Summary
Background
Specific patterns of allergic sensitization as well as quantification of the in vitro IgE response in early life may provide relevant clinical insight into future rhinitis and ...asthma risk.
Objective
To define relationships among established sensitization to particular aeroallergens, quantitative analyses of allergen‐specific IgE levels, pet exposure and sensitization, and asthma and rhinitis risk.
Methods
Children at high‐risk for the development of asthma and allergic diseases were enrolled at birth into the Childhood Origins of ASThma (COAST) study. Allergen‐specific IgE was assessed at ages 1, 3, 6, and 9 years by fluoroenzyme immunoassay (Unicap® 100; Pharmacia Diagnostics). Current asthma and rhinitis were diagnosed at age 6 and 8 years.
Results
Sensitization to dog was strongly associated with increased asthma risk (P < 0.0001). Sensitization to perennial compared with seasonal allergens was more strongly associated with asthma risk, while sensitization to seasonal allergens was more closely associated with rhinitis risk. Increased levels of specific IgE to perennial allergens were associated with an increased asthma risk (P = 0.05), while any detectable level of IgE to seasonal allergens was associated with increased rhinitis risk (P = 0.0009). While dog and cat sensitization were both independently associated with increased asthma and rhinitis risk, dog exposure at birth was associated with a reduced risk of asthma, regardless of dog sensitization status during the first 6 years of life (P = 0.05).
Conclusions and Clinical Relevance
Analysing specific patterns of an individual's allergic sensitization profile reveals additional relevant associations with asthma and rhinitis risk as opposed to the information gained from characterizing an individual as ‘atopic’ by the presence of any demonstrable sensitization alone. Furthermore, protective mechanisms of dog exposure with regards to asthma risk appear to be unrelated to the prevention of sensitization.
We report the detection of an ultra-bright fast radio burst (FRB) from a modest, 3.4-day pilot survey with the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder. The survey was conducted in a wide-field ...fly's-eye configuration using the phased-array-feed technology deployed on the array to instantaneously observe an effective area of 160 deg2, and achieve an exposure totaling 13200 deg2 hr . We constrain the position of FRB 170107 to a region in size (90% containment) and its fluence to be 58 6 Jy ms. The spectrum of the burst shows a sharp cutoff above 1400 MHz, which could be due to either scintillation or an intrinsic feature of the burst. This confirms the existence of an ultra-bright ( Jy ms) population of FRBs.
Highlights • Discrepancies exist between EMR and self-report. • This may increase as vaccines become available in more non-traditional settings. • Discrepancies exist by vaccine, particularly ...positive predictive value. • Minorities had higher disconcordance compared to whites. • Some discrepancies were found by education, income and employment.
Acute exercise does not elicit compensatory changes in appetite parameters in lean individuals; however, less is known about responses in overweight individuals. This study compared the acute effects ...of moderate-intensity exercise on appetite, energy intake and appetite-regulatory hormones in lean and overweight/obese individuals.
Forty-seven healthy lean (n=22, 11 females; mean (s.d.) 37.5 (15.2) years; 22.4 (1.5) kg m
) and overweight/obese (n=25, 11 females; 45.0 (12.4) years, 29.2 (2.9) kg m
) individuals completed two, 8 h trials (exercise and control). In the exercise trial, participants completed 60 min treadmill exercise (59 (4)% peak oxygen uptake) at 0-1 h and rested thereafter while participants rested throughout the control trial. Appetite ratings and concentrations of acylated ghrelin, peptide YY (PYY) and glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) were measured at predetermined intervals. Standardised meals were consumed at 1.5 and 4 h and an ad libitum buffet meal was provided at 7 h.
Exercise suppressed appetite (95% confidence interval (CI) -3.1 to -0.5 mm, P=0.01), and elevated delta PYY (95% CI 10 to 17 pg ml
, P<0.001) and GLP-1 (95% CI 7 to 10 pmol l
, P<0.001) concentrations. Delta acylated ghrelin concentrations (95% CI -5 to 3 pg ml
, P=0.76) and ad libitum energy intake (95% CI -391 to 346 kJ, P=0.90) were similar between trials. Subjective and hormonal appetite parameters and ad libitum energy intake were similar between lean and overweight/obese individuals (P⩾0.27). The exercise-induced elevation in delta GLP-1 was greater in overweight/obese individuals (trial-by-group interaction P=0.01), whereas lean individuals exhibited a greater exercise-induced increase in delta PYY (trial-by-group interaction P<0.001).
Acute moderate-intensity exercise transiently suppressed appetite and increased PYY and GLP-1 in the hours after exercise without stimulating compensatory changes in appetite in lean or overweight/obese individuals. These findings underscore the ability of exercise to induce a short-term energy deficit without any compensatory effects on appetite regardless of weight status.
