COMPOSE: Using temporal patterns for interpreting wearable sensor data with computer interpretable guidelines.

This paper describes a novel temporal logic-based framework for reasoning with continuous data collected from wearable sensors. The work is motivated by the Metabolic Syndrome, a cluster of conditions which are linked to obesity and unhealthy lifestyle. We assume that, by interpreting the physiological parameters of continuous monitoring, we can identify which patients have a higher risk of Metabolic Syndrome.

Relationship of serum leptin concentration with age, gender, and biomedical parameters in healthy, non-obese subjects.

It is known that the circulating levels of leptin, the adipocyte hormone implicated in the control of energy balance, are correlated with fat body mass (FBM), although the influences of other physiological conditions are not fully understood. We investigated the relationships of serum leptin concentration with age, gender, and 36 hormone-metabolic parameters in a sample of a well defined healthy population (n=246; age range 20-93 years), and in subgroups of lean individuals according to their body mass index (BMI), within similar age range and gender distribution. Only insulin secretion (positively) and testosteronemia (negatively, in males) show direct correlations.

On maximum human life span: interdisciplinary approach about its limits.

Background: This is a theoretical approach on the question on how much maximally may extend the life of human individual. The starting point of this work was the biological consideration of two changes in human characteristics which took place during the last century up to now, namely human beings lived remarkably longer and are becoming taller.

Methods: Demography data and Gompertz deduced mathematics, either related to growth or survival, were the two columns on which the basis of this study has been supported.

On how insulin may influence ageing and become atherogenic throughout the insulin-like growth factor-1 receptor pathway: in vitro studies with human vascular smooth muscle cells.

Background: It is known that growth factors play a role in ageing and atherogenesis, and insulin develops mitogenic activity in vitro.

Objectives: This study focuses on the pathway by which insulin induces proliferation and mobility in vascular smooth muscle cells (SMCs) compared with that of insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1), because they are two basic phenomena for atherogenesis that could also help to understand the role of insulin in the ageing process.

Methods: Bromodeoxyuridine DNA incorporation, chemotaxis and the appearance of membrane ruffles were measured in cultured SMCs after incubation with insulin or IGF-1 in the presence of insulin or IGF-1 receptor-blocking antibodies.

On the antiatherogenity of calcium channel blockers: studies in proliferating vascular smooth muscle cells on age sensitivity, dose dependent inhibitory effect, and time of action.

We study the effect of diltiazem on cultured vascular smooth muscle cells from humans and rats, paying special attention to its activity in relation to the concentrations applied, incubation times after addition and the capacity to act against the mitogenic activity of insulin and insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1). The mitotic activity was measured by means of bromodeoxyuridine DNA incorporation. Smooth muscle cells from old individuals showed a dose-dependent regression of the inhibitory level but not those from the young subjects, which showed a remarkable inhibition of mitosis at all concentrations tested.

Age-dependent decline of in vitro migration (basal and stimulated by IGF-1 or insulin) of human vascular smooth muscle cells.

Since biological aging causes a decrease in functions such as cell proliferation, we have studied the possible effect of age on the migration capacity of human vascular smooth muscle cells (SMCs). To this aim, the migration activity of cultured SMCs from arteries of male human donors ranging in age from 43-77 years was determined in a Boyden chamber, under basal conditions and after insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1) or insulin stimulation. Migration activity decreased with donor age (r2 = 87%, 85%, and 78%, respectively).

Some comparative factors regarding recycling collection systems in regions of the USA and Europe.

This paper analyses whether differences in selective waste collection systems used commonly in Europe and America influence people's recycling habits and their opinions about the service they are offered. We study certain characteristics of the collection systems used in two specific areas-the Principality of Asturias (Northern Spain) and El Paso county (USA)-with very different practices. It likewise considers the extent to which such differences influence the recycling habits of the public at large, as well as their perceptions of the waste collection services.

L-calcium channel blockade induced by diltiazem inhibits proliferation, migration and F-actin membrane rearrangements in human vascular smooth muscle cells stimulated with insulin and IGF-1.

During the atheroma plaque formation, smooth muscle cells (SMC) have to change their differentiated phenotype in order to proliferate, migrate and synthesize collagen. These phenotypic changes are stimulated by insulin and IGF-1, and we have studied the effect of L-type calcium channel blockade produced by diltiazem on such changes. Mitotic activity was measured using bromodeoxyuridine DNA incorporation, the migration capability as chemotaxis index in a Boyden chamber, and cytoskeleton changes related to SMC movement in immunofluorescence studies.

Ageing and longevity are related to growth hormone/insulin-like growth factor-1 secretion.

Background: It is known that the growth process is related to an individual's life-span, but the role of growth hormone (GH) secretion in human ageing remains unknown.

Objective: This study has focussed on the influence of GH on ageing parameters and on its relationship with human longevity.

Methods: To deal with the first issue, we compared ageing parameters of young (up to 39) and old (over 70) individuals having similar insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1) blood levels.

The role of insulin-like growth factor 1 and insulin in ageing and atherosclerosis.

With advancing age insulin-like growth factor (IGF)1 blood levels decrease continuously, but with great interindividual differences. There is a relationship between the IGF1 serum concentration and biomarker behaviour, indicating that growth hormone (GH) secretion is a determinant of organismic well being and surviving in advanced age. In contrast, the secretion of insulin rises with age, which is related to both increasing body fat mass and ageing itself.

