Development of hepatic pathology in GBV‐B‐infected red‐bellied tamarins (Saguinus labiatus)

GB virus B (GBV‐B) is a new world monkey‐associated flavivirus used to model acute hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection. Critical for evaluation of antiviral or vaccine approaches is an understanding of the effect of HCV on the liver at different stages of infection. In the absence of longitudinal human tissue samples at defined time points, we have characterized changes in tamarins. As early as 2 weeks post‐infection histological changes were noticeable, and these were established in all animals by 6 weeks. Despite high levels of liver‐associated viral RNA, there was reversal of hepatic damage on clearance of peripheral virus though fibrosis was demonstrated in four tamarins. Notably, viral RNA burden in the liver dropped to near undetectable or background levels in all animals which underwent a second viral challenge, highlighting the efficacy of the immune response in removing foci of replication in the liver. These data add to the knowledge of GBV‐B infection in New World primates which can offer attractive systems for the testing of prophylactic and therapeutic treatments and the evaluation of their utility in preventing or reversing liver pathology

Control of Drives in Biomass Combustion Process

Import 23/07/2015Tato bakalářská práce se zabývá návrhem řídicího procesu dopravy paliva při výrobě elektrické energie. Jedná se o reálnou technologii pro průmyslovou praxi, která je součástí zakázky společnosti Polycomp, a.s. Práce popisuje celý proces a zaměřuje se na dopravu paliva z provozního zásobníku paliva do spalovací komory řízením dvou šnekových dopravníků a turniketu paliva. Pro řízení těchto pohonů je společností zvolen programovatelný PLC automat Siemens Simatic S7-1200, jehož konfigurace a popis jeho vlastností jsou v práci popsány. Pro tento proces byly navrženy tři řídicí programy, které v době realizace této práce nebylo možné vyzkoušet na reálné zakázce, a proto byly simulovány na simulační desce s PLC automatem Siemens Simatic S7-200.This thesis deals with a design control process of transportation of fuel during the production of electrical energy. Real technology for industrial practice is concerned, that is a part of a contract of a company Polycomp, a. s. The thesis describes the whole process and focuses on transportation of fuel from fuel reservoir to furnace by controlling of two screw conveyors and a fuel turnstile. To control those drives, it is chooses a programmable PLC automat Siemens Simatic S7-1200, whose configuration and description of its features are described in this thesis. For this process, three controlling programs were designed, that were not possible to test on real contract at the time of realization of this thesis and that is why they were simulated on a simulation desk with the automat Siemens Simatic S7-200.352 - Katedra automatizační techniky a řízenívelmi dobř

UK Breastfeeding Helpline support: An investigation of influences upon satisfaction

Background Incentive or reward schemes are becoming increasingly popular to motivate healthy lifestyle behaviours. In this paper, insights from a qualitative and descriptive study to investigate the uptake, impact and meanings of a breastfeeding incentive intervention integrated into an existing peer support programme (Star Buddies) are reported. The Star Buddies service employs breastfeeding peer supporters to support women across the ante-natal, intra-partum and post-partum period. Methods In a disadvantaged area of North West England, women initiating breastfeeding were recruited by peer supporters on the postnatal ward or soon after hospital discharge to participate in an 8 week incentive (gifts and vouchers) and breastfeeding peer supporter intervention. In-depth interviews were conducted with 26 women participants who engaged with the incentive intervention, and a focus group was held with the 4 community peer supporters who delivered the intervention. Descriptive analysis of routinely collected data for peer supporter contacts and breastfeeding outcomes before and after the incentive intervention triangulated and retrospectively provided the context for the qualitative thematic analysis. Results A global theme emerged of 'incentives as connectors', with two sub-themes of 'facilitating connections' and 'facilitating relationships and wellbeing'. The incentives were linked to discussion themes and gift giving facilitated peer supporter access for proactive weekly home visits to support women. Regular face to face contacts enabled meaningful relationships and new connections within and between the women, families, peer supporters and care providers to be formed and sustained. Participants in the incentive scheme received more home visits and total contact time with peer supporters compared to women before the incentive intervention. Full participation levels and breastfeeding rates at 6-8 weeks were similar for women before and after the incentive intervention. Conclusion The findings suggest that whilst the provision of incentives might not influence women's intentions or motivations to breastfeed, the connections forged provided psycho-social benefits for both programme users and peer supporters

