Further Investigation Into the Power of Wake and Sleep Incubation in Creative Problem Solving

An incubation effect occurs when you “let a problem rest” and then try again to answer it. During this period of rest, it is thought that your brain unconsciously does problem solves. Brodt et al. (2018) investigated if this incubation period is better spent awake or asleep. They introduced participants to different types of tasks, and had them stay awake or sleep before attempting the problems again. They found that sleep was not better than staying awake, and concluded that while incubation may exist, sleep is not a better form than staying awake. In this study, I am proposing that participants be given an additional task, do specific activities during their wake incubation, and incubate (asleep or awake) for either 20 or 90 min rather than 3 hours. Due to these changes, I expect different results than Brodt et al. (2018), in particular a difference in performance between the 20 min and 90 min groups for both sleep and wake incubation. This study could provide insight into the role of REM sleep in incubation. It could also provide insight into the role of activity in wake incubation. The brain is constantly working to solve problems and generate ideas. Learning more about the unconscious brain could lead to the enhancement of both of these functions

Viral Evolution in the Genomic Age

The remarkable increase in the number of viral genome sequences represents both opportunities and challenges for understanding disease ecology and evolution, and must stimulate researchers to address questions that were previously considered out of reach

Enabling interactive safety and performance trade-offs in early airframe systems design

Presented is a novel interactive framework for incorporating both safety and performance analyses in early systems architecture design, thus allowing the study of possible trade-offs. Traditionally, a systems architecture is first defined by the architects and then passed to experts, who manually create artefacts such as Fault Tree Analysis (FTA) for safety assessment, or computational workflows, for performance assessment. The downside of this manual approach is that if the architect modifies the systems architecture, most of the process needs to be repeated, which is tedious and time consuming. This limits the exploration of the design space, with the associated risk of missing better architectures. To overcome this limitation, the proposed framework automates parts of the safety and performance analysis in the context of the Requirement, Functional, Logical, and Physical (RFLP) systems engineering paradigm. Safety analysis is carried out by automatic creation of FTA models from the functional and logical flow views. Regarding performance analysis, computational workflows are first automatically created from the logical flow view, and then executed for a set of flight conditions over the range of the mission in order to determine the most demanding condition. Finally, performance characteristics of the subsystems, such as weights, power offtakes, ram drag etc. are evaluated at the most demanding flight condition, which enables the architect to compare architectures at aircraft level. The framework is illustrated with a representative example involving the design of an environmental control system of a civil aircraft, where the safety and performance trade-off is conducted for multiple ECS architectures

A set-based approach for coordination of multi-level collaborative design studies

Presented in this paper is a framework for design coordination of hierarchical (multi-level) design studies. The proposed framework utilizes margin management and set-based design principles for handling the challenges associated with vertical and horizontal design coordination. The former is based on flexible constraints/margins, while the latter is handled by intersecting feasible design spaces across different teams. The framework is demonstrated with an industrial test-case from the UK ATI APPROCONE (Advanced PROduct CONcept analysis Environment) project

Viral-bacterial co-infection in Australian Indigenous children with acute otitis media

Background: Acute otitis media with perforation (AOMwiP) affects 40% of remote Indigenous children during the first 18 months of life. Streptococcus pneumoniae, Haemophilus influenzae and Moraxella catarrhalis are the primary bacterial pathogens of otitis media and their loads predict clinical ear state. Our hypothesis is that antecedent respiratory viral infection increases bacterial density and progression to perforation

Адаптация гидравлической модели водостока к бассейнам рек Дунай и Днестр

Гидравлическая модель водостока адаптирована к бассейну рек Дунай и Днестр. По данным орографии, атмосферных осадках или поверхностном стоке она позволяет рассчитывать объемы, расходы и уровни воды с пространственным разрешением 1 км. В модели возможно использование данные об экосистемах на земной поверхности, типах почвы. По данным наблюдений стока оценены среднемесячные величины расходов рек, которые соответствуют наблюдениям, что позволяет применять модель в дальнейших оценках стока, наносов и т.д.Hydraulic model of water inflow is adapted to the Danube and the Dniester rivers basin. According to the orography, precipitation and surface inflow data it permits to calculate water volumes, discharges and levels with spatial resolution 1 km. It is possible to use the data on ecosystems on the ground surface, types of soil in the model. According to the observations data of the inflow the average monthly values of river discharges corresponding to the observations are estimated. It permits to apply the model in the further estimations of inflow, alluvia e t.c

Genome-wide evolutionary dynamics of influenza B viruses on a global scale

The global-scale epidemiology and genome-wide evolutionary dynamics of influenza B remain poorly understood compared with influenza A viruses. We compiled a spatio-temporally comprehensive dataset of influenza B viruses, comprising over 2,500 genomes sampled worldwide between 1987 and 2015, including 382 newly-sequenced genomes that fill substantial gaps in previous molecular surveillance studies. Our contributed data increase the number of available influenza B virus genomes in Europe, Africa and Central Asia, improving the global context to study influenza B viruses. We reveal Yamagata-lineage diversity results from co-circulation of two antigenically-distinct groups that also segregate genetically across the entire genome, without evidence of intra-lineage reassortment. In contrast, Victoria-lineage diversity stems from geographic segregation of different genetic clades, with variability in the degree of geographic spread among clades. Differences between the lineages are reflected in their antigenic dynamics, as Yamagata-lineage viruses show alternating dominance between antigenic groups, while Victoria-lineage viruses show antigenic drift of a single lineage. Structural mapping of amino acid substitutions on trunk branches of influenza B gene phylogenies further supports these antigenic differences and highlights two potential mechanisms of adaptation for polymerase activity. Our study provides new insights into the epidemiological and molecular processes shaping influenza B virus evolution globally

