Systemic Inflammation and the Breakdown of Intestinal Homeostasis Are Key Events in Chronic Spinal Cord Injury Patients

Our aim was to investigate the subset distribution and function of circulating monocytes, proinflammatory cytokine levels, gut barrier damage, and bacterial translocation in chronic spinal cord injury (SCI) patients. Thus, 56 SCI patients and 28 healthy donors were studied. The levels of circulating CD14^+highCD16⁻, CD14^+highCD16⁺, and CD14^+lowCD16⁺ monocytes, membrane TLR2, TLR4, and TLR9, phagocytic activity, ROS generation, and intracytoplasmic TNF-α, IL-1, IL-6, and IL-10 after lipopolysaccharide (LPS) stimulation were analyzed by polychromatic flow cytometry. Serum TNF-α, IL-1, IL-6 and IL-10 levels were measured by Luminex and LPS-binding protein (LBP), intestinal fatty acid-binding protein (I-FABP) and zonulin by ELISA. SCI patients had normal monocyte counts and subset distribution. CD14^+highCD16⁻ and CD14^+highCD16⁺ monocytes exhibited decreased TLR4, normal TLR2 and increased TLR9 expression. CD14^+highCD16⁻ monocytes had increased LPS-induced TNF-α but normal IL-1, IL-6, and IL-10 production. Monocytes exhibited defective phagocytosis but normal ROS production. Patients had enhanced serum TNF-α and IL-6 levels, normal IL-1 and IL-10 levels, and increased circulating LBP, I-FABP, and zonulin levels. Chronic SCI patients displayed impaired circulating monocyte function. These patients exhibited a systemic proinflammatory state characterized by enhanced serum TNF-α and IL-6 levels. These patients also had increased bacterial translocation and gut barrier damage.     

Nickel phosphonate MOF as efficient water splitting photocatalyst

A novel microporous two-dimensional(2D)Ni-based phosphonate metal-organic framework(MOF;denoted as IEF-13)has been successfully synthesized by a simple and green hydrothermal method and fully characterized using a combination of experimental and computational techniques.Structure resolution by single-crystal X-ray diffraction reveals that IEF-13 crystallizes in the triclinic space group Pi having bi-octahedra nickel nodes and a photo/electroactive tritopic phosphonate ligand.Remarkably,this material exhibits coordinatively unsaturated nickel(II)sites,free-P0₃H₂and-P0₃H acidic groups,a C0₂accessible microporosity,and an exceptional thermal and chemical stability.Further,its in-deep optoelectronic characterization evidences a photoresponse suitable for photocatalysis.In this sense,the photocatalytic activity for challenging H₂generation and overall water splitting in absence of any co-catalyst using UV-Vis irradiation and simulated sunlight has been evaluated,constituting the first report for a phosphonate-MOF photocatalyst.IEF-13 is able to produce up to 2,200 fimol of H₂per gram using methanol as sacrificial agent,exhibiting stability,maintaining its crystal structure and allowing its recycling.Even more,170μmol of H₂per gram were produced using IEF-13 as photocatalyst in the absence of any co-catalyst for the overall water splitting,being this reaction limited by the 0₂reduction.The present work opens new avenues for further optimization of the photocatalytic activity in this type of multifunctional materials.     

Parameter estimation for a morphochemical reaction-diffusion model of electrochemical pattern formation

The process of electrodeposition can be described in terms of a reaction-diffusion partial differential equation (PDE) system that models the dynamics of the morphology profile and the chemical composition. Here we fit such a model to the different patterns present in a range of electrodeposited and electrochemically modified alloys using PDE constrained optimization. Experiments with simulated data show how the parameter space of the model can be divided into zones corresponding to the different physical patterns by examining the structure of an appropriate cost function. We then use real data to demonstrate how numerical optimization of the cost function can allow the model to fit the rich variety of patterns arising in experiments. The computational technique developed provides a potential tool for tuning experimental parameters to produce desired patterns.     

