Neurocognition and quality of life after reinitiating antiretroviral therapy in children randomized to planned treatment interruption

Objective: Understanding the effects of antiretroviral treatment (ART) interruption on neurocognition and quality of life (QoL) are important for managing unplanned interruptions and planned interruptions in HIV cure research. Design: Children previously randomized to continuous (continuous ART, n=41) vs. planned treatment interruption (PTI, n=47) in the Pediatric European Network for Treatment of AIDS (PENTA) 11 study were enrolled. At study end, PTI children resumed ART. At 1 and 2 years following study end, children were assessed by the coding, symbol search and digit span subtests of Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (6-16 years old) or Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale ( 6517 years old) and by Pediatrics QoL questionnaires for physical and psychological QoL. Transformed scaled scores for neurocognition and mean standardized scores for QoL were compared between arms by t-test and Mann-Whitney U test, respectively. Scores indicating clinical concern were compared (<7 for neurocognition and <70 for QoL tests). Results: Characteristics were similar between arms with a median age of 12.6 years, CD4 + of 830 cells/\u3bcl and HIV RNA of 1.7 log 10 copies/ml. The median cumulative ART exposure was 9.6 in continuous ART vs. 7.7 years in PTI (P=0.02). PTI children had a median of 12 months off ART and had resumed ART for 25.2 months at time of first assessment. Neurocognitive scores were similar between arms for all tests. Physical and psychological QoL scores were no different. About 40% had low neurocognitive and QoL scores indicating clinical concern. Conclusion: No differences in information processing speed, sustained attention, short-term memory and QoL functioning were observed between children previously randomized to continuous ART vs. PTI in the PENTA 11 trial

Thermal rupture of a free liquid sheet

We consider a free liquid sheet, taking into account the dependence of surface tension on the temperature or concentration of some pollutant. The sheet dynamics are described within a long-wavelength description. In the presence of viscosity, local thinning of the sheet is driven by a strong temperature gradient across the pinch region, resembling a shock. As a result, for long times the sheet thins exponentially, leading to breakup. We describe the quasi-one-dimensional thickness, velocity and temperature profiles in the pinch region in terms of similarity solutions, which possess a universal structure. Our analytical description agrees quantitatively with numerical simulations

Stability, Instability, and bifurcation in electrified thin films

In this paper, we consider an electrified thin film equation with periodic boundary conditions. When an applied voltage is sufficiently small after a finite time, we prove the global existence of unique solutions around positive constant steady states and study the asymptotic behavior of the solutions. On the other hand, when the applied voltage is constant and sufficiently large, we prove that the solutions around the constant steady states are unstable. Moreover, we prove the existence of infinitely many curves of nontrivial steady states of the electrified thin film equation around positive constant solutions at certain positive values of the voltage. Finally, as the applied voltage passes through the first bifurcation value, we obtain a unique global-in-time solution with an initially perturbed domain around nontrivial steady states which come from the first bifurcation curve, and we show that the solutions exponentially converge to the nontrivial steady-state solutions as time goes to infinity.11sciescopu

Asymptotic decay and non-rupture of viscous sheets

For a nonlinear system of coupled PDEs, that describes evolution of a viscous thin liquid sheet and takes account of surface tension at the free surface, we show exponential (H1, L2) asymptotic decay to the flat profile of its solutions considered with general initial data. Additionally, by transforming the system to Lagrangian coordinates we show that the minimal thickness of the sheet stays positive for all times. This result proves the conjecture formally accepted in the physical literature (cf. Eggers and Fontelos in Singularities: formation, structure, and propagation. Cambridge Texts in Applied Mathematics, Cambridge, 2015), that a viscous sheet cannot rupture in finite time in the absence of external forcing. Moreover, in the absence of surface tension we find a special class of initial data for which the Lagrangian solution exhibits L2-exponential decay to the flat profile