Addressing Human-Elephant Conflict in the Sinharaja Forest Reserve Area: A Comprehensive Study on Landscape Design Approaches

Human-elephant conflict is a major problem in Sri Lanka which has existed since recent past times and now it has increased. Sinharaja rainforest is a tropical rainforest and it has two male elephants who have special concerns due to the limited number of wet zone elephants in Sri Lanka. Because of roads and tea plantations their natural corridors have been blocked. Therefore those elephants tend to enter residential areas and plantations. As landscaping solutions maintaining their corridors with their favourite trees and grasses leads the elephants through only the corridors and avoid entering the other areas. To join the forest fragments onboth sides of the road, an eco-bridge can be used. To enhance tourism around the forest reserve, elephantwatching stations can be established. White colour rounded or sharp stones can be used as a buffer zone.Besides, to prevent elephants from entering roads, Citrus bio fences can be established

Treatment dilemmas in asymptomatic children with primary hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis

Asymptomatic carriers (ACs) of pathogenic biallelic mutations in causative genes for primary hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis (HLH) are at high risk of developing life-threatening HLH, which requires allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) to be cured. There are no guidelines on the management of these asymptomatic patients. We analyzed the outcomes of pairs of index cases (ICs) and subsequently diagnosed asymptomatic family members carrying the same genetic defect. We collected data from 22 HSCT centers worldwide. Sixty-four children were evaluable. ICs presented with HLH at a median age of 16 months. Seven of 32 ICs died during first-line therapy, and 2 are alive after chemotherapy only. In all, 23/32 underwent HSCT, and 16 of them are alive. At a median follow-up of 36 months from diagnosis, 18/32 ICs are alive. Median age of ACs at diagnosis was 5 months. Ten of 32 ACs activated HLH while being observed, and all underwent HSCT: 6/10 are alive and in complete remission (CR). 22/32 ACs remained asymptomatic, and 6/22 have received no treatment and are in CR at a median follow-up of 39 months. Sixteen of 22 underwent preemptive HSCT: 15/16 are alive and in CR. Eight-year probability of overall survival (pOS) in ACs who did not have activated HLH was significantly higher than that in ICs (95% vs 45%; P = .02), and pOS in ACs receiving HSCT before disease activation was significantly higher than in ACs receiving HSCT after HLH activation (93% vs 64%; P = .03). Preemptive HSCT in ACs proved to be safe and should be considered

Angioscopic Evaluation of Neointimal Coverage of Coronary Stents

Drug-eluting stents (DES) reduce coronary restenosis significantly; however, late stent thrombosis (LST) occurs, which requires long-term antiplatelet therapy. Angioscopic grading of neointimal coverage of coronary stent struts was established, and it was revealed that neointimal formation is incomplete and prevalence of LST is higher in DES when compared to bare-metal stents. It was also observed that the neointima is thicker and LST is less frequent in paclitaxel-eluting and zotarolimus-eluting stents than in sirolimus-eluting stents. Many new stents were devised and they are now under experimental or clinical investigations to overcome the shortcomings of the stents that have been employed clinically. Endothelial cells are highly anti-thrombotic. Neo-endothelial cell damage is considered to be caused by friction between the cells and stent struts due to the thin neointima between them which might act as a cushion. Therefore, development of a DES that causes an appropriate thickness (around 100 μm) of the neointima is a potential option with which to prevent neo-endothelial cell damage and consequent LST while preventing restenosis

Detection of Base Substitution-Type Somatic Mosaicism of the NLRP3 Gene with >99.9% Statistical Confidence by Massively Parallel Sequencing

Chronic infantile neurological cutaneous and articular syndrome (CINCA), also known as neonatal-onset multisystem inflammatory disease (NOMID), is a dominantly inherited systemic autoinflammatory disease and is caused by a heterozygous germline gain-of-function mutation in the NLRP3 gene. We recently found a high incidence of NLRP3 somatic mosaicism in apparently mutation-negative CINCA/NOMID patients using subcloning and subsequent capillary DNA sequencing. It is important to rapidly diagnose somatic NLRP3 mosaicism to ensure proper treatment. However, this approach requires large investments of time, cost, and labour that prevent routine genetic diagnosis of low-level somatic NLRP3 mosaicism. We developed a routine pipeline to detect even a low-level allele of NLRP3 with statistical significance using massively parallel DNA sequencing. To address the critical concern of discriminating a low-level allele from sequencing errors, we first constructed error rate maps of 14 polymerase chain reaction products covering the entire coding NLRP3 exons on a Roche 454 GS-FLX sequencer from 50 control samples without mosaicism. Based on these results, we formulated a statistical confidence value for each sequence variation in each strand to discriminate sequencing errors from real genetic variation even in a low-level allele, and thereby detected base substitutions at an allele frequency as low as 1% with 99.9% or higher confidence

