Are Global and Regional Improvements in Life Expectancy and in Child,Adult and Senior Survival Slowing?

Improvements in life expectancy have been considerable over the past hundred years. Forecasters have taken to applying historical trends under an assumption of continuing improvements in life expectancy in the future. A linear mixed effects model was used to estimate the trends in global and regional rates of improvements in life expectancy, child, adult, and senior survival, in 166 countries between 1950 and 2010. Global improvements in life expectancy, including both child and adult survival rates, decelerated significantly over the study period. Overall life expectancy gains were estimated to have declined from 5.9 to 4.0 months per year for a mean deceleration of -0.07 months/year²; annual child survival gains declined from 4.4 to 1.6 deaths averted per 1000 for a mean deceleration of -0.06 deaths/1000/year²; adult survival gains were estimated to decline from 4.8 to 3.7 deaths averted per 1000 per year for a mean deceleration of -0.08 deaths/1000/year². Senior survival gains however increased from 2.4 to 4.2 deaths averted per 1000 per year for an acceleration of 0.03 deaths/1000/year². Regional variation in the four measures was substantial. The rates of global improvements in life expectancy, child survival, and adult survival have declined since 1950 despite an increase in the rate of improvements among seniors. We postulate that low-cost innovation, related to the last half-century progress in health–primarily devoted to children and middle age, is reaping diminishing returns on its investments. Trends are uneven across regions and measures, which may be due in part to the state of epidemiological transition between countries and regions and disparities in the diffusion of innovation, accessible only in high-income countries where life expectancy is already highest.     

Comparative Study of Seed Protein Profiles in the Genus Pisum

Seed protein profiles of 24 wild and cultivated taxa of Pisum have been compared by sodium dodecyl sulphate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. No consistent differences were detected either among wild taxa or between wild and cultivated taxa. This shows that Pisum forms a single-species complex on the basis of seed protein profiles.     

On the Performance of Highly Sensitive and Accurate Graphene-on-Aluminum and Silicon-Based SPR Biosensor for Visible and Near Infrared

We demonstrate the numerical analysis of surface plasmon resonance biosensor based on graphene on aluminum and silicon. Employing matrix method, it is found that the proposed sensor exhibits high imaging sensitivity ～400 RIU^?1 to 550 RIU^?1 in a large dynamic range from visible to near IR region. It is observed that the application of monolayer or bilayer graphene over aluminum not only protects it from oxidation but also enhances the adsorption of biomolecules, which results in the detection of large refractive indices ranging from aqueous solution to biomolecules (refractive index 1.330 to 1.480) with overall high performance in terms of imaging sensitivity and detection accuracy.     

Biobased technologies for the efficient extraction of biopolymers from waste biomass

Bioprocess and Biosystems Engineering - Regardless of considerable progress in synthetic plastic or polymer-based industry, its low biodegradability is a critical issue. Nevertheless, natural...     

Binding interaction study on human serum albumin with bactericidal gold nanoparticles synthesized from a leaf extract of Musa balbisiana: a multispectroscopic approach

This study describes the eco‐friendly, low‐cost and room‐temperature synthesis of gold nanoparticles from Musa balbisiana leaf extract, which acts as both reducing and stabilizing agent, and characterized by ultraviolet?visible (UV–vis) light spectroscopy, fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE‐SEM), analytical transmission electron microscopy (TEM), energy‐dispersive X‐ray spectroscopy (EDAX) and dynamic light scattering (DLS) instruments. These nanoparticles showed an average diameter of 33.83 ± 3.39 nm, which was confirmed from the size distribution histogram. The bactericidal activity of these nanoparticles was confirmed using bacteria Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus at 1 and 2 nM minimum inhibitory concentrations, respectively. The interaction between nanoparticles and human serum albumin (HSA) was investigated, as this plays significant roles in biological systems. The nature of interaction, binding parameters and structural variation of HSA in the presence of these nanoparticles have been evaluated using several useful spectroscopic approaches such as UV–vis, FTIR, time‐resolved and steady‐state fluorescence, and circular dichroism in addition to the measurement of zeta potential. This interaction study revealed that static quenching occurs in this process with minimal alteration in the secondary structure, but the native structure of HSA remained unaltered. The binding constant and thermodynamic parameters of this interaction process were also evaluated.     

Overexpression of LmgshF from Listeria monocytogenes in Indica Rice Confers Salt Stress Tolerance

Russian Journal of Plant Physiology - Glutathione (γ-glutamylcysteinylglycine; GSH), is a multi-functional tri-peptide antioxidant, a key agent in defense against abiotic and biotic stress. A...