Oral intake during hemodialysis: Is there an association with intradialytic hypotension?

Oral intake (OI) of food and fluid has been associated with hypotension during hemodialysis (HD). Trials evaluating this relationship are small. The objective of this study was to quantify OI and to examine its association with hypotension during HD. This is a cross-sectional retrospective chart review study of 3 consecutive HD runs (dialysate iCa=1.25 mmol/L) in 126 stable HD patients (n=378). For each run, the calculation for OI=total ultrafiltration-(net weight loss+IV fluids given). Hypotension was defined as a systolic blood pressure of <100 mmHg at any point during the run. The mean age of the patients was 60.9 years, 38.2% were female, 30.2% had diabetes mellitus, and the majority were Caucasian. The mean (SD) OI was 0.27 (0.352) L/run, range -1.061 to 1.901 L/run, with a normal distribution. In bivariate analysis, there was no correlation of OI with systolic blood pressure, diastolic blood pressure, or mean blood pressure (BP), and the mean OI did not differ among runs with hypotension (n=78) compared with uncomplicated runs (p=0.93). Oral intake was not predictive of hypotension in a multiple logistic regression model controlling for vintage, age, sex, BP medications, coronary disease, dialysis day and shift, diabetes mellitus, s-Ca, Na and ultrafiltration profiles, and dialysis temperature, even when the analysis was restricted to runs where the patients reached the prescribed dry weight within 0.1 kg. The results of this study suggest that the mean OI during dialysis is just over 0.25 kg, with some patients consuming several kilograms. The clinical significance of OI is uncertain. We did not find an association between OI and hypotension. It is likely that this association was confounded by failure to achieve the prescribed dry weight in a proportion of patients with a high OI, as well as interventions implemented in response to hypotension in previous runs. For example, patients with previous episodes of low BP are advised to limit OI, are prescribed profiles, and so on. There may be other deleterious effects of high OI including hypertension and cardiac disease. The generalizability of the results of this largely Caucasian study population is a recognized limitation. Further prospective and blinded studies are needed to examine the association between OI and hypotension, the long-term clinical consequences of OI, and to define thresholds for recommended OI during dialysis.     

Effectiveness of high pressure processing on the hygienic and technological quality of porcine plasma from biopreserved blood

The effects of a high hydrostatic pressure (HHP) treatment (450MPa, 15min at 20°C) on both the microbiological quality and the functional properties of plasma from biopreserved porcine blood were evaluated. Blood was inoculated with Enterococcus raffinosus-PS99 (10(7)ufcmL(-1)) and stored at 5°C. After 72-h storage, bacterial counts in inoculated samples decreased by 52, 70, 81 and more than 99% for coliforms, Pseudomonas spp, hemolytic and proteolytic bacteria, respectively. Counts of these bacterial groups were undetectable in the final product after pressurization, whereas total lactic acid bacteria were detected at levels up to 10(2)ufcmL(-1). Gelling, foaming and emulsifying properties of the plasma proteins were not noticeably affected by HHP. The results show that it is possible to obtain high-quality and microbiologically stable blood derivatives as functional ingredients, by combining biopreservation and HHP.     

Uplink throughput maximization with combined sum and individual power constraints

Optimal power allocation in cellular uplink systems is used to maximize the average throughput under individual and sum power constraints. In the uplink, the transmit power of the mobiles is limited leading to individual power constraints. Additionally, in order to reduce the inter-cell interference, the sum power is constraint. First, we approximate the individual and sum power constraints by a combined constraint on a suitable l-norm of the power allocation vector. Then, we derive the optimal power allocation for individual and sum power constraints as well as for the combined constraint for the three CSI scenarios with uninformed transmitter, long-term feedback, and perfect CSI. The results and illustrations show that under combined sum and individual power constraints completely different power allocation strategies are optimal than with pure sum or pure individual power constraints     

Nodes on ropes: a comprehensive data and control flow for steering ensemble simulations

Flood disasters are the most common natural risk and tremendous efforts are spent to improve their simulation and management. However, simulation-based investigation of actions that can be taken in case of flood emergencies is rarely done. This is in part due to the lack of a comprehensive framework which integrates and facilitates these efforts. In this paper, we tackle several problems which are related to steering a flood simulation. One issue is related to uncertainty. We need to account for uncertain knowledge about the environment, such as levee-breach locations. Furthermore, the steering process has to reveal how these uncertainties in the boundary conditions affect the confidence in the simulation outcome. Another important problem is that the simulation setup is often hidden in a black-box. We expose system internals and show that simulation steering can be comprehensible at the same time. This is important because the domain expert needs to be able to modify the simulation setup in order to include local knowledge and experience. In the proposed solution, users steer parameter studies through the World Lines interface to account for input uncertainties. The transport of steering information to the underlying data-flow components is handled by a novel meta-flow. The meta-flow is an extension to a standard data-flow network, comprising additional nodes and ropes to abstract parameter control. The meta-flow has a visual representation to inform the user about which control operations happen. Finally, we present the idea to use the data-flow diagram itself for visualizing steering information and simulation results. We discuss a case-study in collaboration with a domain expert who proposes different actions to protect a virtual city from imminent flooding. The key to choosing the best response strategy is the ability to compare different regions of the parameter space while retaining an understanding of what is happening inside the data-flow system.     

