Neurogenic diabetes insipidus presenting in a patient with subacute liver failure: a case report

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Introduction</p> <p>To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report in the literature of development of neurogenic diabetes insipidus in a patient with subacute liver failure.</p> <p>Case presentation</p> <p>A 25-year-old man presented with subacute liver failure. While awaiting a liver transplant, the patient developed cerebral edema, which resulted in neurogenic diabetes insipidus secondary to cerebral edema. The patient died before the liver transplantation could be carried out.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Neurogenic diabetes insipidus is well recognized in the neurosurgical population as a consequence of cerebral edema and increased intracranial pressure, both of which occur commonly in patients with subacute liver failure.</p

Physicochemical factors influence the abundance and culturability of human enteric pathogens and fecal indicator organisms in estuarine water and sediment

To assess fecal pollution in coastal waters, current monitoring is reliant on culture-based enumeration of bacterial indicators, which does not account for the presence of viable but non-culturable or sediment-associated micro-organisms, preventing effective quantitative microbial risk assessment (QMRA). Seasonal variability in viable but non-culturable or sediment-associated bacteria challenge the use of fecal indicator organisms (FIOs) for water monitoring. We evaluated seasonal changes in FIOs and human enteric pathogen abundance in water and sediments from the Ribble and Conwy estuaries in the UK. Sediments possessed greater bacterial abundance than the overlying water column, however, key pathogenic species (Shigella spp., Campylobacter jejuni, Salmonella spp., hepatitis A virus, hepatitis E virus and norovirus GI and GII) were not detected in sediments. Salmonella was detected in low levels in the Conwy water in spring/summer and norovirus GII was detected in the Ribble water in winter. The abundance of E. coli and Enterococcus spp. quantified by culture-based methods, rarely matched the abundance of these species when measured by qPCR. The discrepancy between these methods was greatest in winter at both estuaries, due to low CFU's, coupled with higher gene copies (GC). Temperature accounted for 60% the variability in bacterial abundance in water in autumn, whilst in winter salinity explained 15% of the variance. Relationships between bacterial indicators/pathogens and physicochemical variables were inconsistent in sediments, no single indicator adequately described occurrence of all bacterial indicators/pathogens. However, important variables included grain size, porosity, clay content and concentrations of Zn, K, and Al. Sediments with greater organic matter content and lower porosity harbored a greater proportion of non-culturable bacteria (including dead cells and extracellular DNA) in winter. Here, we show the link between physicochemical variables and season which govern culturability of human enteric pathogens and FIOs. Therefore, knowledge of these factors is critical for accurate microbial risk assessment. Future water quality management strategies could be improved through monitoring sediment-associated bacteria and non-culturable bacteria. This could facilitate source apportionment of human enteric pathogens and FIOs and direct remedial action to improve water quality

Experimental Quantum Hamiltonian Learning

Efficiently characterising quantum systems, verifying operations of quantum devices and validating underpinning physical models, are central challenges for the development of quantum technologies and for our continued understanding of foundational physics. Machine-learning enhanced by quantum simulators has been proposed as a route to improve the computational cost of performing these studies. Here we interface two different quantum systems through a classical channel - a silicon-photonics quantum simulator and an electron spin in a diamond nitrogen-vacancy centre - and use the former to learn the latter's Hamiltonian via Bayesian inference. We learn the salient Hamiltonian parameter with an uncertainty of approximately $10^{-5}$. Furthermore, an observed saturation in the learning algorithm suggests deficiencies in the underlying Hamiltonian model, which we exploit to further improve the model itself. We go on to implement an interactive version of the protocol and experimentally show its ability to characterise the operation of the quantum photonic device. This work demonstrates powerful new quantum-enhanced techniques for investigating foundational physical models and characterising quantum technologies

Influence of Cytokines on HIV-Specific Antibody-Dependent Cellular Cytotoxicity Activation Profile of Natural Killer Cells

