Dietary Patterns in Adults from an Adriatic Island of Croatia and Their Associations with Metabolic Syndrome and Its Components

Adriatic islanders have a high prevalence of metabolic syndrome (MetS) although they have traditionally practiced an active lifestyle and adhered to a Mediterranean diet. We performed a cross-sectional study to identify dietary patterns in a sample of 1442 adults from the island of Hvar, and determined whether MetS and its components: waist-circumference, serum triglycerides, fasting plasma glucose, HDL-cholesterol, and blood pressure, were related to an altered pattern of the traditional Mediterranean diet. Dietary intake was assessed by a food frequency questionnaire. MetS was defined using the International Diabetes Federation criteria. Our study showed that dietary patterns in this population have diversified from the traditional diet. Principal component analysis identified three major patterns. The meat, alcohol, and fish pattern (MAFp), sweets, grains, and fats pattern (SGFp), and an olive-oil, vegetables, and fruits pattern (OVFp) explained 30.6% of total dietary variance. The MAFp associated significantly with MetS (p=0.027) and high plasma glucose (p=0.006)

The construction of capacitive voltage divide for measuring ultrafast pulse voltage

The problem of pulse voltage measurements in the nanoseconds range has become of great importance with ongoing problems related to the construction of pulse fusion generators as well as with simulations of electromagnetic pulses related to the atmospheric nuclear explosion. Ultrafast pulses in the nanoseconds range can be measured by the capacitive voltage divider. The problem that arises with ultrafast voltage occurrence is inductivity. Under conditions of the nanoseconds pulse increaserate, conductors of about few centimeters should be regarded as inductivity. Therefore, capacitive divider can be treated as an equivalent RLC circuit. The ohmic resistance R in that equivalent circuit originates from the characteristic impedance (either 50 Ω or 75 Ω) and, depending on its design, it can introduce an additional parasite inductivity. The aim of this paper is to consider and analyze the constructive solutions of capacitive voltage divider for measuring ultrafast voltage occurrence. Three types of capacitive divider will be constructed for that purpose. The high-voltage capacitor of each divider will be gas capacitor (in order to avoid both electrostatic and electrodynamic influence on measurement accuracy). The variations between divider types will be made for low-voltage capacitor. The designed low-voltage capacitors will be: 1-in the shape of 10 mica capacitors connected in a parallel with a discrete ending resistor of 50 Ω 2-in the form of gas trimmer capacitor with a discrete ending resistor of 50 Ω, and 3-the continual mica capacitor with waveguide resistor of 50 Ω (L=0). Ultrafast pulse response will be measured with dividers constructed in such manner, and will be compared with the corresponding response obtained from the numerical simulations

The construction of capacitive voltage divide for measuring ultrafast pulse voltage

The problem of pulse voltage measurements in the nanoseconds range has become of great importance with ongoing problems related to the construction of pulse fusion generators as well as with simulations of electromagnetic pulses related to the atmospheric nuclear explosion. Ultrafast pulses in the nanoseconds range can be measured by the capacitive voltage divider. The problem that arises with ultrafast voltage occurrence is inductivity. Under conditions of the nanoseconds pulse increaserate, conductors of about few centimeters should be regarded as inductivity. Therefore, capacitive divider can be treated as an equivalent RLC circuit. The ohmic resistance R in that equivalent circuit originates from the characteristic impedance (either 50 Ω or 75 Ω) and, depending on its design, it can introduce an additional parasite inductivity. The aim of this paper is to consider and analyze the constructive solutions of capacitive voltage divider for measuring ultrafast voltage occurrence. Three types of capacitive divider will be constructed for that purpose. The high-voltage capacitor of each divider will be gas capacitor (in order to avoid both electrostatic and electrodynamic influence on measurement accuracy). The variations between divider types will be made for low-voltage capacitor. The designed low-voltage capacitors will be: 1-in the shape of 10 mica capacitors connected in a parallel with a discrete ending resistor of 50 Ω 2-in the form of gas trimmer capacitor with a discrete ending resistor of 50 Ω, and 3-the continual mica capacitor with waveguide resistor of 50 Ω (L=0). Ultrafast pulse response will be measured with dividers constructed in such manner, and will be compared with the corresponding response obtained from the numerical simulations

Replication of genetic variants from genome-wide association studies with metabolic traits in an island population of the Adriatic coast of Croatia

Twenty-two single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in 10 gene regions previously identified in obesity and type 2 diabetes (T2D) genome-wide association studies (GWAS) were evaluated for association with metabolic traits in a sample from an island population of European descent. We performed a population-based study using 18 anthropometric and biochemical traits considered as continuous variables in a sample of 843 unrelated subjects (360 men and 483 women) aged 18–80 years old from the island of Hvar on the eastern Adriatic coast of Croatia. All eight GWAS SNPs in FTO were significantly associated with weight, body mass index, waist circumference and hip circumference; 20 of the 32 nominal P-values remained significant after permutation testing for multiple corrections. The strongest associations were found between the two TCF7L2 GWAS SNPs with fasting plasma glucose and HbA1c levels, all four P-values remained significant after permutation tests. Nominally significant associations were found between several SNPs and other metabolic traits; however, the significance did not hold after permutation tests. Although the sample size was modest, our study strongly replicated the association of FTO variants with obesity-related measures and TCF7L2 variants with T2D-related traits. The estimated effect sizes of these variants were larger or comparable to published studies. This is likely attributable to the homogenous genetic background of the relatively isolated study population