Regulation of vascular endothelial growth factor bioactivity in patients with acute lung injury

Background: Reduced bioactive vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) has been demonstrated in several inflammatory lung conditions including the acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). sVEGFR-1, a soluble form of VEGF-1 receptor, is a potent natural inhibitor of VEGF. We hypothesised that sVEGFR-1 plays an important role in the regulation of the bioactivity of VEGF within the lung in patients with ARDS. Methods: Forty one patients with ARDS, 12 at risk of developing ARDS, and 16 normal controls were studied. Bioactive VEGF, total VEGF, and sVEGFR-1 were measured by ELISA in plasma and bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) fluid. Reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction for sVEGFR-1 was performed on BAL cells. Results: sVEGFR-1 was detectable in the BAL fluid of 48% (20/41) of patients with early ARDS (1.4– 54.8 ng/ml epithelial lining fluid (ELF)) compared with 8% (1/12) at risk patients (p = 0.017) and none of the normal controls (p = 0.002). By day 4 sVEGFR-1 was detectable in only 2/18 ARDS patients (p = 0.008). Patients with detectable sVEGFR-1 had lower ELF median (IQR) levels of bioactive VEGF than those without detectable sVEGFR-1 (1415.2 (474.9–3192) pg/ml v 4761 (1349–7596.6) pg/ml, median difference 3346 pg/ml (95% CI 305.1 to 14711.9), p = 0.016), but there was no difference in total VEGF levels. BAL cells expressed mRNA for sVEGFR-1 and produced sVEGFR-1 protein which increased following incubation with tumour necrosis factor a. Conclusion: This study shows for the first time the presence of sVEGFR-1 in the BAL fluid of patients with ARDS. This may explain the presence of reduced bioactive VEGF in patients early in the course of ARDS

COVID-19 Vaccine Uptake and Hesitancy Survey in Northern Ireland and Republic of Ireland: Applying the Theory of Planned Behaviour

The Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) first appeared in Wuhan, China in late 2019 and since then has caused unprecedented economic and social disruption as well as presenting a major challenge to public health. Despite mass progress in COVID-19 vaccination uptake, vaccine hesitancy or anti-vax information has been reported that can delay public acceptance of a vaccine. An online cross-sectional survey (n = 439) assessed COVID-19 vaccine uptake and hesitancy in adults in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. Participants completed an adapted version of the Theory of Planned Behaviour Vaccine Questionnaire, the Vaccine Attitudes Scale (VAX), Vaccine Confidence Scale, and questions on previous experience of COVID-19. Results showed that 66.7% of the sample intended to get a vaccination as soon as possible, 27.15% reported they will get a vaccine when others get theirs and when it is clear there are no side effects. 6.15% had no intention of getting a vaccine. Overall, there is a high mean intention (M = 6.12) and confidence to get a COVID-19 vaccine. There was low vaccine hesitancy (M = 2.49) as measured by the VAX scale. A further analysis of the sub factors of the VAX showed there is uncertainty and mistrust of side effects for children. The finding demonstrate that the Theory of Planned Behaviour can be useful in making recommendations for public health considerations when encouraging vaccine uptake and reducing vaccine hesitancy

Phase space density and chiral symmetry restoration in relativistic heavy ion collisions

The effect of altered hadron masses is studied for its effect with regard to final-state hadronic observables. It is shown that the final phase space densities of pions and kaons, which can be inferred experimentally, are sensitive to in-medium properties of the excited matter at earlier stages of the collision, but that the sensitivity is significantly moderated by interactions that change the effective numbers of pions and kaons during the latter part of the collision.Comment: 5 pages, 4 fig.

A Perceptual Evaluation of Individual and Non-Individual HRTFs : a case study of the SADIE II database

As binaural audio continues to permeate immersive technologies, it is vital to develop a detailed understanding of the perceptual relevance of HRTFs. Previous research has explored the benefit of individual HRTFs with respect to localisation. However, localisation is only one metric with which it is possible to rate spatial audio. This paper evaluates the perceived timbral and spatial characteristics of both individual and non-individual HRTFs and compares the results to overall preference. To that end, the measurement and evaluation of a high-resolution multi-environment binaural Impulse Response database is presented for 20 subjects, including the KU100 and KEMAR binaural mannequins. Post-processing techniques, including low frequency compensation and diffuse field equalisation are discussed in relation to the 8802 unique HRTFs measured for each mannequin and 2818/2114 HRTFs measured for each human. Listening test results indicate that particular HRTF sets are preferred more generally by subjects over their own individual measurements

Genomic associations with bill length and disease reveal drift and selection across island bird populations

Island species provide excellent models for investigating how selection and drift operate in wild populations, and for determining how these processes act to influence local adaptation and speciation. Here, we examine the role of selection and drift in shaping genomic and phenotypic variation across recently separated populations of Berthelot's pipit (Anthus berthelotii), a passerine bird endemic to three archipelagos in the Atlantic. We first characterized genetic diversity and population structuring that supported previous inferences of a history of recent colonizations and bottlenecks. We then tested for regions of the genome associated with the ecologically important traits of bill length and malaria infection, both of which vary substantially across populations in this species. We identified a SNP associated with variation in bill length among individuals, islands, and archipelagos; patterns of variation at this SNP suggest that both phenotypic and genotypic variation in bill length is largely shaped by founder effects. Malaria was associated with SNPs near/within genes involved in the immune response, but this relationship was not consistent among archipelagos, supporting the view that disease resistance is complex and rapidly evolving. Although we found little evidence for divergent selection at candidate loci for bill length and malaria resistance, genome scan analyses pointed to several genes related to immunity and metabolism as having important roles in divergence and adaptation. Our findings highlight the utility and challenges involved with combining association mapping and population genetic analysis in nonequilibrium populations, to disentangle the effects of drift and selection on shaping genotypes and phenotypes

Covariance of Antiproton Yield and Source Size in Nuclear Collisions

We confront for the first time the widely-held belief that combined event-by-event information from quark gluon plasma signals can reduce the ambiguity of the individual signals. We illustrate specifically how the measured antiproton yield combined with the information from pion-pion HBT correlations can be used to identify novel event classes.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figures, improved title, references and readability; results unchange

Highlights from STAR: probing the early medium in heavy ion collisions

We present highlights of recent results from the STAR Collaboration at RHIC, focusing on the properties of the early medium created in heavy ion collisions. We emphasize the strangeness production including the observation of a hypernucleus (the hypertriton), the observation of reaction-plane-dependent angular correlation of charged particles searching for local strong parity violation effects in heavy ion collisions, and the evaluation of the medium viscosity from measurements of elliptic flow. We discuss STAR's plan for the "Critical Point Search" program at RHIC.Comment: 8 pages, 10 figures, proceedings of the QM2009 talk Minor changes in the texts and format have been done for publicatio

J/\Psi production, χ\chi polarization and Color Fluctuations

The hard contributions to the heavy quarkonium-nucleon cross sections are calculated based on the QCD factorization theorem and the nonrelativistic quarkonium model. We evaluate the nonperturbative part of these cross sections which dominates at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}\approx 20$ GeV at the Cern Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS) and becomes a correction at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}\approx 6$ TeV at the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC). \J production at the CERN SPS is well described by hard QCD, when the larger absorption cross sections of the $\chi$ states predicted by QCD are taken into account. We predict an $A$-dependent polarization of the $\chi$ states. The expansion of small wave packets is discussed.Comment: 13 pages REVTEX, 1 table, 2 PostScript, corrected some typo