Effects of maternal subclinical mammary inflammation on infant growth

Breastfeeding is unquestionably the best nourishment for infants. Current epidemiological as well as experimental evidence has repeatedly demonstrated the nutritional, immunological, and psychosocial benefits attributable to breastfeeding. However, suboptimal breast health may compromise maternal ability to breastfeed and the well-being of breastfeeding infants. Subclinical mastitis (SCM) is an asymptomatic inflammatory condition of the lactating breast that is associated with a number of adverse outcomes including lactation failure, infant growth faltering during the early postpartum period, and increased risk of mother-to-child transmission of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).;Three studies were carried out in Ghana with the overall aim of describing the mechanistic pathway(s) linking SCM and infant growth faltering. The specific objectives of the studies were to determine: (1) the prevalence of SCM among lactating women in Ghana, (2) whether SCM is associated with reduced breast milk intake by the infant, and (3) whether SCM occurring beyond the third month postpartum had an adverse effect on infant growth between the third and sixth month postpartum. Two cross-sectional studies were designed with respect to the first two objectives. Data were collected in a longitudinal study to examine the third objective.;All data from the three studies were collected from infant-mother pairs residing in the Eastern region of Ghana. Maternal data included demographic, health, and anthropometric data as well as breast milk samples that were analyzed to determine maternal SCM status. Maternal SCM was primarily diagnosed as elevated breast milk sodium:potassium ratio (Na/K) above 1.0. California mastitis test (CMT) was also used in the cross-sectional studies to diagnose SCM. Infant breast milk intake was estimated using the test weighing procedure. Infant data included feeding, health, and growth measured as weight, length, head circumference, and mid-upper arm circumference.;In the first cross-sectional study, SCM (Na/K \u3e 1.0) was observed among 45.3% of women at three or four months postpartum. About 30% of the observed SCM occurred in only one breast. In the second cross-sectional study, infants whose mothers had Na/K \u3e 1.0 as well as CMT score ≥ 1 had significantly lower breast milk intake (-88.9 g; 95% CI: -171.1 g, -6.9 g). However, the observed milk intake difference across SCM groups disappeared when infant weight and feeding frequency were controlled in multivariate analyses. The longitudinal study did not find an association between maternal episodes of SCM (Na/K) occurring between the 3rd and 6th month postpartum and infant growth occurring during the same period.;In conclusion, our results indicate that SCM is a common condition among women in the Eastern region of Ghana. However, we did not find a reduction in breast milk intake of infants whose mothers had SCM. There was, also, no association between maternal SCM occurring between the 3rd and 6th postpartum and infant growth during the same period

Pre-Figurative Structures for Social Connection

The world has many structures that foster social connection. Especially in the age of the internet, there are many off and online worlds that do so. Alternative festivals, temporary communities and electoral guerrilla theater organized online and practiced offline are all potential ways to prefigure the world we want to live in. Together, the FEAST team created physically and socially intelligent structures that facilitate cooperation, emotional release and transcend the expectations of architecture and infrastructure as fixed, emboldening viewers to become participants.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/169558/1/Honors_Capstone_Socially_Connected_Structures.pdfhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/169558/2/Honors_Capstone_Socially_Connected_Structures.ppt

The EU and Critical Crisis Transformation: The Evolution of a Policy Concept

While often caused by conflict, crises are treated by the EU as a phenomenon of their own. Contemporary EU crisis management represents a watering down of normative EU approaches to peacebuilding, reduced to a technical exercise with the limited ambition to contain spillover effects of crises. In theoretical terms this is a reversal, which tilts intervention towards EU security interests and avoids engagement with the root causes of the crises. This paper develops a novel crisis response typology derived from conflict theory, which ranges from crisis management to crisis resolution and (critical) crisis transformation. By drawing on EU interventions in Libya, Mali and Ukraine, the paper demonstrates that basic crisis management approaches are pre-eminent in practice. More promising innovations remain largely confined to the realms of discourse and policy documentation

