Theories and Molecular Basis of Vascular Aging: A Review of the Literature from VascAgeNet Group on Pathophysiological Mechanisms of Vascular Aging

Vascular aging, characterized by structural and functional alterations of the vascular wall, is a hallmark of aging and is tightly related to the development of cardiovascular mortality and age-associated vascular pathologies. Over the last years, extensive and ongoing research has highlighted several sophisticated molecular mechanisms that are involved in the pathophysiology of vascular aging. A more thorough understanding of these mechanisms could help to provide a new insight into the complex biology of this non-reversible vascular process and direct future interventions to improve longevity. In this review, we discuss the role of the most important molecular pathways involved in vascular ageing including oxidative stress, vascular inflammation, extracellular matrix metalloproteinases activity, epigenetic regulation, telomere shortening, senescence and autophagy.     

Survey of 55 Turkish Salvia taxa for their acetylcholinesterase inhibitory and antioxidant activities

In the current work, our target was to screen inhibitory potentials of 55 Turkish Salvia taxa, 28 of which are endemic, against acetylcholinesterase (AChE), which is a chief enzyme in pathogenesis of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). The dichloromethane, ethyl acetate, and methanol extracts prepared from 55 Salvia taxa were tested for their AChE inhibitory activity at 25, 50, and 100 μg/ml using an ELISA microplate reader. The extracts were also screened for their scavenging effect against DPPH radical and iron-chelating capacity. Total phenol and total flavonoid contents of Salvia fruticosa were determined. Among the 165 Salvia extracts screened, only the dichloromethane extract of S. fruticosa showed inhibition towards AChE at 100 μg/ml having 51.07% of inhibition, while only the dichloromethane and ethyl acetate extracts of Salvia cilicica had a notable iron-chelating capacity at 100 μg/ml having 54.71% of chelating capacity. Most of the extracts showed remarkable scavenging effect against DPPH radical.     

Effect of fat replacers on kefir quality

The purpose of the study was to determine the effects of fat replacers on the quality of non‐fat kefir. Skim milk fortified with Dairy Lo^® (DL) and inulin (INU) was fermented with kefir grains to manufacture kefir. The results of compositional, microbiological, rheological and sensorial analyses were compared with whole kefir (WK) and non‐fat kefir (NFK) controls. Results for dry matter, pH and lactic acid ranged between 82.4 and 109.1 g kg^?1, 4.26 and 4.40, and 7.0 and 9.2 g L^?1, respectively. Acetaldehyde and ethanol contents of samples were between 2.89 and 7.28 mg L^?1, and 151.46 and 323.89 mg L^?1, respectively. In all samples, Lactobacillus spp., Streptococcus spp. and yeast counts were between 9.1 and 9.9, 9.3 and 9.9, and 5.2 and 5.6 log cfu mL^?1, respectively. Kefir samples had non‐Newtonian behaviour and pseudoplastic fluid with thixotropy. At the first day, DL had the highest apparent viscosity (3.119 Pa s) while NFK had the lowest value (1.830 Pa s). In the sensory evaluation, odour and taste scores of samples were not different. Dairy Lo^® and inulin could be used without any adverse effect for the production of non‐fat kefir. Copyright © 2009 Society of Chemical Industry     

The relationship between glutathione peroxidase and bioimpedance parameters in nondiabetic hemodialysis patients

There is growing evidence from experimental and clinical studies that oxidative stress is involved in the pathogenesis of malnutrition. This cross‐sectional study aimed to investigate the relationship between glutathione peroxidase (GPx) levels as a marker of antioxidant status and the nutritional status assessed by bioimpedance analysis (BIA). Ninety‐seven nondiabetic stable outpatient uremic adults undergoing chronic hemodialysis (HD) were recruited for this study. Impedance measurements were performed using a multifrequency bioelectrical impedance analyzer after dialysis. GPx levels correlated with intracellular water (ICW) (r = 0.341, P = 0.011), ICW/total body weight (r = 0.320, P = 0.017), lean body mass (r = 0.300, P = 0.026) and total body cell mass (r = 0.339, P = 0.011). When patients were divided into two groups according to mean GPx levels (83.9 U/gr hemoglobin), the patients with higher GPx (GPx > 83.9 U/gr hemoglobin) had higher albumin (P = 0.038), lean body mass (P = 0.026), ICW (P = 0.011), and total body cell mass (P = 0.011) compared with those with lower GPx (GPx ≤ 83.9 U/gr hemoglobin). Furthermore, in the patients with higher GPx, body fat; extracellular water/total body water; illness marker and body fat mass index were lower than other group. In conclusion, our results reveal correlation indicating a relationship between antioxidant status (as measured by GPx) and nutritional status as assessed by BIA in nondiabetic HD patients.     

