Health, Ageing Migrants and Care Strategies

This article is the result of a study that seeks to understand the relationship between socio-economic conditions, health and active ageing. We identified the activities related to active ageing in relation to health, the strategies used in active ageing and their determinants. We chose a qualitative methodology using semi-structured interviews and data processing that consisted of thematic content analysis in interviews. We carried out this analysis in two socio-economic groups of elderly Cape Verdean men and women in both groups making up a total of 22 cases. The socio-economic group interferes directly in the affairs of active ageing rather than health issues. In the higher socio-economic group, status determines active ageing rather than health issues. It is evident that in the group with lower socio-economic conditions, the latter act in parallel with health conditions and both determine activities developed by older people

Migrants and Health in Portugal

The aim of this research is to atain knowledge on immigrant´s health related problems and to identify their dificulties when acesing health care services. The article describes immigrant´s dificulties when acesing health care services that are visiting the health ofice at a National Immigrant Support Centre.Design: : A qualitative study was conducted, analysing available documentation and observing the health isues dealt with at the National Immigrant Support Centre’s (CNAI) Health Ofice. The 148 cases are mainly immigrants coming from Portuguese speaking African countries for health purposes. Immigrants from Brazil have more restricted aces, and feel discrimination on the part of the services. Immigrants from Eastern Europe come in search of information and have communication dificulties. Obstacles are related to the lack of knowledge of the law, but also to the failure of puting the law into practice. The ofice has had a great demand of users seeking information and in acesingthe health care system.Results: The cases analysed are mainly nationals from Portuguese Speaking African Countries (PSAC), Brazil and countries in Eastern Europe. The majority of the immigrants coming from PSAC are patients receiving treatment under international Cooperation Agreements requesting financial and social support. Immigrants from Brazil have more restricted aces and feel greater discrimination on the part of the services. New Labour Migrants from Eastern Europe, on the other hand, come in search of information and are known to have communication dificulties.Conclusions: Legislation in Portugal provides aces to health care to al citizens, regardles of their legal condition and origin. However, some immigrants have had significant dificulties with aces to Portugal’s National Health Service. The obstacles are not only related to the lack of legal knowledge, but also to the failure of puting the law into practice, which requires atention by the institutionresponsible for efective and comprehensive coordination. The ofice has had a great demand of users seeking information, who, above al, wish to solve their problems and dificulties in acesing the health care system

On the Complexity of Case-Based Planning

We analyze the computational complexity of problems related to case-based planning: planning when a plan for a similar instance is known, and planning from a library of plans. We prove that planning from a single case has the same complexity than generative planning (i.e., planning "from scratch"); using an extended definition of cases, complexity is reduced if the domain stored in the case is similar to the one to search plans for. Planning from a library of cases is shown to have the same complexity. In both cases, the complexity of planning remains, in the worst case, PSPACE-complete

Recombinant Escherichia coli produces tailor-made biopolyester granules for applications in fluorescence activated cell sorting: functional display of the mouse interleukin-2 and myelin oligodendrocyte glycoprotein

BACKGROUND: Fluorescence activated cell sorting (FACS) is a powerful technique for the qualitative and quantitative detection of biomolecules used widely in both basic research and clinical diagnostic applications. Beads displaying a specific antigen are used to bind antibodies which are then fluorescently labelled using secondary antibodies. As the individual suspension bead passes through the sensing region of the FACS machine, fluorescent signals are acquired and analysed. Currently, antigens are tediously purified and chemically cross-linked to preformed beads. Purification and coupling of proteins often renders them inactive and they will not be displayed in its native configuration. As an alternative, we genetically engineered Escherichia coli to produce biopolyester (polyhdroxyalkanoate=PHA) granules displaying diagnostically relevant antigens in their native conformation and suitable for FACS analysis. RESULTS: Hybrid genes were constructed, which encode either the mouse interleukin-2 (IL2) or the myelin oligodendrocyte glycoprotein (MOG) fused via an enterokinase site providing linker region to the C terminus of the PHA granule associated protein PhaP, respectively. The hybrid genes were expressed in PHA-accumulating recombinant E. coli. MOG and IL2 fusion proteins were abundantly attached to PHA granules and were identified by MALDI-TOF/MS analysis and N terminal sequencing. A more abundant second fusion protein of either MOG or IL2 resulted from an additional N terminal fusion, which did surprisingly not interfere with attachment to PHA granule. PHA granules displaying either IL2 or MOG were used for FACS using monoclonal anti-IL2 or anti-MOG antibodies conjugated to a fluorescent dye. FACS analysis showed significant and specific binding of respective antibodies. Enterokinase treatment of IL2 displaying PHA granules enabled removal of IL2 as monitored by FACS analysis. Mice were immunized with either MOG or OVA (ovalbumin) and the respective sera were analysed using MOG-displaying PHA granules and FACS analysis showing a specific and sensitive detection of antigen-specific antibodies within a wide dynamic range. CONCLUSION: E. coli can be genetically engineered to produce PHA granules displaying correctly folded eukaryotic proteins and which can be applied as beads in FACS based diagnostics. Since PHA granule formation and protein attachment occurs in one step already inside the bacterial cell, microbial production could be a cheap and efficient alternative to commercial beads

