Daily allergy burden and heart rate characteristics in adults with allergic rhinitis based on a wearable telemonitoring system

Background: Allergic rhinitis includes a certain degree of autonomic imbalance. However, no information is available on how daily changes in allergy burden affect autonomic imbalance. We aimed to estimate associations between daily allergy burden (allergy symptoms and mood) and daily heart rate characteristics (resting heart rate and sample entropy, both biomarkers of autonomic balance) of adults with allergic rhinitis, based on real-world measurements with a wearable telemonitoring system. Methods: Adults with a tree pollen allergy used a smartphone application to self-report daily allergy symptoms (score 0–44) and mood (score 0–4), and a Mio Alpha 2 wristwatch to collect heart rate characteristics during two pollen seasons of hazel, alder and birch in Belgium. Associations between daily allergy burden and heart rate characteristics were estimated using linear mixed effects distributed lag models with a random intercept for individuals and adjusted for potential confounders. Results: Analyses included 2497 participant-days of 72 participants. A one-point increase in allergy symptom score was associated with an increase in next-day resting heart rate of 0.08 (95% CI: 0.02–0.15) beats per minute. A one-point increase in mood score was associated with an increase in same-day sample entropy of 0.80 (95% CI: 0.34–1.26) × 10−2. No associations were found between allergy symptoms and heart rate sample entropy, nor between mood and resting heart rate. Conclusion: Daily repeated measurements with a wearable telemonitoring system revealed that the daily allergy burden of adults with allergic rhinitis has systemic effects beyond merely the respiratory system.</p

Trends in Space Astronomy and Cosmic Vision 2015-2025

To be published in the proceedings of the 2005 ESLAB Symposium "Trends in Space Science and Cosmic Vision 2020", held at ESTEC, 19-21 April 2005, F. Favata (ed)As a short introduction to the astronomy session, the response of the community to the Call for Themes issued by ESA and the specific themes selected by the Astronomy Working Group are briefly presented in connection with the four grand themes finally selected for the ESA Science Programme. They are placed in the context of the main discoveries of the past decade and the astronomy projects currently in their development or definition phase. Finally, possible strategies for their implementation are summarised

Methane Feedbacks to the Global Climate System in a Warmer World

Methane (CH4) is produced in many natural systems that are vulnerable to change under a warming climate, yet current CH4 budgets, as well as future shifts in CH4 emissions, have high uncertainties. Climate change has the potential to increase CH4 emissions from critical systems such as wetlands, marine and freshwater systems, permafrost, and methane hydrates, through shifts in temperature, hydrology, vegetation, landscape disturbance, and sea level rise. Increased CH4 emissions from these systems would in turn induce further climate change, resulting in a positive climate feedback. Here we synthesize biological, geochemical, and physically focused CH4 climate feedback literature, bringing together the key findings of these disciplines. We discuss environment-specific feedback processes, including the microbial, physical, and geochemical interlinkages and the timescales on which they operate, and present the current state of knowledge of CH4 climate feedbacks in the immediate and distant future. The important linkages between microbial activity and climate warming are discussed with the aim to better constrain the sensitivity of the CH4 cycle to future climate predictions. We determine that wetlands will form the majority of the CH4 climate feedback up to 2100. Beyond this timescale, CH4 emissions from marine and freshwater systems and permafrost environments could become more important. Significant CH4 emissions to the atmosphere from the dissociation of methane hydrates are not expected in the near future. Our key findings highlight the importance of quantifying whether CH4 consumption can counterbalance CH4 production under future climate scenarios

Monoclonal antibodies effectively potentiate complement activation and phagocytosis of Staphylococcus epidermidis in neonatal human plasma

Central line associated bloodstream infections (CLABSI) with Staphylococcus epidermidis are a major cause of morbidity in neonates, who have an increased risk of infection because of their immature immune system. As especially preterm neonates suffer from antibody deficiency, clinical studies into preventive therapies have thus far focused on antibody supplementation with pooled intravenous immunoglobulins from healthy donors (IVIG) but with little success. Here we study the potential of monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) against S. epidermidis to induce phagocytic killing by human neutrophils. Nine different mAbs recognizing Staphylococcal surface components were cloned and expressed as human IgG1s. In binding assays, clones rF1, CR5133 and CR6453 showed the strongest binding to S. epidermidis ATCC14990 and CR5133 and CR6453 bound the majority of clinical isolates from neonatal sepsis (19 out of 20). To study the immune-activating potential of rF1, CR5133 and CR6453, bacteria were opsonized with mAbs in the presence or absence of complement. We observed that activation of the complement system is essential to induce efficient phagocytosis of S. epidermidis. Complement activation and phagocytic killing could be enhanced by Fc-mutations that improve IgG1 hexamerization on cellular surfaces. Finally, we studied the ability of the mAbs to activate complement in r-Hirudin neonatal plasma conditions. We show that classical pathway complement activity in plasma isolated from neonatal cord blood is comparable to adult levels. Furthermore, mAbs could greatly enhance phagocytosis of S. epidermidis in neonatal plasma. Altogether, our findings provide insights that are crucial for optimizing anti-S. epidermidis mAbs as prophylactic agents for neonatal CLABSI

26th Annual Computational Neuroscience Meeting (CNS*2017): Part 3 - Meeting Abstracts - Antwerp, Belgium. 15–20 July 2017