The feature of fluids at pressures just above the critical value which makes them of particular interest is that they change in a continuous manner from being liquid-like to gas-like with increase of ...temperature at constant pressure. As a consequence of the extreme dependence of fluid properties on temperature, non-uniformity of density can lead to important effects on the mean flow and turbulence fields and heat transfer effectiveness. When the author and his colleagues first commenced research on supercritical pressure fluids many years ago it was decided to begin with a novel experiment specifically designed to include effects of strong non-uniformity of fluid properties whilst avoiding other complications associated with the temperature dependence of density. This fundamental experiment on stably stratified turbulent flow of supercritical pressure carbon dioxide between two horizontal planes, with the upper one heated and the lower one cooled, in such a way that there was no net heat transfer to the fluid, yielded evidence of a special mechanism for enhancement of turbulent mixing. Later, experiments with uniformly heated vertical tubes using carbon dioxide at pressures very near to the critical value gave results, which exhibited further striking features. Severe localized non-uniformity of heat transfer developed in the case of upward flow, but was not found with downward flow. Gravitationally induced motion caused effects on heat transfer which could only be explained by postulating drastic modification of turbulence. Such results stimulated the development of physically based ideas concerning the mechanisms which might be involved and led to the development of a semi-empirical model of buoyancy-influenced turbulent flow and heat transfer. The main aim of this paper is to show how such early work is now providing a basis for correlating experimental data and enabling the complicated phenomena encountered in those early experiments to be properly accounted for in thermal design procedures.
To systematically review evidence bearing on the management of patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).
The authors analyzed studies from 1998 to 2007 to update the 1999 practice parameter. ...Topics covered in this section include breaking the news, multidisciplinary clinics, symptom management, cognitive and behavioral impairment, communication, and palliative care for patients with ALS.
The authors identified 2 Class I studies, 8 Class II studies, and 30 Class III studies in ALS, but many important areas have been little studied. More high-quality, controlled studies of symptomatic therapies and palliative care are needed to guide management and assess outcomes in patients with ALS.
Multidisciplinary clinic referral should be considered for managing patients with ALS to optimize health care delivery and prolong survival (Level B) and may be considered to enhance quality of life (Level C). For the treatment of refractory sialorrhea, botulinum toxin B should be considered (Level B) and low-dose radiation therapy to the salivary glands may be considered (Level C). For treatment of pseudobulbar affect, dextromethorphan and quinidine should be considered if approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (Level B). For patients who develop fatigue while taking riluzole, withholding the drug may be considered (Level C). Because many patients with ALS demonstrate cognitive impairment, which in some cases meets criteria for dementia, screening for cognitive and behavioral impairment should be considered in patients with ALS (Level B). Other management strategies all lack strong evidence.
Injectable biomimetic hydrogels have great potential for use in regenerative medicine as cellular delivery vectors. However, they can suffer from issues relating to hypoxia, including poor cell ...survival, differentiation, and functional integration owing to the lack of an established vascular network. Here we engineer a hybrid myoglobin:peptide hydrogel that can concomitantly deliver stem cells and oxygen to the brain to support engraftment until vascularisation can occur naturally. We show that this hybrid hydrogel can modulate cell fate specification within progenitor cell grafts, resulting in a significant increase in neuronal differentiation. We find that the addition of myoglobin to the hydrogel results in more extensive innervation within the host tissue from the grafted cells, which is essential for neuronal replacement strategies to ensure functional synaptic connectivity. This approach could result in greater functional integration of stem cell-derived grafts for the treatment of neural injuries and diseases affecting the central and peripheral nervous systems.
Physically-based semi-empirical models of buoyancy-influenced and inertia-influenced heat transfer to fluids at supercritical pressure taking careful account of the temperature dependence of fluid ...properties are presented in this paper. The first model is concerned with buoyancy-influenced convective heat transfer in a vertical heated tube to fluid flowing either in the upwards direction (the buoyancy aided case) or the downwards direction (the buoyancy-opposed case). It provides a detailed picture of how the mode of heat transfer changes with increase of buoyancy influence from one of forced convection, when any such influence is negligibly small, to combined forced and free convection and then eventually to a mode of heat transfer which exhibits characteristics very similar to those of free convection. The second model is concerned with inertia-influenced heat transfer due to thermally-induced bulk flow acceleration. It shows how acceleration of a strongly heated flow can cause reduced turbulence production, deterioration of heat transfer effectiveness and even laminarisation of a turbulent flow. These two models yield criteria for screening experimental data in terms of the magnitude of buoyancy and inertia influences. A third model is presented which describes heat transfer under conditions where influences of buoyancy and inertia due to thermally-induced bulk flow acceleration are encountered together. It is shown how buoyancy-influenced flow and heat transfer can be modified as a result of thermally-induced bulk flow acceleration. The paper ends with a brief outline of how the models might be used for correlating data on buoyancy-influenced and inertia-influenced heat transfer taking account of the strong temperature dependence of fluid properties which can be encountered in the case of fluids at supercritical pressure.
ABSTRACT
The use of acoustic Doppler current profilers (ADCP) for discharge measurements and three‐dimensional flow mapping has increased rapidly in recent years and has been primarily driven by ...advances in acoustic technology and signal processing. Recent research has developed a variety of methods for processing data obtained from a range of ADCP deployments and this paper builds on this progress by describing new software for processing and visualizing ADCP data collected along transects in rivers or other bodies of water. The new utility, the Velocity Mapping Toolbox (VMT), allows rapid processing (vector rotation, projection, averaging and smoothing), visualization (planform and cross‐section vector and contouring), and analysis of a range of ADCP‐derived datasets. The paper documents the data processing routines in the toolbox and presents a set of diverse examples that demonstrate its capabilities. The toolbox is applicable to the analysis of ADCP data collected in a wide range of aquatic environments and is made available as open‐source code along with this publication. Published 2012. This article is a U.S. Government work and is in the public domain in the USA.
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