Enhancement by postfiltering for speech and audio coding in ad-hoc sensor networks

Enhancement algorithms for wireless acoustics sensor networks~(WASNs) are indispensable with the increasing availability and usage of connected devices with microphones. Conventional spatial filtering approaches for enhancement in WASNs approximate quantization noise with an additive Gaussian distribution, which limits performance due to the non-linear nature of quantization noise at lower bitrates. In this work, we propose a postfilter for enhancement based on Bayesian statistics to obtain a multidevice signal estimate, which explicitly models the quantization noise. Our experiments using PSNR, PESQ and MUSHRA scores demonstrate that the proposed postfilter can be used to enhance signal quality in ad-hoc sensor networks

A chimeric T cell receptor with super‐signaling properties

A key question yet to be resolved concerns the structure and function relationship of the TCR complex. How does antigen recognition by the TCR‐αβ chains result in the activation of distinct signal transduction pathways by the CD3‐γδϵ/ζ complex? To investigate which part of the TCR‐β chain is involved in TCR signaling, we exchanged different domains of the constant regions of the TCR‐β chain with the corresponding TCR‐γ chain domains. We show here that hybridoma cells expressing a chimeric TCR‐β chain (βIII) containing intracellular and transmembrane TCR‐γ amino acids, together with a wild‐type TCR‐α (αwt) chain, were 10 times more sensitive to antigenic stimulation compared to cells expressing TCR‐αwt/βwt chains. This super‐signaling phenotype of the βIII chain was observed in two different TCRs. One specific for an alloantigen (I‐Abm12) and one for an autoantigen (I‐Ab/MOG35-55). We found that this chimeric αwt/βIII TCR had normal association with CD3‐γδϵ and ζ chains. To investigate the effect of the chimeric βIII chain in transgenic T cells, we made MOG35-55‐specific TCR transgenic mice expressing either the αwt/βwt or chimeric αwt/βIII TCR. Similar to what was observed in hybridoma cells, transgenic αwt/βIII T cells showed a super‐signaling phenotype upon antigenic stimulation. Further studies may help us understand the effect of increased TCR signaling on autoimmunity and may lead to the identification of signaling molecules that can be targeted to stop the progression of autoimmune disorders such as multiple sclerosi

Identification of T cell stimulatory epitopes from the 18 kDa protein of Mycobacterium leprae

We have used different mouse strains to examine in vivo and in vitro responses to the 18 kDa protein of Mycobacterium leprae, which appears to be strongly immunogenic in both mice and humans. B and T cell stimulatory epitopes recognised by different strains of mice have been mapped using overlapping peptides that span the entire 18 kDa protein. Previous work established that Immunization of mice with the 18 kDa protein results in specific antibody production to common B cell epitopes and immunization of mice with peptides containing these B cell epitopes resulted in the induction of specific IgG to only a limited subset of epitopes in each strain. Now we report that T cells purified from mice immunized with peptides that stimulate antibody production, proliferate in vitro when rechallenged. The proliferating T cells produce levels of IL-2 and IFN-γ, that indicate antigen-specific T helper type 1 cells are present in significant numbers. Thus, a comparison of in vivo and in vitro data suggests that T cells bearing the phenotype associated with potentially protective cell-mediated responses can be primed in vivo by epitopes on small peptides. Since T cells from both strains of mice are capable of responding to the immunogenic synthetic peptides in vitro, but give different responses to the same peptides in vivo, factors other than epltope structure appear to influence T cell subset activation. This may have important implications for diseases such as leprosy where a polarized T cell response appears to develop and for the development of synthetic subunit vaccine

Standardization of antigen-emulsion preparations for the induction of autoimmune disease models

Autoimmune murine disease models are vital tools for identifying novel targets and finding better treatments for human diseases. Complete Freund's adjuvant is commonly used to induce disease in autoimmune models, and the quality of the adjuvant/autoantigen emulsion is of critical importance in determining reproducibility. We have established an emulsification method using a standard homogenizer and specially designed receptacle. Emulsions are easy to prepare, form stable and uniform water-in-oil particles, are faster to make than the traditional syringe method, use less material and are designed to fill syringes with ease. In the present study, we have validated the emulsions for induction of experimental autoimmune encephalitis, collagen II induced arthritis, antigen induced arthritis, and delayed type hypersensitivity models. These models were induced consistently and reproducibly and, in some cases, the new method outperformed the traditional method. The method described herein is simple, cost-effective and will reduce variability, thereby requiring fewer animals for in vivo research involving animal models of autoimmune disease and in vaccine development.Knut & Alice Wallenberg Foundation, 2019-0059Publishe