Efficacy and safety of the trans-obturator tape for female stress urinary incontinence

Background: To assess the safety and efficacy of Trans-obturator tape (TVT-O) for female stress urinary incontinence (SUI).Methods: A cohort of 35 cases of SUI and underwent TVT-O procedure over a period of 4 years. Pre-operative evaluation included pelvic examination, one hour pad test, urodynamic study, urinary diary and baseline haematological tests. Post-operatively all women had post-void residual volume and were followed up for 3 years.Results: The mean age of the patients was 47±9.5 years. TVT-O alone was done in 58.1% of cases. 41.9% of cases had TVT-O done as a concomitant procedure. The median duration of follow-up was 48 months. The overall objective and subjective cure rate was 92.3% with failure rate of 7.7%, 12.9% of women reported post-operative thigh pain and 6.5% patients had immediate post-operative urinary retention. 16.1% of the patients had post-operative voiding dysfunction. No major complications were encountered in these patients.Conclusions: TVT-O is a safe, easy and effective minimally invasive procedure for female SUI with minimal acceptable complications

Estimation of errors in text and data processing

The company Adiss Lab Lts. obtained 1 000 000 medical reports that are either in free form text, or in XML format. One of the main goals of their development is to integrate an algorithm for information extraction (IE) in their platform. The verification of the algorithm’s output for a report is done by a medical doctor (MD) for a certain fee. Validating the correctness of all data would be overwhelming and very expensive. Hence, the problem, as presented by the company, is to provide a method (algorithm) which determines the minimum amount of reports that will validate the correctness of the IE algorithm and a procedure for selecting these reports. In order to solve the problem we have considered an algorithm-centric approach uses active learning and semi-supervised learning

ComfRide: A smartphone based system for comfortable public transport recommendation

Passenger comfort is a major factor influencing a commuter's decision to avail public transport. Existing studies suggest that factors like overcrowding, jerkiness, traffic congestion etc. correlate well to passenger's (dis)comfort. An online survey conducted with more than 300 participants from 12 different countries reveals that different personalized and context dependent factors influence passenger comfort during a travel by public transport. Leveraging on these findings, we identify correlations between comfort level and these dynamic parameters, and implement a smartphone based application, ComfRide, which recommends t

Mucosal Application of gp140 Encoding DNA Polyplexes to Different Tissues Results in Altered Immunological Outcomes in Mice

Increasing evidence suggests that mucosally targeted vaccines will enhance local humoral and cellular responses whilst still eliciting systemic immunity. We therefore investigated the capacity of nasal, sublingual or vaginal delivery of DNA-PEI polyplexes to prime immune responses prior to mucosal protein boost vaccination. Using a plasmid expressing the model antigen HIV CN54gp140 we show that each of these mucosal surfaces were permissive for DNA priming and production of antigen-specific antibody responses. The elicitation of systemic immune responses using nasally delivered polyplexed DNA followed by recombinant protein boost vaccination was equivalent to a systemic prime-boost regimen, but the mucosally applied modality had the advantage in that significant levels of antigen-specific IgA were detected in vaginal mucosal secretions. Moreover, mucosal vaccination elicited both local and systemic antigen-specific IgG(+) and IgA(+) antibody secreting cells. Finally, using an Influenza challenge model we found that a nasal or sublingual, but not vaginal, DNA prime/protein boost regimen protected against infectious challenge. These data demonstrate that mucosally applied plasmid DNA complexed to PEI followed by a mucosal protein boost generates sufficient antigen-specific humoral antibody production to protect from mucosal viral challenge

Evaluation of Mucociliary Clearance by Three Dimension Micro-CT-SPECT in Guinea Pig: Role of Bitter Taste Agonists

Different image techniques have been used to analyze mucociliary clearance (MCC) in humans, but current small animal MCC analysis using in vivo imaging has not been well defined. Bitter taste receptor (T2R) agonists increase ciliary beat frequency (CBF) and cause bronchodilation but their effects in vivo are not well understood. This work analyzes in vivo nasal and bronchial MCC in guinea pig animals using three dimension (3D) micro-CT-SPECT images and evaluates the effect of T2R agonists. Intranasal macroaggreggates of albumin-Technetium 99 metastable (MAA-Tc99m) and lung nebulized Tc99m albumin nanocolloids were used to analyze the effect of T2R agonists on nasal and bronchial MCC respectively, using 3D micro-CT-SPECT in guinea pig. MAA-Tc99m showed a nasal mucociliary transport rate of 0.36 mm/min that was increased in presence of T2R agonist to 0.66 mm/min. Tc99m albumin nanocolloids were homogeneously distributed in the lung of guinea pig and cleared with time-dependence through the bronchi and trachea of guinea pig. T2R agonist increased bronchial MCC of Tc99m albumin nanocolloids. T2R agonists increased CBF in human nasal ciliated cells in vitro and induced bronchodilation in human bronchi ex vivo. In summary, T2R agonists increase MCC in vivo as assessed by 3D micro-CT-SPECT analysis

Thy1+ Nk Cells from Vaccinia Virus-Primed Mice Confer Protection against Vaccinia Virus Challenge in the Absence of Adaptive Lymphocytes

While immunological memory has long been considered the province of T- and B- lymphocytes, it has recently been reported that innate cell populations are capable of mediating memory responses. We now show that an innate memory immune response is generated in mice following infection with vaccinia virus, a poxvirus for which no cognate germline-encoded receptor has been identified. This immune response results in viral clearance in the absence of classical adaptive T and B lymphocyte populations, and is mediated by a Thy1+ subset of natural killer (NK) cells. We demonstrate that immune protection against infection from a lethal dose of virus can be adoptively transferred with memory hepatic Thy1+ NK cells that were primed with live virus. Our results also indicate that, like classical immunological memory, stronger innate memory responses form in response to priming with live virus than a highly attenuated vector. These results demonstrate that a defined innate memory cell population alone can provide host protection against a lethal systemic infection through viral clearance

Elasticity of bilayers containing PEG lipids

The addition of lipids with a poly(ethylene glycol) head group (Stealth or grafted or PEG lipids) to a phosphatidylcholine bilayer changes the mechanical properties of the membrane. We calculate the dependences of the bending and stretching elasticities of the bilayer on the PEG lipid concentration and on the monomer number in its polymer chain. The role of the bending elasticity at blocked flip-flop of the pure bilayer is revealed

Correlations between the form fluctuation modes of flaccid quasispherical lipid vesicles and their role in the calculation of the curvature elastic modulus of the vesicle membrane. Numerical results

It is shown in this paper that the existing theories of the form fluctuations of quasispherical lipid vesicle give a too mean stretching energy of its membrane. A more precise theory taking into account the area conservation of the membrane is proposed. The relation between the amplitudes of the form fluctuations and the curvature elastic modulus of the membrane is obtained numerically by means of a suitable Monte Carlo simulation.Dans cet article nous montrons que les théories existantes des fluctuations de la forme d'une vésicule lipidique quasisphérique donnent des valeurs trop élevées pour l'énergie moyenne de dilatation de sa membrane. Une théorie propre, qui tient compte de la conservation de la surface de la membrane, est proposée. La relation entre les amplitudes des fluctuations de la forme et le module d'élasticité de courbure de la membrane est obtenue numériquement au moyen d'une simulation Monte Carlo convenable