Generalized minority games with adaptive trend-followers and contrarians

We introduce a simple extension of the minority game in which the market rewards contrarian (resp. trend-following) strategies when it is far from (resp. close to) efficiency. The model displays a smooth crossover from a regime where contrarians dominate to one where trend-followers dominate. In the intermediate phase, the stationary state is characterized by non-Gaussian features as well as by the formation of sustained trends and bubbles.Comment: 4 pages, 6 figure

management of blast and inhalation injury

Key points All patients with facial burns may be suspected of having 'difficult-to-control' airways owing to smoke inhalation injury (SII). Many of them either have an incorrect diagnosis, or mild-to-moderate injury with unrecognised aggravating respiratory failure. For a diagnosis of inhalation injury, it is necessary to follow the patient closely for >48 h. Inhalation injury is a condition with different clinical presentations. Clinical follow-up is necessary to improve patient care, to help guide treatment and to provide clues for therapeutic interventions. Notwithstanding intensive care treatment including airway intubation and mechanical ventilation, many patients with severe inhalation injury remain under-treated. Educational aims To discuss the initial approach and assessment of a patient with SII. To help the reader recognise different clinical pictures of inhalation injury. To outline management and discuss treatment. Summary "Inhalation injury" describes a variety of insults caused by the aspiration of superheated gases, steam or noxious products of incomplete combustion. Inhalation injury involves the entire respiratory system. Early diagnosis based on history and physical examination, in addition to careful monitoring for respiratory complications, is mandatory. As there is no specific treatment for inhalation injury, management involves providing the necessary degree of support required to compensate for upper airway swelling and impairment in gas exchange. Airway intubation and mechanical ventilation may be required while the endobronchial and alveolar mucosa are regenerating. Primary blast injury (BI) is caused by immediate pressure variations, which are the product of rapid sequences of compression and decompression. Secondary and tertiary BI include lesions caused when the subject is thrown against rigid structures or is hit by flying objects. Its diagnosis and therapy follows guidelines for emergency care

The Development of Techie Times

Summer 2020 provided the motivation and opportunity to move summer outreach programs into the virtual world. Faculty and students in the Purdue University School of Engineering Technology moved face-to-face programs into a middle school program called Techie Times. This program was designed to provide students with an organized platform occurring just before the school year started, allowing them to learn at home, working with family, or independently. The program was designed to take place nonconsecutively over eight days, covering five various STEM topics. Some of these activities were already a part of the middle school curriculum; others were not. That provided an opportunity to engage students and teach them principles that support various engineering technology curricula. Students were recruited from across the country. Students were placed into three cohorts sorted by biological age and then into smaller groups to enhance interactions. Volunteers moderated the smaller groups representing corporate engineering retirees, university professors, and others interested in helping. The volunteers were provided with information to support the principles being learned in the activity of the day. They asked the students to demonstrate what they did at home and then asked them questions about what they learned from the activity. In the older age groups, volunteers generated hypotheses and tested them to see if they worked, thus providing a challenge for the older and more experienced students. This camp proved to be well-timed on the summer calendar. Parents expressed their pleasure in their students becoming a bit more disciplined as they transitioned from their summer activities to the upcoming school year. This paper will review the program’s curriculum, observations by the parents/guardians, and feedback from the students. The program is an example of a well-transformed outreach program that engaged and enlightened students

Abdominal nodal localization of Castleman's disease: report of a case.

Abstract Introduction Castleman's disease (CD) is a rare benign disorder that may grow in any area where lymphoid tissue is normally present but the most frequent site is mediastinum (67%); the abdomen is rarely affected by this pathology. In the pathogenesis of CD an important role could be played by HHV-8. Diagnosis is difficult and the diagnostic certainty is obtained only by histological examination. For this disease there is no gold-standard treatment. Case report We report the case of a woman of 33 years of age affected by a rare form of abdominal nodal localization of Castleman's Disease for which the patient underwent surgery. Conclusion CD must be included in the differential diagnosis of retroperitoneal tumors even though the definitive diagnosis can only be achieved by histological and immunohistochemical examination. In the case of single location, the treatment of choice is surgical removal

Effect of Vitamin D on serum markers of bone turnover in SLE in a randomised controlled trial

© 2019 Author(s). Objective Bone health in SLE is adversely affected by vitamin D deficiency, inflammatory cytokines and glucocorticoid use. We hypothesised that vitamin D supplementation would increase markers of bone formation and decrease markers of bone resorption in SLE subjects. Methods We studied 43 vitamin D-deficient SLE subjects who participated in a 12-week randomised controlled trial of 2000-4000 IU/day vitamin D supplementation versus placebo. Subjects had inactive SLE (SLE Disease Activity Index ≤4) and were taking D, N-terminal propeptide of type 1 collagen (P1NP) and C-telopeptide (CTX). We tested the effect of vitamin D versus placebo on change (δ) in P1NP and δCTX in an intention-to-treat analysis. Secondary analyses evaluated whether vitamin D affected bone turnover among subjects achieving vitamin D repletion (≥30 ng/mL) or currently taking glucocorticoids. Results 28 subjects were randomised to vitamin D and 15 to placebo. Mean age was 39 years and 40% were using glucocorticoids at enrolment. Repletion was achieved by 46% in the vitamin D group versus none in the placebo group. Changes in bone turnover markers were not significantly different in the vitamin D group versus placebo group (median δP1NP -0.2 vitamin D group vs -1.1 placebo group (p=0.83); median δCTX +3.5 vitamin D group vs -37.0 placebo group (p=0.50)). The effect of vitamin D did not differ based on achieving vitamin D repletion or baseline glucocorticoid use. Conclusion Vitamin D supplementation did not affect the 12-week change in bone turnover markers among SLE subjects in this trial

Atorvastatin combined to interferon to verify the efficacy (ACTIVE) in relapsing-remitting active multiple sclerosis patients: a longitudinal controlled trial of combination therapy.

