Melatonin as a Therapy for Preterm Brain Injury: What Is the Evidence?

Despite significant improvements in survival following preterm birth in recent years, the neurodevelopmental burden of prematurity, with its long-term cognitive and behavioral consequences, remains a significant challenge in neonatology. Neuroprotective treatment options to improve neurodevelopmental outcomes in preterm infants are therefore urgently needed. Alleviating inflammatory and oxidative stress (OS), melatonin might modify important triggers of preterm brain injury, a complex combination of destructive and developmental abnormalities termed encephalopathy of prematurity (EoP). Preliminary data also suggests that melatonin has a direct neurotrophic impact, emphasizing its therapeutic potential with a favorable safety profile in the preterm setting. The current review outlines the most important pathomechanisms underlying preterm brain injury and correlates them with melatonin’s neuroprotective potential, while underlining significant pharmacokinetic/pharmacodynamic uncertainties that need to be addressed in future studies

Inspiratory muscle warm-up does not improve cycling time-trial performance

Purpose: This study examined the effects of an active cycling warm-up, with and without the addition of an inspiratory muscle warm-up (IMW), on 10-km cycling time-trial performance

The use of self-report questions to examine the prevalence of musculoskeletal problems: a test-retest study.

BACKGROUND: Case definition has long been an issue for comparability of results obtained for musculoskeletal pain prevalence, however the test-retest reliability of questions used to determine joint pain prevalence has not been examined. The objective of this study was to determine question reliability and the impact of question wording, ordering and the time between questions on responses. METHODS: A Computer Assisted Telephone Interviewing (CATI) survey was used to re-administer questions collected as part of a population-based longitudinal cohort study. On two different occasions questions were asked of the same sample of 203 community dwelling respondents (which were initially randomly selected) aged 18 years and over at two time points 14 to 27 days apart (average 15 days). Reliability of the questions was assessed using Cohen's kappa (κ) and intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) and whether question wording and period effects existed was assessed using a crossover design. RESULTS: The self-reported prevalence of doctor diagnosed arthritis demonstrated excellent reliability (κ = 0.84 and κ = 0.79 for questionnaires 1 and 2 respectively). The reliability of questions relating to musculoskeletal pain and/or stiffness ranged from moderate to excellent for both types of questions, that is, those related to ever having joint pain on most days for at least a month (κ = 0.52 to κ = 0.95) and having pain and/or stiffness on most days for the last month (κ = 0.52 to κ = 0.90). However there was an effect of question wording on the results obtained for hand, foot and back pain and/or stiffness indicating that the area of pain may influence prevalence estimates. CONCLUSIONS: Joint pain and stiffness questions are reliable and can be used to determine prevalence. However, question wording and pain area may impact on estimates with issues such as pain perception and effect on activities playing a possible role in the recall of musculoskeletal pain

Higgs friends and counterfeits at hadron colliders

We consider the possibility of "Higgs counterfeits" - scalars that can be produced with cross sections comparable to the SM Higgs, and which decay with identical relative observable branching ratios, but which are nonetheless not responsible for electroweak symmetry breaking. We also consider a related scenario involving "Higgs friends," fields similarly produced through gg fusion processes, which would be discovered through diboson channels WW, ZZ, gamma gamma, or even gamma Z, potentially with larger cross sections times branching ratios than for the Higgs. The discovery of either a Higgs friend or a Higgs counterfeit, rather than directly pointing towards the origin of the weak scale, would indicate the presence of new colored fields necessary for the sizable production cross section (and possibly new colorless but electroweakly charged states as well, in the case of the diboson decays of a Higgs friend). These particles could easily be confused for an ordinary Higgs, perhaps with an additional generation to explain the different cross section, and we emphasize the importance of vector boson fusion as a channel to distinguish a Higgs counterfeit from a true Higgs. Such fields would naturally be expected in scenarios with "effective Z's," where heavy states charged under the SM produce effective charges for SM fields under a new gauge force. We discuss the prospects for discovery of Higgs counterfeits, Higgs friends, and associated charged fields at the LHC.Comment: 27 pages, 5 figures. References added and typos fixe

Low rank approximation of multidimensional data

In the last decades, numerical simulation has experienced tremendous improvements driven by massive growth of computing power. Exascale computing has been achieved this year and will allow solving ever more complex problems. But such large systems produce colossal amounts of data which leads to its own difficulties. Moreover, many engineering problems such as multiphysics or optimisation and control, require far more power that any computer architecture could achieve within the current scientific computing paradigm. In this chapter, we propose to shift the paradigm in order to break the curse of dimensionality by introducing decomposition to reduced data. We present an extended review of data reduction techniques and intends to bridge between applied mathematics community and the computational mechanics one. The chapter is organized into two parts. In the first one bivariate separation is studied, including discussions on the equivalence of proper orthogonal decomposition (POD, continuous framework) and singular value decomposition (SVD, discrete matrices). Then, in the second part, a wide review of tensor formats and their approximation is proposed. Such work has already been provided in the literature but either on separate papers or into a pure applied mathematics framework. Here, we offer to the data enthusiast scientist a description of Canonical, Tucker, Hierarchical and Tensor train formats including their approximation algorithms. When it is possible, a careful analysis of the link between continuous and discrete methods will be performed.IV Research and Transfer Plan of the University of SevillaInstitut CarnotJunta de AndalucíaIDEX program of the University of Bordeau