There is growing interest in HIV-specific antibody-dependent cellular cytotoxicity (ADCC) as an effective immune response to prevent or control HIV infection. ADCC relies on innate immune effector cells, particularly NK cells, to mediate control of virus-infected cells. The activation of NK cells (i.e., expression of cytokines and/or degranulation) by ADCC antibodies in serum is likely subject to the influence of other factors that are also present. We observed that the HIV-specific ADCC antibodies, within serum samples from a panel of HIV-infected individuals induced divergent activation profiles of NK cells from the same donor. Some serum samples primarily induced NK cell cytokine expression (i.e., IFNγ), some primarily initiated NK cell expression of a degranulation marker (CD107a) and others initiated a similar magnitude of responses across both effector functions. We therefore evaluated a number of HIV-relevant soluble factors for their influence on the activation of NK cells by HIV-specific ADCC antibodies. Key findings were that the cytokines IL-15 and IL-10 consistently enhanced the ability of NK cells to respond to HIV-specific ADCC antibodies. Furthermore, IL-15 was demonstrated to potently activate “educated” KIR3DL1+ NK cells from individuals carrying its HLA-Bw4 ligand. The cytokine was also demonstrated to activate “uneducated” KIR3DL1+ NK cells from HLA-Bw6 homozygotes, but to a lesser extent. Our results show that cytokines influence the ability of NK cells to respond to ADCC antibodies in vitro. Manipulating the immunological environment to enhance the potency of NK cell-mediated HIV-specific ADCC effector functions could be a promising immunotherapy or vaccine strategy

Experimental investigation into the impact of a liquid droplet onto a granular bed using three-dimensional, time-resolved, particle tracking

This article was published in the journal, Physical Review E [ © American Physical Society] and the definitive version is available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.89.032201An experimental investigation into the interaction that occurs between an impacting water droplet and a granular bed of loose graded sand has been carried out. High-speed imaging, three-dimensional time-resolved particle tracking, and photogrammetric surface profiling have been used to examine individual impact events. The focus of the study is the quantification and trajectory analysis of the particles ejected from the sand bed, along with measurement of the change in bed morphology. The results from the experiments have detailed two distinct mechanisms of particle ejection: the ejection of water-encapsulated particles from the edge of the wetted region and the ejection of dry sand from the periphery of the impact crater. That the process occurs by these two distinct mechanisms has hitherto been unobserved. Presented in the paper are distributions of the particle ejection velocities, angles, and transport distances for both mechanisms. The ejected water-encapsulated particles, which are few in number, are characterized by low ejection angles and high ejection velocities, leading to large transport distances; the ejected dry particles, which are much greater in number, are characterized by high ejection angles and low velocities, leading to lower transport distances. From the particle ejection data, the momentum of the individual ballistic sand particles has been calculated; it was found that only 2% of the water-droplet momentum at impact is transferred to the ballistic sand particles. In addition to the particle tracking, surface profiling of the granular bed postimpact has provided detailed information on its morphology; these data have demonstrated the consistent nature of the craters produced by the impact and suggest that particle agglomerations released from their edges make up about twice the number of particles involved in ballistic ejection. It is estimated that, overall, about 4% of the water-droplet momentum is taken up in particle movement

Cross-National Differences in Victimization : Disentangling the Impact of Composition and Context

Varying rates of criminal victimization across countries are assumed to be the outcome of countrylevel structural constraints that determine the supply ofmotivated o¡enders, as well as the differential composition within countries of suitable targets and capable guardianship. However, previous empirical tests of these ‘compositional’ and ‘contextual’ explanations of cross-national di¡erences have been performed upon macro-level crime data due to the unavailability of comparable individual-level data across countries. This limitation has had two important consequences for cross-national crime research. First, micro-/meso-level mechanisms underlying cross-national differences cannot be truly inferred from macro-level data. Secondly, the e¡ects of contextual measures (e.g. income inequality) on crime are uncontrolled for compositional heterogeneity. In this paper, these limitations are overcome by analysing individual-level victimization data across 18 countries from the International CrimeVictims Survey. Results from multi-level analyses on theft and violent victimization indicate that the national level of income inequality is positively related to risk, independent of compositional (i.e. micro- and meso-level) di¡erences. Furthermore, crossnational variation in victimization rates is not only shaped by di¡erences in national context, but also by varying composition. More speci¢cally, countries had higher crime rates the more they consisted of urban residents and regions with lowaverage social cohesion.

