Neuronal Correlates for Neuroendocrine Habituation to Repeated Stress

One way that the body actively responds to an impending stressor is by increasing systemic glucocorticoids through the activation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis. While it is essential for short-term adaptation to stress, the sustained activation of the HPA axis during chronic stress can be detrimental and is linked to stress-related psychiatric conditions such as anxiety and depression. Therefore, it is important that the HPA axis adapts, or habituates, during chronic stress to minimize the negative consequences. Corticotropin releasing hormone (CRH) neurons in the paraventricular nucleus of the hypothalamus (PVN) function to assimilate incoming information from the stress circuitry and initiate the HPA axis by releasing CRH to the circulation. Here, we report a neurophysiological correlate for the habituation of the HPA axis to daily repeated restraint stress in mice. By using immunohistochemistry, we first show that 21 days of repeated restraint stress decreases restraint-induced c-fos expression in PVN-CRH neurons (i.e. habituation of PVN-CRH neurons to restraint). We then show that this neuronal habituation to repeated restraint stress is accompanied by a robust decrease in the intrinsic excitability of PVN-CRH neurons. Mechanistically, the stress-induced decrease in the intrinsic excitability correlates with a decrease in whole-cell membrane resistance. Surprisingly, the decrease in the membrane resistance is not due to the changes in specific properties of the cell membrane but is best explained by the changes in cell surface area (i.e. cell size), suggesting that stress-induced changes in cell size promote attenuation of incoming stress signals. Together these findings support stress-induced changes during habituation that promote stress resilience

Preparation for radioiodine therapy: How to increase therapeutic efficacy and accelerate unbound radioiodine excretion

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Consensual Resilient Control: Stateless Recovery of Stateful Controllers

Safety-critical systems have to absorb accidental and malicious faults to obtain high mean-times-to-failures (MTTFs). Traditionally, this is achieved through re-execution or replication. However, both techniques come with significant overheads, in particular when cold-start effects are considered. Such effects occur after replicas resume from checkpoints or from their initial state. This work aims at improving on the performance of control-task replication by leveraging an inherent stability of many plants to tolerate occasional control-task deadline misses and suggests masking faults just with a detection quorum. To make this possible, we have to eliminate cold-start effects to allow replicas to rejuvenate during each control cycle. We do so, by systematically turning stateful controllers into instants that can be recovered in a stateless manner. We highlight the mechanisms behind this transformation, how it achieves consensual resilient control, and demonstrate on the example of an inverted pendulum how accidental and maliciously-induced faults can be absorbed, even if control tasks run in less predictable environments

Comparison of thyroglobulin concentrations measured by two immunoradiometric assay

© 2020, University of Kragujevac, Faculty of Science. All rights reserved. Circulating thyroglobulin measurements is a highly specific test in the management of patients affected by differentiated thyroid cancer after total thyroidectomy, followed by radioiodine ablation. The aim of our study was to com-pare two thyroglobulinimmunoradiometric assays (INEP, Serbia and Cisbio Bioassays, France). Study included 42 patients of both genders with DTC. The subjects were on suppres¬sive doses of levothyroxine and followed up. Results showed concordance between the two assay methods for determining serum thyroglobulin for 39 (92.85%) pa-tients. Statistical analysis showed that there was a direct correlation between two IRMA tests, with a positive correlation coefficient r=0.613 (p 0.05). We concluded that there is good agreement between the two thyroglobulin assays compared in this study

Trajectories of Psychological Distress during the COVID-19 Pandemic among Community-Dwelling Older Adults in Quebec: A Longitudinal Study.

Objective: The COVID-19 pandemic and its associated public health directives may increase the risk for psychological distress among vulnerable older adults. This longitudinal study aimed to identify predictors of psychological distress trajectories among community-dwelling older adults in Quebec. Methods: The study spanned four time points across 16 months and three waves of the COVID-19 pandemic. The sample included 645 community-dwelling older adults ages 60 years and older in Quebec. Participants completed telephone-based interviews that included the Kessler 6-item Psychological Distress Scale (K6) to assess psychological distress at each time point as well as information on socioeconomic, medical, psychological and COVID-19 related factors. Group-based trajectory modelling (GBTM) was used to identify distinct trajectories of psychological distress across time. Results: Three group-based trajectories of psychological distress were identified: the resilient (50.5%), reactive (34.9%), and elevated distress groups (14.6%). Individuals with mobility issues, insomnia symptoms, COVID-19 related acute stress, general health anxiety, increased loneliness symptoms, and those unable to use technology to see others were more likely to be in the reactive and elevated groups than the resilient group. Those with past mental health problems had uniquely increased odds of being in the reactive group compared to the resilient group. Individuals living in poverty and those who reported taking psychotropic medication had increased odds of being in the elevated distress group compared to the resilient group. Conclusion: These findings characterized distinct trajectories of psychological distress in older adults and identified risk factors for elevated distress levels

