Smoking and relative body weight: An international perspective from the WHO MONICA project

Study objective-To investigate the magnitude and consistency of the associations between smoking and body mass index (BMI) in different populations. Design-A cross sectional study. Setting and participants-About 69000 men and women aged 35-64 years from 42 populations participating in the first WHO MONICA survey in the early and mid 1980s. Main restults-Compared to never smokers, regular smokers had significantly (p < 0.05) lower median BMI in 20 (men) and 30 (women) out of 42 populations (range -2.9 to 0.5kg/m(2)). There was no population in which smokers had a significantly higher BMI than never smokers. Among men, the association between leanness and smoking was less apparent in populations with relatively low proportions of regular smokers and high proportions of ex-smokers. Ex-smokers had significantly higher BMI than never smokers in 10 of the male populations but in women no consistent pattern was observed. Adjustment for socioeconomic status did not affect these results. Conclusions-Although in most populations the association between smoking and BMI is similar, the magnitude of this association may be affected by the proportions of smokers and ex-smokers in these populations.

Streptokinase and Enoxaparin as an Alternative to Fibrin-Specific Lytic-Based Regimens An ExTRACT-TIMI 25 Analysis

Background: Enoxaparin was superior to unfractionated heparin (UFH), regardless of fibrinolytic agent in ST-elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) patients receiving fibrinolytic therapy in ExTRACT-TIMI 25 (Enoxaparin and Thrombolysis Reperfusion for Acute Myocardial Infarction Treatment Thrombolysis in Myocardial Infarction 25) trial. Objective: This post hoc analysis compared outcomes with streptokinase plus enoxaparin to the standard regimen of fibrin-specific lytic (FSL) plus UFH and to the newer combination of FSL plus enoxaparin. Methods: In ExTRACT-TIMI 25, STEMI patients received either streptokinase or a FSL (alteplase, reteplase or tenecteplase) at the physician`s discretion and were randomized to enoxaparin or UFH, stratified by fibrinolytic type. Thirty-day outcomes were adjusted for baseline characteristics, region, in-hospital percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) and a propensity score for the choice of lytic. Results: The primary trial endpoint of 30-day death/myocardial infarction (MI) occurred in fewer patients in the streptokinase-enoxaparin cohort (n = 2083) compared with FSL-UFH (n = 8141) [10.2% vs 12.0%, adjusted odds ratio [OR(adj)] 0.76; 95% CI 0.62, 0.93; p = 0.008]. Major bleeding was significantly increased with streptokinase-enoxaparin compared with FSL-UFH (ORadj 2.74; 95% CI 1.81; 4.14; p < 0.001) but intracranial haemorrhage (ICH) was similar (OR(adj) 0.90; 95% CI 0.40, 2.01; p = 0.79). Net clinical outcomes, defined as either death/MI/major bleeding or as death/MI/ICH tended to favour streptokinase-enoxaparin compared with FSL-UFH (OR(adj) 0.88; 95% CI 0.73, 1.06; p = 0.17; and OR(adj) 0.77; 95% CI 0.63, 0.93; p = 0.008, respectively). Patients receiving FSL-enoxaparin (n = 8142) and streptokinase-enoxaparin therapies experienced similar adjusted rates of the primary endpoint (OR(adj) 1.08; 95% CI 0.87, 1.32; p = 0.49) and net clinical outcomes. Conclusions: Our results suggest that fibrinolytic therapy with the combination of streptokinase and the potent anticoagulant agent enoxaparin resulted in similar adjusted outcomes compared with more costly regimens utilizing a FSL.

Young people's beliefs about intergenerational communication - An initial cross-cultural comparison

This article examines young people's perceptions of their conversations with older people (age 65-85) across nine cultures-five Eastern and four Western. Responses from more than 1,000 participants were entered into a cross-national factor analysis, which revealed four initial factors that underlie perceptions of intergenerational conversations. Elder nonaccommodation was when young participants reported that older people negatively stereotyped the young and did not attend to their communication needs. On the other hand, elder accommodation was when older people were perceived as supportive, attentive and generally encouraging to young people. A third factor was respect/obligation and a fourth factor labeled age-irrelevant positivity described a situation where young people felt conversations with much older people were emotionally positive and satisfying, age did not matter: Examining cross-cultural differences, some East versus West differences were observed, as might be expected, on the basis of simplistic accounts of Eastern collectivism versus Western individualism. However the results challenge commonsense notions of the status of old age in Eastern versus Western cultures. On some dimensions, participants from Korea, Japan, People's Republic of China, Hong Kong, and the Philippines appear to have relatively less positive perceptions of their conversations with older people than the Western cultures-the United States, Australia, New Zealand and Canada. But there was also evidence of considerable cultural variability, particularly among Eastern cultures-variability that has heretofore all too often been glossed over when global comparisons of East versus West are made. A range of explanations for these cultural differences is explored and implications for older people in these societies are also considered.

