Abstract The effect of physical exercise on serum lipids and lipoproteins was studied in 13 young medical students participating in a exercising program of four daily 30 min sessions of intense physical exercise per week. After seven weeks of exercise a signific ant decrease was observed in serum triglycerides (from 110 to 80 mg/ 100 ml) and pre-β-lipoproteins (from 93 to 54 mg/100 ml) with more moderate effect on serum cholesterol, β- plus pre-β-lipoprotein cholesterol and β-lipoprotein. A concomitant increase in α-lipoprotein values was also observed (from 286 mg/100 ml to 332 mg/100 ml). A weak negative correlation was observed in 100 young individuals participating in a Nutrition Survey between the degree of physical fitness as measured by the Harvard Step Test and serum cholesterol levels. The contradictory reports on the effect of exercise upon serum lipids, mainly cholesterol, might be explained by the effect of exercise on lipoprotein metabolism.

The effect of extrusion cooking on the quality of rice extrudate with infused microencapsulated anthocyanin was investigated. The moisture sorption isotherm of the extrudate was also studied. The rotatable central composite design was used to optimize the extrusion process and the optimized conditions were: screw speed, 121 rpm; barrel temperature, 91.89 °C; and moisture content, 22.03%. The extrudate showed anthocyanin content of 0.218 mg/L; true density, 1.48 g/cc; water activity 0.51, water solubility index, 7.49%; and specific mechanical energy, 31.39 kJ/kg. The antioxidant activity and solubility of the extrudate were higher as compared with native extrudate. The moisture sorption isotherm of the extrudate was found to follow type III isotherm behavior according to the Brunauer–Emmett–Teller classification. The sorption isotherm was analyzed using several models and the Caurie and Peleg models were best fitted with the extrudate isotherm data. The present work manifested a way to develop antioxidant rich extrudate. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1007/s10068-020-00841-4) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Visual awareness is a specific form of consciousness. Binocular rivalry, the alternation of visual consciousness resulting when the two eyes view differing stimuli, allows one to experimentally investigate visual awareness. Observers usually indicate the gradual changes of conscious perception in binocular rivalry by a binary measure: pressing a button. However, in our experiments we used gradual measures such as pupil and joystick movements and found reactions to start around 590 ms before observers press a button, apparently accessing even pre-conscious processes. Our gradual measures permit monitoring the somewhat gradual built-up of decision processes. Therefore these decision processes should not be considered as abrupt events. This is best illustrated by the fact that the process to take a decision may start but then stop before an action has been taken - which we will call an abandoned decision process here. Changes in analog measures occurring before button presses by which observers have to communicate that a decision process has taken place do not prove that these decisions are taken by a force other than the observer - hence eliminating "free will" - but just that they are prepared "pre-thresholdly," before the observer considers the decision as taken.

Background Current technologies in next-generation sequencing are offering high throughput reads at low costs, but still suffer from various sequencing errors. Although pyro- and ion semiconductor sequencing both have the advantage of delivering long and high quality reads, problems might occur when sequencing homopolymer-containing regions, since the repeating identical bases are going to incorporate during the same synthesis cycle, which leads to uncertainty in base calling. The aim of this study was to evaluate the analytical performance of a pyrosequencing-based next-generation sequencing system in detecting homopolymer sequences using homopolymer-preintegrated plasmid constructs and human DNA samples originating from patients with cystic fibrosis. Results In the plasmid system average correct genotyping was 95.8% in 4-mers, 87.4% in 5-mers and 72.1% in 6-mers. Despite the experienced low genotyping accuracy in 5- and 6-mers, it was possible to generate amplicons with more than a 90% adequate detection rate in every homopolymer tract. When homopolymers in the CFTR gene were sequenced average accuracy was 89.3%, but varied in a wide range (52.2 – 99.1%). In all but one case, an optimal amplicon-sequencing primer combination could be identified. In that single case (7A tract in exon 14 (c.2046_2052)), none of the tested primer sets produced the required analytical performance. Conclusions Our results show that pyrosequencing is the most reliable in case of 4-mers and as homopolymer length gradually increases, accuracy deteriorates. With careful primer selection, the NGS system was able to correctly genotype all but one of the homopolymers in the CFTR gene. In conclusion, we configured a plasmid test system that can be used to assess genotyping accuracy of NGS devices and developed an accurate NGS assay for the molecular diagnosis of CF using self-designed primers for amplification and sequencing. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1186/s12864-018-4544-x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

El artículo propone algunas reflexiones sobre la incidencia del aprendizaje musical en el desarrollo de los niños de seis años plantea si la educación musical actúa en su evolución y, además, presenta diferentes consideraciones acerca de cómo puede influir en el desarrollo desde los puntos de vista afectivo, motor y del área del lenguaje. Desde octubre de 2013 hasta mayo de 2015, para llevar a cabo la investigación se efectuó el estudio riguroso de literatura científica dedicada al desarrollo de la educación musical en los aspectos psicológico, cognitivo y afectivo en el desarrollo del sentido musical y del lenguaje. Dichos estudios se centraron en diferentes etapas del niño, desde el estado fetal hasta la edad escolar. Así mismo se realizaron observaciones durante seis meses en un colegio de primaria en París, Francia, en grupos de niños de seis años, tanto en sus clases de música como en las demás materias, con el fin de establecer así comparaciones y deducciones para llevar a cabo dicha investigación. Se tuvo también como base la experiencia profesional de la autora en la educación musical.

Background: The epidemiology of meningococcal meningitis in the African meningitis belt is characterised by seasonality, localised epidemics and epidemic waves. To facilitate research and surveillance, we aimed to develop a definition for localised epidemics to be used in real-time surveillance based on weekly case reports at the health centre level.Methods: We used national routine surveillance data on suspected meningitis from January 2004 to December 2008 in six health districts in western and central Burkina Faso. We evaluated eight thresholds composed of weekly incidence rates at health centre level for their performance in predicting annual incidences of 0.4%and 0.8% in health centre areas. The eventually chosen definition was used to describe the spatiotemporal epidemiology and size of localised meningitis epidemics during the included district years.Results: Among eight weekly thresholds evaluated, a weekly incidence rate of 75 cases per 100,000 inhabitants during at least two consecutive weeks with at least 5 cases per week had 100% sensitivity and 98% specificity for predicting an annual incidence of at least 0.8% in health centres. Using this definition, localised epidemics were identified in all but one years during 2004-2008, concerned less than 10% of the districts' population and often were geographically dispersed. Where sufficient laboratory data were available, localised epidemics were exclusively due to meningococci.Conclusions: This definition of localised epidemics a the health centre level will be useful for risk factor and modelling studies to understand the meningitis belt phenomenon and help documenting vaccine impact against epidemic meningitis where no widespread laboratory surveillance exists for quantifying disease reduction after vaccination. © 2012 Tall et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. info:eu-repo/semantics/published SCOPUS: ar.j