Temperaturregulationsstörungen im Kindesalter: Nur Feind oder auch Freund?

Zusammenfassung: Hintergrund: Risikofaktoren, welche zu Unterkühlungen oder Hitzekrankheiten führen können, bleiben im klinischen Alltag häufig unbeachtet und führen zu vermeidbarer Morbidität. Dies gilt für postnatale oder perioperative Hypothermie oder für Hyperthermie bei Adoleszenten im Spitzensport, bei Dehydratation oder beim "drug fever". Behandlung: Zur Therapie gehört nicht nur die Wiederherstellung der Normothermie, sondern auch die Korrektur pathophysiologischer Entgleisungen v.a. bei Hypothermie mit Scheintod und beim Hitzschlag mit "multiple organ dysfunction syndrome". Hypo- und Hyperthermie treten auch im Rahmen diverser Grundleiden auf, wobei sich die Frage nach der anzustrebenden Körpertemperatur stellt. Normothermie erscheint sinnvoll in Situationen, in welchen abnorme Körpertemperatur mit Morbidität assoziiert ist, z.B. bei Hypothermie im Rahmen von Sepsis, Trauma oder schwerer Herzinsuffizienz und bei Hyperthermie nach perinataler Asphyxie, Hirnschlag, Hirnblutung oder Schädel-Hirn-Trauma. Abnorme Körpertemperaturen können bei gewissen Erkrankungen aber auch zur Verbesserung des Behandungsergebnisses beitragen, wie Fieber im Infekt oder therapeutische Hypothermie als Standardtherapie nach perinataler Asphyxie oder Herz-Kreislauf-Stillstan

Respiratory distress syndrome in near-term babies after caesarean section.

Severe respiratory distress syndrome (RDS) caused by surfactant deficiency is described not only in preterm infants but also in (near-) term babies after caesarean section (CS), especially when carried out before the onset of labour. The aim of the present study was to document the severity of this theoretically avoidable entity in order to improve obstetric and perinatal care. All neonates admitted to the paediatric intensive care unit of the University Hospital of Bern between 1988 and 2000 with RDS on the basis of hyaline membrane disease (HMD) needing mechanical ventilation (MV) after CS and with a birthweight > or = 2500 g were analysed. HMD was diagnosed when respiratory distress and the typical radiological signs were present. Patients were grouped into elective CS before onset of labour and before rupture of membranes (group 1, n = 34) and patients delivered by emergency CS or CS after onset of labour or rupture of membranes (group 2, n = 22). Analysed indices for severity of illness were duration of stay in intensive care unit and MV, ventilation mode, worst oxygenation index (OI), presence of pulmonary air leak, and systemic hypotension. Mean gestational age (GA) was 37 2/7 weeks in group 1 and 36 2/7 weeks in group 2; no patient had a GA of > or = 39 0/7 weeks. Duration of MV was 4.4 days in group 1 and 3.9 days in group 2. Thirteen patients (38%) of group 1 and 7 (32%) of group 2 had to be managed by rescue high-frequency ventilation. A total of 7 patients had an OI>40. Eight patients (24%) in group 1 and 4 (18%) in group 2 developed a pulmonary air leak. Fourteen neonates (41%) in group 1 had to be supported by catecholamines versus 5 (22%) in group 2. There was one death in group 1. Severe RDS on the basis of HMD can also occur in near-term babies after CS; even a fatal outcome can not be excluded. The severity of illness in elective CS without labour may be quite high and is comparable to newborns delivered by CS (after onset of labour and/or rupture of the membranes) who were 1 week younger. No case of HMD was found in our population when CS was carried out after completion of 39 post-menstrual weeks of gestation

Fragment Isospin as a Probe of Heavy-Ion Collisions

Isotope ratios of fragments produced at mid-rapidity in peripheral and central collisions of 114Cd ions with 92Mo and 98Mo target nuclei at E/A = 50 MeV are compared. Neutron-rich isotopes are preferentially produced in central collisions as compared to peripheral collisions. The influence of the size (A), density, N/Z, E*/A, and Eflow/A of the emitting source on the measured isotope ratios was explored by comparison with a statistical model (SMM). The mid-rapidity region associated with peripheral collisions does not appear to be neutron-enriched relative to central collisions.Comment: 12 pages including figure

The deep propagating gravity wave experiment (deepwave): an airborne and ground-based exploration of gravity wave propagation and effects from their sources throughout the lower and middle atmosphere

