Publications

Background: Limiting dietary cholesterol intake is widely recommended for prevention of cardiovascular disease (CVD). Eggs are a major source of dietary cholesterol, but they also contain a variety of other nutrients. Several recent studies have examined egg intake and CVD with conflicting findings. Objective: To prospectively evaluate the association between egg intake and CVD risk in three large cohorts. Methods: Women and men from the Nurses’ Health Study (1980-2010; N=84,537), Nurses’ Health Study II (1991-2010; N=92,588), and Health Professionals Follow-up Study (1986-2010; N=42,815) were included if they were free of CVD and cancer at baseline. Egg intake was assessed every 4 years via validated food frequency questionnaire and evaluated in the following categories for frequency of consuming 1 egg: <1/month (reference), 1-3/month, 1/week, 2-4/week, 5-6/week, 1+/day. Incident coronary heart disease (CHD) (nonfatal myocardial infarction (MI) and fatal coronary disease) and stroke cases were ascertained via self-report and confirmed with review of medical records. Relative risks (HR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) for CVD risk across categories of egg intake were estimated using multivariate Cox proportional hazards models, adjusted for age, race, smoking, physical activity, BMI, family history of CVD, alcohol, red and processed meat, whole milk, and other dietary covariates. Individual cohort estimates were combined using fixed effects meta-analysis. Results: We identified 5,838 incident cases of CHD (nonfatal MI and fatal CHD) and 6,030 stroke cases. Consumption of up to 1+eggs/day was not significantly associated with risk of incident total CVD (CHD and stroke) after adjustment for several diet and lifestyle factors (HR (CI) by category: <1/month: 1(reference); 1-3/month: 0.95(0.88, 1.02); 1/week: 0.85(0.79, 0.91); 2-4/week: 0.88(0.81, 0.96); 5-6/week: 0.96(0.84, 1.09); 1+/day: 0.99 (0.87, 1.13) (p-trend=0.77). When incident stroke and CHD were evaluated individually, egg intake was not associated with either endpoint (p-trend=0.09 for CHD and 0.52 for stroke). Conclusions: After controlling for lifestyle and dietary factors, egg intake (up to 1+/day) was not associated with increased risk of CVD in three prospective cohorts of men and women.

Follow‐up studies on health have usually been based on ad hoc cohort studies in which detailed information is collected specifically for research purposes on a certain group of people. The increasing collection of routine health data provides an alternative method of gathering follow‐up data. In this study, the feasibility of using routinely collected health‐register data and data linkages to follow up children’s health was investigated. Five nationwide registers, 18 regional registers of intellectually disabled children and school administration data in one county were found to be of use for our follow‐up and were combined with the 1987 Finnish Medical Birth Register ( n = 60 254 births). In the follow‐up, 62 children were untraced (0.1%), 327 were stillborn (0.5%), 440 died after birth (0.7%) and 287 emigrated (0.5%) before the age of 7 years. The cumulative incidences for all diseases (8.9% of all children living in Finland at the age of 7 years), for diabetes (3.0/1000), for epilepsy (6.8/1000) and for asthma (34.2/1000) correspond to the estim‐ates of other studies, but our estimate for intellectual disabilities (18.0/1000, of whom 18% were reported to have an IQ of 70 or less) seems to be an underestimate. Our data collection did not provide reliable information on institutionalised children or children taken into care. Data collec‐tion conducted by using health registers is a feasible method, and it saves both time and financial resources compared with cohort studies. Poten‐tial problems with data linkage studies are variation in the content of data and in data quality of different registers and data protection issues.

A soft machine composed of a composite of elastomer and fibers resists puncture from sharp objects, and continues to operate even if punctured.

Sum of cells within 5° latitudinal bins for all model classes, binary thresholds and climate scenarios.

Metal in microfluidic channels: The fabrication of electromagnets (solder) with micron-scale dimensions in poly(dimethylsiloxane) in close proximity (ca. 10-μm separation) to microfluidic channels is described (see pictures, top view and cross section). The method only has four steps and can be completed in 10 min. By passing an electric current through the magnets, magnetic field gradients are generated inside the microfluidic channels, which can be used to capture and release superparamagnetic beads in the microfluidic channel. Supporting information for this article is available on the WWW under http://www.wiley-vch.de/contents/jc_2002/2006/z602273_s.pdf or from the author. Please note: The publisher is not responsible for the content or functionality of any supporting information supplied by the authors. Any queries (other than missing content) should be directed to the corresponding author for the article.

X rays damage organic materials. The relative importance of X rays themselves, and of both X ray generated and secondary electrons, in this damage was explored using self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) on multilayer thin film supports. The substrates were prepared by depositing thin films of Si (0, 50, 100 and 200) on thick layers of Au (2000 Angstroms); these systems were supported on chromium-primed silicon wafers. Trifluoroacetyl-terminated SAMs were assembled on these substrates and the samples irradiated with monochromatic Al K alpha X-rays. The fluxes of X rays to which the different samples were exposed were the same, but the fluxes and energy distributions of the electrons generated by interactions of the X rays with the substrates differed. The loss of fluorine from the SAMs was followed by XPS and was slower on substrates emitting a lower flux of electrons. This observation indicated that the electrons, and not the X rays themselves, were largely responsible for the damage to the organic monolayer films that resulted in loss of fluorine from them.

A concept for molecular electronics exploiting carbon nanotubes as both molecular device elements and molecular wires for reading and writing information was developed. Each device element is based on a suspended, crossed nanotube geometry that leads to bistable, electrostatically switchable ON/OFF states. The device elements are naturally addressable in large arrays by the carbon nanotube molecular wires making up the devices. These reversible, bistable device elements could be used to construct nonvolatile random access memory and logic function tables at an integration level approaching 10(12) elements per square centimeter and an element operation frequency in excess of 100 gigahertz. The viability of this concept is demonstrated by detailed calculations and by the experimental realization of a reversible, bistable nanotube-based bit.