Influenza-Like-Illness and Clinically Diagnosed Flu: Disease Burden,Costs and Quality of Life for Patients Seeking Ambulatory Care or No Professional Care at All

This is one of the first studies to (1) describe the out-of-hospital burden of influenza-like-illness (ILI) and clinically diagnosed flu, also for patients not seeking professional medical care, (2) assess influential background characteristics, and (3) formally compare the burden of ILI in patients with and without a clinical diagnosis of flu. A general population sample with recent ILI experience was recruited during the 2011–2012 influenza season in Belgium. Half of the 2250 respondents sought professional medical care, reported more symptoms (especially more often fever), a longer duration of illness, more use of medication (especially antibiotics) and a higher direct medical cost than patients not seeking medical care. The disease and economic burden were similar for ambulatory ILI patients, irrespective of whether they received a clinical diagnosis of flu. On average, they experienced 5–6 symptoms over a 6-day period; required 1.6 physician visits and 86–91% took medication. An average episode amounted to €51–€53 in direct medical costs, 4 days of absence from work or school and the loss of 0.005 quality-adjusted life-years. Underlying illness led to greater costs and lower quality-of-life. The costs of ILI patients with clinically diagnosed flu tended to increase, while those of ILI patients without clinically diagnosed flu tended to decrease with age. Recently vaccinated persons experienced lower costs and a higher quality-of-life, but this was only the case for patients not seeking professional medical care. This information can be used directly to evaluate the implementation of cost-effective prevention and control measures for influenza. In particular to inform the evaluation of more widespread seasonal influenza vaccination, including in children, which is currently considered by many countries.     

Economic Decisions for Others: An Exception to Loss Aversion Law

In everyday life, people often make decisions on behalf of others. The current study investigates whether risk preferences of decision-makers differ when the reference point is no longer their own money but somebody else money. Thirty four healthy participants performed three different monetary risky choices tasks by making decisions for oneself and for another unknown person. Results showed that loss aversion bias was significantly reduced when participants were choosing on behalf of another person compared to when choosing for themselves. The influence of emotions like regret on decision-making may explain these results. We discuss the importance of the sense of responsibility embodied in the emotion of regret in modulating economic decisions for self but not for others. Moreover, our findings are consistent with the Risk-as-feelings hypothesis, suggesting that self-other asymmetrical behavior is due to the extent the decision-maker is affected by the real and emotional consequences of his/her decision.     

Comparison of Cobb Angles Measured Manually,Calculated from 3-D Spinal Reconstruction,and Estimated from Torso Asymmetry

While scoliotic spinal deformity is traditionally measured by the Cobb angle, we seek to estimate scoliosis severity from the torso surface without X-ray radiation. Here, we measured the Cobb angle in three ways: by protractor from postero-anterior X-ray, by computer from a 3-D digitized model of the vertebral body line, and by neural-network estimation from indices of torso surface asymmetry. The estimates of the Cobb angle by computer and by neural network were equally accurate in 153 records from 52 patients (standard deviation of 6° from the Cobb angle, r =0.93 ), showing that torso asymmetry reliably predicted spinal deformity. Further improvements in predictive accuracy may require estimation of other 3-D indices of spinal deformity besides the Cobb angle with its wide measurement variability.     

Partial Resistance of Carrot to Alternaria dauci Correlates with In Vitro Cultured Carrot Cell Resistance to Fungal Exudates

Although different mechanisms have been proposed in the recent years, plant pathogen partial resistance is still poorly understood. Components of the chemical warfare, including the production of plant defense compounds and plant resistance to pathogen-produced toxins, are likely to play a role. Toxins are indeed recognized as important determinants of pathogenicity in necrotrophic fungi. Partial resistance based on quantitative resistance loci and linked to a pathogen-produced toxin has never been fully described. We tested this hypothesis using the Alternaria dauci – carrot pathosystem. Alternaria dauci, causing carrot leaf blight, is a necrotrophic fungus known to produce zinniol, a compound described as a non-host selective toxin. Embryogenic cellular cultures from carrot genotypes varying in resistance against A. dauci were confronted with zinniol at different concentrations or to fungal exudates (raw, organic or aqueous extracts). The plant response was analyzed through the measurement of cytoplasmic esterase activity, as a marker of cell viability, and the differentiation of somatic embryos in cellular cultures. A differential response to toxicity was demonstrated between susceptible and partially resistant genotypes, with a good correlation noted between the resistance to the fungus at the whole plant level and resistance at the cellular level to fungal exudates from raw and organic extracts. No toxic reaction of embryogenic cultures was observed after treatment with the aqueous extract or zinniol used at physiological concentration. Moreover, we did not detect zinniol in toxic fungal extracts by UHPLC analysis. These results suggest that strong phytotoxic compounds are present in the organic extract and remain to be characterized. Our results clearly show that carrot tolerance to A. dauci toxins is one component of its partial resistance.     