A simple model for deep dynamic stall conditions

The present study is focused on modeling of dynamic stall behavior of a pitching airfoil. The deep stall regime is in particular considered. A model is proposed, which has a low implementation and computational complexity but yet is able to deal with different types of dynamic stall conditions, including those characterized by multiple vortex shedding at the airfoil leading edge. The proposed model is appraised against an extensive data set of experimental (α,C_L) curves for NACA0012. The results of an existing widely used model, having comparable complexity, are also shown for comparison. The proposed model is able to well reproduce not only the classic curves of deep dynamic stall but also the curves characterized by lift oscillations at high angles of attack due to the shedding of multiple vortices. Furthermore, the model appears to be robust to variations of its parameters from the optimal values and of the airfoil geometry. Finally, the model is successfully implemented in a commercial CFD software and applied to the simulation of a vertical axis wind turbine within the actuator cylinder approach. The accuracy of the prediction of the turbine power coefficient in the whole rotation cycle is very good for the optimal working condition of the turbine, for which the model parameters were calibrated. Fairly good accuracy is also obtained in significantly different working conditions without any further calibration.     

Mining statistically significant associations for exploratory analysis of human sleep data.

We introduce a specialized association rule mining technique that can extract patterns from complex sleep data comprising polysomnographic recordings, clinical summaries, and sleep questionnaire responses. The rules mined can describe associations among temporally annotated events and questionnaire or summary data; e.g., the likelihood that an occurrence of a rapid eye movement (REM) sleep stage during the second 100 sleep epochs of the night is associated with moderate caffeine intake. We use chi2 analysis to ensure statistical significance of the mined rules at the level P < 0.05. Our results, obtained by mining sleep-related data from 242 human subjects, reveal clinically interesting associations among the polysomnographic and summary variables. Our experience suggests that association mining may also be useful for selection of variables prior to using logistic regression.     

The first five responses in the method of constant stimuli.

Examined whether the method of constant stimuli with the standard presented first produces a constant error that depends on adaptation level. 120 university students were shown 5 series of 5 pairs of standard and variable lines. They had to decide whether the standard or the variable was longer or shorter than the preceding variable, or standard, respectively. In order to establish when the constant error occurred, the point of subjective equality was determined for each response. It was found that the 1st response was nearly random. The constant error was present from the 2nd response, and its magnitude did not change in succeeding series, contrary to expectations from adaptation-level theory. (French abstract) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Dynamical modelling of an activated sludge system of a petrochemical plant operating at high temperatures.

The Mexican petrochemical industry, Morelos S.A. de C.V., is one of the biggest and more important petroleum industries in Mexico and Latin America. It has an activated sludge system to treat its wastewater flow, which is approximately 7,000 m3/d. The wastewater contains volatile organic carbon substances classified as toxics. The old surface aeration system was changed for fine bubble diffusers; however, one major drawback of the new aeration system is that the temperature in the bioreactor has increased due to the compression of the air, which at the compressor exit reaches 85 degrees C. This effect results in the temperature in the bioreactor attaining 32 degrees C during the fall, whereas in the spring and summer, the bioreactor temperature reaches higher values than 40 degrees C. The high temperatures reduce the microorganism activity and cause a higher volatilisation rate of volatile compounds, among other effects, which affect the performance of the biological treatment. This work was performed to obtain a better modelling of the wastewater treatment from the petrochemical industry. The model describes the effect of the temperature on the performance of the biological treatment. The model was obtained from tests that were carried out in laboratory reactors with 14 L capacity, which were operated at different temperatures (from 30 to 45 degrees C), with the same wastewater and conditions as the actual system.     

QoS assessment of 3G video-phone calls by tracing watermarking exploiting the new colour space `YST?

Tracing watermarking has been recently proposed as a technique to provide a blind measure of the quality of service of the communication link, focusing on multimedia communication scenarios. 3G communication scenarios, where each customer transmits both voice and MPEG-4 video sequences in real time, have been considered. Typical video-phone call consists of close shots of speakers, framing their face in the foreground. For such particular application, a novel colour space (YST) is adopted to minimise the perceptual distortions on face coding introduced by watermarking. In the YST space, the luminance component (Y) is the same as in conventional YUV space, whereas the vectors S and T lie within the chrominance (UV) plane. The S (skin) component is a linear combination of U and V obtained as the 'average' chrominance estimated from an assorted set human faces to achieve a reasonable generalisation. The third component, T, is defined as orthogonal to the YS plane. The results show the benefits obtained in digital watermarking by the new representation against the conventional approach. In fact, the sensitivity of the YST representation outperforms the conventional one in terms of objective (mean square error, peak signal-to-noise ratio) and subjective (video-quality metrics) indicators.