Nanostructured Luminescent Gratings for Sensorics.

Two-dimensional holographic structures based on photopolymer compositions with luminescent nanoparticles, such as quantum dots, are promising candidates for multiresponsive luminescence sensors. However, their applicability may suffer from the incompatibility of the components, and hence aggregation of the nanoparticles. We showed that the replacement of an organic shell at the CdSe/ZnS quantum dots' surface with monomer molecules of the photopolymerizable medium achieved full compatibility with the surrounding medium. The effect was demonstrated by luminescence spectroscopy, and steady-state and time-resolved luminescent laser scanning microscopy. We observed the complete spectral independence of local photoluminescence decay, thus proving the absence of even nanoscale aggregation, either in the liquid composition or in the nodes and antinodes of the grating. Therefore, nanostructured luminescent photopolymer gratings with monomer-covered quantum dots can act as hybrid diffractive-luminescent sensor elements.

A prospective study of novel mathematical analysis of the contrast-enhanced computed tomography vs renal scintigraphy in renal function evaluation.

PURPOSE: whilst renal scintigraphy (RS) can be associated with interobserver variability, it remains the standard method of evaluating split renal function. AIM: to compare the efficacy of the novel technique of kidney function assessment and renal scintigraphy. METHOD: for this prospective single-arm study we recruited patients who were recommended dynamic renal scintigraphy with 99mTc-DTPA (diethylenetriaminepentacetate). After scintigraphy, mathematical analysis of computed tomography (MACT) was done in all patients, by a single person (SK) blinded to RS results. RESULTS: the study included a total of 97 patients with mean age of 50.9 (range, 23-78) years. From this sample, 65 were females and 32 males. All patients underwent both RS and contrast-enhanced computed tomography for further MACT in 2016-2018. CT results were found to be similar to renal scintigraphy results with Pearson correlation coefficient of 0.945 (р < 0.001). Substantial similarities in renal plasma flow for both kidneys were also observed (0.815, р < 0.001). CONCLUSION: MACT proved feasible, effective and safe in estimating renal function. Its results are closely correlated with RS findings and could be easily integrated into surgical practice.

Measuring Changes in Gait and Vehicle Transfer Ability During Inpatient Rehabilitation with Wearable Inertial Sensors.

Restoration of functional independence in gait and vehicle transfer ability is a common goal of inpatient rehabilitation. Currently, ambulation changes tend to be subjectively assessed. To investigate more precise objective assessment of progress in inpatient rehabilitation, we quantitatively assessed gait and transfer performances over the course of rehabilitation with wearable inertial sensors for 20 patients receiving inpatient rehabilitation services. Secondarily, we asked physical therapists to provide feedback about the clinical utility of metrics derived from the sensors. Participant performance was recorded on a sequence of ambulatory tasks that closely resemble everyday activities. We developed a custom software system to process sensor signals and compute metrics that characterize ambulation performance. We quantify changes in gait and transfer ability by performing a repeated measures comparison of the metrics one week apart. Metrics showing the greatest improvement are walking speed, stride regularity, acceleration root mean square, walking smoothness, shank peak angular velocity, and shank range of motion. Furthermore, feedback from physical therapists suggests that wearable sensor-derived metrics can potentially provide rehabilitation therapists with additional valuable information to aid in treatment decisions.

Predicting Functional Independence Measure Scores During Rehabilitation with Wearable Inertial Sensors.

Evaluating patient progress and making discharge decisions regarding inpatient medical rehabilitation rely upon standard clinical assessments administered by trained clinicians. Wearable inertial sensors can offer more objective measures of patient movement and progress. We undertook a study to investigate the contribution of wearable sensor data to predict discharge functional independence measure (FIM) scores for 20 patients at an inpatient rehabilitation facility. The FIM utilizes a 7-point ordinal scale to measure patient independence while performing several activities of daily living, such as walking, grooming, and bathing. Wearable inertial sensor data were collected from ecological ambulatory tasks at two time points mid-stay during inpatient rehabilitation. Machine learning algorithms were trained with sensor-derived features and clinical information obtained from medical records at admission to the inpatient facility. While models trained only with clinical features predicted discharge scores well, we were able to achieve an even higher level of prediction accuracy when also including the wearable sensor-derived features. Correlations as high as 0.97 for leave-one-out cross validation predicting discharge FIM motor scores are reported.

Temperature fluctuations in the lower limbs of young and elderly individuals during activities of daily living.

Age-related deficiencies in thermoregulation diminish the capacity to defend against heat loss under conditions often encountered during activities of daily living (ADL). A potential consequence of these deficiencies is that elderly individuals could have colder lower limbs, which would exacerbate the age-related decline in plantarflexor contractile properties and compromise recovery from a tripping incident. Moreover, a common self-perception among the elderly is that their limbs are cold. However, this impression has never been documented, especially under ADL conditions. Our objective was to test the hypothesis that elderly individuals have lower plantarflexor temperatures than their younger counterparts. Skin temperatures above the plantarflexors of elderly and young individuals were continuously recorded during ADL in the winter months and compared under three conditions: quiescent indoor temperature, during a cold challenge, and the recovery period subsequent to the cold challenge. For quiescent indoor periods, differences in skin temperature between the two groups were not statistically significant. During cold exposures, both age and exposure duration were statistically significant factors related to the decrease in skin temperature, with the elderly group maintaining warmer temperatures. In the recovery period following short duration cold exposures, a statistically significant difference between the two groups for the decrease in skin temperature persisted for the first 9min of recovery. The results do not support the hypothesis that the lower limbs of elderly participants are colder. Higher limb temperatures observed in elderly participants were consistent with previous studies of age-related thermoregulatory changes, indicating that deficiencies in vasoconstriction are persistent in ADL.

