Suspected vaping associated lung injury in a 16-year old female

Background: In the summer of 2019, there were multiple reports of young people falling ill, diagnosed with a severe lung disease without any apparent infectious cause after extensive radiographic imaging studies and laboratory tests. The common link being history of recent electronic cigarette (e-cigarette or vaping) use. This new illness is defined as Vaping Associated Lung Injury (VALI) and is affecting young people in the United States. Multiple early studies involving vaping and lung injury show a pattern of diffuse lung injury on imaging and severe respiratory symptoms leading to respiratory failure and even death in some cases.Case Presentation: A 16-year old female with worsening bilateral pneumonia failing outpatient treatment presented to the pediatric emergency center. The patient was hypoxic on presentation requiring supplemental oxygenation. History was significant for regular and recent e-cigarette use—including recent use of illicit tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) in her e- cigarette. She was initially treated on the general pediatric floor with pulmonary toileting and broad-spectrum antibiotics. She rapidly declined requiring intensive care admission for BiPAP and eventually intubation with mechanical ventilation and escalation to high frequency oscillatory ventilation. Infectious disease and pulmonology specialist were consulted for a comprehensive infectious work up which ultimately was negative. Imaging, including chest x-ray and chest CT consistently showed diffuse bilateral interstitial and ground glass infiltrates. With extensive supportive care, patient eventually improved and infectious work up did not yield any positive results.Conclusions: Every single day, the number of reported cases of VALI increases with more questions arising about the cause and how to get a handle on the situation. Since this study, new information has emerged as to the cause including excess levels of vitamin E and illicit THC vaping cartridge operation originating in the mid-west. Quick action needs to be taken by scientist, investigators, law makers, public health officials, and the tobacco industry to better understand the long-term and short-term consequences of the increased popularity of vaping in the United States

Novel Ruthenium complexes and their application in dye sensitised solar cells

This work focuses on the design, synthesis and characterisation of novel ruthenium bipyridyl complexes and their use in dye sensitised solar cells (DSSCs). Four series of dyes have been synthesised with the general formula Ru(R-bpy)2L, where R = H, CO2Et, CO2H and L represents four different bidentate ligands; cyanodithioimidocarbonate (L1), ethyl xanthate (L2), 2,3-bis(2-cyanoethylthio)-6,7-bis(methylthio) tetrathiafulvalene (L3) and Cu(exoO2-cyclam) (L4). These have been chosen to investigate two key aims: firstly, the increase of the light-harvesting ability of the dye and secondly, the retardation of the recombination of the injected electron with the oxidised dye. Each complex was characterised using electrochemistry, absorption spectroscopy, spectroelectrochemistry and hybrid-DFT calculations. In addition the performance of the acid derivatives in a DSSC was also investigated using IPCE and IV measurements, as well as transient absorption spectroscopy. Two different S-donor ligands, L1 and L2, have been used to investigate the effect of these strongly electron-donating systems on the light-harvesting ability of the dye. Complexes utilising the di-anionic L1 were shown to exhibit significantly increased absorption range and higher extinction co-efficients, relative to the high efficiency dye N719. This dye series also showed a large degree of S-donor ligand character to the HOMO, deduced via spectroelectrochemical and computational studies. Despite these advantageous features the dye performed very poorly in a DSSC, which was attributed to fast recombination. This was a result of the cyano group of L1 coordinating to the TiO2 in addition to the acid groups of the bipyridine ligands. The complexes synthesised with the mono-anionic L2 on the other hand showed only a slightly increased lightharvesting ability relative to N719 and no significant ligand character to the HOMO. However, the performance of this dye in a DSSC was more promising, with efficiencies of up to ~ 2 % achieved. The control of the loss mechanism via recombination of the injected electron with the oxidised dye in a DSSC was investigated by incorporating redox-active ligands, L3 and L4. The series of dyes synthesised with L3 showed significant ligand character to the HOMO orbital, as deduced by spectroelectrochemical, emission and computational studies. Upon adsorption of the acid derivative to TiO2 an extremely long-lived chargeseparated state of 20 ms was observed via transient absorption spectroscopy. Despite this unique long-lived charge-separated state, the dye yielded extremely low DSSC efficiencies. This was attributed to the poor regeneration of the neutral dye by iodide, which in turn was thought to be the result of a stable intermediate formation between the dye cation and the iodide anion. The complexes synthesised with L4 showed the highest light-harvesting efficiency of all the series studied with a wide absorption range and large molar extinction co-efficients. Whilst the maximum efficiency of the dye in a DSSC was nearly 3 %, the performance was found to vary under prolonged irradiation. This was attributed to the degradation of the dye by either exchange of the counter ions with the electrolyte or loss of L4

