Due to limited space and resources, it can be difficult to train students on audiological procedures adequately. In the present study, we compared audiology training outcomes between a traditional ...approach and a recently developed immersive virtual reality (VR) approach in audiology students. Twenty-nine first-year audiology students participated in the study; 14 received traditional training ("TT group"), and 15 received the VR training ("VRT group"). Pre- and post-training evaluation included a 20-item test developed by an audiology educator. Post-training satisfaction and self-confidence were evaluated using Likert scales. Mean post-training test scores improved by 6.9±9.8 percentage points in the TT group and by 21.1±7.8 points in the VRT group; the improvement in scores was significant for both groups. After completing the traditional training, the TT group was subsequently trained with the VR system, after which mean scores further improved by 7.5 points; there was no significant difference in post-VR training scores between the TT and VRT groups. After training, the TT and VRT groups completed satisfaction and self-confidence questionnaires. Satisfaction and self-confidence ratings were significantly higher for the VR training group, compared to the traditional training group. Satisfaction ratings were "good" (4 on Likert scale) for 74% of the TT group and 100% of the VRT group. Self-confidence ratings were "good" for 71% of the TT group and 92% of the VRT group. These results suggest that a VR training approach may be an effective alternative or supplement to traditional training for audiology students.
Covid-19 pandemic control has imposed several non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs). Strict application of these measures has had a dramatic reduction on the epidemiology of several infectious ...diseases. As the pandemic is ongoing for more than 2 years, some of these measures have been removed, mitigated, or less well applied. The aim of this study is to investigate the trends of pediatric ambulatory infectious diseases before and up to two years after the onset of the pandemic.
We conducted a prospective surveillance study in France with 107 pediatricians specifically trained in pediatric infectious diseases. From January 2018 to April 2022, the electronic medical records of children with an infectious disease were automatically extracted. The annual number of infectious diseases in 2020 and 2021 was compared to 2018-2019 and their frequency was compared by logistic regression.
From 2018 to 2021, 185,368 infectious diseases were recorded. Compared to 2018 (n=47,116) and 2019 (n=51,667), the annual number of cases decreased in 2020 (n=35,432) by about a third. Frequency of scarlet fever, tonsillopharyngitis, enteroviral infections, bronchiolitis, and gastroenteritis decreased with OR varying from 0·6 (CI95% 0·5;0·7) to 0·9 (CI95% 0·8;0·9), p<0·001. In 2021, among the 52,153 infectious diagnoses, an off-season rebound was observed with increased frequency of enteroviral infections, bronchiolitis, gastroenteritis and otitis with OR varying from 1·1 (CI95% 1·0;1·1) to 1·5 (CI95% 1·4;1·5), p<0·001.
While during NPIs strict application, the overall frequency of community-acquired infections was reduced, after relaxation of these measures, a rebound of some of them (enteroviral infections, bronchiolitis, gastroenteritis, otitis) occurred beyond the pre-pandemic level. These findings highlight the need for continuous surveillance of infectious diseases, especially insofar as future epidemics are largely unpredictable.
ACTIV, AFPA, GSK, MSD, Pfizer and Sanofi.