The structure of a novel insecticidal neurotoxin, omega-atracotoxin-HV1, from the venom of an Australian funnel web spider

A family of potent insecticidal toxins has recently been isolated from the venom of Australian funnel web spiders. Among these is the 37-residue peptide omega-atracotoxin-HV1 (omega-ACTX-HV1) from Hadronyche versuta. We have chemically synthesized and folded omega-ACTX-HV1, shown that it is neurotoxic, ascertained its disulphide bonding pattern, and determined its three-dimensional solution structure using NMR spectroscopy. The structure consists of a solvent-accessible beta-hairpin protruding from a disulphide-bonded globular core comprising four beta-turns. The three intramolecular disulphide bonds form a cystine knot motif similar to that seen in several other neurotoxic peptides. Despite limited sequence identity, omega-ACTX-HV1 displays significant structural homology with the omega-agatoxins and omega-conotoxins, both of which are vertebrate calcium channel antagonists; however, in contrast with these toxins, we show that omega-ACTX-HV1 inhibits insect, but not mammalian, voltage-gated calcium channel currents.

Metabolic syndrome determinants in an urban population from Brazil: Social class and gender-specific interaction

Introduction: The metabolic syndrome (MS) is characterized by multiple cardiovascular risk factors such as central obesity, arterial hypertension, dislipidemia and hyperinsulinemia and is associated with a higher incidence of cardiovascular events and mortality. The aim of the present work is to describe the prevalence of MS in an urban population from a highly admixed developing country and to characterize the different correlations between this diagnosis, cardiovascular risk factors and demographic variables distributed in this population. Materials and methods: A cross-sectional study of risk factors for cardiovascular diseases was performed in the urban population of Vitoria, Brazil (n= 1507). Major cardiovascular risk factors such as smoking habits, alcohol intake, amount of physical activity, diabetes and hypertension were inquired. Blood biochemical assays were performed by standard techniques in 12 h fasting blood sample and Metabolic Syndrome (MS) was characterizes following the ATP III criteria. Results: The analysis of 1507 individuals showed a 25.43% general prevalence of MS without any significant difference between sexes, but a clear relation of the prevalence with progressing age (p=<0.0001). Even though both sexes showed similar prevalence rates, distribution of risk factors that defined MS was different between men and women, with the prevalence of hypertension, fasting hyperglycemia and hypertriglyceridemia being higher in men. Race was not an important risk factor for MS in this population as opposed to social economic class that was highly associated with the risk of MS in women as their social class was lower, but not in men. Conclusion: This cross-sectional study from a large urban population in Brazil showed a high general prevalence of MS (25.4%), which is increased as the population becomes older (especially in women) and poorer. Although prevalence was very similar in both genders, the frequency of components defining the syndrome varied greatly amongst them. In particular, a significant interaction between gender and social class was observed and may shed light in our understanding of the complex interplay between demographic and biological risk factors for metabolic syndrome. (C) 2007 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

An epidemic of violence?: Changing patterns in reported rapes in Victoria

Victoria Police statistics show that, since the late 1980s, there has been a significant increase in reported rapes in that State. One interpretation of this trend is that there has been an increase in the underlying incidence of sexual violence in the community. An alternative explanation is that rape victims have become more willing to report to the police, in response to factors such as improved provision of support services to sexual assault victims, reforms to substantive and procedural law, and changes in police attitudes and procedures. In order to rest these competing interpretations data were collected and analysed on the characteristics of rapes reported to the Victoria Police in the late 1980s/early 1990s. This analysis showed that: (I) most of the additional offences reported in the early 1990s were allegations of rapes committed by family members, spouses and other intimates; and (2) an increasing number of reports related to offences which had been committed at feast one year prior to a report being made to the police. It is argued that these changing patterns are consistent with a significant increase in the reporting rate for rape. More generally, the research reported in this paper highlights the limitations of reported crime statistics as measures of the level of social violence, and points to the need for crime researchers to develop alternative methodologies for measuring and interpreting trends.

