A Clinical Profile of Hepatitis a Patients in Jakarta, Indonesia

Background: To determine the incidence of hepatitis A infections and the clinical profiles of adult patients admitted to public hospitals in Jakarta, Indonesia. Methods: This was a cross-sectional study that utilised consecutive secondary data from internal medicine wards of seven public hospitals in Jakarta between 2011 and 2013. Eligibility criteria included patients over the age of 18 years and an ICD-10 diagnosis code of B15, acute hepatitis A. Case proportion was reported per 1000 people by dividing incidence per year to total in-ward patients. Clinical profiles were reported descriptively. Laboratory results were compared and categorised into groups of patients aged below and above 25 years old. Results: Data revealed that hospitalisations of patients with hepatitis A had decreased from 2011 to 2013. 289 patients were studied, the majority were young adults (18-25 years old) and their common chief complaints were nausea (36%), fever (24%), and jaundice (21%). Higher bilirubin levels were seen in older patients. There were 13 patients coinfected with hepatitis B, one patient coinfected with hepatitis C, and one patient coinfected with HIV. Conclusions: The proportion of hepatitis A infection amongst adults admitted to public hospitals in Jakarta was low and had decreased during the study period. Most of the patients reported classical clinical manifestations. This study found that the targeted age group may benefit from receiving routine hepatitis A vaccinations

Renin inhibition by substituted piperidines: A novel paradigm for the inhibition of monomeric aspartic proteinases?

BackgroundThe aspartic proteinase renin catalyses the first and rate-limiting step in the conversion of angiotensinogen to the hormone angiotensin II, and therefore plays an important physiological role in the regulation of blood pressure. Numerous potent peptidomimetic inhibitors of this important drug target have been developed, but none of these compounds have progressed past clinical phase II trials. Limited oral bioavailability or excessive production costs have prevented these inhibitors from becoming new antihypertensive drugs. We were interested in developing new nonpeptidomimetic renin inhibitors.ResultsHigh-throughput screening of the Roche compound library identified a simple 3,4-disubstituted piperidine lead compound. We determined the crystal structures of recombinant human renin complexed with two representatives of this new class. Binding of these substituted piperidine derivatives is accompanied by major induced-fit adaptations around the enzyme's active site.ConclusionsThe efficient optimisation of the piperidine inhibitors was facilitated by structural analysis of the renin active site in two renin-inhibitor complexes (some of the piperidine derivatives have picomolar affinities for renin). These structural changes provide the basis for a novel paradigm for inhibition of monomeric aspartic proteinases

The Comparison between Circadian Oscillators in Mouse Liver and Pituitary Gland Reveals Different Integration of Feeding and Light Schedules

The mammalian circadian system is composed of multiple peripheral clocks that are synchronized by a central pacemaker in the suprachiasmatic nuclei of the hypothalamus. This system keeps track of the external world rhythms through entrainment by various time cues, such as the light-dark cycle and the feeding schedule. Alterations of photoperiod and meal time modulate the phase coupling between central and peripheral oscillators. In this study, we used real-time quantitative PCR to assess circadian clock gene expression in the liver and pituitary gland from mice raised under various photoperiods, or under a temporal restricted feeding protocol. Our results revealed unexpected differences between both organs. Whereas the liver oscillator always tracked meal time, the pituitary circadian clockwork showed an intermediate response, in between entrainment by the light regimen and the feeding-fasting rhythm. The same composite response was also observed in the pituitary gland from adrenalectomized mice under daytime restricted feeding, suggesting that circulating glucocorticoids do not inhibit full entrainment of the pituitary clockwork by meal time. Altogether our results reveal further aspects in the complexity of phase entrainment in the circadian system, and suggest that the pituitary may host oscillators able to integrate multiple time cues

Observation of long-range, near-side angular correlations in proton-proton collisions at the LHC

This is the pre-print version of the Published Article, which can be accessed from the link below - Copyright @ 2010 Springer VerlagResults on two-particle angular correlations for charged particles emitted in proton-proton collisions at center-of-mass energies of 0.9, 2.36, and 7 TeV are presented, using data collected with the CMS detector over a broad range of pseudorapidity (eta) and azimuthal angle (phi). Short-range correlations in Delta(eta), which are studied in minimum bias events, are characterized using a simple "independent cluster" parametrization in order to quantify their strength (cluster size) and their extent in eta (cluster decay width). Long-range azimuthal correlations are studied differentially as a function of charged particle multiplicity and particle transverse momentum using a 980 inverse nb data set at 7 TeV. In high multiplicity events, a pronounced structure emerges in the two-dimensional correlation function for particle pairs with intermediate transverse momentum of 1-3 GeV/c, 2.0< |Delta(eta)| <4.8 and Delta(phi) near 0. This is the first observation of such a long-range, near-side feature in two-particle correlation functions in pp or p p-bar collisions

Observation of long-range, near-side angular correlations in proton-proton collisions at the LHC

Results on two-particle angular correlations for charged particles emitted in proton-proton collisions at center-of-mass energies of 0.9, 2.36, and 7TeV are presented, using data collected with the CMS detector over a broad range of pseudorapidity (eta) and azimuthal angle (phi). Short-range correlations in Delta(eta), which are studied in minimum bias events, are characterized using a simple "independent cluster" parametrization in order to quantify their strength (cluster size) and their extent in eta (cluster decay width). Long-range azimuthal correlations are studied differentially as a function of charged particle multiplicity and particle transverse momentum using a 980 nb(-1) data set at 7TeV. In high multiplicity events, a pronounced structure emerges in the two-dimensional correlation function for particle pairs with intermediate p(T) of 1-3 GeV/c, 2.