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The structures of the α, β and γ polymorphs of quinacridone (Pigment Violet 19) were predicted using Polymorph Predictor software in combination with X-ray powder diffraction patterns of limited quality. After generation and energy minimization of the possible structures, their powder patterns were compared with the experimental ones. On this basis, candidate structures for the polymorphs were chosen from the list of all structures. Rietveld refinement was used to validate the choice of structures. The predicted structure of the γ polymorph is in accordance with the experimental structure published previously. Three possible structures for the β polymorph are proposed on the basis of X-ray powder patterns comparison. It is shown that the α structure in the Cambridge Structural Database is likely to be in error, and a new α structure is proposed. The present work demonstrates a method to obtain crystal structures of industrially important pigments when only a low-quality X-ray powder diffraction pattern is available. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This contribution presents total oxygen uptake (TOU) rates and nutrient fluxes of organically poor permeable shelf sands of the German Bight. Measurements have been made in situ with the novel autonomous benthic chamber system Sandy under controlled conditions of advective pore-water exchange. Average oxygen consumption rates of 31.3 ± 18.2 mmol m-2 d-1 measured in this study were relatively high as compared with rates reported from shelf sediments with much higher organic contents. TOU of highly permeable medium and coarse grained sands was substantially enhanced in the presence of advection. This indicates that advective oxygen supply contributed significantly to respiration in these sediments and that advection has to be considered when assessing oxygen consumption and organic matter mineralization in shelf areas. In fine-grained, less permeable sands, no effect of advection could be measured. A lower advective oxygen supply in these sediments is in agreement with a release of ammonium instead of nitrate and a shallower oxygen penetration depth. Scaled up to the entire German Bight, the results imply that in 40% of the area an effect of advection on benthic oxygen uptake and other advection-related processes can be largely excluded, while in the remaining 60% significant pore-water advection potentially takes place. However, because permeabilities of the sediments investigated in this study were widely spaced, a significant effect on oxygen supply was only verified for highly permeable sands that are likely to cover approximately 3% of the area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This contribution introduces the benthic chamber system Sandy that was developed for studying in situ solute fluxes in permeable sandy sediments where advective pore-water transport can dominate solute exchange across the sediment--water interface. The Sandy system can be deployed at the seafloor, where it autonomously performs measurements of sediment--water solute fluxes. The innovative features include an insertion mechanism that permits gentle and deep penetration of the chamber into hard consolidated sands with minimum disturbance, and an adjustable stirrer that generates a rotationally symmetric pressure gradient between the center and the circumference of the enclosed sediment surface. In contrast to similar systems, Sandy takes advective pore-water exchange into account. Through adjustment of the stirring rate, defined pressure gradients can be established that are similar in shape and magnitude to natural pressure gradients that develop at topographical structures of current-exposed sediment surfaces. Solute fluxes measured in the chamber at a specific "advective" stirrer setting can be compared with those obtained at reduced stirring, where pressure gradients are absent and solute exchange therefore is restricted to diffusion and bioirrigation. Rates of pore-water exchange that were determined by means of tracer experiments at different stirrer settings in natural coarse-grained North Sea deposits demonstrate the feasibility of this approach. This permits, for the first time, an evaluation of the contribution of advective exchange to the total interfacial solute flux in situ and makes Sandy a valuable tool to study advection-related processes in permeable shelf sediments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Background Unsaturated fatty acids are known as neutrophil activators. In the present study we investigated whether saturated triglycerides and fatty acids may also contribute to the previously observed activation of neutrophils by nutritional lipid emulsions. Furthermore we tested the hypothesis that carbon-chain length is of importance in this respect. Materials and methods Neutrophils (1 × 106 mL-1 ) were isolated from the blood of nine volunteers. Chemiluminescence was used to evaluate neutrophil activation, characterized by the production of oxygen radicals by neutrophils during incubation with 1 mmol L-1 saturated fatty acid (6–20 carbon) or triglycerides (6–12 carbon fatty acid), dissolved in aqueous medium