Extremal properties for dissections of convex 3-polytopes

A dissection of a convex d-polytope is a partition of the polytope into d-simplices whose vertices are among the vertices of the polytope. Triangulations are dissections that have the additional property that the set of all its simplices forms a simplicial complex. The size of a dissection is the number of d-simplices it contains. This paper compares triangulations of maximal size with dissections of maximal size. We also exhibit lower and upper bounds for the size of dissections of a 3-polytope and analyze extremal size triangulations for specific non-simplicial polytopes: prisms, antiprisms, Archimedean solids, and combinatorial d-cubes.Comment: 19 page

Impact of reduced vancomycin susceptibility on the therapeutic outcome of MRSA bloodstream infections

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The aim of this study was to determine whether clinical outcome of patients with methicillin-resistant <it>Staphylococcus aureus </it>(MRSA) bacteraemia was correlated with vancomycin susceptibility of the corresponding strains.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A retrospective study on MRSA bacteraemia was performed at a teaching hospital between January 1998 and October 2005 by linking vancomycin susceptibility profiles of patients' isolates with hospitalization data.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>A total of 20 out of 209 MRSA bacteraemia patients were treated with vancomycin for at least 5 days with adequate trough levels, and fulfilled the study's inclusion and exclusion criteria. Twenty-two <it>S. aureus </it>isolates from these patients' blood cultures were identified as MRSA, including two <it>hetero</it>-VISA from separate patients and two VISA with vancomycin MIC of 4 mg/L from one patient. Between patients who showed 'good' vancomycin response and patients who did not, there was a significant difference (p < 0.01) in their corresponding MRSAs' vancomycin susceptibility expressed by 'area under curve' (AUC) of population analysis. Significant correlations were found between AUC and initial vancomycin therapeutic response parameters of 'days till afebrile' (<it>r </it>= 0.828, p < 0.01) and 'days till CRP ≦ 30% of maximum' (<it>r </it>= 0.627, p < 0.01)</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Our study results caution healthcare personnel that early consideration should be given to cases with a poor vancomycin treatment response that could signify the involvement of MRSA with reduced susceptibility to vancomycin.</p

Corynebacterium ulcerans 0102 carries the gene encoding diphtheria toxin on a prophage different from the C. diphtheriae NCTC 13129 prophage

BACKGROUND: Corynebacterium ulcerans can cause a diphtheria-like illness, especially when the bacterium is lysogenized with a tox gene-carrying bacteriophage that produces diphtheria toxin. Acquisition of toxigenicity upon phage lysogenization is a common feature of C. ulcerans and C. diphtheriae. However, because of a lack of C. ulcerans genome information, a detailed comparison of prophages has not been possible between these two clinically important and closely related bacterial species. RESULTS: We determined the whole genome sequence of the toxigenic C. ulcerans 0102 isolated in Japan. The genomic sequence showed a striking similarity with that of Corynebacterium pseudotuberculosis and, to a lesser extent, with that of C. diphtheriae. The 0102 genome contained three distinct prophages. One of these, ΦCULC0102-I, was a tox-positive prophage containing genes in the same structural order as for tox-positive C. diphtheriae prophages. However, the primary structures of the individual genes involved in the phage machinery showed little homology between the two counterparts. CONCLUSION: Taken together, these results suggest that the tox-positive prophage in this strain of C. ulcerans has a distinct origin from that of C. diphtheriae NCTC 13129

Association of an overlap syndrome of autoimmune hepatitis and primary biliary cirrhosis with cytomegalovirus infection

A 63-year-old woman, who presented with severe jaundice and elevated serum conjugated bilirubin level, denied alcohol and drug use and showed no evidence of viral hepatitis. Based on clinical and laboratory features, she was diagnosed with autoimmune hepatitis with primary biliary cirrhosis. Hematological and immunochemical assays, radiographic imaging, clinical examination, and liver biopsy were conducted. Laboratory results were the following: negative for fluorescence antinuclear antibody, negative for antismooth muscle antibodies but positive for antinuclear antibody (enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay) and antimitochondrial M2 antibody, high titers of serum globulin, and positive for cytomegalovirus IgM. Liver biopsy showed submassive lobular necrosis, inflammation with broad areas of parenchymal collapse, and chronic nonsuppurative destructive cholangitis. The patient responded well to corticosteroid therapy. This case might illustrate an association between cytomegalovirus infection and the occurrence of autoimmune hepatitis

Brain enhancement through cognitive training: A new insight from brain connectome