Signal transducer and activator of transcription 1 (STAT1), a transcription factor known to participate in antiviral responses, acts as a tumor suppressor inhibiting cell growth and promoting ...apoptosis. To study the role of STAT1 in DNA damage–induced apoptosis in B lymphocytes, its active form, STAT1α, was specifically inhibited by the overexpression of STAT1β, the STAT1α truncated inhibitory isoform. An episomal vector with a tetracycline-inducible bidirectional promoter was created to induce the expression of 2 proteins, STAT1β and enhanced green fluorescence protein (EGFP). The same vector was used to overexpress STAT1α as a control. Expression of STAT1β inhibited the phosphorylation, the DNA-binding activity, and the transcriptional activity of STAT1α, as well as the expression of STAT1α target genes such as p21WAF1/CIP1, TAP1, IRF1, and PKR. Inhibiting STAT1α by STAT1β increased the growth rate of transfected cells and their resistance to fludarabine-induced apoptosis and cell cycle arrest. Overexpressing STAT1β reversed the negative regulation of Mdm2 expression observed after treatment with interferon-gamma (IFN-γ), which activates STAT1, or with fludarabine. Nuclear translocation of p53 after fludarabine treatment was decreased when STAT1β was overexpressed, and it was increased when STAT1α was induced. Oligonucleotide pull-down experiments showed a physical STAT1/p53 interaction. Our results show that imbalance between the antiproliferative/proapoptotic isoform STAT1α and the proliferative isoform STAT1β is likely to play a crucial role in the regulation of proliferation and apoptosis and that STAT1α may regulate p53 activity and sensitize B cells to fludarabine-induced apoptosis.
Large amounts of histones, H1, H2A, H2B, H3, and H4, were observed in total extracts of T4 lymphocytes and derived cell lines infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) type 1 or type 2. ...These histones were simply detectable by analysis of crude cellular extracts by polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis in SDS and staining the proteins with Coomassie blue or by immunoblot assays using specific polyclonal antibodies. The histones were found to be localized in the nucleoplasm, bound to low molecular weight (LMW) DNA in the form of nucleosomes. The mechanism responsible for the accumulation of nucleosomes during HIV infection was found to be due to fragmentation of cellular DNA, a mechanism referred to as apoptosis or programmed cell death in which a nuclear endonuclease becomes activated and cleaves DNA at internucleosomal regions. Accordingly, the LMW DNA accumulated in the course of infection was found to have a characteristic pattern of nucleosomal ladder and its accumulation was reduced in the presence of zinc, a known inhibitor of the endonuclease. Routinely in acute HIV infections, the accumulation of nucleosomes was observed at least 24 hr before lysis of infected cells. In a particular HIV-1 infection, in which the first signals of the cytopathic effect (vacuolization of cells and appearance of syncytia) was observed at Days 6-7 whereas maximal virus production occurred at Days 10-17, the accumulation of nucleosomes was at its maximal level already on Day 6 postinfection. In the nucleoplasm of chronically infected cells producing virus but not manifesting a cytopathic effect, no LMW DNA or histones were detectable. These observations indicate that the cytopathic effect of HIV infection is associated with apoptosis. The detection of histones and oligonucleosomal DNA fragments in the nucleoplasm can be used as a convenient marker for chromatin fragmentation during this process.
Conditional expression systems are of pivotal importance for the dissection of complex biological phenomena. Here, we describe a novel EBV-derived episomally replicating plasmid (pRTS-1) that carries ...all the elements for conditional expression of a gene of interest via Tet regulation. The vector is characterized by (i) low background activity, (ii) high inducibility in the presence of doxycycline (Dox) and (iii) graded response to increasing concentrations of the inducer. The chicken beta actin promoter and an element of the murine immunoglobin heavy chain intron enhancer drive constitutive expression of a bicistronic expression cassette that encodes the highly Dox-sensitive reverse tetracycline controlled transactivator rtTA2S-M2 and a Tet repressor-KRAB fusion protein (tTSKRAB) (silencer) placed downstream of an internal ribosomal entry site. The gene of interest is expressed from the bidirectional promoter Ptetbi-1 that allows simultaneous expression of two genes, of which one may be used as surrogate marker for the expression of the gene of interest. Tight down regulation is achieved through binding of the silencer tTSKRAB to Ptetbi-1 in the absence of Dox. Addition of Dox releases repression and via binding of rtTA2S-M2 activates Ptetbi-1.
