Search

L-theanine (L-THE) is a green tea-derived amino acid, consumed for its many benefits, including improved cardiovascular health, anxiolytic effects, antioxidant properties, and its effect on instigating a state of relaxed alertness. The aim of this clinical trial is to evaluate the effectiveness of the amino acid L-THE embedded in functional food whey protein mango sorbet, its related stress effects on physiological responses, state of alertness, and focus, and the accuracy of eye movements post-consumption.

High intensity, high-repetition rate (HRR) lasers, that is lasers that can operate on the order of 1 Hz or faster, are quickly coming on-line around the world. High intensity lasers have long been an impactful tool in high energy density (HED) science since they are capable of creating matter at extreme temperatures and pressures relevant to this field. The advent of HRR technology enhances to this capability since HRR enables these types of these experiments to be performed faster, thus leading to an acceleration in the rate of learning in fundamental HED science. However, in order to use the full potential of HRR systems, high repetition rate diagnostics in addition to real-time analysis tools must be developed to process experimental measurements and outputs at a rate that matches the laser. Towards this goal, we present an automated machine learning based analysis for a synthetic X-ray spectrometer, which is a common diagnostic in HED experiments.

l-Theanine (l-THE) is a nonproteinogenic amino acid derived from green tea (Camellia sinensis), which exhibits strong antioxidant-like properties and contributes to the favourable umami taste sensation. Several studies have reported that the consumption of this amino acid has many therapeutic effects, including improvements in brain and gastrointestinal function, cancer drug therapeutic efficacies, antihypertensive effects, and improved immune function. Considering the recent Western commercialisation and popularity of green tea consumption as a nootropic agent in humans, the aims of this review were to consolidate the existing knowledge from ex vivo and in vitro animal models and attempt to highlight the applicability of l-THE towards the human clinical trials. Considering the anti-inflammatory and antioxidants effects of l-THE presented in the current review, further research must translate the existing knowledge gained from animal and cell models to exploring the potential metabolic health benefits and moderating effects on the pathogenesis of conditions such as obesity, arthritis, depression, and type 2 diabetes in human trials. This will bridge the gap in literature and provide more insights into the mechanisms driving pathologies characterised by the inflammatory response and oxidative stress.

Consumption of L-Theanine (L-THE) has been associated with a sensation of relaxation, as well as a reduction of stress. However, these physiological responses have yet to be elucidated in humans where L-THE is compared alongside food or as a functional ingredient within the food matrix. The aim of this study was to determine the physiological responses of a single intake of a potential functional food product (mango sorbet) containing L-THE (ms-L-THE, 200 mgw/w) in comparison to a flavour and colour-matched placebo (ms). Eighteen healthy male participants were recruited in this randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial. The participants were required to consume ms-L-THE or placebo and their blood pressure (BP) (systolic and diastolic), heart rate (HR), and heart rate variability (HRV) were monitored continuously over 90 minutes. Eleven males (age 27.7 ± 10.8 years) completed the study. Changes in area under the curve for systolic and diastolic blood pressure and HRV over the 90 minute observation period indicated no differences between the three conditions (all p &gt, 0.05) or within individual groups (all p &gt, 0.05). The values for heart rate were also not different in the placebo group (p = 0.996) and treatment group (p = 0.066), while there was a difference seen at the baseline (p = 0.003). Based on the findings of this study, L-THE incorporated in a food matrix (mango sorbet) demonstrated no reduction in BP or HR and showed no significant parasympathetic interaction as determined by HRV high-frequency band and low-frequency/high-frequency ratio. Further studies should be focussed towards the comparison of pure L-THE and incorporation within the food matrix to warrant recommendations of L-THE alongside food consumption.

The green tea amino acid, L-theanine (L-THE) is associated with several health benefits, including improvements in mood, cognition and a reduction of stress and anxiety-like symptoms. This systematic review evaluated the effect of pure L-THE intake, in the form of orally administered nutritional supplements, on stress responses and anxiety levels in human randomised controlled trials. Following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) checklist, 9 peer-reviewed journal articles were identified where L-THE as a supplement was compared to a control. Our findings suggest that supplementation of 200–400 mg/day of L-THE may assist in the reduction of stress and anxiety in people exposed to stressful conditions. Despite this finding, longer-term and larger cohort clinical studies, including those where L-THE is incorporated into the diet regularly, are needed to clinically justify the use of L-THE as a therapeutic agent to reduce stress and anxiety in people exposed to stressful conditions.

