Introduction: Prazosin is an antihypertensive medication which can be used to help with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms. Little data is currently available on its safety in pregnancy. Objective: To assess the fetal and pregnancy safety associated with Prazosin exposures in early Pregnancy. Methods: Subjects were 11 patients who took Prazosin during pregnancy and were counselled at the FRAME clinic in London Health Sciences Centre (Ontario, Canada) between January 1, 2000 to December 31, 2021. Data on their other exposures and pregnancy outcomes were collected from medical records and through telephone questionnaires. Results: It was found that 6 /11 (54.5%) subjects did not report any adverse outcomes and were uneventful pregnancies. There were 2 miscarriages. Birthweights were within the normal range for the remaining 9 pregnancies. Adverse events reported were consistent with background population expectation, including: 1 postpartum hemorrhage, 1 case of preeclampsia, 1 preterm birth, 2 NICU admissions, and 2 caesarean sections. Discussion / Conclusion: For these 11 subjects, pregnancy outcomes after exposure to Prazosin were consistent with typical outcomes from unexposed pregnancies. More data are needed to conclude that Prazosin is safe for use in pregnant subjects. However, the lack of adverse effects above baseline is reassuring to future patients who may be unintentionally exposed to Prazosin while pregnant. Therefore, this study contributes valuable data toward monitoring safety of Prazosin in Pregnancy.

Objective: There are some concerns regarding long-term complications of COVID-19 in children. A systematic review and meta-analysis was performed evaluating the respiratory symptoms and pulmonary function, post-SARS-CoV-2 infection. Methods: A systematic search was performed in databases up to 30 December 2022 . Studies evaluating respiratory symptoms and pulmonary function after COVID-19 infection in children were selected. The major outcomes were frequency of respiratory symptoms and mean of spirometry parameters. Pooled mean with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) was calculated. Results: A total of 6 articles with 272 patients were included in meta-analysis. Dyspnea and cough were the most common symptoms. The meta-mean of forced expiratory volume (FEV1) and forced vital capacity (FVC) was 101.72%, 95% CI= (98.72, 104.73) and 101.31 %, 95% CI= (95.44, 107.18) respectively. The meta-mean of FEV1/FVC and Forced expiratory flow at 25 and 75% was 96.16 %, 95% CI= (90.47, 101.85) and 105.05 %, 95% CI= (101.74, 108.36) respectively. The meta-mean of diffusing capacity for carbon monoxide was 105.30%, 95%CI= (88.12, 122.49). There was no significant difference in spirometry parameters before and after bronchodilator inhalation. Conclusions: Despite of some clinical respiratory symptoms, meta-results showed no abnormality in pulmonary function in follow-up of children with SARS-CoV-2 infection. Disease severity and asthma background had not confounded this outcome.

TEM horn antennas are used in ultra-wide-band high-power applications. High reflected peak powers can threat and damage the pulse generators. In this work, the peak power of the reflected pulse is reduced by loading series LC circuits at the endings of a linearly-tapered TEM horn antenna. Blend edges at the endings are also applied. The influences of the blend edges and LC components on the reflected pulse and radiation performances are simulated using CST MS Studio. The dispersive propagation of the wave caused by the loaded LC components is considered as the mechanism of the reduction of the peak power of the reflected pulse, which is effectively reduced by 45%. Meanwhile the peak-to-peak voltage monitored at a point in far-field on the bore-sight direction remains well and a small enhancement of the low-frequency directivity is observed.

The problem of optimal control of systems of linear two- dimensional difference equations of fractional order is considered. A number of optimality conditions are established.

