a1_Diabetes mellitus is not just a simple metabolic disorder, however, it is considered to be a cardiovascular disease of a metabolic origin. This is apparent especially when speaking about type 2 diabetes (DM II). The objective of our study was to determine whether a comprehensive spa treatment (procedures and drinking cure) may affect the level of the sympathetic tone of patients suffering from DM II. As an indicator of the sympathetic tone, selected electrocardiographic parameters derived from the heart rate variability and microwave alternans were chosen. There were 96 patients enrolled in our study: 38 patients with poorly controlled DM II and two control groups: 9 patients with compensated DM II and 49 patients, average age without diabetes or other disorders of the glucose metabolism. All received an identical spa treatment and continued their medical therapy. The electrophysiological examination of patients was performed before and after a three-week spa treatment using the KARDiVAR system. Parameters derived from the analysis of heart rate variability (HRV), microvolt T-wave alternans, and microvolt R-wave alternans were analyzed in order to evaluate the tones of the autonomic nervous system (ANS). The control group showed a slight increase of parameter the index of activity of regulatory systems (IRSA) (4.4±1.3 vs. 3.8±1.4; p=0.006) after the spa treatment, while increased heart rate (80.9±11.0 vs. 74.6±9.6; p=0.028), reduced index of centralization (IC) (1.3±0.6 vs. 2.9±1.4; p=0.027) and reduced index of myocardium (IM) (9.9±7.4 vs. 18.0±6.3; p=0.041) were found in patients with a compensated DM II. Patients with a poorly compensated DM II showed a decreased IM (10.9±8.6 vs. 16.9±5.2; p=0.001) and also a reduced IRSA (4.1±3.5 vs. 6.3±1.9; p=0.001)., a2_The results proved favorable changes in ANS cardiovascular control of patients with DM II after a spa treatment, especially in terms of reducing the sympathoadrenal system activity (decreased IRSA), improving electrical stability of the myocardium and increasing centrally controlled heart rate variability without overloading the cardiovascular system (drop of IM)., E. Fialová, O. Kittnar., and Obsahuje bibliografii
Adult body size is the result of important environmental, maternal and/or genetic effects acting on animals during development. Here we investigate how sexual size dimorphism (SSD) develops in seven species of Odonata: Anax imperator, Cordulegaster boltonii, Onychogomphus uncatus, Oxygastra curtisii (Anisoptera), Cercion lindeni, Ischnura graellsii and Platycnemis acutipennis (Zygoptera). SSD of both the last larval and adult stages of the same individuals, which were reared under laboratory conditions, was measured. The aims were to investigate (i) whether SSD develops during the larval stage, (ii) the direction of larval and adult SSD, and (iii) whether the direction of adult SSD can be predicted by the mating system of a given species (e.g. males of territorial species being larger than females and the opposite for non-territorial species). We found that although larval differences in size may be present between the sexes, these are not necessarily shown in the adult stage (they may change or disappear). Also, the mating system was not related to patterns of adult SSD. Differences in SSD in larvae may be caused by differential use of resources via differential niche-utilisation or sex-specific growth patterns. We highlight the fact that sexual selection favouring large male size and fecundity selection, which selects for large females may be acting on the observed patterns in SSD in adults.
There are several evolutionary grades of wing reduction in female bagworm moths of the family Psychidae. In this family, female adults of Taleporia trichopterella, Bacotia sakabei and Proutia sp. have vestigial wings, although as pupae they have small wings. Consequently, these species (usually called wingless-legged bagworm moths), are intermediate between the two extremes of females with normal wings and those with no wings. Using light and electron microscopy, the processes of wing development during the last-larval instar and wing degeneration during the pupal stage was investigated in these species. Female wing imaginal discs proliferated during the last-larval instar, but diminished due to apoptosis in the prepupal stage of the last instar. In the pupal stage, degenerate cells were observed between the epithelia of the degenerating wing discs of the female. The presence of these cells is associated with apoptotic cell death. These observations suggest that female-specific wing degeneration caused by apoptosis occurs in two steps in these bagworm moths, i.e. in the larval and pupal stages. Such a process of wing reduction has not been previously reported in holometabolous insects, and is reported here for the first time in bagworm moths.
