Predicting habitual water intake from lifestyle questions.

OBJECTIVE: Previous studies have used selective recall and descriptive dietary record methods, requiring considerable effort for assessing food and water intake. This study created a simplified lifestyle questionnaire to predict habitual water intake (SQW), accurately and quickly assessing the habitual water intake. We also evaluated the validity using descriptive dietary records as a cross-sectional study. SUBJECTS AND METHODS: First, we used crowdsourcing and machine learning to collect data, predict water intake records, and create questionnaires. We collected 305 lifestyle-related questions as predictor variables and selective recall methods for assessing water intake as an outcome variable. Random forests were used for the machine learning models because of their interpretability and accurate estimation. Random forest and single regression correlation analysis were augmented by the synthetic minority oversampling that trained the model. We separated the data by sex and evaluated our model using unseen hold-out testing data, predicting the individual and overall habitual water intake from various sources, including non-alcoholic beverages, alcohol, and food. RESULTS: We found a 0.60 Spearman's correlation coefficient for total water intake between the predicted and the selective recall method values, reflecting the target value to be achieved. This question set was then used for feasibility tests. The descriptive dietary record method helped to obtain a ground-truth value. We categorized the data by gender, season, and source: non-alcoholic beverages, alcohol, food, and total water intake, and the correlation was confirmed. Consequently, our results showed a Pearson's correlation coefficient of 0.50 for total water intake between the predicted and the selective recall method values. CONCLUSIONS: We hypothesize that dissemination of SQW can lead to better health management by easily determining the habitual water intake.

Measurement of two solvation regimes in water-ethanol mixtures using x-ray compton scattering.

Water-ethanol mixtures exhibit interesting anomalies in their macroscopic properties. Despite a lot of research, the origin of the anomalies and the microscopic structure itself is still far from completely known. We have utilized the synchrotron x-ray Compton scattering technique to elucidate the structure of aqueous ethanol from a new experimental perspective. The technique is uniquely sensitive to the local molecular geometries at the angstrom and subangstrom scales. The experiments reveal two distinct mixing regimes in terms of geometry: the dilute 5 mol % and the concentrated >15 mol % regimes. By comparing with pure liquids, the former regime is characterized by an intramolecular and the latter by an intermolecular change. The findings bring new light to evaluating the hypothesis of formation of clathratelike structures at the dilute concentrations.

Association of Variants in BAG3 With Cardiomyopathy Outcomes in African American Individuals.

Importance: The prevalence of nonischemic dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) is greater in individuals of African ancestry than in individuals of European ancestry. However, little is known about whether the difference in prevalence or outcomes is associated with functional genetic variants. Objective: We hypothesized that Bcl2-associated anthanogene 3 (BAG3) genetic variants were associated with outcomes in individuals of African ancestry with DCM. Design: This multicohort study of the BAG3 genotype in patients of African ancestry with dilated cardiomyopathy uses DNA obtained from African American individuals enrolled in 3 clinical studies: the Genetic Risk Assessment of African Americans With Heart Failure (GRAHF) study; the Intervention in Myocarditis and Acute Cardiomyopathy Trial-2 (IMAC-2) study; and the Genetic Risk Assessment of Cardiac Events (GRACE) study. Samples of DNA were also acquired from the left ventricular myocardium of patients of African ancestry who underwent heart transplant at the University of Colorado and University of Pittsburgh. Main Outcomes and Measures: The primary end points were the prevalence of BAG3 mutations in African American individuals and event-free survival in participants harboring functional BAG3 mutations. Results: Four BAG3 genetic variants were identified; these were expressed in 42 of 402 African American individuals (10.4%) with nonischemic heart failure and 9 of 107 African American individuals (8.4%) with ischemic heart failure but were not present in a reference population of European ancestry (P < .001). The variants included 2 nonsynonymous single-nucleotide variants; 1 three-nucleotide in-frame insertion; and 2 single-nucleotide variants that were linked in cis. The presence of BAG3 variants was associated with a nearly 2-fold (hazard ratio, 1.97 [95% CI, 1.19-3.24]; P = .01) increase in cardiac events in carriers compared with noncarriers. Transfection of transformed adult human ventricular myocytes with plasmids expressing the 4 variants demonstrated that each variant caused an increase in apoptosis and a decrease in autophagy when samples were subjected to the stress of hypoxia-reoxygenation. Conclusions and Relevance: This study demonstrates that genetic variants in BAG3 found almost exclusively in individuals of African ancestry were not causative of disease but were associated with a negative outcome in patients with a dilated cardiomyopathy through modulation of the function of BAG3. The results emphasize the importance of biological differences in causing phenotypic variance across diverse patient populations, the need to include diverse populations in genetic cohorts, and the importance of determining the pathogenicity of genetic variants.

