High Doses of D-Chiro-Inositol Alone Induce a PCO-Like Syndrome and Other Alterations in Mouse Ovaries

Administration of 1000–1500 mg/day D-Chiro-Inositol (DCIns) or a combination of Myo-Inositol (MyoIns) and DCIns in their plasma molar ratio (40:1) for three or more months are among recommended treatments for metabolic syndrome and/or Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS). We previously confirmed the efficacy of this formulation (8.2 mg/day MyoIns and 0.2 mg/day DCIns for 10 days) in a mouse PCOS model, but also observed negative effects on ovarian histology and function of formulations containing 0.4–1.6 mg/day DCIns. We therefore analyzed effects of higher doses of DCIns, 5, 10 and 20 mg/day, administered to young adult female mice for 21 days, on ovarian histology, serum testosterone levels and expression of the ovarian enzyme aromatase. Five mg/day DCIns (human correspondence: 1200 mg/day) altered ovarian histology, increased serum testosterone levels and reduced the amount of aromatase of negative controls, suggesting the induction of an androgenic PCOS model. In contrast, 10–20 mg/day DCIns (human correspondence: 2400–4800 mg/day) produced ovarian lesions resembling those typical of aged mice, and reduced serum testosterone levels without affecting aromatase amounts, suggesting a failure in steroidogenic gonadal activity. Notwithstanding physiological/biochemical differences between mice and humans, the observed pictures of toxicity for ovarian histology and function recommend caution when administering DCIns to PCOS patients at high doses and/or for periods spanning several ovulatory cycles.     

Optimization of microwave assisted extraction of Artocarpus Heterophyllus leaf polyphenols with inhibitory action against Alternaria sp. and antioxidant capacity

Food Science and Biotechnology - The Artocarpus heterophyllus extracts are receiving attention due to their agro-food applications. Then, the simultaneous optimization of microwave-assisted...     

Safety implication for an unsaturated zone nuclear waste repository

In this paper we shed some light on the safety of unsaturated zone nuclear geological repositories in the long run by examining the effect of physical and chemical processes that take place inside a partially failed nuclear waste container. Our analysis addresses the safety of the proposed nuclear repository at Yucca Mountain, which is intended to store high-level nuclear waste. Our study is independent of the US Department of Energy (DOE) analysis, which involves a number of complex computer codes and assumptions, and relies on the performance of an engineered barrier system. Our safety analysis could be applied in general to any geological repository designed to be in an unsaturated zone, since it is based on the geology, unsaturated zone location, and a key characteristic of the waste, heat production. This analysis shows that the radionuclide release from a partially failed waste container, stored in an unsaturated zone geological repository, is likely to be gradual and long delayed.     

Influence of UK energy policy on the deployment of anaerobic digestion

Anaerobic digestion (AD) has the potential to contribute to greenhouse gas emissions reductions, improve energy security, increase generation of decentralised renewable electrical and thermal energy, produce low-impact fertiliser and enhance adherence to the principles of proximity as well as self-sufficiency in waste treatment, in energy generation and in resource use. Financial viability is scrutinised investigating optimal logistic pre-conditions such as catchment area or plant size. Given that a breakthrough in deployment does not only depend on technical aspects, the relative importance and magnitude of the necessary incentives is discussed. The influence of policy instruments is studied by devising different incentive scenarios for the United Kingdom. Substantial and predictable rewards for renewable electricity and heat are essential to harness the full potential of AD in addition to the current emphasis on landfill tax. A possible configuration of energy supply companies as a crucial vehicle to bring anaerobic digestion to market is highlighted.     

Impact of Size and Location of Wetlands on Watershed-Scale Flood Control

Water Resources Management - This paper presents a case study on the impact of the size and location of wetlands on watershed-scale flood control utilizing the Cypress Creek Watershed in Houston,...     

Automatic computing of number of clusters for color image segmentation employing fuzzy c-means by extracting chromaticity features of colors

Pattern Analysis and Applications - In this paper we introduce a method for color image segmentation by computing automatically the number of clusters the data, pixels, are divided into using fuzzy...     

Film mood induction and emotion classification using physiological signals for health and wellness promotion in older adults living alone

This paper introduces a wearable hardware/software system specifically tailored to detect seven emotions (neutral, tenderness, amusement, anger, disgust, fear, and sadness) aimed at promoting health and wellness in older adults living alone at home. The complete software and hardware architectures acquiring and processing electrodermal activity and photoplethysmography signals are introduced. The wearable emotion detection system is trained by eliciting the desired emotions on 39 older adults through a film mood induction procedure. Seventeen features are calculated on skin conductance response and heart rate variability data, grouped into five statistical, four temporal, and eight morphological features. Then, these features are used to run emotion classification considering support vector machines, decision trees, and quadratic discriminant analysis. In line with psychological findings, the results offer a global accuracy of 82% in negative emotion (anger, disgust, fear, and sadness) classification. For positive emotions (tenderness and amusement), also in conformity with previous psychological outcomes, amusement shows the highest ratio of hits (92%) but tenderness the lowest one (66%). These results demonstrate that our wearable emotion detection system can be used by ageing adults, especially for detecting negative emotions that usually damage health and wellness and lead to social isolation.     

Efficient construction of bounding volume hierarchies into a complete octree for ray tracing

This paper proposes an efficient construction scheme for bounding volume hierarchies based on a complete tree. This construction offers up to 4× faster construction times than binned‐surface area heuristic and offers competitive ray traversal performance. The construction is fully parallelized on x86 CPU architectures; it takes advantage of the eight‐wide vector units and exploits the advance vector extensions available for current x86 CPU architectures. Additionally, this work presents a clustering algorithm for grouping primitives, which can be computed in linear time O(n). Furthermore, this construction uses the graphics processing unit to perform intensive operations efficiently. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.