Improvement in Chronic Hepatocerebral Degeneration Following Liver Transplantation

Chronic progressive hepatocerebral degeneration with spastic paraparesis, dementia, dysarthria, ataxia, tremor, and neuropsychiatric symptoms follows long-standing portal-systemic shunting, is associated with structural changes in the central nervous system, and does not respond to conventional therapy for hepatic encephalopathy. A case of advanced chronic liver disease with severe, progressive hepatocerebral degeneration after 23 yr of portal-systemic shunting is reported in whom there was significant objective improvement in intellectual function and in the chronic neurological signs 3 mo after orthotopic liver transplantation and further improvement 12 mo after transplantation

The Living Room of the Future

Emergent media services are turning towards the use of audience data to deliver more personalised and immersive experiences. We present the Living Room of the Future (LRoTF), an embodied design fiction built to both showcase future adaptive physically immersive media experiences exploiting the Internet of Things (IoT) and to probe the adoption challenges confronting their uptake in everyday life. Our results show that audiences have a predominantly positive response to the LRoTF but nevertheless entertain significant reservations about adopting adaptive physically immersive media experiences that exploit their personal data. We examine ‘user’ reasoning to elaborate a spectrum of adoption challenges that confront the uptake of adaptive physically immersive media experiences in everyday life. These challenges include data legibility, privacy concerns and potential dystopias, concerns over agency and control, the social need for customisation, value trade-off and lack of trust

Experiencing the Future Mundane

Through the design, development and implementation of the Living Room of the Future (LRoTF), we build upon existing work to progress two strands of research. The first explores how media broadcasters may utilise Object-Based Media (OBM) to provide more immersive experiences. Created in conjunction with the BBC R&D the LRofTF utilises OBM to dynamically customise television content according to audiences’ personal, contextual and derived data. OBM works by breaking media into smaller parts or ‘objects’, describing how they relate to each other semantically, and then reassembling them into personalised programmes. In addition to this media-delivery aspect, the LRoTF explores data protection issues that arise from OBM’s use of data by integrating with the privacy-enhancing Databox system. The second research focus develops understandings of Design Fiction. While the ‘World Building’ approach to Design Fiction describes strategies that place emerging technologies in potential futures, this work expands the scope of these prototypes to create a world within which audiences co-produce a ‘lived’ experience of the future as an ‘Experiential Design Fiction’. By combining the audience’s context with the fiction’s diegesis this research demonstrates a method for extrapolating today’s emerging technologies to create an immersive experience of a possible mundane reality of tomorro

Plasmodium vivax controlled human malaria infection – progress and prospects

Modern controlled human malaria infection (CHMI) clinical trials have almost entirely focussed on Plasmodium falciparum, providing a highly informative means to investigate host–pathogen interactions as well as assess potential new prophylactic and therapeutic interventions. However, in recent years, there has been renewed interest in Plasmodium vivax, with CHMI models developed by groups in Colombia, the USA, and Australia. This review summarizes the published experiences, and examines the advantages and disadvantages of the different models that initiate infection either by mosquito bite or using a blood-stage inoculum. As for P. falciparum, CHMI studies with P. vivax will provide a platform for early proof-of-concept testing of drugs and vaccines, accelerating the development of novel interventions

Relationships between blood levels of fat soluble vitamins and disease etiology and severity in adults awaiting liver transplantation

Background and Aims: Although malnutrition is common in liver disease, there are limited data on fat soluble vitamins in various diseases. The aims of this study were to: (i) determine fat soluble vitamin levels in patients assessed for liver transplantation; (ii) compare levels between different disease etiologies (hepatocellular and cholestatic) and between subgroups of hepatocellular disease; and (iii) assess the multivariate contribution to vitamin levels of etiology and various indicators of disease severity. Methods: This was a cross-sectional study of 107 inpatients awaiting liver transplantation, mean age 47years. Biochemical parameters included plasma retinol, 25-hydroxycholecalciferol, and vitamin E. Biochemical (albumin, bilirubin and zinc) and clinical indicators (Child-Pugh and Model of End Stage Liver Disease [MELD] scores) of disease severity were determined. Results: Deficiencies of retinol

Capture-recapture data Tasmanian devils, West Pencil Pine, 2006-2015

Capture-recapture data from individually marked Tasmanian devils (Sarcophilus harrisii) collected between July 2006 and November 2015 from a population in western Tasmania (West Pencil Pine, 41°31 S, 145°46 E). Records inlcude information on pouch appearance, litter size and tumour load

Dark adaptation in vitamin A-deficient adults awaiting liver transplantation: improvement with intramuscular vitamin A treatment

Background/aims: Although vitamin A deficiency is common in chronic liver disease, limited data exist on impairment of dark adaptation and response to therapy. The aims were (1) to assess dark adaptation in patients, (2) to assess the relationship between dark adaptation and vitamin A status, zinc and Child-Pugh score, (3) to compare perceived and measured dark adaptation and (4) to assess the dark adaptation response to intramuscular vitamin A. Methods: This was a prospective study of 20 patients (alcoholic liver disease 10, other parenchymal diseases six, cholestatic diseases four) awaiting liver transplantation. Selection was based on low serum retinol. There were 15 age-matched controls. Dark adaptation was measured with a SST-1 dark adaptometer and perception by questionnaire. Eight patients received 50 000 IU of retinyl palmitate, and dark adaptation was repeated at 1 month. Results: Forty per cent of patients had impaired dark adaptation. Patients with alcoholic liver disease were more impaired than those with other parenchymal diseases (p=0.015). No relationship was found between dark adaptation and the biochemical indicators or Child-Pugh score. Seventy-five per cent of patients with impairment did not perceive a problem. After intervention, light of half the previous intensity could be seen (p=0.05). Conclusions: Dark-adaptation impairment was common, was worse in alcoholic liver disease, was largely not appreciated by the patients and improved with vitamin A treatment