Stachybocins, novel endothelin receptor antagonists, produced by Stachybotrys sp. M6222. II. Structure determination of stachybocins A, B and C.

The structures of stachybocins A, B and C, new endothelin receptor antagonist, were determined by NMR spectral analysis using pulse-field-gradient technique. Stachybocin A consists of two spirobenzofuran units each fused to a substituted decalin, which were connected by a lysine residue. Stachybocins B and C are derivatives of stachybocin A with an additional hydroxy group at the same position in the different decalin unit.

Active galaxies. A fast and long-lived outflow from the supermassive black hole in NGC 5548.

Supermassive black holes in the nuclei of active galaxies expel large amounts of matter through powerful winds of ionized gas. The archetypal active galaxy NGC 5548 has been studied for decades, and high-resolution x-ray and ultraviolet (UV) observations have previously shown a persistent ionized outflow. An observing campaign in 2013 with six space observatories shows the nucleus to be obscured by a long-lasting, clumpy stream of ionized gas not seen before. It blocks 90% of the soft x-ray emission and causes simultaneous deep, broad UV absorption troughs. The outflow velocities of this gas are up to five times faster than those in the persistent outflow, and, at a distance of only a few light days from the nucleus, it may likely originate from the accretion disk.

[Analysis of factors influencing left ventricular mass and diastolic function in normotensive men].

OBJECTIVES: Increase in left ventricular weight is an important risk factor for the incidence of cardiovascular diseases, and reduction in diastolic function of the left ventricle is an early marker for cardiac dysfunction. Factors related to the left ventricular mass and diastolic function were analyzed in middle-aged normotensive men. METHODS: The subjects were 126 normotensive men aged 49 +/- 1 years who were hospitalized for health-checkup. In addition to physical examination and routine laboratory tests, echocardiography including the pulse-Doppler method was performed and urinary electrolyte excretions, plasma angiotensin II, plasma noradrenaline and the angiotensin converting enzyme genotype were examined. RESULTS: Left ventricular mass index was positively correlated with mean blood pressure (r = 0.249, p < 0.006) and body mass index (r = 0.279, p < 0.002). With regard to the index of left ventricular diastolic dysfunction, the late to early peak transmitral flow velocity ratio (A/E) was positively correlated with age (r = 0.465, p < 0.001) and urinary sodium excretion (r = 0.240, p < 0.007). Neither left ventricular mass index or A/E was affected by the angiotensin converting enzyme genotype and was not significantly correlated with plasma angiotensin II or noradrenaline. CONCLUSIONS: Increase in left ventricular mass is influenced by blood pressure and obesity, whereas reduction in left ventricular diastolic function is affected by greater age and salt intake.

[Embolization of the internal maxillary artery for severe epistaxis--including an experience of the approach from the superficial temporal artery].

Six cases of severe epistaxis were treated with the super-selective intraarterial embolization of the internal maxillary artery. Tens of fragments of Gelfoam were delivered into the distal internal maxillary artery and, additionally, embolized by several pieces of the coils. In a case with cerebral infraction, catheter was inserted via the superficial temporal artery. There were no complications due to these procedures in all cases of this study. It is considered that therapeutic intraarterial embolization of the internal maxillary artery is an effective therapy for severe epistaxis and the superficial temporal artery approach is useful for selected cases.

[MR tractography--visualization of structure of nerve fiber system from diffusion weighted images with maximum intensity projection method].

We developed a new noninvasive technique to visualize the anatomical structure of the nerve fiber system in vivo, and named this technique magnetic resonance (MR) tractography and the acquired image an MR tractogram. MR tractography has two steps. One is to obtain diffusion-weighted images sensitized along axes appropriate for depicting the intended nerve fibers with anisotropic water diffusion MR imaging. The other is to extract the anatomical structure of the nerve fiber system from a series of diffusion-weighted images by the maximum intensity projection method. To examine the clinical usefulness of the proposed technique, many contiguous, thin (3 mm) coronal two-dimensional sections of the brain were acquired sequentially in normal volunteers and selected patients with paralyses, on a 1.5 Tesla MR system (Signa, GE) with an ECG-gated Stejskal-Tanner pulse sequence. The structure of the nerve fiber system of normal volunteers was almost the same as the anatomy. The tractograms of patients with paralyses clearly showed the degeneration of nerve fibers and were correlated with clinical symptoms. MR tractography showed great promise for the study of neuroanatomy and neuroradiology.