Decaying into the Hidden Sector

The existence of light hidden sectors is an exciting possibility that may be tested in the near future. If DM is allowed to decay into such a hidden sector through GUT suppressed operators, it can accommodate the recent cosmic ray observations without over-producing antiprotons or interfering with the attractive features of the thermal WIMP. Models of this kind are simple to construct, generic and evade all astrophysical bounds. We provide tools for constructing such models and present several distinct examples. The light hidden spectrum and DM couplings can be probed in the near future, by measuring astrophysical photon and neutrino fluxes. These indirect signatures are complimentary to the direct production signals, such as lepton jets, predicted by these models.Comment: 40 pages, 5 figure

Hospitalizations associated with rotavirus gastroenteritis in Spain, 2001–2005

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>This study aims to describe and analyze hospital admissions in Spain due to rotavirus infections among children aged 5 years or under during the period 2001–2005, along with the associated health cost.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>To update estimates of rotavirus hospitalizations rates in Spain, we conducted a retrospective study of 5 years of national hospitalization data associated with acute gastroenteritis using the Minimum Basic Data Set.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>During the study period, a total of 17.1% of all admissions due to acute gastroenteritis of any etiology in children aged ≤ 5 years were attributable to rotavirus infection as determined by the rotavirus-specific International Classification of Diseases, ninth revision, Clinical Modification code. A mean incidence of 135 hospital admissions attributable to rotavirus per 100,000 children aged ≤ 5 years was found. Hospitalizations associated with rotavirus had a marked winter-time seasonality. The estimated cost of hospital admission attributable to rotavirus has risen from 3 million euros estimated for 2001 to almost 7 million euros estimated in 2005.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Rotavirus gastroenteritis remains an important cause of hospitalizations in Spanish children, mostly during the winter season.</p

Assessement of tensile strength of graphites by the iosipescu coupon test

Polycrystalline graphites are widely used in the metallurgical, nuclear and aerospace industries. Graphites are particulated composites manufactured with a mixture of coke with pitch, and changes in relative proportions of these materials cause modifications in their mechanical properties. Uniaxial tension tests must be avoided for mechanical characterization in this kind of brittle material, due to difficulties in making the relatively long specimens and premature damages caused during testing set-up. On other types of tests, e.g. bending tests, the specimens are submitted to combined stress states (normal and transverse shear stresses). The Iosipescu shear test, is performed in a beam with two 90° opposite notches machined at the mid-length of the specimens, by applying two forces couples, so that a pure and uniform shear stress state is generated at the cross section between the two notches. When a material is isotropic and brittle, a failure at 45° in relation to the beam long axis can take place, i.e., the tensile normal stress acts parallel to the lateral surface of the notches, controls the failure and the result of the shear test is numerically equivalent to the tensile strength. This work has evaluated a graphite of the type used in rocket nozzles by the Iosipescu test and the resulted stress, ~11 MPa, was found to be equal to the tensile strength. Thus, the tensile strength can be evaluated just by a single and simple experiment, thus avoiding complicated machining of specimen and testing set-up

Identification of four families of yCCR4- and Mg(2+)-dependent endonuclease-related proteins in higher eukaryotes, and characterization of orthologs of yCCR4 with a conserved leucine-rich repeat essential for hCAF1/hPOP2 binding

BACKGROUND: The yeast yCCR4 factor belongs to the CCR4-NOT transcriptional regulatory complex, in which it interacts, through its leucine-rich repeat (LRR) motif with yPOP2. Recently, yCCR4 was shown to be a component of the major cytoplasmic mRNA deadenylase complex, and to contain a fold related to the Mg(2+)-dependent endonuclease core. RESULTS: Here, we report the identification of nineteen yCCR4-related proteins in eukaryotes (including yeast, plants and animals), which all contain the yCCR4 endonuclease-like fold, with highly conserved CCR4-specific residues. Phylogenetic and genomic analyses show that they form four distinct families, one of which contains the yCCR4 orthologs. The orthologs in animals possess a leucine-rich repeat domain. We show, using two-hybrid and far-Western assays, that the human member binds to the human yPOP2 homologs, i.e. hCAF1 and hPOP2, in a LRR-dependent manner. CONCLUSIONS: We have identified the mammalian orthologs of yCCR4 and have shown that the human member binds to the human yPOP2 homologs, thus strongly suggesting conservation of the CCR4-NOT complex from yeast to human. All members of the four identified yCCR4-related protein families show stricking conservation of the endonuclease-like catalytic motifs of the yCCR4 C-terminal domain and therefore constitute a new family of potential deadenylases in mammals