Fetal and Early Childhood Undernutrition, Mortality, and Lifelong Health

http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.122461

Evaluation of coagulation activation after Rhinovirus infection in patients with asthma and healthy control subjects: an observational study

Background Asthma exacerbations are frequently triggered by rhinovirus infections. Both asthma and respiratory tract infection can activate haemostasis. Therefore we hypothesized that experimental rhinovirus-16 infection and asthmatic airway inflammation act in synergy on the haemostatic balance. Methods 28 patients (14 patients with mild allergic asthma and 14 healthy non-allergic controls) were infected with low-dose rhinovirus type 16. Venous plasma and bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BAL fluid) were obtained before and 6 days after infection to evaluate markers of coagulation activation, thrombin-antithrombin complexes, von Willebrand factor, plasmin-antiplasmin complexes, plasminogen activator inhibitor type-1, endogenous thrombin potential and tissue factor-exposing microparticles by fibrin generation test, in plasma and/or BAL fluid. Data were analysed by nonparametric tests (Wilcoxon, Mann Whitney and Spearman correlation). Results 13 patients with mild asthma (6 females, 19-29 y) and 11 healthy controls (10 females, 19-31 y) had a documented Rhinovirus-16 infection. Rhinovirus-16 challenge resulted in a shortening of the fibrin generation test in BAL fluid of asthma patients (t = -1: 706 s vs. t = 6: 498 s; p = 0.02), but not of controls (t = -1: 693 s vs. t = 6: 636 s; p = 0.65). The fold change in tissue factor-exposing microparticles in BAL fluid inversely correlated with the fold changes in eosinophil cationic protein and myeloperoxidase in BAL fluid after virus infection (r = -0.517 and -0.528 resp., both p = 0.01). Rhinovirus-16 challenge led to increased plasminogen activator inhibitor type-1 levels in plasma in patients with asthma (26.0 ng/mL vs. 11.5 ng/mL in healthy controls, p = 0.04). Rhinovirus-16 load in BAL showed a linear correlation with the fold change in endogenous thrombin potential, plasmin-antiplasmin complexes and plasminogen activator inhibitor type-1. Conclusions Experimental rhinovirus infection induces procoagulant changes in the airways of patients with asthma through increased activity of tissue factor-exposing microparticles. These microparticle-associated procoagulant changes are associated with both neutrophilic and eosinophilic inflammation. Systemic activation of haemostasis increases with Rhinoviral load

Knowledge-based gene expression classification via matrix factorization

Motivation: Modern machine learning methods based on matrix decomposition techniques, like independent component analysis (ICA) or non-negative matrix factorization (NMF), provide new and efficient analysis tools which are currently explored to analyze gene expression profiles. These exploratory feature extraction techniques yield expression modes (ICA) or metagenes (NMF). These extracted features are considered indicative of underlying regulatory processes. They can as well be applied to the classification of gene expression datasets by grouping samples into different categories for diagnostic purposes or group genes into functional categories for further investigation of related metabolic pathways and regulatory networks. Results: In this study we focus on unsupervised matrix factorization techniques and apply ICA and sparse NMF to microarray datasets. The latter monitor the gene expression levels of human peripheral blood cells during differentiation from monocytes to macrophages. We show that these tools are able to identify relevant signatures in the deduced component matrices and extract informative sets of marker genes from these gene expression profiles. The methods rely on the joint discriminative power of a set of marker genes rather than on single marker genes. With these sets of marker genes, corroborated by leave-one-out or random forest cross-validation, the datasets could easily be classified into related diagnostic categories. The latter correspond to either monocytes versus macrophages or healthy vs Niemann Pick C disease patients.Siemens AG, MunichDFG (Graduate College 638)DAAD (PPP Luso - Alem˜a and PPP Hispano - Alemanas

Identification of the slow E3 transition 136mCs -> 136Cs with conversion electrons

We performed at ISOLDE the spectroscopy of the decay of the 8- isomer in 136Cs by and conversion-electron detection. For the first time the excitation energy of the isomer and the multipolarity of its decay have been measured. The half-life of the isomeric state was remeasured to T1/2 = 17.5(2) s. This isomer decays via a very slow 518 keV E3 transition to the ground state. In addition to this, a much weaker decay branch via a 413 keV M4 and a subsequent 105 keV E2 transition has been found. Thus we have found a new level at 105 keV with spin 4+ between the isomeric and the ground state. The results are discussed in comparison to shell model calculations.Comment: Phys. Rev. C accepted for publicatio

First identification of large electric monopole strength in well-deformed rare earth nuclei

