Isolation of IgG Antibodies to Toxocara in Ankylosing Spondylitis Patients with Acute Anterior Uveitis

Francisco-Javier Jiménez-Balderas,Janete García-Jaimes,Rita Ríos,Abraham Zonana-Nacach,Raquel Tapia-,Nayeli Villanueva,Patricia Méndez-Samperio,Jorge-Luis de-la-Rosa-Arana 대한안과학회 2014 Korean Journal of Ophthalmology Vol.28 No.3

Purpose: Since few reports had been published on the prevalence of toxocariasis in ankylosing spondylitis (AS)patients with acute non-granulomatous anterior uveitis (ANGAU), the aim of this work was to determine thepresence of antibodies against Toxocara canis in AS patients with ANGAU. Methods: Thirty-six patients (14 female and 22 male) with AS were enrolled in the study. The history of ANGAUwas accepted only if diagnosed by an ophthalmologist. The detection of IgG antibodies to T. canis was determinedby enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. In addition, antibodies to Ascaris lumbricoides were alsotested to verify non-specific reactions. Results: The prevalence of ANGAU in the AS patients was 58% (21 / 36), and 38% (8 / 21) of the patients withANGAU were positive for antibodies to Toxocara, while 7% (1 / 15) of AS patients without ANGAU were positivefor T. canis (p = 0.038, two tails; mid-p exact). No antibodies were detected to A. lumbricoides antigens inthe serum samples of patients with AS. Conclusions: These data suggest that the seroprevalence of antibodies to T. canis is high in Mexican patientswith AS-associated uveitis, suggesting a chronic asymptomatic toxocariosis, which could be associated withthe pathogenesis of ANGAU; however, further larger-scale studies are needed to confirm this observation.

Engineering microscale cellular niches for three-dimensional multicellular co-cultures

Huang, Carlos P.,Lu, Jente,Seon, Hyeryung,Lee, Abraham P.,Flanagan, Lisa A.,Kim, Ho-Young,Putnam, Andrew J.,Jeon, Noo Li Royal Society of Chemistry 2009 Lab on a chip Vol.9 No.12

<P>Modeling the <I>in vivo</I> microenvironment typically involves placing cells in a three-dimensional (3D) extracellular matrix (ECM) in physiologically relevant context with respect to other cells. The mechanical and chemical features of 3D microenvironments play important roles in tissue engineering, tumor growth and metastasis, and in defining stem cell niches, and it is increasingly recognized that cells behave much differently when surrounded by a 3D ECM than when anchored to a 2D substrate. To create microenvironments that more closely mimic <I>in vivo</I> settings, here we describe a novel microfluidic device that allows multiple discrete constructs of 3D cell-laden hydrogels to be patterned in a sequence of simple steps. The microfluidic platform allows for real-time imaging of the interactions between multiple cell types exposed to both autocrine and paracrine signaling molecules, all within a 3D ECM environment. Detailed modeling determined that surface tension, hydrophobic interactions, and spatial geometry were important factors in containing the gels within distinct separate channels during the filling process. This allowed us to pattern multiple gel types side-by-side and pattern 3D gels spatially with tight dimensional control. Cells embedded in gels could be patterned by culturing MDA-MB-231 metastatic breast cancer cells and RAW 264.1 macrophage cells within distinct collagen type I and Matrigel ECM environments, respectively. Over a 7 day culture experiment, RAW cells invaded into neighboring gels containing MDA-MB-231 cells, but not into gels lacking cells. These studies demonstrate the versatility and potential of this new microfluidic platform to engineer 3D microscale architectures to investigate cell–cell and cell–matrix interactions.</P> <P>Graphic Abstract</P><P>We have developed a novel microfluidic platform to pattern juxtaposed 3D hydrogels independently and generate a well-controlled microenvironment for investigating cell–cell and cell–ECM interactions. <IMG SRC='http://pubs.rsc.org/services/images/RSCpubs.ePlatform.Service.FreeContent.ImageService.svc/ImageService/image/GA?id=b818401a'> </P>

THE DETECTION OF A SN IIn IN OPTICAL FOLLOW-UP OBSERVATIONS OF ICECUBE NEUTRINO EVENTS

Aartsen, M. G.,Abraham, K.,Ackermann, M.,Adams, J.,Aguilar, J. A.,Ahlers, M.,Ahrens, M.,Altmann, D.,Anderson, T.,Archinger, M.,Arguelles, C.,Arlen, T. C.,Auffenberg, J.,Bai, X.,Barwick, S. W.,Baum, V. IOP Publishing 2015 The Astrophysical journal Vol.811 No.1

