DDO 88: A Galaxy-Sized Hole in the Interstellar Medium

We present an HI and optical study of the gas-rich dwarf irregular galaxy DDO 88. Although DDO 88's global optical and HI parameters are normal for its morphological type, it hosts a large (3 kpc diameter) and unusually complete ring of enhanced HI emission. The gas ring is located at approximately one-third of the total HI radius and one-half the optically-defined Holmberg radius, and contains 30% of the total HI of the galaxy. The ring surrounds a central depression in the HI distribution, so it may be a shell formed by a starburst episode. However, the UBV colors in the HI hole are not bluer than the rest of the galaxy as would be expected if an unusual star-forming event had taken place there recently, but there is an old (~1-3 Gyr), red cluster near the center of the hole that is massive enough to have produced the hole in the HI. An age estimate for the ring, however, is uncertain because it is not observed to be expanding. An expansion model produces a lower estimate of 0.5 Gyr, but the presence of faint star formation regions associated with the ring indicate a much younger age. We also estimate that the ring could have dispersed by now if it is older than 0.5 Gyr. This implies that the ring is younger than 0.5 Gyr. A younger age would indicate that the red cluster did not produce the hole and ring. If this ring and the depression in the gas which it surrounds were not formed by stellar winds and supernovae, this would indicate that some other, currently unidentified, mechanism is operating.Comment: 44 pages; 16 figures. To appear in AJ, January 2005. Available from ftp.lowell.edu, cd pub/dah/papers/d88 and http://www.fiu.edu/~simpsonc/d8

A randomised sham controlled trial of vertebroplasty for painful acute osteoporotic vertebral fractures (VERTOS IV)

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The standard care in patients with a painful osteoporotic vertebral compression fracture (VCF) is conservative therapy. Percutaneous vertebroplasty (PV), a minimally invasive technique, is a new treatment option. Recent randomized controlled trials (RCT) provide conflicting results: two sham-controlled studies showed no benefit of PV while an unmasked but controlled RCT (VERTOS II) found effective pain relief at acceptable costs. The objective of this study is to compare pain relief after PV with a sham intervention in selected patients with an acute osteoporotic VCF using the same strict inclusion criteria as in VERTOS II. Secondary outcome measures are back pain related disability and quality of life.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>The VERTOS IV study is a prospective, multicenter RCT with pain relief as primary endpoint. Patients with a painful osteoporotic VCF with bone edema on MR imaging, local back pain for 6 weeks or less, osteopenia and aged 50 years or older, after obtaining informed consent, are included and randomized for PV or a sham intervention. In total 180 patients will be enrolled. Follow-up is at regular intervals during a 1-year period with a standard Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) score for pain and pain medication. Necessary additional therapies and complications are recorded.</p> <p>Discussion</p> <p>The VERTOS IV study is a methodologically sound RCT designed to assess pain relief after PV compared to a sham intervention in patients with an acute osteoporotic VCF selected on strict inclusion criteria.</p> <p>Trial registration</p> <p>This study is registered at ClinicalTrials.gov., <a href="http://www.clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT01200277">NCT01200277</a>.</p

FcγR-mediated SARS-CoV-2 infection of monocytes activates inflammation

SARS-CoV-2 can cause acute respiratory distress and death in some patients1. Although severe COVID-19 disease is linked to exuberant inflammation, how SARS-CoV-2 triggers inflammation is not understood2. Monocytes and macrophages are sentinel cells that sense invasive infection to form inflammasomes that activate caspase-1 and gasdermin D (GSDMD), leading to inflammatory death (pyroptosis) and release of potent inflammatory mediators3. Here we show that about 6% of blood monocytes in COVID-19 patients are infected with SARS-CoV-2. Monocyte infection depends on uptake of antibody-opsonized virus by Fcγ receptors. Vaccine recipient plasma does not promote antibody-dependent monocyte infection. SARS-CoV-2 begins to replicate in monocytes, but infection is aborted, and infectious virus is not detected in infected monocyte culture supernatants. Instead, infected cells undergo inflammatory cell death (pyroptosis) mediated by activation of NLRP3 and AIM2 inflammasomes, caspase-1 and GSDMD. Moreover, tissue-resident macrophages, but not infected epithelial and endothelial cells, from COVID-19 lung autopsies have activated inflammasomes. These findings taken together suggest that antibody-mediated SARS-CoV-2 uptake by monocytes/macrophages triggers inflammatory cell death that aborts production of infectious virus but causes systemic inflammation that contributes to COVID-19 pathogenesis

Principal component analysis of socioeconomic factors and their association with malaria in children from the Ashanti Region, Ghana

