Association between circulating irisin levels and epicardial fat in patients with treatment-naïve overt hyperthyroidism

Abstract

Background: Hyperthyroidism is associated with increased metabolic activity and thermogenesis. Irisin is a key molecule in thermogenesis and energy expenditure via adipose tissue browning. Epicardial fat was previously defined as brown-like fat. Thus, here we aimed to evaluate the association between serum irisin level and epicardial fat thickness (EFT) in patients with hyperthyroidism.

Methods: A total of 25 hyperthyroid patients and 24 age-, sex- and BMI-matched healthy controls were enrolled. Serum irisin levels, thyroid hormone levels, and body compositions were compared. EFT was measured via transthoracic echocardiography.

Results: Serum irisin level and EFT were significantly higher in the hyperthyroid group (p?<?0.001 and p?=?0.001, respectively). The distributions of fat-free mass, muscle mass and fat mass were similar between the study groups. Serum irisin level was negatively correlated with TSH (p?<?0.001) and positively correlated with fT3 (p?<?0.001), fT4 (p?<?0.001) and TSH receptor antibody (p?=?0.002) levels and EFT (p?=?0.001). In multivariate linear regression analysis, TSH (β?=??0.475, p?<?0.001) and EFT (β?=?0.290, p?=?0.023) levels were significantly associated with serum irisin levels.

Conclusions: An increased serum irisin level associated with EFT might contribute to metabolic derangement in hyperthyroidism. Further studies are needed to elucidate whether irisin levels and EFT are affected by hyperthyroidism or vice versa.     

Healthcare Failure Mode and Effects Analysis Under Fuzziness

Failure modes and effects analysis (FMEA) is a step-by-step approach for identifying all possible failures in a design, a manufacturing or assembly process, or a product or service. The purpose of the FMEA is to take actions to eliminate or reduce failures, starting with the highest-priority ones. This article presents a basis for prioritizing the healthcare problems using FMEA with linguistic variables and fuzzy if–then rules. Severity rating of healthcare problems is handled under the categories of catastrophic, major, moderate, and minor events. MATLAB 2007 is used to obtain the results of fuzzy if–then rules for prioritizing healthcare failures. A numerical example is given for four possible healthcare problems to be prioritized, which are wrong patient, delay in therapy, wrong analgesic selection, and wrong drug.     

EXTRACELLULAR LIPOLYTIC ENZYME ACTIVITY OF A NEWLY ISOLATED DEBARYOMYCES HANSENII

A strain isolated from waste of a milk products plant and exhibited extracellular lipolytic activity was identified as Debaryomyces hansenii by 5.8S rRNA and 28S rRNA gene sequence analyses. Lipolytic activity was assayed spectrophotometrically by using p-nitrophenylpalmitate. Higher specific lipolytic activities were obtained in the presence of tristearin (0.68 U/mg prot), oleic acid (0.56 U/mg prot), and soybean oil (0.36 U/mg prot) than other triglycerides, fatty acids, and vegetable oils considered as carbon sources. Cheese whey appeared to be a good alternative to lipidic substances for lipolytic activity. Among various organic and inorganic nitrogen sources, soy flour was found to attain the lipolytic activity similar to that provided by universal yeast medium components. This work is the first report on the discussion of lipolytic activity enhancement by D. hansenii through modulating the cultivation medium. It also proposes low cost medium nutrients that could be of industrial value and could serve as basal nutrients for further optimization studies on the lipase production by D. hansenii.     

Determination of terminal glycan and total monosaccharide profiles of reelin glycoprotein in SH-SY5Y neuroblastoma cell line by lectin blotting and capillary liquid chromatography electrospray ionization-ion trap tandem mass spectrometry system

Reelin (400 kDa) is an extracellular matrix glycoprotein that is a key regulator of the many significant biological processes including the brain formation, cell aggregation, and dendrite formation. The glycosylation contributes to the nature of the protein through folding, localization and trafficking, solubility, antigenicity, biological activity, and half-life. Although reelin is to be known as a glycoprotein, the knowledge of its glycosylation is very limited. In this study, we aimed to characterize the terminal glycan profile of reelin by lectin blotting and monosaccharide analysis of glycan chains by capillary liquid chromatography electrospray ionization ion trap tandem mass spectrometry (CapLC-ESI-MS/MS) in SH-SY5Y neuroblastoma cell line. According to our results, reelin was detected in different protein fragments (310, 250, and 85 kDa) in addition to full-length form (400 kDa) in the cell line. The reelin glycoprotein was found to carry the β-N-Acetylglucosamine, α-Mannose, β-Galactose, and α-2,3 and α2,6 linked sialic acids by lectin blotting. Nevertheless, these terminal monosaccharides were found in different intensity according to reelin fragments. Besides, we purified a reelin fragment (250 kDa), and we analyzed it for their monosaccharide by CapLC-ESI-MS/MS. We found that reelin contained five types of monosaccharides, which were consisted of N-Acetylgalactosamine, N-Acetylglucosamine, Galactose, Glucose, Mannose and Sialic acid, from high to low abundance respectively. The present results provide a valuable guide for biochemical, genetic, and glycobiology based further experiments about reelin glycosylation in cancer perspective.     