<P>The IceCube neutrino observatory pursues a follow-up program selecting interesting neutrino events in real-time and issuing alerts for electromagnetic follow-up observations. In 2012 March, the most significant neutrino alert during the first three years of operation was issued by IceCube. In the follow-up observations performed by the Palomar Transient Factory (PTF), a Type IIn supernova (SN IIn) PTF12csy was found 0.degrees 2 away from the neutrino alert direction, with an error radius of 0.degrees 54. It has a redshift of z = 0.0684, corresponding to a luminosity distance of about 300 Mpc and the Pan-STARRS1 survey shows that its explosion time was at least 158 days (in host galaxy rest frame) before the neutrino alert, so that a causal connection is unlikely. The a posteriori significance of the chance detection of both the neutrinos and the SN at any epoch is 2.2 sigma within IceCube's 2011/12 data acquisition season. Also, a complementary neutrino analysis reveals no long-term signal over the course of one year. Therefore, we consider the SN detection coincidental and the neutrinos uncorrelated to the SN. However, the SN is unusual and interesting by itself: it is luminous and energetic, bearing strong resemblance to the SN IIn 2010jl, and shows signs of interaction of the SN ejecta with a dense circumstellar medium. High-energy neutrino emission is expected in models of diffusive shock acceleration, but at a low, non-detectable level for this specific SN. In this paper, we describe the SN PTF12csy and present both the neutrino and electromagnetic data, as well as their analysis.</P>

The Interaction of Relativistic Spacecrafts with the Interstellar Medium

Hoang, Thiem,Lazarian, A.,Burkhart, Blakesley,Loeb, Abraham American Astronomical Society 2017 The Astrophysical journal Vol.837 No.1

<P>The Breakthrough Starshot initiative aims to launch a gram-scale spacecraft to a speed of nu similar to 0.2c, capable of reaching the nearest star system, alpha Centauri, in about 20 years. However, a critical challenge for the initiative is the damage to the spacecraft by interstellar gas and dust during the journey. In this paper, we quantify the interaction of a relativistic spacecraft with gas and dust in the interstellar medium (ISM). For gas bombardment, we find that damage by track formation due to heavy elements is an important effect. We find that gas bombardment can potentially damage the surface of the spacecraft to a depth of similar to 0.1 mm for quartz material after traversing a gas column of N-H similar to 2 x 10(18) cm(-2) along the path to alpha Centauri, whereas the effect is much weaker for graphite material. The effect of dust bombardment erodes the spacecraft surface and produces numerous craters due to explosive evaporation of surface atoms. For a spacecraft speed nu = 0.2c, we find that dust bombardment can erode a surface layer of similar to 0.5 mm thickness after the spacecraft has swept a column density of N-H similar to 3 x 10(17) cm(-2) assuming the standard gas-to-dust ratio of the ISM. Dust bombardment also damages the spacecraft surface by modifying the material structure through melting. We calculate the equilibrium surface temperature due to collisional heating by gas atoms as well as the temperature profile as a function of depth into the spacecraft. Our quantitative results suggest methods for damage control, and we highlight possibilities for shielding strategies and protection of the spacecraft.</P>

HIV/AIDS-related lymphoma: perspective from a regional cancer center in India

A.H. Rudresha,Pravin Ashok Khandare,D. Lokanatha,Abraham Jacob Linu,M.C. Suresh Babu,K.N. Lokesh,L.K. Rajeev,Carol Saldanha Smitha,Vaibhav Baburao Amale,C.S. Premalata,Mulchandani Nikita 대한혈액학회 2019 Blood Research Vol.54 No.3

BackgroundIndia has the third largest population of people living with HIV/AIDS (PLHA). Lymphoma is the second most common malignancy among PLHA. However, data are lacking regard-ing HIV/AIDS-related lymphoma (ARL) in India. This study evaluated the epidemiology and clinical outcomes of ARL from a regional cancer center in India.MethodsThis retrospective analysis included cases of ARL between March 2011 and September 2017. Data were obtained from patient record files for the assessment of epidemiology and clinical outcomes. Statistical analysis was performed using GraphPad Prism 6. Comparisons of subtype-specific survivals were performed using log-rank tests.ResultsOf 1,226 lymphoma cases, 80 (6.5%) were ARL. Details were available for 70 patients. The median age at diagnosis was 40.5 (9‒74) years with a male:female ratio of 2:1. AIDS-defining lymphomas (ADL) constituted 78.6% of cases, while 21.4% had non-AIDS defining lymphoma (NADL). The mean CD4 counts were 193.15±92.85 and 301.93±107.95 cells/L, respectively (t-test; P=0.0002). Extranodal involvement was present in 55.7%, B symptoms were reported in 60%, and lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) was elevated in 64.3% of patients. The median overall survival times were 6 months for plasmablastic lymphoma (PBL), 23 months for diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL), and was not reached for Hodgkin’s lymphoma (log-rank test; P=0.0011). Other histo-logical subtype cases were too few to draw meaningful survival outcomes.ConclusionARL is a heterogeneous disease. Histologic subtype is a major determinant of the clinical outcome. ADL has significantly lower CD4 counts than those of NADL. There is an urgent and unmet need for uniform management guidelines for improving outcomes in this un-der-represented patient population.

