Unusual association of ST-T abnormalities, myocarditis and cardiomyopathy with H1N1 influenza in pregnancy: two case reports and review of the literature.

Introduction Myocarditis is rarely reported as an extra-pulmonary manifestation of influenza while pregnancy is a rare cause of cardiomyopathy. Pregnancy was identified as a major risk factor for increased mortality and morbidity due to H1N1 influenza in the pandemic of 2009 to 2010. However, to the best of our knowledge there are no previous reports in the literature linking H1N1 with myocarditis in pregnancy. Case presentation We report the cases of two pregnant Caucasian women (aged 29 and 30), with no pre-existing illness, presenting with respiratory manifestations of H1N1 influenza virus infection in their third trimester. Both women developed evidence of myocarditis. One woman developed acute respiratory distress syndrome, almost reaching the point of requiring extra-corporeal membrane oxygenation, and subsequently developed persistent cardiomyopathy; the other recovered without any long-term consequence. Conclusions While it is not possible to ascertain retrospectively if myocarditis was caused by either infection with H1N1 virus or as a result of pregnancy (in the absence of endomyocardial biopsies), the significant association with myocardial involvement in both women demonstrates the increased risk of exposure to H1N1 influenza virus in pregnant women. This highlights the need for health care providers to increase awareness amongst caregivers to target this 'at risk' group aggressively with vaccination and prompt treatment

Multi-tasking Sulf1/Sulf2 enzymes do not only facilitate extracellular cell signalling but also participate in cell cycle related nuclear events

This study demonstrates highly dynamic spatial and temporal pattern of SULF1/SULF2 expression in a number of neuronal cell types growing in normal culture medium that included their transient nuclear mobilisation. Their nuclear translocation became particularly apparent during cell proliferation as both SULF1/SULF2 demonstrated not only cell membrane associated expression, their known site of function but also transient nuclear mobilisation during nuclear cell division. Nuclear localisation was apparent not only by immunocytochemical staining but also confirmed by immunoblotting staining of isolated nuclear fractions of C6, U87 and N2A cells. Immunocytochemical analysis demonstrated rapid nuclear exit of both SULF1/SULF2 following cell division that was slightly delayed but not blocked in a fraction of the polyploid cells observed in C6 cells. The overexpression of both Sulf1 and Sulf2 genes in C6 and U87 cells markedly promoted in vitro growth of these cells accompanied by nuclear mobilisation while inhibition of both these genes inhibited cell proliferation with little or no nuclear SULF1/SULF2 mobilisation. SULF1/SULF2 activity in these cells thus demonstrated a clear co-ordination of extracellular cell signalling with nuclear events related to cell proliferation

ARTICONF decentralized social media platform for democratic crowd journalism

Media production and consumption behaviors are changing in response to new technologies and demands, giving birth to a new generation of social applications. Among them, crowd journalism represents a novel way of constructing democratic and trustworthy news relying on ordinary citizens arriving at breaking news locations and capturing relevant videos using their smartphones. The ARTICONF project as reported by Prodan (Euro-Par 2019: parallel processing workshops, Springer, 2019) proposes a trustworthy, resilient, and globally sustainable toolset for developing decentralized applications (DApps) to address this need. Its goal is to overcome the privacy, trust, and autonomy-related concerns associated with proprietary social media platforms overflowed by fake news. Leveraging the ARTICONF tools, we introduce a new DApp for crowd journalism called MOGPlay. MOGPlay collects and manages audiovisual content generated by citizens and provides a secure blockchain platform that rewards all stakeholders involved in professional news production. Besides live streaming, MOGPlay offers a marketplace for audiovisual content trading among citizens and free journalists with an internal token ecosystem. We discuss the functionality and implementation of the MOGPlay DApp and illustrate four pilot crowd journalism live scenarios that validate the prototype

A Generic Architecture for Integrating Health Monitoring and Advanced Care Provisioning

This paper presents a novel approach for advanced person- alized care and health services. It consists of four tiers and presents a high level of openness, privacy and manageability compared to existing systems. Moreover, the architecture is driven by realistic underlying business opportunities and is validated through the design of multiple scenarios.status: publishe