Charge carrier transport and digital data transmission performance in sub-20 nm diameter indium antimonide nanowires

We investigated the data transmission performance of indium antimonide (InSb) nanowires synthesized on (100) type substrates using chemical vapor deposition and having diameters of 20 nm and below using the eye diagram approach of the transmission line. NW interconnect parameters including the bit error rate, quality factor, signal attenuation and maximum bandwidth have been extracted. Nanowires can sustain data rates of up to 10 mega bits per second (Mbps) without any impedance matching and de-embedding of the parasitic parameters coming from the measurement system, and the data rate is directly proportional to nanowire diameter.     

The peripheral dose outside the applicator in electron beams of Oncor linear accelerator

In this study, the peripheral dose outside the applicator was measured using electron beams produced by an Oncor linear accelerator and compared with the data of the treatment planning system (TPS). The dose profiles have been measured, by using a water-equivalent slab phantom and a parallel plate ionisation chamber, at 6, 9 and 15 MeV energy levels in 5×5, 10×10, 15×15, 20×20 and 25×25 cm(2) applicators and at 0, 10 and 20° gantry angles; and at the surface, 0.2, 0.5, 1 cm and d(max) depth for each electron energy level. The peripheral dose has been determined with these profiles by normalisation at the field central beam axis (CAX). It has been noticed that, using a 10×10 cm(2) applicator, there is a 1.4 % dose peak on the surface 6 cm away from the field edge where the field CAX is at 100 %, at a gantry angle of 0° with 6 and 9 MeV electron beams; also for the 15 MeV electron beam there is a 2.3 % dose peak. It has been discovered that the peak dose approaches a minimum depending on the increase in depth and reaches 2.5-4 % depending on the growth of the field dimension. At gantry angles of 10 and 20°, 6 and 9 MeV electron beams created small peaks and a maximum dose could be reached at 0.2 and 1 cm depth. Electron beam of 15 MeV did not peak at depths of 0.2 and 1 cm at gantry angles of 10 and 20°. The measured peripheral dose outside the applicators has been compared with the data from a TPS's computer using the Pencil Beam algorithm; it has been stated that dose calculations can be made as far as 3 cm outside the field. In conclusion, the TPS is not sufficient to measure the peripheral dose outside the applicators, and this dose can only be determined by direct measurement.     

A pattern recognition framework to blind audio watermark decoding

Conventional blind audio watermark (WM) decoders use matched-filtering techniques because of their simplicity. In these methods, WM decoding and WM detection are often considered as separate problems and the WM signal embedded by spreading a secret key through the spectrum of a host signal is extracted by maximizing correlation between the secret key and the received audio. Conventionally decoding is achieved by using a pre-defined decoding/detection threshold and tradeoff between the false rejection ratio and false acceptance ratio constitutes main drawback of the conventional decoders. Unlike the conventional methods, this paper introduces a pattern recognition (PR) framework to WM extraction and integrates WM decoding and detection problems into a unique classification problem that eliminates thresholding. The proposed method models statistics of watermarked and original audio signals by a Gaussian mixture model (GMM) with K components. Learning of the embedded WM data is achieved in a principal component analysis (PCA) transformed wavelet space and a maximum likelihood (ML) classifier is designed for WM decoding. Robustness of the proposed method is evaluated under compression, additive noise and Stirmark benchmark attacks. It is shown that both WM decoding and detection performances of the introduced decoder outperform the conventional decoders.     

Devolatilization kinetics of olive leaves with application as a precursor for activated carbon production

The objectives of the study were to investigate the devolatilization kinetics of olive leaves and their utilization as precursors for activated carbon. The devolatilization process was performed using thermogravimetric analysis under nitrogen at heating rates of 10, 15, and 20°C min^?1 with kinetic evaluation by the Coats-Redfern and Horowitz-Metzger methods. Potassium hydroxide activated olive leaves were employed as precursors for the production of activated carbon at 700°C for 60?min. Brunauer–Emmett–Teller and infrared spectroscopy were used for the characterization of texture and chemical properties of activated carbon. The adsorption capacity of fabricated active carbon with 1422?m² g^?1 surface area for methyl orange was characterized and data fitted well with a Langmuir model (R²?=?0.9977). The monolayer adsorption capacity of the activated carbon on methyl orange was 714.86?mg?g^?1 and the kinetics followed a pseudo-second-order model.     

Statistical evaluation of remotely sensed data for water quality monitoring

The primary objective of this study was to determine relationships between water quality parameters (WQPs) and digital data from the Landsat satellite to estimate and map the WQP in the Porsuk Dam reservoir. Suspended sediments (SS), chlorophyll a (chl-a), NO₃-N and transmitted light intensity depth (TLID) were the parameters for water quality determination used in this study. Collection of these data, obtained from the General Directorate of State Hydraulic Works (GDSHW) was synchronized with the Landsat satellite overpass of the September 1987. The relationships between the brightness values (BV) of the TM data and WQP were determined. Using the TM data, we developed multiple regression equations to estimate the WQPs, and the validation of these equations was checked by using ANOVA. The effects of SS, NO₃-N and chl-a on TLID were tested not only for ground data, but also for TM datasets. Regression equations were developed for two different datasets and the homogeneity of those equations was tested. Finally, these regression equations evaluated from digital TM data and ground data were applied to map TLID values.