Predictive equation for acquisition of hepatitis B in hospital workers in a general hospital

A cross-sectional study was performed to obtain risk factors for hepatitis B disease, HBsAg carriers and immunised personnel, among 2470 workers in a general hospital in Madrid, Spain. The data obtained were analyzed with multiple logistic regression to obtain beta coefficients for variables. The results of the analysis show that being a nurse or being regularly exposed to blood are the most important risk factors for hepatitis B acquisition. The length of time working at the same job activity was also a risk factor. The resulting beta coefficients allow the construction for a hepatitis non-immunised, HBsAg carrier and immunised HBV status, which can select subjects for a hepatitis B vaccination program.     

Fulminant Guillain-Barré syndrome with universal inexcitability of peripheral nerves: a clinicopathological study

The pathological basis of nerve inexcitability in Guillain-Barré syndrome has not been established with certainty. We report the clinicopathological findings in a 67-year-old patient with fulminant Guillain-Barré syndrome who died 18 days after onset. Three serial electrophysiological studies revealed nerve inexcitability. Antibodies to Campylobacter jejuni were present but there was no antiganglioside reactivity. Spinal root sections revealed extensive and almost pure macrophage-associated demyelination with occasional presence of T lymphocytes and neutrophil leukocytes. Conversely, in femoral, median, and sural nerves the outstanding lesion was axonal degeneration, with some denuded axons remaining. Unmyelinated fibers, posterior root ganglia, and dorsal columns were preserved. Endoneurial postcapillary venules showed plump endothelial cells with loss of their tight junctions. We conclude that both primary demyelination and axonal degeneration secondary to inflammation account for nerve inexcitability. Our findings lend support to the hypothesis of increased endoneurial pressure as the cause of wallerian degeneration in nerve trunks.     

Acute endocarditis of the native aortic valve caused by Propionibacterium acnes

Propionibacterium acnes is often considered to be a contaminant but it has also been found to be the principal pathogen in serious infections. P. acnes is a rare cause of infective endocarditis. It has been suggested that aortic root abscesses are caused by bacteria that are particularly virulent. The strongest risk factor for serious infections by this bacteria is the presence of foreign bodies. A case is presented in which endocarditis of a native aortic valve caused by P. acnes was associated with an aortic root abscess. Transesophageal echocardiography is particularly helpful in the diagnosis of this severe complication of infective endocarditis. The literature for P. acnes endocarditis is reviewed.     

Embryonic Trophectoderm Secretomics Reveals Chemotactic Migration and Intercellular Communication of Endometrial and Circulating MSCs in Embryonic Implantation

Embryonic implantation is a key step in the establishment of pregnancy. In the present work, we have carried out an in-depth proteomic analysis of the secretome (extracellular vesicles and soluble proteins) of two bovine blastocysts embryonic trophectoderm primary cultures (BBT), confirming different epithelial–mesenchymal transition stages in these cells. BBT-secretomes contain early pregnancy-related proteins and angiogenic proteins both as cargo in EVs and the soluble fraction. We have demonstrated the functional transfer of protein-containing secretome between embryonic trophectoderm and maternal MSC in vitro using two BBT primary cultures eight endometrial MSC (eMSC) and five peripheral blood MSC (pbMSC) lines. We observed that eMSC and pbMSC chemotax to both the soluble fraction and EVs of the BBT secretome. In addition, in a complementary direction, we found that the pattern of expression of implantation proteins in BBT-EVs changes depending on: (i) their epithelial–mesenchymal phenotype; (ii) as a result of the uptake of eMSC- or pbMSC-EV previously stimulated or not with embryonic signals (IFN-τ); (iii) because of the stimulation with the endometrial cytokines present in the uterine fluid in the peri-implantation period.     

Dissecting the protocol and network traffic of the OnLive cloud gaming platform

Cloud gaming is a new paradigm that is envisaged to play a pivotal role in the video game industry in forthcoming years. Cloud gaming, or gaming on demand, is a type of online gaming that allows on-demand streaming of game content onto non-specialised devices (e.g. PC, smart TV, etc.). This approach requires no downloads or game installation because the actual game is executed on the game company’s server and is streamed directly to the client. Nonetheless, this revolutionary approach significantly affects the network load generated by online games. As cloud gaming presents new challenges for both network engineers and the research community, both groups need to be fully conversant with these new cloud gaming platforms. The purpose of this paper is to investigate OnLive, one of the most popular cloud gaming platforms. Our key contributions are: (a) a review of the state-of-the-art of cloud gaming; (b) reverse engineering of the OnLive protocol; and (c) a synthetic traffic model for OnLive.     

