Acute brucella melitensis M16 infection model in mice treated with tumor necrosis factor-alpha inhibitors

Introduction: There is limited data in the literature about brucellosis related to an intracellular pathogen and anti-tumor necrosis factor alpha (anti-TNFα) medication. The aim of this study was to evaluate acute Brucella infections in mice receiving anti-TNFα drug treatment. Methodology: Anti-TNFα drugs were injected in mice on the first and fifth days of the study, after which the mice were infected with B. melitensis M16 strain. Mice were sacrificed on the fourteenth day after infection. Bacterial loads in the liver and spleen were defined, and histopathological changes were evaluated. Results: Neither the liver nor the spleen showed an increased bacterial load in all anti-TNFα drug groups when compared to a non-treated, infected group. The most significant histopathological findings were neutrophil infiltrations in the red pulp of the spleen and apoptotic cells with hepatocellular pleomorphism in the liver. There was no significant difference among the groups in terms of previously reported histopathological findings, such as extramedullary hematopoiesis and granuloma formation. Conclusions: There were no differences in hepatic and splenic bacterial load and granuloma formation, which indicate worsening of the acute Brucella infection in mice; in other words, anti-TNFα treatment did not exacerbate the acute Brucella spp. infection in mice. © 2015 Kutlu et al

Transport Phenomena at a Critical Point -- Thermal Conduction in the Creutz Cellular Automaton --

Nature of energy transport around a critical point is studied in the Creutz cellular automaton. Fourier heat law is confirmed to hold in this model by a direct measurement of heat flow under a temperature gradient. The thermal conductivity is carefully investigated near the phase transition by the use of the Kubo formula. As the result, the thermal conductivity is found to take a finite value at the critical point contrary to some previous works. Equal-time correlation of the heat flow is also analyzed by a mean-field type approximation to investigate the temperature dependence of thermal conductivity. A variant of the Creutz cellular automaton called the Q2R is also investigated and similar results are obtained.Comment: 27 pages including 14figure

Measuring productivity and efficiency: a Kalman filter approach

In the Kalman filter setting, one can model the inefficiency term of the standard stochastic frontier composed error as an unobserved state. In this study a panel data version of the local level model is used for estimating time-varying efficiencies of firms. We apply the Kalman filter to estimate average efficiencies of U.S. airlines and find that the technical efficiency of these carriers did not improve during the period 1999-2009. During this period the industry incurred substantial losses, and the efficiency gains from reorganized networks, code-sharing arrangements, and other best business practices apparently had already been realized

Cilostazol enhances atorvastatin-induced vasodilation of female rat aorta during aging

Statins have cholesterol-independent effects including an increased vascular nitric oxide activity and are commonly used by patients with cardiovascular disease. Such patients frequently have cardiovascular diseases, which may be treated with cilostazol, a platelet aggregation inhibitor. This study was designed to investigate whether combined use of cilostazol would increase the inhibitory effect of statin on vascular smooth muscle and how maturation would affect these responses. Female Wistar rats, aged 3–4 months (young) and 14–15 months (adult), were sacrificed by cervical dislocation and the thoracic aorta was dissected and cut into 3- to 4-mm-long rings. The rings were mounted under a resting tension of 1 g in a 20-ml organ bath filled with Krebs–Henseleit solution. Rings were precontracted with phenylephrine (10−6 M), and the presence of endothelium was confirmed with acetylcholine (10−6 M). Then, the concentration–response curves were obtained for atorvastatin alone (10−10 to 3 × 10−4 M; control) and in the presence of cilostazol (10−6 M) in young and adult rat aortas. This experimental protocol was also carried out in aorta rings, which had been pretreated with NG-nitro-l-arginine methyl ester (l-NAME, 10−4 M). Atorvastatin induced concentration-dependent relaxations in young and adult rat thoracic aorta rings precontracted with phenylephrine. The pIC50 value of atorvastatin was significantly decreased in adult rat aortas. In addition, pretreatment of aortas with cilostazol enhanced the potency of atorvastatin in both young and adult aortas. Incubation with l-NAME did not completely eliminate the relaxations to atorvastatin in the presence of cilostazol. These results suggest that combined application of cilostazol with atorvastatin was significantly more potent than atorvastatin alone. Combined drug therapy may be efficacious in delaying the occurrence of cardiovascular events

Photonic quantum state transfer between a cold atomic gas and a crystal

Interfacing fundamentally different quantum systems is key to build future hybrid quantum networks. Such heterogeneous networks offer superior capabilities compared to their homogeneous counterparts as they merge individual advantages of disparate quantum nodes in a single network architecture. However, only very few investigations on optical hybrid-interconnections have been carried out due to the high fundamental and technological challenges, which involve e.g. wavelength and bandwidth matching of the interfacing photons. Here we report the first optical quantum interconnection between two disparate matter quantum systems with photon storage capabilities. We show that a quantum state can be faithfully transferred between a cold atomic ensemble and a rare-earth doped crystal via a single photon at telecommunication wavelength, using cascaded quantum frequency conversion. We first demonstrate that quantum correlations between a photon and a single collective spin excitation in the cold atomic ensemble can be transferred onto the solid-state system. We also show that single-photon time-bin qubits generated in the cold atomic ensemble can be converted, stored and retrieved from the crystal with a conditional qubit fidelity of more than $85\%$. Our results open prospects to optically connect quantum nodes with different capabilities and represent an important step towards the realization of large-scale hybrid quantum networks

