Mesenchymal stem cell transplantation for diffuse alveolar hemorrhage in SLE

Background. A 19-year-old girl was diagnosed with systemic lupus erythematosus, based on findings of arthritis, malar rash, positive antinuclear antibody test and high levels of antibodies to double-stranded DNA. Two months after diagnosis, the patient presented with a sudden drop in blood hemoglobin level. Several days later, she developed bloody sputum, rapidly progressive dyspnea and hypoxemia. High-resolution CT showed diffuse alveolar infiltrates in both lung fields.Investigations. Physical examination, complete blood count, erythrocyte sedimentation rate, urinalysis, 24-h urine protein excretion, fecal occult blood test, d-dimer test, acid hemolysis test, activated partial thromboplastin time and prothrombin time, direct and indirect Coombs tests, bone marrow smear, arterial blood gas, sputum smear and culture, and high-resolution CT scan of the chest.Diagnosis. Diffuse alveolar hemorrhage associated with systemic lupus erythematosus.Management. The patient did not respond to pulsed intravenous methylprednisolone (two courses of 500 mg per day for 3 days) and intravenous immunoglobulin (20 g per day for 5 days). The patient was referred to a specialist treatment center for allogenic transplantation using umbilical-cord-derived mesenchymal stem cells. She underwent transplantation with an infusion of 8 - 10 7 mesenchymal stem cells. After showing dramatic improvements in her clinical condition, oxygenation level, radiographic and hematological status, the patient was discharged from hospital approximately 5 weeks after undergoing transplantation. © 2010 Macmillan Publishers Limited.postprin

Nanoscale Visualization of Elastic Inhomogeneities at TiN Coatings Using Ultrasonic Force Microscopy

Ultrasonic force microscopy has been applied to the characterization of titanium nitride coatings deposited by physical vapor deposition dc magnetron sputtering on stainless steel substrates. The titanium nitride layers exhibit a rich variety of elastic contrast in the ultrasonic force microscopy images. Nanoscale inhomogeneities in stiffness on the titanium nitride films have been attributed to softer substoichiometric titanium nitride species and/or trapped subsurface gas. The results show that increasing the sputtering power at the Ti cathode increases the elastic homogeneity of the titanium nitride layers on the nanometer scale. Ultrasonic force microscopy elastic mapping on titanium nitride layers demonstrates the capability of the technique to provide information of high value for the engineering of improved coatings

Structural Change and the Fall of Income Inequality in Latin America : Agricultural Development, Inter-sectoral Duality, and the Kuznets Curve

In this study we approach the recent decline in income inequality in Latin America from the perspective of structural change with a focus on the relative performance of the agricultural sector. Our focus is on the underlying forces implied by Kuznets (1965). We zoom in on the relative performance of agriculture in the development process and the rural-urban duality and pay particular attention to the last couple of decades in relation to the entire post-1950 period. We attempt to estimate empirically possible theoretical relations with regard to these patterns by posing the following basic questions: how does the resurgence of agriculture relate to the reduction of income inequality and to what extent is this an expression of Latin America moving downward on the Kuznets curve? The literature on agriculture’s relation to the recent changes of income distribution in Latin America is quite limited. For instance, in a recent ECLAC report titled “Structural change for equality” (2012), the role of agriculture is not even mentioned. By agriculture we mean both farming and agro-business that processes and transports that output. To our knowledge, this paper is the first attempt to investigate this relationship for the recent decades in the perspective of structural change in Latin America. There are strong theoretical reasons to connect agricultural development to income distribution. The closing of the rural-urban income gap reflects what Reynolds (1975) called a “dynamic” transformation of agriculture and relates to the contribution agriculture provides for overall growth of the economy. In addition, the elasticity of poverty reduction with respect to growth is estimated to be stronger when growth emanates in the agricultural sector (Ravallion and Chen 2007, de Janvry and Sadoulet 2009). Productivity growth in the lagging sector should also contribute to sectoral labor productivity to convergence and thus helps to reduce inequality (Timmer 1988). For these reasons, the resurgence of agriculture driven partly by improving commodity prices should be given due attention when assessing the decline in income inequality in Latin America. According to the logic of the Kuznets curve, the hypothesized “turning point” of the inverted U-curve is generated by a reduction of income inequality in one or both of the sectors and/or a reduction of the rural-urban income gap as the weight of the agricultural sector diminishes, and the income per capita gap between them declines. We find that the recent decline in income inequality is related to the recent resurgence of Latin American agriculture, and, by inference, its lack of decline across most of the 20th century must be related to a lack of productivity change in agriculture. We provide estimates showing that during the recent decades inter-sectoral duality has been reduced by agricultural productivity growth. The duality expressed as an inter-sectoral Gini shows the shape of an inverted U-curve and as such the closing of the rural-urban income gap corroborates with the theoretical expectations postulated by Kuznets. The wider implication of the study is, however, that with slower growth in agricultural labor productivity, continuing improvement in the income distribution becomes more difficult. In the absence of strong manufacturing growth, agriculture might be able to reduce income inequality further if agro-industries remain unskilled labor intensive, thus raising the opportunity cost of unskilled workers. On the other hand, the traditional service sector has perhaps become the “new agricultural sector” in terms of productivity and labor surplus. In other words, the source of the remaining dualism does not come only from rural areas, but also from urban areas

