Autoantibodies to aS1-Casein Are Induced by Breast-Feeding

Background: The generation of antibodies is impaired in newborns due to an immature immune system and reduced exposure to pathogens due to maternally derived antibodies and placental functions. During nursing, the immune system of newborns is challenged with multiple milk-derived proteins. Amongst them, caseins are the main constituent. In particular, human aS1-casein (CSN1S1) was recently shown to possess immunomodulatory properties. We were thus interested to determine if auto-antibodies to CSN1S1 are induced by breast-feeding and may be sustained into adulthood. Methods: 62 sera of healthy adult individuals who were (n = 37) or were not (n = 25) breast-fed against human CSN1S1 were investigated by a new SD (surface display)-ELISA. For cross-checking, these sera were tested for anti Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) antibodies by a commercial ELISA. Results: IgG-antibodies were predominantly detected in individuals who had been nursed. At a cut-off value of 0.4, the SDELISA identified individuals with a history of having been breast-fed with a sensitivity of 80% and a specificity of 92%. Under these conditions, 35 out of 37 sera from healthy donors, who where breast-fed, reacted positively but only 5 sera of the 25 donors who were not breast-fed. The duration of breast-feeding was of no consequence to the antibody reaction as some healthy donors were only short term breast-fed (5 days minimum until 6 weeks maximum), but exhibited significant serum reaction against human CSN1S1 nonetheless. Conclusion: We postulate that human CSN1S1 is an autoantigen. The antigenicity is orally determined, caused by breastfeeding, and sustained into adulthood

Oscillatory Shear Flow-Induced Alignment of Lamellar Melts of Hydrogen-Bonded Comb Copolymer Supramolecules

In this work we present the orientational behavior of comb copolymer-like supramolecules P4VP(PDP)1.0, obtained by hydrogen bonding between poly(4-vinylpyridine) and pentadecylphenol, during large-amplitude oscillatory shear flow experiments over a broad range of frequencies (0.001-10 Hz). The alignment diagram, presenting the macroscopic alignment in T/TODT vs ω/ωc, contains three regions of parallel alignment separated by a region of perpendicular alignment. For our material, the order-disorder temperature TODT = 67 °C and ωc, the frequency above which the distortion of the chain conformation dominates the materials’ viscoelasticity, is around 0.1 Hz at 61 °C. For the first time flipping from a pure transverse alignment via biaxial transverse/perpendicular alignment to a perpendicular alignment as a function of the strain amplitude was found.

The Effectiveness of Contract Farming for Raising Income of Smallholder Farmers in Low- and Middle-Income Countries: a Systematic Review

Contract farming is used by an increasing number of firms as a preferred modality to source products from smallholder farmers in low and middle-income countries. Quality requirements of consumers, economies of scale in production or land ownership rights are common incentives for firms to offer contractual arrangements to farmers. Prices and access to key technology, key inputs or support services are the main incentives for farmers to enter into these contracts. There is great heterogeneity in contract farming, with differences in contracts, farmers, products, buyers, and institutional environments. The last decade shows a rapid increase in studies that use quasi-experimental research designs to assess the effects of specific empirical instances of contract farming on smallholders. The objective of this systematic review was to distill generalised inferences from this rapidly growing body of evidence. The review synthesised the studies in order to answer two questions: 1: What is known about the effect size of contract farming on income and food security of smallholder farmers in low- and middle-income countries? 2: Under which enabling or limiting conditions are contract farming arrangements effective for improving income and food security of smallholders

Ethical issues in autologous stem cell transplantation (ASCT) in advanced breast cancer: A systematic literature review

BACKGROUND: An effectiveness assessment on ASCT in locally advanced and metastatic breast cancer identified serious ethical issues associated with this intervention. Our objective was to systematically review these aspects by means of a literature analysis. METHODS: We chose the reflexive Socratic approach as the review method using Hofmann's question list, conducted a comprehensive literature search in biomedical, psychological and ethics bibliographic databases and screened the resulting hits in a 2-step selection process. Relevant arguments were assembled from the included articles, and were assessed and assigned to the question list. Hofmann's questions were addressed by synthesizing these arguments. RESULTS: Of the identified 879 documents 102 included arguments related to one or more questions from Hofmann's question list. The most important ethical issues were the implementation of ASCT in clinical practice on the basis of phase-II trials in the 1990s and the publication of falsified data in the first randomized controlled trials (Bezwoda fraud), which caused significant negative effects on recruiting patients for further clinical trials and the doctor-patient relationship. Recent meta-analyses report a marginal effect in prolonging disease-free survival, accompanied by severe harms, including death. ASCT in breast cancer remains a stigmatized technology. Reported health-related-quality-of-life data are often at high risk of bias in favor of the survivors. Furthermore little attention has been paid to those patients who were dying. CONCLUSIONS: The questions were addressed in different degrees of completeness. All arguments were assignable to the questions. The central ethical dimensions of ASCT could be discussed by reviewing the published literature

Search for Eccentric Black Hole Coalescences during the Third Observing Run of LIGO and Virgo

Despite the growing number of confident binary black hole coalescences observed through gravitational waves so far, the astrophysical origin of these binaries remains uncertain. Orbital eccentricity is one of the clearest tracers of binary formation channels. Identifying binary eccentricity, however, remains challenging due to the limited availability of gravitational waveforms that include effects of eccentricity. Here, we present observational results for a waveform-independent search sensitive to eccentric black hole coalescences, covering the third observing run (O3) of the LIGO and Virgo detectors. We identified no new high-significance candidates beyond those that were already identified with searches focusing on quasi-circular binaries. We determine the sensitivity of our search to high-mass (total mass $M>70$ $M_\odot$) binaries covering eccentricities up to 0.3 at 15 Hz orbital frequency, and use this to compare model predictions to search results. Assuming all detections are indeed quasi-circular, for our fiducial population model, we place an upper limit for the merger rate density of high-mass binaries with eccentricities $0 < e \leq 0.3$ at $0.33$ Gpc$^{-3}$ yr$^{-1}$ at 90\% confidence level.Comment: 24 pages, 5 figure