Search

Objectives Studies have demonstrated immune dysfunction in adolescents with Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS); however, evidence is varied. The current study used network analysis to examine relationships between cytokines among a sample of pediatric participants with ME/CFS. Methods 10,119 youth aged 5–17 in the Chicagoland area were screened for ME/CFS; 111 subjects and controls were brought in for a physician examination and completed a blood draw. Youth were classified as controls (Cs, N = 43), ME/CFS (N = 23) or severe (S-ME/CFS, N = 45). Patterns of plasma cytokine networks were analyzed. Results All participant groups displayed a primary network of interconnected cytokines. In the ME/CFS group, inflammatory cytokines IL-12p70, IL-17A, and IFN-γ were connected and included in the primary membership, suggesting activation of inflammatory mechanisms. The S-ME/CFS group demonstrated a strong relationship between IL-17A and IL-23, a connection associated with chronic inflammation. The relationships of IL-6 and IL-8 in ME/CFS and S-ME/CFS participants also differed from Cs. Together, these results indicate pro-inflammatory responses in our illness populations. Discussion Our data imply biological differences between our three participant groups, with ME/CFS and S-ME/CFS participants demonstrating an inflammatory profile. Examining co-expression of cytokines may aid in the identification of a biomarker for pediatric ME/CFS.

INTRODUCTIONNepal due to its geographical condition, inadequate resuscitation on time, and lack of full-time intensivist in a trauma team is a cause of trauma-related morbidity and mortality. MATERIAL AND METHODSIt was a prospective, descriptive observational cross-sectional study in a level three intensive care unit of National Medical College for six month. All patients >18 years with a history of road traffic accidents, falls, drowning, physical assaults, and self-inflicted violence admitted to the mixed intensive care unit of a tertiary care hospital were included in this study. RESULTSOne hundred and ninety-one patients were included in this study. 152(79.5%) were males and 39(20.4%) were females. A road traffic accident was the most common mode of injury in 166(86.9%) patients. 178(93.1%) patients survived and went home, 10(5.3%) expired, 2(1%) left the hospital against medical advice (LAMA) and 1(0.5%) gave do not resuscitate orders (DNR). The mean days on the mechanical ventilator was 3.39±2.57 days. Mortality in an intubated patient was 8.6%. Mean LOS in the ICU was 4.28±4.12 days. SOFA and APACHE II scores were a good predictor of outcome, with the SOFA score being the most effective Injury severity score predicted mortality with a sensitivity of 88.9%, a specificity of 22%, with an AUROC curve of 0.543±0.092 with cut off score of 5.5. CONCLUSIONRaising public awareness, and strictly following the traffic rules can help in reducing the incidence of trauma. Trauma team consisting of full-time intensivists should be established to decrease the mortality in the intensive care unit.

This study aimed to contribute to the development of a research case definition for post-acute sequelae of SARS CoV-2 infection (PASC) using a PASC data set and experiences from case definitions developed for myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS). Our database included patients with PASC who provided self-report symptomology during the onset of infection and the time of survey completion (post-infection). We found that we could distinguish between those with mild, moderate, and severe PASC. Regarding the proportion meeting an ME/CFS case definition, we found 0% in the mildly impaired group, 30.6% to 62.6% in the moderately impaired group, and 74.3% to 89.0% in the severely impaired group. Based on these preliminary data, we propose a 5-part classification system for PASC. Axis 1 involves the variant of the COVID infection and the type of documentation of the infection. Axis 2 involves the time elapsed since infection. Axis 3 involves the type of medical collateral damage to different organs. Axis 4 involves functional impairment classified into three categories: mild, moderate, or severe. Finally, Axis 5 is the identified symptoms. Finally, if the patient has been sick for 6 or more months, it is important to determine whether the person has met the ME/CFS criteria. This proposed 5-part classification system for PASC might bring considerable clarity to diagnosing PASC.

