Poor diet quality is associated with low CD4 count and anemia and predicts mortality among antiretroviral therapy-naive HIV-positive adults in Uganda.

BACKGROUND: We assessed the association between dietary diversity and CD4 count, moderate anemia, and mortality among 876 antiretroviral therapy-naive people living with HIV/AIDS infection (PLHIV) in Uganda. METHODS: Participants were interviewed and followed for an average of 21.6 months. Dietary diversity was measured using the Individual Dietary Diversity Score (IDDS) (range, 0-12) and summarized into an overall measure and disaggregated into nutrient-rich food groups (range, 0-7), cereals, roots, and tubers (range, 0\x{2013} 2); and oils, fats, sugars, and condiments (range, 0\x{2013} 3). We determined the cross-sectional associations between dietary diversity and (1) immunosuppression (CD4 count ≤ 350 cells/μL) and (2) moderate anemia (hemoglobin 350 CD4 cells per microliter, but not those with CD4 count ≤350 cells per microliter, consumption of nutrient-rich food groups was associated with a lower odds of moderate anemia (adjusted odds ratio, 0.57; 95% CI: 0.34 to 0.96). During follow-up, 48 participants (5.6%) died (mortality rate of 3.1 per 100 person-years). IDDS was inversely associated with mortality [adjusted hazard ratio, 0.76; 95% CI: 0.63 to 0.91]. CONCLUSION: These results suggest that diet quality is an important determinant of HIV disease severity and mortality in antiretroviral therapy-naive PLHIV

Thermal relaxation in charge ordered Pr0.63_{0.63} Ca0.37_{0.37} MnO3_3 in presence of a magnetic field

We report observation of substantial thermal relaxation in single crystal of charge ordered system Pr$_{0.63}$Ca$_{0.37}$MnO$_3$ in an applied magnetic field of H = 8T. The relaxation is observed when the temperature is scanned in presence of a magnetic field in the temperature interval $T_{MH}<T<T_{CO}$ where $T_{CO}$ is the charge ordering temperature and $T_{MH}$ is charge melting temperature in a field. In this temperature range the system has coexisting charged ordered insulator (COI) and ferromagnetic metallic (FMM) phases. No such relaxation is observed in the COI state in H = 0T or in the FMM phase at $T < T_{MH}$ in presence of a magnetic field. We conclude that the thermal relaxation is due to two coexisting phases with nearly same free energies but separated by a potential barrier. This barrier makes the transformation from one phase to the other time-dependent in the scale of the specific heat experiment and gives rise to the thermal relaxation.Comment: 4 pages LaTEX, 3 eps figure

Conventional and unconventional surgical modalities for choledochal cyst: long-term follow-up

Background This study presents our experience of various modes of presentation, surgical methods applied (both conventional and unconventional), and their outcome on patients with choledochal cyst. Method This is a retrospective study in which files of all patients with choledochal cyst over a period of 10 years (1997&ndash;2007) were studied. Data collected from files included age, sex, modes of presentation, various surgical techniques, outcome, and follow-up. Results The total number of patients was 35. The most common mode of presentation was recurrent abdominal pain in 20 (57%) patients. It was followed by jaundice in 16 (45%) patients, fever, nausea, and vomiting in 10 (28.5%) patients, and other symptoms. Roux-en-Y hepaticojejunostomy was performed in 26 (74%) patients, hepaticoduodenostomy in five (14%) patients, external T-tube drainage in three (8%) patients, and cystoduodenostomy in two (5%) patients. Two patients expired in this series. The follow-up loss was 20%. Three patients who suffered from cholangitis were managed conservatively. No patient has shown cirrhosis and cholangiocarcinoma till now. Conclusion Choledochal cyst is an important entity in an Indian setup. The presentation has a wide spectrum; therefore, different types of surgical intervention would play a significant role in various situations.Keywords: choledochal cyst, follow-up of choledochal cyst, surgical technique