Measurement of the cross-section and charge asymmetry of WW bosons produced in proton-proton collisions at s=8\sqrt{s}=8 TeV with the ATLAS detector

This paper presents measurements of the $W^+ \rightarrow \mu^+\nu$ and $W^- \rightarrow \mu^-\nu$ cross-sections and the associated charge asymmetry as a function of the absolute pseudorapidity of the decay muon. The data were collected in proton--proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 8 TeV with the ATLAS experiment at the LHC and correspond to a total integrated luminosity of 20.2~\mbox{fb^{-1}}. The precision of the cross-section measurements varies between 0.8% to 1.5% as a function of the pseudorapidity, excluding the 1.9% uncertainty on the integrated luminosity. The charge asymmetry is measured with an uncertainty between 0.002 and 0.003. The results are compared with predictions based on next-to-next-to-leading-order calculations with various parton distribution functions and have the sensitivity to discriminate between them.Comment: 38 pages in total, author list starting page 22, 5 figures, 4 tables, submitted to EPJC. All figures including auxiliary figures are available at https://atlas.web.cern.ch/Atlas/GROUPS/PHYSICS/PAPERS/STDM-2017-13

Search for chargino-neutralino production with mass splittings near the electroweak scale in three-lepton final states in √s=13 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector

A search for supersymmetry through the pair production of electroweakinos with mass splittings near the electroweak scale and decaying via on-shell W and Z bosons is presented for a three-lepton final state. The analyzed proton-proton collision data taken at a center-of-mass energy of √s=13  TeV were collected between 2015 and 2018 by the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 139  fb−1. A search, emulating the recursive jigsaw reconstruction technique with easily reproducible laboratory-frame variables, is performed. The two excesses observed in the 2015–2016 data recursive jigsaw analysis in the low-mass three-lepton phase space are reproduced. Results with the full data set are in agreement with the Standard Model expectations. They are interpreted to set exclusion limits at the 95% confidence level on simplified models of chargino-neutralino pair production for masses up to 345 GeV

Search for new phenomena in final states with an energetic jet and large missing transverse momentum in pp collisions at √ s = 8 TeV with the ATLAS detector

Results of a search for new phenomena in final states with an energetic jet and large missing transverse momentum are reported. The search uses 20.3 fb−1 of √ s = 8 TeV data collected in 2012 with the ATLAS detector at the LHC. Events are required to have at least one jet with pT > 120 GeV and no leptons. Nine signal regions are considered with increasing missing transverse momentum requirements between Emiss T > 150 GeV and Emiss T > 700 GeV. Good agreement is observed between the number of events in data and Standard Model expectations. The results are translated into exclusion limits on models with either large extra spatial dimensions, pair production of weakly interacting dark matter candidates, or production of very light gravitinos in a gauge-mediated supersymmetric model. In addition, limits on the production of an invisibly decaying Higgs-like boson leading to similar topologies in the final state are presente

Evidence of Endemic Hendra Virus Infection in Flying-Foxes (Pteropus conspicillatus)—Implications for Disease Risk Management

This study investigated the seroepidemiology of Hendra virus in a spectacled flying-fox (Pteropus conspicillatus) population in northern Australia, near the location of an equine and associated human Hendra virus infection in late 2004. The pattern of infection in the population was investigated using a serial cross-sectional serological study over a 25-month period, with blood sampled from 521 individuals over six sampling sessions. Antibody titres to the virus were determined by virus neutralisation test. In contrast to the expected episodic infection pattern, we observed that seroprevalence gradually increased over the two years suggesting infection was endemic in the population over the study period. Our results suggested age, pregnancy and lactation were significant risk factors for a detectable neutralizing antibody response. Antibody titres were significantly higher in females than males, with the highest titres occurring in pregnant animals. Temporal variation in antibody titres suggests that herd immunity to the virus may wax and wane on a seasonal basis. These findings support an endemic infection pattern of henipaviruses in bat populations suggesting their infection dynamics may differ significantly from the acute, self limiting episodic pattern observed with related viruses (e.g. measles virus, phocine distemper virus, rinderpest virus) hence requiring a much smaller critical host population size to sustain the virus. These findings help inform predictive modelling of henipavirus infection in bat populations, and indicate that the life cycle of the reservoir species should be taken into account when developing risk management strategies for henipaviruses