Safety and Efficacy of Permacol Injection in the Treatment of Fecal Incontinence

Yahya A Al-Abed,Jennifer Ayers,Abraham Ayantunde,Bandipalyam V Praveen 대한대장항문학회 2016 Annals of Coloproctolgy Vol.32 No.2

Purpose: Permacol has been gaining popularity in recent times for the treatment of fecal incontinence (FI). This study aims to evaluate the safety and efficacy of anal submucosal Permacol injection in the treatment of FI. Methods: All consecutive patients who underwent Permacol injection for FI over a 3-year period were included. Patients’ data relating to obstetric history, anorectal/pelvic operations, type of FI, preoperative anorectal physiology results and follow-up details for outcome measures were collected. Preoperative and postoperative Cleveland Clinic Florida Incontinence Scores (CCFISs) were noted. Patients were surveyed by using a telephone questionnaire to assess the quality of life and other outcome measures. Data were analysed using SPSS ver.19.0. Results: Thirty patients (28 females and 2 males) with a median age of 67 years were included in the study. Of those patients, 37%, 50%, and 13% were noted to have passive, mixed and urge FI, respectively. Six of the patients (20%) had repeat Permacol injections, 5 of whom had sustained responses to the first Permacol injection for a mean of 11 months. There was a significant improvement in the CCFIS from a baseline median of 12.5, mean 12.8 (interquartile range [IQR], 6–20), to a median of 3.5, mean 4.8 (IQR, 0–20), P < 0.001. Of the patients surveyed by telephone 89% were satisfied with their overall experience and the improvement in their symptoms following Permacol injections. Conclusion: This study has demonstrated that Permacol injection for the treatment of FI is safe and effective and has no associated major complications. However, the results are not permanent; consequently, a significant proportion of the patients with an initial response may require repeat injections.

Search for displaced vertices of oppositely charged leptons from decays of long-lived particles in <i>pp</i> collisions at s = 13 TeV with the ATLAS detector

Aad, G.,Abbott, B.,Abbott, D.C.,Abed Abud, A.,Abeling, K.,Abhayasinghe, D.K.,Abidi, S.H.,AbouZeid, O.S.,Abraham, N.L.,Abramowicz, H.,Abreu, H.,Abulaiti, Y.,Acharya, B.S.,Achkar, B.,Adachi, S.,Adam, L. North-Holland Pub. Co 2020 Physics letters. Section B Vol.801 No.-

<P><B>Abstract</B></P> <P>A search for long-lived particles decaying into an oppositely charged lepton pair, <I>μμ</I>, <I>ee</I>, or <I>eμ</I>, is presented using 32.8 <SUP> fb − 1 </SUP> of <I>pp</I> collision data collected at s = 13 TeV by the ATLAS detector at the LHC. Candidate leptons are required to form a vertex, within the inner tracking volume of ATLAS, displaced from the primary <I>pp</I> interaction region. No lepton pairs with an invariant mass greater than 12 GeV are observed, consistent with the background expectations derived from data. The detection efficiencies for generic resonances with lifetimes (<I>cτ</I>) of 100–1000 mm decaying into a dilepton pair with masses between 0.1–1.0 TeV are presented as a function of <SUB> p T </SUB> and decay radius of the resonances to allow the extraction of upper limits on the cross sections for theoretical models. The result is also interpreted in a supersymmetric model in which the lightest neutralino, produced via squark–antisquark production, decays into <SUP> ℓ + </SUP> <SUP> ℓ ′ − </SUP> ν ( ℓ , <SUP> ℓ ′ </SUP> = e , <I>μ</I>) with a finite lifetime due to the presence of R-parity violating couplings. Cross-section limits are presented for specific squark and neutralino masses. For a 700 GeV squark, neutralinos with masses of 50–500 GeV and mean proper lifetimes corresponding to <I>cτ</I> values between 1 mm to 6 m are excluded. For a 1.6 TeV squark, <I>cτ</I> values between 3 mm to 1 m are excluded for 1.3 TeV neutralinos.</P>