The purpose of this study is to determine the efficacy of providing guided meditations to reduce insomnia and other sleep disorders in a juvenile justice-involved population. Studies have shown that early childhood trauma, identified as Adverse Childhood Experiences, has a detrimental effect on the overall emotional and physical well-being of the trauma sufferer, often resulting in sleep disruption. Consequently, adolescents develop ineffective behaviors such as aggression, violence, social functioning deficits, and self-harm, often requiring directed means of moderating and resolving those behaviors. Research supports the use of evidence-based mindfulness modalities in the treatment of adolescent sleep disorders). The use of guided meditations was implemented at a New Mexico juvenile justice facility, with a population of incarcerated youth ranging in age from 15 to 20 years old. Guided meditations were broadcast over an FM frequency during sleeping hours over a four-week period, with pre- and post-intervention assessments using the Insomnia Severity Index and Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index. Data analysis of the pre-and post-assessment scores of the study population (n=27) showed a strong relationship to the use of guided meditations in the decrease of insomnia symptoms and an increase in the quality of sleep. Paired sample t-tests for both the ISI and PSQI showed statistical significance within this study. Of the starting population (n=42), approximately 69% of the study group meet the criteria for inclusion in the final data analysis.

It is often observed that health care costs in the USA are rising at an “unsustainable” rate. We know that unsustainable trends must stop, but to date, no policy analysts have opined on what will precipitate an end to this one. This article uses scenario analysis to posit potential turning points that could lead to stabilizing spending at a realistic level.

Under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (commonly known as ‘Obamacare’), the national uninsured rate has fallen from 17.3 per cent in 2013 to 11.7 per cent in the first half of 2015. While this is a substantial drop, even accounting for the states that did not expand Medicaid, the remaining double-digit national rate, as well as higher rates in some states, indicates that a significant minority of Americans are not buying insurance. Researchers have identified a segment of the population with weak or uncertain preferences for health insurance. This article explores how such individuals are unevenly distributed across states and whether cultural preferences relating to time preference and risk aversion underlie the geographic distribution of the ‘persistently uninsured’. It concludes by reviewing the policy implications presented by the presence of numerous health insurance sceptics in certain jurisdictions.

Introduction: Few studies have documented the value of mentoring for medical students, and research has been limited to more subjective (e.g., job satisfaction, perceived career preparation) rather than objective outcomes. This study examined whether having a mentor is associated with match outcome (where a student matched based on their rank order list [ROL]). Methods: We sent a survey link to all emergency medicine (EM) program coordinators to distribute to their residents. EM residents were surveyed about whether they had a mentor during medical school. Match outcome was assessed by asking residents where they matched on their ROL (e.g., first choice, fifth choice). They were also asked about rank in medical school, type of degree (MD vs. DO), and performance on standardized tests. Residents who indicated having a mentor completed the Mentorship Effectiveness Scale (MES), which evaluates behavioral characteristics of the mentor and yields a total score. We assessed correlations among these variables using Pearson’s correlation coefficient. Post-hoc analysis using independent sample t-test was conducted to compare differences in the MES score between those who matched to their first or second choice vs. third or higher choice. Results: Participants were a convenience sample of 297 EM residents. Of those, 199 (67%) reported having a mentor during medical school. Contrary to our hypothesis, there was no significant correlation between having a mentor and match outcome (r=0.06, p=0.29). Match outcome was associated with class rank (r=0.13, p=0.03), satisfaction with match outcome (r= -0.37, p

A 15-year-old previously healthy girl presented to the hospital with acute onset fever, epigastric pain, and scleral icterus associated with chills and non-bloody diarrhea. She denied sick contacts, recent travel, or new medications. Family history was significant for a mother with Multiple Sclerosis and a cousin with Crohn's disease (CD). Social history was unremarkable. On arrival, she was febrile to 104 degrees, tachycardic but remained normotensive. On examination, she was nontoxic with obvious scleral icterus. Abdomen was soft, non-distended with RUQ and epigastric tenderness without organomegaly. Murphy's and Rovsing's signs …

Picosecond-scale laser–matter interactions using compound parabolic concentrators have demonstrated strongly relativistic ponderomotive effects with ∼ 10 × increase in x-ray source brightness, positron production and multi-MeV proton acceleration versus flat targets, using a marginally relativistic intensity laser.

