Ionic liquid crystals : synthesis and characterization via NMR, DSC, POM, X-ray diffraction and ionic conductivity of asymmetric viologen bistriflimide salts

Acknowledgments This research is in part supported by the NSF EPSCoR RING-TRUE III grant no. 0447416, NSF-SBIR grant no. OII-0610753, NSF-STTR grant no. IIP-0740289 and NASA GRC contract no. NNX10CD25P (PKB). We thank Ronald C. G. Principe for making the Figures and Tables for this article. Acknowledgment is made to the donors of the American Chemical Society Petroleum Research Fund grant no. 59345-ND7 for partial support of this research by CMR and MRF. AMF would like to thank the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland, for the Research Incentive Grant RIG008586, the Royal Society and Specac Ltd., for the Research Grant RGS\R1\201397, and the Royal Society of Chemistry for the award of a mobility grant (M19-0000).Peer reviewedPostprin

Young at risk-people in Maputo City, Mozambique, present a high willingness to participate in HIV trials: Results from an HIV vaccine preparedness cohort study

Introduction: Vaccine efficacy testing requires engagement of willing volunteers with high disease incidence. We evaluated factors associated with willingness to participate in potential future HIV vaccine trials in Maputo, Mozambique. Methods: Adults aged 18–35 years without HIV and who reported at least two sexual partners in the 3 months prior to screening were enrolled into a 24-month observational study. They were asked at screening and exit if they would be willing to participate in a theoretical HIV vaccine study. Bivariate and multivariate logistic regression analyses were done between willingness to participate, demographic, sexual behavior, and motivational factors for screening visit data. Logistic regression with generalized estimating equations (GEE) was used to estimate odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for factors potentially associated with willingness to participate for data from both visits. Results: A total of 577 participants without HIV were eligible, including 275 (48%) women. The mean age was 22.2 (SD ± 3.9) years. At screening 529 (92%) expressed willingness to participate and the proportion remained stable at 378 (88%) of the 430 participants retained through the exit visit (p = 0.209). Helping the country (n = 556) and fear of needles (n = 26) were the top motive and barrier for willingness to participate, respectively. Results from the GEE binary logistic regression (screening visit and exit visit) showed that wanting to learn how to avoid risk behaviors (aOR 3.33, 95% CI: 1.61–6.86) and feeling protected against HIV infection (aOR 2.24, 95% CI: 1.07–4.7) were associated with willingness to participate in HIV vaccine studies. Conclusion: The majority of our study population in Mozambique expressed willingness to participate in a theoretical HIV vaccine trial. Participation in a HIV vaccine trial was seen as a way to contribute to the fight against HIV but was associated with some unrealistic expectations such as protection against HIV. This reinforces the need for continuous mobilization and awareness of potential participants to HIV vaccine trial

Maternal Arterial Stiffness in Women Who Subsequently Develop Pre-Eclampsia

BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVES: Pre-eclampsia (PE) is associated with profound changes in the maternal cardiovascular system. The aim of the present study was to assess whether alterations in the maternal arterial stiffness precede the onset of PE in at risk women. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: This was a cross sectional study involving 70 pregnant women with normal and 70 women with abnormal uterine artery Doppler examination at 22-24 weeks of gestation. All women had their arterial stiffness (augmentation index and pulse wave velocity of the carotid-femoral and carotid-radial parts of the arterial tree) assessed by applanation tonometry in the second trimester of pregnancy, at the time of the uterine artery Doppler imaging. Among the 140 women participating in the study 29 developed PE (PE group) and 111 did not (non-PE group). Compared to the non-PE group, women that developed PE had higher central systolic (94.9 ± 8.6 mmHg vs 104.3 ± 11.1 mmHg; p  =  < 0.01) and diastolic (64.0 ± 6.0 vs 72.4 ± 9.1; p < 0.01) blood pressures. All the arterial stiffness indices were adjusted for possible confounders and expressed as multiples of the median (MoM) of the non-PE group. The adjusted median augmentation index was similar between the two groups (p  =  0.84). The adjusted median pulse wave velocities were higher in the PE group compared to the non-PE group (carotid-femoral: 1.10 ± 0.14 MoMs vs 0.99 ± 0.11 MoMs; p < 0.01 and carotid-radial: 1.08 ± 0.12 MoMs vs 1.0 ± 0.11 MoMs; p < 0.01). CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: Increased maternal arterial stiffness, as assessed by pulse wave velocity, predates the development of PE in at risk women

Current European Labyrinthula zosterae Are Not Virulent and Modulate Seagrass (Zostera marina) Defense Gene Expression