Magnetic glass in Shape Memory Alloy : Ni45Co5Mn38Sn12

The first order martensitic transition in the ferromagnetic shape memory alloy Ni45Co5Mn38Sn12 is also a magnetic transition and has a large field induced effect. While cooling in the presence of field this first order magnetic martensite transition is kinetically arrested. Depending on the cooling field, a fraction of the arrested ferromagnetic austenite phase persists down to the lowest temperature as a magnetic glassy state, similar to the one observed in various intermetallic alloys and in half doped manganites. A detailed investigation of this first order ferromagnetic austenite (FM-A) to low magnetization martensite (LM-M) state transition as a function of temperature and field has been carried out by magnetization measurements. Extensive cooling and heating in unequal field (CHUF) measurements and a novel field cooled protocol for isothermal MH measurements (FC-MH) are utilized to investigate the glass like arrested states and show a reverse martensite transition. Finally, we determine a field -temperature (HT) phase diagram of Ni45Co5Mn38Sn12 from various magnetization measurements which brings out the regions where thermodynamic and metastable states co-exist in the HT space clearly depicting this system as a 'Magnetic Glass'.Comment: Magnetic field tunes kinetic arrest and CHUF shows devitrification and melting of Magnetic glas

A sulfated carbohydrate epitope inhibits axon regeneration after injury

Chondroitin sulfate proteoglycans (CSPGs) represent a major barrier to regenerating axons in the central nervous system (CNS), but the structural diversity of their polysaccharides has hampered efforts to dissect the structure-activity relationships underlying their physiological activity. By taking advantage of our ability to chemically synthesize specific oligosaccharides, we demonstrate that a sugar epitope on CSPGs, chondroitin sulfate-E (CS-E), potently inhibits axon growth. Removal of the CS-E motif significantly attenuates the inhibitory activity of CSPGs on axon growth. Furthermore, CS-E functions as a protein recognition element to engage receptors including the transmembrane protein tyrosine phosphatase PTPσ, thereby triggering downstream pathways that inhibit axon growth. Finally, masking the CS-E motif using a CS-E-specific antibody reversed the inhibitory activity of CSPGs and stimulated axon regeneration in vivo. These results demonstrate that a specific sugar epitope within chondroitin sulfate polysaccharides can direct important physiological processes and provide new therapeutic strategies to regenerate axons after CNS injury

Control and Supervision of Wind Energy Conversion Systems

This paper is about a PhD thesis and includes the study and analysis of the performance of an onshore wind energy conversion system. First, mathematical models of a variable speed wind turbine with pitch control are studied, followed by the study of different controller types such as integer-order controllers, fractional-order controllers, fuzzy logic controllers, adaptive controllers and predictive controllers and the study of a supervisor based on finite state machines is also studied. The controllers are included in the lower level of a hierarchical structure composed by two levels whose objective is to control the electric output power around the rated power. The supervisor included at the higher level is based on finite state machines whose objective is to analyze the operational states according to the wind speed. The studied mathematical models are integrated into computer simulations for the wind energy conversion system and the obtained numerical results allow for the performance assessment of the system connected to the electric grid. The wind energy conversion system is composed by a variable speed wind turbine, a mechanical transmission system described by a two mass drive train, a gearbox, a doubly fed induction generator rotor and by a two level converter

Coloring Rooted Subtrees on a Bounded Degree Host Tree

We consider a rooted tree R to be a rooted subtree of a given tree T if the tree obtained by replacing the directed arcs of R by undirected edges is a subtree of T. In this work, we study the problem of assigning colors to a given set of rooted subtrees of a given host tree such that if any two rooted subtrees share a directed edge, then they are assigned different colors. The objective is to minimize the total number of colors used in the coloring. The problem is NP hard even in the case when the degree of the host tree is restricted to 3. This problem is motivated by the problem of assigning wavelengths to multicast traffic requests in all-optical tree networks. We present a greedy coloring scheme for the case when the degree of the host tree is restricted to 3 and prove that it is a 5/2-approximation algorithm. We then present another simpler coloring scheme and prove that it is an approximation algorithm for the problem with approximation ratio 10/3, 3 and 2 for the cases when the degree of the host tree is restricted to 4, 3, and 2, respectively