Search results

This paper is part of a PhD research in urban metabolism assessment tools. Its purpose is to propose a new strategic urban metabolism assessment tool that can be integrated in the urban ecosystem planning process.

The paper uses the systemic approach to build a model of an urban ecosystem in order to understand its structure and function; understand its metabolism flows and how to assess and “control” it. This systemic model outlines the role of the ecological footprint (EF) in the assessment of urban metabolism flows and demonstrates the need for a new tool to assess the function of metabolism control.

The research paper proposes a new strategic assessment tool composed of the EF, as an assessment tool of urban metabolism flows, and of a new tool dedicated to the assessment of the urban metabolism control function. This tool, fully integrated in the urban planning process, will bridge the gap between urban metabolism assessment and urban metabolism control and planning.

There are many urban metabolism assessment tools that are developed to assess and evaluate urban metabolisms, but urban planning practitioners need a strategic tool to transform assessment results into urban actions integrated in the urban ecosystem planning process.

Increased ethanol accumulation during ethanol fermentation generates stress in yeast cells, which finally reduces the fermentation performance and efficiency. Trehalose, a potential stress protectant, has been reported to regulate the response of yeast to diverse environmental stresses. This study aimed to explore how exogenous trehalose application affects the survival, transcriptome and antioxidant enzymes of Wickerhamomyces anomalus grown under ethanol stress conditions.

Exogenous trehalose was applied to the growth condition of W. anomalus, and optical densitometric method was used to detect contents of intracellular trehalose and MDA and activities of CAT and SOD. The survival was evaluated using spot analysis. Differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were identified through transcriptomics analysis.

The results showed that ethanol stress induced the accumulation of intracellular trehalose, with further exogenous trehalose application improving the survival and alleviating oxidative stress in ethanol-stressed W. anomalus. Transcriptomic results showed that trehalose has pleiotropic regulating effects on ethanol-stressed W. anomalus since most DEGs annotated to energy metabolism, amino acid metabolism, translation, folding, sorting and transport were affected post trehalose addition. Therefore, it is found that trehalose protected W. anomalus against ethanol stress, and these findings provide interesting insights into the mechanistic role of trehalose in improving ethanol stress tolerance of W. anomalus.

(1) Protective effect of exogenous trehalose addition on the survival of ethanol-stressed W. anomalus was proved. (2) Exogenous trehalose addition could partly alleviate oxidative stress induced by ethanol stress and affect transcriptome in W. anomalus.

Rapid urbanization and providing pragmatic solutions for its development is one of the fundamental agenda of last decade. The metabolism is one of the latest post-war movements-founded in 1960 by Kenzo Tange where urbanization and city as a process is re-examined within the framework of accelerated modernism and technology vision. This paper discusses Metabolism movement in order to identify crucial intimations of its utopian architectural and urban approaches as a tool for future city. The study examines four initial metabolist city approaches-Plan for Tokyo (1960-62), Clusters/city in the Air (1960-62), Helix city (1961) and Ocean/Marine City (1962) that are designed for post-war Tokyo city in Japan. The study gives modest insight of indentifying city design theory within in a series conception; such as conducting to architectural characteristics regarding urban structure, tectonic vision between land-sea-sky and organic notion (city as process and mega-structuralism). Research method is embodied with examining relevant data of literature data. Upon discussions on theory, study aims to establish an ironic notion of future city by asserting familiar characteristics or variations between four pioneer projects of Metabolist movement.

The reduction of the “metabolism” of the human economy has become one of the central themes of recent environmental and economic research and policy focused upon paths for achieving global sustainable development. Since the late 1980s, there has emerged a diverse array of “physical economy” approaches that utilise some form of material flow analysis (MFA) to quantify the pattern of flows of material and energy into, within, and out of the economic system. In principle, the reduction of the human socioeconomic metabolism, and appropriate changes in technology and consumption, are highly consistent with Buddhist economics. Indeed, MFA may be one of the most valuable devices for encouraging and implementing a global “green” technoeconomic paradigm that helps realize the type of benefits proffered under the vision of Buddhist economics. This paper describes the links between methodology or potential application of MFA and the central themes of the Buddhist economic path to the long‐term, harmonious co‐existence of humans within the natural environment.

Normal aging changes, acute and chronic illness, and the long stay in the hospital made the decline in elderly physical and mental abilities in non-instrumental and Instrumental Activities Daily Livings (IADL). This paper aims to determine the validity and reliability of Lawton IADL in the Iranian elderly community relevancy to physical, mental and cognitive measurements.

A cross-sectional study with 422 participants, age 60 years old and over selected by face-to-face interviewing from the geriatric clinic, Tehran medical university from January to June 2019.

Of 422 participants referring to outpatient clinics the majority were male (62.8%); with an average of 66.9 ± 5.95 years old. Reliability was significantly high (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.96, p < 0.001). There was a significant relationship between IADL with Short-Form Health Survey36-Mental Component Score (SF36-MCS), with p < 0.01. Reliability was significantly high (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.96, p < 0.001). In the factor analysis with eigenvalues more than one, two components were found; that the first factor named as observational daily activities, whereas the second factor named “advanced daily activities”.