Recent Advances in Percutaneous Cardioscopy

Percutaneous cardioscopy, using high-resolution fiberoptic imaging, enables direct visualization of the cardiac interior, thereby enabling macroscopic pathological diagnosis. Percutaneous cardioscopy has demonstrated that the endocardial surface exhibits various colors characteristic of different heart diseases. This imaging modality can now be used for evaluation of the severity of myocardial ischemia, and staging of myocarditis. Myocardial blood flow recovery induced by vasodilating agents or percutaneous coronary interventions can be clearly visualized. Morphological and functional changes in the cardiac valves can also be evaluated. Cardioscope-guided endomyocardial biopsy enables pin-point biopsy of the diseased myocardium. Recently, dye-image cardioscopy and fluorescence cardioscopy were developed for evaluation of the subendocardial microcirculation. Cardioscope-guided intracardiac therapies such as myotomy, myectomy, valvulotomy, and transendocardial angiogenic and myogenic therapy have been trialed using animal models in anticipation of future clinical applications. Percutaneous cardioscopy has the potential to contribute to our understanding of heart disease, and to assist in guidance for intracardiac therapies

LILRA2 Selectively Modulates LPS-Mediated Cytokine Production and Inhibits Phagocytosis by Monocytes

The activating immunoglobulin-like receptor, subfamily A, member 2 (LILRA2) is primarily expressed on the surface of cells of the innate immunity including monocytes, macrophages, neutrophils, basophils and eosinophils but not on lymphocytes and NK cells. LILRA2 cross-linking on monocytes induces pro-inflammatory cytokines while inhibiting dendritic cell differentiation and antigen presentation. A similar activating receptor, LILRA4, has been shown to modulate functions of TLR7/9 in dendritic cells. These suggest a selective immune regulatory role for LILRAs during innate immune responses. However, whether LILRA2 has functions distinct from other receptors of the innate immunity including Toll-like receptor (TLR) 4 and FcγRI remains unknown. Moreover, the effects of LILRA2 on TLR4 and FcγRI-mediated monocyte functions are not elucidated. Here, we show activation of monocytes via LILRA2 cross-linking selectively increased GM-CSF production but failed to induce IL-12 and MCP-1 production that were strongly up-regulated by LPS, suggesting functions distinct from TLR4. Interestingly, LILRA2 cross-linking on monocytes induced similar amounts of IL-6, IL-8, G-CSF and MIP-1α but lower levels of TNFα, IL-1β, IL-10 and IFNγ compared to those stimulated with LPS. Furthermore, cross-linking of LILRA2 on monocytes significantly decreased phagocytosis of IgG-coated micro-beads and serum opsonized Escherichia coli but had limited effect on phagocytosis of non-opsonized bacteria. Simultaneous co-stimulation of monocytes through LILRA2 and LPS or sequential activation of monocytes through LILRA2 followed by LPS led lower levels of TNFα, IL-1β and IL-12 production compared to LPS alone, but had additive effect on levels of IL-10 and IFNγ but not on IL-6. Interestingly, LILRA2 cross-linking on monocytes caused significant inhibition of TLR4 mRNA and protein, suggesting LILRA2-mediated suppression of LPS responses might be partly via regulation of this receptor. Taken together, we provide evidence that LILRA2-mediated activation of monocytes is significantly different to LPS and that LILRA2 selectively modulates LPS-mediated monocyte activation and FcγRI-dependent phagocytosis

Separation and characterization of metallothionein in the liver of sea turtles by high performance liquid chromatographylinductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry

To investigate whether trace metals bind to metallothioneins (MTs) in the hepatocytosol of green turtles (Chelonia mydas) and hawksbill turtles (Eretmochelys imbricata), MT fraction was obtained by ultracentrifugation and gel filtration methods. MTs separated from hepatocytosol were further purified and characterized by high performance liquid chromatography/inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry. In addition, the involvement of MTs in the accumulation of trace metals in the liver of sea turtle was examine. Gel filtration analysis showed that significant amounts of Cu, Zn, Ag and Cd were bound to MT in the cytosol of sea turtles, suggesting that such trace metals were primarily detoxified by interaction with MTs in the liver. Elution profiles of these trace metals by anion-exchange chromatography were different between green turtles and hawksbill turtles. These results suggest the presence of multiple isoforms of MT in the liver of both sea turtles; however, constituents of isoforms were different between green and hawksbill turtles. In both species, we observed the elevation of the height of a specific peak in elution profile with an increase in Cu concentration in hepatocytosol. This result suggests the presence of a novel MT isoform related to copper accumulation in the liver of sea turtles

Direct Precision Measurement of the Half-Llfe of 163Ho by Isotope-Dilution Mass Spectrometry for Neutrino-Mass Determination from Electron Capture

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