Mild traumatic brain injury during infancy: Executive function and behavioural outcomes 24 months post-injury

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a leading cause of death and disability for children and young people worldwide. Research has found that children in infancy and early childhood are at the highest risk of sustaining a TBI; and that mild TBI accounts for a large majority of these injuries. Unfortunately, there is limited research regarding the effects of TBI in this age group; and population-based studies are undertaken rarely. Most of the paediatric TBI research also focuses on school-aged children; and thus the effects of TBI sustained in infancy are not yet well understood. The main aim of this study was to investigate whether preschool children who have sustained a mild TBI would perform differently to healthy children in executive function (EF), with a particular focus on working memory and inhibitory control. A secondary aim was to investigate whether preschool children who have sustained a mild TBI would differ to healthy children in behavioural/emotional functioning. The investigation involved a population-based sample of 24 children who sustained a mild TBI between the ages of 0-2 years old. 24 children who had not had a TBI were also recruited as an age-matched comparison group. Assessments involved both parents and their children; and were conducted approximately 24 months post-injury. Parents completed the Behaviour Rating Inventory of Executive Function – Preschool Version (BRIEF-P); and the Behaviour Assessment System for Children, Second Edition (BASC-2). Children were also assessed using performance-based measures of EF such as the Delayed Alternation task - which measures working memory; and the Colour-Object Interference task - which measures inhibitory control. Results showed that children with and without mild TBI were characterised by similar EF abilities, including working memory and EF behaviours. In contrast, more children in the injury group (22.7% of the TBI sample) had clinically significant internalising behaviour problems (anxiety, depression and somatisation) as rated by their parents. These results indicate the need for children who have had a mild TBI to be screened for possible behavioural/emotional difficulties; and for interventions to be implemented as needed. Additional support for parents/caregivers may also be necessary. While no differences were observed between the two groups in EF at the time of assessment, it is recommended that longer-term studies are conducted

Honey as an antiviral agent against respiratory syncytial virus

Respiratory syncytial virus is the most frequent cause of hospitalization for viral respiratory infections in infants and young children worldwide. It also severely affects immunocompromised adults and the elderly, however, despite decades of efforts, there is no proven effective treatment for RSV infection and attempts at vaccine development have been hampered by several major obstacles. A large amount of research has established the potent antibacterial activity of honey, but its activity against viral species has been the subject of only a small number of studies. These were with viruses which cause localised infections in which honey could be used topically. Recent studies demonstrating the safety of intrapulmonary administration of honey in sheep and humans raised the possibility of using honey to treat respiratory infections. The aim of this study, therefore, was to extend the knowledge obtained from previous studies of honey’s antiviral activity to its action against RSV. A variety of tests using cell culture were developed to evaluate the susceptibility of RSV to honey. Each test monitored and scored the development of morphological changes to the cells caused by RSV infection to determine whether the honey had any inhibitory effect on these changes. These included tests for: inhibition, where honey was used to treat infected cells; protection, in which the cells were treated with honey prior to infection; neutralisation, in which the virus was directly exposed to the honey for a defined period before being used to inoculate the cells. Pre-treatment of the cells had no effect on the consequent development of cytopathic effect, while the inhibition and neutralisation experiments showed a significant inhibitory effect on the progression of infection, suggesting a direct effect on the virus rather than on the cells, however, further studies are required to confirm this. A wide range of honey types were tested for their inhibitory and neutralising capabilities against RSV and the results suggested that the antiviral activity may be characteristic of more than one type of honey. The activity observed did vary, however, with some types of honey causing greater inhibition of RSV than others. Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays were also used to quantitatively measure the number of viral antigens in honey-treated and untreated cells. The results confirmed that treatment with honey had caused inhibition of viral replication, there being very little virus detected in honey-treated cells compared with untreated cells infected with RSV. Experiments using quantitative PCR also demonstrated the inhibitory effect of honey on RSV at the transcription level, with significant differences in the mRNA copy numbers of two out of the three viral genes examined. Attempts at isolating the antiviral component in honey demonstrated that the sugar was not responsible for the inhibition of RSV, but that methylglyoxal may play a part in the greater potency of Manuka honeys against RSV. It is concluded from the findings in this study that honey may possibly be an effective antiviral treatment for the therapy of respiratory viral infections, and provides justification for future in vitro studies and clinical trials

Design and Analysis of SMA-Based Tendon for Marine Structures

A tension-leg platform (TLP), as an offshore structure, is a vertically moored floating structure, connecting to tendon groups, fixed to subsea by foundations, to eliminate its vertical movements. TLPs are subjected to various non-deterministic loadings, including winds, currents, and ground motions, keeping the tendons under ongoing cyclic tensions. The powerful loads can affect the characteristics of tendons and cause permanent deformation. As a result of exceeding the strain beyond the elastic phase of the tendons, it makes unbalancing on the floated TLPs. Shape memory alloy (SMA)-based tendons due to their superelasticity properties may potentially resolve such problem in TLP structures. In the present work, performance and functionality of SMA wire, as the main component of SMA-based tendon under cyclic loading, have been experimentally investigated. It shows a significant enhancement in recovering large deformation and reduces the amount of permanent deformation

The Recent Advances in Magnetorheological Fluids-Based Applications

The magnetorheological fluids (MRF) are a generation of smart fluids with the ability to alter their variable viscosity. Moreover, the state of the MRF can be switched from the semisolid to the fluid phase and vice versa upon applying or removing the magnetic field. The fast response and the controllability are the main features of the MRF-based systems, which make them suitable for applications with high sensitivity and controllability requirements. Nowadays, MRF-based systems are rapidly growing and widely being used in many industries such as civil, aerospace, and automotive. This study presents a comprehensive review to investigate the fundamentals of MRF and manufacturing and applications of MRF-based systems. According to the existing works and current and future demands for MRF-based systems, the trend for future research in this field is recommended

Presentation an Approach for Placement Phase in Mapping Algorithm

The data requirements of both scientific and commercial applications have been increasing drastically in recent years. Just a couple of years ago, the data requirements for an average scientific application were measured in terabytes, whereas today we use petabytes to measure them. Moreover, these data requirements continue to increase rapidly every year, and in less than a decade they are expected to reach the exabyte (1 million terabytes) scale.. In this work, the data duplication technique has not been used by us. That’s because of increase in costs and expenses of using a cloud system.In this paper, an approach to mapping workflow tasks and data between cloud system data centers has been presented. This approach encompasses 2 phases: both of which both have been given enough input to appropriately map tasks and data between data centers in such a way that the total time for task execution and data movement becomes minimal. In other words, the goal of mentioned approach is to present a trade-off between these two Goals. Simulations have demonstrated that the said approach can fulfill stated goals effectively. Keywords:Distributed system, scientific application, application, data requirement