579 research outputs found
Reading and Spelling Development Across Languages Varying in Orthographic Consistency:Do Their Paths Cross?
Phonological awareness and rapid automatized naming as longitudinal predictors of reading in five alphabetic orthographies with varying degrees of consistency
The neonatal sepsis is diminished by cervical vagus nerve stimulation and tracked non-invasively by ECG: a preliminary report in the piglet model
In adults, vagus nerve stimulation (VNS) reduces inflammation. In neonates,
the effects of VNS are not known. An electrocardiogram (ECG)-derived heart rate
variability (HRV) index reliably tracks the inflammatory response induced by
low-dose lipopolysaccharide (LPS) in near-term sheep fetuses. We evaluated the
VNS effect on the systemic inflammatory response induced by a high dose of LPS
in neonatal piglets to mimic late-onset neonatal sepsis. Next, we tested if our
HRV inflammatory index tracks inflammation in piglets. Following anesthesia,
electrodes were attached to the left vagal nerve; ECG and blood pressure (BP)
were recorded throughout the experiment. Following baseline, the piglets were
administered LPS as 2mg/kg IV bolus. In the VNS treated piglet, the vagus nerve
was stimulated for 10 minutes prior to and 10 min after the injection of LPS.
In both groups, every 15 min post LPS, the arterial blood sample was drawn for
blood gas, metabolites, and inflammatory cytokines. At the end of the
experiment, the piglets were euthanized. BP and HRV measures were calculated.
The piglets developed a potent inflammatory response to the LPS injection with
TNF-alpha, IL-1beta, IL-6 and IL-8 peaking between 45 and 90 min
post-injection. VNS diminished the LPS-induced systemic inflammatory response
varying across the measured cytokines from two to ten-fold. The HRV index
tracked accurately the cytokines' temporal profile. This novel model allows
manipulating and tracking neonatal sepsis: The HRV inflammatory index 1)
applies across species pre- and postnatally and 2) performs well at different
degrees of sepsis (i.e., nanogram and milligram doses of LPS); 3) the present
VNS paradigm effectively suppresses LPS-induced inflammation, even at high
doses of LPS. The potential of early postnatal VNS to counteract sepsis and of
HRV monitoring to early detect and track it deserve further study
Mapping the Growth and Demographics of Managerial and Professional Staff in Higher Education
This chapter presents a descriptive analysis of the growth of managerial and professional staff from Fall 1993 to Fall 2011 across institution types and sectors, and a detailed snapshot of the demographic composition of these staff in Fall 2016. Our results indicate tremendous growth in the population of non‐faculty staff over time, and reveal key patterns in staff employment by gender and race/ethnicity.Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/154664/1/he20352.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/154664/2/he20352_am.pd
The vagus nerve regulates immunometabolic homeostasis in the ovine fetus near term: impact on terminal ileum
The contribution of the vagus nerve to inflammation and glucosensing in the
fetus is not understood. We hypothesized that vagotomy (Vx) will result in
hyperglycemia and this will be enhanced during systemic and organ-specific
inflammation. Efferent vagus nerve stimulation (VNS) should reverse this
phenotype. Near-term fetal sheep (n=57) were surgically prepared with vascular
catheters and ECG electrodes as control and treatment groups
(lipopolysaccharide (LPS), Vx+LPS, Vx+LPS+selective efferent VNS). Fetal
arterial blood samples were drawn for 7 days to profile inflammation (IL-6),
insulin, blood gas and metabolism (glucose). At 54 h, a necropsy was performed;
terminal ileum macrophages; CD11c (M1 phenotype) immunofluorescence was
quantified to detect inflammation. Across the treatment groups, blood gas and
cardiovascular changes indicated mild septicemia. At 3 h, in the LPS group IL-6
peaked; that peak was decreased in Vx+LPS400 and doubled in Vx+LPS800 group;
the efferent VNS sped up the reduction of the inflammatory response profile
over 54 h. M1 macrophage activity was increased in the LPS and Vx+LPS800 groups
only. Glucose and insulin levels in the Vx+LPS group were respectively 1.3-fold
and 2.3-fold higher vs. control at 3 h, and the efferent VNS normalized glucose
levels. Complete withdrawal of vagal innervation results in a 72h delayed onset
of sustained hyperglycemia for at least 54h and intermittent hyperinsulinemia.
Under conditions of moderate fetal inflammation, this is related to higher
levels of gut inflammation; the efferent VNS reduces the systemic inflammatory
response as well as restores both the levels of glucose and terminal ileum
inflammation, but not the insulin levels. Our findings reveal a novel
regulatory, hormetic, role of the vagus nerve in the immunometabolic response
to endotoxin in near-term fetuses
A novel knowledge repository to support industrial symbiosis
The development of tools and methods supporting the identification of Industrial Symbiosis opportunities is of utmost importance to unlock its full potential. Knowledge repositories have proven to be powerful tools in this sense, but often fail mainly due to poor contextualization of information and lack of general applicability (out of the boundaries of specific areas or projects). In this work, a novel approach to the design of knowledge repositories for Industrial Symbiosis is presented, based on the inclusion and categorization of tacit knowledge as well as on the combination of mimicking and input-output matching approaches. The results of a first usability test of the proposed tool are also illustrated
Performance evaluation of dynamic scheduling approaches in vehicle-based internal transport systems
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