A new formulation of oral viscous budesonide in treating of paediatric eosinophilic oesophagitis: a pilot study

OBJECTIVES: Oral viscous budesonide is a recent therapeutic option for eosinophilic oesophagitis (EoE) compared with dietary restriction and inhaled steroids. This single-centre, open-label, not blinded study aims to evaluate the efficacy and safety of a new, preprepared oral viscous budesonide suspension (PVB) in children and adolescents with EoE. METHODS: We treated 36 children with PVB (29 boys; median age 12 years) with EoE diagnosed according to European Society for Paediatric Gastroenterology Hepatology and Nutrition guidelines. Patients <150 and >150 cm height received 2 and 4 mg PVB daily, respectively, for 12 weeks. Upper gastrointestinal endoscopy was performed at baseline, after 12 weeks of therapy and 24 weeks after the end of therapy. Baseline and post-treatment scores were calculated for symptoms, endoscopy, and histology. Serum cortisol was performed at baseline, 12, and 36 weeks. RESULTS: At the end of PVB trial, endoscopy showed macroscopic remission in 32 patients (88.9%), whereas at histology median pre- and post-treatment peak eosinophil count/high power field (HPF) markedly decreased from 42.2 (range: 15-100) to 2.9 (range: 0-30); moreover, mean symptom and histology scores impressively improved compared with baseline (P < 0.01). At 24 weeks after the end of PVB therapy, endoscopy showed oesophageal relapse in 21 patients (58.3%), whereas 15 (41.7%) were still in remission. Seven children (19.4%) with positive multichannel intraluminal impedance-pH were treated also with proton pump inhibitors. No significant difference between pre-/post-treatment morning cortisol levels occurred. CONCLUSIONS: The new PVB suspension presented in the present study is effective and safe for treating children with proven EoE. Larger placebo-controlled clinical trials would provide more information about dosing, efficacy, and long-term safety of this formulation, specifically designed for the oesophagus

MULTISPECTRAL DORSAL HAND VEIN RECOGNITION BASED ON LOCAL LINE BINARY PATTERN

Nowadays, dorsal hand vein recognition is one of the most recent multispectral biometrics technologies used for the person identification/authentication. Looking into another biometrics system, dorsal hand vein biometrics system has been popular because of the privilege: false duplicity, hygienic, static, and convenient. The most challenging phase in a biometric system is feature extraction phase. In this research, feature extraction method called Local Line Binary Pattern (LLBP) has been explored and implemented. We have used this method to our 300 dorsal hand vein images obtained from 50 persons using a low-cost infrared webcam. In recognition step, the adaptation fuzzy k-NN classifier is to evaluate the efficiency of the proposed approach is feasible and effective for dorsal hand vein recognition. The experimental result showed that LLBP method is reliable for feature extraction on dorsal hand vein recognition with a recognition accuracy up to 98%

Multispectral Dorsal Hand Vein Recognition Based On Local Line Binary Pattern

Nowadays, dorsal hand vein recognition is one of the most recent multispectral biometrics technologies used for the person identification/authentication. Looking into another biometrics system, dorsal hand vein biometrics system has been popular because of the privilege: false duplicity, hygienic, static, and convenient. The most challenging phase in a biometric system is feature extraction phase. In this research, feature extraction method called Local Line Binary Pattern (LLBP) has been explored and implemented. We have used this method to our 300 dorsal hand vein images obtained from 50 persons using a low-cost infrared webcam. In recognition step, the adaptation fuzzy k-NN classifier is to evaluate the efficiency of the proposed approach is feasible and effective for dorsal hand vein recognition. The experimental result showed that LLBP method is reliable for feature extraction on dorsal hand vein recognition with a recognition accuracy up to 98%

Towards sample-efficient policy learning with DAC-ML

The sample-inefficiency problem in Artificial Intelligence refers to the inability of current Deep Reinforcement Learning models to optimize action policies within a small number of episodes. Recent studies have tried to overcome this limitation by adding memory systems and architectural biases to improve learning speed, such as in Episodic Reinforcement Learning. However, despite achieving incremental improvements, their performance is still not comparable to how humans learn behavioral policies. In this paper, we capitalize on the design principles of the Distributed Adaptive Control (DAC) theory of mind and brain to build a novel cognitive architecture (DAC-ML) that, by incorporating a hippocampus-inspired sequential memory system, can rapidly converge to effective action policies that maximize reward acquisition in a challenging foraging task

Proteomic analysis of goat milk kefir: profiling the fermentation-time dependent protein digestion and identification of potential peptides with biological activity

