Oxytocin enhances onset of lactation among mothers delivering prematurely.

In a double-blind group sequential trial the efficiency of an oxytocin nasal spray in enhancing lactation was studied during the first five days after delivery in women who had given birth prematurely. The cumulative volume of breast milk obtained between the second and fifth days after delivery was 3.5 times greater in primiparas given oxytocin than in primiparas given placebo. There was no significant difference in the composition of the milk between the untreated women and those given oxytocin. The results of this study show that oxytocin nasal spray is an effective and safe means of enhancing lactation in women using a breast pump.     

Does size matter? Conservation implications of differing woody population sizes with equivalent occurrence and diversity of species for threatened savanna habitats

The Cerrado stands out from other savannas of the world for hosting the highest biodiversity and for its ongoing massive destruction. Savannas on plain relief and with deep soils (DS) in Central Brazil have been widely converted into agropastoral ecosystems. In contrast, savannas on steep relief with shallow and rocky soils (RS) have been considered as future biodiversity refuges in Central Brazil. In this study, we show that adjacent DS and RS savanna sites (each with ten 1-ha plots) differ based on their woody species population sizes, but not based on species occurrence or diversity. In addition, we discuss the implications of these results for species conservation. Our research indicates that the DS and RS savannas are complementary, but not equivalent, regarding their representation of savanna vegetation in Central Brazil. We hypothesize that if RS savannas become the only refuges for savannic vegetation, widespread biodiversity losses will occur in the short term (through loss of exclusive and habitat-specialist species) and long term (due to fragmentation, reductions in population size and loss of genetic variability). Thus, we suggest that the consideration of savannas on distinct substrates should be considered for improving conservation decision-making and initiatives and can be beneficial when expanding or creating new conservation units.     

Dynamic Processes in Regulation and Some Implications for Biofeedback and Biobehavioral Interventions

Systems theory has long been used in psychology, biology, and sociology. This paper applies newer methods of control systems modeling for assessing system stability in health and disease. Control systems can be characterized as open or closed systems with feedback loops. Feedback produces oscillatory activity, and the complexity of naturally occurring oscillatory patterns reflects the multiplicity of feedback mechanisms, such that many mechanisms operate simultaneously to control the system. Unstable systems, often associated with poor health, are characterized by absence of oscillation, random noise, or a very simple pattern of oscillation. This modeling approach can be applied to a diverse range of phenomena, including cardiovascular and brain activity, mood and thermal regulation, and social system stability. External system stressors such as disease, psychological stress, injury, or interpersonal conflict may perturb a system, yet simultaneously stimulate oscillatory processes and exercise control mechanisms. Resonance can occur in systems with negative feedback loops, causing high-amplitude oscillations at a single frequency. Resonance effects can be used to strengthen modulatory oscillations, but may obscure other information and control mechanisms, and weaken system stability. Positive as well as negative feedback loops are important for system function and stability. Examples are presented of oscillatory processes in heart rate variability, and regulation of autonomic, thermal, pancreatic and central nervous system processes, as well as in social/organizational systems such as marriages and business organizations. Resonance in negative feedback loops can help stimulate oscillations and exercise control reflexes, but also can deprive the system of important information. Empirical hypotheses derived from this approach are presented, including that moderate stress may enhance health and functioning.     

Comparing Visually Assessed BI-RADS Breast Density and Automated Volumetric Breast Density Software: A Cross-Sectional Study in a Breast Cancer Screening Setting

Introduction

The objective of this study is to compare different methods for measuring breast density, both visual assessments and automated volumetric density, in a breast cancer screening setting. These measures could potentially be implemented in future screening programmes, in the context of personalised screening or screening evaluation.

Materials and Methods

Digital mammographic exams (N = 992) of women participating in the Dutch breast cancer screening programme (age 50–75y) in 2013 were included. Breast density was measured in three different ways: BI-RADS density (5^th edition) and with two commercially available automated software programs (Quantra and Volpara volumetric density). BI-RADS density (ordinal scale) was assessed by three radiologists. Quantra (v1.3) and Volpara (v1.5.0) provide continuous estimates. Different comparison methods were used, including Bland-Altman plots and correlation coefficients (e.g., intraclass correlation coefficient [ICC]).