TitleMaternal and infant serum carotenoids are associated with infantile atopic dermatitis developmentTo the Editor,Various epidemiological studies have shown that eczema/atopic dermatitis (AD) in infancy is a risk for skin sensitization1 and development of allergic diseases later in life2.Carotenoids are natural pigments biosynthesized by bacteria, fungi, and plants, but not by mammals3; thus, they need to be supplied via dietary intake of vegetables and fruits or certain animal products. Carotenoids positively impact human health and prevents allergic reactions via their provitamin A activity and high antioxidant potential. However, previous studies using food frequency questionnaires that evaluated the association between maternal vegetable intake during pregnancy and eczema in offspring have shown inconsistent results4–6. As these studies did not measure the levels of individual carotenoids in the serum of mothers or children and in breast milk, appropriate nutritional interventions in maternal and early infant intake of vegetables for the prevention of AD remain unclear.In this study, we have measured the levels of total carotenoids and some of their sub-types in the serum of mothers and children and in maternal breast milk, to evaluate the association between carotenoid levels and the presence of AD at 1 year of age in infants.We compared participants’ characteristics and exposures by 1 year of age (Table S1); carotenoid, retinol, and α-tocopherol levels (Table 1) in the serum of participants, with and without AD at 1 year of age, were compared to those in the serum and breast milk of their respective mothers. We found that both the presence of eczema (OR, 31.7; 95%CI[13.2–76.0]) and S. aureus carriage in the skin by 6 months of age (OR, 5.20; 95%CI[2.30–11.75]) were associated with higher odds of AD development at 1 year of age. On the contrary, certain carotenoid levels in the serum and breast milk, including total carotenoids in the maternal blood, were associated with lower odds of AD at 1 year.To avoid multicollinearity in the regression analysis, we selected seven relevant predictive variables among the carotenoid data using VIP scores in the PLS analysis (Table S2). Stepwise logistic regression analysis using explanatory baseline characteristics, exposure by 1 year of age, and the seven selected carotenoid levels revealed that the following variables were significantly related to AD at 1 year of age (Table 2): presence of eczema by 6 months of age (OR, 34.5; P < 0.0001), maternal blood lutein level (unit OR, 0.002; P = 0.002), and infant blood lycopene level at 1 year (unit OR, 0.01; P = 0.007).One strength of this study is that multiple biological sample types were used as proxies for carotenoid intake. The lutein concentration in the maternal blood at 36 weeks of gestation, which was associated with a reduced AD risk at 1 year of age in the multivariate analysis, was significantly correlated with the cord blood lutein level (Table S3). This suggests that lutein ingested during pregnancy is transferred to the fetus and may have an inhibitory effect on the development of AD in infancy. Another strength of this study is that multiple carotenoids were evaluated simultaneously; the concentrations of lutein, zeaxanthin, α-carotene, β-carotene, and lycopene were strongly correlated, suggesting that these nutrients are absorbed together (Table S4).In conclusion, the results of this study suggest that children of mothers with low carotenoid intake during pregnancy are at higher risk for developing infantile AD and are ideal targets for early intervention in allergy prevention. Further studies are needed to clarify whether carotenoid supplementation during pregnancy/in lactating mothers and infants after weaning has a preventive effect on AD development in infancy.Table 1 Levels of each carotenoid, total carotenoids, retinol, and α-tocopherol in each type of sample in participants with or without atopic dermatitis at 1 year of age

A document by Javad Asadzade. Click on the document to view its contents.

Trapezium fracture is a rare condition that goes undetected and exposes to long-term comorbidities : chronic pain and rhizartrosis. In presence of suggestive clinical presentation with a normal radiograph, CT scan should be considered. Therapeutic guidelines are not well established due to the lack of series reported in the literature.

A document by Matt King. Click on the document to view its contents.

In this paper, the blockages in the air nozzle duct were divided into two types of wall layer blockages (WLB) and central layer blockages (CLB), and the composition, microstructure and formation mechanism of the blockages were analysed. The analysis revealed that the WLB had a high content of Fe, Cr and Ni, and was mainly mesoporous with a semi-open pore structure closed at one end. The CLB contained more organic matter and inorganic minerals, the strongest absorption peaks of organic matter were mainly Self-associated OH, while the absorption peaks of inorganic minerals were mainly asymmetric Si-O-Si functional groups. It was assumed that the blockage was mainly caused by the difference in resistance at the outlet of the air nozzle, resulting in a flow dead zone at the bottom of the gasifier, which caused the ash to overcome the resistance and leak into the air nozzle.

Transparent afterglow crystals are keenly desired for three-dimensional information storage. Herein, CsCdCl3 perovskite crystals were grown by a programmable cooling procedure in a hydrothermal reactor. The pristine crystal showed an abnormal optical behavior where the absorption increased by 2.3 folds at high temperature, leading to a 4-fold boost of PL intensity. After Mn2+ doping, the PL QY was improved to nearly unity. Importantly, the doped crystals exhibited an ultralong afterglow up to 12 hours after ceasing UV excitation and a high transmittance up to 75% in the visible region. This work brought a new member to the library of transparent afterglow crystal, opening up many possibilities to advanced applications such as volumetric display and three-dimensional information encryption.