Successive influenza virus infection and Streptococcus pneumoniae stimulation alter human dendritic cell function

Background: Influenza virus is a major cause of respiratory disease worldwide and Streptococcus pneumoniae infection associated with influenza often leads to severe complications. Dendritic cells are key antigen presenting cells but its role in such co-infection is unclear.Methods: In this study, human monocyte derived-dentritic cells were either concurrently or successively challenged with the combination of live influenza virus and heat killed pneumococcus to mimic the viral pneumococcal infection. Dendritic cell viability, phenotypic maturation and cytokine production were then examined.Results: The challenge of influenza virus and pneumococcus altered dendritic cell functions dependent on the time interval between the successive challenge of influenza virus and pneumococcus, as well as the doses of pneumococcus. When dendritic cells were exposed to pneumococcus at 6 hr, but not 0 hr nor 24 hr after influenza virus infection, both virus and pneumococcus treated dendritic cells had greater cell apoptosis and expressed higher CD83 and CD86 than dendritic cells infected with influenza virus alone. Dendritic cells produced pro-inflammatory cytokines: TNF-α, IL-12 and IFN-γ synergistically to the successive viral and pneumococcal challenge. Whereas prior influenza virus infection suppressed the IL-10 response independent of the timing of the subsequent pneumococcal stimulation.Conclusions: Our results demonstrated that successive challenge of dendritic cells with influenza virus and pneumococcus resulted in synergistic up-regulation of pro-inflammatory cytokines with simultaneous down-regulation of anti-inflammatory cytokine, which may explain the immuno-pathogenesis of this important co-infection. © 2011 Wu et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.published_or_final_versio

Platelet-Activating Factor Receptor Plays a Role in Lung Injury and Death Caused by Influenza A in Mice

Influenza A virus causes annual epidemics which affect millions of people worldwide. A recent Influenza pandemic brought new awareness over the health impact of the disease. It is thought that a severe inflammatory response against the virus contributes to disease severity and death. Therefore, modulating the effects of inflammatory mediators may represent a new therapy against Influenza infection. Platelet activating factor (PAF) receptor (PAFR) deficient mice were used to evaluate the role of the gene in a model of experimental infection with Influenza A/WSN/33 H1N1 or a reassortant Influenza A H3N1 subtype. The following parameters were evaluated: lethality, cell recruitment to the airways, lung pathology, viral titers and cytokine levels in lungs. The PAFR antagonist PCA4248 was also used after the onset of flu symptoms. Absence or antagonism of PAFR caused significant protection against flu-associated lethality and lung injury. Protection was correlated with decreased neutrophil recruitment, lung edema, vascular permeability and injury. There was no increase of viral load and greater recruitment of NK1.1+ cells. Antibody responses were similar in WT and PAFR-deficient mice and animals were protected from re-infection. Influenza infection induces the enzyme that synthesizes PAF, lyso-PAF acetyltransferase, an effect linked to activation of TLR7/8. Therefore, it is suggested that PAFR is a disease-associated gene and plays an important role in driving neutrophil influx and lung damage after infection of mice with two subtypes of Influenza A. Further studies should investigate whether targeting PAFR may be useful to reduce lung pathology associated with Influenza A virus infection in humans

Differential activation of inflammatory pathways in A549 type II pneumocytes by Streptococcus pneumoniae strains with different adherence properties

BACKGROUND: Adherence of Streptococcus pneumoniae bacteria to lung cells is a first step in the progression from asymptomatic carriage to pneumonia. Adherence abilities vary widely among S. pneumoniae patient isolates. In this study, the binding properties of S. pneumoniae isolates and the effects of binding on activation of the Nuclear Factor-Kappa-B (NFκB) pathway and cytokine secretion by type II pneumocytes were measured. METHODS: Mechanisms of high- and low-binding S. pneumoniae adherence to A549 cells were investigated by blocking putative receptors on bacteria and host cells with antibody and by eluting choline-binding proteins off of bacterial surfaces. NFκB activation was measured by western blot and immunocytochemistry and cytokine secretion was detected by a protein array. RESULTS: This study shows that S. pneumoniae isolates from pneumonia patients (n = 298) can vary by as much as 1000-fold in their ability to bind to human lung epithelial cells. This difference resulted in differential activation of the NFκB pathway. High-, but not low-binding S. pneumoniae used Choline-binding protein A (CbpA) to bind to complement component C3 on epithelial cell surfaces. Interleukin-8 (IL-8) was the only cytokine secreted by cells treated with either low- or high-binding S. pneumoniae. CONCLUSION: These results indicate that S. pneumoniae clinical isolates are not homogeneous in their interaction with host epithelial cells. The differential activation of host cells by high- and low-binding S. pneumoniae strains could have implications for the treatment of pneumococcal pneumonia and for vaccine development