Electric-field induced dipole blockade with Rydberg atoms

High resolution laser Stark excitation of np (60 < n < 85) Rydberg states of ultra-cold cesium atoms shows an efficient blockade of the excitation attributed to long-range dipole-dipole interaction. The dipole blockade effect is observed as a quenching of the Rydberg excitation depending on the value of the dipole moment induced by the external electric field. Effects of eventual ions which could match the dipole blockade effect are discussed in detail but are ruled out for our experimental conditions. Analytic and Monte-Carlo simulations of the excitation of an ensemble of interacting Rydberg atoms agree with the experiments indicates a major role of the nearest neighboring Rydberg atom.Comment: 4 page

Potentially inappropriate prescribing including under-use amongst older patients with cognitive or psychiatric co-morbidities

Objective: the study aimed to determine the prevalence of and risk factors for inappropriate prescribing (IP) and prescribing omission (PO) in elderly with mental co-morbidities. Participants: one hundred fifty consecutive inpatients with mental co-morbidities hospitalised for acute medical illness (mean age 80 ± 9, 70% of women) were considered for the study. Measurements: IP and PO were prospectively indentified according to STOPP/START criteria at hospital admission. Results: over 95% were taking ≥1 medication (median = 7) which amounted to 1,137 prescriptions. The prevalence of IP was 77% and PO was 65%. The most frequent encountered IP concerned drugs adversely affecting fallers (25%) and antiaggregants therapy without atherosclerosis (14%). PO concerned antidepressants with moderate/severe depression (20%) and calcium-vitamin D supplementation (18%). Independent predictors for IP were increased number of concomitant drugs (odds ratio [OR] 1.54, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.13-1.89), being cognitively impaired (OR 1.83, 95% CI 1.55-2.24), and having fallen in the preceding 3 months (OR 2.03, 95% CI 1.52-2.61) or hospitalised in the preceding year (OR 1.09, 95% CI 1.02-1.23). Concerning PO, psychiatric disorder (OR 1.64, 95% CI 1.42-2.01) and increase level of co-morbidities (OR 1.79, 95% CI 1.48-1.99) were identified. Living in an institutional setting was a predictive maker for both IP (OR 1.45, 95% CI 1.27-1.74) and PO (OR 1.67, 95% CI 1.32-1.91). Conclusion: IP and PO were highly prevalent raising the need of a greater health literacy concerning geriatric conditions in non-geriatrician practitioners who care elderly as well as in the community, in hospital and institutional settings for improving quality and safety in prescribing medicatio

Association between conventional risk factors and different ultrasound-based markers of atherosclerosis at carotid and femoral levels in a middle-aged population

Ultrasound detection of sub-clinical atherosclerosis (ATS) may help identify individuals at high cardiovascular risk. Most studies evaluated intima-media thickness (IMT) at carotid level. We compared the relationships between main cardiovascular risk factors (CVRF) and five indicators of ATS (IMT, mean and maximal plaque thickness, mean and maximal plaque area) at both carotid and femoral levels. Ultrasound was performed on 496 participants aged 45-64years randomly selected from the general population of the Republic of Seychelles. 73.4% participants had ≥1 plaque (IMT thickening ≥1.2mm) at carotid level and 67.5% at femoral level. Variance (adjusted R2) contributed by age, sex and CVRF (smoking, LDL-cholesterol, HDL-cholesterol, blood pressure, diabetes) in predicting any of the ATS markers was larger at femoral than carotid level. At both carotid and femoral levels, the association between CVRF and ATS was stronger based on plaque-based markers than IMT. Our findings show that the associations between CVRF and ATS markers were stronger at femoral than carotid level, and with plaque-based markers rather than IMT. Pending comparison of these markers using harder cardiovascular endpoints, our findings suggest that markers based on plaque morphology assessed at femoral artery level might be useful cardiovascular risk predictor

Amplicon rearrangements during the extrachromosomal and intrachromosomal amplification process in a glioma

International audienceThe mechanisms of gene amplification in tumour cells are poorly understood and the relationship between extrachromosomal DNA molecules, named double minutes (dmins), and intrachromosomal homogeneously staining regions (hsr) is not documented at nucleotide resolution. Using fluorescent in situ hybridization and whole genome sequencing, we studied a xenografted human oligodendroglioma where the co-amplification of the EGFR and MYC loci was present in the form of dmins at early passages and of an hsr at later passages. The amplified regions underwent multiple rearrangements and deletions during the formation of the dmins and their transformation into hsr. In both forms of amplification, non-homologous end-joining and microhomology-mediated end-joining rather than replication repair mechanisms prevailed in fusions. Small fragments, some of a few tens of base pairs, were associated in contigs. They came from clusters of breakpoints localized hundreds of kilobases apart in the amplified regions. The characteristics of some pairs of junctions suggest that at least some fragments were not fused randomly but could result from the concomi-tant repair of neighbouring breakpoints during the interaction of remote DNA sequences. This characterization at nucleotide resolution of the transition between extra-and intrachromosome amplifications highlights a hitherto uncharacterized organization of the amplified regions suggesting the involvement of new mechanisms in their formation