Context/motivation: Design Thinking techniques have been widely used in software requirements elicitation to understand the necessities of stakeholders and end-users. However, there is a lack of evidence of their effectiveness when applied to vulnerable populations. Question/problem: What are the implications of using Design Thinking techniques to elicit requirements in a community of former inmates - and what would be the benefits of and challenges in this deployment? Principal ideas/results: In this paper, we report our experience of using Design Thinking for Requirements Elicitation of a mobile application, customized for the former inmates of the Brazilian Prison System and their families. Research methods: We applied techniques such as Brainstorming, Stakeholder Mapping, Personas Creation, Rapid Ethnography, and Interviews to obtain relevant data and create several prototypes. Contribution: These techniques contribute to the development of an uncommon application that aims to help the reintegration process of former inmates into society. Our results validate the initial hypothesis that such techniques, when applied to a sensitive context, assist product development that meets the end-users needs by creating a higher-quality product. Limitations: The main limitation of the research was the lack of access to low-literacy end-users and former inmates without previous experience using mobile devices.

The extit{instanceof} pattern matching is periodically previewed in the latest published JDK by removing the redundant casting and optimizing its usage in different scenarios, which improves the code quality and readability. However, the existing integrated development environment (IDE) does not provide sufficient support for refactoring of extit{instanceof} pattern matching in all situations. This paper first identifies several cases that cannot be handled by existing IDEs, and then proposes a novel approach called extit{ReInstancer} to refactor extit{instanceof} pattern matching automatically. extit{ReInstancer} conducts visitor pattern analysis for extit{if} statement blocks with extit{instanceof}. For the extit{instanceof} expression, a pattern variable is obtained after removing the redundant type casting by pattern analysis. For multi-branch statements, extit{ReInstancer} employs class hierarchy analysis and control flow analysis to infer the relationship of instance type in each branch and then optimize these branches. Finally, the multi-branch statements are converted into switch statements or switch expressions. extit{ReInstancer} is evaluated with 20 real-world applications. The experimental results demonstrate a total of 3558 extit{instanceof} expressions and 228 multi-branch statements applying the refactoring, and each application takes an average of 10.8s. extit{ReInstancer} not only reduces the redundant type casting but also improves the code quality.

Our previous study has shown that copper-containing amine oxidase ( CuAO) and aminoaldehyde dehydrogenase ( AMADH) could regulate the accumulation of γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA) in tea plants by participating in polyamine degradation pathway. However, the involvement of these genes in drought tolerance has not been underlined. In this study, CsCuAO1 associated with CsAMADH1 confers drought tolerance, which modulates GABA levels in tea plants, was conducted. The results showed that exogenous GABA spraying effectively alleviated the drought induced physical damage. Overexpression Arabidopsis lines of CsCuAO1 and CsAMADH1 exhibited enhanced resistance to drought, which promoted the synthesis of GABA and putrescine, by alerting reactive oxygen species scavenging capacity and stomatal movement. However, suppression of CsCuAO1 or CsAMADH1 in tea plants exhibited increased sensitivity during drought treatment. Moreover, the co-overexpressed plants increased the accumulation of GABA both in the Agrobacterium-mediated Nicotiana benthamiana transient assay and transgenic Arabidopsis plants. In addition, a GABA transporter, CsGAT1, was identified, whose expression is strongly correlated with GABA accumulation levels in different tissues under drought stress. Taken together, CsCuAO1 and CsAMADH1 were involved in response to drought stress through a dynamic balance between GABA and putrescine. Our data will greatly contribute to the characterization of GABA biological functions in response to environmental stresses in plants.

Patients with inborn errors of the alternative NF-κB pathway have low thymic AIRE expression, leading to the development of auto-Abs neutralizing type I IFNs, and severe viral diseases.