Which bills are lobbied? Predicting and interpreting lobbying activity in the US

Using lobbying data from OpenSecrets.org, we offer several experiments applying machine learning techniques to predict if a piece of legislation (US bill) has been subjected to lobbying activities or not. We also investigate the influence of the intensity of the lobbying activity on how discernible a lobbied bill is from one that was not subject to lobbying. We compare the performance of a number of different models (logistic regression, random forest, CNN and LSTM) and text embedding representations (BOW, TF-IDF, GloVe, Law2Vec). We report results of above 0.85\% ROC AUC scores, and 78\% accuracy. Model performance significantly improves (95\% ROC AUC, and 88\% accuracy) when bills with higher lobbying intensity are looked at. We also propose a method that could be used for unlabelled data. Through this we show that there is a considerably large number of previously unlabelled US bills where our predictions suggest that some lobbying activity took place. We believe our method could potentially contribute to the enforcement of the US Lobbying Disclosure Act (LDA) by indicating the bills that were likely to have been affected by lobbying but were not filed as such

We are all one together : peer educators\u27 views about falls prevention education for community-dwelling older adults - a qualitative study

Background: Falls are common in older people. Despite strong evidence for effective falls prevention strategies, there appears to be limited translation of these strategies from research to clinical practice. Use of peers in delivering falls prevention education messages has been proposed to improve uptake of falls prevention strategies and facilitate translation to practice. Volunteer peer educators often deliver educational presentations on falls prevention to community-dwelling older adults. However, research evaluating the effectiveness of peer-led education approaches in falls prevention has been limited and no known study has evaluated such a program from the perspective of peer educators involved in delivering the message. The purpose of this study was to explore peer educators’ perspective about their role in delivering peer-led falls prevention education for community-dwelling older adults. Methods: A two-stage qualitative inductive constant comparative design was used.In stage one (core component) focus group interviews involving a total of eleven participants were conducted. During stage two (supplementary component) semi-structured interviews with two participants were conducted. Data were analysed thematically by two researchers independently. Key themes were identified and findings were displayed in a conceptual framework. Results: Peer educators were motivated to deliver educational presentations and importantly, to reach an optimal peer connection with their audience. Key themes identified included both personal and organisational factors that impact on educators’ capacity to facilitate their peers’ engagement with the message. Personal factors that facilitated message delivery and engagement included peer-to-peer connection and perceived credibility, while barriers included a reluctance to accept the message that they were at risk of falling by some members in the audience. Organisational factors, including ongoing training for peer educators and formative feedback following presentations, were perceived as essential because they affect successful message delivery. Conclusions: Peer educators have the potential to effectively deliver falls prevention education to older adults and influence acceptance of the message as they possess the peer-to-peer connection that facilitates optimal engagement. There is a need to consider incorporating learnings from this research into a formal large scale evaluation of the effectiveness of the peer education approach in reducing falls in older adults

Adaptação do inventário parental “Language Use Inventory (LUI)” para crianças entre 18 e 47 meses para o português europeu : estudo piloto

Language acquisition and development takes in account the child’s interaction with the surrounding environment. Daily social interactions with people and communication with others allow the child to acquire language being pragmatics considered a system of rules that support the communicative use of language. Identification and assessment of children at risk for language disorders are crucial in order to carry out an effective early intervention. This study was carried out taking into account first, the relevance of pragmatics as a component of language, and second the lack of assessment tools in Portugal to assess these abilities. Therefore, the aim of this study consists on the translation, adaptation and validation of the inventory “Language Use Inventory” (LUI), to European Portuguese. The LUI is a standardized parent report measure designed to assess pragmatic language development in children within 18- to 47-month-old.Objetivo: A aquisição e o desenvolvimento da linguagem resultam da interação da criança com o meio ambiente. As interações sociais cotidianas com as pessoas e a comunicação com outros permitem que a criança adquira linguagem, sendo a pragmática o sistema de regras que suporta o uso comunicativo da linguagem. A identificação e a avaliação de crianças em risco de desenvolverem transtornos de linguagem são cruciais, tendo em vista a intervenção precoce eficaz. Tendo em vista a relevância da pragmática como componente da linguagem e a escassez, em Portugal, de instrumentos de avaliação da linguagem validados para idades precoces, a finalidade deste estudo consistiu na tradução, adaptação e validação do instrumento Language Use Inventory (LUI), para o português europeu. O LUI é um inventário parental que avalia o desenvolvimento da pragmática entre os 18 e os 47 meses. Métodos: Foram adotados todos os procedimentos recomendados pelas diretrizes internacionais sobre a adaptação de testes, culminando em estudo piloto com uma amostra de 120 inventários, respondidos pelos pais/cuidadores de crianças portuguesas da referida faixa etária. Resultados: Os coeficientes de consistência interna (Alfa de Cronbach) para a versão portuguesa do LUI situaram-se em 0,97 para a escala total e entre 0,71 e 0,96 para as subescalas. Conclusão: Os resultados preliminares dos estudos de adaptação e de validação do LUI-Pt para crianças portuguesas são promissores e asseguram a validade interna desta escala em termos da sua dimensionalidade e consistência interna

