Importance of substrate changes in the decrease of hepatic glucose cycling during insulin infusion and declining glycemia in the depancreatized dog

We wished to determine whether the elevated glucose cycling (GC) between glucose and glucose-6-phosphate (G<-->G6P) in diabetes can be reversed with acute insulin treatment. In six insulin-deprived, anesthetized, depancreatized dogs, insulin was infused for 6-9 h at a starting dose of 45-150 pmol.kg-1.min-1 to normalize plasma glucose from 23.9 +/- 1.4 to 5.0 +/- 0.4 mmol/l and gradually decreased to and maintained at a basal rate (1.7 +/- 1.0 pmol.kg-1.min-1) during the last 3 h. GC, measured with [2-3H]- and [6-3H]glucose, fell markedly from 15.3 +/- 2.7 and normalized at 1.3 +/- 0.6 mumol.kg-1.min-1 (P < 0.001). This occurred because total hepatic glucose output fell much more (from 41.2 +/- 3.1 to 11.6 +/- 1.2) than did glucose production (from 25.9 +/- 1.9 to 10.3 +/- 1.0 mumol.kg-1.min-1) (both P < 0.01). Freeze-clamped liver biopsies were taken at timed intervals for measurements of hepatic enzymes and substrates. The elevated hepatic hexose-6-phosphate levels decreased with insulin infusion (151 +/- 24 vs. 71 +/- 13 nmol/g, P < 0.01). Maximal activities of glucose-6-phosphatase (G6Pase) (from 17.6 +/- 0.8 to 19.6 +/- 2.6 U/g) and glucokinase (from 1.1 +/- 0.2 to 1.0 +/- 0.2 U/g) did not change. Insulin infusion resulted in a threefold increase (P < 0.05) in the activity of glycogen synthase (active form), but had no effect on hepatic glycogen content.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)     

Absence of linkage between idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy and candidate genes involved in the immune function in a large Italian pedigree

Idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy (IDC) is a heart disease of unknown aetiology characterised by impaired ventricular function usually associated with dilatation of the cardiac chambers. In order to test the hypothesis of an immunological cause for the disease at the genetic level, we performed linkage analysis between the putative disease locus and some of the potential candidate genes involved in the immune response or coding for the targets for autoantibodies in a large multigeneration family (63 members) from southern Italy with autosomal dominant transmission of the disease. Twenty-nine polymorphic markers on 18 different chromosomal locations were investigated, including markers linked to the genes coding for the HLA antigens, the immunoglobulin heavy and light chains, the receptors for the immunoglobulin Fc fragments, the subunits of the T cell receptor and the associated CD3, CD4, CD8, and CD45 antigens, interleukins 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, and 11, the interleukin 1 and 2 receptors, and the genes coding for the beta 1 adrenoreceptor, the adenine nucleotide translocator-1, and the cardiac alpha and beta myosin heavy chains. No evidence for genetic linkage to IDC was found at any of these candidate loci. These results indicate that the still unidentified IDC gene maps outside several loci involved in the regulation of immune reactivity.     

Serum lipids in suckling and post-weanling iron-deficient rats

Serum lipids were studied in iron-deficient and control rats during suckling and after weaning at 21, 30, and 60 days of age. Diets providing 5 or 307 ppm iron were fed to dams and their offspring during gestation, lactation, and after weaning. Rats on the deficient diet throughout the experimental period developed a hyperlipidemia characterized by elevated triglycerides, cholesterol, and phospholipids which was present at 21, 30, and 60 days. Control pups weaned to the deficient diet developed anemia at 30 days of age and hypertriglyceridemia at 60 days of age. Repletion of deficient rats with iron after weaning caused a rapid decline in serum lipid levels after only 9 days on the control diet. The hyperlipidemia of iron deficiency thus appears to be reversible with iron supplementation. The time required to develop hypertriglyceridemia in iron deficiency is longer postweaning than during suckling.     

Planning Our Future: Institutionalizing Youth Participation in Local Government Planning Efforts

ABSTRACT

There is a growing recognition globally that young people are under-represented or excluded from planning processes, and that this exclusion could have lasting impacts on their development as citizens and their interaction with the built environment. This article focuses on the extent to which youth participation is institutionalized in local government planning efforts in the United States and what explains this institutionalization. Consequently, what are the barriers and local attitudes towards youth participation? The primary data collection for this study is through an online survey that was sent to the census of California local governments. Results show that institutionalization of youth participation in local governance, through local prioritization of youth participation and emphasis of such participation in master plans, is low. Multiple linear regression is used to isolate the factors affecting institutionalization. Anticipated benefits are many, and barriers are primarily capacity related.     

Androgyny and the art of loving.

Argues that truly fulfilling sexual, loving relationships require the development of an intrapsychic self, best described as "androgynous." The maturest form of intimacy then would involve an ability to identify with and positively value those aspects of the self that have been culturally labeled "feminine" or "masculine" to allow for a more complete empathic connection with those "feminine" or "masculine" aspects of a love partner. Clinical examples are cited to demonstrate the inherent limitations of sex-appropriate gender/role identifications that are often pointed to as criteria for successful therapeutic outcomes in traditional schools of psychotherapy. (16 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Belle-DIRAC Setup for Using Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud

The Distributed Infrastructure with Remote Agent Control (DIRAC) software framework allows a user community to manage computing activities in a distributed environment. DIRAC has been developed within the Large Hadron Collider Beauty (LHCb) collaboration. After successful usage over several years, it is the final solution adopted by the experiment. The Belle experiment at the Japanese High Energy Accelerator Research Organization (KEK) has the purpose of studying matter/anti-matter asymmetries using B mesons. During its lifetime, Belle detector has collected about 5,000 terabytes of real and simulated data. The analysis of this data requires an enormous amount of computing intensive Monte Carlo simulation. The Belle II experiment, which recently published its technical design report, will produce 50 times more data. Therefore it is interested to determine if commercial computing clouds can reduce the total cost of the experiment’s computing solution. This paper describes the setup prepared to evaluate the performance and cost of this approach using real 2010 simulation tasks of the Belle experiment. The setup has been developed using DIRAC as the overall management tool to control both the tasks to be executed and the deployment of virtual machines using the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud as service provider. At the same time, DIRAC is also used to monitor the execution, collect the necessary statistical data, and finally upload the results of the simulation to Belle resources on the Grid. The results of a first test using over 2000 days of cpu time show that over 90% efficiency in the use of the resources can easily be achieved.     

The two-region multi-depot pickup and delivery problem

OR Spectrum - Logistics networks are constantly evolving such that new and more varied structures arise and need to be studied. Carriers are aiming for opportunities to save costs by efficient...