Does the association of risk factors and atherosclerosis change with age? An analysis of the combined ARIC and CHS cohorts. The Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) and Cardiovascular Health Study (CHS) investigators

INTRODUCTION: A decrease in the estimated relative risk of cerebrovascular and cardiovascular diseases associated with known disease risk factors has been observed among elderly cohorts, perhaps suggesting that continued risk factor management in the elderly may not be as efficacious as with younger age groups. In this paper, the differential magnitude of the association of risk factors with atherosclerosis across the age spectrum from 45 years to older than 75 years is presented. METHODS: Subclinical atherosclerosis as measured by carotid ultrasonography and risk factor prevalence were assessed using similar methods among participants aged 45 to 64 years in the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) study and among participants 65 years and older in the Cardiovascular Health Study (CHS). Pooling these two cohorts provided data on the relationship of risk factors and atherosclerosis on nearly 19,000 participants over a broad age range. Regression analyses were used to assess the consistency of the magnitude of the association of risk factors with atherosclerosis across the age spectrum separately for black and white participants in cross-sectional analyses. RESULTS: As expected, each of the risk factors was globally (across all ages) associated with increased atherosclerosis. However, the magnitude of the association did not differ across the age spectrum for hypertension, low density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-c), fibrinogen, or body mass index (BMI). For whites, there was a significantly greater impact of smoking and HDL-C among older age strata but a smaller impact of diabetes. For black women, the impact of HDL-C decreased among the older age strata. CONCLUSIONS: These data suggest that most risk factors continue to be associated with increased atherosclerosis at older ages, possibly suggesting a continued value in investigation of strategies to reduce atherosclerosis by controlling risk factors at older ages.     

Guidelines for evaluation of international emergency medicine assistance and development projects

Interest in the development of the specialty of emergency medicine and of emergency health care systems has greatly increased worldwide in the last few years. The guidelines in this article were developed in an effort to assist others in design and evaluation of all types of emergency medicine projects.     

Career development patterns of college women.

Ss were 306 women who had been college students in the mid-thirties and who had been studied 25 yrs later and reported on by D. P. Campbell (1965). They were assigned to 5 vocational pattern groups on the basis of their work histories. Of 29 characteristics that were analyzed statistically, 15 significantly discriminated among the 5 groups. A woman's career pattern could not be predicted from data available at the time she entered college but was predictable from other data known 5 yrs later. The most significant data were related to marital situation and education. (15 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Voltage polarity relay-optimal control of electrochemical ureaoxidation [hemodialysis application]

Voltage polarity relay (VPR) is shown to optimize the urea oxidation rate and urea current utilization under constant current conditions in direct electrochemical urea oxidation. Direct electrochemical urea oxidation is characterized by reversible deactivation of the working electrode due to oxidation products remaining on the surface and the requirement that the working electrode potential remain below about 1.1 V relative to Ag/AgCl in order to prevent undesirable secondary electrochemical oxidations. The VPR method monitors the potential of the working electrode relative to a suitable reference and changes system polarity when the upper potential set limit is reached. Thus, what was the working electrode becomes the counter electrode and vice versa. Since urea oxidation products are desorbed from the counter electrode when its potential drops below about -0.6 V relative to Ag/AgCl, alternating electrode functions between working and counter provides cyclic electrode regeneration and continuous urea oxidation. VPR is believed to optimize constant current control for any electrochemical system that exhibits behavior similar to direct electrochemical urea oxidation.     

Molecular surface recognition by a computer vision-based technique

Correct docking of a ligand onto a receptor surface is a complexproblem, involving geometry and chemistry. Geometrically acceptablesolutions require close contact between corresponding patchesof surfaces of the receptor and of the ligand and no overlapbetween the van der Waals spheres of the remainder of the receptorand ligand atoms. In the quest for favorable chemical interactions,the next step involves minimization of the energy between thedocked molecules. This work addresses the geometrical aspectof the problem. It is assumed that we have the atomic coordinatesof each of the molecules. In principle, since optimally matchingsurfaces are sought, the entire conformational space needs tobe considered. As the number of atoms residing on molecularsurfaces can be several hundred, sampling of all rotations andtranslations of every patch of a surface of one molecule withrespect to the other can reach immense proportions. The problemwe are faced with here is reminiscent of object recognitionproblems in computer vision. Here we borrow and adapt the geometrichashing paradigm developed in computer vision to a central problemin molecular biology. Using an indexing approach based on atransformation invariant representation, the algorithm efficientlyscans groups of surface dots (or atoms) and detects optimallymatched surfaces. Potential solutions displaying receptor-ligandatomic overlaps are discarded. Our technique has been appliedsuccessfully to seven cases involving docking of small molecules,where the structures of the receptor-ligand complexes are availablein the crystallo-graphk database and to three cases where thereceptors and ligands have been crystallized separately. Intwo of these three latter tests, the correct transformationshave been obtained.     

Some effects of position on opinion survey items.

Tested the effect of putting opinion survey items in different positions in a questionnnaire. Equivalent samples of 284 and 281 employees in an industrial corporation completed similar questionnaires in which the placement of 46 Likert-type items were reversed. Respondents answered with less extreme responses and were slightly more likely to omit replies when items were placed later in the questionnaire. Findings suggest that comparisons of responses to identical items used in different surveys may be misleading if they appeared in different position or context. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A solar heater for disinfesting stored cowpeas on subsistence farms

The construction and testing of a solar heater for eliminating Callosobruchus maculatus (F.) infestations in 50 kg cowpea bulks is described. Research station and on-farm experiments at four different sites in northern Cameroon demonstrated the effectiveness of the solar heater in eliminating C. maculatus infestations. The heaters made of solar radiation-absorbing black plastic covered with a sheet of clear plastic to trap the solar radiation attained temperatures lethal to C. maculatus larvae on four different test dates. On-farm tests coupled with farmer feedback provided evidence that these solar heaters are a practical and useful new approach to preserving cowpeas for use by low resource producers.