Analysis of coronary angiography related psychophysiological responses

Background

Numerous studies have been conducted regarding a heartbeat classification algorithm over the past several decades. However, many algorithms have also been studied to acquire robust performance, as biosignals have a large amount of variation among individuals. Various methods have been proposed to reduce the differences coming from personal characteristics, but these expand the differences caused by arrhythmia.

Methods

In this paper, an arrhythmia classification algorithm using a dedicated wavelet adapted to individual subjects is proposed. We reduced the performance variation using dedicated wavelets, as in the ECG morphologies of the subjects. The proposed algorithm utilizes morphological filtering and a continuous wavelet transform with a dedicated wavelet. A principal component analysis and linear discriminant analysis were utilized to compress the morphological data transformed by the dedicated wavelets. An extreme learning machine was used as a classifier in the proposed algorithm.

Results

A performance evaluation was conducted with the MIT-BIH arrhythmia database. The results showed a high sensitivity of 97.51%, specificity of 85.07%, accuracy of 97.94%, and a positive predictive value of 97.26%.

Conclusions

The proposed algorithm achieves better accuracy than other state-of-the-art algorithms with no intrasubject between the training and evaluation datasets. And it significantly reduces the amount of intervention needed by physicians.     

Trans-Kemalism: the politics of the Turkish state in the diaspora

Abstract

In contrast to the huge amount of research on Turkish migration and migrants, the diasporic politics of the Turkish Kemalist state constitutes a neglected research subject in the scholarship on Turkish diaspora. How does the Turkish state reach out to its nationals and expatriates abroad? In what ways does the Turkish Republic seek to make Islam (as it does in Turkey) into an instrument legitimizing its politicizing and mobilizing enterprises? To explore these questions, this article investigates the long-distance Kemalism engaged in by the Turkish state to Turkify and secularize its nationals in the diaspora, using its activities in Australia as its case study. In sketching out trans-Kemalism's dimensions, the analysis directs attention to the intimate relationship between the political and religious fields of transnationalism manufactured by the state. The paper concludes that the intense political polarization in Turkey in the present makes the future of trans-Kemalism abroad somewhat uncertain.     

Immobilization of nisin producer Lactococcus lactis strains to chitin with surface-displayed chitin-binding domain

In this study, nisin producer Lactococcus lactis strains displaying cell surface chitin-binding domain (ChBD) and capable of immobilizing to chitin flakes were constructed. To obtain ChBD-based cell immobilization, Usp45 signal sequence with ChBD of chitinase A1 enzyme from Bacillus circulans was fused with different lengths of PrtP (153, 344, and 800 aa) or AcmA (242 aa) anchors derived from L. lactis. According to the whole cell ELISA analysis, ChBD was successfully expressed on the surface of L. lactis cells. Scanning electron microscope observations supported the conclusion of the binding analysis that L. lactis cells expressing the ChBD with long PrtP anchor (800 aa) did bind to chitin surfaces more efficiently than cells with the other ChBD anchors. The attained binding affinity of nisin producers for chitin flakes retained them in the fermentation during medium changes and enabled storage for sequential productions. Initial nisin production was stably maintained with many cycles. These results demonstrate that an efficient immobilization of L. lactis cells to chitin is possible for industrial scale repeated cycle or continuous nisin fermentation.     

Prostate specific antigen levels after acute myocardial infarction

Prostate Specific Antigen (PSA), a member of kallikrein family, is a specific serine protease of prostatic tissue. In some case reports, changes in PSA levels after acute myocardial infarction (AMI) have been reported. In this study we evaluated variations in PSA levels post-AMI. Twenty-six male patients who had PSA levels within reference limits were included in the study. The diagnosis of AMI was confirmed by clinical findings, ECG (electrocardiogram) and cardiac marker studies. Serum total PSA (tPSA) and free PSA (fPSA) levels were measured at days 0 (day of admission), 1, 2 and 3 after AMI. PSA/albumin ratio was also calculated in order to evaluate the effect of dilution. A statistical analysis of the results of all patients revealed significant decrease in tPSA levels and tPSA/Albumin ratio at day 2 when compared to days 0 and 3, which showed a similar pattern. Changes of fPSA and fPSA/ Albumin ratio according to days were not found significant. In only four patients we found increased levels of tPSA and increased fPSA levels in three of them. These patients displayed severe problems such as renal failure, cardiac failure, ventricular aneurysm and cerebral ischemia due to cardiac arrest. The lower tPSA levels on day 2 suggest that tPSA can be eliminated rapidly from the circulation on days 1 and 2, probably through the formation of complexes of tPSA with acute phase proteins.