Electronic structure of β-Si3N4 crystals with substitutional icosagen group impurities

The β-Si3N4 crystals are widely used in industrial and electronics areas. Therefore, β-Si3N4 has drawn the attention of researchers for many years. In this study, effects of icosagen group impurity atoms in the IIIA group on the electronic properties of the β-Si3N4 crystal were analyzed by using the density functional theory. As a result of these analyses, it was determined that the electronic properties of the crystal change significantly. Basic electronic characteristics for pure β-Si3N4 crystal and icosagen group impurity β-Si3N4 crystals, such as band structures, densities of states, binding energies, and formation energies were investigated. We identified that the band gap of the β-Si3N4 crystal was affected significantly by the impurity, and this change was varying linearly in line with the formation energy for the impurity cases. As a result of calculations, the Al-impurity was found to be the lowest-energy impurity state

Religious Officials' knowledge, attitude, and behavior towards smoking and the new tobacco law in Kahramanmaras, Turkey

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Tobacco control effort should be first started in people that are looked upon as role models for the general population. We aimed to determine the knowledge, attitude, and behavior of religious officials towards smoking and the new tobacco law.</p> <p>Method</p> <p>The study group was comprised of 492 Imams and 149 Quran course instructors working in Kahramanmaras city of Turkey, 641 religious officials in total, and our survey form was applied on 406 (63.3%) of those religious officials who agreed to participate in the study.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Twenty-eight (6.9%) participants were current smokers and 35 (8.6%) were ex-smokers. 99.8% of the religious officials believed that smoking was harmful and/or prohibited in terms of religion. While 43.6% respondents thought smoking was "<it>haram</it>" (forbidden by Islam), 56.2% believed it was "<it>makruh</it>" (something regarded as reprehensible, though not forbidden by God according to Islam). 85.2% of the participants were aware of the recent tobacco law. 55.5% of the respondents, who were aware of the recent tobacco law, evaluated their knowledge level on the law as adequate, whereas 44.5% evaluated it as inadequate 92.4% of the participants noted that religious officials should play active roles in tobacco control effort.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Smoking rate among religious officials is much lower than that of general public. In order to help religious officials to take a more active role on this issue, they should be trained on the subject and appropriate platforms should be established.</p

Prediction of setup times for an advanced upper limb functional electrical stimulation system

Introduction: Rehabilitation devices take time to don, and longer or unpredictable setup time impacts on usage. This paper reports on the development of a model to predict setup time for upper limb functional electrical stimulation. Methods: Participants’ level of impairment (Fugl Meyer-Upper Extremity Scale), function (Action Research Arm Test) and mental status (Mini Mental Scale) were measured. Setup times for each stage of the setup process and total setup times were recorded. A predictive model of setup time was devised using upper limb impairment and task complexity. Results: Six participants with stroke were recruited, mean age 60 (�17) years and mean time since stroke 9.8 (�9.6) years. Mean Fugl Meyer-Upper Extremity score was 31.1 (�6), Action Research Arm Test 10.4 (�7.9) and Mini Mental Scale 26.1 (�2.7). Linear regression analysis showed that upper limb impairment and task complexity most effectively predicted setup time (51% as compared with 39%) (F(2,21) ¼ 12.782, adjusted R2 ¼ 0.506; p<.05). Conclusions: A model to predict setup time based on upper limb impairment and task complexity accounted for 51% of the variation in setup time. Further studies are required to test the model in real-world settings and to identify other contributing factors

Odd p isotope 113In: Measurement of alpha-induced reactions

One of the few p nuclei with an odd number of protons is 113In. Reaction cross sections of 113In(alpha,gamma)117Sb and 113In(alpha,n)116Sb have been measured with the activation method at center-of-mass energies between 8.66 and 13.64 MeV, close to the astrophysically relevant energy range. The experiments were carried out at the cyclotron accelerator of ATOMKI. The activities were determined by off-line detection of the decay gamma rays with a HPGe detector. Measured cross sections and astrophysical S factor results are presented and compared with statistical model calculations using three different alpha+nucleus potentials. The comparison indicates that the standard rates used in the majority of network calculations for these reactions were too fast due to the energy dependence of the optical alpha potential at low energy.Comment: 9 pages, 9 figures, Accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. C. Minor changes mad

T1DBase: update 2011, organization and presentation of large-scale data sets for type 1 diabetes research

T1DBase (http://www.t1dbase.org) is web platform, which supports the type 1 diabetes (T1D) community. It integrates genetic, genomic and expression data relevant to T1D research across mouse, rat and human and presents this to the user as a set of web pages and tools. This update describes the incorporation of new data sets, tools and curation efforts as well as a new website design to simplify site use. New data sets include curated summary data from four genome-wide association studies relevant to T1D, HaemAtlas—a data set and tool to query gene expression levels in haematopoietic cells and a manually curated table of human T1D susceptibility loci, incorporating genetic overlap with other related diseases. These developments will continue to support T1D research and allow easy access to large and complex T1D relevant data sets