Human neutrophils phagocytose and kill Acinetobacter baumanii and A. pittii

Acinetobacter baumannii is a common cause of health care associated infections worldwide. A. pittii is an opportunistic pathogen also frequently isolated from Acinetobacter infections other than those from A. baumannii. Knowledge of Acinetobacter virulence factors and their role in pathogenesis is scarce. Also, there are no detailed published reports on the interactions between A. pittii and human phagocytic cells. Using confocal laser and scanning electron microscopy, immunofluorescence, and live-cell imaging, our study shows that immediately after bacteria-cell contact, neutrophils rapidly and continuously engulf and kill bacteria during at least 4 hours of infection in vitro. After 3 h of infection, neutrophils start to release neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs) against Acinetobacter. DNA in NETs colocalizes well with human histone H3 and with the specific neutrophil elastase. We have observed that human neutrophils use large filopodia as cellular tentacles to sense local environment but also to detect and retain bacteria during phagocytosis. Furthermore, co-cultivation of neutrophils with human differentiated macrophages before infections shows that human neutrophils, but not macrophages, are key immune cells to control Acinetobacter. Although macrophages were largely activated by both bacterial species, they lack the phagocytic activity demonstrated by neutrophils

Life satisfaction and confidence in national institutions: evidence from South America

A number of South American countries experienced turbulent democratic, political and economic upheaval over the last 40 years in the form of coup d’états in the 1970s, tumultuous elections, and repeated severe economic crises, some of which happened fairly recently. Starting in 2010, a number of court proceedings across the region have made past military coup d’états the focus of national conversations. South American citizens may, therefore, have lost confidence in national institutions that have repeatedly disappointed their trust and expectations; a situation with potentially detrimental effects on their well-being. Using eight waves of the Gallup World Poll collected between 2009 and 2016 across ten South American countries, we investigate to what extent people’s confidence in financial institutions, the honesty of elections, the military, the judicial system, the national government and the police is associated with people’s current and expectation of future life satisfaction. We find that people who report confidence in these six institutions rate their current and expected life satisfaction, on average, to be higher than those who lack these types of institutional confidence, even after controlling for demographic factors and macroeconomic indicators. In addition, we investigate changes over time for all six measures of confidence in institutions as well as for current and expectation of future life satisfaction. Our results suggest that governments’ investments in well-functioning institutions may contribute positively to subjective well-being in a society. However, our analysis is correlational and we thus cannot rule out reverse causality

Measurement of the Z/gamma* + b-jet cross section in pp collisions at 7 TeV

The production of b jets in association with a Z/gamma* boson is studied using proton-proton collisions delivered by the LHC at a centre-of-mass energy of 7 TeV and recorded by the CMS detector. The inclusive cross section for Z/gamma* + b-jet production is measured in a sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 2.2 inverse femtobarns. The Z/gamma* + b-jet cross section with Z/gamma* to ll (where ll = ee or mu mu) for events with the invariant mass 60 < M(ll) < 120 GeV, at least one b jet at the hadron level with pT > 25 GeV and abs(eta) < 2.1, and a separation between the leptons and the jets of Delta R > 0.5 is found to be 5.84 +/- 0.08 (stat.) +/- 0.72 (syst.) +(0.25)/-(0.55) (theory) pb. The kinematic properties of the events are also studied and found to be in agreement with the predictions made by the MadGraph event generator with the parton shower and the hadronisation performed by PYTHIA.Comment: Submitted to the Journal of High Energy Physic

