Monitoring procedures in environmental geochemistry and compositional data analysis theory

First discussion on compositional data analysis is attributable to Karl Pearson, in 1897. However, notwithstanding the recent developments on algebraic structure of the simplex, more than twenty years after Aitchison’s idea of log-transformations of closed data, scientific literature is again full of statistical treatments of this type of data by using traditional methodologies. This is particularly true in environmental geochemistry where besides the problem of the closure, the spatial structure (dependence) of the data have to be considered. In this work we propose the use of log-contrast values, obtained by asimplicial principal component analysis, as LQGLFDWRUV of given environmental conditions. The investigation of the log-constrast frequency distributions allows pointing out the statistical laws able togenerate the values and to govern their variability. The changes, if compared, for example, with the mean values of the random variables assumed as models, or other reference parameters, allow definingmonitors to be used to assess the extent of possible environmental contamination. Case study on running and ground waters from Chiavenna Valley (Northern Italy) by using Na+, K+, Ca2+, Mg2+, HCO3-, SO4 2- and Cl- concentrations will be illustrated

Visual loss after orthopedic procedures.

Perioperative visual loss (PVL) is a very rare and unpredictable complication of surgery performed at distance from the visual pathways, mostly after spine or cardiac procedures. We report 6 consecutive patients with PVL after routine orthopedic procedures (osteosynthesis for complex fracture of the femur [2], total hip arthroplasty [2], hip prosthesis arthroplasty [1], bilateral simultaneous total knee arthroplasty [1]) and reviewed the literature on the subject. An ischemic optic neuropathy was diagnosed in all cases, and visual loss was bilateral in 5 of 6 patients. Partial visual improvement occurred in only 3 of 11 eyes. No specific therapy is available for PVL. Postoperative visual disturbances should prompt without delay an ophthalmic evaluation because emergent correction of anemia, systemic hypotension, or hypovolemia might improve visual prognosis of PVL.

Sales restriction, quality selection and the mode of competition

A regulator imposing “sales restrictions” on firms competing in oligopolistic markets may enhance quality provision by the firms. Moreover, for most restrictions levels, the impact on quality selection is invariant to the mode of competition

Immune cell impact of three differently coated lipid nanocapsules: pluronic, chitosan and polyethylene glycol.

Lipid nanocapsules (NCs) represent promising tools in clinical practice for diagnosis and therapy applications. However, the NC appropriate functionalization is essential to guarantee high biocompatibility and molecule loading ability. In any medical application, the immune system-impact of differently functionalized NCs still remains to be fully understood. A comprehensive study on the action exerted on human peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) and major immune subpopulations by three different NC coatings: pluronic, chitosan and polyethylene glycol-polylactic acid (PEG) is reported. After a deep particle characterization, the uptake was assessed by flow-cytometry and confocal microscopy, focusing then on apoptosis, necrosis and proliferation impact in T cells and monocytes. Cell functionality by cell diameter variations, different activation marker analysis and cytokine assays were performed. We demonstrated that the NCs impact on the immune cell response is strongly correlated to their coating. Pluronic-NCs were able to induce immunomodulation of innate immunity inducing monocyte activations. Immunomodulation was observed in monocytes and T lymphocytes treated with Chitosan-NCs. Conversely, PEG-NCs were completely inert. These findings are of particular value towards a pre-selection of specific NC coatings depending on biomedical purposes for pre-clinical investigations; i.e. the immune-specific action of particular NC coating can be excellent for immunotherapy applications.

International survey on skin patch test procedures, attitudes and interpretation.