Owing to the recent advances in neurotechnology and the progress in understanding of brain cognitive functions, improvements of cognitive performance or acceleration of learning process with brain enhancement systems is not out of our reach anymore, on the contrary, it is a tangible target of contemporary research. Although a variety of approaches have been proposed, we will mainly focus on cognitive training interventions, in which learners repeatedly perform cognitive tasks to improve their cognitive abilities. In this review article, we propose that the learning process during the cognitive training can be facilitated by an assistive system monitoring cognitive workloads using electroencephalography (EEG) biomarkers, and the brain connectome approach can provide additional valuable biomarkers for facilitating leaners' learning processes. For the purpose, we will introduce studies on the cognitive training interventions, EEG biomarkers for cognitive workload, and human brain connectome. As cognitive overload and mental fatigue would reduce or even eliminate gains of cognitive training interventions, a real-time monitoring of cognitive workload can facilitate the learning process by flexibly adjusting difficulty levels of the training task. Moreover, cognitive training interventions should have effects on brain sub-networks, not on a single brain region, and graph theoretical network metrics quantifying topological architecture of the brain network can differentiate with respect to individual cognitive states as well as to different individuals' cognitive abilities, suggesting that the connectome is a valuable approach for tracking the learning progress. Although only a few studies have exploited the connectome approach for studying alterations of the brain network induced by cognitive training interventions so far, we believe that it would be a useful technique for capturing improvements of cognitive function

Trans-ancestry genome-wide association study identifies 12 genetic loci influencing blood pressure and implicates a role for DNA methylation

We carried out a trans-ancestry genome-wide association and replication study of blood pressure phenotypes among up to 320,251 individuals of East Asian, European and South Asian ancestry. We find genetic variants at 12 new loci to be associated with blood pressure (P = 3.9×10⁻¹¹ to 5.0×10⁻²¹). The sentinel blood pressure SNPs are enriched for association with DNA methylation at multiple nearby CpG sites, suggesting that, at some of the loci identified, DNA methylation may lie on the regulatory pathway linking sequence variation to blood pressure. The sentinel SNPs at the 12 new loci point to genes involved  in vascular smooth muscle (IGFBP3, KCNK3, PDE3A and PRDM6) and renal (ARHGAP24, OSR1, SLC22A7 and TBX2) function. The new and known genetic variants predict increased left ventricular mass, circulating levels of NT-proBNP, and cardiovascular and all-cause mortality (P = 0.04 to 8.6×10⁻⁶). Our results provide new evidence for the role of DNA methylation in blood pressure regulation

Rosmarinic acid is a novel inhibitor for Hepatitis B virus replication targeting viral epsilon RNA-polymerase interaction

Current therapeutics for hepatitis B virus (HBV) patients such as nucleoside analogs (NAs) are effective; however, new antiviral drugs against HBV are still desired. Since the interaction between the epsilon (c) sequence of HBV pregenomic RNA and viral polymerase (Pot) is a key step in the HBV replication cycle, we aimed to identify small compounds for its inhibition, and established a pull-down assay system for the detection of c-RNA-binding-Pol. Screening showed that 5 out of 3,965 compounds inhibited c-Pol binding, and we identified rosmarinic acid, which exhibited specificity, as a potential antiviral agent. In order to examine the anti-HBV effects of rosmarinic acid, HBV-infected primary human hepatocytes from a humanized mouse liver were treated with rosmarinic acid. The rosmarinic acid treatment decreased HBV components including the amounts of extracellular HBV DNA with negligible cytotoxicity. We also investigated the combined effects of rosmarinic acid and the NA, lamivudine. rosmarinic acid slightly enhanced the anti-HBV activity of lamivudine, suggesting that the HBV replication step targeted by rosmarinic acid is distinct from that of NA. We analyzed an additional 25 rosmarinic acid derivatives, and found that 5 also inhibited c-Pol. Structural comparisons between these derivatives implied that the "two phenolic hydroxyl groups at both ends" and the "caffeic acid-like structure" of rosmarinic acid are critical for the inhibition of c-Pol binding. Collectively, our results demonstrate that rosmarinic acid inhibits HBV replication in HBV-infected cells by specifically targeting c-Pol binding

Trans-ancestry genome-wide association study identifies 12 genetic loci influencing blood pressure and implicates a role for DNA methylation

10.1038/ng.3405Nature Genetics47111282-1293GUSTO (Growing up towards Healthy Outcomes