Pregnancy by Assisted Reproductive Technology Is Associated with Shorter Telomere Length in Neonates

Telomere length (TL) influences the development of lifestyle-related diseases, and neonatal TL may influence their prevalence. Various factors have been reported to affect neonatal TL. Although the fetus is exposed to multiple conditions in utero, the main factors affecting the shortening of neonatal TL are still not known. In this study, we sought to identify factors that influence fetal TL. A total of 578 mother-newborn pairs were included for TL analysis. TL was measured in genomic DNA extracted from cord blood samples using quantitative PCR. The clinical factors examined at enrollment included the following intrauterine environmental factors: maternal age, assisted reproductive technology (ART) used, body mass index (BMI), gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM), maternal stress, smoking, alcohol consumption, preterm delivery, small-for-gestational-age, neonatal sex, and placental weight. Univariate and multivariate regression analyses were used to verify the relationship between neonatal TL and these clinical factors. The median neonatal TL to single-copy gene ratio was 1.0. Pregnancy with ART was among the 11 factors associated with shorter neonatal TL. From multiple regression analysis, we determined that neonatal TL was significantly shorter for pregnancies in the ART group than in the other groups. We conclude that pregnancy with ART is associated with shorter neonatal TL.     

Caffeic Acid Enhances the Anti-Leukemic Effect of Imatinib on Chronic Myeloid Leukemia Cells and Triggers Apoptosis in Cells Sensitive and Resistant to Imatinib

Among the phenolic acids tested on the K562 cell line, a model of chronic myeloid leukemia (CML), caffeic acid (CA) was biologically active on sensitive and imatinib (IM)-resistant cells at micro-molar concentration, either in terms of reduction of cell proliferation or triggering of apoptosis. The CA treatment provoked mitochondrial membrane depolarization, genomic DNA fragmentation and phosphatidylserine exposure, hallmarks of apoptosis. Cell cycle analysis following the treatment with comparable cytotoxic concentrations of IM or CA showed marked differences in the distribution profiles. The reduction of cell proliferation by CA administration was associated with increased expression of two cell cycle repressor genes, CDKN1A and CHES1, while IM at a cytotoxic concentration increased the CHES1 but not the CDKN1A expression. In addition, CA treatment affected the proliferation and triggered the apoptosis in IM-resistant cells. Taken together, these data suggested that CA induced the anti-proliferative effect and triggered apoptosis of CML cells by a different mechanism than IM. Finally, the combined administration of IM and CA at suboptimal concentrations evidenced a synergy of action in determining the anti-proliferative effect and triggering apoptosis. The ability of CA to potentiate the anti-leukemic effect of IM highlighted the nutraceutical potential of CA in CML.     

Impacts of automatic control systems of loop restoration scheme on the distribution system reliability

Loop restoration scheme (LRS) is a special feeder automation (FA) scheme, which is used by utilities to improve distribution system reliability. The LRS is controlled and managed by its automatic control system (ACS). The impacts on distribution system reliability indices of implementing LRS mainly depend on the type of its ACS. Two common types of ACS of LRS are presented and used in this study. Successful operation of ACS is dependent on the protection and automatic control functions of switching devices of LRS. Different failure modes of these switching devices can therefore affect the procedure of ACS in fault detecting, isolating and service restoration. The impacts of failure of protection and automatic control functions of switching devices and fuse of lateral distributors on reliability indices are illustrated. The worth of implementing LRS and its ACS type is represented by the reduction in expected customer interruption cost. A distribution test system is utilised to examine the impacts of two common types of ACS of LRS on the distribution system reliability. Selecting the type of ACS of LRS by utilities relies on the desired level of load-point and system reliability improvement. This study aims to quantitatively assess the impacts of two common types of ACS of LRS on the distribution system reliability.     

Citizens’ Adoption Behavior of Mobile Government (mGov): A Cross-Cultural Study

This study aims to address the paradigms of consumers’ adoption behavior for mobile government, posits the factors which pursue citizens’ intention to adopt mobile government services, and reveals the impact of cultural dimensions in perceiving driving factors of mobile government adoption. The mobile government adoption model was developed and tested among users of three different countries, namely Bangladesh, Canada, and Germany. The finding suggests the rationale that cross-cultural differences impact consumers’ perception of mobile government adoption behavior.     

