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There is conflicting literature evidence regarding the independent effects of insulin resistance and concomitant hyperinsulinemia on bone mineral density. In addition, it is still under debate whether the net effect is favorable or unfavorable for the fracture risk. Therefore, we conducted a cross-sectional study.

Considerable uncertainty exists about the defining brain changes associated with bipolar disorder (BD). Understanding and quantifying the sources of uncertainty can help generate novel clinical hypotheses about etiology and assist in the development of biomarkers for indexing disease progression and prognosis. Here we were interested in quantifying case-control differences in intracranial volume (ICV) and each of eight subcortical brain measures: nucleus accumbens, amygdala, caudate, hippocampus, globus pallidus, putamen, thalamus, lateral ventricles. In a large study of 1710 BD patients and 2594 healthy controls, we found consistent volumetric reductions in BD patients for mean hippocampus (Cohen's d=-0.232; P=3.50 × 10-7) and thalamus (d=-0.148; P=4.27 × 10-3) and enlarged lateral ventricles (d=-0.260; P=3.93 × 10-5) in patients. No significant effect of age at illness onset was detected. Stratifying patients based on clinical subtype (BD type I or type II) revealed that BDI patients had significantly larger lateral ventricles and smaller hippocampus and amygdala than controls. However, when comparing BDI and BDII patients directly, we did not detect any significant differences in brain volume. This likely represents similar etiology between BD subtype classifications. Exploratory analyses revealed significantly larger thalamic volumes in patients taking lithium compared with patients not taking lithium. We detected no significant differences between BDII patients and controls in the largest such comparison to date. Findings in this study should be interpreted with caution and with careful consideration of the limitations inherent to meta-analyzed neuroimaging comparisons.

The profile of brain structural abnormalities in schizophrenia is still not fully understood, despite decades of research using brain scans. To validate a prospective meta-analysis approach to analyzing multicenter neuroimaging data, we analyzed brain MRI scans from 2028 schizophrenia patients and 2540 healthy controls, assessed with standardized methods at 15 centers worldwide. We identified subcortical brain volumes that differentiated patients from controls, and ranked them according to their effect sizes. Compared with healthy controls, patients with schizophrenia had smaller hippocampus (Cohen's d=-0.46), amygdala (d=-0.31), thalamus (d=-0.31), accumbens (d=-0.25) and intracranial volumes (d=-0.12), as well as larger pallidum (d=0.21) and lateral ventricle volumes (d=0.37). Putamen and pallidum volume augmentations were positively associated with duration of illness and hippocampal deficits scaled with the proportion of unmedicated patients. Worldwide cooperative analyses of brain imaging data support a profile of subcortical abnormalities in schizophrenia, which is consistent with that based on traditional meta-analytic approaches. This first ENIGMA Schizophrenia Working Group study validates that collaborative data analyses can readily be used across brain phenotypes and disorders and encourages analysis and data sharing efforts to further our understanding of severe mental illness.

Previous studies indicate that school climate is important for student health and academic achievement. This study concerns the validity and reliability of the student edition a Swedish instrument for measuring pedagogical and social school climate (PESOC). Data were collected from 5,745 students at 97 Swedish secondary schools. Multilevel confirmatory factor analyses were conducted, and multilevel composite reliability estimates, as well as correlations with school-level achievement indicators, were calculated. The results supported an 8-factor structure at the student level and 1 general factor at the school level. Factor loadings and composite reliability estimates were acceptable at both levels. The school-level factor was moderately and positively correlated with school-level academic achievement. The student PESOC is a promising instrument for studying school climate.

The temperament of a total of 30 small puppies of 4 breeds in the period of their primary socialization was typified. The number of sanguines, cholerics, phlegmatics and melancholics was determined separately according to the breed of the animals along with the possibility of building a successful behavioral model for representatives of different breeds according to their temperament. The fastest socialization was reported in Shih Tzu puppies, followed by Bichon Frise, Pekingese, Dachshund, and lastly Poodle. There was a relationship between temperament and breed in dogs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A methodology has been developed for obtaining of porous castings from Al and aluminium A356 alloy. The methodology includes introduction of Ca into the melt for viscosity increasing and homogenization by mechanical stirring. This is followed by addition of TiH2, homogenization, subsequent formation of the porous structure and crystallization. A tomographic analysis of the porous samples was carried out and the main characteristics of their structure were determined. Tests were carried out on specimens of the castings involving abrasive wearing under dry friction conditions on a surface with hard-attached abrasive particles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The composition of grape seeds from two white dessert (‘Bolgar’ and ‘Super ran Bolgar’) and two red wine Bulgarian varieties (‘Mavroud’ and ‘Shiroka melnishka loza’) was investigated. The content of proteins was established by Kjeldhal method and was found to be 6.3 – 8.9%. The content of carbohydrates - calculated as the difference of mean values: 100 - (amount in percentage of oil, moisture, protein and ash) - was 65.5 – 70.9%. The content of oil – by extraction with n-hexane - was 11.6 - 16.5%. The content of phospholipids was determined spectrophotometrically after isolation by chromatographic methods and was found to be 0.6 - 0.9%, including phosphatidylcholine, phosphatidylinositol and phosphatidic acids. The sterol content determined by gas chromatography was 0.3 – 0.4% while β-sitosterol (70.0 – 72.1%) and campesterol (18.5 – 19.9%) were the major components. In the phospholipids and sterol esters, saturated and monounsaturated fatty acids presented higher amount than the triacylglycerols. Fatty acids of sterol esters and phospholipids were determined by gas chromatography after isolation. The quantity of palmitic acid in the phospholipid fraction was 43.4 – 59.4%, the content of oleic acid was 9.0 – 14.0% and the content of linoleic acid was 10.0 – 24.5% while in the sterol esters, the predominant ones were mainly linoleic (40.7 – 53.8%), oleic (24.9 – 35.5%) and palmitic acids (13.0 – 16.7%). Linoleic (68.5 – 72.3%) and oleic acids (16.3 – 18.7%) were found to be the main components of the triacylglycerols. The tocopherol content varied from 67.7 mg kg-1 to 290.5 mg kg-1 where α-tocopherol (74.8 – 84.4%) was the predominant component.