Circadian changes and sex-related differences in fetal heart rate parameters

BACKGROUND: Previous researchers have studied circadian changes in the fetal heart rate (FHR) on small sample sizes and in a strictly controlled environment. This study was undertaken to investigate these changes during the late second and third trimesters, using a portable fetal electrocardiogram recording device (Monica AN24) in pregnant women in home and hospital environments with unrestricted mobility. METHODS: This was a prospective cohort study of 54 pregnant women with uncomplicated singleton pregnancies between 25 and 40 weeks gestation. FHR recordings were made up to 16 h at home or in the hospital setting in the United Kingdom. FHR data over 90 min periods were averaged and the day (7:00 am-11:00 pm) and night (11:00 pm-7:00 am) data from the same individual were compared. Data were examined for evidence of sex-related differences. RESULTS: During the night, there was a significant reduction in basal heart rate (bFHR) and a significant increase in short term variation (STV) and long term variation (LTV) (P < 0.05). Basal FHR decreased (P < 0.002), whereas LTV increased (P = 0.014) with advancing gestation. Male fetuses showed greater day: night variation than females regardless of gestation (P = 0.014). There was a higher bFHR in fetuses monitored during the day in hospital (P = 0.04). CONCLUSION: This study demonstrates that there are sex-, environment and time-related differences in the FHR parameters measured. These differences may need to be considered taken when interpreting FHR data

HIV-2 interaction with cell coreceptors: amino acids within the V1/V2 region of viral envelope are determinant for CCR8, CCR5 and CXCR4 usage

© 2014 Santos-Costa et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.Background: Human immunodeficiency virus 1 and 2 (HIV-1 and HIV-2) use cellular receptors in distinct ways. Besides a more promiscuous usage of coreceptors by HIV-2 and a more frequent detection of CD4-independent HIV-2 isolates, we have previously identified two HIV-2 isolates (HIV-2MIC97 and HIV-2MJC97) that do not use the two major HIV coreceptors: CCR5 and CXCR4. All these features suggest that in HIV-2 the Env glycoprotein subunits may have a different structural organization enabling distinct - although probably less efficient - interactions with cellular receptors. Results: By infectivity assays using GHOST cell line expressing CD4 and CCR8 and blocking experiments using CCR8-specific ligand, I-309, we show that efficient replication of HIV-2MIC97 and HIV-2MJC97 requires the presence of CCR8 at plasma cell membrane. Additionally, we disclosed the determinants of chemokine receptor usage at the molecular level, and deciphered the amino acids involved in the usage of CCR8 (R8 phenotype) and in the switch from CCR8 to CCR5 or to CCR5/CXCR4 usage (R5 or R5X4 phenotype). The data obtained from site-directed mutagenesis clearly indicates that the main genetic determinants of coreceptor tropism are located within the V1/V2 region of Env surface glycoprotein of these two viruses. Conclusions: We conclude that a viral population able to use CCR8 and unable to infect CCR5 or CXCR4-positive cells, may exist in some HIV-2 infected individuals during an undefined time period, in the course of the asymptomatic stage of infection. This suggests that in vivo alternate molecules might contribute to HIV infection of natural target cells, at least under certain circumstances. Furthermore we provide direct and unequivocal evidence that the usage of CCR8 and the switch from R8 to R5 or R5X4 phenotype is determined by amino acids located in the base and tip of V1 and V2 loops of HIV-2 Env surface glycoprotein.This work was supported by grants from: Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT; PPCDT/SAU-IMI/55726/2004); Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia and Ministério da Saúde de Portugal (VIH/SAU/0006/2011); and from Gilead Sciences Portugal (Programa Gilead Génese).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Variability of diagnostic criteria and treatment of idiopathic nephrotic syndrome across European countries

The aim of the surveys conducted by the Idiopathic Nephrotic Syndrome Working Group of the ESPN was to study the possible variability of treatment in Europe at different stages of the disease by means of questionnaires sent to members of the Working Group. Four surveys have been completed: treatment of the first flare, treatment of the first relapse and the issue of steroid dependency, use of rituximab, and the management of steroid-resistant patients. A uniform treatment of the first flare was applied in only three countries, and ten additional centers have adopted one of the three main protocols. Reported treatment of the first relapse was relatively uniform, whereas the use of additional immunosuppressants in steroid dependency was widely variable. Rituximab had already been used in hundreds of patients, although the formal evidence of efficiency in steroid dependency was relatively recent at the time of the survey. The definition of steroid resistance was variable in the European centers, but strikingly, the first-line treatment was uniform throughout the centers and included the combination of prednisone plus calcineurin antagonists. Conclusion: The variability in the approach of idiopathic nephrotic syndrome is unexpectedly large and affects treatment of the first flare, strategies in the case of steroid dependency, as well as the definitions of steroid resistance.What is Known:• Steroids and immunosuppressants are the universal treatment of idiopathic nephrotic syndrome.What is New:• The variability of treatments and strategy of treatment in European centers of pediatric nephrology

Fixed drug eruption induced by trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole: evidence for a link to HLA-A30 B13 Cw6 haplotype.

Background. Recent reports indicated a significant association between fixed drug eruption (FDE) and HLA class I antigens. A strong correlation was found between B22 antigen and feprazone-induced FDE

Object-Oriented Application Development in CAD

This report describes a graduate interdisciplinary course offered to students in the graduate program of the School of Architecture at Carnegie Mellon and related departments in fall 2000. The motivation was the realization that when commercial CAD (Computer-Aided Design) systems recently switched from procedural application programming languages to object-oriented ones, third-party application must undergo a significant cognitive retoolingi, i. e. they must know more than the syntax and semantics of the new programming language to be used and must be able to employ appropriate software development strategies that are appropriate for the new paradigm. especially with respect to the importance of modelling, a distinguishing characteristic of object-oriented programming. The goal of the course was (a) to introduce and test strategies of object-oriented application development in general and in the context of MicroStation, a state-of-the-art commercial CAD package, (b) to develop-as a course team project-an interesting application that gives students practice with these strategies and team work, and (c) to document our approach and findings so that others can learn from them. The strategies introduced were the use-case approach of Jacobson et al. and the complementary object-modelling tools of Rumbaugh that were recently integrated into the Unified Modelling Language UML. The software platform supporting the course comprised MicroStation, JMDL (a superset of Java) and ProjectBank on the CAD side and RationalRose on the modelling side. The application developed by students in the course supports the generation of drawings for remodelling projects from a set of dgn files describing the existing state of the building to be remodeled. The course was supported by a grant and in-kind contributions from Bentley with matching funds from the Pennsylvania Infrastructure Technology Alliance (PITA).

Optimal Power Flow Using Manta Ray Foraging Optimization

The optimal power flow (OPF) stands for the problem of specifying the best-operating levels for electric power plants in order to meet demands given throughout a transmission network, usually with the objective of minimizing operating cost. Recently, the OPF has become one of the most important problems for the economic operation of modern electrical power plants. The OPF problem is a non-convex, high-dimensional optimization problem, and powerful metaheuristic optimization algorithms are needed to solve it. In this paper, manta ray foraging optimization (MRFO) was used to solve the OPF problem which takes into account the prohibited operating zones (POZs). The performance of the MRFO was tested on IEEE 30-bus test system. The results obtained from the simulations were compared with well-known optimization algorithms in the literature. The comparative results showed that the MRFO method ensures high-quality solutions for the OPF problem. © 2021, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG