A search for a time-varying ν¯e signal was performed with 621 days of data acquired by the Daya Bay Reactor Neutrino Experiment over 704 calendar days. The time spectrum of the measured ν¯e flux ...normalized to its prediction was analyzed with a Lomb-Scargle periodogram, which yielded no significant signal for periods ranging from 2 hours to nearly 2 years. The normalized time spectrum was also fit for a sidereal modulation under the Standard Model Extension (SME) framework to search for Lorentz and CPT violation (LV-CPTV). Limits were obtained for all six flavor pairs e¯μ¯,e¯τ¯, μ¯τ¯, e¯e¯,μ¯μ¯ and τ¯τ¯ by fitting them one at a time, constituting the first experimental constraints on the latter three. Daya Bay’s high statistics and unique layout of multiple directions from three pairs of reactors to three experimental halls allowed the simultaneous constraint of individual SME LV-CPTV coefficients without assuming others contribute negligibly, a first for a neutrino experiment.
Summary
Aims: Movement disorders are one of the central nervous system complications in uremic patients. Asterixis, multifocal myoclonus, and restless leg syndrome are well‐documented in this ...category. Acute parkinsonism, however, is only reported in rare series with a small number of cases. In this study, we investigated the risk for parkinsonism during a 3‐year follow‐up period after a diagnosis of uremia.
Methods: The Longitudinal Health Insurance Database in Taiwan was utilised. We identified a total of 2862 patients who had visited ambulatory care centers with a diagnosis of chronic renal failure between 1999 and 2001 as the study cohort. We further randomly selected 14,310 enrollees matched with the study cohort in terms of gender, age, and year of their index visit for comparison. Each patient was individually tracked for 3 years to identify the occurrence of parkinsonism. Stratified Cox proportional hazard regressions (stratified by age and gender) were performed for analyses.
Results: We found the annual incidence rates of parkinsonism to be 1.2% and 0.6% in the uremic and non‐uremic groups, respectively. Furthermore, uremic patients were more vulnerable to developing parkinsonism with a 1.81‐fold higher risk 95%CI = (1.21–2.71) than the non‐uremic group after adjusting for diabetes mellitus, which did not augment the risk.
Conclusions: The importance of raising awareness regarding the early symptoms of parkinsonism among patients with uremia is tied to its early identification, with timely aggressive dialysis being able to apply to slow the progression of the disease and its symptoms. Further study is warranted to elucidate the pathophysiology of uremic parkinsonism.
The high rate of neuropsychologic sequelae in CM survivors indicates that initial antifungal therapy is far from being satisfactory. This prospective cross-sectional study applied DTI on HIV-negative ...CM patients to determine whether microstructural changes in brain tissue are associated with subsequent cognitive symptoms.
Fifteen patients with HIV-negative CM and 15 sex- and age-matched healthy volunteers were evaluated and compared. All underwent complete medical and neurologic examinations and neuropsychologic testing. Brain DTI was obtained to derive the FA and ADC of several brain regions. Correlations among DTI parameters, neuropsychologic rating scores, and cryptococcal-antigen titer in CSF were analyzed.
Significant ADC values increased and FA values decreased in HIV-negative CM patients in multiple selected regions of interest, including the genus of the corpus callosum and the frontal, parietal, orbito-frontal, and periventricular white matter and lentiform nucleus. Higher CSF cryptococcal-antigen titer on admission was associated with poorer DTI parameters (r = -0.666, P = .018), which were linearly related to worse cognitive performance during follow-up.
The decline in brain DTI parameters in the associated brain areas indicates an HIV-negative CM microstructural pathology that is related to neuropsychologic consequences.
This nationwide population‐based study was carried out in Taiwan with the aim of comparing the risk of adverse pregnancy outcomes in women who received zolpidem treatment for insomnia during ...pregnancy with that in women who did not. The adverse outcomes identified and assessed were delivery of low‐birth‐weight (LBW) infants, preterm deliveries, delivery of small‐for‐gestational‐age (SGA) infants, delivery of infants with congenital anomalies, and cesarean delivery. The incidences of these were compared between the groups after adjusting for other characteristics of the mothers and infants. The study used the Taiwan National Health Insurance Research Dataset (NHIRD) and birth‐certificate registry. In total, the data from 2,497 mothers who received zolpidem treatment during pregnancy and those from 12,485 randomly selected mothers who did not receive the drug were included in the analysis. The results show that the adjusted odds ratios (ORs) for adverse pregnancy outcomes—LBW infants, preterm deliveries, SGA infants, and cesarean delivery—were all higher in mothers who received zolpidem treatment during pregnancy, relative to the randomly selected controls (1.39 (95% confidence interval (CI) = 1.17–1.64), 1.49 (95% CI = 1.28–1.74), 1.34 (95% CI = 1.20–1.49), and 1.74 (95% CI = 1.59–1.90), respectively). In conclusion, the risk of adverse pregnancy outcomes was higher in women who received zolpidem during pregnancy than in those who did not.
Clinical Pharmacology & Therapeutics (2010) 88 3, 369–374. doi: 10.1038/clpt.2010.97
We have observed that CoO films grown on different substrates show dramatic differences in their magnetic properties. Using polarization dependent x-ray absorption spectroscopy at the Co L2,3 edges, ...we revealed that the magnitude and orientation of the magnetic moments strongly depend on the strain in the films induced by the substrate. We presented a quantitative model to explain how strain together with the spin-orbit interaction determine the 3d orbital occupation, the magnetic anisotropy, as well as the spin and orbital contributions to the magnetic moments. Control over the sign and direction of the strain may, therefore, open new opportunities for applications in the field of exchange bias in multilayered magnetic films.