Abstract The Deep Propagating Gravity Wave Experiment (DEEPWAVE) was designed to quantify gravity wave (GW) dynamics and effects from orographic and other sources to regions of dissipation at high altitudes. The core DEEPWAVE field phase took place from May through July 2014 using a comprehensive suite of airborne and ground-based instruments providing measurements from Earth’s surface to ∼100 km. Austral winter was chosen to observe deep GW propagation to high altitudes. DEEPWAVE was based on South Island, New Zealand, to provide access to the New Zealand and Tasmanian “hotspots” of GW activity and additional GW sources over the Southern Ocean and Tasman Sea. To observe GWs up to ∼100 km, DEEPWAVE utilized three new instruments built specifically for the National Science Foundation (NSF)/National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) Gulfstream V (GV): a Rayleigh lidar, a sodium resonance lidar, and an advanced mesosphere temperature mapper. These measurements were supplemented by in situ probes, dropsondes, and a microwave temperature profiler on the GV and by in situ probes and a Doppler lidar aboard the German DLR Falcon. Extensive ground-based instrumentation and radiosondes were deployed on South Island, Tasmania, and Southern Ocean islands. Deep orographic GWs were a primary target but multiple flights also observed deep GWs arising from deep convection, jet streams, and frontal systems. Highlights include the following: 1) strong orographic GW forcing accompanying strong cross-mountain flows, 2) strong high-altitude responses even when orographic forcing was weak, 3) large-scale GWs at high altitudes arising from jet stream sources, and 4) significant flight-level energy fluxes and often very large momentum fluxes at high altitudes.David C. Fritts, Ronald B. Smith, Michael J. Taylor, James D. Doyle, Stephen D. Eckermann, Andreas Dörnbrack, Markus Rapp, Bifffford P. Williams, P.-Dominique Pautet, Katrina Bossert, Neal R. Criddddle, Carolyn A. Reynolds, P. Alex Reinecke, Michael Uddddstrom, Michael J. Revell, Richard Turner, Bernd Kaifler, Johannes S. Wagner, Tyler Mixa, Christopher G. Kruse, Alison D. Nugent, Campbell D. Watson, Sonja Gisinger, Steven M. Smith, Ruth S. Lieberman, Brian Laughman, James J. Moore, William O. Brown, Julie A. Haggerty, Alison Rockwell, Gregory J. Stossmeister, Steven F. Williams, Gonzalo Hernandez, Damian J. Murphy, Andrew R. Klekociuk, Iain M. Reid, and Jun M

Carrier relaxation, pseudogap, and superconducting gap in high-Tc cuprates: A Raman scattering study

We describe results of electronic Raman-scattering experiments in differently doped single crystals of Y-123 and Bi-2212. The comparison of AF insulating and metallic samples suggests that at least the low-energy part of the spectra originates predominantly from excitations of free carriers. We therefore propose an analysis of the data in terms of a memory function approach. Dynamical scattering rates and mass-enhancement factors for the carriers are obtained. In B2g symmetry the Raman data compare well to the results obtained from ordinary and optical transport. For underdoped materials the dc scattering rates in B1g symmetry become temperature independent and considerably larger than in B2g symmetry. This increasing anisotropy is accompanied by a loss of spectral weight in B2g symmetry in the range between the superconducting transition at Tc and a characteristic temperature T* of order room temperature which compares well with the pseudogap temperature found in other experiments. The energy range affected by the pseudogap is doping and temperature independent. The integrated spectral loss is approximately 25% in underdoped samples and becomes much weaker towards higher carrier concentration. In underdoped samples, superconductivity related features in the spectra can be observed only in B2g symmetry. The peak frequencies scale with Tc. We do not find a direct relation between the pseudogap and the superconducting gap.Comment: RevTeX, 21 pages, 24 gif figures. For PostScript with embedded eps figures, see http://www.wmi.badw-muenchen.de/~opel/k2.htm

SPACA3gene variants in a New Zealand cohort of infertile and fertile couples

SPRASA (also referred to as SLLP1) is a protein identified in the acrosome of human sperm and encoded by the gene SPACA3. SPRASA is associated with sperm-oocyte recognition and binding, and may play a role in fertility. In order to determine whether variants in the SPACA3 gene are associated with human infertility, we undertook a genetic analysis of 102 infertile and 104 fertile couples. Three gene variants were identified using PCR-based DNA sequencing; 1) an insertion of TGC within a quadruple tri-nucleotide (TGC) repeat region in the 5’ untranslated region (UTR) (g.–22TGC(4_5), 2) a guanine to adenosine transition at position 239 (c.239G> A) resulting in a non-synonymous amino acid substitution from cysteine to tyrosine (p.C80Y) at position 80 in the putative transmembrane region, and 3) a novel nucleotide variant (c.691G> C) located in the 3’UTR. A functional effect of the g.–22TGC (4_5) was confirmed by a luciferase expression assay, while the effects of the variants c.239G> A and c.691G> C were predicted using in silico analysis. Although the frequencies of these variants were not significantly different between the infertile and fertile populations, we present evidence that the variants could affect the expression levels or function of SPRASA, thereby affecting a couple's fertility. Larger populations, especially individuals/couples with unexplained infertility, need to be screened for these variants to validate a relationship with fertility

