Improving the outcome of infants born at <30 weeks' gestation - a randomized controlled trial of preventative care at home

Background: Early developmental interventions to prevent the high rate of neurodevelopmental problems in very preterm children, including cognitive, motor and behavioral impairments, are urgently needed. These interventions should be multi-faceted and include modules for caregivers given their high rates of mental health problems

Techniques of EMG signal analysis: detection, processing, classification and applications

Electromyography (EMG) signals can be used for clinical/biomedical applications, Evolvable Hardware Chip (EHW) development, and modern human computer interaction. EMG signals acquired from muscles require advanced methods for detection, decomposition, processing, and classification. The purpose of this paper is to illustrate the various methodologies and algorithms for EMG signal analysis to provide efficient and effective ways of understanding the signal and its nature. We further point up some of the hardware implementations using EMG focusing on applications related to prosthetic hand control, grasp recognition, and human computer interaction. A comparison study is also given to show performance of various EMG signal analysis methods. This paper provides researchers a good understanding of EMG signal and its analysis procedures. This knowledge will help them develop more powerful, flexible, and efficient applications

Allergic diseases in the elderly

Demographic distribution of the population is progressively changing with the proportion of elderly persons increasing in most societies. This entails that there is a need to evaluate the impact of common diseases, such as asthma and other allergic conditions, in this age segment. Frailty, comorbidities and polymedication are some of the factors that condition management in geriatric patients. The objective of this review is to highlight the characteristics of allergic diseases in older age groups, from the influence of immunosenescence, to particular clinical implications and management issues, such as drug interactions or age-related side effects

Transcriptomic analysis of the temporal host response to skin infestation with the ectoparasitic mite Psoroptes ovis

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Infestation of ovine skin with the ectoparasitic mite <it>Psoroptes ovis </it>results in a rapid cutaneous immune response, leading to the crusted skin lesions characteristic of sheep scab. Little is known regarding the mechanisms by which such a profound inflammatory response is instigated and to identify novel vaccine and drug targets a better understanding of the host-parasite relationship is essential. The main objective of this study was to perform a combined network and pathway analysis of the <it>in vivo </it>skin response to infestation with <it>P. ovis </it>to gain a clearer understanding of the mechanisms and signalling pathways involved.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Infestation with <it>P. </it>ovis resulted in differential expression of 1,552 genes over a 24 hour time course. Clustering by peak gene expression enabled classification of genes into temporally related groupings. Network and pathway analysis of clusters identified key signalling pathways involved in the host response to infestation. The analysis implicated a number of genes with roles in allergy and inflammation, including pro-inflammatory cytokines (<it>IL1A, IL1B, IL6, IL8 </it>and <it>TNF</it>) and factors involved in immune cell activation and recruitment (<it>SELE, SELL, SELP, ICAM1, CSF2, CSF3, CCL2 </it>and <it>CXCL2</it>). The analysis also highlighted the influence of the transcription factors NF-kB and AP-1 in the early pro-inflammatory response, and demonstrated a bias towards a Th2 type immune response.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>This study has provided novel insights into the signalling mechanisms leading to the development of a pro-inflammatory response in sheep scab, whilst providing crucial information regarding the nature of mite factors that may trigger this response. It has enabled the elucidation of the temporal patterns by which the immune system is regulated following exposure to <it>P. ovis</it>, providing novel insights into the mechanisms underlying lesion development. This study has improved our existing knowledge of the host response to <it>P. ovis</it>, including the identification of key parallels between sheep scab and other inflammatory skin disorders and the identification of potential targets for disease control.</p

Iron Behaving Badly: Inappropriate Iron Chelation as a Major Contributor to the Aetiology of Vascular and Other Progressive Inflammatory and Degenerative Diseases

The production of peroxide and superoxide is an inevitable consequence of aerobic metabolism, and while these particular "reactive oxygen species" (ROSs) can exhibit a number of biological effects, they are not of themselves excessively reactive and thus they are not especially damaging at physiological concentrations. However, their reactions with poorly liganded iron species can lead to the catalytic production of the very reactive and dangerous hydroxyl radical, which is exceptionally damaging, and a major cause of chronic inflammation. We review the considerable and wide-ranging evidence for the involvement of this combination of (su)peroxide and poorly liganded iron in a large number of physiological and indeed pathological processes and inflammatory disorders, especially those involving the progressive degradation of cellular and organismal performance. These diseases share a great many similarities and thus might be considered to have a common cause (i.e. iron-catalysed free radical and especially hydroxyl radical generation). The studies reviewed include those focused on a series of cardiovascular, metabolic and neurological diseases, where iron can be found at the sites of plaques and lesions, as well as studies showing the significance of iron to aging and longevity. The effective chelation of iron by natural or synthetic ligands is thus of major physiological (and potentially therapeutic) importance. As systems properties, we need to recognise that physiological observables have multiple molecular causes, and studying them in isolation leads to inconsistent patterns of apparent causality when it is the simultaneous combination of multiple factors that is responsible. This explains, for instance, the decidedly mixed effects of antioxidants that have been observed, etc...Comment: 159 pages, including 9 Figs and 2184 reference

Measurement and interpretation of same-sign W boson pair production in association with two jets in pp collisions at s = 13 TeV with the ATLAS detector

This paper presents the measurement of fducial and diferential cross sections for both the inclusive and electroweak production of a same-sign W-boson pair in association with two jets (W±W±jj) using 139 fb−1 of proton-proton collision data recorded at a centre-of-mass energy of √s = 13 TeV by the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider. The analysis is performed by selecting two same-charge leptons, electron or muon, and at least two jets with large invariant mass and a large rapidity diference. The measured fducial cross sections for electroweak and inclusive W±W±jj production are 2.92 ± 0.22 (stat.) ± 0.19 (syst.)fb and 3.38±0.22 (stat.)±0.19 (syst.)fb, respectively, in agreement with Standard Model predictions. The measurements are used to constrain anomalous quartic gauge couplings by extracting 95% confdence level intervals on dimension-8 operators. A search for doubly charged Higgs bosons H±± that are produced in vector-boson fusion processes and decay into a same-sign W boson pair is performed. The largest deviation from the Standard Model occurs for an H±± mass near 450 GeV, with a global signifcance of 2.5 standard deviations

Combination of searches for heavy spin-1 resonances using 139 fb−1 of proton-proton collision data at s = 13 TeV with the ATLAS detector

A combination of searches for new heavy spin-1 resonances decaying into different pairings of W, Z, or Higgs bosons, as well as directly into leptons or quarks, is presented. The data sample used corresponds to 139 fb−1 of proton-proton collisions at = 13 TeV collected during 2015–2018 with the ATLAS detector at the CERN Large Hadron Collider. Analyses selecting quark pairs (qq, bb, , and tb) or third-generation leptons (τν and ττ) are included in this kind of combination for the first time. A simplified model predicting a spin-1 heavy vector-boson triplet is used. Cross-section limits are set at the 95% confidence level and are compared with predictions for the benchmark model. These limits are also expressed in terms of constraints on couplings of the heavy vector-boson triplet to quarks, leptons, and the Higgs boson. The complementarity of the various analyses increases the sensitivity to new physics, and the resulting constraints are stronger than those from any individual analysis considered. The data exclude a heavy vector-boson triplet with mass below 5.8 TeV in a weakly coupled scenario, below 4.4 TeV in a strongly coupled scenario, and up to 1.5 TeV in the case of production via vector-boson fusion