Pediatric COVID-19 vaccination is effective in preventing COVID-19-related hospitalization, but duration of protection of the original monovalent vaccine during SARS-CoV-2 Omicron predominance merits ...evaluation, particularly given low coverage with updated COVID-19 vaccines. During December 19, 2021-October 29, 2023, the Overcoming COVID-19 Network evaluated vaccine effectiveness (VE) of ≥2 original monovalent COVID-19 mRNA vaccine doses against COVID-19-related hospitalization and critical illness among U.S. children and adolescents aged 5-18 years, using a case-control design. Too few children and adolescents received bivalent or updated monovalent vaccines to separately evaluate their effectiveness. Most case-patients (persons with a positive SARS-CoV-2 test result) were unvaccinated, despite the high frequency of reported underlying conditions associated with severe COVID-19. VE of the original monovalent vaccine against COVID-19-related hospitalizations was 52% (95% CI = 33%-66%) when the most recent dose was administered <120 days before hospitalization and 19% (95% CI = 2%-32%) if the interval was 120-364 days. VE of the original monovalent vaccine against COVID-19-related hospitalization was 31% (95% CI = 18%-43%) if the last dose was received any time within the previous year. VE against critical COVID-19-related illness, defined as receipt of noninvasive or invasive mechanical ventilation, vasoactive infusions, extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, and illness resulting in death, was 57% (95% CI = 21%-76%) when the most recent dose was received <120 days before hospitalization, 25% (95% CI = -9% to 49%) if it was received 120-364 days before hospitalization, and 38% (95% CI = 15%-55%) if the last dose was received any time within the previous year. VE was similar after excluding children and adolescents with documented immunocompromising conditions. Because of the low frequency of children who received updated COVID-19 vaccines and waning effectiveness of original monovalent doses, these data support CDC recommendations that all children and adolescents receive updated COVID-19 vaccines to protect against severe COVID-19.
In 2021, an average of 5.5 generators were connected every day in Brazilian MV distribution systems, and 98.9% of these generators are photovoltaic. The increased penetration of MV distributed ...generation has been accompanied by a rise in the workload of utility planning engineers, who must study and propose solutions to enable the connection of every MV generator. In this context, this work proposes a quick first-assessment approach to identify if the required connection can be approved or if further studies are required. The proposed approach focuses on the most restrictive steady-state technical impacts (overvoltage and overload) related to the increased penetration of MV distributed generators. The proposed approach consists of building connection assessment diagrams that can successfully speed up the required analyses and, consequently, decrease person-hour costs.
A novel single-particle technique to measure emittance has been developed and used to characterise seventeen different muon beams for the Muon Ionisation Cooling Experiment (MICE). The muon beams, ...whose mean momenta vary from 171 to 281 MeV/c, have emittances of approximately 1.2-2.3 π mm-rad horizontally and 0.6-1.0 π mm-rad vertically, a horizontal dispersion of 90-190 mm and momentum spreads of about 25 MeV/c. There is reasonable agreement between the measured parameters of the beams and the results of simulations. The beams are found to meet the requirements of MICE.
A function shared by the adenovirus E1A, papillomavirus E7 and SV40 TAg oncoproteins is their ability to interfere with normal cell growth by interacting with members of the retinoblastoma protein ...family. In this study, we show that each of these oncoproteins can also bind to the 921 amino acid TBP-associated factor-110 (TAF-110). The significance of the binding is underscored by the observation that each oncoprotein binds to the same 77 amino acid carboxyl region of TAF-110. In the case of E1A and TAg, this finding is consistent with their abilities to stimulate transcription initiation, in part, through their known interactions with TBP. While it is not clear whether E7 can also activate promoters through protein:protein interactions with components of the transcription initiation complex, our demonstration that E7 can bind to TAF-110, as well as TBP, suggests that E7 may modulate the expression of specific promoters which could contribute to the pathogenesis of human papillomavirus.
A mathematical characterization of the membrane potential as an instantaneous return process in the presence of refractoriness is investigated for diffusion models of single neuron's activity, ...assuming that the firing threshold acts as an elastic barrier. Steady-state probability densities and asymptotic moments of the neuronal membrane potential are explicitly obtained in a form that is suitable for quantitative evaluations. For the Ornstein–Uhlenbeck (OU) and Feller neuronal models, closed form expression are obtained for asymptotic mean and variance of the neuronal membrane potential and an analysis of the different features exhibited by the above mentioned models is performed.
Ultrafast photodynamics and density functional theory/time-dependent density functional theory (DFT/TDDFT) results for complexes of Co and Cu with 5,9,14,18,23,27,32,36-octabutoxynaphthalocyanine ...CoNc(OBu) sub(8) and CuNc(OBu) sub(8) are reported. As a basis for this work, details concerning the syntheses of these complexes and the corresponding Zn complex (used as a reference) are given. Transient absorption spectrometry with femtosecond time resolution combined with a detailed DFT/TDDFT analysis has been employed to construct a complete picture of the excited-state dynamics after Q-band excitation of the Co and Cu complexes and to gain an understanding of the relationship between the nature of the metal center and the excited-state lifetime. The Co complex was shown to return to its ground state via two competing channels: a super(2)T sub(1)(pi, pi*) state that decayed with a lifetime of 1 ps and a low-lying super(2)(d, d) state that repopulated the ground-state surface with a lifetime of 15 ps. CuNc(OBu) sub(8) showed ground-state repopulation from the super(2)T sub(1)(pi, pi*) state via a lower-lying ligand-to-metal charge-transfer (LMCT) state that was completed within a few nanoseconds. The photophysical behavior of the cobalt and copper complexes was compared to that previously reported for the nickel analog in an effort to highlight the effect of the central metal on the nature and rates of the deactivation pathways. The results described in this work provide basic knowledge that is relevant to the use of these compounds as photothermal sensitizers in cancer therapy.
Second harmonic (SH) and third harmonic (TH) generation in amorphous silicon nitride microcavity are experimentally investigated. The transmitted SH and TH signals are measured in the 0.9–1.4
μm ...spectral range, showing enhanced nonlinear conversion efficiency corresponding to resonant wavelength and optical band edges. The efficiencies of the SH and TH generation processes are found to be enhanced by about two and one orders of magnitude, respectively, in comparison with the case of reference amorphous silicon nitride sample. The SH spectra can be reasonably interpreted as due to surface/interface harmonic generation, while the TH signal is related to bulk isotropic third-order polarization. The results obtained for the TH signal are discussed in terms of the linear optical properties of amorphous silicon nitride thin films.
The objective of this study is to investigate the extent of HbsAg genetic diversity underlying immunosuppression-driven HBV-reactivation. This study included 93 genotype-D HbsAg sequences from 29 ...patients with immunosuppression-driven HBV-reactivation and 64 chronically HBV-infected drug-naive patients as control. HBsAg ultra-deep sequencing (UDPS) was also performed for 21 HBV-reactivating patients and 21 control patients. HBV-reactivation occurs in a wide variety of clinical settings requiring immune-suppressive therapy, and correlates with the presence of HbsAg mutations endowed with enhanced-capability to evade immune-response. This highlights the need of a careful patient monitoring in all immunosuppressive-settings at reactivation risk, and of establishing a prompt and potent therapy in order to prevent HBV-related clinical complications.
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