A low-cost community approach to weight control: Initial results from an evaluated trial

1986 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 391-402 ◽  
Author(s):  
John M. Raeburn ◽  
Joan M. Atkinson
2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 172-181 ◽  
Author(s):  
Silvia Sciannimanico ◽  
Franco Grimaldi ◽  
Fabio Vescini ◽  
Giovanni De Pergola ◽  
Massimo Iacoviello ◽  
...  

Background: Metformin is an oral hypoglycemic agent extensively used as first-line therapy for type 2 diabetes. It improves hyperglycemia by suppressing hepatic glucose production and increasing glucose uptake in muscles. Metformin improves insulin sensitivity and shows a beneficial effect on weight control. Besides its metabolic positive effects, Metformin has direct effects on inflammation and can have immunomodulatory and antineoplastic properties. Aim: The aim of this narrative review was to summarize the up-to-date evidence from the current literature about the metabolic and non-metabolic effects of Metformin. Methods: We reviewed the current literature dealing with different effects and properties of Metformin and current recommendations about the use of this drug. We identified keywords and MeSH terms in Pubmed and the terms Metformin and type 2 diabetes, type 1 diabetes, pregnancy, heart failure, PCOS, etc, were searched, selecting only significant original articles and review in English, in particular of the last five years. Conclusion: Even if many new effective hypoglycemic agents have been launched in the market in the last few years, Metformin would always keep a place in the treatment of type 2 diabetes and its comorbidities because of its multiple positive effects and low cost.


2000 ◽  
Vol 6 (1_suppl) ◽  
pp. 80-83 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karl A Stroetmann ◽  
Peter Gruetzmacher ◽  
Veli N Stroetmann

Home dialysis can improve the care and quality of life for patients with renal failure. We have explored the possibility of extending home care to more patients needing continuous ambulatory peritoneal dialysis (CAPD) using telemedicine. We tested videoconferencing support for five CAPD patients using low-cost ISDN equipment (128 kbit/s). Initial results indicated that it was possible to integrate video-communication into the daily routine of the clinic and the response from patients was surprisingly positive. Selection of appropriate, affordable technology and the ISDN service support by the telecommunications provider proved to be considerably more difficult than anticipated. The first indications also suggest medical advantages for home teledialysis.


Author(s):  
Stewart Smith ◽  
Hancong Wu ◽  
Jiabin Jia

This poster reports the design, implementation and testing of a portable and inexpensive bio-impedance measurement system intended for electrical impedance tomography (EIT) in cell cultures. The system is based on the AD5933 impedance analyser integrated circuit with additional circuitry to enable four-terminal measurement. Initial results of impedance measurements are reported along with an EIT image reconstructed using the open source EIDORS package.


Author(s):  
Matthew N. Goodell ◽  
Takara E. Truong ◽  
Stephanie R. Marston ◽  
Brett J. Smiley ◽  
Elliot R. Befus ◽  
...  

Abstract The improper use of artificial light causing skyglow is detrimental to many types of wildlife and can potentially cause irregular human sleeping patterns. Studies have been performed to analyze light pollution on a global scale. However, light pollution data on a local scale is not of ten available and the effects at local scale have rarely been studied. Herein, a new custom-designed autonomous light assessment drone (ALAD) is described for evaluating light pollution at local scale. The ALAD is designed and equipped with a sky quality meter (SQM) to measure skyglow and a low-cost illuminance sensor to measure light from artificial sources. Outdoor field tests are performed at a remote site in central Utah and the measured results are validated against data from lightpollution-map.info. The SQM measurements are in agreement with the estimates from the light pollution map, and the initial results demonstrate feasibility of the ALAD for local-scale skyglow assessment.


2018 ◽  
Vol 201 ◽  
pp. 03003
Author(s):  
Maria Leonora Guico ◽  
Gemalyn Abrajano ◽  
Prince Aldrin Domer ◽  
Jose Paulo Talusan

This paper presents the recent results of the design of a novel acoustic rainfall sensing system that is low-cost, portable, and easily deployable, which makes use of the recorded sound produced by the impact of the raindrops on the sensor surface. The sensor design allows the gathering of acoustic signal power and sending it to a server after a specified time interval, either through SMS or mobile internet connection. It exists in a weather-proof, standard-conformant, standalone system with its own power supply and telemetric capabilities. These acoustic point sensors can gather rainfall data at high spatial and temporal resolutions. Such deployments can show the variations of rainfall intensities in sub-kilometer areas, particularly in the tropical regions. Since it is low-cost, it can also improve the density of rainfall measuring devices in an area. Moreover, the reliability is improved by providing near-real time data, as opposed to tipping buckets with manual data retrieval. The prototype sensor system was placed next to standard rain measuring devices and observed during the rainy season. The paper will discuss the design and deployment of the system, as well as initial results of data analysis and comparison with standard rain measuring devices.


2017 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. S554-S555
Author(s):  
Ricardo Avila ◽  
David Yankelevitz ◽  
Rowena Yip ◽  
Claudia Henschke

Author(s):  
Alexander York ◽  
Stefan Seelecke

Dielectric Electro-Active Polymers (DEAP’s) have become attractive material for various actuation and sensing applications such as light weight and energy efficient valve and pumping systems. The materials ability to act as both and actuator and a sensor enable DEAP actuators to have “self-sensing” capabilities. This advancement provides low cost actuator systems that do not require external sensors for feedback control. This paper explores the capacitive sensing capabilities of a DEAP actuator under loading conditions typical for pumping and valve applications. The capacitive sensing capabilities of the actuator are tested using a method similar to that used by Jung et al. [1] which uses the DEAP actuator as a variable capacitor in a high pass filter circuit. This sensing circuit produces a direct voltage output when the actuator is displaced. The sensing response of this system is experimentally investigated under mechanical loading. The sensor is shown to have an effective sensitivity of .041 (V/Vexc) / mm. In addition, the initial results of a dual sensing and actuating system are presented.


1998 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
pp. 362-366 ◽  
Author(s):  
Scott G. Franzblau ◽  
Richard S. Witzig ◽  
James C. McLaughlin ◽  
Patricia Torres ◽  
Guillermo Madico ◽  
...  

A colorimetric, microplate-based Alamar Blue assay (MABA) method was used to determine the MICs of isoniazid (INH), rifampin, streptomycin (SM), and ethambutol (EMB) for 34 PeruvianMycobacterium tuberculosis isolates (including both pansensitive and multidrug-resistant strains) and the H37Rv strain by using bacterial suspensions prepared directly from solid media. Results for all isolates were available within 8 days. Discordant results were observed on initial tests for 3 of 16 INH-susceptible isolates, 5 of 31 EMB-susceptible isolates, and 2 of 4 SM-resistant isolates (by the BACTEC 460 system). The overall agreements between the MICs obtained by MABA and the results obtained with the BACTEC 460 system were 87.9% for initial results and 93.6% after retesting 12 of 17 samples with discrepant results. Interpretation of MABA endpoints improved with technical experience. The MABA is a simple, rapid, low-cost, appropriate technology which does not require expensive instrumentation and which makes use of a nontoxic, temperature-stable reagent.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tianyi Zeng ◽  
Jiaxu Zheng ◽  
Xinyuan Xia ◽  
Xin Chen ◽  
Beien Wang ◽  
...  

Abstract Background: Integrated whole-body PET/MR technology continues to mature and is now extensively used in clinical setting. However, due to the special design architecture, integrated whole-body PET/MR comes with a few inherent limitations. Firstly, whole-body PET/MR lacks sensitivity and resolution for focused organs. Secondly, boarder clinical access of integrated PET/MR has been significantly restricted due to its prohibitively high cost. The MR-compatible PET insert is a low cost and flexible PET scanner which can be placed within an MRI bore. However, mobility and configurability of all existing MR-compatible PET insert prototypes remain limited. Methods: An MR-compatible portable PET insert prototype, Dual-panel Portable PET (DP-PET), has been developed for simultaneous PET/MR imaging. Using SiPM, digital readout electronics, novel carbon fiber shielding, phase-change cooling and MRI compatible battery power, DP-PET was designed to achieve high-sensitivity and high-resolution with compatibility with a clinical 3T MRI scanner. A GPU-based reconstruction method with Resolution Modelling (RM) has been developed for the DP-PET reconstruction. We evaluated the system performance on PET resolution, sensitivity, image quality and the PET/MR interference. Results: Initial results reveal that the DP-PET prototype worked as expected in the MRI bore and caused minimal compromise to the MRI image quality. The PET performance was measured to show a spatial resolution <= 2mm (parallel to the detector panels), maximum sensitivity =3.6% at the center of FOV and energy resolution = 12.43%. MRI pulsing introduces less than 1% variation to the PET performance measurement results. Conclusions: We developed a MR-compatible PET insert prototype and performed several studies to begin to characterize the performance of the proposed DP-PET.The results showed that the proposed DP-PET performed well in the MRI bore and would cause little influence on the MRI images. The Derenzo phantom test showed that the proposed reconstruction method could obtained high quality images using DP-PET.


Exacta ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 241-250
Author(s):  
Ronaldo Shiguemi Fujisawa ◽  
Wendell De Queiróz Lamas

This paper presents the viability study of water reuse in the seat belt webbing dyeing process, reaching a great economy in the water consumption since the textile operation uses a great amount of water. To achieve this goal, it was tested several products during the effluent treatment that contains biodegradable characteristics and greater efficiency to remove color, also attending to effective legislation and low cost expectation. Using these new products, water consumption was reduced approximately 59% in a month and effluent treatment around 30%. Based on these initial results, is expected to have a payback in approximately five months.


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