Factors influencing transfusion-associated HLA sensitization in patients bridged to heart transplantation using ventricular assist device.

BackgroundBridging heart failure patients with mechanical ventricular assist devices (VAD) enables access to transplantation. However, VAD is associated with increased risk for anti-HLA antibodies associated with rejection of subsequent allografts. Factors determining alloantibody formation in these patients remain undefined.MethodsWe performed a single-center retrospective cohort study of 164 patients undergoing heart transplantation from 2014 to 2017. Medical records including use of VAD, transfused blood products, anti-HLA antibody testing, crossmatch, and time to transplant were evaluated.ResultsPatients received an average of 13.8 red blood cell and 1.9 single-donor platelet units associated with VAD. There was a 28.7% increase in the incidence of anti-HLA antibodies after VAD. Development of anti-HLA antibodies did not correlate with volume or type of blood products, but with pre-VAD HLA sensitization status; relative risk of new alloantibodies in patients with pre-VAD antibodies was 3.5-fold higher than those without prior antibodies (P = .008). Development of new anti-HLA antibodies was associated with an increased time to transplant (169 vs 330 days, P = .013).ConclusionsOur findings indicate that the presence of anti-HLA antibodies pre-VAD was the most significant risk factor for developing additional antibodies post-VAD, suggesting that a subset of patients may be predisposed to alloantibody formation

'Transformations towards sustainability':Emerging approaches, critical reflections, and a research agenda

Over the last two decades researchers have come to understand much about the global challenges confronting human society (e.g. climate change; biodiversity loss; water, energy and food insecurity; poverty and widening social inequality). However, the extent to which research and policy efforts are succeeding in steering human societies towards more sustainable and just futures is unclear. Attention is increasingly turning towards better understanding how to navigate processes of social and institutional transformation to bring about more desirable trajectories of change in various sectors of human society. A major knowledge gap concerns understanding how transformations towards sustainability are conceptualised, understood and analysed. Limited existing scholarship on this topic is fragmented, sometimes overly deterministic, and weak in its capacity to critically analyse transformation processes which are inherently political and contested. This paper aims to advance understanding of transformations towards sustainability, recognising it as both a normative and an analytical concept. We firstly review existing concepts of transformation in global environmental change literature, and the role of governance in relation to it. We then propose a framework for understanding and critically analysing transformations towards sustainability based on the existing ‘Earth System Governance’ framework (Biermann et al., 2009). We then outline a research agenda, and argue that transdisciplinary research approaches and a key role for early career researchers are vital for pursuing this agenda. Finally, we argue that critical reflexivity among global environmental change scholars, both individually and collectively, will be important for developing innovative research on transformations towards sustainability to meaningfully contribute to policy and action over time

Exploring the governance and politics of transformations towards sustainability

AbstractThe notion of ‘transformations towards sustainability’ takes an increasingly central position in global sustainability research and policy discourse in recent years. Governance and politics are central to understanding and analysing transformations towards sustainability. However, despite receiving growing attention in recent years, the governance and politics aspects of transformations remain arguably under-developed in the global sustainability literature. A variety of conceptual approaches have been developed to understand and analyse societal transition or transformation processes, including: socio-technical transitions, social-ecological systems, sustainability pathways, and transformative adaptation. This paper critically surveys these four approaches, and reflects on them through the lens of the Earth System Governance framework (Biermann et al., 2009). This contributes to appreciating existing insights on transformations, and to identifying key research challenges and opportunities. Overall, the paper brings together diverse perspectives, that have so far remained largely fragmented, in order to strengthen the foundation for future research on transformations towards sustainability

Metodología, herramientas y criterios de enseñanza de estructuras en Arquitectura