Greater Representation for California Consumers–Fluid Recovery, Consumer Trust Funds, and Representative Actions

California statutes provide elaborate protections for consumers from abuse by deceptive, unlawful, and unfair business practices. However, in practice, consumers do not receive optimal protection. Law enforcement agencies often have inadequate resources, and the private bar is hampered by the futility of small individual claims and the complexity and expense of class actions. This Article details early use of the class action procedure in consumer protection litigation and outlines problems with the procedure, such as the expense and impracticality of notice provisions and distributing judgments. The authors explore the California courts\u27 recent development of procedures for class actions and representative actions that should encourage the private bar to pursue consumer protection litigation. These procedures include fluid recovery, consumer trust funds, and representative actions. Fluid recovery and consumer trust funds are mechanisms for distributing judgments to large numbers of consumers when all injured parties are difficult to identify or contact. Representative actions permit representation of consumers injured by sharp business practices without having to obtain the consent of consumers and without having to show that each consumer was aware of the practice. The authors conclude that these emerging procedures, underutilized currently by the private bar, should encourage practitioners to bring consumer protection litigation and ultimately enhance protection for California consumers

A GABAergic projection from the centromedial nuclei of the amygdala to ventromedial prefrontal cortex modulates reward behavior

The neural circuitry underlying mammalian reward behaviors involves several distinct nuclei throughout the brain. It is widely accepted that the midbrain dopamine (DA) neurons are critical for the reward-related behaviors. Recent studies have shown that the centromedial nucleus of the amygdala (CeMA) has a distinct role in regulating reward-related behaviors. However, the CeMA and ventromedial PFC (vmPFC) interaction in reward regulation remains poorly understood. Here, we identify and dissect a GABAergic projection that originates in the CeMA and terminates in the vmPFC (VGat-Cre(CeMA-vmPFC)) using viral-vector-mediated, cell-type-specific optogenetic techniques in mice. Pathway-specific optogenetic activation of the VGat-Cre(CeMA-vmPFC) circuit in awake, behaving animals produced a positive, reward-like phenotype in real-time place preference and increased locomotor activity in open-field testing. In sucrose operant conditioning, the photoactivation of these terminals increased nose-poking effort with no effect on licking behavior and robustly facilitated the extinction of operant behavior. However, photoactivation of these terminals did not induce self-stimulation in the absence of an external reward. The results described here suggest that the VGat-Cre(CeMA-vmPFC) projection acts to modulate existing reward-related behaviors. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Many studies have shown that the interactions between the centromedial nucleus of the amygdala (CeMA) and ventromedial PFC (vmPFC) have critical roles for emotional regulation. However, most studies have associated this circuit with fear and anxiety behaviors and emphasized top-down processing from vmPFC to CeMA. Here, we provide new evidence for bottom-up CeMA to vmPFC influence on reward-related behaviors. Although previous work implicated the CeMA in incentive salience, our results isolate the investigation to a specific CeMA GABAergic projection to the vmPFC. This long-range GABAergic interaction between amygdala and frontal cortex adds a new dimension to the complex regulation of reward-related behaviors