Biochar addition in soil has already been recognized as a promising technology as it contributes to improve the soil quality, crop yield, and mitigate climate change. This study intended to evaluate the combined effects of woodchips and biochar on soil quality, crop productivity, and economics of sweet corn production. The experiment was conducted in the experimental field of Shimane University, Matsue, Shimane, Japan during the period from 9th May 2019 to 24th July 2019. The experiment was laid out in a randomized block design with three replications and it consisted of six treatments namely, T1 - woodchips + Organic fertilizer (OF), T2 - woodchips + OF + Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) + Gliocladium fungi (GF), T3 - woodchips + biochar + OF, T4 - woodchips + biochar + OF + AMF + GF, T5 biochar + OF, and C (control) OF. Results revealed that combined application of woodchips, biochar, and OF at treatment (T3) obtained the highest corn yield (0.796 kg/m2), stalk length (130 cm), water holding capacity (52%), gross margin (56.03%), and benefit-cost ratio (1.81) whereas the lowest yield (0.026 kg/m2), stalk length (51cm), water holding capacity (21.66%), gross margin (- 908%), and benefit-cost ratio (0.07) were obtained at control. Soil mineral concentrations of N (33.49 mg/100g), P (14.40 mg/100g), K (21.33 mg/100g), and Ca (49.33 mg/100g) were highest in T4 where as the second highest values was recorded in T3. Another notable significant result is that the sweet corn grown in all treatments contained small amount of nitrate (6.66 mg/L) as compared to conventional practice (83.33 mg/L). Furthermore, this new approach is able to achieve significant crop yield on existing land without using any pesticides, fertilizers, or other agricultural chemicals consequently has no adverse environmental impact and thus could be a sustainable approach. Therefore, it can be concluded that combined application of woodchips, and biochar appears as a suitable combination in terms of soil quality, crop productivity, and economics of sweet corn production. [J Bangladesh Agril Univ 2021; 19(4.000): 421-428]

The Viscous-Plastic (VP) rheology with an elliptical yield curve and normal flow rule is implemented in a Lagrangian modelling framework using the Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) meshfree method. Results show, from perturbation analysis of SPH sea-ice dynamic equations, that the classical SPH particle density formulation expressed as a function of sea-ice concentration and mean ice thickness, leads to incorrect plastic wave speed. We propose a new formulation for particle density that gives a plastic wave speed in line with theory. In all cases, the plastic wave in the SPH framework is dispersive and depends on the smoothing length (i.e., the spatial resolution) and on the SPH kernel employed in contrast with its finite difference method (FDM) implementation counterpart. The steady-state solution for the simple 1D ridging experiment is in agreement with the analytical solution within an error of 1 %. SPH is also able to simulate a stable upstream ice arch in an idealized domain representing the Nares Strait in low wind regime (5.3 [m · s−1]) with an ellipse aspect ratio of 2, an average thickness of 1 [m] and free-slip boundary conditions in opposition to the FDM implementation that requires higher shear strength to simulate it. In higher wind regime (7.5 [m · s−1]) no stable ice arches are simulated — unless the thickness is increased — and the ice arch formation showed no dependence on the size of particles contrary to what is observed in the discrete element framework. Finally, the SPH framework is explicit, can take full advantage of parallel processing capabilities and show potential for pan-arctic climate simulations.

An approach for evaluating the performance of dynamically positioned vessels in managed ice is proposed. The approach is based on implementing two Design of Experiments techniques to determine the influence of the pertinent ice field parameters on the vessel’s time-averaged thruster forces. A set of ice basin experiments was used to illustrate the manner of determining the relationship between ice forces and ice field parameters and to examine the effects of the interactions between those parameters. The results determined relationships between ice forces and ice concentration, thickness, floe size, and velocity. Future research requires examining broader sets of experimental data to increase the confidence and accuracy of thruster force predictions.

Numerical modelling of the Arctic ocean dynamics with real-time simulation capability is useful for designing, developing, testing, and validating the performance of Dynamically Positioned (DP) and Autonomous ships/offshore platforms. Advanced simulation technology needs to be developed to predict the expected loads on these systems due to the complex interactions with environmental disturbances. This paper presents models of waves, currents, wind, and ice that comply with the real-time simulation requirements and adequately capture the dynamic characteristics of the most relevant physical processes. A 3D dispersive numerical model is deployed to predict the wave parameters to be utilized to compute the wave loads on a ship with known Response Amplitude Operators (RAO). A uniform current load is then incorporated in a superposition manner by using a combined wave-current field dispersion relation capable of expressing the wavenumber of an interactive wave-current field. The mean and the gust wind components are added to the resultant force components. A multiple regression-based ice model is used to predict the loads caused by an ice field characterized by varied ice thickness, concentration, floe size, drift speed and directions. The stationkeeping performance of a generic DP-controlled ship subjected to environmental disturbances is evaluated for a range of environmental conditions. The proposed models can help design, develop, and evaluate dynamic positioning and autonomous ship controllers’ performance. Another application may be developing a realistic simulation environment to train conventional, DP-controlled and autonomous ship operators., 40th International Conference on Ocean, Offshore & Arctic Engineering, OMAE 2021, June 21-30, 2021, Virtual Conference, Online