Reciprocal Tripartite Interactions between the Aedes aegypti Midgut Microbiota, Innate Immune System and Dengue Virus Influences Vector Competence

Dengue virus is one of the most important arboviral pathogens and the causative agent of dengue fever, dengue hemorrhagic fever, and dengue shock syndrome. It is transmitted between humans by the mosquitoes Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus, and at least 2.5 billion people are at daily risk of infection. During their lifecycle, mosquitoes are exposed to a variety of microbes, some of which are needed for their successful development into adulthood. However, recent studies have suggested that the adult mosquito's midgut microflora is critical in influencing the transmission of human pathogens. In this study we assessed the reciprocal interactions between the mosquito's midgut microbiota and dengue virus infection that are, to a large extent, mediated by the mosquito's innate immune system. We observed a marked decrease in susceptibility to dengue virus infection when mosquitoes harbored certain field-derived bacterial isolates in their midgut. Transcript abundance analysis of selected antimicrobial peptide genes suggested that the mosquito's microbiota elicits a basal immune activity that appears to act against dengue virus infection. Conversely, the elicitation of the mosquito immune response by dengue virus infection itself influences the microbial load of the mosquito midgut. In sum, we show that the mosquito's microbiota influences dengue virus infection of the mosquito, which in turn activates its antibacterial responses

Multicopy plasmid integration in Komagataella phaffii mediated by a defective auxotrophic marker

Background: A commonly used approach to improve recombinant protein production is to increase the levels of expression by providing extra-copies of a heterologous gene. In Komagataella phaffii (Pichia pastoris) this is usually accomplished by transforming cells with an expression vector carrying a drug resistance marker following a screening for multicopy clones on plates with increasingly higher concentrations of an antibiotic. Alternatively, defective auxotrophic markers can be used for the same purpose. These markers are generally transcriptionally impaired genes lacking most of the promoter region. Among the defective markers commonly used in Saccharomyces cerevisiae is leu2-d, an allele of LEU2 which is involved in leucine metabolism. Cells transformed with this marker can recover prototrophy when they carry multiple copies of leu2-d in order to compensate the poor transcription from this defective allele. Results: A K. phaffii strain auxotrophic for leucine (M12) was constructed by disrupting endogenous LEU2. The resulting strain was successfully transformed with a vector carrying leu2-d and an EGFP (enhanced green fluorescent protein) reporter gene. Vector copy numbers were determined from selected clones which grew to different colony sizes on transformation plates. A direct correlation was observed between colony size, number of integrated vectors and EGFP production. By using this approach we were able to isolate genetically stable clones bearing as many as 20 integrated copies of the vector and with no significant effects on cell growth. Conclusions: In this work we have successfully developed a genetic system based on a defective auxotrophic which can be applied to improve heterologous protein production in K. phaffii. The system comprises a K. phaffii leu2 strain and an expression vector carrying the defective leu2-d marker which allowed the isolation of multicopy clones after a single transformation step. Because a linear correlation was observed between copy number and heterologous protein production, this system may provide a simple approach to improve recombinant protein productivity in K. phaffii

A prospective cohort study to assess seroprevalence, incidence, knowledge, attitudes and practices, willingness to pay for vaccine and related risk factors in dengue in a high incidence setting

Abstract Background Dengue is one of the most important vector-borne diseases in the world, causing significant morbidity and economic impact. In Colombia, dengue is a major public health problem. Departments of La Guajira, Cesar and Magdalena are dengue endemic areas. The objective of this research is to determine the seroprevalence and the incidence of dengue virus infection in the participating municipalities from these Departments, and also establish the association between individual and housing factors and vector indices with seroprevalence and incidence. We will also assess knowledge, attitudes and practices, and willingness-to-pay for dengue vaccine. Methods A cohort study will be assembled with a clustered multistage sampling in 11 endemic municipalities. Approximately 1000 homes will be visited to enroll people older than one year who living in these areas, who will be followed for 1 year. Dengue virus infections will be evaluated using IgG indirect ELISA and IgM and IgG capture ELISA. Additionally, vector indices will be measured, and adult mosquitoes will be captured with aspirators. Ovitraps will be used for continuous estimation of vector density. Discussion This research will generate necessary knowledge to design and implement strategies with a multidimensional approach that reduce dengue morbidity and mortality in La Guajira and other departments from Colombian Caribbean