Immunization with Plasmid DNA Encoding for the Measles Virus Hemagglutinin and Nucleoprotein Leads to Humoral and Cell-Mediated Immunity

AbstractWe have evaluated the DNA vaccination strategy for measles virus (MV) hemagglutinin (HA) and nucleoprotein (NP) genes. Plasmids encoding either the MV, HA, or NP proteins inoculated intramuscularly into Balb/c mice induced both humoral and CTL class I restricted responses. Antibody responses were not increased by multiple inoculations. The major antibody isotype induced by both the HA and NP was IgG2a consistent with a Th1 response. In contrast, immunization with a plasmid which directed the synthesis of a partially secreted form of HA gave mainly IgG1 antibodies. When the amount of DNA was reduced for the HA plasmid (1 or 10 μg/animal), although the antibody was not induced, a CTL response was observed

ICA vs. PCA Active Appearance Models: Application to Cardiac MR Segmentation

Abstract. Statistical shape models generally use Principal Component Analysis (PCA) to describe the main directions of shape variation in a training set of ex-ample shapes. However, PCA has the restriction that the input data must be drawn from a Gaussian distribution and is only able to describe global shape variations. In this paper we evaluate the use of an alternative shape decomposi-tion, Independent Component Analysis (ICA), for two reasons. ICA does not require a Gaussian distribution of the input data and is able to describe localized shape variations. With ICA however, the resulting vectors are not ordered, therefore a method for ordering the Independent Components is presented in this paper. To evaluate ICA-based Active Appearance Models (AAMs), 10 leave-15-out models were trained on a set of 150 short-axis cardiac MR Images with PCA-based as well as ICA-based AAMs. The median values for the aver-age and maximal point-to-point distances between the expert drawn and auto-matically segmented contours for the PCA-based AAM were 2.95 and 8.39 pix-els. For the ICA-based AAM these distances were 1.86 and 5.01 pixels respec-tively. From this, we conclude that the use of ICA results in a substantial im-provement in border localization accuracy over a PCA-based model.

Effective degradation of phenacetin in wastewater by (photo)electro-Fenton processes: Investigation of variables, acute toxicity, and intermediates

Electro-Fenton (EF) and solar photoelectro-Fenton (SPEF) processes were employed at different scales to degrade phenacetin (PNT), the first synthetic analgesic. EF experiments were conducted at lab scale, whereas SPEF experiments were performed in an 8 L pre-pilot plant using an electrochemical filter-press cell. Under optimal conditions (25 mg L−1 PNT, 25.3 mg L−1 Fe2+, and current density of 59.5 mA cm−2), EF resulted in degradation and mineralization degrees of 83.9% and 45.2% at 14 and 230 min, respectively. Similarly, PNT was spiked into real wastewater from a municipal secondary treatment plant, resulting in degradation of 68.0% and mineralization of 39.4%, with an energy consumption of 7.0 kWh g−1. The optimal conditions of SPEF (16.8 mg L−1 Fe2+ and current density of 45.9 mA cm−2) led to degradation and mineralization degrees of 55.9% and 37.1% at 36 and 181 min, respectively, with a low energy consumption of 0.142 kWh g−1. Both processes effectively detoxified the solutions, as demonstrated by tests with Artemia salina and Lactuca sativa. Three distinct degradation pathways were proposed based on the identification of eleven reaction intermediates formed upon •OH attack. In conclusion, the low energy cost of the SPEF process underscores its potential for pharmaceutical degradation in wastewater

The use of the Borg Rating of perceived exertion scale in cardiopulmonary resuscitation