Endurance: A new robustness measure for complex networks under multiple failure scenarios

Society is now, more than ever, highly dependent on the large-scale networks that underpin its functions. In relatively recent times, significant failures have occurred on large-scale networks that have a considerable impact upon sizable proportions of the world’s inhabitants. The failure of infrastructure has, in turn, begot a subsequent loss of services supported by that network. Consequently, it is now vitally important to evaluate the robustness of such networks in terms of the services supported by the network in question. Evaluating network robustness is integral to service provisioning and thus any network should include explicit indication of the impact upon service performance. Traditionally, network robustness metrics focused solely on topological characteristics, although some new approaches have considered, to a degree, the services supported by such networks. Several shortcomings of these new metrics have been identified. With the purpose of solving the drawbacks of these metrics, this paper presents a new measure called endurance, which quantifies the level of robustness supported by a specific topology under different types of multiple failure scenarios, giving higher importance to perturbations affecting low percentages of elements of a network. In this paper, endurance of six synthetic complex networks is computed for a range of defined multiple failure scenarios, taking into account the connection requests that cannot be satisfied. It is demonstrated that our proposal is able to quantify the robustness of a network under given multiple failure scenarios. Finally, results show that different types of networks react differently depending on the type of multiple failure.     

Deformability properties of timolol-loaded transfersomes based on the extrusion mechanism. Statistical optimization of the process

The purpose of this work was to analyze the deformability properties of different timolol maleate (TM)-loaded transfersomes by extrusion. This was performed because elastic liposomes may contribute to the elevation of amount and rate of drug permeation through the corneal membrane. This paper describes the optimization of a transfersome formulation by use of Taguchi orthogonal experimental design and two different statistical analysis approaches were utilized. The amount of cholesterol (F1), the amount of edge-activator (F2), the distribution of the drug into the vesicle (F3), the addition of stearylamine (F4) and the type of edge-activator (F5) were selected as causal factors. The deformability index, the phosphorous recovery, the vesicle size, the polydispersity index, the zeta potential and percentage of drug entrapped were fixed as the dependent variables and these responses were evaluated for each formulation. Two different statistical analysis approaches were applied. The better statistical approach was determined by comparing their prediction errors, where regression analysis provided better optimized responses than marginal means. From the study, an optimized formulation of TM-loaded transfersomes was prepared and obtained for the proposed ophthalmic delivery for the treatment of open angle glaucoma. It was found that the lipid to surfactant ratio and type of surfactant are the main key factors for determining the flexibility of the bilayer of transfersomes. From in vitro permeation studies, we can conclude that TM-loaded transfersomes may enhance the corneal transmittance and improve the bioavailability of conventional TM delivery.     

Electro-optical characterization of IC compatible microcantilevers

The aim of this work is to simulate and optically characterize the piezoelectric performance of complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) compatible microcantilevers based on aluminium nitride (AlN) and manufactured at room temperature. This study should facilitate the integration of piezoelectric micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) such as microcantilevers, in CMOS technology. Besides compatibility with standard integrated circuit manufacturing procedures, low temperature processing also translates into higher throughput and, as a consequence, lower manufacturing costs. Thus, the use of the piezoelectric properties of AlN manufactured by reactive sputtering at room temperature is an important step towards the integration of this type of devices within future CMOS technology standards. To assess the reliability of our fabrication process, we have manufactured arrays of free-standing microcantilever beams of variable dimension and studied their piezoelectric performance. The characterization of the first out-of-plane modes of AlN-actuated piezoelectric microcantilevers has been carried out using two optical techniques: laser Doppler vibrometry (LDV) and white light interferometry (WLI). In order to actuate the cantilevers, a periodic chirp signal in certain frequency ranges was applied between the device electrodes. The nature of the different vibration modes detected has been studied and compared with that obtained by a finite element model based simulation (COMSOL Multiphysics), showing flexural as well as torsional modes. The correspondence between theoretical and experimental data is reasonably good, probing the viability of this high throughput and CMOS compatible fabrication process. To complete the study, X-ray diffraction as well as d₃₃ piezoelectric coefficient measurements were also carried out.     

Beyond social graphs: mining patterns underlying social interactions

This work aims at discovering and extracting relevant patterns underlying social interactions. To do so, some knowledge extracted from Facebook, a social networking site, is formalised by means of an Extended Social Graph, a data structure which goes beyond the original concept of a social graph by also incorporating information on interests. When the Extended Social Graph is built, state-of-the-art techniques are applied over it in order to discover communities. Once these social communities are found, statistical techniques will look for relevant patterns common to each of those, in such a way that each cluster of users is characterised by a set of common features. The resulting knowledge will be used to develop and evaluate a social recommender system, which aims at suggesting users in a social network with possible friends or interests.     

The relationship between the chemical structure and thermal conversion temperatures of thermally rearranged (TR) polymers

An attempt was made to elucidate the relationship between chemical structure, in terms of glass transition temperature (T_g), and conversion temperature (T_TR) of thermally rearranged polybenzoxazole membranes, by analyzing DSC and TGA data for a total of 15 sets of o-hydroxypolyimides and copolyimides, derived from two experimental and four commercial structurally different diamines, as well as four different dianhydride monomers. Our research revealed that T_TR was influenced by chain ridigity of o-hydroxypolyimides, and exhibited a linear relationship with T_g. Therefore, structure and thermal property of o-hydroxypolyimide should be considered when studying TR polymers to determine thermal conversion to polybenzoxazole.