Sideband Cooling Micromechanical Motion to the Quantum Ground State

The advent of laser cooling techniques revolutionized the study of many atomic-scale systems. This has fueled progress towards quantum computers by preparing trapped ions in their motional ground state, and generating new states of matter by achieving Bose-Einstein condensation of atomic vapors. Analogous cooling techniques provide a general and flexible method for preparing macroscopic objects in their motional ground state, bringing the powerful technology of micromechanics into the quantum regime. Cavity opto- or electro-mechanical systems achieve sideband cooling through the strong interaction between light and motion. However, entering the quantum regime, less than a single quantum of motion, has been elusive because sideband cooling has not sufficiently overwhelmed the coupling of mechanical systems to their hot environments. Here, we demonstrate sideband cooling of the motion of a micromechanical oscillator to the quantum ground state. Entering the quantum regime requires a large electromechanical interaction, which is achieved by embedding a micromechanical membrane into a superconducting microwave resonant circuit. In order to verify the cooling of the membrane motion into the quantum regime, we perform a near quantum-limited measurement of the microwave field, resolving this motion a factor of 5.1 from the Heisenberg limit. Furthermore, our device exhibits strong-coupling allowing coherent exchange of microwave photons and mechanical phonons. Simultaneously achieving strong coupling, ground state preparation and efficient measurement sets the stage for rapid advances in the control and detection of non-classical states of motion, possibly even testing quantum theory itself in the unexplored region of larger size and mass.Comment: 13 pages, 7 figure

Syntactic generation of practice novice programs in Python

Abstract: In the present day, computer programs are written in high level languages and parsed syntactically as part of a compilation process. These parsers are defined with context-free grammars (CFGs), a language recogniser for the respective programming language. Formal grammars in general are used for language recognition or generation. In this paper, we present the automatic generation of procedural programs in Python using a CFG. We have defined CFG rules to model program templates and implemented these rules to produce infinitely many distinct practice programs in Python. Each generated program is designed to test a novice programmer’s knowledge of functions, expressions, loops, and/or conditional statements. The CFG rules are highly generic and can be extended to generate programs in other procedural languages. The resulting programs can be used as practice, test or examination problems in introductory programming courses. 500,000 iterations of generated programs can be found at: https://tinyurl.com/ pythonprogramgenerator. A survey of 103 students’ perception showed that 93.1% strongly agreed that these programs can help them in practice and improve their programming skills

Lithium interactions with non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs and diuretics – A review

Background: Lithium is often used in bipolar disorder and occasionally in unipolar depression. Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) and diuretics are frequently prescribed and their interaction with lithium is based mainly in few small studies. Objectives: Conduct a review, identify different interaction patterns and discuss treatment options. Methods: Three searches were made in PubMed in January 2016: 1) using the keywords “lithium” [and] “non-steroidal anti-inflammatory”; 2) using the keywords “lithium” [and] “diuretics” and the filter “title/abstract”; 3) using the terms “lithium” [and] “toxicity” and the filters “title” [and] “review”. From the 293 remaining articles, 10 were selected. Another search in Scielo.org was made, using the term “lítio” and the filter “Psiquiatria”. Two articles were selected from the initial 53. Six textbooks were added to expand the evidence, achieving a total of 18 references. Results: The majority of NSAIDs and diuretics rises lithium levels, specially thiazides. However, some show great variability or no interaction at all, and others even decrease lithium levels. Discussion: Lower-doses, shorter durations, lithium adjustments and levels' follow-ups are recommended, especially in elderly and multiple co-morbid patients

A novel isolator-based system promotes viability of human embryos during laboratory processing

In vitro fertilisation (IVF) and related technologies are arguably the most challenging of all cell culture applications. The starting material is a single cell from which one aims to produce an embryo capable of establishing a pregnancy eventually leading to a live birth. Laboratory processing during IVF treatment requires open manipulations of gametes and embryos, which typically involves exposure to ambient conditions. To reduce the risk of cellular stress, we have developed a totally enclosed system of interlinked isolator-based workstations designed to maintain oocytes and embryos in a physiological environment throughout the IVF process. Comparison of clinical and laboratory data before and after the introduction of the new system revealed that significantly more embryos developed to the blastocyst stage in the enclosed isolator-based system compared with conventional open-fronted laminar flow hoods. Moreover, blastocysts produced in the isolator-based system contained significantly more cells and their development was accelerated. Consistent with this, the introduction of the enclosed system was accompanied by a significant increase in the clinical pregnancy rate and in the proportion of embryos implanting following transfer to the uterus. The data indicate that protection from ambient conditions promotes improved development of human embryos. Importantly, we found that it was entirely feasible to conduct all IVF-related procedures in the isolator-based workstations