Kefir is a fermented dairy product, associated to health benefits because of being a probiotic and due to the presence of molecules with biological activity. In this work, we have profiled the peptide composition of goat milk kefir at three different fermentation times using a peptidomics approach, in order to study changes in peptide concentrations and patterns of protein digestion throughout the fermentation time. We identified 2328 unique peptides corresponding to 22 protein annotations, with a maximum of peptides found after 24 h fermentation. We established different digestion patterns according to the nature of the proteins, and quantified the changes in the peptides appearing in all the fermentation times. We also identified 11 peptides that matched exactly to sequences with biological activity in databases, almost all of them belonging to caseins. This is the most comprehensive proteomic analysis of goat milk kefir to date

Symmetric Absorber-Coupled Far-Infrared Microwave Kinetic Inductance Detector

The present invention relates to a symmetric absorber-coupled far-infrared microwave kinetic inductance detector including: a membrane having an absorber disposed thereon in a symmetric cross bar pattern; and a microstrip including a plurality of conductor microstrip lines disposed along all edges of the membrane, and separated from a ground plane by the membrane. The conducting microstrip lines are made from niobium, and the pattern is made from a superconducting material with a transition temperature below niobium, including one of aluminum, titanium nitride, or molybdenum nitride. The pattern is disposed on both a top and a bottom of the membrane, and creates a parallel-plate coupled transmission line on the membrane that acts as a half-wavelength resonator at readout frequencies. The parallel-plate coupled transmission line and the conductor microstrip lines form a stepped impedance resonator. The pattern provides identical power absorption for both horizontal and vertical polarization signals

A Comprehensive Study of the WRKY Transcription Factor Family in Strawberry

WRKY transcription factors play critical roles in plant growth and development or stress responses. Using up-to-date genomic data, a total of 64 and 257 WRKY genes have been identified in the diploid woodland strawberry, Fragaria vesca, and the more complex allo-octoploid commercial strawberry, Fragaria × ananassa cv. Camarosa, respectively. The completeness of the new genomes and annotations has enabled us to perform a more detailed evolutionary and functional study of the strawberry WRKY family members, particularly in the case of the cultivated hybrid, in which homoeologous and paralogous FaWRKY genes have been characterized. Analysis of the available expression profiles has revealed that many strawberry WRKY genes show preferential or tissue-specific expression. Furthermore, significant differential expression of several FaWRKY genes has been clearly detected in fruit receptacles and achenes during the ripening process and pathogen challenged, supporting a precise functional role of these strawberry genes in such processes. Further, an extensive analysis of predicted development, stress and hormone-responsive cis-acting elements in the strawberry WRKY family is shown. Our results provide a deeper and more comprehensive knowledge of the WRKY gene family in strawberry

New Rotation Periods in the Pleiades: Interpreting Activity Indicators

We present results of photometric monitoring campaigns of G, K and M dwarfs in the Pleiades carried out in 1994, 1995 and 1996. We have determined rotation periods for 18 stars in this cluster. In this paper, we examine the validity of using observables such as X-ray activity and amplitude of photometric variations as indicators of angular momentum loss. We report the discovery of cool, slow rotators with high amplitudes of variation. This contradicts previous conclusions about the use of amplitudes as an alternate diagnostic of the saturation of angular momentum loss. We show that the X-ray data can be used as observational indicators of mass-dependent saturation in the angular momentum loss proposed on theoretical grounds

Fine particulate matter in the tropical environment: monsoonal effects, source apportionment, and health risk assessment

The health implications of PM2:5 in the tropical region of Southeast Asia (SEA) are significant as PM2:5 can pose serious health concerns. PM2:5 concentration and sources here are strongly influenced by changes in the monsoon regime from the south-west quadrant to the north-east quadrant in the region. In this work, PM2:5 samples were collected at a semi-urban area using a high-volume air sampler at different seasons on 24 h basis. Analysis of trace elements and water-soluble ions was performed using inductively coupled plasma mass spectroscopy (ICP-MS) and ion chromatography (IC), respectively. Apportionment analysis of PM2:5 was carried out using the United States Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA) positive matrix factorization (PMF) 5.0 and a mass closure model. We quantitatively characterized the health risks posed to human populations through the inhalation of selected heavy metals in PM2:5. 48% of the samples collected exceeded the World Health Organization (WHO) 24 h PM2:5 guideline but only 19% of the samples exceeded 24 h US EPA National Ambient Air Quality Standard (NAAQS). The PM2:5 concentration was slightly higher during the north-east monsoon compared to south-west monsoon. The main trace metals identified were As, Pb, Cd, Ni, Mn, V, and Cr while the main ions were SO