Kinetics of elimination and distribution in blood and liver of biocompatible ferrofluids based on Fe(3)O(4) nanoparticles: An EPR and XRF study

In this study, we evaluated the biodistribution and the elimination kinetics of a biocompatible magnetic fluid, Endorem (TM), based on dextrancoated Fe(3)O(4) nanoparticles endovenously injected into Winstar rats. The iron content in blood and liver samples was recorded using electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) and X-ray fluorescence (XRF) techniques. The EPR line intensity at g=2.1 was found to be proportional to the concentration of magnetic nanoparticles and the best temperature for spectra acquisition was 298 K. Both EPR and XRF analysis indicated that the maximum concentration of iron in the liver occurred 95 min after the ferrofluid administration. The half-life of the magnetic nanoparticles (MNP) in the blood was (11.6 +/- 0.6) min measured by EPR and (12.6 +/- 0.6) min determined by XRF. These results indicate that both EPR and XRF are very useful and appropriate techniques for the study of kinetics of ferrofluid elimination and biodistribution after its administration into the organism. (c) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Analyzing the connectivity between regions of interest: An approach based on cluster Granger causality for NRI data analysis

The identification, modeling, and analysis of interactions between nodes of neural systems in the human brain have become the aim of interest of many studies in neuroscience. The complex neural network structure and its correlations with brain functions have played a role in all areas of neuroscience, including the comprehension of cognitive and emotional processing. Indeed, understanding how information is stored, retrieved, processed, and transmitted is one of the ultimate challenges in brain research. In this context, in functional neuroimaging, connectivity analysis is a major tool for the exploration and characterization of the information flow between specialized brain regions. In most functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies, connectivity analysis is carried out by first selecting regions of interest (ROI) and then calculating an average BOLD time series (across the voxels in each cluster). Some studies have shown that the average may not be a good choice and have suggested, as an alternative, the use of principal component analysis (PCA) to extract the principal eigen-time series from the ROI(s). In this paper, we introduce a novel approach called cluster Granger analysis (CGA) to study connectivity between ROIs. The main aim of this method was to employ multiple eigen-time series in each ROI to avoid temporal information loss during identification of Granger causality. Such information loss is inherent in averaging (e.g., to yield a single ""representative"" time series per ROI). This, in turn, may lead to a lack of power in detecting connections. The proposed approach is based on multivariate statistical analysis and integrates PCA and partial canonical correlation in a framework of Granger causality for clusters (sets) of time series. We also describe an algorithm for statistical significance testing based on bootstrapping. By using Monte Carlo simulations, we show that the proposed approach outperforms conventional Granger causality analysis (i.e., using representative time series extracted by signal averaging or first principal components estimation from ROIs). The usefulness of the CGA approach in real fMRI data is illustrated in an experiment using human faces expressing emotions. With this data set, the proposed approach suggested the presence of significantly more connections between the ROIs than were detected using a single representative time series in each ROI. (c) 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Subclavian Vein an Unusual Access for the Removal of Intravascular Foreign Bodies

Catheter migration or catheter fracture and consequent migration of a fragment is a rare complication that occurs in 1% of the patients. Despite the low incidence, embolization may cause severe and potentially fatal complications, with the mortality rates varying between 24 and 60%. The gold standard treatment for this condition is the extraction of the fragmented catheter by the intravascular percutaneous route, through the common femoral vein. If it is not available, the extraction procedure must be performed through an alternative access. This article describes a fully successful removal of a fragmented catheter by percutaneous intravascular access obtained through the right subclavian vein.

Helminthic Diseases in the Abdomen: An Epidemiologic and Radiologic Overview

Helminthic diseases have a worldwide distribution. They affect billions of people in endemic areas and can result in serious clinical complications. Some parasites have a human gastrointestinal life cycle with resultant abdominal manifestations. However, the symptoms of helminthic diseases are usually nonspecific. Radiologic imaging, along with the identification of risk factors, may help narrow the differential diagnosis. To avoid diagnostic delays, radiologists should be familiar with the geographic distribution, transmission cycle, and characteristic and atypical manifestations of common helminthic diseases at abdominal imaging with radiography, computed tomography, magnetic resonance imaging, and ultrasonography. Awareness of the clinical, epidemiologic, and pathogenic characteristics of these diseases also may be helpful for narrowing the diagnosis when imaging features are nonspecific. (c) RSNA, 2010 . radiographics.rsna.org

Could the treatment of differentiated thyroid carcinoma with 3.7 and 5.55 GBq of ((131)I)NaI, on an outpatient basis, be safe?

Objectives The first objective of this study was to evaluate the radiological impact on relatives and the environment because of outpatient treatment of differentiated thyroid carcinoma with 3.7 and 5.55 GBq of ((131)I)NaI. The second objective was to determine, analyze, and evaluate whole-body radiation dose to caregivers, the production of contaminated solid waste, and the potentiality of radiation dose and surface contamination existing inside patients` households. Methods Twenty patients were treated on an outpatient basis, taking into consideration their acceptable living conditions, interests, and willingness to comply with medical and radiation-safety guidelines. The caregivers themselves, as well as the potentiality of the radiation dose inside patients` residences, were monitored with a thermo-luminescence dosimeter. Surface contamination and contaminated solid wastes were identified and measured by using a Geiger-Muller detector. Results and discussion Twenty-six monitored individuals received accumulated effective radiation doses of less than 1.0 mSv, and only one 2.8 mSv, throughout the 7 days of measurement. The maximum registered value for the potential of radiation dose inside all living areas was 1.30 mSv. The monitored surface contamination inside patients` dwellings showed a mean value of 4.2 Bq/cm(2) for all surfaces found to be contaminated. A total of 2.5l of contaminated solid waste was generated by the patients with 3.33 MBq of all estimated activity. Conclusion This study revealed that the treatment of differentiated thyroid carcinoma with 3.7 and 5.55 GBq of ((131)I)NaI, on an outpatient basis, can be safe when overseen by qualified professionals and with an adapted radiation-protection guideline. Even considering the radioiodine activity level and the dosimetric methodology applied here, negligible human exposure and a nonmeasurable radiological impact to the human environment were found. Nucl Med Commun 30:533-541 (C) 2009 Wolters Kluwer Health vertical bar Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.