Trabajo presentado en el XXV Congreso Latinoamericano de Escuelas y Facultades de Arquitectura y Diseño. CLEFA 2014. Asunción del ParaguaySi bien no se puede hablar de una ?crisis? en el proceso de enseñanza-aprendizaje de las disciplinas de Estructuras en las facultades de Arquitectura, si se pueden reconocer ciertas dificultades que se manifiestan negativamente en la integración curricular, que el alumno debe realizar mientras desarrolla sus proyectos en las asignaturas de Diseño Arquitectónico. El presente trabajo expone la experiencia de visión compartida de la temática estructural puesta en práctica en las asignaturas Estructuras I A, II A, III de la FAUD, UNC. Este enfoque responde a acuerdos y, principalmente, a la formación docente conjunta de quienes son responsables de los respectivos equipos de trabajo. El eje en que se desarrollan las tres asignaturas es la aplicación práctica de los conocimientos estructurales al proceso de diseño arquitectónico. Lo expresado requiere que en cada nivel, adecuado a las habilidades adquiridas, se incorporen planteos estructurales, su análisis, evaluación y reformulación sobre construcciones diseñadas por los alumnos y, en ocasiones, con obras seleccionadas en las que la resolución estructural reviste una importancia significativa. Para lograr la continuidad buscada en este proceso de enseñanza-aprendizaje se emplean en las tres asignaturas los mismos criterios, el mismo vocabulario y las mismas modalidades. Esto facilita al alumno a profundizar los conceptos y, permite, entre otras cosas, un rápido predimensionado con el fin de integrarlo al proceso de diseño sin constituir un capítulo separado. Para lograr el objetivo se pone a disposición de los alumnos una variedad de softwares, varios de ellos desarrollados por los integrantes de los equipos con fines didácticos, y presentados con códigos compartidos. Se estimula a través de una misma gráfica y esquemas a espacializar la estructura, relacionándola con las variables tecnológicas. También se realizan diversas experiencias con modelos, tendientes a facilitar la comprensión de distintos fenómenos, los alumnos trabajan en taller practicando la ejecución a escala de elementos estructurales.Fil: Bonaiuti, Hugo Oscar. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Facultad de Arquitectura, Urbanismo y Diseño; ArgentinaFil: Elicabe, Eduardo. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Facultad de Arquitectura, Urbanismo y Diseño; ArgentinaFil: Fabre, Raquel. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Facultad de Arquitectura, Urbanismo y Diseño; ArgentinaFil: Adler, Alicia. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Facultad de Arquitectura, Urbanismo y Diseño; ArgentinaFil: Wuthrich, Eduardo. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Facultad de Arquitectura, Urbanismo y Diseño; ArgentinaIngeniería Arquitectónic

The Phenomenon of Darboux Displacements

For a class of Schrodinger Hamiltonians the supersymmetry transformations can degenerate to simple coordinate displacements. We examine this phenomenon and show that it distinguishes the Weierstrass potentials including the one-soliton wells and periodic Lame functions. A supersymmetric sense of the addition formula for the Weierstrass functions is elucidated.Comment: 11 pages, latex, 2 eps figure

Broken SU(3) Symmetry in Two-Body B Decays

The decays of $B$ mesons to two-body hadronic final states are analyzed within the context of broken flavor SU(3) symmetry, extending a previous analysis involving pairs of light pseudoscalars to decays involving one or two charmed quarks in the final state. A systematic program is described for learning information {}from decay rates regarding (i) SU(3)-violating contributions, (ii) the magnitude of exchange and annihilation diagrams (effects involving the spectator quark), and (iii) strong final-state interactions. The implication of SU(3)-breaking effects for the extraction of weak phases is also examined. The present status of data on these questions is reviewed and suggestions for further experimental study are made.Comment: 38 pages, 8 figures, LaTeX file. The full postscript manuscript is available by anon ftp at ftp://lpsvsh.lps.umontreal.ca/theorie/hep-ph/SU3break.ps (a VAX so use the format theorie.hep-ph if you change by more than one directory at a time

Dise?o e implementaci?n de una planta automatizada de tratamiento de aguas ?cidas de interior Mina Orcopampa - Compa?ia de Minas del Per?