Field Theory Approaches to Nonequilibrium Dynamics

It is explained how field-theoretic methods and the dynamic renormalisation group (RG) can be applied to study the universal scaling properties of systems that either undergo a continuous phase transition or display generic scale invariance, both near and far from thermal equilibrium. Part 1 introduces the response functional field theory representation of (nonlinear) Langevin equations. The RG is employed to compute the scaling exponents for several universality classes governing the critical dynamics near second-order phase transitions in equilibrium. The effects of reversible mode-coupling terms, quenching from random initial conditions to the critical point, and violating the detailed balance constraints are briefly discussed. It is shown how the same formalism can be applied to nonequilibrium systems such as driven diffusive lattice gases. Part 2 describes how the master equation for stochastic particle reaction processes can be mapped onto a field theory action. The RG is then used to analyse simple diffusion-limited annihilation reactions as well as generic continuous transitions from active to inactive, absorbing states, which are characterised by the power laws of (critical) directed percolation. Certain other important universality classes are mentioned, and some open issues are listed.Comment: 54 pages, 9 figures, Lecture Notes for Luxembourg Summer School "Ageing and the Glass Transition", submitted to Springer Lecture Notes in Physics (www.springeronline/com/series/5304/

Phosphorothioate antisense oligonucleotides induce the formation of nuclear bodies

Antisense oligonucleotides are powerful tools for the in vivo regulation of gene expression. We have characterized the intracellular distribution of fluorescently tagged phosphorothioate oligodeoxynucleotides (PS-ONs) at high resolution under conditions in which PS-ONs have the potential to display antisense activity. Under these conditions PS-ONs predominantly localized to the cell nucleus where they accumulated in 20-30 bright spherical foci designated phosphorothioate bodies (PS bodies), which were set against a diffuse nucleoplasmic population excluding nucleoli. PS bodies are nuclear structures that formed in cells after PS-ON delivery by transfection agents or microinjection but were observed irrespectively of antisense activity or sequence. Ultrastructurally, PS bodies corresponded to electron-dense structures of 150-300 nm diameter and resembled nuclear bodies that were found with lower frequency in cells lacking PS-ONs. The environment of a living cell was required for the de novo formation of PS bodies, which occurred within minutes after the introduction of PS-ONs. PS bodies were stable entities that underwent noticeable reorganization only during mitosis. Upon exit from mitosis, PS bodies were assembled de novo from diffuse PS-ON pools in the daughter nuclei. In situ fractionation demonstrated an association of PS-ONs with the nuclear matrix. Taken together, our data provide evidence for the formation of a nuclear body in cells after introduction of phosphorothioate oligodeoxynucleotides

Current Knowledge and Priorities for Future Research in Late Effects after Hematopoietic Cell Transplantation for Inherited Bone Marrow Failure Syndromes: Consensus Statement from the Second Pediatric Blood and Marrow Transplant Consortium International Conference on Late Effects after Pediatric Hematopoietic Cell Transplantation

Transplantation and immunomodulatio

Search for a W' boson decaying to a bottom quark and a top quark in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV

Results are presented from a search for a W' boson using a dataset corresponding to 5.0 inverse femtobarns of integrated luminosity collected during 2011 by the CMS experiment at the LHC in pp collisions at sqrt(s)=7 TeV. The W' boson is modeled as a heavy W boson, but different scenarios for the couplings to fermions are considered, involving both left-handed and right-handed chiral projections of the fermions, as well as an arbitrary mixture of the two. The search is performed in the decay channel W' to t b, leading to a final state signature with a single lepton (e, mu), missing transverse energy, and jets, at least one of which is tagged as a b-jet. A W' boson that couples to fermions with the same coupling constant as the W, but to the right-handed rather than left-handed chiral projections, is excluded for masses below 1.85 TeV at the 95% confidence level. For the first time using LHC data, constraints on the W' gauge coupling for a set of left- and right-handed coupling combinations have been placed. These results represent a significant improvement over previously published limits.Comment: Submitted to Physics Letters B. Replaced with version publishe