Background: The association of complete androgen insensitivity syndrome (CAIS) and malignancy has only been described in case reports worldwide. As such, risk association of tumorigenesis is considered lower and related to age, in comparison to partial androgen insensitivity syndrome (PAIS). Case Presentation: We report on a 24-year-old patient presenting with palpable hypogastric mass with concomitant primary amenorrhea. Work-up for CAIS was done with the pelviabdominal mass revealing a seminoma by histopathology. Surgery and adjuvant chemotherapy using BEP protocol (Bleomycin- Cisplatin- Etoposide) was offered successfully showing absence of tumor recurrence on end of treatment evaluation. Conclusion: The complication of malignancy pose challenge to clinicians for early diagnosis and treatment with androgen insensitivity syndrome. More so, a multidisciplinary team that will involve the patient and family in making informed decisions on issues of available treatment options, gender assignment, and counselling is crucial in order to promote well-being and to aim at minimizing physical and psychosocial risks.

A document by Yoshihisa Kudo. Click on the document to view its contents.

Current manufacturing and development processes for therapeutic monoclonal antibodies demand increasing volumes of analytical testing for both real-time process controls and high-throughput process development. The feasibility of using Raman spectroscopy as an in-line product quality measuring tool has been recently demonstrated and promises to relieve this analytical bottleneck. Here, we resolve manual calibration effort by engineering an automation system capable of collecting Raman spectra on the order of hundreds of calibration points from two to three stock seed solutions using controlled mixing. We used this automated system to calibrate multi-product quality attribute models that accurately measured product concentration and aggregation every 9.3 seconds using an in-line flow-cell. We demonstrate the application of a non-linear calibration model for monitoring product quality in real-time during a biopharmaceutical purification process intended for clinical and commercial manufacturing. These results demonstrate potential feasibility to implement quality monitoring during GMP manufacturing as well as to increase CMC understanding during process development, ultimately leading to more robust and controlled manufacturing processes.

A document by Harika Reddy Konatham. Click on the document to view its contents.

Herpes Simplex Encephalitis is the most common cause of infectious encephalitis. Our case is of a 75-year-old woman who presented with dysuria and altered mental status. Our case addresses the difficulties in diagnosis and highlights the importance of early recognition of HSE and its associated neurological sequelae.

The civil war in Côte d’Ivoire between 2002 and 2010 led to a hike in human disturbances and the disappearance of African lions (Panthera leo) from the Comoé National Park (CNP). After the crisis, many efforts to conserve and restore this ecosystem and its biodiversity have been made and the management authority is considering the reintroduction of lions. We assessed the acceptance of the reintroduction of the lions by the local populations; through a sociological survey, we administered questionnaires to 307 people in 23 villages bordering CNP. A large majority (71%, n=218) were in favor of the return of the lions, with significant variation among ethnic groups. A general linear model analysis (GLM) revealed that apart from ethnic group, profession and origin (village) are significantly determinant for the acceptance of lion reintroduction to CNP. Most respondents had knowledge of the species (96%, n=296). The majority of respondents (81%, n=250) acknowledged having coexisted with lions, with previous conflicts with lions reported by 16% (n = 49) of respondents and a willingness to coexist with future lions reported by 81% (n = 248) of respondents. More than 84% (n=260) of respondents believed that there would be benefits associated with lion return to CNP and 52% (n=161) and 14% (n=44) of respondents believed that the potential benefits would be greater and less than the possible risks associated with lion return. Just under half of respondents (42%; n=129) confirmed the current participatory management of CNP while the majority (91%; n=280) confirmed the possibility of taking own precautions to prevent attacks from future lion. We recommend the improvement of the involvement of indigenous communities in any reintroduction and the implementation of environmental education projects as a condition for the potential reintroduction of lions.

Wildlife have over time threatened human safety and livelihoods but the magnitude and extent of such threats varies spatially and temporarily. This study assessed elephant crop-raiding in Nimule National Park landscape situated at the South Sudan- Uganda border. Crop raiding was assessed in both Magwi County in South Sudan and Adjumani District in Uganda, given the near trans-boundary location of Nimule National Park. A descriptive quantitative research design was adopted. Quantitative data on social factors were collected from 62 farmers in Magwi County in South Sudan and 96 farmers from Adjumani District in Uganda using a researcher administered questionnaire. More quantitative data on the incidence of crop–raids were collected using data logs. Olikwi in Magwi county and Ogolo in Adjumani District were the most elephant invaded villages in South Sudan and Uganda respectively. Most raided crops were cassava (Manihot esculenta), sorghum (Sorghum bicolor), sweet potatoes (Ipomoea batatas), simsim (Sesamum indicum L.) and (Zea mays). Given that Magwi and Adjumani are mainly occupied by farming households, their livelihoods have been disrupted leading to conflicts. Much as the auditory, visual and olfactory coping mechanisms have been adopted to mitigate crop raiding elephants, the communities neighboring NNP might also be forced to adopt retaliatory measures, given that the magnitude of crop raiding has been increasing in the recent past. This accounts for why the respondents were indifferent regarding possibility of co-existing with elephants with majority casting doubt about any possible benefits from elephant conservation and so, were unwilling to engage in elephant conservation projects. It is recommended that wildlife authorities in South Sudan and Uganda work out sustainable restorative measures that are capable of catering for long run effects of elephant crop raiding. This could also take form of benefits-sharing arrangements and continuous community awareness programmes.