A novel humid electronic nose combined with an electronic tongue for assessing deterioration of wine

We report herein the use of a combined system for the analysis of the spoilage of wine when in contact with air. The system consists of a potentiometric electronic tongue and a humid electronic nose. The potentiometric electronic tongue was built with thick-film serigraphic techniques using commercially available resistances and conductors for hybrid electronic circuits; i.e. Ag, Au, Cu, Ru, AgCl, and C. The humid electronic nose was designed in order to detect vapours that emanate from the wine and are apprehended by a moist environment. The humid nose was constructed using a piece of thin cloth sewn, damped with distilled water, forming five hollows of the right size to introduce the electrodes. In this particular case four electrodes were used for the humid electronic nose: a glass electrode, aluminium (Al), graphite and platinum (Pt) wires and an Ag-AgCl reference electrode. The humid electronic nose together with the potentiometric electronic tongue were used for the evaluation of the evolution in the course of time of wine samples. Additionally to the analysis performed by the tongue and nose, the spoilage of the wines was followed via a simple determination of the titratable (total) acidity.     

Validated Growth Rate-Dependent Regulation of Lipid Metabolism in Yarrowia lipolytica

Given the strong potential of Yarrowia lipolytica to produce lipids for use as renewable fuels and oleochemicals, it is important to gain in-depth understanding of the molecular mechanism underlying its lipid accumulation. As cellular growth rate affects biomass lipid content, we performed a comparative proteomic analysis of Y. lipolytica grown in nitrogen-limited chemostat cultures at different dilution rates. After confirming the correlation between growth rate and lipid accumulation, we were able to identify various cellular functions and biological mechanisms involved in oleaginousness. Inspection of significantly up- and downregulated proteins revealed nonintuitive processes associated with lipid accumulation in this yeast. This included proteins related to endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress, ER–plasma membrane tether proteins, and arginase. Genetic engineering of selected targets validated that some genes indeed affected lipid accumulation. They were able to increase lipid content and were complementary to other genetic engineering strategies to optimize lipid yield.     

Multifunctional PMMA-Ceramic composites as structural dielectrics

We describe the influence of calcium copper titanate (CCTO), and montmorillonite (MMT) on the thermo-mechanical and dielectric properties of poly(methyl methacrylate) PMMA-based composites prepared by an in-situ, thermally activated, radical polymerization for multifunctional structural capacitor applications. MMT was used for its ability to disperse and suspend the CCTO particles through the generation of viscous monomer slurries. X-ray diffraction (XRD) measurements together with transmission electron microscopy (TEM) analysis revealed that the MMT platelets were present in both intercalated and exfoliated morphologies within the polymer matrix. The filler addition was found to improve the thermal stability and the glass transition temperature of PMMA in the composites. Furthermore, the elastic stiffness and dielectric constant of the resultant composites were observed to increase monotonically with filler loading. By contrast, the dielectric breakdown strength of the composite samples was found to diminish with increasing filler loading.     

Fluorous Iminoalditols: A New Family of Glycosidase Inhibitors and Pharmacological Chaperones

A collection of new reversible glycosidase inhibitors of the iminoalditol type featuring N‐substituents containing perfluorinated regions has been prepared for evaluation of physicochemical, biochemical and diagnostic properties. The vast variety of feasible oligofluoro moieties allows for modular approaches to customised structures according to the intended applications, which are influenced by the fluorine content as well as the distance of the fluorous moiety from the ring nitrogen. The first examples, in particular in the D ‐galacto series, exhibited excellent inhibitory activities. A preliminary screen with two human cell lines showed that, at subinhibitory concentrations, they are powerful pharmacological chaperones enhancing the activities of the catalytically handicapped lysosomal D ‐galactosidase mutants associated with GM1 gangliosidosis and Morquio B disease.     

Wet air oxidation in a catalytic membrane reactor: Model and industrial wastewaters in single tubes and multichannel contactors

Recent results on catalytic wet air oxidation applied to a membrane contactor are presented that give new insight following a series of previous publications. Model and industrial effluents are treated in both single tube and multichannel catalytic systems. Characterisation of the catalytic material (solid analyses, electron microscopy, EDS and EPMA) is carried out, in order to determine the catalyst distribution. Catalytic results show performances heavily dependent on the nature of the effluent and the operating conditions, and to a lesser extent on the catalytic membrane characteristics. At 80 °C, an industrial effluent is oxidised at a membrane surface related rate of 3.8 mmol/s/m². This result is achieved using a membrane containing about 0.1 wt.% Pt. This allows a revised and improved technico-economical evaluation of the Watercatox process.