The prognosis of childhood systemic lupus erythematosus

A retrospective analysis of 50 patients with childhood systemic lupus erythematosus seen during the past 13 years shows 35 living patients, 13 dead, and 2 lost to follow-up. Fourteen patients were males and 36 females, with the median age of onset 14 years. Clinical presentation was multisystemic in 31, primarily renal in 12, hematologic in 5, and atypical in 2. Renal involvement occurred at some time in all 50 patients. Central nervous system symptoms were present in 22 of 50. Survival in the present series is compared with previously reported survival models in the pediatric age group.     

Mobile city applications for Brussels citizens: Smart City trends,challenges and a reality check

This article combines quantitative and qualitative methods to take a first look at the app economy and mobile services landscape in the City and Region of Brussels, capital of Belgium and Europe. By scraping the iTunes App Store and Google Play market places we get a view on platform distribution, pricing, public vs. commercial, adoption, appreciation and popular categories of Brussels apps aimed at citizens, as well as a view on the app economy in the city. This data is then complemented by qualitative expert interviews with actors in the field, such as cities, interest groups and developers. In the context of the current debate surrounding what constitutes a Smart City and the importance of smartphones and mobile in this area, we perform a reality check, using Brussels as a case. We find that the laggard position Brussels is currently in could be an opportunity to leapfrog in the field of mobile services, but that a focused vision and clear mobile strategy, while thinking of the city as a local innovation platform built on open data, is quintessential to achieving this.     

Is biological treatment a viable alternative for micropollutant removal in drinking water treatment processes?

In western societies, clean and safe drinking water is often taken for granted, but there are threats to drinking water resources that should not be underestimated. Contamination of drinking water sources by anthropogenic chemicals is one threat that is particularly widespread in industrialized nations. Recently, a significant amount of attention has been given to the occurrence of micropollutants in the urban water cycle. Micropollutants are bioactive and/or persistent chemicals originating from diverse sources that are frequently detected in water resources in the pg/L to μg/L range. The aim of this review is to critically evaluate the viability of biological treatment processes as a means to remove micropollutants from drinking water resources. We first place the micropollutant problem in context by providing a comprehensive summary of the reported occurrence of micropollutants in raw water used directly for drinking water production and in finished drinking water. We then present a critical discussion on conventional and advanced drinking water treatment processes and their contribution to micropollutant removal. Finally, we propose biological treatment and bioaugmentation as a potential targeted, cost-effective, and sustainable alternative to existing processes while critically examining the technical limitations and scientific challenges that need to be addressed prior to implementation. This review will serve as a valuable source of data and literature for water utilities, water researchers, policy makers, and environmental consultants. Meanwhile this review will open the door to meaningful discussion on the feasibility and application of biological treatment and bioaugmentation in drinking water treatment processes to protect the public from exposure to micropollutants.     

A remotely-powered, 20 Mb/s, 5.35 pJ/bit impulse-UWB WSN tag for cm-accurate-localization sensor networks

This paper presents an ultra-low-power, low-voltage sensor node for wireless sensor networks. The node scavenges RF energy out of the environment, resulting in a limited available power budget and causing an unstable supply voltage. Hence, accurate and extensive power management is needed to achieve proper functionality. The fully integrated, autonomous system is described, including the scavenging circuitry with integrated antenna, the power detection and power control circuits, the on-chip clock reference, the UWB transmitter and the digital control circuitry. The wireless sensor node is implemented in \(0.13 \,\upmu \hbox {m}\) CMOS technology. The only external components are a storage capacitor and a UWB transmit antenna. The system consumes only \(113\, \upmu \hbox {W}\) during burst mode, while only 8 nW is consumed during the scavenging operation, enabling an efficiency of 5.35 pJ/bit which is significantly better than current state-of-the-art UWB tags. Due to the use of impulse-radio UWB, also cm-accurate localization of the tag can be achieved.     

Quantitative assessment by flow cytometry of T-lymphocytes producing antigen-specific gamma-interferon in Brucella immune cattle

Peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) isolated from cattle infected with Brucella secreted gamma-interferon (IFN-gamma) after antigen-specific stimulation with Brucellergene, which is a mixture of cytoplasmic proteins of rough Brucella melitensis B115. Following the depletion of the monocyte-macrophages from the PBMC, the enriched lymphocyte populations stimulated with Brucellergene did not produce IFN-gamma. Two-colour immunofluorescence staining of intracellular IFN-gamma and bovine cell surface molecules identified the cells producing IFN-gamma among the PBMC stimulated with Brucellergene. Moreover, this method could be used to estimate the number of T-cells specifically producing IFN-gamma. For a given animal, there is a significant correlation (p < 0.05) between the production of IFN measured by an ELISA of the supernatant of whole blood stimulated with Brucellergene and the number of T-cells producing IFN-gamma after in vitro stimulation with Brucellergene. The development of the immunofluorescence staining technique provides a new tool for analysing and for measuring the T-cell immune response in cattle.     

Immune response of calves experimentally infected with non-cell-culture-passaged bovine respiratory syncytial virus

The immune response of calves was studied following infection with non-cell-passaged Bovine respiratory syncytial virus (BRSV). Two groups of 6 specific pathogen free (SPF) calves were housed in separate isolation rooms. One group was inoculated intranasally with a non-cell-passaged BRSV strain and the control group was mock-infected. A BRSV specific antibody response was observed for all the BRSV infected calves. These antibodies were shown to have neutralizing activity. No lymphocyte proliferation response was detected in the mock-infected group whereas three animals in the infected group were positive three weeks after the infection. All BRSV-infected calves, except one, produced interferon-gamma (IFN-gamma) one week post-infection and IFN-gamma was observed in all six infected calves after three weeks. The control group showed no IFN-gamma synthesis. In spite of the limits of the BRSV infection model, humoral and cellular immune responses were actively developed by all the calves against this pathogen.     

A Cryptosporidium parvum oocyst low molecular mass fraction evokes a CD4+ T-cell-dependent IFN-gamma response in bovine peripheral blood mononuclear cell cultures

T-Cell antigens that induce the in-vitro interferon-gamma response during Cryptosporidium parvum infection of neonatal calves were identified. A total oocyst extract was separated into a high and a low Mr fraction by a microfiltration technique. Both the high and low Mr fractions evoked an in-vitro interferon-gamma response in naturally infected animals, although strong individual differences between the hosts were observed. Using a complement-mediated technique CD4+ T-cells or WC1+gammadelta T-cells were depleted, whereupon the remaining lymphocyte cultures were stimulated with the different antigen preparations. It was shown that the in-vitro interferon-gamma response of Cryptosporidium-infected calves is CD4+ T-cell-dependent.     

An Externally Trimmed Integrated DC Current Regulator Insensitive to Conducted EMI

This paper introduces a new integrated dc current regulator using external resistive trimming, which presents a high degree of immunity against conducted electromagnetic interference (EMI). While classic topologies generate erratic bias currents that are totally different from the expected value once EMI is injected into the circuit, this new topology succeeds in producing the same fixed dc current, whether EMI is present or not. Extra filtering requiring small on-chip capacitors ensures that the ripple on the output current due to the interference remains at a very low value.     

Efficient reduction of electromagnetic interference effects in operational amplifiers

When subjected to electromagnetic interference, an operational amplifier will generate a DC offset. A thorough comparison between two approaches to reduce this offset is presented. Through mathematical deduction and simulations, it is shown that placing a lowpass filter at the input differential pair is superior to a double differential pair compensation topology