Modalities and future prospects of gene therapy in heart transplantation

Heart transplantation is the treatment of choice for many patients with end-stage heart failure. Its success, however, is limited by organ shortage, side effects of immunosuppressive drugs, and chronic rejection. Gene therapy is conceptually appealing for applications in transplantation, as the donor organ is genetically manipulated ex vivo before transplantation. Localised expression of immunomodulatory genes aims to create a state of immune privilege within the graft, which could eliminate the need for systemic immunosuppression. In this review, recent advances in the development of gene therapy in heart transplantation are discussed. Studies in animal models have demonstrated that genetic modification of the donor heart with immunomodulatory genes attenuates ischaemia-reperfusion injury and rejection. Alternatively, bone marrow-derived cells genetically engineered with donor-type major histocompatibility complex (MHC) class I or II promote donor-specific hyporesponsiveness. Genetic engineering of naïve T cells or dendritic cells may induce regulatory T cells and regulatory dendritic cells. Despite encouraging results in animal models, however, clinical gene therapy trials in heart transplantation have not yet been started. The best vector and gene to be delivered remain to be identified. Pre-clinical studies in non-human primates are needed. Nonetheless, the potential of gene therapy as an adjunct therapy in transplantation is essentially intac

The Urine-to-Plasma Urea Concentration Ratio is associated with eGFR and eGFR decline over time in a population cohort.

BACKGROUND Evaluation of renal function and of factors associated with its decline are important public health issues. Besides markers of glomerular function (e.g., GFR), those of tubular functions are rarely evaluated. Urea, the most abundant urinary solute, is markedly concentrated in urine when compared to plasma. We explored the urine-to-plasma ratio of urea concentrateions (U/P-urea-ratio) as a marker of tubular functions. METHODS We evaluated the relationship of the U/P-urea-ratio with eGFR at baseline in 1043 participants (48±17y) from the SKIPOGH population-based cohort, using mixed regression. In 898 participants, we assessed the relation between U/P-urea-ratio and renal function decline between two study waves 3 years apart. We studied U/P ratios for osmolarity, Na, K, uric acid for comparison. RESULTS In a transversal study at baseline, eGFR was positively associated with U/P-urea-ratio (βscaled = 0.08, 95%CI[0.04;0.13]) but not with the U/P ratio of osmolarity. Considering separately participants with renal function > or ≤ 90 ml/minx1.73m2, this association was observed only in those with reduced renal function. In the longitudinal study, eGFR declined at a mean rate of 1.2 ml/min per year. A significant association was observed between baseline U/P-urea-ratio and eGFR decline (βscaled = 0.08, 95%CI[0.01;0.15]). A lower baseline U/P-urea-ratio was associated with a greater eGFR decline. CONCLUSION This study provides evidence that the U/P-urea-ratio is an early marker of kidney function decline in the general adult population. Urea is easy to measure with well-standardized techniques and at low cost. Thus, the U/P-urea-ratio could become an easily available tubular marker for evaluating renal function decline

056 Mutli-dimensional prevention program after acute coronary syndrome (ELIPS)

BackgroundGuidelines recommend pharmacologic and lifestyle interventions to reduce recurrence of events in patients with coronary and other atherosclerotic vascular disease. Based on our systematic review of tested interventions, we developed the ELIPS program, a multidimensional secondary prevention program targeting multiple cardiovascular risk factors for patients after an acute coronary syndrome (ACS). This programme targets an increase in prescription rates by physicians and/or long term medication adherence by patients.ObjectivesTo demonstrate the effectiveness of the ELIPS programme (Multi-dimEnsionaL preventIon Program after Acute coronary Syndrome), which aims at improving quality of care of patients admitted to hospital with ACS in the Swiss setting.MethodsA total of 2400 patients will be prospectively included in a multicenter study before and after the implementation of the ELIPS program with a follow-up of 12 months. The primary outcome is a composite of death from any cause, myocardial infarction, documented unstable angina requiring rehospitalization, revascularization (performed at least 30 days after randomization), and stroke. The secondary endpoints are the isolated endpoints of the primary endpoint as well as cardiovascular mortality, and surrogate outcomes such as cardiovascular risk factor control at follow-up.Expected resultsTo demonstrate the benefits of the ELIPS program on recurrence rate of cardiovascular events. These results will certainly lead to a generalization of such programs in the field of atherosclerosis

Rotation Measures of Radio Sources in Hot Galaxy Clusters

The goal of this work is to investigate the Faraday rotation measure (RM) of radio galaxies in hot galaxy clusters in order to establish a possible connection between the magnetic field strength and the gas temperature of the intracluster medium. We performed Very Large Array observations at 3.6 cm and 6 cm of two radio galaxies located in A401 and Ophiuchus, a radio galaxy in A2142, and a radio galaxy located in the background of A2065. All these galaxy clusters are characterized by high temperatures. We obtained detailed RM images at an angular resolution of 3'' for most of the observed radio galaxies. The RM images are patchy and reveal fine substructures of a few kpc in size. Under the assumption that the radio galaxies themselves have no effect on the measured RMs, these structures indicate that the intracluster magnetic fields fluctuate down to such small scales. These new data are compared with RM information present in the literature for cooler galaxy clusters. For a fixed projected distance from the cluster center, clusters with higher temperature show a higher dispersion of the RM distributions (sigmaRM), mostly because of the higher gas density in these clusters. Although the previously known relation between the clusters X-ray surface brightness (Sx) at the radio galaxy location and sigmaRM is confirmed, a possible connection between the sigmaRM-Sx relation and the cluster temperature, if present, is very weak. Therefore, in view of the current data, it is impossible to establish a strict link between the magnetic field strength and the gas temperature of the intracluster medium.Comment: Accepted by Astronomy and Astrophysics, 26 pages, 19 figure