Factors affecting birth weight in Cape Coast, Ghana

Background: This study aimed at determining the incidence of low birth weight among live births and maternal anaemia and to investigate the association between some maternal factors and birth weight.Methods: This was a retrospective cross sectional study that involved mothers who regularly attended antenatal clinics and had delivered singleton live births between January 2014 to December 2014 in the University of Cape Coast Hospital, Cape Coast, Ghana.Results: Out of the 405 newborns included in the study, 194 (47.90%) were females and 211 (52.10%) males with a mean birth weight of 3.25±0.52kg. There was a low birth weight prevalence of 7.7% and a maternal anaemia prevalence of 38.8%. The period of gestation (p=0.00001), maternal anaemia (p=0.0217) and maternal age (p=0.0030) were found to be significantly associated with birth weight. Sex of baby (p=0.6668), parity of mother (p=0.6959) and maternal sickling status (p=0.7915) were not significantly associated with birth weight.Conclusions: As far as low birth weight is concerned, frequency is not high among live babies born to mothers who regularly attended antenatal clinics. This agrees with studies that suggest that antenatal clinic attendance positively affects birth weight. Thus in order to reduce the high prevalence of low birth weight and maternal anaemia in developing countries all pregnant women must be encouraged to attend antenatal clinics regularly

M2-Branes and Background Fields

We discuss the coupling of multiple M2-branes to the background 3-form and 6-form gauge fields of eleven-dimensional supergravity, including the coupling of the Fermions. In particular we show in detail how a natural generalization of the Myers flux-terms, along with the resulting curvature of the background metric, leads to mass terms in the effective field theory.Comment: 19 page

In Vivo Analysis of Conserved C. elegans Tomosyn Domains

Neurosecretion is critically dependent on the assembly of a macromolecular complex between the SNARE proteins syntaxin, SNAP-25 and synaptobrevin. Evidence indicates that the binding of tomosyn to syntaxin and SNAP-25 interferes with this assembly, thereby negatively regulating both synaptic transmission and peptide release. Tomosyn has two conserved domains: an N-terminal encompassing multiple WD40 repeats predicted to form two β-propeller structures and a C-terminal SNARE-binding motif. To assess the function of each domain, we performed an in vivo analysis of the N- and C- terminal domains of C. elegans tomosyn (TOM-1) in a tom-1 mutant background. We verified that both truncated TOM-1 constructs were transcribed at levels comparable to rescuing full-length TOM-1, were of the predicted size, and localized to synapses. Unlike full-length TOM-1, expression of the N- or C-terminal domains alone was unable to restore inhibitory control of synaptic transmission in tom-1 mutants. Similarly, co-expression of both domains failed to restore TOM-1 function. In addition, neither the N- nor C-terminal domain inhibited release when expressed in a wild-type background. Based on these results, we conclude that the ability of tomosyn to regulate neurotransmitter release in vivo depends on the physical integrity of the protein, indicating that both N- and C-terminal domains are necessary but not sufficient for effective inhibition of release in vivo

Use of ultraviolet C (UVC) radiation to inactivate infectious hematopoietic necrosis virus (IHNV) and viral haemorrhagic septicaemia virus (VHSV) in fish processing plant effluent

We determined the stability of infectious hematopoietic necrosis virus (IHNV) and viral hemorrhagic septicemia virus (VHSV) suspended in either fish processing plant effluent blood water (EBW) or culture media and examined the effectiveness of UVC radiation to inactivate IHNV and VHSV suspended in both solutions. Without exposure to UVC, IHNV and VHSV were maintained in 4&deg;C blood water for up to 48 hours without significant reduction in virus titer. However when exposed to UVC radiation using a low pressure mercury vapour lamp collimated beam, IHNV and VHSV were inactivated, and the efficacy of UVC radiation was dependent upon the solution and virus type being treated. A 3-log reduction for VHSV and IHNV in culture media was achieved at 3.28 and 3.84 mJ cm-2, respectively. The UV dose needed for a 3-log reduction of VHSV in EBW was 3.82 mJ cm-2. However, exposure of IHNV in EBW to the maximum UVC dose tested (4.0 mJ cm-2) only led to a 2.26-log-reduction. Factors such as particle size, and possible association of viruses with suspended EBW particulate, were not investigated in this study, but may have contributed to the difference in UVC effectiveness. Future work should emphasize improved filtration methods prior to UV treatment of processing plant EBW at an industrial scale.<br /

