Permanently online and permanently connected : development and validation of the Online Vigilance Scale

Smartphones and other mobile devices have fundamentally changed patterns of Internet use in everyday life by making online access constantly available. The present paper offers a theoretical explication and empirical assessment of the concept of online vigilance, referring to users’ permanent cognitive orientation towards online content and communication as well as their disposition to exploit these options constantly. Based on four studies, a validated and reliable self-report measure of online vigilance was developed. In combination, the results suggest that the Online Vigilance Scale (OVS) shows a stable factor structure in various contexts and user populations and provides future work in communication, psychology, and other social sciences with a new measure of the individual cognitive orientation towards ubiquitous online communication

Desenvolvimento de primers para identificação e diferenciação de espécies de Candida em secreção vaginal por PCR em tempo real (qPCR)

Infecções fúngicas são cada vez mais frequentes, principalmente relacionadas ao sistema geniturinário e causadas por Candida spp. A PCR mostra-se promissora para o diagnóstico e para sua aplicação faz-se necessário o desenvolvimento de primers. Para isso obteve-se sequências da região ITS do rDNA 18S de 5 espécies de Candida, alinhou-se e verificou-se os tamanhos dos amplicons e as Tms teóricas. Cepas padrão e cepas cultivadas foram utilizadas como referência. Além disso, 67 amostras de DNA de secreção vaginal foram submetidas a qPCR e os resultados foram confirmados em gel de agarose 2%. Os testes in silico demonstraram a capacidade do par de primers em diferenciar as cinco espécies, o que foi confirmado após a amplificação das cepas padrão e de amostras de secreção vaginal, identificadas em 20 amostras. O limite de detecção foi de 58 células/mL para as cepas padrão de C. albicans e C. tropicalis e 29 células/mL para C. parapsilosis. A sensibilidade da qPCR frente ao teste de crescimento microbiológico foi de 68%, com especificidade de 90%. A técnica possui potencial de diagnóstico, porém precisa ser otimizada para testes quantitativos

Permanently online and permanently connected: Development and validation of the Online Vigilance Scale

Smartphones and other mobile devices have fundamentally changed patterns of Internet use in everyday life by making online access constantly available. The present paper offers a theoretical explication and empirical assessment of the concept of online vigilance, referring to users' permanent cognitive orientation towards online content and communication as well as their disposition to exploit these options constantly. Based on four studies, a validated and reliable self-report measure of online vigilance was developed. In combination, the results suggest that the Online Vigilance Scale (OVS) shows a stable factor structure in various contexts and user populations and provides future work in communication, psychology, and other social sciences with a new measure of the individual cognitive orientation towards ubiquitous online communication

The glycoprotein-hormones activin A and inhibin A interfere with dendritic cell maturation

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Pregnancy represents an exclusive situation in which the immune and the endocrine system cooperate to prevent rejection of the embryo by the maternal immune system. While immature dendritic cells (iDC) in the early pregnancy decidua presumably contribute to the establishment of peripheral tolerance, glycoprotein-hormones of the transforming growth factor beta (TGF-beta) family including activin A (ActA) and inhibin A (InA) are candidates that could direct the differentiation of DCs into a tolerance-inducing phenotype.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>To test this hypothesis we generated iDCs from peripheral-blood-monocytes and exposed them to TGF-beta1, ActA, as well as InA and Dexamethasone (Dex) as controls.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Both glycoprotein-hormones prevented up-regulation of HLA-DR during cytokine-induced DC maturation similar to Dex but did not influence the expression of CD 40, CD 83 and CD 86. Visualization of the F-actin cytoskeleton confirmed that the DCs retained a partially immature phenotype under these conditions. The T-cell stimulatory capacity of DCs was reduced after ActA and InA exposure while the secretion of cytokines and chemokines was unaffected.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>These findings suggest that ActA and InA interfere with selected aspects of DC maturation and may thereby help preventing activation of allogenic T-cells by the embryo. Thus, we have identified two novel members of the TGF-beta superfamily that could promote the generation of tolerance-inducing DCs.</p

Deep vein thrombosis and pulmonary embolism: a prospective, observational study to evaluate diagnostic performance of the Tina-quant D-Dimer Gen.2 assay

