Zika Virus Growth in Human Kidney Cells Is Restricted by an Elevated Glucose Level

Mosquito-borne Zika virus (ZIKV) became a real threat to human health due to the lack of vaccine and effective antiviral treatment. The virus has recently been responsible for a global outbreak leading to millions of infected cases. ZIKV complications were highlighted in adults with Guillain–Barré syndrome and in newborns with increasing numbers of congenital disorders ranging from mild developmental delays to fatal conditions. The ability of ZIKV to establish a long-term infection in diverse organs including the kidneys has been recently documented but the consequences of such a viral infection are still debated. Our study aimed to determine whether the efficiency of ZIKV growth in kidney cells relates to glucose concentration. Human kidney HK-2 cells were infected with different ZIKV strains in presence of normal and high glucose concentrations. Virological assays showed a decrease in viral replication without modifying entry steps (viral binding, internalization, fusion) under high glucose conditions. This decrease replication was associated with a lower virus progeny and increased cell viability when compared to ZIKV-infected HK-2 cells in normal glucose concentration. In conclusion, we showed for the first time that an elevated glucose level influences ZIKV replication level with an effect on kidney cell survival.     

Fat Distribution and Lipid Profile of Young Adults with Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia Due to 21-Hydroxylase Enzyme Deficiency

We aimed to compare detailed fat distribution and lipid profile between young adults with congenital adrenal hyperplasia due to 21-hydroxylase enzyme deficiency and a control group. We also verified independent associations of treatment duration and daily hydrocortisone dose equivalent (HDE) with lipid profile within patients. This case–control study included 23 patients (7 male and 16 female) matched by an age range of young adults (18–31 years) with 20 control subjects (8 male and 12 female). Dual energy X-ray absorptiometry was used to measure the fat distribution. Male patients demonstrated elevated indices of fat mass for total (7.7 ± 2.1 vs. 4.5 ± 1.3 kg/m², p = 0.003), trunk (4.0 ± 1.2 vs. 2.2 ± 0.8 kg/m², p = 0.005), android (0.63 ± 0.24 vs. 0.32 ± 0.15 kg/m², p = 0.008), gynoid (1.34 ± 0.43 vs. 0.74 ± 0.24 kg/m², p = 0.005), arm (0.65 ± 0.16 vs. 0.39 ± 0.10 kg/m², p = 0.009), and leg regions (2.7 ± 0.8 vs. 1.6 ± 0.4 kg/m², p = 0.005) than the control group, but not in females. However, female patients demonstrated elevated ratio of low-density lipoprotein cholesterol to high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (1.90 ± 0.46 vs. 1.39 ± 0.47, p = 0.009) than the control group, but not in males. Total fat mass was inversely correlated with total testosterone (r = −0.64, p = 0.014) and positively correlated with leptin in males (r = 0.75, p = 0.002). An elevated daily HDE (β = 0.43, p = 0.038 and β = 0.47, p = 0.033) and trunk to total fat mass ratio (β = 0.46, p = 0.025, and β = 0.45, p = 0.037) were independently correlated with impaired lipid profile markers. Although there is no altered lipid profile, male patients demonstrated an increased fat distribution. However, female patients presented with an impaired lipid profile marker but demonstrated close values of normal fat distribution. Interestingly, the dose of glucocorticoid therapy can have some role in the lipid mechanisms.     

New substrates of papain, based on the conserved sequence of natural inhibitors of the cystatin family

A discontinuous borate/formate buffer system is presented for horizontal polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis of DNA fragments. The resolution potential of the system could be altered by changing the total monomer concentration (5-9%T), the concentration of the crosslinker piperazine diacrylamide (2-5%CPDA), as well as the concentration of formate in the gel (40-120 mM), the leading ion of the buffer system. The separation of DNA fragments would be improved by increasing the migration distance from 22 to 28 cm. This discontinuous polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis system proved highly reproducible.     

Analysis of Scaling Strategies for Sub-30 nm Double-Gate SOI N-MOSFETs

State-of-the-art device simulation is applied to the analysis of possible scaling strategies for the future CMOS technology, adopting the ultrathin silicon body (UTB) double-gate (DG) MOSFET and considering the main figures of merit (FOM) for the high-performance N-MOS transistor. The results of our analysis confirm the potentials of UTB-DG MOSFETs. In particular, the possibility to control the short-channel effects by thinning the silicon layer is fully exploited allowing to adopt almost undoped silicon channel, leading to reduced transversal field. As a consequence, the impact of surface roughness at the Si-oxide interface and the gate tunneling leakage current are substantially reduced compared to the case of highly doped bulk MOSFETs. According to our results, thanks to the suppression of gate leakage current, scaling of the UTB-DG MOSFET down to the 32 nm technology node appears possible adopting -based gate dielectrics. In spite of the improved mobility at given inversion charge density, the simulated on-currents are substantially lower than those required by the 2005 ITRS for the 45 and 32 nm nodes . Nonetheless, thanks to relaxed scaling of the oxide thickness, hence to reduced gate capacitance, the requirements in terms of intrinsic delay and power-delay product can be satisfied. The issue of variability is analyzed by evaluating the dependence of the key FOM on the variation of critical dimensions such as the thickness of the gate oxide and of the silicon layer.     