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The socioeconomic and sociodemographic situation are important components for the design and assessment of malaria control measures. In malaria endemic areas, however, valid classification of socioeconomic factors is difficult due to the lack of standardized tax and income data. The objective of this study was to quantify household socioeconomic levels using principal component analyses (PCA) to a set of indicator variables and to use a classification scheme for the multivariate analysis of children < 15 years of age presented with and without malaria to an outpatient department of a rural hospital.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>In total, 1,496 children presenting to the hospital were examined for malaria parasites and interviewed with a standardized questionnaire. The information of eleven indicators of the family's housing situation was reduced by PCA to a socioeconomic score, which was then classified into three socioeconomic status (poor, average and rich). Their influence on the malaria occurrence was analysed together with malaria risk co-factors, such as sex, parent's educational and ethnic background, number of children living in a household, applied malaria protection measures, place of residence and age of the child and the mother.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The multivariate regression analysis demonstrated that the proportion of children with malaria decreased with increasing socioeconomic status as classified by PCA (p < 0.05). Other independent factors for malaria risk were the use of malaria protection measures (p < 0.05), the place of residence (p < 0.05), and the age of the child (p < 0.05).</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The socioeconomic situation is significantly associated with malaria even in holoendemic rural areas where economic differences are not much pronounced. Valid classification of the socioeconomic level is crucial to be considered as confounder in intervention trials and in the planning of malaria control measures.</p

Effects of the noradrenergic agonist clonidine on temporal and spatial attention

Rationale: Recent theories posit an important role for the noradrenergic system in attentional selection in the temporal domain. In contrast, the spatially diffuse topographical projections of the noradrenergic system are inconsistent with a direct role in spatial selection. Objectives: To test the hypotheses that pharmacological attenuation of central noradrenergic activity should (1) impair performance on the attentional blink task, a task requiring the selection of targets in a rapid serial visual stream of stimuli; and (2) leave intact the efficiency of the search for a target in a two-dimensional visuospatial stimulus array. Materials and methods: Thirty-two healthy adult human subjects performed an attentional blink task and a visual search task in a double-blind, placebo-controlled, between-subject study investigating the effects of the α2 adrenoceptor agonist clonidine (150 μg, oral dose). Results: No differential effects of clonidine vs placebo were found on the attentional blink performance. Clonidine slowed overall reaction times in the visual search task but did not impair the efficiency of the visual search. Conclusions: The attentional blink results are inconsistent with recent theories about the role of the noradrenergic system in temporal filtering and in mediating the attentional blink. This discrepancy between theory and data is discussed in detail. The visual search results, in combination with previous findings, suggest that the noradrenergic system is not directly involved in spatial attention processes but instead can modulate these processes in an indirect fashion. © 2007 Springer-Verlag

Critical Discourse Analysis of Media Texts

El volumen presenta una panorámica del Análisis Crítico del Discurso de los textos mediáticos. El Análisis Crítico del Discurso es un modelo que parte de la Lingüística Crítica, basada a su vez en la Gramática Funcional de M. A. K. Halliday. En el volumen se resumen los principales enfoques de esta teoría. El volumen está compuesto de diversos artículos en los que se analizan diferentes casos concretos de los discursos de los medios de comunicación de masas (discurso informativo, discurso publicitario, discurso televisivo y discurso fílmico)The volume presents an overview of Critical Discourse Analysis of media texts. Critical Discourse Analysis is a framework departing from Critical Linguistics, which is based, in turn, on Functional Grammar as developed by M. A. K. Halliday. In this volume several approaches to Critical Discourse Analysis are summed up. In addition, the volume is composed by several papers where diverse concrete cases of media discourses are analysed (news discourse, advertisement discourse, television discourse and filmic discourse

Interactive Language Learning by Robots: The Transition from Babbling to Word Forms

The advent of humanoid robots has enabled a new approach to investigating the acquisition of language, and we report on the development of robots able to acquire rudimentary linguistic skills. Our work focuses on early stages analogous to some characteristics of a human child of about 6 to 14 months, the transition from babbling to first word forms. We investigate one mechanism among many that may contribute to this process, a key factor being the sensitivity of learners to the statistical distribution of linguistic elements. As well as being necessary for learning word meanings, the acquisition of anchor word forms facilitates the segmentation of an acoustic stream through other mechanisms. In our experiments some salient one-syllable word forms are learnt by a humanoid robot in real-time interactions with naive participants. Words emerge from random syllabic babble through a learning process based on a dialogue between the robot and the human participant, whose speech is perceived by the robot as a stream of phonemes. Numerous ways of representing the speech as syllabic segments are possible. Furthermore, the pronunciation of many words in spontaneous speech is variable. However, in line with research elsewhere, we observe that salient content words are more likely than function words to have consistent canonical representations; thus their relative frequency increases, as does their influence on the learner. Variable pronunciation may contribute to early word form acquisition. The importance of contingent interaction in real-time between teacher and learner is reflected by a reinforcement process, with variable success. The examination of individual cases may be more informative than group results. Nevertheless, word forms are usually produced by the robot after a few minutes of dialogue, employing a simple, real-time, frequency dependent mechanism. This work shows the potential of human-robot interaction systems in studies of the dynamics of early language acquisition

