Persistent T Cell Repertoire Perturbation and T Cell Activation in HIV After Long Term Treatment

Objective: In people living with HIV (PLHIV), we sought to test the hypothesis that long term anti-retroviral therapy restores the normal T cell repertoire, and investigate the functional relationship of residual repertoire abnormalities to persistent immune system dysregulation. Methods: We conducted a case-control study in PLHIV and HIV-negative volunteers, of circulating T cell receptor repertoires and whole blood transcriptomes by RNA sequencing, complemented by metadata from routinely collected health care records. Results: T cell receptor sequencing revealed persistent abnormalities in the clonal T cell repertoire of PLHIV, characterized by reduced repertoire diversity and oligoclonal T cell expansion correlated with elevated CD8 T cell counts. We found no evidence that these expansions were driven by cytomegalovirus or another common antigen. Increased frequency of long CDR3 sequences and reduced frequency of public sequences among the expanded clones implicated abnormal thymic selection as a contributing factor. These abnormalities in the repertoire correlated with systems level evidence of persistent T cell activation in genome-wide blood transcriptomes. Conclusions: The diversity of T cell receptor repertoires in PLHIV on long term anti-retroviral therapy remains significantly depleted, and skewed by idiosyncratic clones, partly attributable to altered thymic output and associated with T cell mediated chronic immune activation. Further investigation of thymic function and the antigenic drivers of T cell clonal selection in PLHIV are critical to efforts to fully re-establish normal immune function

Measurement of energy efficiency metrics of data centers. case study: higher education institution of Barranquilla

Data centers have become fundamental pillars of the network infrastructures of the various companies or entities regardless of their size. Since they support the processing, analysis, assurance of the data generated in the network, and by the applications in the cloud, which every day increases its volume thanks to diverse and sophisticated technologies. The management and storage of this large volume of information make the data centers consume a lot of energy, generating great concern to owners and administrators. Green Data Center (GDC) is a solution for this problem, reducing the impact produced by the data centers in the environment through the monitoring and control of these and to the application of standards-based on metrics. Although each data center has its particularities and requirements, the metrics are the tools that allow us to measure the energy efficiency of the data center and evaluate if it is friendly to the environment (1.Adv. Intell. Syst. Comput. 574:329–340). The objective of the study is to calculate these metrics in the data centers of a Higher Education Institution in Barranquilla, on both campuses, and the analysis of these will be carried out. It is planned to extend this study by reviewing several metrics to conclude, which is the most efficient and which allows defining the guidelines to update or convert the data center in a friendly environment. The research methodology used for the development of the project is descriptive and no-experimental

Quantitative Characterization of the T Cell Receptor Repertoire of Naive and Memory subsets Using an Integrated experimental and Computational Pipeline Which Is Robust, economical, and Versatile

The T cell receptor (TCR) repertoire can provide a personalized biomarker for infectious and non-infectious diseases. We describe a protocol for amplifying, sequencing, and analyzing TCRs which is robust, sensitive, and versatile. The key experimental step is ligation of a single-stranded oligonucleotide to the 3′ end of the TCR cDNA. This allows amplification of all possible rearrangements using a single set of primers per locus. It also introduces a unique molecular identifier to label each starting cDNA molecule. This molecular identifier is used to correct for sequence errors and for effects of differential PCR amplification efficiency, thus producing more accurate measures of the true TCR frequency within the sample. This integrated experimental and computational pipeline is applied to the analysis of human memory and naive subpopulations, and results in consistent measures of diversity and inequality. After error correction, the distribution of TCR sequence abundance in all subpopulations followed a power law over a wide range of values. The power law exponent differed between naïve and memory populations, but was consistent between individuals. The integrated experimental and analysis pipeline we describe is appropriate to studies of T cell responses in a broad range of physiological and pathological contexts

Impact of Bacille Calmette-Guerin Vaccination on Neuroradiological Manifestations of Pediatric Tuberculous Meningitis

The authors conducted this study to identify whether bacille Calmette-Guerin (BCG) vaccination leads to an altered spectrum of neuroimaging findings outcome in pediatric Patients with tuberculous meningitis. This retrospective study was conducted through chart review and review of computed tomography (CT) scans and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of Patients with confirmed central nervous system tuberculosis from the year 1992 to 2005, at a large tertiary care hospital in Karachi, Pakistan. A total of 108 pediatric Patients with tuberculous meningitis were included in the analysis. Of the 108 Patients, 63 (58.3%) were male and 45 (41.7%) had received bacille Calmette-Guerin vaccination. There was no difference in terms of severity of clinical presentation and outcome between vaccinated and unvaccinated group. There were no significant differences in CT or MRI findings between the 2 groups except for tuberculomas on MRI, which were significantly higher in the non-bacille Calmette-Guerin vaccinated group (52.2% vs 22.7%, P = .042). Bacille Calmette-Guerin vaccination appears to translate into less tuberculoma formation on MRI

Decadal changes of the Western Arabian sea ecosystem

Historical data from oceanographic expeditions and remotely sensed data on outgoing longwave radiation, temperature, wind speed and ocean color in the western Arabian Sea (1950–2010) were used to investigate decadal trends in the physical and biochemical properties of the upper 300 m. 72 % of the 29,043 vertical profiles retrieved originated from USA and UK expeditions. Increasing outgoing longwave radiation, surface air temperatures and sea surface temperature were identified on decadal timescales. These were well correlated with decreasing wind speeds associated with a reduced Siberian High atmospheric anomaly. Shoaling of the oxycline and nitracline was observed as well as acidification of the upper 300 m. These physical and chemical changes were accompanied by declining chlorophyll-a concentrations, vertical macrofaunal habitat compression, declining sardine landings and an increase of fish kill incidents along the Omani coast