Randomized constraint solvers: a comparative study

The complexity of constraints is a major obstacle for constraint-based software verification. Automatic constraint solvers are fundamentally incomplete: input constraints often build on some undecidable theory or some theory the solver does not support. This paper proposes and evaluates several randomized solvers to address this issue. We compared the effectiveness of a symbolic solver (CVC3), a random solver, two heuristic search solvers, and seven hybrid solvers (i.e. mix of random, symbolic, and heuristic solvers). We evaluated the solvers on a benchmark generated with a concolic execution of 9 subjects. The performance of each solver was measured by its precision, which is the fraction of constraints that the solver can find solution out of the total number of constraints that some solver can find solution. As expected, symbolic solving subsumes the other approaches for the 4 subjects that only generate decidable constraints. For the remaining 5 subjects, which contain undecidable constraints, the hybrid solvers achieved the highest precision (fraction of constraints that a solver can find a solution out of the total number of satisfiable constraints). We also observed that the solvers were complementary, which suggests that one should alternate their use in iterations of a concolic execution driver.     

An Experimental Investigation into the Effectiveness of OOA for Specifying Requirements

The application of object oriented concepts (OO) to the requirements phase of information systems (IS) and software development has been adopted by many proponents of IS and software development methodologies. Although many claims have been made about the effectiveness of OO techniques for improving requirements analysis, very few experimental studies have been done to substantiate these claims. This paper addresses this gap in the literature by conducting an experimental study that attempts to validate the effectiveness of object-oriented analysis (OOA) by comparing it to structured analysis (SA) for producing requirements. We argue that the quality of the requirements specification can be measured and that measurement can be used to compare the effectiveness of OOA and SA. We present an overview of the basic models and principles associated with OOA and SA, a discussion of quality in requirements definition, and a detailed discussion of the research methodology used. A review of relevant research is also presented and directions for further research are suggested. Our findings suggest that the OOA methodology does not necessarily produce better requirements statements.     

Quantitative analysis of the ankle strategy under translational platform disturbance.

The ankle strategy is one of the postural adjustment maneuvers humans utilize when the support platform is disturbed. This paper presents a quantitative analysis of the ankle strategy. A three-link sagittal biped model is considered. The first link represents the two legs locked together. The second link represents the two thighs locked together. The third link represents the hip, the torso, the upper limbs, the neck, and the head. The dynamics, control, and stability of the three-link biped, under platform translation, are considered. The disturbance of the platform is represented as an input and the effect of the muscular system is reduced to a set of torques applied to the joints and across the joints. Two digital computer simulations are presented to demonstrate the behavior of the biped under backward or forward platform disturbance. The simulations are compared with experimental measurements of humans subjected to postural disturbances. It is shown that the effect of a horizontal disturbance at the ankle appears to be about 40 times that of the effect of the disturbance at the knees and at least a few hundred times larger than the effect of a disturbance at the hip. This means that, under translational platform disturbance, the ankle angle is subjected to the largest excursion. The knee and the hip angle excursions are relatively minor. Consequently, the biped, as a whole, appears to move as a single inverted pendulum. Major postural corrections are initiated by the ankle excursion. Further, when the available ankle torque is limited or nonexistent, the stability requires resorting to the knee or hip strategies.     

Maternal Fluoride Exposure Exerts Different Toxicity Patterns in Parotid and Submandibular Glands of Offspring Rats

There is currently a controversial and heated debate about the safety and ethical aspects of fluoride (F) used for human consumption. Thus, this study assessed the effects of prenatal and postnatal F exposure of rats on the salivary glands of their offspring. Pregnant rats were exposed to 0, 10, or 50 mg F/L from the drinking water, from the first day of gestation until offspring weaning (42 days). The offspring rats were euthanized for the collection of the parotid (PA) and submandibular (SM) glands, to assess the oxidative biochemistry and to perform morphometric and immunohistochemical analyses. F exposure was associated with a decrease in the antioxidant competence of PA in the 10 mg F/L group, contrasting with the increase observed in the 50 mg F/L group. On the other hand, the antioxidant competence of the SM glands was decreased at both concentrations. Moreover, both 10 and 50 mg F/L groups showed lower anti-α-smooth muscle actin immunostaining area in SM, while exposure to 50 mg F/L was associated with changes in gland morphometry by increasing the duct area in both glands. These findings demonstrate a greater susceptibility of the SM glands of the offspring to F at high concentration in comparison to PA, reinforcing the need to adhere to the optimum F levels recommended by the regulatory agencies. Such findings must be interpreted with caution, especially considering their translational meaning.