Characterization of the emitting and absorbing media around the nucleus of the active galaxy UGC11763 using XMM-Newton data

Aims. The detailed analysis of all data taken by the XMM-Newton satellite of UGC11763 to characterize the different components that are emitting and absorbing radiation in the vicinity of the active nucleus. Methods. The continuum emission was studied through the EPIC spectra taking profit of the spectral range of these cameras. The high resolution RGS spectra were analyzed in order to characterize the absorbing features and the emission line features that arise in the spectra of this source. Results. A power law with a photon index \Gamma = 1.72^{+0.03}_{-0.01} accounts for the continuum emission of this source in the hard X-rays from 10 down to 1 keV. At lower energies, a black body model with kT= 0.100\pm 0.003 keV provides a good description of the observed soft excess. The absorption signatures in the spectra of UGC11763 are consistent with the presence of a two phase ionized material (log U=1.65^{+0.07}_{-0.08}; 2.6\pm 0.1 and log N_{H} = 21.2\pm 0.2; 21.51\pm 0.01 cm^{-2}, respectively) in the line of sight. The physical conditions found are consistent with the two phases being in pressure equilibrium. The low ionization component is more ionized than typically found for warm absorbers in other Seyfert 1 galaxies. There are also signatures of some emission lines: Ovii He$\alpha$(r), Ovii He$\alpha$(f), a blend of the Neix He$\alpha$ triplet and Fexviii at \lambda 17.5 \AA.Comment: 11 pages, 10 figures, accepted to be published by A&

A Variable-Density Absorption Event in NGC 3227 mapped with Suzaku and Swift

The morphology of the circumnuclear gas accreting onto supermassive black holes in Seyfert galaxies remains a topic of much debate. As the innermost regions of Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) are spatially unresolved, X-ray spectroscopy, and in particular line-of-sight absorption variability, is a key diagnostic to map out the distribution of gas. Observations of variable X-ray absorption in multiple Seyferts and over a wide range of timescales indicate the presence of clumps/clouds of gas within the circumnuclear material. Eclipse events by clumps transiting the line of sight allow us to explore the properties of the clumps over a wide range of radial distances from the optical/UV Broad Line Region (BLR) to beyond the dust sublimation radius. Time-resolved absorption events have been extremely rare so far, but suggest a range of density profiles across Seyferts. We resolve a weeks-long absorption event in the Seyfert NGC 3227. We examine six Suzaku and twelve Swift observations from a 2008 campaign spanning 5 weeks. We use a model accounting for the complex spectral interplay of three differently-ionized absorbers. We perform time-resolved spectroscopy to discern the absorption variability behavior. We also examine the IR-to-X-ray spectral energy distribution (SED) to test for reddening by dust. The 2008 absorption event is due to moderately-ionized ($\log \xi\sim 1.2-1.4$) gas covering 90% of the line of sight. We resolve the density profile to be highly irregular, in contrast to a previous symmetric and centrally-peaked event mapped with RXTE in the same object. The UV data do not show significant reddening, suggesting that the cloud is dust-free. The 2008 campaign has revealed a transit by a filamentary, moderately-ionized cloud of variable density that is likely located in the BLR, and possibly part of a disk wind.Comment: Accepted for publication by A&

Fine motor difficulties: the need for advocating for the role of occupational therapy in schools

Background: Fine motor difficulties can impact on the academic, social and emotional development of a student. Aim: The aims of this paper are to: (i) investigate the need for support to students experiencing fine motor&nbsp; difficulties from the perspective of their classroom teachers, and (ii) report on the level of knowledge teachers have in regard to the role of occupational therapists in supporting students with fine motor difficulties.&nbsp; Methods: Fifteen teachers from a stratified random sample of public schools within two regions of Victoria, Australia, were interviewed in this qualitative, grounded theory investigation. Results: Results showed that the current level of support for students with fine motor difficulties is inadequate. Conclusion: Occupational therapists in Victoria need to advocate their role in developing the fine motor skills of students at both an organisational and an individual level in order to increase the access of students with fine motor difficulties to occupational therapy services. <br /