Results

Based on the BI-RADS classification, 40.8% of the women had ‘heterogeneously or extremely dense’ breasts. The median volumetric percent density was 12.1% (IQR: 9.6–16.5) for Quantra, which was higher than the Volpara estimate (median 6.6%, IQR: 4.4–10.9). The mean difference between Quantra and Volpara was 5.19% (95% CI: 5.04–5.34) (ICC: 0.64). There was a clear increase in volumetric percent dense volume as BI-RADS density increased. The highest accuracy for predicting the presence of BI-RADS c+d (heterogeneously or extremely dense) was observed with a cut-off value of 8.0% for Volpara and 13.8% for Quantra.

Conclusion

Although there was no perfect agreement, there appeared to be a strong association between all three measures. Both volumetric density measures seem to be usable in breast cancer screening programmes, provided that the required data flow can be realized.     

Detecting Lung Diseases from Exhaled Aerosols: Non-Invasive Lung Diagnosis Using Fractal Analysis and SVM Classification

Background

Each lung structure exhales a unique pattern of aerosols, which can be used to detect and monitor lung diseases non-invasively. The challenges are accurately interpreting the exhaled aerosol fingerprints and quantitatively correlating them to the lung diseases.

Objective and Methods

In this study, we presented a paradigm of an exhaled aerosol test that addresses the above two challenges and is promising to detect the site and severity of lung diseases. This paradigm consists of two steps: image feature extraction using sub-regional fractal analysis and data classification using a support vector machine (SVM). Numerical experiments were conducted to evaluate the feasibility of the breath test in four asthmatic lung models. A high-fidelity image-CFD approach was employed to compute the exhaled aerosol patterns under different disease conditions.

Findings

By employing the 10-fold cross-validation method, we achieved 100% classification accuracy among four asthmatic models using an ideal 108-sample dataset and 99.1% accuracy using a more realistic 324-sample dataset. The fractal-SVM classifier has been shown to be robust, highly sensitive to structural variations, and inherently suitable for investigating aerosol-disease correlations.

Conclusion

For the first time, this study quantitatively linked the exhaled aerosol patterns with their underlying diseases and set the stage for the development of a computer-aided diagnostic system for non-invasive detection of obstructive respiratory diseases.     

Species-Specific Chromosome Engineering Greatly Improves Fully Human Polyclonal Antibody Production Profile in Cattle

Large-scale production of fully human IgG (hIgG) or human polyclonal antibodies (hpAbs) by transgenic animals could be useful for human therapy. However, production level of hpAbs in transgenic animals is generally very low, probably due to the fact that evolutionarily unique interspecies-incompatible genomic sequences between human and non-human host species may impede high production of fully hIgG in the non-human environment. To address this issue, we performed species-specific human artificial chromosome (HAC) engineering and tested these engineered HAC in cattle. Our previous study has demonstrated that site-specific genomic chimerization of pre-B cell receptor/B cell receptor (pre-BCR/BCR) components on HAC vectors significantly improves human IgG expression in cattle where the endogenous bovine immunoglobulin genes were knocked out. In this report, hIgG1 class switch regulatory elements were subjected to site-specific genomic chimerization on HAC vectors to further enhance hIgG expression and improve hIgG subclass distribution in cattle. These species-specific modifications in a chromosome scale resulted in much higher production levels of fully hIgG of up to 15 g/L in sera or plasma, the highest ever reported for a transgenic animal system. Transchromosomic (Tc) cattle containing engineered HAC vectors generated hpAbs with high titers against human-origin antigens following immunization. This study clearly demonstrates that species-specific sequence differences in pre-BCR/BCR components and IgG1 class switch regulatory elements between human and bovine are indeed functionally distinct across the two species, and therefore, are responsible for low production of fully hIgG in our early versions of Tc cattle. The high production levels of fully hIgG with hIgG1 subclass dominancy in a large farm animal species achieved here is an important milestone towards broad therapeutic applications of hpAbs.