The limitation of this study was the low number of similar studies to compare the results and the stronger discussion.

Determining IADL's dependency in the community elderly is important to maintain their self-care manages. More studies are needed to manifest the relationship between mental health and IADL's independence. Therefore, validation in different settings is important in planning for the geriatrics team.

Proposes two concepts for the empirical analysis of society‐nature interrelations: first, socio‐economic metabolism – the material and energy flows between societies and their natural environment and second, the colonization of nature – the sum of deliberate interventions into natural systems aimed at their “improvement” with respect to socio‐economic goals. Discusses empirical examples for sustainability indicators, focusing on landscape processes, and relates land use to the analysis of material and energy flows.

Absorbed nutrients follow three possible pathways in the body. They may be incorporated intact into body components (such as proteins), converted into physiologically essential materials (as in the conversion of tyrosine into thyroxine) or broken down with the release of energy and the formation of elementary excretory products. A pathological condition clearly attributable to a disturbance of one of these metabolic patterns is described as a ‘disease of metabolism.’ Genetically determined diseases of metabolism are call ‘inborn errors of metabolism.’

Depression and insomnia are very significant pathologies in cancer patients as they contribute to the patient's overall cure and quality of life. Moreover, untreated depression and ongoing insomnia are associated with decreased immune responses and lower survival rates. With all disease states and especially with cancer, close attention to drug-drug interactions and the potential impact on the efficacy of therapy is paramount. One area of particular interest due to the lack of well-done clinical trials is drug-drug interaction(s) between antidepressants and cancer treatment. Pharmacokinetics of a certain drug allows for prediction of certain drug interactions based on chemical properties of the agents involved. If the agents depend on their metabolites for activity, active drug level will be decreased through this enzyme inhibition. In this paper, we looked at the cytochrome-P450 drug interactions between antidepressants and sleep aids with Selective Estrogen Receptor Modulators (SERM). Newer SERM metabolisms are less influenced by interactions with medications used to treat depression. However, tamoxifen metabolism could be severely altered by several antidepressants. This has direct consequences as patients on tamoxifen and antidepressant can have double the risk of relapse to cancer in two years. We discussed those interactions and made recommendations for clinical use.

This study aims to investigate the effect of Ajuga iva (Ai) on enzymes involved in the metabolism of cholesterol, in rat fed a cholesterol-enriched diet.

Male Wistar rats (n = 12), weighing 120 ± 5 g were fed on 1 per cent cholesterol-enriched diet [hypercholesterolemic (HC)] for 15 days (d15). After this adaptation phase, HC rats (total cholesterol = 6.5 ± 0.6 mmol/L) were divided into two groups fed the same diet and treated (Ai-HC) or not with (HC) with Ai for d15.

At day 15, in Ai-HC group compared to HC, serum triacylglycerol (TG) values were 1.4-fold lower (p = 0.002), whereas unesterified cholesterol (UC) contents were 1.8-fold higher (p = 0.0001). Serum phospholipids (PL) and cholesteryl esters (CE) contents and liver TG, UC, PL and CE values were not sensitive to Ai. TC/HDL-C and LDL-HDL1-C/HDL-C ratios were, respectively, 1.8- and 4-fold lower (p = 0.006 and p = 0.04). HDL2-C and HDL3-C amounts were enhanced by 40 and 74 per cent, respectively (p = 0.003 and p = 0.0001). HDL3-UC was 1.6-fold higher (p = 0.006); whereas PL contents were 1.4-fold lower (p = 0.003). HDL3-apo and HDL2-CE contents were similar between groups. A decreased of hydroxy-methyl-glutaryl-coenzyme A reductase and cholesterol 7α-hydroxylase activities (−44 and −25 per cent; p = 0.003 and p = 0.02, respectively) were noted. Lecithin: cholesterol acyltransferase activity was 1.5-fold higher (p = 0.001).

In HC rat, Ai is able to induce hypotriglyceridemia. However, it turns out that Ai may reduce cardiovascular risk by decreasing the reports of atherogenicity and modifying the activities of enzymes involved in the cholesterol metabolism.

The purpose of this paper is to compare GM(1,1) model, rolling GM(1,1) model and metabolism GM(1,1) model included in the GM(1,1) model cluster and use these models to forecast global oil consumption.

Simulated sequences will be generated randomly, and used to test the models included in the GM(1,1) model cluster; and these grey forecasting models are applied to forecast global oil consumption.

Effectiveness of these grey forecasting models is proved by random experiments, which explains the model adaptability. Global oil consumption is predicted, and it shows that global oil consumption will increase at a rather big growth rate in the next years.

The effectiveness of medium-term prediction of these grey forecasting models is analyzed by random experiments. These models are compared, and some basis for model selection is obtained.