Community Development for Health Promotion

Development of a healthy community today represents an important process from different stand point, especially for improvement of population health and for health promotion intervention among vulnerable population groups such as women and children, adolescents, poor people and refugees. Community orientated approach particularly ensures proper identification and meeting the needs of underserved population groups which are most often not recognised among under, either because they belong to special ethnical or cultural groups or to groups of poor. Community strengthening for improvement of their health is realised through the wide and sustainable partnership of local community members, their leaders, supportive organisations, financers and governmental institutions, which is present in all phases of health promotion intervention. Examples of community based health promotion programmes, in world and in Serbia, show that wide partnership ensures improvement of numerous health determinants which is impossible to achieve by isolated health service activities. Authentic community leaders that are educated for successful leadership during all phases have prominence in development of these programmes. Achievement of their long-term sustainability through the multidisciplinary approach is a constant challenge to community based health promotion programmes

Vacuum Fluctuations in Optical Metamaterials Containing Nonlinear Dielectrics

We investigated the influence of zero-point fluctuations (vacuum fluctuations, optical quantum noise) to the optical response of electromagnetic metamaterials containing dielectrics with third-order Kerr-like nonlinearity. We determined the zero-point noise and calculated it for different analytes, including those used in forensic analysis and organic pollutants. The zero-point noise level is highest for shortest-wavelength plasmons and decreases towards long-range plasmons. It may be tailored through a convenient design of the metamaterial structure. Since noise spectral power is proportional to the nonlinearity of the analyte species present, we considered the possibility to use zero-point noise as an auxiliary tool for identification of targeted nonlinear samples. We believe that our investigation could be of importance in homeland defence, forensics, biomedicine, etc

CYBERSECURITY OF CRITICAL INFORMATION INFRASTRUCTURE AND CONTROL: APPLICATION-AWARE RESILIENCE MECHANISMS

In an era of growing cyber threats, where critical infrastructure such as power grids, healthcare systems, and transportation networks are increasingly targeted by sophisticated attacks, the urgency of designing resilient cyber-physical systems (CPS) has never been more pressing. Cyber-physical systems form the very backbone of our modern society, and their disruption can have catastrophic consequences, ranging from economic losses to threats to human life. Against this background, this thesis addresses two fundamental challenges in the field of CPS: firstly, enhancing resilience against a wide range of threats by leveraging application knowledge to improve on the costs of resilience, ranging from accidental system failures to carefully coordinated cyber-attacks, and secondly, ensuring the adaptability of these systems in the face of dynamic and unpredictable operational environments. The first challenge addressed is the improvement of system resilience. We introduce novel Consensual Resilient Control (CRC) method to systematically convert stateful control tasks into statelessly recoverable ones, by leveraging consensually updated shared state introduced in the thesis is central to this challenge. CRC significantly improves the performance of control task replication by exploiting the inherent stability of many systems to tolerate occasional missed control task deadlines. This approach rejuvenates replicas within each control cycle, improving system resilience and operational efficiency. This not only enables rapid recovery but also significantly reduces the overheads associated with traditional replication methods, particularly in environments prone to cold start effects. The effectiveness of CRC is not just theoretical, but demonstrated through practical applications, such as our implementation in the custom-built inverted pendulum system, which demonstrates the robustness of the CRC in unpredictable environments and its ability to efficiently maintain system resilience with fewer resources. The second challenge is to ensure system adaptability in the face of changing operational conditions. To this end, the thesis presents the A GIS architecture, a solution that seamlessly integrates dual control systems to optimise performance while maintaining safety. The adaptive nature of A GIS is particularly beneficial in open environments where CPSs are exposed to a wide range of disturbances. The architecture’s minimal switching overhead and its utility in complex tasks such as environmental monitoring illustrate its practical importance in enhancing system robustness9. Industry, innovation and infrastructur

The Effect of Hive Volume on Efficiency and Strength Conservation and Restoration of Food Supplies During the Wintering in Langstroth Hives

The influence of volume of the hive on wintering, colony strength and food supply was observed during the three-year period. Standard LR hives were used for the experiment. Colonies were tested based on the number of hive bodies and the number of frames in the brood hive bodies. The colonies were divided into two groups based on the number of frames: group I had eight frames in the brood bodies, the second group included 10 frames in the brood bodies. Based on the number of hive bodies, colonies were also divided into two groups: colonies with a single hive body and colonies with two hive bodies. The inspections were carried out in the autumn in late August and early September, and in the spring in late March and early April. Colony strength was determined by the amount of brood and food supplies through the amount of honey and pollen. It was found that the number of frames in the brood bodies had almost no impact on the colony strength and the amount of food in the autumn and spring inspections. Percentage ratio in spring and autumn inspections was more favourable in ten-frame hives considering the amount of bees and pollen. The ratio for the amount of brood between the two inspections was higher in eight-frame hives. The colonies replenished bees more rapidly and foraged pollen more efficiently in ten-frame hives while the colonies in eight-frame hives replenished brood quicker. It was found that, during the three-year period, the hive volume had impact on strength and food supply of colonies. Colonies that have wintered in two hive bodies had favourable ratio of spring and autumn inspections for the amount of bees, brood and pollen, while the ratio for the amount of honey was more favourable in the colonies with a single hive body. The colonies with two hive bodies quicker restored strength and pollen supply, while the colonies with a single hive body consumed honey supply more rationally