Effects of maternal caffeine consumption on the breastfed child : a systematic review

Background: Nutrition in the first 1000 days between pregnancy and 24 months of life is critical for child health, and exclusive breastfeeding is promoted as the infant’s best source of nutrition in the first 6 months. Caffeine is a central nervous system stimulant occurring naturally in some foods and used to treat primary apnoea in premature babies. However high caffeine intake can be harmful, and caffeine is transmitted into breastmilk. Aim: To systematically review the evidence on the effects of maternal caffeine consumption during breastfeeding on the breastfed child. Method: A systematic search was conducted to October 2017 in MEDLINE, EMBASE, Web of Science, CINAHL, and Cochrane Library. The British Library catalogue, which covers doctoral theses, was searched and PRISMA guidelines followed. Two reviewers screened for experimental, cohort, or case-control studies and performed independent quality assessment using the Newcastle-Ottawa scale. The main reviewer performed data extraction, checked by the second reviewer. Results: Two cohort, two crossover studies, and one N-of-1 trial were included for narrative synthesis. One crossover and two cohort studies of small sample sizes directly investigated maternal caffeine consumption. No significant effects on 24-hour heart rate, 24-hour sleep time, or frequent night waking of the breastfed child were found. One study found a decreased rate of full breastfeeding at 6 months postpartum. Two studies indirectly investigated caffeine exposure. Maternal chocolate and coffee consumption was associated with increased infant colic, and severe to moderate exacerbation of infant atopic dermatitis. However, whether caffeine was the causal ingredient is questionable. The insufficient and inconsistent evidence available had quality issues impeding conclusions on the effects of maternal caffeine consumption on the breastfed child. Conclusion: Evidence for recommendations on caffeine intake for breastfeeding women is scant, of limited quality and inconclusive. Birth cohort studies investigating the potential positive and negative effects of various levels of maternal caffeine consumption on the breastfed child and breastfeeding mother could improve the knowledge base and allow evidence-based advice for breastfeeding mothers

The fabrication of small molecule organic light-emitting diode pixels by laser-induced forward transfer

Laser-induced forward transfer (LIFT) is a versatile organic light-emitting diode (OLED) pixel deposition process, but has hitherto been applied exclusively to polymeric materials. Here, a modified LIFT process has been used to fabricate small molecule Alq(3) organic light-emitting diodes (SMOLEDs). Small molecule thin films are considerably more mechanically brittle than polymeric thin films, which posed significant challenges for LIFT of these materials. The LIFT process presented here uses a polymeric dynamic release layer, a reduced environmental pressure, and a well-defined receiver-donor gap. The Alq(3) pixels demonstrate good morphology and functionality, even when compared to conventionally fabricated OLEDs. The Alq(3) SMOLED pixel performances show a significant amount of fluence dependence, not observed with polymerical OLED pixels made in previous studies. A layer of tetrabutyl ammonium hydroxide has been deposited on top of the aluminium cathode, as part of the donor substrate, to improve electron injection to the Alq(3), by over 600%. These results demonstrate that this variant of LIFT is applicable for the deposition of functional small molecule OLEDs as well as polymeric OLEDs. (C) 2013 American Institute of Physics. [http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4788710

Improved laser-induced forward transfer of organic semiconductor thin films by reducing the environmental pressure and controlling the substrate-substrate gap width

Laser-induced forward transfer (LIFT) has been investigated for bilayer transfer material systems: silver/organic film (Alq3or PFO). The LIFT process uses an intermediate dynamic release layer of a triazene polymer. This study focuses on the effect of introducing a controlled donor-receiver substrate gap distance and the effect of doing the transfer at reduced air pressures, whilst varying the fluence up to ∼200 mJ/cm2. The gap between ‘in-contact' substrates has been measured to be a minimum of 2-3μm. A linear variation in the gap width from ‘in contact' to 40μm has been achieved by adding a spacer at one side of the substrate-substrate sandwich. At atmospheric pressure, very little transfer is achieved for Alq3, although PFO shows some signs of successful doughnut transfer (with a large hole in the middle) in a narrow fluence range, at gaps greater than 20μm. For the transfer of Ag/PFO bilayers at atmospheric pressure, the addition of a PFO layer onto the receiver substrate improved the transfer enormously at smaller gaps and higher fluences. However, the best transfer results were obtained at reduced pressures where a 100% transfer success rate is obtained within a certain fluence window. The quality of the pixel morphology at less than 100 mbar is much higher than at atmospheric pressure, particularly when the gap width is less than 20μm. These results show the promise of LIFT for industrial deposition processes where a gap between the substrates will improve the throughpu

Parent of Origin, Mosaicism, and Recurrence Risk: Probabilistic Modeling Explains the Broken Symmetry of Transmission Genetics