Objective Health planning is the process of identifying community needs for health care, facilities and technology and allocating resources to meet those needs to the exclusion of redundant capacity. Health planning in the United States was pioneered in Rochester, New York through private sector efforts but today, health planning is generally understood in the US as referring to a governmental function: “certificate of need” regulation. Yet health planning need not be, and indeed is not today, an exclusively governmental function. The original conception of a health planning agency as a civil society-based, non-governmental organization survives in Rochester. This study assesses the, viability of this private option as an alternative to regulation. Method Outcomes of applications to a, non-governmental health planning entity in the Rochester region (CTAAB) were compared to, outcomes from the state agency (DOH) for two adjacent regions. Results The non-governmental, approach to health planning appeared to be more restrictive, with the Rochester region spending less. There are numerous extraneous commas in the text as it appears on my screen. Are they part of the document? Iif so, they need to be removed. If they were not added to the document, the document does not look right in the Online Proofing application. Overall and in particular, utilizing less advanced imaging. Conclusions The Rochester NY region, appears to demonstrate that cooperative efforts by stakeholders can lower health care costs. For such, voluntary efforts to succeed, policymakers need not regulate—they can engage with community, leaders by convening them to analyze local utilization patterns, review options for chartering or, subsidizing non-governmental organizations to implement planning, and delineate safe harbors from, antitrust or other potential liability arising from collective action

Ars longa, vita brevis – ‘art is long, life short’. The methods by which scholars have attempted to circumvent this seemingly insurmountable contradiction, first posed by Hippocrates of Cos in the ...

As more Americans are burdened with chronic conditions, prominent health policy thought leaders urge a reorientation of our health care system from provision of episodic, reactive care to a “population health” focus. Some of the mechanisms proposed to achieve this would devolve certain responsibilities from physicians to other members of care teams. In particular, there is heightened interest in deploying lay health workers to reach out to the medically underserved. The Food and Drug Administration has initiated formal discussion of loosening regulatory constraints on the prescribing of medications used to treat chronic conditions. This article reviews recent efforts to transform care delivery and the regulatory barriers to realizing their full potential. It concludes that there are promising health interventions that could be implemented on a wider scale if legal barriers were lifted. It proposes a design for demonstration projects that would waive some regulatory requirements to permit testing of innovative population health models.

The U.S. Medicare program now ties payment to health care providers based on their patients’ outcomes. This change comes as compilations of data on geographic variations in health outcomes and quality of care indicate patterns that appear to be deeply ingrained. This study explores whether cultural characteristics correlate with health outcomes such that quality indicators may be measuring something other than quality of care, and whether regional subcultures have a significant impact on public health. It concludes that two cultural dimensions, social capital and traditional/rational-secularism, which explain a sufficient proportion of outcome variations to cast doubt as to whether outcome measures capture provider quality. Correlations are explored between American regional subcultures identified by Joel Lieske and the variation in health outcomes. In a multidimensional analysis of Lieske's typology, results indicate that certain U.S. subpopulations have cultural advantages or disadvantages relating to health.

The dynamics of magnetized flows is of great interest to the astrophysics community as the formation and long collimation distances of jets in accretion systems are still open questions. In many of these systems, the background magnetic field is parallel to the jet propagation direction. Recent experiments [1] performed at the Jupiter Laser Facility investigated the effects of imposing a background magnetic field aligned with a collimated jet. Plastic cone targets were irradiated by a long-pulse laser as shown schematically in Fig. 1a. When the shock emerges from the backside of the cone, accelerated material accumulates on axis producing a collimated flow. Figure 1b demonstrates the collimation of the plasma without the background field and the disruption of the flow when applying a 5 T field. Experimental results will be discussed in detail with supporting numerical work describing the mechanisms causing the jet disruption.

Nonlinear optical phenomena in semiconductors present several fundamental problems in modern optics that are of great importance for the development of optoelectronic devices. In particular, the details of photo-induced lattice dynamics at early time-scales prior to carrier recombination remain poorly understood. We demonstrate the first integrated measurements of both optical and structural, material-dependent quantities while also inferring the bulk impulsive strain profile by using high spatial-resolution time-resolved x-ray scattering (TRXS) on bulk crystalline gallium arsenide. Our findings reveal distinctive laser-fluence dependent crystal lattice responses, which are not described by previous TRXS experiments or models. The initial linear expansion of the crystal upon laser excitation stagnates at a laser fluence corresponding to the saturation of the free carrier density before resuming expansion in a third regime at higher fluences where two-photon absorption becomes dominant. Our interpretations of the lattice dynamics as nonlinear optical effects are confirmed by numerical simulations and by additional measurements in an n-type semiconductor that allows higher-order nonlinear optical processes to be directly observed as modulations of x-ray diffraction lineshapes.