Spectral Leakage-Driven Loopback Scheme for Prediction of Mixed-Signal Circuit Specifications

Kim, Byoungho,Abraham, Jacob A. IEEE 2019 IEEE transactions on industrial electronics Vol.66 No.1

<P>The rising cost of production testing for a system-on-a-chip (SoC) is one of the crucial matters to chip makers, due to long test time and costly automated-test-equipment. This paper proposes a spectral leakage-driven built-in self-test (BIST) scheme to precisely predict the nonlinearity of mixed-signal circuits in the loopback mode, thereby accomplishing cost-effectiveness (compared to previous BIST-based works). A digitally synthesized single-tone sinusoidal stimulus used for conventional harmonic testing is <I>incoherently</I> sampled by a device under test (DUT). The DUT output signal exhibits the correlation between the DUT harmonics and the spectral leakage introduced by the incoherent sampling. The DUT output signal is then fed to another DUT through a loopback path, so that the harmonics of a pair of DUTs are correlated with the spectral leakage on the loopback response; the magnitude of the spectral leakage is considered as a weighting factor on the harmonic magnitude of those DUTs. The correlation is quantitatively modeled as characteristic equations in <xref ref-type='disp-formula' rid='deqn15'>(15)</xref>, and postprocessing predicts the harmonics of the two individual DUTs, by simultaneously solving the characteristic equations using on-chip DSP core available in an SoC. Simulation and hardware measurements validated that this paper can be practically used for production testing by showing less than 0.3 and 0.6 dB of the prediction errors, respectively.</P>

All-flavour search for neutrinos from dark matter annihilations in the Milky Way with IceCube/DeepCore

Aartsen, M. G.,Abraham, K.,Ackermann, M.,Adams, J.,Aguilar, J. A.,Ahlers, M.,Ahrens, M.,Altmann, D.,Andeen, K.,Anderson, T.,Ansseau, I.,Anton, G.,Archinger, M.,Arguelles, C.,Arlen, T. C.,Auffenberg, J Springer-Verlag 2016 European Physical Journal C Vol.76 No.10

<P>We present the first IceCube search for a signal of dark matter annihilations in the Milky Way using all-flavour neutrino-induced particle cascades. The analysis focuses on the DeepCore sub-detector of IceCube, and uses the surrounding IceCube strings as a veto region in order to select starting events in the DeepCore volume. We use 329 live-days of data from IceCube operating in its 86-string configuration during 2011-2012. No neutrino excess is found, the final result being compatible with the background-only hypothesis. From this null result, we derive upper limits on the velocity-averaged self-annihilation cross-section, , for dark matter candidate masses ranging from 30 GeV up to 10 TeV, assuming both a cuspy and a flat-cored dark matter halo profile. For dark matter masses between 200 GeV and 10 TeV, the results improve on all previous IceCube results on , reaching a level of 10 cm s, depending on the annihilation channel assumed, for a cusped NFW profile. The analysis demonstrates that all-flavour searches are competitive with muon channel searches despite the intrinsically worse angular resolution of cascades compared to muon tracks in IceCube.</P>

Bi-modal spectral method for evaluation of along-wind induced fatigue damage

S. Gomathinayagam,P. Harikrishna,A. Abraham,N. Lakshmanan 한국풍공학회 2006 Wind and Structures, An International Journal (WAS Vol.9 No.4

Several analytical procedures available in literature, for the evaluation of wind induced fatigue damage of structures, either assume the wide band random stress variations as narrow band random process or use correction factors along with narrow band assumption. This paper compares the correction factors obtained using the Rainflow Cycle (RFC) counting of the measured stress time histories on a lamp mast and a lattice tower, with those evaluated using different frequency domain methods available in literature. A Bi-modal spectral method has been formulated by idealising the single spectral moment method into two modes of background and resonant components, as considered in the gust response factor, for the evaluation of fatigue of slender structures subjected to along-wind vibrations. A closed form approximation for the effective frequency of the background component has been developed. The simplicity and the accuracy of the new method have been illustrated through a case study by simulating stress time histories at the base of an urban light pole for different mean wind speeds. The correction factors obtained by the Bi-modal spectral method have been compared with those obtained from the simulated stress time histories using RFC counting method. The developed Bi-modal method is observed to be a simple and easy to use alternative to detailed time and frequency domain fatigue analyses without considerable computational and experimental efforts.