Growth Abnormalities in Children with Chronic Hepatitis B or C

Background. It has been suggested that chronic hepatitis B infection leads to growth impairment, but data are inconsistent and underlying factors are not defined. Methods. Children and adolescents with chronic hepatitis B (HBV) or C (HCV) were retrospectively evaluated for growth, weight, antiviral treatment, biochemical signs of liver inflammation, route of infection, and HBV DNA, respectively. Results. In all, 135 children (mean age 6.1 years, 81 male, 54 female) with HBV (n = 78) or HCV (n = 57) were studied. Route of infection was vertical in 50%, parenteral in 11%, and unknown in 39%. ALT levels were above 1.5 times above normal in 30% while 70% had normal/near normal transaminases. 80% were Caucasian, 14% Asian, 1% black, and 4% unknown. Mean baseline height measured in SDS was significantly lower in the study population than in noninfected children (boys −1.2, girls −0.4, P < 0.01). 28 children were below 2 standard deviations of the norm while 5 were above 2 standard deviations. SDS measures in relation to individual factors were as follows: elevated ALT: boys −1.4, females −0.5 (P < 0.01), ALT normal/near normal: boys +0.4, females +0.6; parenteral transmission: boys −3.3, girls −0.9 (P < 0.01), vertical transmission: boys −0.2, females −0.2. Antiviral treatment itself or HBV-DNA load did not reach statistically significant differences. Conclusions. Chronic HBV or HCV may lead to compromised growth which is mostly influenced by liver inflammation. Our data may argue for early antiviral treatment in children with significant ALT elevation

Randomized trial of polychromatic blue-enriched light for circadian phase shifting, melatonin suppression, and alerting responses.

Wavelength comparisons have indicated that circadian phase-shifting and enhancement of subjective and EEG-correlates of alertness have a higher sensitivity to short wavelength visible light. The aim of the current study was to test whether polychromatic light enriched in the blue portion of the spectrum (17,000 K) has increased efficacy for melatonin suppression, circadian phase-shifting, and alertness as compared to an equal photon density exposure to a standard white polychromatic light (4000 K). Twenty healthy participants were studied in a time-free environment for 7 days. The protocol included two baseline days followed by a 26-h constant routine (CR1) to assess initial circadian phase. Following CR1, participants were exposed to a full-field fluorescent light (1 × 10 14 photons/cm 2 /s, 4000 K or 17,000 K, n = 10/condition) for 6.5 h during the biological night. Following an 8 h recovery sleep, a second 30-h CR was performed. Melatonin suppression was assessed from the difference during the light exposure and the corresponding clock time 24 h earlier during CR1. Phase-shifts were calculated from the clock time difference in dim light melatonin onset time (DLMO) between CR1 and CR2. Blue-enriched light caused significantly greater suppression of melatonin than standard light ((mean ± SD) 70.9 ± 19.6% and 42.8 ± 29.1%, respectively, p \u3c 0.05). There was no significant difference in the magnitude of phase delay shifts. Blue-enriched light significantly improved subjective alertness (p \u3c 0.05) but no differences were found for objective alertness. These data contribute to the optimization of the short wavelength-enriched spectra and intensities needed for circadian, neuroendocrine and neurobehavioral regulation

Economic Shocks and Subjective Well-Being: Evidence from a Quasi-Experiment

This paper examines how economic shocks affect individual well-being in developing countries. Using the case of a sudden and unanticipated currency devaluation in Botswana as a quasi-experiment, we examine how this monetary shock affects individuals’ evaluations of well-being. We do so by using micro-level survey data, which – incidentally – was collected in the days surrounding the devaluation. The chance occurrence of the devaluation during the time of the survey enables us to use pre-treatment respondents, surveyed before the devaluation, as approximate counterfactuals for post-treatment respondents, surveyed after the devaluation. Our estimates show that the devaluation had a large and significantly negative effect on individuals’ evaluations of subjective well-being. These results suggest that macroeconomic shocks, such as unanticipated currency devaluations, may have significant short-term costs in the form of reductions in people’s sense of well-being

Porcine CD8αdim/-NKp46high NK cells are in a highly activated state

Natural Killer (NK) cells play a crucial role in the early phase of immune responses against various pathogens. In swine so far only little information about this lymphocyte population exists. Phenotypical analyses with newly developed monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) against porcine NKp46 recently revealed that in blood NKp46(-) and NKp46(+) cells with NK phenotype exist with comparable cytotoxic properties. In spleen a third NKp46-defined population with NK phenotype was observed that was characterised by a low to negative CD8α and increased NKp46 expression. In the current study it is shown that this NKp46(high) phenotype was correlated with an increased expression of CD16 and CD27 compared to the CD8α(+)NKp46(-) and NKp46(+) NK-cell subsets in spleen and blood. Additionally NKp46(high) NK cells expressed elevated levels of the chemokine receptor CXCR3 on mRNA level. Functional analyses revealed that splenic NKp46(high) NK cells produced much higher levels of Interferon-γ and Tumor Necrosis Factor-α upon stimulation with cytokines or phorbol-12-myristate-13-acetate/Ionomycin compared to the other two subsets. Furthermore, cross-linking of NKp46 by NKp46-specific mAbs led to a superior CD107a expression in the NKp46(high) NK cells, thus indicating a higher cytolytic capacity of this subset. Therefore porcine splenic NKp46(high) NK cells represent a highly activated subset of NK cells and may play a profound role in the immune surveillance of this organ

