Phage display identifies two Caprine Arthritis Encephalitis Virus env epitopes

Using phage display and IgG of a goat infected with Caprine Arthritis Encephalitis Virus (CAEV) we obtained families of 7 mer constrained peptides with consensus motifs LxSDPF/Y and SWN/KHWSY and mapped the epitopes mimicked by them at the Env 6-LISDPY-11 and 67-WNTYHW-72 sites of the mature gp135 amino acid sequence. The first epitope fell into the N-terminal immunogenic aa1-EDYTLISDPYGFS- aa14 site identified previously with a synthetic peptide approach; the second epitope has not been described previously. The first epitope is mostly conserved across CAEV isolates whereas the second newly described epitope is extremely conserved in Small Ruminant Lentiviruses env sequences. As being immunodominant, the epitopes are candidate targets for mimotope-mediated diagnosis and/or neutralization

Gorbatschows Dolmetscher

Die vorliegende Arbeit stellt eine historische Fallstudie zur Rolle zweier Dolmetscher von Gorbatschow, Pawel Palastschenko und Igor Kortschilow, auf der außenpolitischen Szene dar. Sie verliehen ihre Stimmen den mächtigsten und einflussreichsten Menschen der Welt und erbrachten eine enorme Leistung, indem sie für die Verständigung zwischen allen Akteuren sorgten. Dabei blieben sie selbst im Hintergrund bzw. im Schatten ihrer Dienstherren, was den Eindruck erweckte, sie erfüllten bloß die Funktion der passiven Leitungsrohre. Allerdings lieferten die zahlreichen Beispiele aus der Praxis der angesprochenen Sprachmittler viele Beweise für ihr eigenständiges Handeln, wodurch die kommunikativen Ziele schneller erreicht werden konnten. Auf diese Weise traten die Dolmetscher als aktive Interaktionsteilnehmer auf, die durch ihre Vermittlung Einfluss auf den Verlauf der Verhandlungen nahmen. Daher besteht das Anliegen dieser Arbeit darin, durch die Vorführung ihrer tatsächlichen Rolle und die Analyse ihres Beitrages diese Personen nun ins rechte Licht zu rücken. Der Untersuchungsrahmen umfasst die Zeitspanne zwischen 1985 und 1991 und behandelt die wichtigsten Zusammenkünfte der politischen Elite jener Zeit. Die Bezugsquelle für die vorgenommene Rollenanalyse bildeten die von den Dolmetschern verfassten Memoiren und ihre Interviews.In the early 1990’s Gorbachev, the first and only president of the Soviet Union was one of the most influential political players that helped to shape the geopolitical situation that exists today. Yet, the two interpreters that gave their voices, so to speak, to the leader of the Soviet Union, remain largely forgotten. The thesis attempts to shed the light on the impact and the role the two Gorbachev’s interpreters, Pavel Palazchenko and Igor Korchilov, who were tasked with rendering a tremendous service by facilitating communications between the main political figures of the time. Some people have an erroneous perception about interpreters being nothing more but a passive conduit of information. However, I was able to find numerous evidence pertaining to the fact that the above mentioned interpreters managed to give their translations a hue of their own world outlook, thus becoming active participants of negotiations and exerting some degree of influence on negotiation process. The research dateline covers the time period between 1985 and 1991 and examines the possible influence of the two interpreters during a number of significant meetings of the political elite at the time. The interpreters’ memoirs as well as their interviews were utilized as a primary source of information throughout the work on the thesis

Réponse dynamique et sismique 3D des évacuateurs de crue: Effets de la flexibilité des vannes et de l'interaction fluide-structure

RÉSUMÉ Cela fait maintenant plusieurs décennies que les chercheurs dans le domaine du génie civil s'intéressent aux effets de sollicitations de nature dynamique ou sismique sur les structures hydrauliques comme les barrages, les évacuateurs de crue, les vannes et les écluses. Bien que plusieurs chercheurs aient contribué au fil des ans à l'avancement des méthodes d'analyse des problèmes d'interaction fluide-structure en génie civil, leurs travaux se concentrent dans la majorité des cas sur les barrages poids et les barrages voûte vibrant en contact avec un réservoir. Les structures comme les évacuateurs de crue ont fait l'objet d'une quantité limitée d'études dans la littérature. La complexité des structures composites comme les évacuateurs de crue fait en sorte que leur modélisation doit, dans la grande majorité des cas, se faire en trois dimensions. L'élaboration de tels modèles peut toutefois s'avérer très complexe et coûteuse, ce qui pousse les ingénieurs de la pratique à employer des méthodes simplifiées de calcul adoptant un ensemble d'hypothèses dont la validité n'a pas encore été établie dans la littérature pour la cas précis des évacuateurs de crue. Ce travail présente, dans un premier temps, une nouvelle formulation analytique simplifiée 3D tenant compte des effets 3D de l'interaction fluide-structure. La méthode est validée par le biais d'une comparaison avec la méthode des éléments finis couplée et est ensuite employée pour la réalisation d'une étude paramétrique des effets 3D de l'interaction fluide-structure dans des systèmes simples mur-réservoir.----------ABSTRACT Over the past few decades, researchers in the field of civil engineering have studied the effects of dynamic and seismic excitations on hydraulic structures such as dams, spillways, water gates and canal locks. While many researchers have contributed to advancements in the analysis of fluid-structure interaction problems in civil engineering, most of these works are focused mainly on gravity and arch dams vibrating in contact with a reservoir. Research focusing on structures such as gated spillways has been limited in the literature. The complexity of composite structures such as gated spillways is such that they must, in most cases, be modelled in three dimensions. The development of such models can however prove to be prohibitively complex and costly, forcing practising engineers to use simplified methods of analysis making a series of assumptions, the validity of which has not yet been established in the literature for the special case of gated spillways. This work first presents a new simplified analytical method in three dimensions taking into account the 3D effects of fluid structure-interaction. The method is validated against the coupled finite elements method and is then used to conduct a parametric study of 3D fluid structure interaction-effects in simple wall-reservoir systems

