Customized television: Standards compliant advanced digital television

This correspondence describes a European Union supported collaborative project called CustomTV based on the premise that future TV sets will provide all sorts of multimedia information and interactivity, as well as manage all such services according to each user’s or group of user’s preferences/profiles. We have demonstrated the potential of recent standards (MPEG-4 and MPEG-7) to implement such a scenario by building the following services: an advanced EPG, Weather Forecasting, and Stock Exchange/Flight Information

Effects of vitamin E supplementation on renal non-enzymatic antioxidants in young rats submitted to exhaustive exercise stress

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Exercise stress was shown to increase oxidative stress in rats. It lacks reports of increased protection afforded by dietary antioxidant supplements against ROS production during exercise stress. We evaluated the effects of vitamin E supplementation on renal non-enzymatic antioxidants in young rats submitted to exhaustive exercise stress.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Wistar rats were divided into three groups: 1) control group; 2) exercise stress group and; 3) exercise stress + Vitamin E group. Rats from the group 3 were treated with gavage administration of 1 mL of Vitamin E (5 mg/kg) for seven consecutive days. Animals from groups 2 and 3 were submitted to a bout of swimming exhaustive exercise stress. Kidney samples were analyzed for Thiobarbituric Acid Reactive Substances to (TBARS) by malondialdehyde (MDA), reduced glutathione (GSH) and vitamin-E levels.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The group treated with vitamin E and submitted to exercise stress presented the lowest levels of renal MDA (1: 0.16+0.02 mmmol/mgprot vs. 2: 0.34+0.07 mmmol/mgprot vs. 3: 0.1+0.01 mmmol/mgprot; p < 0.0001), the highest levels of renal GSH (1: 23+4 μmol/gprot vs. 2: 23+2 μmol/gprot vs. 3: 58+9 μmol/gprot; p < 0.0001) and the highest levels of renal vitamin E (1: 24+6 μM/gtissue vs. 2: 28+2 μM/gtissue vs. 3: 43+4 μM/gtissue; p < 0.001).</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Vitamin E supplementation improved non-enzymatic antioxidant activity in young rats submitted to exhaustive exercise stress.</p

Hematopoietic Stem-Cell Gene Therapy for Cerebral Adrenoleukodystrophy.

BACKGROUND: In X-linked adrenoleukodystrophy, mutations in ABCD1 lead to loss of function of the ALD protein. Cerebral adrenoleukodystrophy is characterized by demyelination and neurodegeneration. Disease progression, which leads to loss of neurologic function and death, can be halted only with allogeneic hematopoietic stem-cell transplantation. METHODS: We enrolled boys with cerebral adrenoleukodystrophy in a single-group, open-label, phase 2-3 safety and efficacy study. Patients were required to have early-stage disease and gadolinium enhancement on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) at screening. The investigational therapy involved infusion of autologous CD34+ cells transduced with the elivaldogene tavalentivec (Lenti-D) lentiviral vector. In this interim analysis, patients were assessed for the occurrence of graft-versus-host disease, death, and major functional disabilities, as well as changes in neurologic function and in the extent of lesions on MRI. The primary end point was being alive and having no major functional disability at 24 months after infusion. RESULTS: A total of 17 boys received Lenti-D gene therapy. At the time of the interim analysis, the median follow-up was 29.4 months (range, 21.6 to 42.0). All the patients had gene-marked cells after engraftment, with no evidence of preferential integration near known oncogenes or clonal outgrowth. Measurable ALD protein was observed in all the patients. No treatment-related death or graft-versus-host disease had been reported; 15 of the 17 patients (88%) were alive and free of major functional disability, with minimal clinical symptoms. One patient, who had had rapid neurologic deterioration, had died from disease progression. Another patient, who had had evidence of disease progression on MRI, had withdrawn from the study to undergo allogeneic stem-cell transplantation and later died from transplantation-related complications. CONCLUSIONS: Early results of this study suggest that Lenti-D gene therapy may be a safe and effective alternative to allogeneic stem-cell transplantation in boys with early-stage cerebral adrenoleukodystrophy. Additional follow-up is needed to fully assess the duration of response and long-term safety

The jobless recovery after the 1980-1981 UK recession

The brief recession from 1980&#x2013;1981 in the UK led to a prolonged employment downturn, with the unemployment rate continuing to increase through 1984. A large literature has developed around the concept of jobless recoveries and their possible causes, focused primarily on the US from the 1990s. This paper argues that the employment recovery from the 1980&#x2013;1981 recession in the UK can be considered an early example of a jobless recovery. Then, taking the US as a comparison case, possible causes of this jobless recovery are evaluated. Labor reallocation across industries, regional effects, and job polarization are considered in depth for the UK. Industry labor reallocation emerges as the major difference between the UK and the US during the early 1980s recession and recovery period, suggesting this was the key factor driving the UK's jobless recovery

A problem of industries and regions: unemployment and structural change in Britain during the interwar years and 1980s

The most serious employment crises in twentieth-century Britain occurred during the interwar years and the early 1980s, when, in both cases, the unemployment rate climbed to over 10% in aggregate and remained high for many years. Both downturns also coincided with periods of structural change in the economy: in the interwar years, export-oriented heavy industries lost out to expanding light manufacturing industries, and, during the early 1980s, the decline of manufacturing accelerated as the economy pivoted toward service industries and finance. A large literature on these recessions has dealt with aggregate demand fluctuations and supply factors, but this mainly macroeconomic focus has limited our understanding of the impacts of structural change. This thesis investigates the interaction of structural change and the business cycle in both the crises using newly-digitized industry microdata and econometric methods. How did structural change affect these employment downturns, and what were the consequences for workers and the labor market? I find that in both periods, secular structural change contributed significantly to, and was amplified by, the cyclical downturn. This interaction caused the im- pact of the interwar and early 1980s recessions to vary across industries, regions, gender, and demographic groups, with some workers experiencing persistent disadvantage. Chapter I reviews how structural and cyclical unemployment were understood by economists in a pre-Keynesian setting. Chapter II analyzes interwar unemployment with novel data, finding that structurally-disadvantaged industries had higher unemployment and that the labor market was more flexible for some workers than others. On the early 1980s, Chapter III argues that structural change caused a jobless recovery from the 1980-1981 recession. Finally, Chapter IV uses individual-level data to demonstrate that this recession disproportionately affected workers from particular industries, regions, and demographic groups.</p