In this paper we continue the study of paired-domination in graphs introduced by Haynes and Slater (Networks {\it 32} (1998), 199--206). A paired-dominating set of a graph $G$ with no isolated vertex is a dominating set of vertices whose induced subgraph has a perfect matching. The paired-domination number of $G$, denoted by $\gamma _{{\rm pr}}(G)$, is the minimum cardinality of a paired-dominating set of $G$. The graph $G$ is paired-domination vertex critical if for every vertex $v$ of $G$ that is not adjacent to a vertex of degree one, $\gamma _{{\rm pr}}(G - v) < \gamma _{{\rm pr}}(G)$. We characterize the connected graphs with minimum degree one that are paired-domination vertex critical and we obtain sharp bounds on their maximum diameter. We provide an example which shows that the maximum diameter of a paired-domination vertex critical graph is at least $\frac 32(\gamma _{{\rm pr}}(G) - 2)$. For $\gamma _{{\rm pr}}(G) \le 8$, we show that this lower bound is precisely the maximum diameter of a paired-domination vertex critical graph.
Drugs interfering with the renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system (RAAS) improved the prognosis in patients with hypertension, heart failure, diabetes and chronic kidney disease. However, combining different drugs brought no further benefit while increasing the risk of hyperkalemia, hypotension and acute renal failure. This was so with combining angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitors (ACEi) and angiotensin II receptors type 1 antagonists (ARB). Dissimilarly, in animal disease models this dual therapy proved clearly superior to single drug treatment and became the optimal standard regime for comparison with other treatments. This review analyzes the causes of the discrepancy of effects of the dual therapy between animal experiments versus clinical studies, and is focused on the outcomes in chronic kidney disease. Discussed is the role of species differences in RAAS, of the variability of the disease features in humans versus relative stability in animals, of the genetic uniformity in the animals but not in humans, and of the biased publication habits of experimental versus clinical studies. We attempt to understand the causes and reconcile the discordant findings and suggest to what extent dual RAAS inhibition should be continued in animal experiments and why its application in the clinics should be limited to strictly selected groups of patients., V. Čertíková Chábová, L. Červenka., and Obsahuje bibliografii
In this paper, I analyse the post-war development of social rental housing in Norway. During the 20th century, Norwegian municipalities created some of the more means-tested and market-oriented social housing sectors in Europe. Given developmentsin other countries in recent decades, the Norwegian case is therefore highly relevant to the general debate on the residualisation of social housing in Europe. Using the case of Oslo as the main point of departure, I discuss key challenges of residual and market-oriented social rental housing. Drawing on city council debates, local government reports, and previous studies, I argue that the logic of extreme meanstesting creates policy dilemmas connected to contradictory policy goals.
Let $ M $ be a real submanifold of an almost complex manifold $ (\overline{M},\overline{J}) $ and let $ H_{x}=T_{x}M\cap \overline{J}(T_{x}M) $ be the maximal holomorphic subspace, for each $ x\in M $. We prove that $ c\:M\rightarrow \mathbb{N} $, $ c(x)=\dim _{\mathbb{R}} H_{x} $ is upper-semicontinuous.
Let $\mathbb {Z}$, $ \mathbb {N}$ be the sets of all integers and positive integers, respectively. Let $p$ be a fixed odd prime. Recently, there have been many papers concerned with solutions $(x, y, n, a, b)$ of the equation $ x^2+2^ap^b=y^n$, $x, y, n\in \mathbb {N}$, $\gcd (x, y)=1$, $n\geq 3$, $a, b\in \mathbb {Z}$, $a\geq 0$, $b\geq 0. $ And all solutions of it have been determined for the cases $p=3$, $p=5$, $p=11$ and $p=13$. In this paper, we mainly concentrate on the case $p=3$, and using certain recent results on exponential diophantine equations including the famous Catalan equation, all solutions $(x, y, n, a, b)$ of the equation $x^2+2^a\cdot 17^b=y^n$, $x, y, n\in \mathbb {N}$, $\gcd (x, y)=1$, $n\geq 3$, $a, b\in \mathbb {Z}$, $ a\geq 0$, $ b\geq 0$, are determined.
For a vertex v of a connected oriented graph D and an ordered set W = [wi, w2,.. •, wk} of vertices of D, Ihe (directed distcince) representation of v with respect to W is the ordered fc-tuple r(v \ W) = (d(v, w1),d(v, w2 ), •.. ,d(v, wk )), where d(v, wi ) is Ihe directed distance from v to wi . The set W is a resolving set for D if every two distinct vertices of D have distinct representations. The minimum cardinality of a resolving set for D is the (directed distance) dimension dhn(D) of D. The dimension of a connected oriented graph need not be defined. Those oriented graphs with dimension 1 are characterized. We discuss the problem of determining the largest dimension of an oriented graph with a fixed order. It is shown that if the outdegree of every vertex of a connected oriented graph D of order n is at least 2 and dim(D) is defined, then dim(D) ≤ n - 3 and this bound is sharp.