BackgroundD-Dimer testing is a diagnostic tool for exclusion of deep vein thrombosis (DVT) and pulmonary embolism (PE). This study evaluated the diagnostic performance of the Tina-quant® D-Dimer Gen.2 assay (Roche Diagnostics International Ltd, Rotkreuz, Switzerland) in patients with low/intermediate pre-test probability of DVT/PE using standard, age-, and clinical probability-adjusted cut-offs.MethodsIn this prospective, observational, multicenter study (July 2017–August 2019), plasma samples were collected from hospital emergency departments and specialist referral centers. DVT/PE was diagnosed under hospital standard procedures and imaging protocols. A standard D-dimer cut-off of 0.5 µg fibrinogen equivalent units (FEU)/ml was combined with the three-level Wells score; cut-offs adjusted for age (age × 0.01 µg FEU/ml for patients &gt;50 years) and clinical probability (1 µg FEU/ml for low probability) were also evaluated. An assay comparison was conducted in a subset of samples using the Tina-quant D-Dimer Gen.2 assay and the previously established routine laboratory assay, STA-Liatest D-Di Plus assay (Stago Deutschland GmbH, Düsseldorf, Germany).Results2,897 patients were enrolled; 2,516 completed the study (DVT cohort: 1,741 PE cohort: 775). Clinical assessment plus D-dimer testing using the standard cut-off resulted in 317 (DVT) and 230 (PE) false positives, and zero (DVT) and one (PE) false negatives. Negative predictive value (NPV) was 100.0% (95% confidence interval [CI]: 99.7%–100.0%) and 99.8% (95% CI: 98.8%–100.0%) for DVT and PE, respectively. After age-adjustment, NPV was 99.9% (95% CI: 99.6%–100.0%) and 99.1% (95% CI: 97.8–99.7) for DVT and PE, respectively. False positive rates decreased (&gt;50%) in clinical probability-adjusted analyses vs. primary analysis. In the assay comparison, the performances of the two assays were comparable.ConclusionThe Tina-quant D-Dimer Gen.2 assay and standard D-dimer cut-off level combined with the three-level Wells score accurately identified patients with a very low probability of DVT/PE

Search for dark matter produced in association with bottom or top quarks in √s = 13 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector

A search for weakly interacting massive particle dark matter produced in association with bottom or top quarks is presented. Final states containing third-generation quarks and miss- ing transverse momentum are considered. The analysis uses 36.1 fb−1 of proton–proton collision data recorded by the ATLAS experiment at √s = 13 TeV in 2015 and 2016. No significant excess of events above the estimated backgrounds is observed. The results are in- terpreted in the framework of simplified models of spin-0 dark-matter mediators. For colour- neutral spin-0 mediators produced in association with top quarks and decaying into a pair of dark-matter particles, mediator masses below 50 GeV are excluded assuming a dark-matter candidate mass of 1 GeV and unitary couplings. For scalar and pseudoscalar mediators produced in association with bottom quarks, the search sets limits on the production cross- section of 300 times the predicted rate for mediators with masses between 10 and 50 GeV and assuming a dark-matter mass of 1 GeV and unitary coupling. Constraints on colour- charged scalar simplified models are also presented. Assuming a dark-matter particle mass of 35 GeV, mediator particles with mass below 1.1 TeV are excluded for couplings yielding a dark-matter relic density consistent with measurements

Mutation analysis of 18 nephronophthisis associated ciliopathy disease genes using a DNA pooling and next generation sequencing strategy

Background Nephronophthisis associated ciliopathies (NPHP-AC) comprise a group of autosomal recessive cystic kidney diseases that includes nephronophthisis (NPHP), Senior-Loken syndrome (SLS), Joubert syndrome (JBTS), and Meckel-Gruber syndrome (MKS). To date, causative mutations in NPHP-AC have been described for 18 different genes, rendering mutation analysis tedious and expensive. To overcome the broad genetic locus heterogeneity, a strategy of DNA pooling with consecutive massively parallel resequencing (MPR) was devised.Methods In 120 patients with severe NPHP-AC phenotypes, five pools of genomic DNA with 24 patients each were prepared which were used as templates in order to PCR amplify all 376 exons of 18 NPHP-AC genes (NPHP1, INVS, NPHP3, NPHP4, IQCB1, CEP290, GLIS2, RPGRIP1L, NEK8, TMEM67, INPP5E, TMEM216, AHI1, ARL13B, CC2D2A, TTC21B, MKS1, and XPNPEP3). PCR products were then subjected to MPR on an Illumina Genome-Analyser and mutations were subsequently assigned to their respective mutation carrier via CEL I endonuclease based heteroduplex screening and confirmed by Sanger sequencing.Results For proof of principle, DNA from patients with known mutations was used and detection of 22 out of 24 different alleles (92% sensitivity) was demonstrated. MPR led to the molecular diagnosis in 30/120 patients (25%) and 54 pathogenic mutations (27 novel) were identified in seven different NPHP-AC genes. Additionally, in 24 patients only single heterozygous variants of unknown significance were found.Conclusions The combined approach of DNA pooling followed by MPR strongly facilitates mutation analysis in broadly heterogeneous single gene disorders. The lack of mutations in 75% of patients in this cohort indicates further extensive heterogeneity in NPHP-AC