A large body of evidence suggests that, besides their cholesterol-lowering effect, statins exert anti-inflammatory action. Consequently, statins may have therapeutic potential in immune-mediated disorders such as multiple sclerosis. Our objectives were to determine safety, tolerability and efficacy of low-dose atorvastatin plus high-dose interferon beta-1a in multiple sclerosis patients responding poorly to interferon beta-1a alone. Relapsing–remitting multiple sclerosis patients, aged 18–50 years, with contrast-enhanced lesions or relapses while on therapy with interferon beta-1a 44 mg (three times weekly) for 12 months, were randomized to combination therapy (interferon+atorvastatin 20mg per day; group A) or interferon alone (group B) for 24 months. Patients underwent blood analysis and clinical assessment with the Expanded Disability Status Scale every 3 months, and brain gadolinium-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging at screening, and 12 and 24 months thereafter. Primary outcome measure was contrast-enhanced lesion number. Secondary outcome measures were number of relapses, EDSS variation and safety laboratory data. Forty-five patients were randomized to group A (n 1⁄4 21) or B (n 1⁄4 24). At 24 months, group A had significantly fewer contrast-enhanced lesions versus baseline (p 1⁄4 0.007) and significantly fewer relapses versus the two pre-randomization years (p < 0.001). At survival analysis, the risk for a 1-point EDSS increase was slightly higher in group B than in group A (p 1⁄4 0.053). Low-dose atorvastatin may be beneficial, as add-on therapy, in poor responders to high-dose interferon beta-1a alone

A Pair Polarimeter for Linearly Polarized High Energy Photons

A high quality beam of linearly polarized photons of several GeV will become available with the coherent bremsstrahlung technique at JLab. We have developed a polarimeter which requires about two meters of the beam line, has an analyzing power of 20% and an efficiency of 0.02%. The layout and first results of a polarimeter test on the laser back-scattering photon beam at SPring-8/LEPS are presented

Study of the bacterial community affiliated to Hyalesthes obsoletus, the insect vector of “bois noir” phytoplasma of grape

Grape yellows caused by phytoplasmas afflict several important wine-producing areas of Europe. A grape yellows with increasingincidence in European vineyards is “bois noir” (BN), caused by ‘Candidatus Phytoplasma solani’. Its vector is the planthopperHyalesthes obsoletus Signoret (Hemiptera Cixiidae), occasionally feeding on grapevine. An innovative strategy for reducing thediffusion of the disease could be symbiotic control, exploiting the action of symbiotic microorganisms of the insect host. To investigatethe occurrence of possible microbial candidates for symbiotic control we performed a molecular characterization of thebacteria associated to H. obsoletus. Length heterogeneity PCR was applied for a preliminary population screening. Taxonomicaffiliations of the bacterial species were analyzed by denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis, showing, within the microbial diversity,the intracellular reproductive parasite Wolbachia pipientis and a Bacteroidetes symbiont with 92% nt identity with ‘CandidatusSulcia muelleri’. PCR essays specific for these bacteria showed they co-localize in several organs of H. obsoletus. Fluorescentin situ hybridization was performed to assess the distribution of these microorganisms within the insect body, showing interestinglocalization patterns, particularly in insect gonads and salivary glands. These results could be a starting point for a deeper investigationof functions and relationships between microbial species

Novel bicistronic lentiviral vectors correct beta-Hexosaminidase deficiency in neural and hematopoietic stem cells and progeny: implications for in vivo and ex vivo gene therapy of GM2 gangliosidosis

The favorable outcome of in vivo and ex vivo gene therapy approaches in several Lysosomal Storage Diseases suggests that these treatment strategies might equally benefit GM2 gangliosidosis. Tay-Sachs and Sandhoff disease (the main forms of GM2 gangliosidosis) result from mutations in either the HEXA or HERB genes encoding, respectively, the alpha- or beta-subunits of the lysosomal beta-Hexosaminidase enzyme. In physiological conditions, alpha- and beta-subunits combine to generate beta-Hexosaminidase A (HexA, alpha beta) and beta-Hexosaminidase B (HexB, 1313). A major impairment to establishing in vivo or ex vivo gene therapy for GM2 gangliosidosis is the need to synthesize the alpha- and beta-subunits at high levels and with the correct stoichiometric ratio, and to safely deliver the therapeutic products to all affected tissues/organs. Here, we report the generation and in vitro validation of novel bicistronic lentiviral vectors (LVs) encoding for both the murine and human codon optimized Hexa and Hex!) genes. We show that these LVs drive the safe and coordinate expression of the alpha- and beta-subunits, leading to supranormal levels of beta-Hexosaminidase activity with prevalent formation of a functional HexA in SD murine neurons and glia, murine bone marrow-derived hematopoietic stem/progenitor cells (HSPCs), and human SD fibroblasts. The restoration/overexpression of beta-Hexosaminidase leads to the reduction of intracellular GM2 ganglioside storage in transduced and in cross-corrected SD murine neural progeny, indicating that the transgenic enzyme is secreted and functional. Importantly, bicistronic LVs safely and efficiently transduce human neurons/glia and CD34 + HSPCs, which are target and effector cells, respectively, in prospective in vivo and ex vivo GT approaches. We anticipate that these bicistronic LVs may overcome the current requirement of two vectors co-delivering the alpha- or beta-subunits genes. Careful assessment of the safety and therapeutic potential of these bicistronic LVs in the SD murine model will pave the way to the clinical development of LV-based gene therapy for GM2 gangliosidosis