A zeta function approach to the relation between the numbers of symmetry planes and axes of a polytope

A derivation of the Ces\`aro-Fedorov relation from the Selberg trace formula on an orbifolded 2-sphere is elaborated and extended to higher dimensions using the known heat-kernel coefficients for manifolds with piecewise-linear boundaries. Several results are obtained that relate the coefficients, $b_i$, in the Shephard-Todd polynomial to the geometry of the fundamental domain. For the 3-sphere we show that $b_4$ is given by the ratio of the volume of the fundamental tetrahedron to its Schl\"afli reciprocal.Comment: Plain TeX, 26 pages (eqn. (86) corrected

Tomosyn inhibits synaptic vesicle priming in Caenorhabditis elegans

Caenorhabditis elegans TOM-1 is orthologous to vertebrate tomosyn, a cytosolic syntaxin-binding protein implicated in the modulation of both constitutive and regulated exocytosis. To investigate how TOM-1 regulates exocytosis of synaptic vesicles in vivo, we analyzed C. elegans tom-1 mutants. Our electrophysiological analysis indicates that evoked postsynaptic responses at tom-1 mutant synapses are prolonged leading to a two-fold increase in total charge transfer. The enhanced response in tom-1 mutants is not associated with any detectable changes in postsynaptic response kinetics, neuronal outgrowth, or synaptogenesis. However, at the ultrastructural level, we observe a concomitant increase in the number of plasma membrane-contacting vesicles in tom-1 mutant synapses, a phenotype reversed by neuronal expression of TOM-1. Priming defective unc-13 mutants show a dramatic reduction in plasma membrane-contacting vesicles, suggesting these vesicles largely represent the primed vesicle pool at the C. elegans neuromuscular junction. Consistent with this conclusion, hyperosmotic responses in tom-1 mutants are enhanced, indicating the primed vesicle pool is enhanced. Furthermore, the synaptic defects of unc-13 mutants are partially suppressed in tom-1 unc-13 double mutants. These data indicate that in the intact nervous system, TOM-1 negatively regulates synaptic vesicle priming. © 2006 Gracheva et al

DC-electric-field-induced and low-frequency electromodulation second-harmonic generation spectroscopy of Si(001)-SiO2_2 interfaces

The mechanism of DC-Electric-Field-Induced Second-Harmonic (EFISH) generation at weakly nonlinear buried Si(001)-SiO$_2$ interfaces is studied experimentally in planar Si(001)-SiO$_2$-Cr MOS structures by optical second-harmonic generation (SHG) spectroscopy with a tunable Ti:sapphire femtosecond laser. The spectral dependence of the EFISH contribution near the direct two-photon $E_1$ transition of silicon is extracted. A systematic phenomenological model of the EFISH phenomenon, including a detailed description of the space charge region (SCR) at the semiconductor-dielectric interface in accumulation, depletion, and inversion regimes, has been developed. The influence of surface quantization effects, interface states, charge traps in the oxide layer, doping concentration and oxide thickness on nonlocal screening of the DC-electric field and on breaking of inversion symmetry in the SCR is considered. The model describes EFISH generation in the SCR using a Green function formalism which takes into account all retardation and absorption effects of the fundamental and second harmonic (SH) waves, optical interference between field-dependent and field-independent contributions to the SH field and multiple reflection interference in the SiO$_2$ layer. Good agreement between the phenomenological model and our recent and new EFISH spectroscopic results is demonstrated. Finally, low-frequency electromodulated EFISH is demonstrated as a useful differential spectroscopic technique for studies of the Si-SiO$_2$ interface in silicon-based MOS structures.Comment: 31 pages, 14 figures, 1 table, figures are also available at http://kali.ilc.msu.su/articles/50/efish.ht