Applying a new concept of embedding qualitative research: An example from a quantitative study of carers of people in later stage dementia

BACKGROUND: Qualitative methods are increasingly included in larger studies to provide a richer understanding of people's experience. This paper explores the potential of using a novel approach to embedded qualitative design as part of an observational study examining the effectiveness of home support for people in later stage dementia in England. The method involved collecting and analysing unsolicited conversational comments made by participants as they completed standardised measures. An evaluation of the method is presented using the voices of participants to illustrate its potential. METHODS: The conversations of 17 carers recruited to an observational study were audio recorded to gather commentary made while completing a structured interview. Data were interrogated using thematic analysis to investigate the feasibility of conducting an embedded qualitative study, the potential richness of the material and participants' reactions to formal questioning and participating in research. RESULTS: The findings revealed that qualitative data were available from this approach. Analysis generated three themes from carers: conflicting carer emotions; the importance of maintaining normality and agency within day-to-day life; and tensions between these desires and making use of formal services. Important issues for carers were revealed establishing the benefit of using the method. The advantages of exploiting unsolicited conversation included enhancing understanding of people's lived experience, reducing participant burden in research and easing the process of data collection. In addition, it provided an opportunity to evaluate individuals' experience of the research process. CONCLUSIONS: The findings demonstrate how unsolicited comments during structured interviews may appear incidental but can reveal important aspects of living with dementia. The method also emphasised methodological challenges for research in dementia, including the influence and impact of the research context. Further research is required to evaluate the method with other groups including people with dementia themselves

Lives saved with vaccination for 10 pathogens across 112 countries in a pre-COVID-19 world.

BackgroundVaccination is one of the most effective public health interventions. We investigate the impact of vaccination activities for Haemophilus influenzae type b, hepatitis B, human papillomavirus, Japanese encephalitis, measles, Neisseria meningitidis serogroup A, rotavirus, rubella, Streptococcus pneumoniae, and yellow fever over the years 2000-2030 across 112 countries.MethodsTwenty-one mathematical models estimated disease burden using standardised demographic and immunisation data. Impact was attributed to the year of vaccination through vaccine-activity-stratified impact ratios.ResultsWe estimate 97 (95%CrI[80, 120]) million deaths would be averted due to vaccination activities over 2000-2030, with 50 (95%CrI[41, 62]) million deaths averted by activities between 2000 and 2019. For children under-5 born between 2000 and 2030, we estimate 52 (95%CrI[41, 69]) million more deaths would occur over their lifetimes without vaccination against these diseases.ConclusionsThis study represents the largest assessment of vaccine impact before COVID-19-related disruptions and provides motivation for sustaining and improving global vaccination coverage in the future.FundingVIMC is jointly funded by Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) (BMGF grant number: OPP1157270 / INV-009125). Funding from Gavi is channelled via VIMC to the Consortium's modelling groups (VIMC-funded institutions represented in this paper: Imperial College London, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Oxford University Clinical Research Unit, Public Health England, Johns Hopkins University, The Pennsylvania State University, Center for Disease Analysis Foundation, Kaiser Permanente Washington, University of Cambridge, University of Notre Dame, Harvard University, Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers, Emory University, National University of Singapore). Funding from BMGF was used for salaries of the Consortium secretariat (authors represented here: TBH, MJ, XL, SE-L, JT, KW, NMF, KAMG); and channelled via VIMC for travel and subsistence costs of all Consortium members (all authors). We also acknowledge funding from the UK Medical Research Council and Department for International Development, which supported aspects of VIMC's work (MRC grant number: MR/R015600/1).JHH acknowledges funding from National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship; Richard and Peggy Notebaert Premier Fellowship from the University of Notre Dame. BAL acknowledges funding from NIH/NIGMS (grant number R01 GM124280) and NIH/NIAID (grant number R01 AI112970). The Lives Saved Tool (LiST) receives funding support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.This paper was compiled by all coauthors, including two coauthors from Gavi. Other funders had no role in study design, data collection, data analysis, data interpretation, or writing of the report. All authors had full access to all the data in the study and had final responsibility for the decision to submit for publication