Tea has been consumed for thousands of years and is an integral part of people’s daily routine, as an everyday drink and a therapeutic aid for health promotion. Consumption of tea has been linked to a sense of relaxation commonly associated with the content of the non-proteinogenic amino acid theanine, which is found within the tea leaves. The aim of this review article is to outline the current methods for synthesis, extraction and purification of theanine, as well as to examine its potential benefits related to human health. These include improvements in cognitive and immune function, cancer prevention, reduced cardiovascular risk and its potential usefulness as a functional food product.

Background Stigma about mental health is a significant problem in Jamaica and the wider English-speaking Caribbean. In general, negative attitudes and opinions about mental illness have been found to negatively impact psychological help-seeking among several populations.

The Sector 7 undulator beamline (7 ID) of the Advanced Photon Source (APS) is dedicated to time-resolved X-ray research [1] . Silicon avalanche photodiodes (APDs) are used as the primary point detector for time-resolved Bragg diffraction experiments for their fast recovery time ( [2] . Common practice has been to attenuate the monochromatic beam entering the experimental hutch to an appropriately low flux [3] . For these high-flux experiments, an APD operated in proportional mode is a better detector choice due to a large dynamic range and linearity. With the ZT4212 ZTEC, EPICS based oscilloscope, the operating procedure to use an APD in proportional mode has been improved. This article shows the setup and operating procedure for this oscilloscope and demonstrates its application to measuring time-resolved rocking curves of laser excited semiconductors.

A universal procedure was developed to calibrate image plate scanners using radioisotope sources. Techniques to calibrate scanners and sources, as well as cross-calibrate scanner models, are described to convert image plate dosage into physical units. This allows for the direct comparison of quantitative data between any facility and scanner. An empirical relation was also derived to establish sensitivity response settings for arbitrary gain settings. In practice, these methods may be extended to any image plate scanning system.

In 1761 Thomas Gray composed two loose translations of Old Norse poems: The Fatal Sisters and The Descent of Odin. This article reconstructs Gray’s complex engagement with the world of seventeenth-century Scandinavian scholarship: recovering the texts he used, the ideologies contained within them, and the ways in which he naturalized those ideologies into his own vision of the history of English literature. Gray became aware of Old Norse poetry in the course of composing a never-completed history of English poetry in the 1750s, but this article argues that it was not until the publication of James Macpherson’s Fragments of Ancient Poetry (1760) that Gray became inspired to engage poetically with the Scandinavian past. Imitating Macpherson, he created his own ‘translations’ of what he understood to be the British literary heritage and, in doing so, composed a vivid and surprising variation on the grand myths of early modern Scandinavian nationalism. Postprint

Research suggests that there is a high level of stigma surrounding mental illness in the English-speaking Caribbean, limited knowledge about aetiology and scepticism about the effectiveness of treatment. Further, in spite of experiencing symptoms of distress, a growing body of literature has suggested that Caribbean nationals hold negative attitudes toward seeking professional psychological help. It has been suggested that these attitudes may be even more negative than for other populations. This paper presents the results of two studies which sought to examine this assumption. It was hypothesized that Jamaicans would hold more negative attitudes toward seeking professional mental health services than samples from other populations. Data regarding attitudes toward seeking professional psychological help were collected from 339 Jamaican adolescents. In study 1, a review of the literature was conducted. Three published studies that utilized the same measure of help-seeking attitudes, had a sample similar in age, and published their sample size, means and standard deviations, which were compared to the Jamaican sample. In study 2, data from the Jamaican sample were compared to a sample of African-American adolescents (n = 81). Results did not support the hypothesis. Jamaicans were generally found to be either similar or more positive in their attitudes toward seeking professional psychological help. These encouraging results are discussed. Suggestions for improving education and reducing mental health stigma are presented.

While the specific-ity with which a definitive diagnosis of ADHF can be made is often less than optimal, the monitoring of the response of a patient to a prescribed treatment regimen is even more sub-jective. The uncertainty in the deter-mination of the response to treatment in ADHF has been primarily due to a lack of the tools necessary to effectively monitor this disease state. The complex pathophysiology of ADHF involves a systemic failure of the integrated com-ponents of the circulation; however, the circulatory system’s compensatory mechanisms seek to first stabilize critical hemodynamic parameters such as blood pressure, cardiac output, and arterial oxygen saturation and thereby limit the usefulness of these “vital signs” as indi-cators of an overall improvement in the clinical state during treatment.