This work was produced as part of the activities of FAPESP Research,\ud Disseminations and Innovation Center for Neuromathematics (grant\ud 2013/07699-0, S. Paulo Research Foundation). NLK is supported by a\ud FAPESP postdoctoral fellowship (grant 2016/03855-5). ACR is partially\ud supported by a CNPq fellowship (grant 306251/2014-0)

Cyclic AMP induces a transient alkalinization in Dictyostelium

AbstractIn a wide range of cell types, stimulus-response coupling is accompanied by a rise in cytoplasmic pH (pHi). It is shown that stimulation of developing Dictyostelium discoideum cells with the chemoattractant cAMP also results in a rise in pHi. About 1.5 min after stimulation, pHi starts increasing from pHi∼7.45 to pHi∼7.60, as is revealed independently by two different pH null-point methods. The rise in pHi is transient, also with a persistent stimulus, and effectively inhibited by diethylstilbestrol (DES), strongly suggesting that the rise in pHi is accomplished by the DES-sensitive plasma membrane proton pump which has been demonstrated in D. discoideum

Targets, drivers and metrics in software process improvement: results of a survey in a multinational organization

This paper reports on a survey amongst software groups in a multinational organization. The survey was initiated by the Software Process Improvement (SPI) Steering Committee of Philips, a committee that monitors the status and quality of software process improvement in the global organization. The paper presents and discusses improvement targets, improvement drivers, and metrics, and the degree to that they are being recognized in the software groups. The improvement targets ‘increase predictability’ and ‘reduce defects’ are being recognized as specifically important, joined for Capability Maturity Model (CMM) level three groups by ‘increase productivity’ and ‘reduce lead time’. The set of improvement drivers that was used in the survey appears to be valid. Three improvement drivers that were rated highest were: ‘commitment of engineering management’, ‘commitment of development staff, and ‘sense of urgency’. Finally, it could be seen that metrics activity, both in size and in quality, increases significantly for CMM level three groups. However, no consensus regarding what metrics should be used can be seen

Hyperspectral analysis of ultrafast hot carrier dynamics in Pb-chalcogenide nanocrystals : a case for slow cooling

Lead-chalcogenide (PbX, X=S,Se,Te) nanocrystals are thought to be good candidates for next-generation photovoltaics as they show multiple-exciton generation (MEG), a mechanism first proposed by Nozik et al. for nanoscale systems and experimentally verified in the past decade for many other material systems. Typical ultrafast measurements investigating MEG take place in the near-infrared region of the spectrum, i.e. near the band-gap transition. Since MEG in PbX nanocrystals requires high-energy carriers obtained through short wavelength photo-excitation (typically 3Eg or more, where Eg is the band gap of the semiconductor material), it is worth looking at the band structure and carrier dynamics of PbX materials in that high energy range. We studied the behavior of hot carriers (i.e. with excess energy to the band gap) using hyperspectral transient absorption spectroscopy, where we obtain a 2D map (time and wavelength (energy)) of the carrier cooling in an energy region relevant to the MEG process, i.e. above the MEG energy threshold. Carrier cooling plays an important role in the MEG process and was used e.g. to explain differences in MEG efficiency between PbS and PbSe1. Recent phenomenological models attempt to predict MEG based on this competition between MEG and carrier energy loss. Identifying mechanisms that could slow down carrier cooling is thus of great importance in understanding the efficiency of MEG itself. At higher energy, a special critical point in the Brillouin zone for PbX materials is the sigma-point. It is not an energy minimum, but a saddle point where quantization effects take place as evidenced by Houtepen et al.2 for PbSe nanocrystals. If carriers cool to the sigma point after being created through photo-excitation at higher energies, a momentum change (i.e. a flip of the carrier k-vector) would be required to leave the sigma point and continue cooling to the band gap in the L-point. Such an event could slow down the cooling process, which could make it relevant for the MEG efficiency. A clear trace of this slowdown would be a carrier accumulation in this sigma point which could be evidenced by an occurrence of a ‘bleach’ feature, i.e. a reduction of the sigma-point absorption through carrier occupation. Using excitation energies above and below the sigma point for different sizes of PbS nanocrystals, we show that carriers indeed accumulate in the sigma point, giving rise to a very fast (300 femtosecond) accumulation and depletion (250 fs) on timescales relevant to the MEG process. We present the details of this work and stress the importance of future detailed studies of the MEG mechanism in the spectral regions where the relevant carrier dynamics take place, i.e. in the UV-VIS. Such new fundamental studies can help to identify the reasons for the high MEG efficiencies obtained in current materials and ease the search for new materials in the future

A Reliable Mobile Agents Architecture

This paper describes the design of a novel mobile agent system that supports the flexible and reliable interaction of autonomous components in an object-oriented distributed system. It discusses the object-oriented design of the overall system together with a number of important components in terms of the most important design decisions. A detailed description of the reliability model is given in terms of the failure hypothesis and the related recovery protocols. Special emphasis is given to the generality and efficiency of the implementation and a number of preliminary experiences are described. 1. Introduction This paper focuses on the design and implementation of an object oriented mobile agent system. A mobile agent is an encapsulation of program-logic and data that is capable of travelling between nodes in a network. A mobile agent can replace the usual Remote Procedure Call (RPC) between components in a distributed system. Using mobile agents in a distributed system has several a..