineers (PMEs); and client representatives. The results showed that EI affected leadership behavior of the project leader. PMEs with higher EI tend to use open communication and proactive leadership styles. It is also found that EI generates delegating, open communication, and proactive behavior, which can bring positive outcomes to the organization.     

Shape exploration of 3D heterogeneous models based on cages

Shape exploration of 3D heterogeneous models is essential for special effects in 3D animation and games. As heterogeneous models have different numbers of vertices and different topological structures,the mapping between source and target model may be ambiguous for deformation transfer. We propose a new framework for heterogeneous model shape exploration based on cages, which provides a feasible and fast solution to this open problem. Using a public cage as an intermediate medium, the deformation of the source models can be denoted as the position changing of the cage. When applying the cage change to the target model, rough deformation transfer can be achieved. After an optimization and interpolation to generate the explored shape of the heterogeneous target model, animation can be acquired. Our method is not only suitable for triangle meshes, but also for quadrilateral meshes or any other type of meshes. We demonstrate the validity of our scheme by a series of shape exploration experiments with different models.     

Unconditionally Strong Stability Preserving Extensions of the TR-BDF2 Method

We analyze monotonicity, strong stability and positivity of the TR-BDF2 method, interpreting these properties in the framework of absolute monotonicity. The radius of absolute monotonicity is computed and it is shown that the parameter value which makes the method L-stable is also the value which maximizes the radius of monotonicity. In order to achieve unconditional monotonicity, hybrid variants of TR-BDF2 are proposed, that reduce the formal order of accuracy, while keeping the native L-stability property, which is useful for the application to stiff problems. Numerical experiments compare these different hybridization strategies to other methods used in stiff and mildly stiff problems. The results show that the proposed strategies provide a good compromise between accuracy and robustness at high CFL numbers, without suffering from the limitations of alternative approaches already available in literature.     

Broom fibers as reinforcing materials for polypropylene-based composites

Broom fibers have been used as reinforcement for the conventional polypropylene (iPP) and a maleate modified one (iPPMA). A conventional alkaline treatment and a steam explosion extraction process were applied to obtain the cellulosic material from broom branches. Composites were prepared by melt mixing materials with different weight percentages of broom fibers. Also ternary blends (iPPMA/iPP/broom fibers 5/45/50 wt) were obtained to examine the possibility of utilizing the maleate polypropylene as a compatibilizing agent. The fibers and the composites were thermally, morphologically, and mechanically characterized. Water absorption tests, to examine the behavior of these materials in wet conditions, were also performed. Particular attention was addressed to the study of the fiber/matrix interfacial adhesion. The results showed that the iPPMA-based composites, reinforced with alkaline extracted broom fibers, present specific mechanical properties competitive with those of the homologous polypropylene-based materials reinforced with short glass fibers. The ternary blends gave similar properties to those of the corresponding whole iPPMA-based composites. It is considered that the esteric linkage between the cellulose —OH, and the maleic anhydride groups grafted on the polypropylene backbone is greatly responsible for the similarity in the properties. In spite of better adhesion observed in the samples reinforced by the steam-exploded fibers, less improvement of the mechanical properties was observed, owing to significant damage of the structure of the fibers during the steam explosion process. A general decrease of mechanical properties is observed in normal polypropylene-based composites. The results are also supported by the water absorption tests: whereby the iPPMA-based composites showed good capability to return their dry properties when kept in an oven after wetting for many days. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 68: 1077–1089, 1998     

Information measures for object understanding

In this paper, we present a new information-theoretic framework for object understanding. From a visibility channel between a set of viewpoints and the polygons of an object, and three specific information measures introduced in the field of neural systems, we analyze and visualize the information associated with an object. Our approach is twofold since we present several forms of representing the shape information in the object space and different ways of capturing this information from the viewpoint space. First, we introduce several information measures associated with the polygons of the object. The way we visualize, this polygonal information provides us with different forms of perceiving the shape of the object. Second, we present several ways of evaluating the shape information from the observer’s point of view. To do this, the polygonal information is “projected” onto the viewpoints to quantify the information associated with a viewpoint and is used to select the $N$ best views and to explore the object. A number of experiments show the behavior of all proposed measures.     

Evaluation of the E test for antimicrobial susceptibility testing of Pseudomonas aeruginosa isolates from patients with long-term bladder catheterization

The E test was evaluated in comparison with reference agar methods (National Committee for Clinical Laboratory Standards) for the susceptibility testing of 248 Pseudomonas aeruginosa isolates from bladder-catheterized patients against nine antibiotics. The E-test MICs correlated well with those determined by the agar dilution and disk diffusion reference methods (88 and 92.5% within 1 log2 dilution step, respectively), confirming that the E test is a reliable method for the determination of MICs of antibiotics for catheterization-associated P. aeruginosa isolates.     

An O(N) modular algorithm for the dynamic simulation of robots constrained by a single contact

This paper presents an efficient modular algorithm for the dynamic simulation of robots constrained through a single contact. Such configurations include single robots with closed-loop topologies, as well as, multiple robots with simple series, parallel, and bracing topologies. The modular nature of the algorithm enables the incorporation of existing open-chain models for the individual robots without significant reprogramming, while a general contact model extends the range of possible contact conditions to include both holonomic and nonholonomic constraints. The algorithm is validated through the simulation of two robots cooperating in parallel. This paper establishes an accurate framework for simulating simple robot systems with single contacts, which can be extended to multi-robot, multi-contact systems performing general tasks.