Prevalence of heart failure and systolic ventricular dysfunction in older Australians: the Canberra Heart Study

Objective: To estimate the prevalence of heart failure (HF) and left ventricular (LV) systolic dysfunction in a population-based sample of older Australians. Design, setting and participants: A cross-sectional survey of 2000 randomly selected residents of Canberra, aged 60-86 years, conducted between February 2002 and June 2003. Participants were assessed by history, physical examination by a cardiologist, and echocardiography. Main outcome measures: Age- and sex-specific prevalence rates of clinical HF and LV systolic dysfunction (defined as LV ejection fraction

Quantification of cellulase activity using cellulose-azure

Despite wide application of cellulose-azure as a substrate for measuring cellulase activity, there is no quantification of hydrolysis rate or enzymatic activities using this substrate. The aim of this study was to quantify the hydrolysis rate in terms of product formation and dye released using cellulose-azure. The amount of dye released was correlated with the production of glucose and the enzyme concentrations. It is shown that the lack of correlation can be due to (1) repression of the release of the azure-dye when azure-dye accumulates, (2) presence of degradable substrates in the cellulase powder which inflate the glucose measurements and (3) the degradation of cellulose which is not linked to the dye in the cellulose-azure. Based on the lack of correlation, it is recommended that cellulose-azure should only be applied in assays when the aim is to compare relative activities of different enzymatic systems. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Growth hormone as a cytokine

1. The growth hormone (GH) receptor was the first of the class 1 cytokine receptors to be cloned. It shares a number of structural characteristics with other family members and common signalling mechanisms based on common usage of the Janus kinase 2 (JAK2). 2. Growth hormone receptor activation is initiated by GH-induced homodimerization of receptor molecules. This has enabled the creation of specific hormone antagonists that block receptor dimerization. 3. The details of the transcription factors used by the activated receptor are being revealed as a result of promoter analyses and electrophoretic mobility gelshift analysis. 4. Growth hormone receptors are widespread and their discovery in certain tissues has led to the assignment of new physiological roles for GH, Some of these involve local or paracrine roles for GH, as befits its cytokine status. 5. Four examples of such novel roles are discussed, These are: (i) the brain GH axis; (ii) GH and the vitamin B-12 axis; (iii) GH in early pre-implantation development; and (iv) GH in development of the tooth. 6. We propose that the view that GH acts through the intermediacy of insulin-like growth factor-1 is simplistic; rather, GH acts to induce an array of growth factors and their receptors and the composition of this array varies with tissue type and, probably, stage of development.

Indoor antenna diversity testbed

This paper presents a high precision testbed for evaluating antenna diversity techniques in an indoor environment. Details concerning mechanical, electrical and electronics hardware and associated measurement software are described. Initial measurement results for two Bluetooth modules operating with co-polar and cross-polar monopole antennas in the ISM 2.4 GHz band are given.