Fe I Oscillator Strengths for Transitions from High-lying Odd-parity Levels

We report new experimental Fe I oscillator strengths obtained by combining measurements of branching fractions measured with a Fourier Transform spectrometer and time-resolved, laser-induced fluorescence lifetimes. This study covers the spectral region ranging from 213 to 1033 nm. A total of 120 experimental log( ) gf -values coming from 15 odd-parity energy levels are provided, 22 of which have not been reported previously and 63 of which have values with lower uncertainty than the existing data. The radiative lifetimes for 60 upper energy levels are presented, 39 of which have no previous measurements

The role of cognitive dysfunction in the symptoms and remission from depression.

The disability and burden associated with major depression comes only in part from its affective symptoms; cognitive dysfunctions associated with depression also play a crucial role. Furthermore, these cognitive impairments during depression are manifold and multilevel affecting elementary and more complex cognitive processes equally. Several models from different directions tried to evaluate, conceptualize and understand the depth and magnitude of cognitive dysfunctions in depression and their bidirectional interactions with other types of depressive symptomatology including mood symptoms. In the current review, we briefly overview different types of cognitive symptoms and deficits related to major depression including hot and cold as well as trait- and state-like cognitive alterations and we also describe current knowledge related to the impact of cognitive impairments on the course and outcomes of depression including remission, residual symptoms, function, and response to treatment. We also emphasize shortcomings of currently available treatments for depression in sufficiently improving cognitive dysfunctions and point out the need for newer pharmacological approaches especially in cooperation with psychotherapeutic interventions

The Boom of cohabitation in Colombia and in the Andean Region : social and spatial patterns

In this chapter we use census microdata to document the rise in cohabitation in Colombia and in the Andean countries of Ecuador, Bolivia, Perú and Venezuela over the last four decades. We use multilevel logistic regression models to examine the effect of individual and contextual variables on cohabitation. We show the individual and contextual effects of social stratification, ethnicity and religion on cohabitation. Cohabitation levels follow a negative gradient with education and vary according to ethnic background. The Bolivian, Ecuadorian and Peruvian censuses reveal that the two largest ethnic groups (i.e. the Quechua and Aymara) have, controlling for other characteristics, the lowest incidence of cohabitation. By contrast, Afro-American populations show the highest levels of cohabitation. The joint use of individual- and contextual-level explanatory variables is sufficient to account for the majority of Bolivia's internal diversity regarding cohabitation, but not sufficient to account for the internal diversity identified in Colombia, Peru or Ecuador. Even after controls, residence in the Andes mountain areas continues to be a factor associated with lower levels of cohabitation. This invites further investigations on how the institutionalization of marriage occurred in the Andes

Dengue in Thailand and Cambodia: An Assessment of the Degree of Underrecognized Disease Burden Based on Reported Cases

Dengue is a major public health problem especially in tropical and subtropical countries of Asia and Latin-America. An effective dengue vaccine is not yet available, but several vaccine candidates are currently being evaluated in clinical trials. Accurate country-level incidence data are crucial to assess the cost-effectiveness of such vaccines and will assist policy-makers in making vaccine introduction decisions. Existing national surveillance systems are often passive and are designed to monitor trends and to detect disease outbreaks. Our analyses of data from prospectively followed cohorts with laboratory confirmation of dengue cases show that, in Thailand and Cambodia, dengue incidence is underrecognized by more than 8-fold. The magnitude of the outpatient burden caused by dengue is not assessed or reflected by the national surveillance data. We estimate that a median of more than 340,000 symptomatic dengue virus infections occurred annually in children less than 15 years of age in Thailand in Cambodia between 2003 and 2007

Estimating Dengue Transmission Intensity from Case-Notification Data from Multiple Countries

Despite being the most widely distributed mosquito-borne viral infection, estimates of dengue transmission intensity and associated burden remain ambiguous. With advances in the development of novel control measures, obtaining robust estimates of average dengue transmission intensity is key for assessing the burden of disease and the likely impact of interventions.We estimated the force of infection (λ) and corresponding basic reproduction numbers (R0) by fitting catalytic models to age-stratified incidence data identified from the literature. We compared estimates derived from incidence and seroprevalence data and assessed the level of under-reporting of dengue disease. In addition, we estimated the relative contribution of primary to quaternary infections to the observed burden of dengue disease incidence. The majority of R0 estimates ranged from one to five and the force of infection estimates from incidence data were consistent with those previously estimated from seroprevalence data. The baseline reporting rate (or the probability of detecting a secondary infection) was generally low (<25%) and varied within and between countries.As expected, estimates varied widely across and within countries, highlighting the spatio-temporally heterogeneous nature of dengue transmission. Although seroprevalence data provide the maximum information, the incidence models presented in this paper provide a method for estimating dengue transmission intensity from age-stratified incidence data, which will be an important consideration in areas where seroprevalence data are not available

Reliable Classifier to Differentiate Primary and Secondary Acute Dengue Infection Based on IgG ELISA