Power consumption imposes a significant cost for data centers implementing cloud services, yet much of that power is used to maintain excess service capacity during periods of low load. This paper ...investigates how much can be saved by dynamically "right-sizing" the data center by turning off servers during such periods and how to achieve that saving via an online algorithm. We propose a very general model and prove that the optimal offline algorithm for dynamic right-sizing has a simple structure when viewed in reverse time, and this structure is exploited to develop a new "lazy" online algorithm, which is proven to be 3-competitive. We validate the algorithm using traces from two real data-center workloads and show that significant cost savings are possible. Additionally, we contrast this new algorithm with the more traditional approach of receding horizon control.
The Daya Bay experiment has observed correlations between reactor core fuel evolution and changes in the reactor antineutrino flux and energy spectrum. Four antineutrino detectors in two experimental ...halls were used to identify 2.2 million inverse beta decays (IBDs) over 1230 days spanning multiple fuel cycles for each of six 2.9 GW_{th} reactor cores at the Daya Bay and Ling Ao nuclear power plants. Using detector data spanning effective ^{239}Pu fission fractions F_{239} from 0.25 to 0.35, Daya Bay measures an average IBD yield σover ¯_{f} of (5.90±0.13)×10^{-43} cm^{2}/fission and a fuel-dependent variation in the IBD yield, dσ_{f}/dF_{239}, of (-1.86±0.18)×10^{-43} cm^{2}/fission. This observation rejects the hypothesis of a constant antineutrino flux as a function of the ^{239}Pu fission fraction at 10 standard deviations. The variation in IBD yield is found to be energy dependent, rejecting the hypothesis of a constant antineutrino energy spectrum at 5.1 standard deviations. While measurements of the evolution in the IBD spectrum show general agreement with predictions from recent reactor models, the measured evolution in total IBD yield disagrees with recent predictions at 3.1σ. This discrepancy indicates that an overall deficit in the measured flux with respect to predictions does not result from equal fractional deficits from the primary fission isotopes ^{235}U, ^{239}Pu, ^{238}U, and ^{241}Pu. Based on measured IBD yield variations, yields of (6.17±0.17) and (4.27±0.26)×10^{-43} cm^{2}/fission have been determined for the two dominant fission parent isotopes ^{235}U and ^{239}Pu. A 7.8% discrepancy between the observed and predicted ^{235}U yields suggests that this isotope may be the primary contributor to the reactor antineutrino anomaly.
To provide an observational basis for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change projections of a slowing Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (MOC) in the 21st century, the Overturning in ...the Subpolar North Atlantic Program (OSNAP) observing system was launched in the summer of 2014. The first 21-month record reveals a highly variable overturning circulation responsible for the majority of the heat and freshwater transport across the OSNAP line. In a departure from the prevailing view that changes in deep water formation in the Labrador Sea dominate MOC variability, these results suggest that the conversion of warm, salty, shallow Atlantic waters into colder, fresher, deep waters that move southward in the Irminger and Iceland basins is largely responsible for overturning and its variability in the subpolar basin.
Ensuring high vaccination and even booster vaccination coverage is critical in preventing severe Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19). Among the various COVID-19 vaccines currently in use, the mRNA ...vaccines have shown remarkable effectiveness. However, systemic adverse events (AEs), such as postvaccination fatigue, are prevalent following mRNA vaccination, and the underpinnings of which are not understood. Herein, we found that higher baseline expression of genes related to T and NK cell exhaustion and suppression were positively correlated with the development of moderately severe fatigue after Pfizer-BioNTech BNT162b2 vaccination; increased expression of genes associated with T and NK cell exhaustion and suppression reacted to vaccination were associated with greater levels of innate immune activation at 1 day postvaccination. We further found, in a mouse model, that altering the route of vaccination from intramuscular (i.m.) to subcutaneous (s.c.) could lessen the pro-inflammatory response and correspondingly the extent of systemic AEs; the humoral immune response to BNT162b2 vaccination was not compromised. Instead, it is possible that the s.c. route could improve cytotoxic CD8 T-cell responses to BNT162b2 vaccination. Our findings thus provide a glimpse of the molecular basis of postvaccination fatigue from mRNA vaccination and suggest a readily translatable solution to minimize systemic AEs.
Plants deploy numerous cell surface-localized pattern-recognition receptors (PRRs) to perceive host- and microbe-derived molecular patterns that are specifically released during infection and ...activate defense responses. The activation of the mitogen-activated protein kinases MPK3, MPK4, and MPK6 (MPK3/4/6) is a hallmark of immune system activation by all known PRRs and is crucial for establishing disease resistance. The MAP kinase kinase kinase (MAPKKK) MEKK1 controls MPK4 activation, but the MAPKKKs responsible for MPK3/6 activation downstream of diverse PRRs and how the perception of diverse molecular patterns leads to the activation of MAPKKKs remain elusive. Here, we show that two highly related MAPKKKs, MAPKKK3 and MAPKKK5, mediate MPK3/6 activation by at least four PRRs and confer resistance to bacterial and fungal pathogens in Arabidopsis thaliana. The receptor-like cytoplasmic kinases VII (RLCK VII), which act downstream of PRRs, directly phosphorylate MAPKKK5 Ser-599, which is required for pattern-triggered MPK3/6 activation, defense gene expression, and disease resistance. Surprisingly, MPK6 further phosphorylates MAPKKK5 Ser-682 and Ser-692 to enhance MPK3/6 activation and disease resistance, pointing to a positive feedback mechanism. Finally, MEKK1 Ser-603 is phosphorylated by both RLCK VII and MPK4, which is required for pattern-triggered MPK4 activation. These findings illustrate central mechanisms by which multiple PRRs activate MAPK cascades and disease resistance.
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