BACKGROUND Skin patch test is the gold standard method in diagnosing contact allergy. Although used for more than 100 years, the patch test procedure is performed with variability around the world. A number of factors can influence the test results, namely the quality of reagents used, the timing of the application, the patch test series (allergens/haptens) that have been used for testing, the appropriate interpretation of the skin reactions or the evaluation of the patient's benefit. METHODS We performed an Internet -based survey with 38 questions covering the educational background of respondents, patch test methods and interpretation. The questionnaire was distributed among all representatives of national member societies of the World Allergy Organization (WAO), and the WAO Junior Members Group. RESULTS One hundred sixty-nine completed surveys were received from 47 countries. The majority of participants had more than 5 years of clinical practice (61 %) and routinely carried out patch tests (70 %). Both allergists and dermatologists were responsible for carrying out the patch tests. We could observe the use of many different guidelines regardless the geographical distribution. The use of home-made preparations was indicated by 47 % of participants and 73 % of the respondents performed 2 or 3 readings. Most of the responders indicated having patients with adverse reactions, including erythroderma (12 %); however, only 30 % of members completed a consent form before conducting the patch test. DISCUSSION The heterogeneity of patch test practices may be influenced by the level of awareness of clinical guidelines, different training backgrounds, accessibility to various types of devices, the patch test series (allergens/haptens) used for testing, type of clinical practice (public or private practice, clinical or research-based institution), infrastructure availability, financial/commercial implications and regulations among others. CONCLUSION There is a lack of a worldwide homogeneity of patch test procedures, and this raises concerns about the need for standardization and harmonization of this important diagnostic procedure.

Selection on a eumelanic ornament is stronger in the tropics than in temperate zones in the worldwide-distributed barn owl.

Spatial variation in the pattern of natural selection can promote local adaptation and genetic differentiation between populations. Because heritable melanin-based ornaments can signal resistance to environmentally mediated elevation in glucocorticoids, to oxidative stress and parasites, populations may vary in the mean degree of melanic coloration if selection on these phenotypic aspects varies geographically. Within a population of Swiss barn owls (Tyto alba), the size of eumelanic spots is positively associated with survival, immunity and resistance to stress, but it is yet unknown whether Tyto species that face stressful environments evolved towards a darker eumelanic plumage. Because selection regimes vary along environmental gradients, we examined whether melanin-based traits vary clinally and are expressed to a larger extent in the tropics where parasites are more abundant than in temperate zones. To this end, we considered 39 barn owl species distributed worldwide. Barn owl species living in the tropics displayed larger eumelanic spots than those found in temperate zones. This was, however, verified in the northern hemisphere only. Parasites being particularly abundant in the tropics, they may promote the evolution of darker eumelanic ornaments.

Power and selection of contract terms: The case from the Brazilian orange juice sector

ABSTRACT We propose a model to explain how contract terms are selected in the presence of a form of economic power: contract power. The orange juice sector is used to illustrate an analysis that demonstrates the effects of contract power on the economic organization of the sector. We define contract power as the ability to exploit contractual gaps or failures of contractual provisions, which are strategically left incomplete. Empirical evidence from content analysis of antitrust documents supports the logic of contract power in the orange juice sector in three forms: avoiding changes to payment methods from weight to solid contents (quality); using information asymmetries to manipulate indexes that calculate the formula of orange prices; and deliberately harvesting oranges late in order to dehydrate the fruit, which consequently reduces weight and price. The paper contributes to understanding the selection of contract terms and the debate about how antitrust offices can deal with this issue.

Portafolio selection with skewness: a comparison of methods and a generalized two fund separation result

This contribution compares existing and newly developed techniques for geometrically representing mean-variances-kewness portfolio frontiers based on the rather widely adapted methodology of polynomial goal programming (PGP) on the one hand and the more recent approach based on the shortage function on the other hand. Moreover, we explain the working of these different methodologies in detail and provide graphical illustrations. Inspired by these illustrations, we prove a generalization of the well-known two fund separation theorem from traditionalmean-variance portfolio theory.