Cardiorespiratory arrest is a critical event whose survival rate is related to the quality of resuscitation manoeuvres, combined with technology. It is important to understand the perception of tiredness during this procedure, aiming at the effectiveness of compressions and increasing the chances of survival. Goal Apply the Borg Scale to analyze the effort perceived by nurses during cardiopulmonary resuscitation manoeuvres with a feedback device. Method Experimental study with randomized distribution of nurses in a teaching hospital, simulating cardiac arrest, to assess perceived exertion using the Borg scale during cardiopulmonary resuscitation with/without a feedback device. A statistical significance level of 5% was adopted. Results Sixty-nine nurses working in critical and non-critical adult care units were included. Perceived exertion and heart rate were lower in the intervention group (p<0.001), influenced by the feedback device, with no significant difference regarding the actuation units. Conclusion The Borg scale proved to be adequate for the proposed objectives. The feedback device contributed to less effort and reduced heart rate during resuscitation manoeuvres. The low cost and ease of application favour its use in training and real-time consultations to assess performance during resuscitation, using a feedback device to reduce efforts and the perception of tiredness. It also allows reflection on the intervening factors and resources that can influence the quality of care and the chances of survival

Population structure of eleven Spanish ovine breeds and detection of selective sweeps with BayeScan and hapFLK

The goals of the current work were to analyse the population structure of 11 Spanish ovine breeds and to detect genomic regions that may have been targeted by selection. A total of 141 individuals were genotyped with the Infinium 50 K Ovine SNP BeadChip (Illumina). We combined this dataset with Spanish ovine data previously reported by the International Sheep Genomics Consortium (N = 229). Multidimensional scaling and Admixture analyses revealed that Canaria de Pelo and, to a lesser extent, Roja Mallorquina, Latxa and Churra are clearly differentiated populations, while the remaining seven breeds (Ojalada, Castellana, Gallega, Xisqueta, Ripollesa, Rasa Aragonesa and Segureña) share a similar genetic background. Performance of a genome scan with BayeScan and hapFLK allowed us identifying three genomic regions that are consistently detected with both methods i.e. Oar3 (150–154 Mb), Oar6 (4–49 Mb) and Oar13 (68–74 Mb). Neighbor-joining trees based on polymorphisms mapping to these three selective sweeps did not show a clustering of breeds according to their predominant productive specialization (except the local tree based on Oar13 SNPs). Such cryptic signatures of selection have been also found in the bovine genome, posing a considerable challenge to understand the biological consequences of artificial selection.Publishe

Adapting Decision DAGs for Multipartite Ranking

European Conference, ECML PKDD 2010, Barcelona, Spain, September 20-24, 2010Multipartite ranking is a special kind of ranking for problems in which classes exhibit an order. Many applications require its use, for instance, granting loans in a bank, reviewing papers in a conference or just grading exercises in an education environment. Several methods have been proposed for this purpose. The simplest ones resort to regression schemes with a pre- and post-process of the classes, what makes them barely useful. Other alternatives make use of class order information or they perform a pairwise classi cation together with an aggregation function. In this paper we present and discuss two methods based on building a Decision Directed Acyclic Graph (DDAG). Their performance is evaluated over a set of ordinal benchmark data sets according to the C-Index measure. Both yield competitive results with regard to stateof- the-art methods, specially the one based on a probabilistic approach, called PR-DDA

How does the replacement of rice flour with flours of higher nutritional quality impact the texture and sensory profile and acceptance of gluten-free chocolate cakes?

Gluten-free bakery products usually use rice flour as substitute for wheat flour. This paper aims to evaluate whether and how the substitution of rice flour for sorghum and teff flour changes the overall acceptance, texture and sensory profile of gluten-free chocolate cakes. An experimental design composed of three factors (rice, sorghum and teff flours) was developed, and formulations were analysed by acceptance test and fibre content. Four formulations were submitted to sensory descriptive analysis. The formulations did not show significant differences in the overall acceptance although the sensory profile has changed. The texture was affected by the type of flour, being the optimised formulation the softer among the samples. From these data, it can be concluded that it is possible to replace rice flour with sorghum and teff flour in chocolate cake formulations, since the change in the sensory profile did not affect the acceptance of the products.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio