Injection using needle and syringe (N&S) is the most widely used method for vaccination, but requires trained healthcare workers. Fear of needles, risk of needle-stick injury, and the need to ...reconstitute lyophilised vaccines, are also drawbacks. The Nanopatch (NP) is a microarray skin patch comprised of a high-density array of microprojections dry-coated with vaccine that is being developed to address these shortcomings. Here we report a randomised, partly-blinded, placebo-controlled trial that represents the first use in humans of the NP to deliver a vaccine.
Healthy volunteers were vaccinated once with one of the following: (1) NPs coated with split inactivated influenza virus (A/California/07/2009 H1N1, 15 µg haemagglutinin (HA) per dose), applied to the volar forearm (NP-HA/FA), n = 15; (2) NPs coated with split inactivated influenza virus (A/California/07/2009 H1N1, 15 µg HA per dose), applied to the upper arm (NP-HA/UA), n = 15; (3) Fluvax® 2016 containing 15 µg of the same H1N1 HA antigen injected intramuscularly (IM) into the deltoid (IM-HA/D), n = 15; (4) NPs coated with excipients only, applied to the volar forearm (NP-placebo/FA), n = 5; (5) NPs coated with excipients only applied to the upper arm (NP-placebo/UA), n = 5; or (6) Saline injected IM into the deltoid (IM-placebo/D), n = 5. Antibody responses at days 0, 7, and 21 were measured by haemagglutination inhibition (HAI) and microneutralisation (MN) assays.
NP vaccination was safe and acceptable; all adverse events were mild or moderate. Most subjects (55%) receiving patch vaccinations (HA or placebo) preferred the NP compared with their past experience of IM injection with N&S (preferred by 24%). The antigen-vaccinated groups had statistically higher HAI titres at day 7 and 21 compared with baseline (p < 0.0001), with no statistical differences between the treatment groups (p > 0.05), although the group sizes were small. The geometric mean HAI titres at day 21 for the NP-HA/FA, NP-HA/UA and IM-HA/D groups were: 335 (189–593 95% CI), 160 (74–345 95% CI), and 221 (129–380 95% CI) respectively. A similar pattern of responses was seen with the MN assays. Application site reactions were mild or moderate, and more marked with the influenza vaccine NPs than with the placebo or IM injection.
Influenza vaccination using the NP appeared to be safe, and acceptable in this first time in humans study, and induced similar immune responses to vaccination by IM injection.
The production of carbohydrate-enriched biomass from waste streams as a sustainable biofuel precursor is a noteworthy endeavor. This study investigates the long-term microalgae cultivated under low ...domestic wastewater loads and different hydraulic retention times (HRT) in a semi-continuous photobioreactor. The influence of operational conditions, the microalgae interaction with carbon, nutrients availability, and microbial population in terms of carbohydrate content were elucidated. The results revealed that the operation at similar low nutrients and carbon loads maintained at three different hydraulic retention times (HRT) of 10, 8, and 6 days caused different patterns in nutrients uptake and biomass composition. Particularly, the carbohydrate accumulation was greatly influenced by the unbalance in the N:P ratios than complete depletion of the nutrients. Hence, during the period operated at HRT of 10 d, high nutrients removal efficiencies were observed while gradually increasing carbohydrate content up to 57% in dry cell weight (DCW). Afterward, the decrease to 8 and 6 d of HRT showed lower nutrient consumption with depleted alkalinity, reaching an appreciably high carbohydrate accumulation of up to 46%, and 56%, respectively. The biomass concentration decreased in the order of HRT of 10, 8, and 6 days. This study demonstrated that microalgae adapted to low carbon and nutrient loads could still accumulate high carbohydrate at shorter HRT using domestic wastewater as substrate.
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•Domestic wastewater was used to cultivate carbohydrate-rich microalgal biomass.•Different hydraulic retention times impacted nutrient and carbon consumption.•Long HRT promoted microalgae adaptation to accumulate high carbohydrate content.•High carbohydrate accumulation was realized under low nutrients and carbon loads.
In the present systematic review and meta-analysis, we evaluated the effects of providing piglets with creep feed during lactation on piglet pre- and post-weaning performance. A total of 20 articles ...met the inclusion criteria. Creep feeding in lactation improved pre-weaning piglet performance in 46% of the studies selected, while 58% of the included studies reported that creep feeding in lactation improved piglet performance during the nursery phase. Creep feeding increased the average piglet body weight (creep = 7.23 ± 0.30, no creep = 6.96 ± 0.31;
= 0.03) and litter weight (creep = 81.2 ± 4.18, no creep = 76.4 ± 4.22;
< 0.001) at weaning. The average piglet body weight and litter weight were positively associated (
< 0.001 and
< 0.001, respectively) with total creep feed intake. Creep feeding of piglets for more than 14 days increased (
= 0.003) the litter weight at weaning compared to litters not provided or provided for shorter periods with creep feed. The present work strengthened the notion that creep feeding during lactation presents opportunities for improving weaning weights and post-weaning piglet performance compared to litters not provided or provided for shorter periods with creep feed.
Future video coding (FVC) will be the next generation video coding standard. Yet in the first stages of the standardization process, it is expected to replace high efficiency video coding beyond ...2020. One of the enhancements in discussion is the adaptive multiple core transform, which uses five different types of 2-D discrete sine/cosine transforms (DCT-II, DCT-V, DCT-VIII, DST-I, and DST-VII) and up to 64 x 64 transform unit sizes. This schema, increases the computational complexity of both, encoder and decoder. In this paper, a deeply pipelined high performance architecture to implement the five transforms for 4 x 4, 8 x 8, 16 x 16, and 32 x 32 sizes is proposed. The design has been described in VHDL and it has been synthesized for different Field-programmable gate array chips, being able to process up 182 fps@3840 x 2160 for 4 x 4 transform sizes. Up the best of our knowledge, this is the first implementation of an architecture for the FVC Adaptive Multiple Core Transform supporting 4 x 4, 8 x 8, 16 x 16, and 32 x 32 sizes.
Cognitive decline is a major risk factor for disability, dementia, and death. The use of Internet/E-mail, also known as digital literacy, might decrease dementia incidence among the older population. ...The aim was to investigate whether digital literacy might be associated with decreased cognitive decline in older adulthood.
Data from the English Longitudinal Study of Aging cohort with 6,442 participants aged 50-89 years, followed for 8 years, with baseline cognitive testing and four additional time points. The main outcome variable was the relative percentage change in delayed recall from a 10-word-list learning task across five separate measurement points. In addition to digital literacy, socioeconomic variables, including wealth and education, comorbidities, and baseline cognitive function were included in predictive models. The analysis used Generalized Estimating Equations.
Higher education, no functional impairment, fewer depressive symptoms, no diabetes, and Internet/E-mail use predicted better performance in delayed recall.
Digital literacy may help reduce cognitive decline among persons aged between 50 and 89 years.
Abstract The full data set of the NEMO-3 experiment has been used to measure the half-life of the two-neutrino double beta decay of $$^{100}$$ 100 Mo to the ground state of $$^{100}$$ 100 Ru, ...$$T_{1/2} = \left 6.81 \pm 0.01\,\left( \text{ stat }\right) ^{+0.38}_{-0.40}\,\left( \text{ syst }\right) \right \times 10^{18}$$ T1/2=6.81±0.01stat-0.40+0.38syst×1018 year. The two-electron energy sum, single electron energy spectra and distribution of the angle between the electrons are presented with an unprecedented statistics of $$5\times 10^5$$ 5×105 events and a signal-to-background ratio of $$\sim $$ ∼ 80. Clear evidence for the Single State Dominance model is found for this nuclear transition. Limits on Majoron emitting neutrinoless double beta decay modes with spectral indices of $$\mathrm{n}=2,3,7$$ n=2,3,7 , as well as constraints on Lorentz invariance violation and on the bosonic neutrino contribution to the two-neutrino double beta decay mode are obtained.
It has been widely recognized that human life and welfare depend on ecological systems. Although forests provide an important range of ecosystem services, they are heavily threatened by ...deforestation. In recent years, Colombian deforestation rates have rapidly increased, which is partially explained by the end of the armed conflict but is also driven by both legal and illegal factors. We analyze the drivers and the effects of deforestation in Colombia from a systemic perspective, conceptualized under the socio-ecological systems approach. This allows us to map and understand the underlying dynamic complexity of deforestation, considering factors such as low institutional capacity, governance, social context, and imperfect enforcement of regulations. Our results show that both legal and illegal drivers of deforestation create reinforcing loops that will keep increasing deforestation as long as these activities are profitable. The balancing loops that could slow down and stop deforestation are determined by governance schemes, the self-regulation of local communities, and the recognition of the valuable services provided by forests. Given the heterogeneous conditions in Colombia, deforestation requires local analysis which encompasses the site-specific context. Visualizing and understanding the entire picture of driving forces in causal loop diagrams is our main contribution to the conventional and existing assessments of deforestation in Colombia.
Clandestine induced abortions are a public health problem in many developing countries where access to abortion services is legally restricted. We estimated the prevalence and incidence of, and risk ...factors for, clandestine induced abortions in a Latin American country.
We conducted a large population-based survey of women aged 18-29 years in 20 cities in Peru. We asked questions about their history of spontaneous and induced abortions, using techniques to encourage disclosure.
Of 8242 eligible women, 7992 (97.0%) agreed to participate. The prevalence of reported induced abortions was 11.6% (95% confidence interval CI 10.9%-12.4%) among the 7962 women who participated in the survey. It was 13.6% (95% CI 12.8%-14.5%) among the 6559 women who reported having been sexually active. The annual incidence of induced abortion was 3.1% (95% CI 2.9%-3.3%) among the women who had ever been sexually active. In the multivariable analysis, risk factors for induced abortion were higher age at the time of the survey (odds ratio OR 1.11, 95% CI 1.07-1.15), lower age at first sexual intercourse (OR 0.87, 95% CI 0.84-0.91), geographic region (highlands: OR 1.56, 95% CI 1.23-1.97; jungle: OR 1.81, 95% CI 1.41-2.31 v. coastal region), having children (OR 0.82, 95% CI 0.68-0.98), having more than 1 sexual partner in lifetime (2 partners: OR 1.61, 95% CI 1.23-2.09; > or = 3 partners: OR 2.79, 95% CI 2.12-3.67), and having 1 or more sexual partners in the year before the survey (1 partner: OR 1.36, 95% CI 1.01-1.72; > or = 2 partners: OR 1.54, 95% CI 1.14-2.02). Overall, 49.0% (95% CI 47.6%-50.3%) of the women who reported being currently sexually active were not using contraception.
The incidence of clandestine, potentially unsafe induced abortion in Peru is as high as or higher than the rates in many countries where induced abortion is legal and safe. The provision of contraception and safer-sex education to those who require it needs to be greatly improved and could potentially reduce the rate of induced abortion.
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