Impact of Pre-Existing Immunity on the Selection of Rare Adenovirus Vector Candidates: Implications for HIV Vaccine Development

Background: Adenovirus serotype 5 (Ad5) phase IIb vaccine trial (STEP) was prematurely stopped due to a lack of efficacy and two-fold higher incidence of HIV infection among Ad5 seropositive vaccine recipients. We have recently demonstrated that Ad5 immune complexes (Ad5 ICs)-mediated activation of the dendritic cell (DC)-T cell axis was associated with the enhancement of HIV infection in vitro. Although the direct role of Ad5 neutralizing antibodies (NAbs) in the increase of HIV susceptibility during the STEP trial is still under debate, vector-specific NAbs remain a major hurdle for vector-based gene therapies or vaccine strategies. To surmount this obstacle, vectors based on ''rare'' Ad serotypes including Ad6, Ad26, Ad36 and Ad41 were engineered.Methods: The present study aimed to determine whether Ad ICmediated DC maturation could be circumvented using these Advector candidates.Results: We found that all Ad vectors tested forming ICs with plasma containing serotype-specific NAbs had the capacity to 1) mature human DCs as monitored by the up-regulation of costimulatory molecules and the release of pro-inflammatory cytokines (TNF-a), via the stabilization of Ad capsid at endosomal but not lysosomal pH rendering Ad DNA/TLR9 interactions possible and 2) potentiate Ad-specific CD4 and CD8 T cell responses.Conclusion: In conclusion, despite a conserved DC maturation potential, the low prevalence of serotype-specific NAbs renders rare Ad vectors attractive for vaccine strategies.

Increased frequency of regulatory T cells and selection of highly potent CD62L+ cells during treatment of human lung transplant recipients with rapamycin.

The currently available immunosuppressive agents applied in human transplantation medicine are highly potent in the protection from acute allograft rejection. However, long-term allograft survival is still poor as these drugs fail to sufficiently prevent chronic allograft rejection. Naturally occurring regulatory T cells have been postulated as the key players to establish long-lasting transplantation tolerance. Thus, the development of immunosuppressive regimens which shift the pathological balance of cytopathic versus regulatory T cells of human allograft recipients towards a protective T-cell composition is a promising approach to overcome limitations of current transplantation medicine. Thirty-three patients that received rapamycin (RPM) or calcineurin inhibitor treatment following lung transplantation were included and their T-cell compartments analysed. Twelve healthy volunteers without history of lung disease served as controls. In this article, we show that treatment of human lung transplant recipients with RPM is associated with an increased frequency of regulatory T cells, as compared with treatment with calcineurin inhibitors or to healthy controls. Moreover, regulatory T cells during treatment with RPM were CD62Lhigh, a phenotype that displayed an enhanced immunosuppressive capacity ex vivo. Our data support the use of RPM in human lung transplant recipients and undertaking of further prospective studies evaluating its impact on allograft and patient survival.

A genetic algorithm to ensemble feature selection

We are going to implement the "GA-SEFS" by Tsymbal and analyse experimentally its performance depending on the classifier algorithms used in the fitness function (NB, MNge, SMO). We are also going to study the effect of adding to the fitness function a measure to control complexity of the base classifiers.

gcodeml: A Grid-enabled Tool for Detecting Positive Selection in Biological Evolution

One of the important questions in biological evolution is to know if certain changes along protein coding genes have contributed to the adaptation of species. This problem is known to be biologically complex and computationally very expensive. It, therefore, requires efficient Grid or cluster solutions to overcome the computational challenge. We have developed a Grid-enabled tool (gcodeml) that relies on the PAML (codeml) package to help analyse large phylogenetic datasets on both Grids and computational clusters. Although we report on results for gcodeml, our approach is applicable and customisable to related problems in biology or other scientific domains.

Traitement des tumeurs malignes du foie par radiologie interventionnelle: techniques ablatives [Interventional radiology procedures for malignancies of the liver: ablation procedures].

Percutaneous ablative procedures allow curative treatment of stage BCLC 0 or BCLC A hepatocellular carcinoma, as well as liver metastases of colorectal cancer. Several methods exist including radiofrequency ablation, the most commonly used. These techniques can be used in combination with surgical excision or alone if surgery is contraindicated. They are associated with significantly reduced mortality as compared to surgery.