Feature selection is essential in high-dimensional data analysis and filter algorithms, and due to their simplicity and fast speed, they have increasingly been drawing attention in recent years. Retaining all features in machine learning tasks is not only inefficient but the irrelevant and redundant features may have an adverse impact on the classification accuracy rate. Feature selection is an optimization problem which aims to transform the dataset’s high-dimensional space to a lower-dimensional space by utilizing the relevant and suited features. Feature selection is a time-consuming task, while it is very effective in saving the time devoted to the learning algorithm. In feature selection algorithms, filter algorithms are increasingly attractive due to their simplicity and fast speed. In this paper, we are going to introduce a supervised filter feature selection using filled function and fisher score (FFFS). Based on this criterion, we try to find a feature subset resulting in the least classification error rate. In order to prove the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm, Extensive experiments have been conducted on 20 high-dimensional real-world datasets. Experimental results reveal the superiority of the proposed algorithm to state-of-the-art algorithms in terms of minimum classification error rate. Results validated through statistical analysis indicated that the proposed algorithm is able to outperform the reference algorithms by minimizing the redundancy of the selected features. So, the selected feature subset can avoid serious negative impacts on the classification process in real-world datasets. In addition, this paper proves the ability of the proposed algorithm in selecting the most relevant features for classification tasks by applying different noise rates to the datasets. According to the experiments, the FFFS is less affected by noisy attributes in comparison with other algorithms. Thus, it is a reasonable solution in handling noise and avoiding serious negative impacts on the classification error rate in real-world datasets.

Our understanding of the community assembly processes acting on non-indigenous species (NIS), as well as the relationship with native species is limited, especially in marine ecosystems. To overcome this knowledge gap we here develop a trait-based approach based on the functional distinctiveness metric to assess niche overlap between NIS and native species, using high-resolution data on benthic invertebrate communities in the Baltic Sea. Our results show that NIS retain a certain degree of similarity with native species, but display one or a few singular traits (e.g., size, life span or bioturbation ability). Furthermore, we demonstrate that community assembly processes, including both environmental filtering and limiting similarity affect NIS establishment, but that their effects may be highly context dependent, as illustrated by pronounced spatial patterns in distinctiveness. Finally, our trait-based approach provides a generic framework applicable to other areas and organisms, to better understand and address biological invasions.

Introduction: There is growing evidence suggesting an association between Neurodegeneration and Inflammation playing a role in the pathogenesis of age-associated diseases, including Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI). A systematic review and meta-analysis were performed to verify evidence on the diagnostic accuracy parameters of the inflammatory cytokines Interleukin-6 (IL-6), Interleukin-10 (IL-10) and Tumor Necrosis Factor (TNF-α). Method: A search of Medline, Scielo, Web of Science and Science Direct databases was performed and 9 observational studies associated with peripheral inflammatory biomarkers in CCL were identified. Mean (± SD) concentrations of these biomarkers and values of true positives (VP), true negatives (VN), false positives (FP) and false negatives (FN) for CCL and healthy controls (CS) were extracted from these studies. Result: Significantly higher levels of IL-10 were observed in subjects in the MCI group and Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE) scores were lower compared to CS. For the other investigations, no differences were found between the groups. Our meta-analysis for the TNF-α biomarker revealed high heterogeneity between studies in terms of sensitivity and specificity. Limitations: Lack of essential data in observational studies, which directly impacted the number of included studies. Conclusion: These findings do not support the involvement of inflammatory biomarkers for detection of MCI, although significant heterogeneity was observed. More studies are needed to evaluate the role of these cytokines in MCI, as well as in other stages of cognitive decline and all-cause dementias.