Acute appendicitis: transcript profiling of blood identifies promising biomarkers and potential underlying processes

Background The diagnosis of acute appendicitis can be surprisingly difficult without computed tomography, which carries significant radiation exposure. Circulating blood cells may carry informative changes in their RNA expression profile that would signal internal infection or inflammation of the appendix. Methods Genome-wide expression profiling was applied to whole blood RNA of acute appendicitis patients versus patients with other abdominal disorders, in order to identify biomarkers of appendicitis. From a large cohort of emergency patients, a discovery set of patients with surgically confirmed appendicitis, or abdominal pain from other causes, was identified. RNA from whole blood was profiled by microarrays, and RNA levels were filtered by a combined fold-change (\u3e2) and p value (\u3c0.05). A separate set of patients, including patients with respiratory infections, was used to validate a partial least squares discriminant (PLSD) prediction model. Results Transcript profiling identified 37 differentially expressed genes (DEG) in appendicitis versus abdominal pain patients. The DEG list contained 3 major ontologies: infection-related, inflammation-related, and ribosomal processing. Appendicitis patients had lower level of neutrophil defensin mRNA (DEFA1,3), but higher levels of alkaline phosphatase (ALPL) and interleukin-8 receptor-ß (CXCR2/IL8RB), which was confirmed in a larger cohort of 60 patients using droplet digital PCR (ddPCR). Conclusions Patients with acute appendicitis have detectable changes in the mRNA expression levels of factors related to neutrophil innate defense systems. The low defensin mRNA levels suggest that appendicitis patient’s immune cells are not directly activated by pathogens, but are primed by diffusible factors in the microenvironment of the infection. The detected biomarkers are consistent with prior evidence that biofilm-forming bacteria in the appendix may be an important factor in appendicitis

Finding friends online: Online activities by deaf students and their well-being

Contains fulltext : 125129.pdf (publisher's version ) (Open Access)Generally, deaf and hard of hearing (D/HH) children have fewer friends than hearing peers and their friendships are of a lower quality. The research hypothesis was that using the computer to communicate with new online friends through social network sites or playing games with offline friends is associated with D/HH friendship qualities, because it removes certain communication barriers D/HH face in offline communication settings. With online questionnaires the relation between computer use and online, mixed (offline friend who you also speak in online settings), and offline friendship quality of D/HH and hearing students (18–25 years) was compared in both the Netherlands (n = 100) and the United States (n = 122). In addition, the study examined whether the different friendship qualities were related to the participants' well-being. Results showed that, in general, D/HH students' friendship qualities and levels of well-being were similar to their hearing peers. The quality of the mixed friendships was positively related to well-being. Furthermore, the frequency of pc use with both online and offline friends was positively related to friendships qualities in both hearing and D/HH students. A combination of the online and offline friendship seems to be the most important friendship type for both hearing and D/HH students and it is worthwhile to encourage this friendship type.10 p

Degumming, dewaxing and deacidification of rice bran oil-hexane miscella using ceramic membrane: pilot plant study

An indigenously developed low-cost clay-alumina-based ceramic microfiltration membrane of 19-channel configuration has been evaluated for degumming, dewaxing and deacidification of rice bran oil (RBO) miscella having different oil contents at pilot scale. Rice bran wax and soap particles in miscella will aggregate with changes in temperature. This suggests a technique for their effective separation. Low-temperature cross-flow membrane filtration was used for single-stage degumming-dewaxing and showed 70 % and 80 % removal of acetone insoluble residue from two RBO miscella samples, respectively. Color reduction was 50 %, and oryzanol retention was 70 %. NaOH was used for deacidification in a 10 % excess of that required based on the free fatty acid content in oil. This reduced free fatty acids to 0.2 %. Operating for 10 h with a 0.7 bar trans-membrane pressure, permeate fluxes of 15 and 8 L/m(2) hr were obtained for the degumming-dewaxing and deacidification operations, respectively. The process has advantages, such as high micronutrient content (1.56 % oryzanol) and negligible oil loss (2.6 %). Moreover, ceramic membrane processing of RBO miscella could be an effective pre-treatment step with respect to micronutrient enrichment, elimination of heating, neutral oil recovery and a viable option for solvent separation