Most new mutations are observed to arise in fathers, and increasing paternal age positively correlates with the risk of new variants. Interestingly, new mutations in X-linked recessive disease show elevated familial recurrence rates. In male offspring, these mutations must be inherited from mothers. We previously developed a simulation model to consider parental mosaicism as a source of transmitted mutations. In this paper, we extend and formalize the model to provide analytical results and flexible formulas. The results implicate parent of origin and parental mosaicism as central variables in recurrence risk. Consistent with empirical data, our model predicts that more transmitted mutations arise in fathers and that this tendency increases as fathers age. Notably, the lack of expansion later in the male germline determines relatively lower variance in the proportion of mutants, which decreases with paternal age. Subsequently, observation of a transmitted mutation has less impact on the expected risk for future offspring. Conversely, for the female germline, which arrests after clonal expansion in early development, variance in the mutant proportion is higher, and observation of a transmitted mutation dramatically increases the expected risk of recurrence in another pregnancy. Parental somatic mosaicism considerably elevates risk for both parents. These findings have important implications for genetic counseling and for understanding patterns of recurrence in transmission genetics. We provide a convenient online tool and source code implementing our analytical results. These tools permit varying the underlying parameters that influence recurrence risk and could be useful for analyzing risk in diverse family structures

A review of physical processes used in the safe recycling of lithium ion batteries

A review of separating methods used in domestic and electric vehicle lithium ion battery recycling is presented, focusing on physical processes which are commonly utilized prior to further chemical processing and purification steps. The four processes of stabilization, disassembly, separation and binder negation are reviewed and the strengths and weaknesses in current research identified. The main limitation with current recycling methods is the comminution step, which mixes, sometimes intimately, the materials from different cell components. This mixed waste stream requires further physical separation, and produces cross contamination in the different material streams. Effective separation of battery components, which produces enhanced purity of waste streams is essential to providing a cost-effective recycling process for direct or “closed loop” recycling. Improvements in the separation process are possible if the materials are separated prior to comminution, to prevent contamination of the different materials streams. In addition to purity of waste streams, one area mostly neglected in the literature is the health and safety implications and hazards associated with the chemicals contained within the cells. Little information is known about the chemical reactions which may occur during the physical separation processes and this has been identified as an area which needs substantially more investigation

The identification of novel anelloviruses with broad diversity in UK rodents

Anelloviruses are a family of small circular ssDNA viruses with a vast genetic diversity. Human infections with the prototype anellovirus, torque teno virus (TTV), are ubiquitous and related viruses have been described in a number of other mammalian hosts. Despite over 15 years of investigation, there is still little known about the pathogenesis and possible disease associations of anellovirus infections, arising in part due to the lack of a robust cell culture system for viral replication or tractable small-animal model. We report the identification of diverse anelloviruses in several species of wild rodents. The viruses are highly prevalent in wood mice (Apodemus sylvaticus) and field voles (Microtus agrestis), detectable at a low frequency in bank voles (Myodes glareolus), but absent from house mice (Mus musculus). The viruses identified have a genomic organization consistent with other anelloviruses, but form two clear phylogenetic groups that are as distinct from each other as from defined genera

Portfolio Vol. I N 3

Sweitzer, Harry J. Portfolio Goes to Press . Prose. 1. Browne, Phil. William Howard Doane Library . Picture. 2. Overhuls, James. Out of Himself . Prose. 3. MacNeill, Annie Marie. To President and Mrs. Shaw . Poem. 6. Baker, George. Saint in a Silo . Prose 7. Beckham, Adela. In Moods . Poem. 8. Vincent, Charles. Incident of August 7, 1930. Prose. 9. Flory, Doris. Opinions . Poem. 10. Flory, Doris. Thoughts in Spring . Poem. 10. Flory, Doris. Breakfast Scene . Poem. 10. Shaw, Robert B. A Date for the Dances . Prose. 11. Cronberger, Barbara. And the Years Go On . Prose. 13. Hanna, Stanley. Reola, Reola . Poem. 14. Hanna, Stanley. The Dance of the Kobolds . Poem. 14. Nadel, Norman. I died Last Night . Prose. 15. Bethune, Don S. Adolescence . Poem 16. Vodev, Eugene. The Black Day of Bulgaria . Prose. 17. Dick, Pewilla. To a White Violet . Poem. 18. Dick, Pewilla. As With Your Shadow . Poem. 18. Dwelly, Thorndike. Of Mice and Men . Prose. 19. Clements, Helen. Our Town . Prose. 19. Schlle, Alice. Marion is an Old Costume . Picture. 20. Chadeayne, Robert. Factory . Picture. 20. Nadel, Norman. Dmitri Shostakovitch . Prose. 21. Stewart, John. Duke Ellington\u27s Records . Prose. 21. Beck, Virginia. The Dance as an Art . Prose. 22. Dick, Pewilla. Death . Poem. 23. Flory, Doris. On Reforms . Poem. 24. Beckham, Adela. The Lie . Poem. 24. Bethune, Don. Futility . Poem. 24

Epstein-Barr Virus and Autoimmunity

There is a large body of evidence that infection with the Epstein-Barr virus (EBV), the aetiological agent of infectious mononucleosis, has a role in the pathogenesis of many human chronic autoimmune diseases. This chapter will review the evidence for the role of EBV in each of these diseases and also focus on the features that are common to the different human chronic autoimmune diseases, with the aim of providing an explanation for what appears to be a unique role for EBV in the pathogenesis of these diseases