Optimal Power Management Strategy for Energy Storage with Stochastic Loads

In this paper, a power management strategy (PMS) has been developed for the control of energy storage in a system subjected to loads of random duration. The PMS minimises the costs associated with the energy consumption of specific systems powered by a primary energy source and equipped with energy storage, under the assumption that the statistical distribution of load durations is known. By including the variability of the load in the cost function, it was possible to define the optimality criteria for the power flow of the storage. Numerical calculations have been performed obtaining the control strategies associated with the global minimum in energy costs, for a wide range of initial conditions of the system. The results of the calculations have been tested on a MATLAB/Simulink model of a rubber tyre gantry (RTG) crane equipped with a flywheel energy storage system (FESS) and subjected to a test cycle, which corresponds to the real operation of a crane in the Port of Felixstowe. The results of the model show increased energy savings and reduced peak power demand with respect to existing control strategies, indicating considerable potential savings for port operators in terms of energy and maintenance costs

Does \u27Fear of Dying\u27 Indicate a More Severe Presentation of Panic Disorder?

Research suggests a relationship between the presence of fearful cognitions and panic disorder (PD) severity. With little existing evidence addressing the clinical significance of individual panic-cognitions, the current study examined presentation and impairment differences among 331 outpatients with PD according to whether they experience “fear of dying” (FOD) during panic attacks. Patients reporting FOD (n = 153) were compared to patients denying FOD (n = 178) on variables indicating PD severity (e.g., number of symptoms) and psychiatric impairment (e.g., hospitalizations). PD patients with FOD reported a greater number of panic symptoms, agoraphobia diagnoses, and were more likely to be seeking treatment primarily for PD. We found no clinical impairment or comorbidity differences between groups. Results suggest that panic attacks with FOD are related to a more acute presentation of PD. Such results substantiate past research connecting cognitive distress and PD severity and further suggest that FOD may be particularly relevant to this relationship

Lessons Learned from the Amputation of a Bilateral Hand Grafted Patient due to Psychiatric Disorders

The importance of psychosocial aspects in upper extremity transplantation (UET) has been emphasized since the beginning of the vascularized composite allotransplantation era. Herein a long-term UET failure mainly due to psychiatric disorders is reported. A young woman amputated in 2004 (electrocution) underwent bilateral UET in 2007. At the time of transplantation the patient underwent a psychological evaluation, which did not completely consider some traits of her personality. Indeed, she had an anxious personality and a tendency to idealize. The trauma of amputation, the injuries associated with the accident, and the short delay between the accident and the transplantation elicited vindictiveness, entitlement, and impulsivity. Following transplantation, she had a high anxiety level, panic attacks, depression, and hypomanic episodes. She was poorly compliant to the rehabilitation program and the immunosuppressive treatment. She developed 13 acute rejection episodes (reversed by appropriate treatment) but neither clinical signs of chronic rejection nor donor specific antibiodies. She developed many severe complications due to the treatment and the psychiatric disorders. At her request, after many interviews, the allografts were removed in 2018. Pathological examination and an angiography performed post-amputation revealed signs of graft vasculopathy of varying severity, in the absence of clinically overt chronic rejection. This case highlights the need to detect during the initial patients’ assessment even mild traits of personality disorders, which could herald psychiatric complications after the transplantation, compromising UET outcomes. It further confirms that skin and vessels are the main targets of the alloimmune response in the UET setting

Off-Label Promotion, On-Target Sales

Adriane Fugh-Berman and Douglas Melnick describe techniques by which pharmaceutical companies covertly promote off-label drug use even where such promotion is illegal

The CD271 expression could be alone for establisher phenotypic marker in Bone Marrow derived mesenchymal stem cells.

Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) are of great interest for their potential use in cellular therapies. To define the population more precisely, diverse surface markers have been used. We propose here to use CD271 as the sole marker for MSCs in fresh bone marrow. We compared CD271+ populations to the presence or absence of five defined markers for MSCs: CD90+, CD105+, CD45-, CD34- and CD79. The correlations between markers were evaluated and analyzed with a Pearson's correlation test. We found that the average percentage of cells expressing the combination of markers CD90+, CD105+, CD45-, CD34- and CD79- was 0.54%, and that the average percentage average of CD271+ cells was 0.53%. The results were significant (