by preparing micelles with dipalmitoyl phosphatidylcholine (DPPC). Results were expressed as means ± SEMs of the overall luminescence signal relative to the signal of cells incubated in medium. Results Similar to a positive control, the polyunsaturated fatty acid arachidonic acid (C20 : 4), the triglycerides tricaproin (TC6 : 0), tricaprylin (TC8 : 0) and trilaurin (TC12 : 0) as well as the fatty acids lauric acid (C12 : 0), palmitic acid (C16 : 0), stearic acid (C18 : 0) and arachidic acid (C20 : 0) all induced oxygen radical production in neutrophils, while the medium-chain triglyceride tricaprin (TC10 : 0) and fatty acids caproic acid (C6 : 0), caprylic acid (C8 : 0) and capric acid (C10 : 0) exerted no clear effects, similar to negative controls (DPPC and glycerol). Conclusions Besides their (poly)-unsaturated counterparts, saturated triglycerides and fatty acids also activate neutrophils. Carbon chain-length is pivotal in the interaction of fatty acids and triglycerides and cells of the immune system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hypercholesteremic rats were used to investigate the lipid depressant activities of lyophilized whole fish prepared from menhaden, silver salmon, mullet, and ocean perch. Ingestion of the whole fish supplements promoted a significant reduction in the circulating levels of cholesterol and phospholipids, and in the TC/TP ratios of blood lipids from the rat. The effects of whole fish were duplicated by feeding rats proportionate amounts of the oils found in these fish supplements. These supplements had similar, but less dramatic, effects on the liver lipids of the rats. The nonlipid components, isolated from the fish, had no apparent influence on the distribution of lipids in the blood and liver tissues. The preparations of lipid and nonlipid components of the fish are described, and the GLC analyses of marine oils are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

IFSCC Magazine, 12 (2009) (2) 101–105 Extracts of grapevine, especially in the fermented form of wine, are reported to exert beneficial effects to human health. Grapevine polyphenols are considered to be the main compounds responsible for this beneficial activity, and of these, resveratrol has been studied in most detail. Because of its antioxidant properties, resveratrol demonstrates cell protective characteristics, but it is also able to reduce cell proliferation and induce apoptosis, especially in cancer cells. Investigations on the effects of resveratrol on UVB irradiated primary keratinocytes and HaCats have demonstrated protective properties also in skin cells. Although grapevine extracts are routinely used as an active ingredient in skincare cosmetics, the activity of these extracts on skin, apart from that of resveratrol, is only poorly understood. Here the effects on skin cells of a grapevine extract enriched with the resveratrol dimer ε-viniferin were analyzed in vitro and in vivo. Keywords: Fibroblast, collagen contraction, confocal laser microscopy, resveratrol, senescence This paper was presented as a poster at the 25th IFSCC Congress 2008, Barcelona, Spain [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An abstract of the study "The Relation of Trends in IHD and Stroke Mortality With Infant Mortality Rate. A Time Series Study Among Cohorts Born Between 1860 and 1939 in Seven European Countries," by M. Amiri and colleagues is presented.

Background and Aims: Understanding why inequalities in alcohol-related mortality trends by sex and country exist is essential for developing health policies. Birth cohort effects, indicative of differences by generation in drinking, have rarely been studied. This study estimated the relative contributions of birth cohorts to liver cirrhosis mortality trends and compared sex- and country-specific cohort patterns across eight European countries., Design: Time-series analysis of population-level mortality data., Setting: Austria, Finland, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain and Sweden; 1950-2011., Participants: National populations aged 15-94 years., Measurements: We modelled country- and sex-specific liver cirrhosis mortality (from national vital registers) adjusting for age, period and birth cohort., Findings: Birth cohorts (adjusted for age and period) made statistically significant contributions to liver cirrhosis mortality in all countries and for both sexes (P < 0.001), and more so among women (average contribution to deviance reduction of 38.8%) than among men (17.4%). The observed cohort patterns were statistically different between all but two country pairs (P < 0.001). Sex differences existed overall (P < 0.001), but not in the majority of countries (P > 0.999). Visual inspection of birth cohort patterns reveals birth cohorts at higher risk of liver cirrhosis mortality., Conclusions: The inclusion of the birth cohort dimension improves the understanding of alcohol-attributable mortality trends in Europe. Birth cohorts at higher risk of liver cirrhosis mortality were born during 1935-49 in Sweden and Finland, around 1950 in Austria and the Netherlands and 1960 or later in Hungary, Italy, Poland and Spain., (© 2016 Society for the Study of Addiction.)