El proyecto consiste en la construcci?n de una Planta Automatizada de Tratamiento de Aguas ?cidas en la UM Orcopampa, ubicado en el departamento de Arequipa. El mismo es considerado como sostenible debido a que tiene como finalidad, minimizar el impacto de contaminaci?n en las poblaciones aleda?as, ganader?a y agricultura cercanos al proyecto. La planta tratar? las aguas ?cidas del interior de tres bocaminas (Prometida, Nazareno y Rampa Mario), los cuales son vertidos al Rio Chilcaymarca; Para esto se busca elevar el nivel de PH del agua para cumplir con la normativa ambiental vigente. La planta a su vez estar? dividida en planta de 4 reactivos y planta de 1 reactivo, en los cuales se adicionan qu?micos(reactivos) para el tratamiento del agua (cal, floculante, redimex, coagulante y ?cido sulf?rico). Esta adici?n es automatizada para minimizar el consumo de los qu?micos. Para la ejecuci?n del proyecto se determin? utilizar personal propio de CMPSAA y personal tercero. El proyecto tiene una duraci?n de dieciocho meses y un presupuesto de 17 Millones de D?lares

Local Loss and Spatial Homogenization of Plant Diversity Reduce Ecosystem Multifunctionality

Biodiversity is declining in many local communities while also becoming increasingly homogenized across space. Experiments show that local plant species loss reduces ecosystem functioning and services, but the role of spatial homogenization of community composition and the potential interaction between diversity at different scales in maintaining ecosystem functioning remains unclear, especially when many functions are considered (ecosystem multifunctionality). We present an analysis of eight ecosystem functions measured in 65 grasslands worldwide. We find that more diverse grasslands—those with both species-rich local communities (α-diversity) and large compositional differences among localities (β-diversity)—had higher levels of multifunctionality. Moreover, α- and β-diversity synergistically affected multifunctionality, with higher levels of diversity at one scale amplifying the contribution to ecological functions at the other scale. The identity of species influencing ecosystem functioning differed among functions and across local communities, explaining why more diverse grasslands maintained greater functionality when more functions and localities were considered. These results were robust to variation in environmental drivers. Our findings reveal that plant diversity, at both local and landscape scales, contributes to the maintenance of multiple ecosystem services provided by grasslands. Preserving ecosystem functioning therefore requires conservation of biodiversity both within and among ecological communities

Generational Association Studies of Dopaminergic Genes in Reward Deficiency Syndrome (RDS) Subjects: Selecting Appropriate Phenotypes for Reward Dependence Behaviors

Abnormal behaviors involving dopaminergic gene polymorphisms often reflect an insufficiency of usual feelings of satisfaction, or Reward Deficiency Syndrome (RDS). RDS results from a dysfunction in the “brain reward cascade,” a complex interaction among neurotransmitters (primarily dopaminergic and opioidergic). Individuals with a family history of alcoholism or other addictions may be born with a deficiency in the ability to produce or use these neurotransmitters. Exposure to prolonged periods of stress and alcohol or other substances also can lead to a corruption of the brain reward cascade function. We evaluated the potential association of four variants of dopaminergic candidate genes in RDS (dopamine D1 receptor gene [DRD1]; dopamine D2 receptor gene [DRD2]; dopamine transporter gene [DAT1]; dopamine beta-hydroxylase gene [DBH]). Methodology: We genotyped an experimental group of 55 subjects derived from up to five generations of two independent multiple-affected families compared to rigorously screened control subjects (e.g., N = 30 super controls for DRD2 gene polymorphisms). Data related to RDS behaviors were collected on these subjects plus 13 deceased family members. Results: Among the genotyped family members, the DRD2 Taq1 and the DAT1 10/10 alleles were significantly (at least p < 0.015) more often found in the RDS families vs. controls. The TaqA1 allele occurred in 100% of Family A individuals (N = 32) and 47.8% of Family B subjects (11 of 23). No significant differences were found between the experimental and control positive rates for the other variants. Conclusions: Although our sample size was limited, and linkage analysis is necessary, the results support the putative role of dopaminergic polymorphisms in RDS behaviors. This study shows the importance of a nonspecific RDS phenotype and informs an understanding of how evaluating single subset behaviors of RDS may lead to spurious results. Utilization of a nonspecific “reward” phenotype may be a paradigm shift in future association and linkage studies involving dopaminergic polymorphisms and other neurotransmitter gene candidates