Age-related loss of proliferative activity of human vascular smooth muscle cells in culture.

This work studied the proliferation activity in cultures of vascular smooth muscle cells (SMC) from individuals of different ages. The cells derived from arteries of 12 donors of both sexes from 45 to 91 years of age. The main parameter considered was the 'proliferation rate' (cells grown per day in the different culture passages) taking into account the age of the donor.

Phenotypic changes in vascular smooth muscle cells during aging: insulin effect on migration.

We examined the mechanisms by which insulin may be atherogenic during aging. We postulated that an increase in insulin secretion during aging produces growth factor effects on vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMCs), promoting these cells to synthesize collagen and to migrate. We have previously demonstrated that insulin stimulates collagen synthesis and release in senescent VSMCs that were obtained from a human organism with high levels of insulin secretion.

Insulin stimulates collagen synthesis in vascular smooth muscle cells from elderly patients.

The process of aging results in an increase in collagen in arterial walls, but the blood levels of insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1) decrease remarkably as adults age. There is an almost simultaneous increase in insulin secretion, particularly in obese individuals. It is not known if, under these hormonal conditions, the enrichment of collagen in the arterial wall is due to insulin.

Increase in insulin secretion with age: its clinical importance in evaluating abnormal secretions focused on diabetes type II and obesity.

The urinary C-peptide excretion was measured in a healthy standardized population sample of 160 subjects from 20 to 90 years of age, homogeneously distributed by age and sex. Urinary C-peptide excretion corresponded to 7% of the total amount released. The daily C-peptide excretion was 61.

[The contribution of Augusto Orrego Luco to Chilean psychiatry].

Augusto Orrego Luco born in 1848 and dead in 1933 in Valparaiso, was one of the greatest clinicians and researchers of chilean medicine during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Besides being a psychiatrist he contributed to literature, history, politics and medicine. He received his medical degree in 1874 and, apart from being an anatomist, soon became interested in mental illnesses.

Ageing and prostate: age-related changes in androgen receptors of epithelial cells from benign hypertrophic glands compared with cancer.

Total and nuclear androgen receptors (AR) were studied from epithelial cells in internal and external prostatic zones in 51- to 86-year-old individuals with benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) (n = 68) and prostatic cancer (n = 9). We focussed on the role played by androgens on those processes, despite the fact that at these ages, its secretion has normally decreased. In BPH, the nuclear AR do not change, but total measured androgen receptors rise with age (r = 0.

Are anthropometric changes in healthy adults caused by modifications in dietary habits or by aging?

The aim of this work was to investigate to what extent age-dependent anthropometric changes are causally related to changes in dietary habits. In a randomly obtained sample of 246 healthy adults in the age range of 20-90 years from a well-defined agrarian population, the intake of proteins, fat and carbohydrates in males decreases with age (r = -0.65, p < 0.

Estimation of the aging rates of populations through the prevalence of age-related diseases.

Ten prevalences of disease or functional affections due to degenerative processes that statistically show a significant age-dependent behaviour were taken as variables for a biological aging study of a population living in a district of Madrid. The cross-sectional procedure consisted in grouping the disease prevalences by age decades and calculating aging by the vector-analytical mathematical method in which the age-dependent prevalence was the result of one of the total of 10 vector components. The progressive accumulative increase of the vector distances from the origin as well as the distances among the vectors in relation to the population age was considered as biological aging.

[Atherosclerosis as a physiological manifestation of aging for measuring the rate of aging].

This work studies the follow-up of vitality using parameters related to the arterial wall. This study is based on the application of several mathematical models and different calculation procedures. Humoral parameters together with measurements of the daily insulin secretion (own methodology based on the C-peptide elimination) were applied for the calculations using the exclusively healthy population.

[The dynamics of aging of an unselected population of limited representation].

Aging rates of a sample which should represent the total population living in a district of Madrid were studied using the vectorial calculation as a mathematical model. The number of individuals who finally participated was 867, homogeneously distributed by sex and age decades in the age range of 20-100 years. A total of 15 variables was applied, but they were deduced from health-related data obtained from a special elaborated questionnaire.

Homeostasis between lipid peroxidation and antioxidant enzyme activities in healthy human aging.

In healthy people the plasma malondialdehyde increases with age, however there is a simultaneous rise in the activities of glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase and 6-phosphogluconate dehydrogenase in red blood cells, although both enzymes show a biphasic behaviour, that is, reaching the lowest values at 40-50 years of age to rise remarkably later on. No significant changes were found in the case of glutathione peroxidase but the age-dependent behaviour is similar to the other enzymes mentioned above. The activity of glutathione reductase shows a clear increase depending on age, up to middle age, with or without flavin adenine dinucleotide.

Body surface area as a parameter of age decline.

We determined the age loss of body surface area (DuBois) in a cross-sectional and longitudinal combined study of 209 men and women aged between 40 and 96 from a rural region in the northwest of Spain. We established a secular growth trend of 1.01 +/- 0.

Decelerated growth and longevity in men.

Severe dietary restriction delays the physical development of rodents and leads to adult animals of reduced body size but significantly increased life expectancy. We tried to find a similar relationship in human populations using demographical and statistical methods. We show for the total Spanish male population that the mean adult body height reliably reflects the regional living and nutritional conditions.