Pro- and eukaryotic microbes associated with multi-cellular organisms are receiving increasing attention as a driving factor in ecosystems. Endophytes in plants can change host performance by altering nutrient uptake, secondary metabolite production or defense mechanisms. Recent studies detected widespread prevalence of Labyrinthula zosterae in European Zostera marina meadows, a protist that allegedly caused a massive amphi-Atlantic seagrass die-off event in the 1930's, while showing only limited virulence today. As a limiting factor for pathogenicity, we investigated genotype×genotype interactions of host and pathogen from different regions (10–100 km-scale) through reciprocal infection. Although the endophyte rapidly infected Z. marina, we found little evidence that Z. marina was negatively impacted by L. zosterae. Instead Z. marina showed enhanced leaf growth and kept endophyte abundance low. Moreover, we found almost no interaction of protist×eelgrass-origin on different parameters of L. zosterae virulence/Z. marina performance, and also no increase in mortality after experimental infection. In a target gene approach, we identified a significant down-regulation in the expression of 6/11 genes from the defense cascade of Z. marina after real-time quantitative PCR, revealing strong immune modulation of the host's defense by a potential parasite for the first time in a marine plant. Nevertheless, one gene involved in phenol synthesis was strongly up-regulated, indicating that Z. marina plants were probably able to control the level of infection. There was no change in expression in a general stress indicator gene (HSP70). Mean L. zosterae abundances decreased below 10% after 16 days of experimental runtime. We conclude that under non-stress conditions L. zosterae infection in the study region is not associated with substantial virulence

The development and validation of a scoring tool to predict the operative duration of elective laparoscopic cholecystectomy

Background: The ability to accurately predict operative duration has the potential to optimise theatre efficiency and utilisation, thus reducing costs and increasing staff and patient satisfaction. With laparoscopic cholecystectomy being one of the most commonly performed procedures worldwide, a tool to predict operative duration could be extremely beneficial to healthcare organisations. Methods: Data collected from the CholeS study on patients undergoing cholecystectomy in UK and Irish hospitals between 04/2014 and 05/2014 were used to study operative duration. A multivariable binary logistic regression model was produced in order to identify significant independent predictors of long (> 90 min) operations. The resulting model was converted to a risk score, which was subsequently validated on second cohort of patients using ROC curves. Results: After exclusions, data were available for 7227 patients in the derivation (CholeS) cohort. The median operative duration was 60 min (interquartile range 45–85), with 17.7% of operations lasting longer than 90 min. Ten factors were found to be significant independent predictors of operative durations > 90 min, including ASA, age, previous surgical admissions, BMI, gallbladder wall thickness and CBD diameter. A risk score was then produced from these factors, and applied to a cohort of 2405 patients from a tertiary centre for external validation. This returned an area under the ROC curve of 0.708 (SE = 0.013, p  90 min increasing more than eightfold from 5.1 to 41.8% in the extremes of the score. Conclusion: The scoring tool produced in this study was found to be significantly predictive of long operative durations on validation in an external cohort. As such, the tool may have the potential to enable organisations to better organise theatre lists and deliver greater efficiencies in care

25th annual computational neuroscience meeting: CNS-2016

The same neuron may play different functional roles in the neural circuits to which it belongs. For example, neurons in the Tritonia pedal ganglia may participate in variable phases of the swim motor rhythms [1]. While such neuronal functional variability is likely to play a major role the delivery of the functionality of neural systems, it is difficult to study it in most nervous systems. We work on the pyloric rhythm network of the crustacean stomatogastric ganglion (STG) [2]. Typically network models of the STG treat neurons of the same functional type as a single model neuron (e.g. PD neurons), assuming the same conductance parameters for these neurons and implying their synchronous firing [3, 4]. However, simultaneous recording of PD neurons shows differences between the timings of spikes of these neurons. This may indicate functional variability of these neurons. Here we modelled separately the two PD neurons of the STG in a multi-neuron model of the pyloric network. Our neuron models comply with known correlations between conductance parameters of ionic currents. Our results reproduce the experimental finding of increasing spike time distance between spikes originating from the two model PD neurons during their synchronised burst phase. The PD neuron with the larger calcium conductance generates its spikes before the other PD neuron. Larger potassium conductance values in the follower neuron imply longer delays between spikes, see Fig. 17.Neuromodulators change the conductance parameters of neurons and maintain the ratios of these parameters [5]. Our results show that such changes may shift the individual contribution of two PD neurons to the PD-phase of the pyloric rhythm altering their functionality within this rhythm. Our work paves the way towards an accessible experimental and computational framework for the analysis of the mechanisms and impact of functional variability of neurons within the neural circuits to which they belong

Conductivity and light response of new ionic liquid crystals and salts

Resumen del trabajo presentado a la Annual Conference of the British Liquid Crystal Society, celebrada en Bristol (UK) del 11 al 13 de abril de 2022.Peer reviewe

Financing of Women-Owned Ventures: The Impact of Gender and Other Owner- and Firm-Related Variables

While women-owned ventures represent an increasing proportion of new businesses in most western countries, most of them have particular financing patterns and encounter barriers in their access to financing. Recent research on the question argues that barriers to financing are mainly dependent on factors other than gender, such as owner- and firm-related characteristics. This quantitative and qualitative study, through descriptive statistics and interview analysis, examines the relationship between financing patterns and barriers and gender from the woman entrepreneur’s viewpoint. It explores the behaviours and representations of women entrepreneurs towards financing, and considers to what extent the women see their own approaches as being different from those of men. Our study suggests that a gender effect still exists, and tries to identify its location and the corresponding implications for further research and action.Programme Equal 2003-2005 - Projet Diane: Les femmes entrepreneures face à la formation, au financement et aux réseau