Sea-ice observation and estimation of ice forces are becoming increasingly important with the increased activities in arctic water. Proper modelling of ice properties and forces is crucial in such cases to ensure safe operations, for example, Dynamic Positioning (DP). This work, therefore, aims at developing algorithms for image processing to extract useful ice properties and subsequently aid the modelling of ice load exerted on a floating platform or a ship. A robust algorithm capable of detecting closely connected and overlapped ice floes with various sizes and shapes is presented, which is the first step for accurate modelling of ice forces. To demonstrate the effectiveness of this approach, image frames processed from videos produced during an experiment using a model ship performed at the National Research Council’s Ocean Coastal and River Engineering Research Centre (NRC-OCRE) in Canada are used. Simulated ice floe images are also used to show the efficiency of the proposed model and compare it with other published work. The model will be extended further to extract and correlate other ice properties with the ice forces and develop a machine learning based ice force prediction model. The predicted force from that model will then be used as a feedforward to Dynamic Positioning (DP) controller with an aim to improve the performance of the controller.

Oral epithelial dysplasia (OED) is a precursor state usually preceding oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC). Histological grading is the current gold standard for OED prognostication but is subjective and variable with unreliable outcome prediction. We explore if individual OED histological features can be used to develop and evaluate prognostic models for malignant transformation and recurrence prediction. Digitised tissue slides for a cohort of 109 OED cases were reviewed by three expert pathologists, where the prevalence and agreement of architectural and cytological histological features was assessed and association with clinical outcomes analysed using Cox proportional hazards regression and Kaplan-Meier curves. Within the cohort, the most prevalent features were basal cell hyperplasia (72%) and irregular surface keratin (60%), and least common were verrucous surface (26%), loss of epithelial cohesion (30%), lymphocytic band and dyskeratosis (34%). Several features were significant for transformation (p

The present paper reports on comparisons between results from ice basin tests and numerical simulations. The tests were conducted in the model ice basin of the National Research Council Canada in St. John’s, Newfoundland. Those tests examined the performance of a vessel controlled by a dynamic positioning (DP) system in managed ice conditions at a scale of 1:40. A numerical ice dynamics model was used to simulate ice basin test conditions. The results indicate that surge direction thrust and ice force are in good agreement. Ice basin measurements, however, produced higher sway-direction ice forces and yaw-direction moments. It appears that the treatment of sidewall boundaries and the resulting confinement of the ice cover may have contributed to that discrepancy. An additional contribution may be due to differences between the DP algorithms, which were used in the numerical simulations and ice basin tests. Numerical simulations also examined the role of floe shapes. The results indicate that floe shapes obtained from field observations reduce sway-direction ice forces and yaw-direction moments below values obtained when using near-square floe geometries.

Obesity is associated with systemic inflammation and immune cell recruitment to metabolic tissues. Sex differences have been observed where male mice challenged with high fat diet (HFD) exhibit greater adipose tissue inflammation than females demonstrating a role for sex hormones in differential inflammatory responses. Circulating monocytes that respond to dietary lipids and chemokines and produce cytokines are the primary source of recruited adipose tissue macrophages (ATMs). In this study, we investigated sexual dimorphism in biological pathways in HFD-fed ATMs from male and female mice by RNA-seq. We also conducted chemotaxis assays to investigate sex differences in the migration of monocytes isolated from bone marrow from male and female mice toward a dietary saturated lipid — palmitate (PA), and a chemokine — monocyte chemoattractant protein 1 (MCP1), factors known to stimulate myeloid cells in obesity. ATM RNA-Seq demonstrated sex differences of both metabolic and inflammatory activation, including pathways for chemokine signaling and leukocyte trans-endothelial migration. In vivo monocyte transfer studies demonstrated that male monocytes traffic to female adipose tissue to generate ATMs more readily. In chemotaxis assays, lean male monocytes migrated in greater numbers than females toward PA and MCP1. With short-term HFD, male and female monocytes migrated similarly, but in chronic HFD, male monocytes showed greater migration than females upon PA and MCP1 stimulation. Studies with monocytes from toll-like receptor 4 knockout mice (Tlr4-/-) demonstrated that both males and females showed decreased migration than WT in response to PA and MCP1 implying a role for TLR4 in monocyte influx in response to meta-inflammation. Overall, these data demonstrate the role of sexual dimorphism in monocyte recruitment and response to metabolic stimuli that may influence meta-inflammation in obesity.