Search

Background AKI commonly occurs in patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Its pathogenesis is poorly understood. The urokinase receptor system is a key regulator of the intersection between inflammation, immunity, and coagulation, and soluble urokinase plasminogen activator receptor (suPAR) has been identified as an immunologic risk factor for AKI. Whether suPAR is associated with COVID-19-related AKI is unknown. Methods In a multinational observational study of adult patients hospitalized for COVID-19, we measured suPAR levels in plasma samples from 352 adult patients that had been collected within 48 hours of admission. We examined the association between suPAR levels and incident in-hospital AKI. Results Of the 352 patients (57.4% were male, 13.9% were black, and mean age was 61 years), 91 (25.9%) developed AKI during their hospitalization, of whom 25 (27.4%) required dialysis. The median suPAR level was 5.61 ng/ml. AKI incidence rose with increasing suPAR tertiles, from a 6.0% incidence in patients with suPAR,4.60 ng/ml (first tertile) to a 45.8% incidence of AKI in patients with suPAR levels.6.86 ng/ml (third tertile). None of the patients with suPAR,4.60 ng/ml required dialysis during their hospitalization. In multivariable analysis, the highest suPAR tertile was associated with a 9.15-fold increase in the odds of AKI (95% confidence interval [95% CI], 3.64 to 22.93) and a 22.86-fold increase in the odds of requiring dialysis (95% CI, 2.77 to 188.75). The association was independent of inflammatory markers and persisted across subgroups. Conclusions Admission suPAR levels in patients hospitalized for COVID-19 are predictive of in-hospital AKI and the need for dialysis. SuPAR may be a key component of the pathophysiology of AKI in COVID-19. Copyright © 2020 by the American Society of Nephrology

The overall research question that guides this dissertation, together with that of my colleague Elke Couchez, revolves around the formative years of architectural theory in Flanders. What conditions allowed architectural theory to mature into a self-aware and recognized discipline in the 1980s and 1990s? To this aim, the notion of 'architectural theory' is broadened to that of 'architecture intellectuality', which simply refers to 'thinking about architecture'. As a widely divergent field, it contains many voices in a panoply of discursive settings where architecture is 'being thought'. Whereas Elke Couchez's dissertation focuses on the pedagogical context, this dissertation focuses on 4 contexts where socially committed protagonists for various reasons sought to give shape to their commitment in their thinking about architecture. How to think about architecture as a service to society? Key in this study is the appreciation of the 1970s as a decade where architecture definitively lost its previously unshakeable beliefs in modernist principles and was more than ever in search of its own terms. To many, 'society' the widely accepted touchstone of this search. In the quest of trying to articulate their social engagement in one form of thinking about architecture or another, the 1970s were not merely years of 'intellectual malaise', but also, more positively, an incubation period that helped shape a fledgling architecture culture in the subsequent decades. In this panoply of 'figures' of knowledge, 4 cases are elaborated and placed within their historical logic, each in itself implying a genuine form of intellectuality aiming to serve society. Case 1: Brussels based Archives d'Architecture Moderne's claim on socialism. With Maurice Culot as pivotal figure, socialist ideals, a historicist formal language, urban activism, and international networking come together in a deliberate and diverse publication strategy. Case 2: Sociologist-urbanist Sieg Vlaeminck's plea for a woonecological science. Sociologist arguments, an environmental mindset, participation ideals, and the effects of secularization come together in a series of small book reviews in a Flemish newspaper. Case 3: The Leuven based Post Graduate Centre Human Settlements's import of form. With Han Verschure and André Loeckx as pivotal figures, a fledgling academic environment, an internationalizing impulse in the Global South's "development" context, post-structuralist theory, and a defense of the socio-spatial nature of form come together a UN mandated training program on 'Housing in Development'. Case 4: bOb Van Reeth & Geert Bekaert's postulate of the real. With Van Reeth, Bekaert and Mil De Kooning as pivotal figures, architectural criticism and the figure of the critic, architecture's autonomy, a profound reflection on reality, and an anxiety of language come together in Bekaert's intellectual engagement with Van Reeth's built work. Insteading of taking the vantage point of now well accepted paradigms to dissect theory's history, such as phenomenology or critical theory, this dissertation focuses on the specific historical and cultural conditions that were crucial in shaping architectural theory as we know it today. Though situated in Belgium and Flanders, many of these conditions resembled those in other Western European countries. status: published

The turbulent wake of a generic axisymmetric space launcher equipped with a dual-bell nozzle is numerically investigated to examine the influence of the dual-bell nozzle jet on the wake flow. The simulation is performed at transonic freestream condition, i.e., freestream Mach number Ma = 0.8 and freestream Reynolds number based on the launcher diameter ReD = 4.3 * 105 , with the dual-bell nozzle operating in sea-level mode. A zonal RANS/LES approach is used and the time-resolved flow field data is analyzed by classical spectral analysis and dynamic mode decomposition (DMD). The overall flow topology of the recirculation region downstream of the base and the pressure loads on the outer nozzle fairing are only slightly affected by the modified nozzle shape. However, the changed nozzle flow topology characterized by the flow separation at the nozzle contour inflection leads to a backflow region and an entrainment of the outer flow into the nozzle extension which results in increased fluctuation levels inside the nozzle. The pressure fluctuations on the outer nozzle surface are investigated using spectral analysis revealing two characteristic frequencies at S rD 0.04 and S rD 0.2. It is shown by two-point correlation that the buffet loads at S rD 0.2 are caused by an antisymmetric mode in the circumferential direction containing more than 75% of the fluctuating energy. By performing a DMD analysis of the wake flow it is shown that the buffet loads originate from an antisymmetric vortex shedding. Additionally, an antisymmetric growing and contracting of the separation bubble at S rD 0.04 is revealed explaining the low frequency pressure loads. The investigated dual-bell nozzle configuration features a flow topology and dynamics similar to configurations with conventional nozzles indicating that in the present flow parameter regime and operation mode the impact of the dual-bell nozzle is insignificant.