Phase behavior of attractive and repulsive ramp fluids: Integral equation and computer simulation studies

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Arrested B Lymphopoiesis and Persistence of Activated B Cells in Adult Interleukin 7

This deposit is composed by a publication in which the IGC' authors have had the role of collaboration (it's a collaboration publication). This type of deposit in ARCA is in restrictedAccess (it can't be in open access to the public), and could only be accessed by two ways: either by requesting a legal copy to the author (the email contact present in this deposit) or by visiting the following link: https://f1000.com/prime/1003667Interleukin 7 is a crucial factor for the development of murine T and B lymphocytes. We now report that, in the absence of interleukin 7, B lymphocyte production takes place exclusively during fetal and perinatal life, ceasing after 7 wk of age. In peripheral organs, however, the pool of B lymphocytes is stable throughout adult life and consists only of cells that belong to the B1 and marginal zone (MZ) compartments. This is accompanied by a 50-fold increase in the frequency of immunoglobulin (Ig)M- and IgG-secreting cells, and the concentration of serum immunoglobulins is increased three- to fivefold. Both the MZ phenotype and the increase in serum IgM are T cell independent. These findings reveal a previously undescribed pathway of B lymphopoiesis that is active in early life and is interleukin 7 independent. This pathway generates B1 cells and a normal sized MZ B lymphocyte compartment

Nonlinear digital signal processing in mental health: characterization of major depression using instantaneous entropy measures of heartbeat dynamics

Nonlinear digital signal processing methods that address system complexity have provided useful computational tools for helping in the diagnosis and treatment of a wide range of pathologies. More specifically, nonlinear measures have been successful in characterizing patients with mental disorders such as Major Depression (MD). In this study, we propose the use of instantaneous measures of entropy, namely the inhomogeneous point-process approximate entropy (ipApEn) and the inhomogeneous point-process sample entropy (ipSampEn), to describe a novel characterization of MD patients undergoing affective elicitation. Because these measures are built within a nonlinear point-process model, they allow for the assessment of complexity in cardiovascular dynamics at each moment in time. Heartbeat dynamics were characterized from 48 healthy controls and 48 patients with MD while emotionally elicited through either neutral or arousing audiovisual stimuli. Experimental results coming from the arousing tasks show that ipApEn measures are able to instantaneously track heartbeat complexity as well as discern between healthy subjects and MD patients. Conversely, standard heart rate variability (HRV) analysis performed in both time and frequency domains did not show any statistical significance. We conclude that measures of entropy based on nonlinear point-process models might contribute to devising useful computational tools for care in mental health

Clinical and Genetic Characterization of Portuguese Patients with Pseudohypoparathyroidism Type Ib

Patients with pseudohypoparathyroidism type Ib (PHP-Ib) present hypocalcemia and hyperphosphatemia, as a consequence of a resistance to PTH action, through its G-protein-coupled receptor, in the renal tubules. This resistance results from tissue-specific silencing of the G-protein alpha-subunit (G(s)α), due to imprinting disruption of its encoding locus--GNAS. In familial PHP-Ib, maternally inherited deletions at the STX16 gene are associated to a regional GNAS methylation defect. In sporadic PHP-Ib, broad methylation changes at GNAS arise from unknown genetic causes. In this study, we describe the clinical presentation of PHP-Ib in four Portuguese patients (two of whom were siblings), and provide further insight for the management of patients with this disease. The diagnosis of PHP-Ib was made after detection of GNAS imprinting defects in each of the cases. In the siblings, a regional GNAS methylation change resulted from a known 3.0 kb STX16 deletion. In the other two patients, the broad methylation defects at GNAS, which were absent in their relatives, resulted from genetic alterations that remain to be identified. We report the first clinical and genetic study of Portuguese patients with PHP-Ib. The genetic identification of a hereditary form of this rare disease allowed an early diagnosis, and may prevent hypocalcemia-related complications

Intake of dairy foods and oral health: review of epidemiological data

Introduction: The relationship between diet and oral health is intriguing. Various components of milk have been suggested to be protective against oral health problems, although specific mechanisms linking dairy components to the pathogenesis of certain diseases are still unclear. Purpose: To provide an overview of the associations between intake of milk and dairy products and dental plaque, periodontal disease and tooth loss based on currently available literature. Methods: We performed a review of relevant literature with critical appraisal of those human epidemiological studies evaluating the association between intake of milk or dairy products and periodontal disease, plaque score or tooth loss among adults and elderly. Results: Nine studies were included in the review, eight of which were cross-sectional and only one applied a longitudinal design. None of the studies included institutionalised participants. Overall, reported studies suggested an inverse association between dairy intake and plaque score and periodontal disease. Results related to tooth loss were inclusive. Conclusion: The methodological quality of reviewed studies was moderate to low with only one longitudinal design. Therefore, well-designed, confounding-controlled, longitudinal studies are warranted to be able to conclude on the potential protective effect of dairy intake on periodontal disease, dental plaque and tooth loss

Arrested B Lymphopoiesis and Persistence of Activated B Cells in Adult Interleukin 7−/− Mice

Interleukin 7 is a crucial factor for the development of murine T and B lymphocytes. We now report that, in the absence of interleukin 7, B lymphocyte production takes place exclusively during fetal and perinatal life, ceasing after 7 wk of age. In peripheral organs, however, the pool of B lymphocytes is stable throughout adult life and consists only of cells that belong to the B1 and marginal zone (MZ) compartments. This is accompanied by a 50-fold increase in the frequency of immunoglobulin (Ig)M- and IgG-secreting cells, and the concentration of serum immunoglobulins is increased three- to fivefold. Both the MZ phenotype and the increase in serum IgM are T cell independent. These findings reveal a previously undescribed pathway of B lymphopoiesis that is active in early life and is interleukin 7 independent. This pathway generates B1 cells and a normal sized MZ B lymphocyte compartment

Analysis of azimuthal variation of rain attenuation

The attenuation due to rain is the main source of impairments in satellite links operating above 10 GHz. In the design of systems based on Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites, the analysis of the rain attenuation must take into account both azimuth and elevation variations. It requires a deep knowledge on the nature of this dependence. As measurements at several elevation and azimuth angles are not available, it is necessary to use prediction models that aim at reproducing the rain profiles of each link. This paper presents an analysis of the azimuth dependence of rain attenuation according to the size of the azimuthal window where this attenuation occurs. It is shown that the azimuthal rain attenuation windows smaller than 180° are few at higher elevation but their probability increases exponentially with the decreasing of the elevation

Propagação de mirtileiro por estacas lenhosas.

bitstream/item/30422/1/boletim-73.pd

Many-body symbolic dynamics of a classical oscillator chain

We study a certain type of the celebrated Fermi-Pasta-Ulam particle chain, namely the inverted FPU model, where the inter-particle potential has a form of a quartic double well. Numerical evidence is given in support of a simple symbolic description of dynamics (in the regime of sufficiently high potential barrier between the wells) in terms of an (approximate) Markov process. The corresponding transition matrix is formally identical to a ferromagnetic Heisenberg quantum spin-1/2 chain with long range coupling, whose diagonalization yields accurate estimates for a class of time correlation functions of the model.Comment: 22 pages in LaTeX with 14 figures; submitted to Nonlinearity ; corrected page offset proble