Evidence from a Quasi-Experiment

This article examines how economic shocks affect individual well-being in developing countries. Using the case of a sudden and unanticipated currency devaluation in Botswana as a quasi-experiment, the article examines how this monetary shock affects individuals’ evaluations of well-being. This is done by using microlevel survey data, which—incidentally— were collected in the days surrounding the devaluation. The chance occurrence of the devaluation during the time of the survey enables us to use pretreatment respondents, surveyed before the devaluation, as approximate counterfactuals for post-treatment respondents, surveyed after the devaluation. Estimates show that the devaluation had a large and significantly negative effect on individuals’ evaluations of subjective well-being. These results suggest that macroeconomic shocks, such as unanticipated currency devaluations, may have significant short-term costs in the form of reductions in people’s sense of well-being

Outcomes and costs of primary care surveillance and intervention for overweight or obese children: the LEAP 2 randomised controlled trial

addresses: Royal Children's Hospital, Murdoch Childrens Research Institute and University of Melbourne, Parkville, Vic 3052, Australia. [email protected]: PMCID: PMC2737607types: Journal Article; Multicenter Study; Randomized Controlled Trial; Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov'tCopyright © 2009 by the BMJ Publishing Group Ltd. This articles was first published in: BMJ, 2009, Vol. 339, pp. b3308 -To determine whether ascertainment of childhood obesity by surveillance followed by structured secondary prevention in primary care improved outcomes in overweight or mildly obese children

Fitness Correlates to Firefighter Job Tasks

Firefighters have their focus on rescuing and responding in any emergency and fire situations (Antolini, 2015). The demand for firefighting includes a need for both aerobic and anaerobic fitness, along with muscular strength, endurance, explosive power, and reaction time (Xu, 2020). PURPOSE: The purpose of the study was to determine the relationship between fitness assessments and job task simulations in firefighter cadets. METHODS: 21 firefighter academy students performed fitness assessments and job task simulations on different days. Fitness assessments included vertical jump, lateral medicine ball throw, push up, horizontal row, and 300-yard shuttle run. Job task simulations were conducted in a sequential format, i.e., physical agility course and consisted of equipment carry, stair climb, ladder carry and raise, bear crawl, kneeling hose drag, over shoulder hose drag, tire strike, hose deploy, victim drag, and charged line. Pearson r correlation analyses were conducted to determine relationships between all variables in fitness assessments versus time to complete job task simulations. RESULTS: Positive correlations were found between the 300-yard shuttle run time and stair climb (r = .495, p = .023), ladder carry and raise (r = .433, p = .050), bear crawl (r = .516, p = .017), over shoulder hose drag (r = .486, p = .030), tire strike (r = .656, p = .002), hose deploy (r = .486, p = .030), and victim drag (r = .686, p \u3c .001). Negative correlations existed between the vertical jump and stair climb (r = .511, p = .018), ladder carry and raise (r = .439, p = .047), kneeling hose drag (r = .560, p = .008), hose deploy (r = .458, p = .042), and charged line (r = .645, p = .002). Negative correlations were found between the lateral medicine ball throw right and equipment carry (r = .529, p = .014), stair climb (r = .481, p = .027), ladder carry and raise (r = .489, p = .025), kneeling hose drag (r = .498, p = .021), and charged line (r = .486, p = .030). With the left side of the lateral medicine ball throw, negative correlations existed with stair climb (r = .465, p = .034), ladder carry and raise (r = .445, p = .043), kneeling hose drag (r = .508, p = .019), and charged line (r = .471, p = .036). Negative correlations were found between push up and stair climb (r = .616, p = .003), ladder carry and raise (r = .608, p = .003), bear crawl (r = .571, p = .007), kneeling hose drag (r = .594, p = .005), over shoulder hose drag (r = .629, p = .003), hose deploy (r = .539, p = .014), victim drag (r = .587, p = .006), and charged line (r = .511, p = .021). Finally, a negative correlation was evident between the horizontal row and over shoulder hose drag (r = .487, p = .029). CONCLUSION: Job task simulation scores are highly associated with a number of fitness assessments. Firefighters and academy instructors should focus on improving fitness, especially power, agility, and muscular endurance to improve specific job tasks

Efficient Resolution of Anisotropic Structures

We highlight some recent new delevelopments concerning the sparse representation of possibly high-dimensional functions exhibiting strong anisotropic features and low regularity in isotropic Sobolev or Besov scales. Specifically, we focus on the solution of transport equations which exhibit propagation of singularities where, additionally, high-dimensionality enters when the convection field, and hence the solutions, depend on parameters varying over some compact set. Important constituents of our approach are directionally adaptive discretization concepts motivated by compactly supported shearlet systems, and well-conditioned stable variational formulations that support trial spaces with anisotropic refinements with arbitrary directionalities. We prove that they provide tight error-residual relations which are used to contrive rigorously founded adaptive refinement schemes which converge in $L_2$. Moreover, in the context of parameter dependent problems we discuss two approaches serving different purposes and working under different regularity assumptions. For frequent query problems, making essential use of the novel well-conditioned variational formulations, a new Reduced Basis Method is outlined which exhibits a certain rate-optimal performance for indefinite, unsymmetric or singularly perturbed problems. For the radiative transfer problem with scattering a sparse tensor method is presented which mitigates or even overcomes the curse of dimensionality under suitable (so far still isotropic) regularity assumptions. Numerical examples for both methods illustrate the theoretical findings