On the Pressure Response in the Brain due to Short Duration Blunt Impacts

When the head is subject to non-penetrating (blunt) impact, contusion-type injuries are commonly identified beneath the impact site (the coup) and, in some instances, at the opposite pole (the contre-coup). This pattern of injury has long eluded satisfactory explanation and blunt head injury mechanisms in general remain poorly understood. There are only a small number of studies in the open literature investigating the head''s response to short duration impacts, which can occur in collisions with light projectiles. As such, the head impact literature to date has focussed almost exclusively on impact scenarios which lead to a quasi-static pressure response in the brain. In order to investigate the response of the head to a wide range of impact durations, parametric numerical studies were performed on a highly bio-fidelic finite element model of the human head created from in vivo magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan data with non-linear tissue material properties. We demonstrate that short duration head impacts can lead to potentially deleterious transients of positive and negative intra-cranial pressure over an order of magnitude larger than those observed in the quasi-static regime despite reduced impact force and energy. The onset of this phenomenon is shown to be effectively predicted by the ratio of impact duration to the period of oscillation of the first ovalling mode of the system. These findings point to dramatically different pressure distributions in the brain and hence different patterns of injury depending on projectile mass, and provide a potential explanation for dual coup/contre-coup injuries observed clinically.     

Binding of Net-Fla,a Netropsin-Flavin Hybrid Molecule,to DNA: Molecular Mechanics and Dynamics Studies in vacuo and in Water Solution

Abstract

We have studied the binding of the hybrid netropsin-flavin (Net-Fla) molecule onto four sequences containing four A.T base pairs. Molecular mechanics minimizations in vacuo show numerous minimal conformations separated by one base pair. 400 ps molecular dynamics simulations in vacuo have been performed using the lowest minima as the starting conformations. During these simulations, the flavin moiety of the drug makes two hydrogen bonds with an amino group of a neighboring guanine. A 200 ps molecular dynamics simulation in explicit water solution suggests that the binding of Net-Fla upon the DNA substrate is enhanced by water bridges. A water molecule bridging the amidinium of Net-Fla to the N3 atom of an adenine seems to be stuck in the dmg-DNA complex during the whole simulation. The fluctuations of the DNA helical parameters and of the torsion angles of the sugar-phosphate backbone are very similar in the simulations in vacuo and in water. The time auto-correlation functions for the DNA helical parameters decrease rapidly in the picosecond range in vacuo. The same functions computed from the water solution molecular dynamics simulations seem to have two modes: the rapid mode is similar to the behavior in vacuo, and is followed by a slower mode in the 10 ps range.     

QTL Dissection of Lag Phase in Wine Fermentation Reveals a New Translocation Responsible for Saccharomyces cerevisiae Adaptation to Sulfite

Quantitative genetics and QTL mapping are efficient strategies for deciphering the genetic polymorphisms that explain the phenotypic differences of individuals within the same species. Since a decade, this approach has been applied to eukaryotic microbes such as Saccharomyces cerevisiae in order to find natural genetic variations conferring adaptation of individuals to their environment. In this work, a QTL responsible for lag phase duration in the alcoholic fermentation of grape juice was dissected by reciprocal hemizygosity analysis. After invalidating the effect of some candidate genes, a chromosomal translocation affecting the lag phase was brought to light using de novo assembly of parental genomes. This newly described translocation (XV-t-XVI) involves the promoter region of ADH1 and the gene SSU1 and confers an increased expression of the sulfite pump during the first hours of alcoholic fermentation. This translocation constitutes another adaptation route of wine yeast to sulfites in addition to the translocation VIII-t-XVI previously described. A population survey of both translocation forms in a panel of domesticated yeast strains suggests that the translocation XV-t-XVI has been empirically selected by human activity.     

Intranuclear distribution of mouse liver nuclear DNA polymerase

Adult mouse liver nuclei and their subfractions corresponding to heterochromatin, nucleoli, membranes, and euchromatin were studied for DNA-polymerase activity. The intact nuclei and the two heavy nuclear fractions contained rather low activity while the two light fractions (membranes and euchromatin) had no activity at all. In the two heavy fractions, the activity was stimulated by β-mercaptoethanol and depressed by p-hydroxymercuribenzoate and by omission of one or more nucleotides. A nuclease activity, detected in the intact nuclei, may also be present in the nuclear subfractions. DNA-polymerase activity in the heavy fractions of mouse liver nuclei is discussed in relation to other published results.     

Comprehensive Surface-Wave Description for the Nano-scale Energy Concentration with Resonant Dipole Antennas

Resonant optical dipole nano-antennas allow giant field enhancement within nano-gaps. To show how the energy of external illumination waves is delivered and concentrated in nano-gaps, we build up a model by considering the dynamical launching and multiple scattering processes of surface plasmon polaritions (SPPs) on both antenna arms. The model captures the main feature of the antenna resonance as evidenced by comparison of the model prediction with fully vectorial numerical results and provides an intuitive picture that the energy of external wave is initially transferred into SPP and is then coupled into the nano-gap. The enhanced field in the nano-gap oscillates quasi-periodically with the increase of the antenna-arm length, and the resonance peaks can be predicted with a phase-matching condition derived from the model, showing that antenna resonance is due to a constructive interference of the multiple-scattered SPPs. Analytical equation for determining the complex resonance wavelength and the quality factor of the resonant modes is obtained. The model however exhibits observable deviation from fully vectorial numerical results for the lowest resonance order (for antenna with the shortest arms), evidencing that, for this case, surface waves other than SPPs contribute to the antenna resonance. The present results are helpful for clarifying the underlying physics for the energy concentration with resonant dipole antennas and may provide recipes for intuitive design of antenna devices, such as those used for optical nonlinearity enhancement and biochemical sensing.