Dengue virus infection causes a wide spectrum of illness, ranging from sub-clinical to severe disease. Severe dengue is associated with sequential viral infections. A strict definition of primary versus secondary dengue infections requires a combination of several tests performed at different stages of the disease, which is not practical.We developed a simple method to classify dengue infections as primary or secondary based on the levels of dengue-specific IgG. A group of 109 dengue infection patients were classified as having primary or secondary dengue infection on the basis of a strict combination of results from assays of antigen-specific IgM and IgG, isolation of virus and detection of the viral genome by PCR tests performed on multiple samples, collected from each patient over a period of 30 days. The dengue-specific IgG levels of all samples from 59 of the patients were analyzed by linear discriminant analysis (LDA), and one- and two-dimensional classifiers were designed. The one-dimensional classifier was estimated by bolstered resubstitution error estimation to have 75.1% sensitivity and 92.5% specificity. The two-dimensional classifier was designed by taking also into consideration the number of days after the onset of symptoms, with an estimated sensitivity and specificity of 91.64% and 92.46%. The performance of the two-dimensional classifier was validated using an independent test set of standard samples from the remaining 50 patients. The classifications of the independent set of samples determined by the two-dimensional classifiers were further validated by comparing with two other dengue classification methods: hemagglutination inhibition (HI) assay and an in-house anti-dengue IgG-capture ELISA method. The decisions made with the two-dimensional classifier were in 100% accordance with the HI assay and 96% with the in-house ELISA.Once acute dengue infection has been determined, a 2-D classifier based on common dengue virus IgG kits can reliably distinguish primary and secondary dengue infections. Software for calculation and validation of the 2-D classifier is made available for download

The Potential Involvement of E-cadherin and β-catenins in Meningioma

To investigate the potential involvements of E-cadherin and β-catenin in meningioma.Immunohistochemistry staining was performed on samples from patients with meningioma. The results were graded according to the positive ratio and intensity of tissue immunoreactivity. The expression of E-cadherin and β-catenin in meningioma was analyzed by its relationship with WHO2007 grading, invasion, peritumoral edema and postoperative recurrence.The positive rates of E-cadherin in meningioma WHO I, II, III were 92.69%, 33.33% and 0, respectively, (P<0.05); while the positive rates of β-catenin in meningioma WHO I, II, III were 82.93%, 33.33% and 20.00%, respectively, (P<0.05). The positive rate of E-cadherin in meningioma without invasion (94.12%) was higher than that with invasion (46.67%) (P<0.05). The difference in the positive rate of β-catenin between meningioma without invasion (88.24%) and meningioma with invasion (33.33%, P<0.05) was also statically significant. The positive rates of E-cadherin in meningioma with peritumoral edema 0, 1, 2, 3 were 93.75%, 85.71%, 60.00% and 0 respectively, (P<0.05); the positive rates of β-catenin in meningioma with peritumoral edema 0, 1, 2, 3 were 87.50%, 85.71%, 30.00% and 0 respectively, (P<0.01). The positive rates of E- cadherin in meningioma with postoperative recurrence were 33.33%, and the positive rate with postoperative non-recurrence was 90.00% (P<0.01). The positive rates of β-catenin in meningioma with postoperative recurrence and non-recurrence were 11.11%, 85.00%, respectively (P<0.01).The expression levels of E- cadherin and β-catenin correlated closely to the WHO 2007 grading criteria for meningioma. In atypical or malignant meningioma, the expression levels of E-cadherin and β-catenin were significantly lower. The expression levels of E- cadherin and β-catenin were also closely correlated with the invasion status of meningioma, the size of the peritumoral edema and the recurrent probabilities of the meningioma, all in an inverse correlationship. Taken together, the present study provided novel molecular targets in clinical treatments to meningioma

Dengue Incidence in Urban and Rural Cambodia: Results from Population-Based Active Fever Surveillance, 2006–2008

Dengue is a major public health problem in South-East Asia. Several dengue vaccine candidates are now in late-stage development and are being evaluated in clinical trials. Accurate estimates of true dengue disease burden will become an important factor in the public-health decision-making process for endemic countries once safe and effective vaccines become available. However, estimates of the true disease incidence are difficult to make, because national surveillance systems suffer from disease under-recognition and reporting. Dengue is mainly reported among children, and in some countries, such as Cambodia, the national case definition only includes hospitalized children. This study used active, community-based surveillance of febrile illness coupled with laboratory testing for DENV infection to identify cases of dengue fever in rural and urban populations. We found a high burden of dengue in young children and late adolescents in both rural and urban communities at a magnitude greater than previously described. The study also confirmed the previously observed focal nature of dengue virus transmission

Studying the Underlying Event in Drell-Yan and High Transverse Momentum Jet Production at the Tevatron

We study the underlying event in proton-antiproton collisions by examining the behavior of charged particles (transverse momentum pT > 0.5 GeV/c, pseudorapidity |\eta| < 1) produced in association with large transverse momentum jets (~2.2 fb-1) or with Drell-Yan lepton-pairs (~2.7 fb-1) in the Z-boson mass region (70 < M(pair) < 110 GeV/c2) as measured by CDF at 1.96 TeV center-of-mass energy. We use the direction of the lepton-pair (in Drell-Yan production) or the leading jet (in high-pT jet production) in each event to define three regions of \eta-\phi space; toward, away, and transverse, where \phi is the azimuthal scattering angle. For Drell-Yan production (excluding the leptons) both the toward and transverse regions are very sensitive to the underlying event. In high-pT jet production the transverse region is very sensitive to the underlying event and is separated into a MAX and MIN transverse region, which helps separate the hard component (initial and final-state radiation) from the beam-beam remnant and multiple parton interaction components of the scattering. The data are corrected to the particle level to remove detector effects and are then compared with several QCD Monte-Carlo models. The goal of this analysis is to provide data that can be used to test and improve the QCD Monte-Carlo models of the underlying event that are used to simulate hadron-hadron collisions.Comment: Submitted to Phys.Rev.