Reply to the Comment by B. Andresen

All the comments made by Andresen's comments are replied and are shown not to be pertinent. The original discussions [ABE S., Europhys. Lett. 90 (2010) 50004] about the absence of nonextensive statistical mechanics with q-entropies for classical continuous systems are reinforced.Comment: 5 pages. This is Reply to B. Andresen's Comment on the paper entitled "Essential discreteness in generalized thermostatistics with non-logarithmic entropy", Europhys. Lett. 90 (2010) 5000

In vivo examination of healthy human skin after short-time treatment with moisturizers using confocal Raman spectroscopy and optical coherence tomography: Preliminary observations

Skin is our barrier against environmental damage. Moisturizers are widely used to increase hydration and barrier integrity of the skin; however, there are contrasting observations on their in vivo effects in real-life settings. In cosmetic studies, cor- neometers and tewameters are traditionally used to assess skin hydration. In this study, two novel noninvasive diagnostic techniques, optical coherence tomography (OCT) and confocal Raman spectroscopy, were used to analyze stratum corneum and epidermal thickness (ET), water content, blood flow in function of depth, skin roughness, attenuation coefficient, natural moisturizing factor, ceramides and free fatty acids, cholesterol, urea, and lactates in 20 female subjects aged between 30 and 45 before and after 2 weeks application of a commercially available mois- turizing lotion on one forearm. The untreated forearm served as control. A third measurement was conducted 1 week after cessation of moisturizing to verify whether the changes in the analyzed parameters persisted. We noticed a reduction in skin roughness, an increase in ceramides and free fatty acids and a not statistically sig- nificant increase in ET. As a conclusion, short time moisturizing appears insufficient to provide significant changes in skin morphology and composition, as assessed by OCT and RS. Novel noninvasive imaging methods are suitable for the evalu- ation of skin response to topical moisturizers. Further studies on larger sample size and longer treatment schedules are needed to analyze changes under treat- ment with moisturizers and to standardize the use of novel noninvasive diagnostic techniques

Antimicrobial susceptibility of bacteria isolated from newborns with suspected or confirmed necrotising enterocolitis

Aim. This audit aimed to identify which bacteria were associated with necrotising enterocolitis (NEC) and determine their antibiotic sensitivities. Methods. A retrospective audit of all infants with a diagnosis of suspected NEC or confirmed NEC and a positive culture (blood/faeces/operative specimen or vascular access device) between January 2000 and September 2007 was performed. Results. Ninety nine infants had a diagnosis of suspected (45) or confirmed NEC (54). Seventeen patients had suspected (5) or confirmed (12) NEC and a positive culture result. 12 babies had positive blood cultures associated with their NEC. Only 4 of the 12 cases of NEC with a positive blood culture received adequate first line cover for their subsequently identified infecting organism. Conclusions. Due to the limitations of this study we are unable to make general recommendations on the first line antibiotic choice for babies with suspected or confirmed NEC. Our current regime of Ampicillin, Gentamicin and Metronidazole failed to adequately treat 8 of the 12 organisms subsequently isolated in blood cultures. Only the combination of Vancomycin and Meropenem would have adequately treated all the bacteria identified. The concern with this approach is the possible emergence of multi drug resistant bacteria

On R\'enyi and Tsallis entropies and divergences for exponential families

Many common probability distributions in statistics like the Gaussian, multinomial, Beta or Gamma distributions can be studied under the unified framework of exponential families. In this paper, we prove that both R\'enyi and Tsallis divergences of distributions belonging to the same exponential family admit a generic closed form expression. Furthermore, we show that R\'enyi and Tsallis entropies can also be calculated in closed-form for sub-families including the Gaussian or exponential distributions, among others.Comment: 7 page

Divergent in situ expression of IL-31 and IL-31RA between bullous pemphigoid and pemphigus vulgaris

Bullous pemphigoid (BP) and pemphigus vulgaris (PV) are two major autoimmune blistering skin diseases. Unlike PV, BP is accompanied by intense pruritus, suggesting possible involvement of the pruritogenic cytokine IL-31. However, the underlying mechanisms of the clinical difference between BP and PV in terms of pruritus are not fully understood. To compare the expression levels of IL-31 and its receptor IL-31RA in the lesional skin, including peripheral nerves in BP and PV patients, immunohistochemical staining for IL-31 and IL-31RA was performed in skin samples of BP and PV patients and healthy controls (HC). The IL-31RA-expressing area in epidermis and peripheral nerves was analysed using ImageJ and the percentage of positive cells for IL-31/IL-31RA in dermal infiltrating cells was manually quantified. Quantitative analyses revealed that IL-31/IL-31RA expressions in the epidermis and dermal infiltrate were significantly increased in BP compared to PV and HC. The difference between BP and PV became more obvious when advanced bullous lesions were compared. Peripheral nerves in BP lesions presented significantly higher IL-31RA expression compared to PV lesions. In conclusion, we found significantly augmented expressions of IL-31/IL-31RA in BP lesions, including peripheral nerves, in comparison to PV. These results suggest a possible contribution of IL-31/IL-31RA signalling to the difference between BP and PV in the facilitation of pruritus and local skin inflammation, raising the possibility of therapeutic targeting of the IL-31/IL-31RA pathway in BP patients

The week after:Do the effects of imagined contact last over time?