Aims: We formally estimate future smoking-attributable mortality up to 2050 for the total national populations of England & Wales, Denmark and the Netherlands, providing an update and extension of the descriptive smoking-epidemic model., Methods: We used smoking prevalence and population-level lung cancer mortality data for England & Wales, Denmark and the Netherlands, covering the period 1950-2009. To estimate the future smoking-attributable mortality fraction (SAF) we: (i) project lung cancer mortality by extrapolating age-period-cohort trends, using the observed convergence of smoking prevalence and similarities in past lung cancer mortality between men and women as input; and (ii) add other causes of death attributable to smoking by applying a simplified version of the indirect Peto-Lopez method to the projected lung cancer mortality., Findings: The SAF for men in 2009 was 19% (44 872 deaths) in England & Wales, 22% (5861 deaths) in Denmark and 25% (16 385 deaths) in the Netherlands. In our projections, these fractions decline to 6, 12 and 14%, respectively, in 2050. The SAF for women peaked at 14% (38 883 deaths) in 2008 in England & Wales, and is expected to peak in 2028 in Denmark (22%) and in 2033 in the Netherlands (23%). By 2050, a decline to 9, 17 and 19%, respectively, is foreseen. Different indirect estimation methods of the SAF in 2050 yield a range of 1-8% (England & Wales), 8-13% (Denmark) and 11-16% (the Netherlands) for men, and 7-16, 12-26 and 13-31% for women., Conclusions: From northern European data we project that smoking-attributable mortality will remain important for the future, especially for women. Whereas substantial differences between countries remain, the age-specific evolution of smoking-attributable mortality remains similar across countries and between sexes., (© 2014 Society for the Study of Addiction.)

Aims: We assess the effect of smoking on regional disparities in mortality in Poland and its contribution to the change in regional disparities during the last two decades., Design, Setting and Participants: We used population-level mortality data from the population registry for 379 Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics (NUTS)-4 Polish regions for 1991-93 and 2008-10., Measurements: The importance of smoking was assessed by smoking-attributable mortality (SAM) derived using a simplified indirect Peto-Lopez method. Regional differences in age-standardized all-cause, smoking- and non-smoking-attributable mortality (NSAM) rates at ages 35 years and over were mapped, and spatial clustering (Moran's I) and coefficients of variation (CV) were estimated. The contribution of SAM to variation in all-cause mortality was assessed by variance decomposition and compared over time., Findings: In 2008-10, all-cause and SAM rates were characterized by a similar pattern of spatial clustering (Moran's I > 0.44, P < 0.0001). For NSAM, a more random pattern with less regional clustering showed (Moran's I = 0.34, P < 0.0001). The contribution of smoking to regional variation was substantial [54%, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 44.9, 62.5 among men; 24.9%, 95% CI = 20.9, 29.1 among women], and compared with 1991-93, 27.5 percentage points lower for men and 6.3 percentage points higher for women. Smoking contributed to the divergence between the regions in all-cause mortality between 1991-93 and 2008-10 for men [increase in CV of SAM by 2% (0, 4%)], but not for women [decrease in CV of SAM by 15% (22, 10%)]., Conclusions: Differences in past smoking behaviour may largely explain the regional differences in all-cause mortality existing in 2008-10 in Poland, and its trends since 1991-1993., (© 2014 Society for the Study of Addiction.)