Many cell lines are sensitive to growth at low cell density and undergo apoptosis induced by oxidative stress if the cell density is decreased below a critical threshold. In stable transfection ...experiments this cell density-dependent growth may be the limiting factor, since during drug selection the cell density falls below the critical threshold, precluding outgrowth of transfected clones. We describe here a simple protocol for the establishment of stably transfected human B cell lines making use of the protective action of antioxidants. The protocol includes: (i) seeding the cells in medium supplemented with sodium pyruvate, α-thioglycerol and bathocuproine disulfonate; (ii) delaying the onset of dominant marker selection to improve recovery of the cells after electroporation. Stably transfected clones have thus been obtained from Burkitt's lymphoma lines, which have been regarded as untransfectable. Using this protocol the stable transfection efficiency with episomal plasmids approaches the transient transfection efficiency, indicating that virtually every transfected cell can be established as a stably transfected clone. This protocol should also prove useful for other cell lines, e.g. neuronal cells, having similar sensitivities to oxidative stress.
A knowledge representation formalism for SLU is introduced. It is used for incremental and partially automated annotation of the Media corpus in terms of semantic structures. An automatic ...interpretation process is described for composing semantic structures from basic semantic constituents using patterns involving constituents and words. The process has procedures for obtaining semantic compositions and for generating frame hypotheses by inference. This process is evaluated on a dialogue corpus manually annotated at the word and semantic constituent levels.
Infection due to human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) type 2 is believed to cause a clinical picture similar to that of HIV-1, although extensive data are not available. In 2 patients with West African ...exposure and neurologic symptoms, HIV-2 was detected in the central nervous system using DNA and RNA polymerase chain reaction, in situ hybridization, and immunohistology. In the first patient, the neurologic disease was most likely due to productive infection with HIV-2. In the second, a combination of neuropathologic abnormalities (including the presence of HIV-2) explained the clinical features. Thus HIV-2, like HIV-1, can be readily detected in brain tissue in patients with neurologic abnormalities, although the exact role of HIV-2 in pathogenesis of AIDS-associated neurologic disease requires further study.
The polymerase chain reaction (PCR) was used to detect human herpes virus 6 (HHV-6) sequences in tissue culture. A pair of primers was synthesized and used to amplify a conserved region of the ...genome. Amplified products were detected either by visualization of UV illuminated ethidium bromide stained gel or, by hybridization with a specific radiolabeled oligonucleotide. As little as 5 fg of HHV-6 could be detected in infected cells, making this assay suitable for diagnostic purposes.
Purpose
Due to their location on old urban sites, impacted by human activities or road traffic, soils in urban gardens are often contaminated with a range of contaminants that could pose health ...risks. The aim of this study is to determine the origin of high trace element concentrations (arsenic and lead) in an urban community garden.
Materials and methods
Trace elements were quantified in situ in the topsoil (0–20 cm) of the 95 plots of the garden and in four soil profiles, using a portable X-ray fluorescence spectrometer. The accuracy of the spectrometer results was checked by measuring trace element concentrations by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) after an acid digestion (HF and HClO
4
). Leafy and root vegetables were sampled to assess lead transfer in vegetables. The accumulation of lead in vegetables was measured by ICP-MS after an aqua regia digestion. The bioaccessibility of lead was estimated by a calcium chloride extraction.
Results and discussion
Three anomaly levels could be defined from the mapping of arsenic and lead on the whole garden. The increase of trace elements content with depth, in correlation with pedological/geological characteristics, supports the hypothesis of a geogenic origin of these anomalies. The enrichment of the topsoil is related to the pedogenesis of soil, from micaschists as parent material. The geogenic origin of lead does not prevent its accumulation by vegetables.
Conclusions
Although trace element anomalies have generally an anthropogenic origin, some anomalies may also have a natural (geogenic) origin, as shown in this study. The comprehension of lead origin, the mapping of its spatial distribution in the garden and the characterisation of its accumulation in vegetables were used as a basis for operational decisions including soil management. X-ray fluorescence spectrometry is a well-adapted method for this purpose. It allows an in situ and fast semiquantitative investigation on a lot of sampling points, saving time and laboratory analysis cost.
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