Effect of steel fiber on the mechanical properties of oil palm shell lightweight concrete

This paper reports the results of a study conducted to investigate the effect of low volume content of steel fiber on the slump, density, compressive strength under different curing conditions, splitting tensile strength, flexural strength and modulus of elasticity of a grade 35 oil palm shell (OPS) lightweight concrete mixture. The results indicate that an increase in steel fiber decreased the workability and increased the density. All the mechanical properties except the modulus of elasticity (E) improved significantly. The 28 day compressive strength of steel fiber OPS lightweight concrete in continuously moist curing was in the range of 41–45 MPa. The splitting tensile/compressive and the flexural/compressive strength ratio for plain OPS concrete are comparable with artificial lightweight aggregate. The (E) value measured in this study was about 15.5 GPa on average for all mixes, which is higher than previous studies and is in the range of normal weight concrete. Steel fiber can be used as an alternative material to reduce the sensitivity of OPS concrete in poor curing environments.     

Accelerated multi-contrast high isotropic resolution 3D intracranial vessel wall MRI using a tailored k-space undersampling and partially parallel reconstruction strategy

Objective

To develop a 3D multi-contrast IVW protocol with 0.5-mm isotropic resolution and a scan time of 5 min per sequence.

Materials and methods

Pre-contrast T1w VISTA, DANTE prepared PDw VISTA, SNAP, and post-contrast T1w VISTA were accelerated using cartesian undersampling with target ordering method (CUSTOM) and self-supporting tailored k-space estimation for parallel imaging reconstruction (STEP). CUSTOM + STEP IVW was compared to full-sample IVW, SENSE-accelerated IVW, and CUSTOM + zero-filled Fourier reconstruction in normal volunteers and subjects with intracranial atherosclerotic disease (ICAD). Image quality, vessel delineation, CSF suppression, and blood suppression were compared.

Results

CUSTOM + STEP vessel wall delineation was comparable to full-sample IVW and better than SENSE IVW for vessel wall delineation on T1w VISTA and luminal contrast on SNAP. Average image quality and wall depiction were significantly improved using STEP reconstruction compared with zero-filled Fourier reconstruction, with no significant difference in CSF or blood suppression.

Conclusions

CUSTOM + STEP allowed multi-contrast 3D 0.5-mm isotropic IVW within 30 min. Although some quantitative and qualitative scores for CUSTOM − STEP were lower than fully sampled IVW, CUSTOM + STEP provided comparable vessel wall delineation as full-sample IVW and was superior to SENSE. CUSTOM + STEP IVW was well tolerated by patients and showed good delineation of ICAD plaque.

     

ATC enhancement using TCSC via artificial intelligent techniques

Procurement of optimum available transfer capability (ATC) in the restructured electricity industry is a crucial challenge with regards to open access to transmission network. This paper presents an approach to determine the optimum location and optimum capacity of TCSC in order to improve ATC as well as voltage profile. Real genetic algorithm (RGA) associated with analytical hierarchy process (AHP) and fuzzy sets are implemented as a hybrid heuristic technique in this paper to optimize such a complicated problem. The effectiveness of the proposed methodology is examined through different case studies.     

Customer choice of reliability in spinning reserve procurement and cost allocation using well-being analysis

A novel pool-based market-clearing algorithm for spinning reserve (SR) procurement and the cost allocation associated with provision of spinning reserve among customers (DisCos) is developed in this paper. Rational buyer market model is used to clear energy and spinning reserve markets in the proposed algorithm. This market model gives DisCos the opportunity to declare their own energy requirement together with their desired reliability levels to the ISO and also they can participate in the SR market as a interruptible load. The DisCos’ desired reliability levels are selected from a hybrid deterministic/probabilistic framework designated as the system well-being model. Using the demand of each DisCo and its associated desired reliability level, the overall desired system reliability level is determined. The market operator then purchases spinning reserve commodity from the associated market such that the overall desired system reliability level is satisfied. A methodology is developed in this paper to fairly allocate the cost associated with providing spinning reserve among DisCos based on their demands and desired reliability levels. An algorithm is also presented in this paper for implementing the proposed approach. The effectiveness of the proposed technique is examined using the IEEE-RTS.