Do You See What I Mean? Corticospinal Excitability During Observation of Culture-Specific Gestures

People all over the world use their hands to communicate expressively. Autonomous gestures, also known as emblems, are highly social in nature, and convey conventionalized meaning without accompanying speech. To study the neural bases of cross-cultural social communication, we used single pulse transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to measure corticospinal excitability (CSE) during observation of culture-specific emblems. Foreign Nicaraguan and familiar American emblems as well as meaningless control gestures were performed by both a Euro-American and a Nicaraguan actor. Euro-American participants demonstrated higher CSE during observation of the American compared to the Nicaraguan actor. This motor resonance phenomenon may reflect ethnic and cultural ingroup familiarity effects. However, participants also demonstrated a nearly significant (p = 0.053) actor by emblem interaction whereby both Nicaraguan and American emblems performed by the American actor elicited similar CSE, whereas Nicaraguan emblems performed by the Nicaraguan actor yielded higher CSE than American emblems. The latter result cannot be interpreted simply as an effect of ethnic ingroup familiarity. Thus, a likely explanation of these findings is that motor resonance is modulated by interacting biological and cultural factors

Illness perceptions and explanatory models of viral hepatitis B & C among immigrants and refugees: a narrative systematic review.

© 2015 Owiti et al.; licensee BioMed Central. 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: Hepatitis B and C (HBV, HCV) infections are associated with high morbidity and mortality. Many countries with traditionally low prevalence (such as UK) are now planning interventions (screening, vaccination, and treatment) of high-risk immigrants from countries with high prevalence. This review aimed to synthesise the evidence on immigrants' knowledge of HBV and HCV that might influence the uptake of clinical interventions. The review was also used to inform the design and successful delivery of a randomised controlled trial of targeted screening and treatment. METHODS: Five databases (PubMed, CINHAL, SOCIOFILE, PsycINFO & Web of Science) were systematically searched, supplemented by reference tracking, searches of selected journals, and of relevant websites. We aimed to identify qualitative and quantitative studies that investigated knowledge of HBV and HCV among immigrants from high endemic areas to low endemic areas. Evidence, extracted according to a conceptual framework of Kleinman's explanatory model, was subjected to narrative synthesis. We adapted the PEN-3 model to categorise and analyse themes, and recommend strategies for interventions to influence help-seeking behaviour. RESULTS: We identified 51 publications including quantitative (n = 39), qualitative (n = 11), and mixed methods (n = 1) designs. Most of the quantitative studies included small samples and had heterogeneous methods and outcomes. The studies mainly concentrated on hepatitis B and ethnic groups of South East Asian immigrants residing in USA, Canada, and Australia. Many immigrants lacked adequate knowledge of aetiology, symptoms, transmission risk factors, prevention strategies, and treatment, of hepatitis HBV and HCV. Ethnicity, gender, better education, higher income, and English proficiency influenced variations in levels and forms of knowledge. CONCLUSION: Immigrants are vulnerable to HBV and HCV, and risk life-threatening complications from these infections because of poor knowledge and help-seeking behaviour. Primary studies in this area are extremely diverse and of variable quality precluding meta-analysis. Further research is needed outside North America and Australia

Numerical study of chemical reaction effects in magnetohydrodynamic Oldroyd B oblique stagnation flow with a non-Fourier heat flux model

Reactive magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) flows arise in many areas of nuclear reactor transport. Working fluids in such systems may be either Newtonian or non-Newtonian. Motivated by these applications, in the current study, a mathematical model is developed for electrically-conducting viscoelastic oblique flow impinging on stretching wall under transverse magnetic field. A non-Fourier Cattaneo-Christov model is employed to simulate thermal relaxation effects which cannot be simulated with the classical Fourier heat conduction approach. The Oldroyd-B non-Newtonian model is employed which allows relaxation and retardation effects to be included. A convective boundary condition is imposed at the wall invoking Biot number effects. The fluid is assumed to be chemically reactive and both homogeneous-heterogeneous reactions are studied. The conservation equations for mass, momentum, energy and species (concentration) are altered with applicable similarity variables and the emerging strongly coupled, nonlinear non-dimensional boundary value problem is solved with robust well-tested Runge-Kutta-Fehlberg numerical quadrature and a shooting technique with tolerance level of 10−4. Validation with the Adomian decomposition method (ADM) is included. The influence of selected thermal (Biot number, Prandtl number), viscoelastic hydrodynamic (Deborah relaxation number), Schmidt number, magnetic parameter and chemical reaction parameters, on velocity, temperature and concentration distributions are plotted for fixed values of geometric (stretching rate, obliqueness) and thermal relaxation parameter. Wall heat transfer rate (local heat flux) and wall species transfer rate (local mass flux) are also computed and it is observed that local mass flux increases with strength of heterogeneous reactions whereas it decreases with strength of homogeneous reactions. The results provide interesting insights into certain nuclear reactor transport phenomena and furthermore a benchmark for more general CFD simulations

f(R) theories

Over the past decade, f(R) theories have been extensively studied as one of the simplest modifications to General Relativity. In this article we review various applications of f(R) theories to cosmology and gravity - such as inflation, dark energy, local gravity constraints, cosmological perturbations, and spherically symmetric solutions in weak and strong gravitational backgrounds. We present a number of ways to distinguish those theories from General Relativity observationally and experimentally. We also discuss the extension to other modified gravity theories such as Brans-Dicke theory and Gauss-Bonnet gravity, and address models that can satisfy both cosmological and local gravity constraints.Comment: 156 pages, 14 figures, Invited review article in Living Reviews in Relativity, Published version, Comments are welcom