Experimental Evaluation of 65Zn Decorporation Kinetics Following Rapid and Delayed Zn-DTPA Interventions in Rats. Biphasic Compartmental and Square-Root Law Mathematical Modeling

The decorporation kinetics of internal radionuclide contamination is a long-term treatment raising modeling, planning, and managing problems, especially in the case of late intervention when the radiotoxic penetrated the deep compartments. The decorporation effectiveness of the highly radiotoxic 65ZnCl2 by Zn-DTPA (dosed at 3.32 mg and 5 mg/0.25 mL/100 g body weight) was investigated in Wistar male rats over a ten-day period under various treatments (i.e., as a single dose before contamination; as a single dose before and 24 h after contamination; and as daily administrations for five consecutive days starting on day 12 after contamination). The radioactivity was measured using the whole-body counting method. Mono- and bi-compartmental decorporation kinetics models proved applicable in the case of a rapid intervention. It was found that a diffusion model of the radionuclide from tissues to blood better describes the decorporation kinetics after more than ten days post treatment, and the process has been mathematically modeled as a diffusion from an infinite reservoir to a semi-finite medium. The mathematical solution led to a square-root law for describing the 65Zn decorporation. This law predicts a slower release than exponential or multiexponential equations, and could better explain the very long persistence of radionuclides in the living body. Splitting data and modeling in two steps allows a better understanding, description and prediction of the evolution of contamination, a separate approach to the treatment schemes of acute and chronic contamination.

Counting Frequency

Examining Black women's experiences with policing, this article argues that police terror is not predicated upon gender; rather, it enacts gender by undoing gender. Thus, it requires a new arithmetic of time and space in order to read beyond normative, hypermasculine narratives of police violence. While the dominant discourse of race and policing asserts that police terror disproportionately affects Black men, the frequency of Black women's experiences with police terror attunes to a lingering yet deadly impact beyond the linear, Cartesian dimensions of body counting, a frequency the article terms sequelae. Policing stretches and bends time and space as part of its (un)gendering practice. Through a brief survey of cases in Brazil and the United States, this article considers sequelae as a new arithmetic for calculating the multiple frequencies of police terror against Black women. Specifically, the article examines the case of Luana Barbosa dos Reis, a Black lesbian mother who was beaten to death by police officers in São Paulo in 2016. The article argues that her beating was an act of (un)gendering—a desire to both discipline her as a Black female/mother and erase her potential humanity by denying her desired gender identification (female). In this sense, her death was an act of anti-Black terror “in the wake.” Through a close reading of the police ledger, the police report, and the physical violence she endured, the article argues that her story teaches us the need for a new way of counting the frequency of police terror in relationship to time, space, and the Black female/mother body.

Probiotic strainLactobacillus plantarum299v increases iron absorption from an iron-supplemented fruit drink: a double-isotope cross-over single-blind study in women of reproductive age

Iron deficiency is common, especially among young women. Adding probiotics to foods could be one way to increase iron absorption. The aim of this study was to test the hypothesis that non-haem iron absorption from a fruit drink is improved by addingLactobacillus plantarum299v (Lp299v). Iron absorption was studied in healthy women of reproductive age using a single-blind cross-over design in two trials applying the double-isotope (55Fe and59Fe) technique. In Trial 1, iron absorption from a fruit drink containing 109colony-forming units (CFU) Lp299v was compared with that from a control drink without Lp299v. Trial 2 had the same design but 1010CFU were used. The test and control drinks contained approximately 5 mg of iron as ferrous lactate and were labelled with59Fe (B) and55Fe (A), respectively, and consumed on 4 consecutive days in the order AABB. Retention of the isotopes was measured with whole-body counting and in blood. Mean iron absorption from the drink containing 109CFU Lp299v (28·6(sd12·5) %) was significantly higher than from the control drink (18·5(sd5·8) %),n10,P<0·028). The fruit drink with 1010CFU Lp299v gave a mean iron absorption of 29·1(sd17·0) %, whereas the control drink gave an absorption of (20·1(sd6·4) %) (n11,P<0·080). The difference in iron absorption between the 109CFU Lp299v and the 1010CFU Lp299v drinks was not significant (P=0·941). In conclusion, intake of probiotics can increase iron absorption by approximately 50 % from a fruit drink having an already relatively high iron bioavailability.