Excited states in the well-deformed rare earth isotopes $^{154}$Sm and $^{166}$Er were populated via ``safe'' Coulomb excitation at the Munich MLL Tandem accelerator. Conversion electrons were registered in a cooled Si(Li) detector in conjunction with a magnetic transport and filter system, the Mini-Orange spectrometer. For the first excited $0^+$ state in $^{154}$Sm at 1099 keV a large value of the monopole strength for the transition to the ground state of $\rho^2(\text{E0}; 0^+_2 \to 0^+_\text{g}) = 96(42)\cdot 10^{-3}$ could be extracted. This confirms the interpretation of the lowest excited $0^+$ state in $^{154}$Sm as the collective $\beta$-vibrational excitation of the ground state. In $^{166}$Er the measured large electric monopole strength of $\rho^2(\text{E0}; 0^+_4 \to 0^+_1) = 127(60)\cdot 10^{-3}$ clearly identifies the $0_4^+$ state at 1934 keV to be the $\beta$-vibrational excitation of the ground state.Comment: submitted to Physics Letters

Effective Field Theory and Integrability in Two-Dimensional Mott Transition

We study the Mott transition in a two-dimensional lattice spinless fermion model with nearest neighbors density-density interactions. By means of a two-dimensional Jordan-Wigner transformation, the model is mapped onto the lattice XXZ spin model, which is shown to possess a Quantum Group symmetry as a consequence of a recently found solution of the Zamolodchikov Tetrahedron Equation. A projection (from three to two space-time dimensions) property of the solution is used to identify the symmetry of the model at the Mott critical point as U_q(sl(2))xU_q(sl(2)), with deformation parameter q=-1. Based on this result, the low-energy Effective Field theory for the model is obtained and shown to be a lattice double Chern-Simons theory with coupling constant k=1 (with the standard normalization). By further employing the Effective Filed Theory methods, we show that the Mott transition that arises is of topological nature, with vortices in an antiferromagnetic array and matter currents characterized by a d-density wave order parameter. We also analyze the behavior of the system upon weak coupling, and conclude that it undergoes a quantum gas-liquid transition which belongs to the Ising universality class.Comment: 36 page

Study of 2b-decay of Mo-100 and Se-82 using the NEMO3 detector

After analysis of 5797 h of data from the detector NEMO3, new limits on neutrinoless double beta decay of Mo-100 (T_{1/2} > 3.1 10^{23} y, 90% CL) and Se-82 (T_{1/2} > 1.4 10^{23} y, 90% CL) have been obtained. The corresponding limits on the effective majorana neutrino mass are: m < (0.8-1.2) eV and m < (1.5-3.1) eV, respectively. Also the limits on double-beta decay with Majoron emission are: T_{1/2} > 1.4 10^{22} y (90% CL) for Mo-100 and T_{1/2}> 1.2 10^{22} y (90%CL) for Se-82. Corresponding bounds on the Majoron-neutrino coupling constant are g < (0.5-0.9) 10^{-4} and < (0.7-1.6) 10^{-4}. Two-neutrino 2b-decay half-lives have been measured with a high accuracy, T_{1/2} Mo-100 = [7.68 +- 0.02(stat) +- 0.54(syst) ] 10^{18} y and T_{1/2} Se-82 = [10.3 +- 0.3(stat) +- 0.7(syst) ] 10^{19} y.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure

"Safe" Coulomb Excitation of 30Mg

We report on the first radioactive beam experiment performed at the recently commissioned REX-ISOLDE facility at CERN in conjunction with the highly efficient gamma spectrometer MINIBALL. Using 30Mg ions accelerated to an energy of 2.25 MeV/u together with a thin nat-Ni target, Coulomb excitation of the first excited 2+ states of the projectile and target nuclei well below the Coulomb barrier was observed. From the measured relative de-excitation gamma ray yields the B(E2; 0+ -> 2+) value of 30Mg was determined to be 241(31) e2fm4. Our result is lower than values obtained at projectile fragmentation facilities using the intermediate-energy Coulomb excitation method, and confirms the theoretical conjecture that the neutron-rich magnesium isotope 30Mg lies still outside the ``island of inversion''

Low-energy Coulomb excitation of 62^{62}Fe and 62^{62}Mn following in-beam decay of 62^{62}Mn

Sub-barrier Coulomb-excitation was performed on a mixed beam of $^{62}$Mn and $^{62}$Fe, following in-trap $\beta^{-}$ decay of $^{62}$Mn at REX-ISOLDE, CERN. The trapping and charge breeding times were varied in order to alter the composition of the beam, which was measured by means of an ionisation chamber at the zero-angle position of the Miniball array. A new transition was observed at 418~keV, which has been tentatively associated to a $(2^{+},3^{+})\rightarrow1^{+}_{g.s.}$ transition. This fixes the relative positions of the $\beta$-decaying $4^{+}$ and $1^{+}$ states in $^{62}$Mn for the first time. Population of the $2^{+}_{1}$ state was observed in $^{62}$Fe and the cross-section determined by normalisation to the $^{109}$Ag target excitation, confirming the $B(E2)$ value measured in recoil-distance lifetime experiments.Comment: 9 pages, 10 figure