The vast majority of studies assessing the prejudice reduction properties of imagined contact have focused so far on the immediate effects of the intervention. In an attempt to contribute to the literature examining the long-term effects of imagined contact, the two studies reported in this paper tested the immediate and long-term effects of imagined contact on outgroup attitudes, intergroup anxiety, and behavioral intentions in Experiment 1, and also on contact self-efficacy in Experiment 2. Both studies were conducted in a context of entrenched intergroup conflict, Cyprus. The results supported the effectiveness of imagined contact in eliciting more positive attitudes, lower levels of anxiety, more positive behavioral intentions, and higher contact self-efficacy when these were measured immediately after contact. However, evidence for the endurance of these effects was systematically found only for outgroup attitudes and intergroup anxiety. While these results speak to the ability of imagined contact to lead to long-term changes in important and commonly studied intergroup outcomes, lack of consistent evidence regarding its ability to yield lasting changes on variables pertaining to intended behavior toward the outgroup compose a challenge for the intervention

Bistability in Apoptosis by Receptor Clustering

Apoptosis is a highly regulated cell death mechanism involved in many physiological processes. A key component of extrinsically activated apoptosis is the death receptor Fas, which, on binding to its cognate ligand FasL, oligomerize to form the death-inducing signaling complex. Motivated by recent experimental data, we propose a mathematical model of death ligand-receptor dynamics where FasL acts as a clustering agent for Fas, which form locally stable signaling platforms through proximity-induced receptor interactions. Significantly, the model exhibits hysteresis, providing an upstream mechanism for bistability and robustness. At low receptor concentrations, the bistability is contingent on the trimerism of FasL. Moreover, irreversible bistability, representing a committed cell death decision, emerges at high concentrations, which may be achieved through receptor pre-association or localization onto membrane lipid rafts. Thus, our model provides a novel theory for these observed biological phenomena within the unified context of bistability. Importantly, as Fas interactions initiate the extrinsic apoptotic pathway, our model also suggests a mechanism by which cells may function as bistable life/death switches independently of any such dynamics in their downstream components. Our results highlight the role of death receptors in deciding cell fate and add to the signal processing capabilities attributed to receptor clustering.Comment: Accepted by PLoS Comput Bio

Electrical tuning of elastic wave propagation in nanomechanical lattices at MHz frequencies

Nanoelectromechanical systems (NEMS) that operate in the megahertz (MHz) regime allow energy transducibility between different physical domains. For example, they convert optical or electrical signals into mechanical motions and vice versa. This coupling of different physical quantities leads to frequency-tunable NEMS resonators via electromechanical non-linearities. NEMS platforms with single- or low-degrees of freedom have been employed to demonstrate quantum-like effects, such as mode cooling, mechanically induced transparency, Rabi oscillation, two-mode squeezing and phonon lasing. Periodic arrays of NEMS resonators with architected unit cells enable fundamental studies of lattice-based solid-state phenomena, such as bandgaps, energy transport, non-linear dynamics and localization, and topological properties, directly transferrable to on-chip devices. Here we describe one-dimensional, non-linear, nanoelectromechanical lattices (NEML) with active control of the frequency band dispersion in the radio-frequency domain (10–30 MHz). The design of our systems is inspired by NEMS-based phonon waveguides and includes the voltage-induced frequency tuning of the individual resonators. Our NEMLs consist of a periodic arrangement of mechanically coupled, free-standing nanomembranes with circular clamped boundaries. This design forms a flexural phononic crystal with a well-defined bandgap, 1.8 MHz wide. The application of a d.c. gate voltage creates voltage-dependent on-site potentials, which can significantly shift the frequency bands of the device. Additionally, a dynamic modulation of the voltage triggers non-linear effects, which induce the formation of a phononic bandgap in the acoustic branch, analogous to Peierls transition in condensed matter. The gating approach employed here makes the devices more compact than recently proposed systems, whose tunability mostly relies on materials’ compliance and mechanical non-linearities

Transverse Electronic Transport through DNA Nucleotides with Functionalized Graphene Electrodes

Graphene nanogaps and nanopores show potential for the purpose of electrical DNA sequencing, in particular because single-base resolution appears to be readily achievable. Here, we evaluated from first principles the advantages of a nanogap setup with functionalized graphene edges. To this end, we employed density functional theory and the non-equilibrium Green's function method to investigate the transverse conductance properties of the four nucleotides occurring in DNA when located between the opposing functionalized graphene electrodes. In particular, we determined the electrical tunneling current variation as a function of the applied bias and the associated differential conductance at a voltage which appears suitable to distinguish between the four nucleotides. Intriguingly, we observe for one of the nucleotides a negative differential resistance effect.Comment: 19 pages, 7 figure