An fMRI Normative Database for Connectivity Networks Using One-Class Support Vector Machines

The application of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in neuroscience studies has increased enormously in the last decade. Although primarily used to map brain regions activated by specific stimuli, many studies have shown that fMRI can also be useful in identifying interactions between brain regions (functional and effective connectivity). Despite the widespread use of fMRI as a research tool, clinical applications of brain connectivity as studied by fMRI are not well established. One possible explanation is the lack of normal pattern, and intersubject variability-two variables that are still largely uncharacterized in most patient populations of interest. In the current study, we combine the identification of functional connectivity networks extracted by using Spearman partial correlation with the use of a one-class support vector machine in order construct a normative database. An application of this approach is illustrated using an fMRI dataset of 43 healthy Subjects performing a visual working memory task. In addition, the relationships between the results obtained and behavioral data are explored. Hum Brain Mapp 30:1068-1076, 2009. (C) 2008 Wiley-Liss. Inc.

Whale sharks in Ningaloo Marine Park: managing tourism in an Australian marine protected area

The whale shark is the largest fish in the ocean, A tourism industry based on interacting with whale sharks has developed recently in Ningaloo Marine Park, off the coast of Western Australia, This is the only known, accessible place in the world where whale sharks congregate in significant numbers, Results from surveys of participants in the 'whale shark experience' are reported, with the experience found to be extremely satisfying for most consumers, Yet management questions relating to diver-to-shark separation distances, the appropriate number of operators, and the use of regulation, self-regulation and economic instruments, remain, The nexus between experiential aspects of the whale shark attraction and such management concerns is examined, and the usefulness of appropriate research in resolving management questions established, It is concluded that a judicious combination of management approaches is required to ensure the sustainable development of the whale shark tourism industry. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd.

Models of alcohol use by young adults: An examination of various attitude-behavior theories

Objective: The aim of this study was to test the effectiveness of various attitude-behavior theories in explaining alcohol use among young adults. The theory of reasoned action (TRA), the theory of planned behavior and an extension of the TRA that incorporates past behavior were compared by the method of maximum-likelihood estimation, as implemented in LISREL for Windows 8.12. Method: Respondents consisted of 122 university students (82 female) who were questioned about their attitudes, subjective norms, perceived behavioral control, past behavior and intentions relating to drinking behavior. Students received course credit for their participation in the research. Results: Overall, the results suggest that the extension of the theory of reasoned action which incorporates past behavior provides the best fit to the data. For these young adults, their intentions to drink alcohol were predicted by their past behavior as well as their perceptions of what important others think they should do (subjective norm). Conclusions: The main conclusions drawn from the research concern the importance of focusing on normative influences and past behavior in explaining young adult alcohol use. Issues regarding the relative merit of various alternative models and the need for greater clarity in the measure of attitudes are also discussed.

Forecasting regional crop production using SOI phases: an example for the Australian peanut industry

Using peanuts as an example, a generic methodology is presented to forward-estimate regional crop production and associated climatic risks based on phases of the Southern Oscillation Index (SOI). Yield fluctuations caused by a highly variable rainfall environment are of concern to peanut processing and marketing bodies. The industry could profitably use forecasts of likely production to adjust their operations strategically. Significant, physically based lag-relationships exist between an index of ocean/atmosphere El Nino/Southern Oscillation phenomenon and future rainfall in Australia and elsewhere. Combining knowledge of SOI phases in November and December with output from a dynamic simulation model allows the derivation of yield probability distributions based on historic rainfall data. This information is available shortly after planting a crop and at least 3-5 months prior to harvest. The study shows that in years when the November-December SOI phase is positive there is an 80% chance of exceeding average district yields. Conversely, in years when the November-December SOI phase is either negative or rapidly falling there is only a 5% chance of exceeding average district yields, but a 95% chance of below average yields. This information allows the industry to adjust strategically for the expected volume of production. The study shows that simulation models can enhance SOI signals contained in rainfall distributions by discriminating between useful and damaging rainfall events. The methodology can be applied to other industries and regions.