Southeast Asian foot-and-mouth disease viruses in Eastern Asia.

Foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) outbreaks recently affected 2 countries (Japan and South Korea) in eastern Asia that were free of FMD without vaccination. Analysis of viral protein 1 nucleotide sequences indicated that FMD serotype A and O viruses that caused these outbreaks originated in mainland Southeast Asia to which these viruses are endemic.

Efficacy of intranasal and spray delivery of adjuvanted live vaccine against infectious bronchitis virus in experimentally infected poultry.

Live vaccines are widely used in the avian industry. Such vaccines can be either injected or delivered on animal mucosa and are usually not adjuvanted. In this study we show that live vaccines efficacy can be improved by formulation with adjuvants in a model of mucosal delivery of live infectious bronchitis vaccine in chicken. Three adjuvant technologies have been tested using intranasal and spray delivery methods to poultry. Those technologies are water in oil in water emulsion, nanoparticles and polymer adjuvants. Intranasal delivery of polymer and nanoparticles adjuvanted live vaccines improved significantly the antibody titer and protection to challenge observed compared to a commercial non-adjuvanted reference. Moreover, spray delivery of the polymer adjuvanted vaccine showed a significantly higher protection compared to the non-adjuvanted reference. Our data demonstrates that the use of MontanideTM adjuvants in the formulation of live poultry vaccines for mucosal delivery can confer to vaccinated animals a significantly improved protection against pathogens.

Load reduction in live PRRS vaccines using oil and polymer adjuvants.

PRRSV live vaccines are widely used in pig farming practice and are usually not adjuvanted. For safety issues, it would be useful to reduce the antigenic load of such vaccines while preserving their efficacy. In this study we show that the addition of polymer or oil adjuvants in a PRRS live vaccine enhanced the protection to challenge of vaccinated animals compared to a non-adjuvanted commercial reference. Moreover, for both types of adjuvants, despite lower antibody titers, the protection to challenge given by the adjuvanted vaccine containing only 50% of the antigen load was equivalent to the protection given by the non-adjuvanted vaccine. These results demonstrate that the addition of relevant adjuvants can enhance the efficacy of the protection conferred to animals by live vaccines.

Indirect foot-and-mouth disease vaccine potency testing based on a serological alternative.

Foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) vaccine potency testing has historically been performed by experimentally infecting vaccinated cattle. A few alternative approaches to the in vivo challenge test based on the correlation between serum titres of primo-vaccinated cattle and protection against infection have been proposed, but none have been accepted by the European Pharmacopoeia (Ph.Eur.) due to the lack of statistical power and the pooling of data over time. The present study addresses these issues and presents data of 150 cattle vaccinated according to Ph.Eur. standards. Four laboratories took part in the serological testing and different serological assays were used, including virus neutralisation assays and ELISA formats. Models correlating specific anti-FMD virus antibody titres to protection were built using logistic regression followed by Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) analysis. The best models accurately predicted the in vivo protection status in 80.0% of the cases. Although differences were observed between laboratories and assays used, the majority of antibody pass-levels, determined using ROC analysis, corresponded to at least 75.0% probability of protection. The indirect potency assessment procedure proposed is at least as precise (repeatability=65.8%, reproducibility=60.7%) as the in vivo test, can be standardised and results in a quantitative PD50 value. The validity of the procedure was also demonstrated.

Detection and estimation of avian infectious bronchitis virus antigen by a novel indirect liquid-phase blocking enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay using chicken and rabbit affinity purified immunoglobulins.

An indirect liquid-phase blocking (LPB) enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) using chicken and rabbit affinity purified immunoglobulin G (IgG) has been developed to detect and estimate avian infectious bronchitis virus (IBV) antigen concentration directly in infected allantoic fluid. The method is based on the principle of binding of specific IgG to the test IBV antigen and the assay of unbound IgG on an antigen-coated ELISA plate. The immunoglobulins are chicken N-terminal S2 peplomeric protein-specific IgG isolated by immunoaffinity chromatography on synthetic peptide coupled to CNBr-activated Sepharose 4B or rabbit polyclonal IgG purified from the serum using Protein A Sepharose 4B. The assay detected all tested IBV strains and field isolates propagated in chicken embryos. Signal to noise ratios were calculated from LPB ELISA absorbance units and a diagnostic threshold was established from the signal to noise ratio frequency distribution of samples positive or negative for IBV by virus titration or reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction. The relative sensitivity of the test ranged between 10(5) and 10(6) median egg infectious doses (EID(50)) for chicken IgG and between 10(3) and 10(4) EID(50) for rabbit IgG, depending on the test strain. The assay is simple and takes less than 3 h to perform. It does not require expensive reagents and can be readily adapted to monitor the IBV antigen concentration in allantoic fluids during propagation of vaccine strains or in samples of freeze-dried, live-attenuated IBV vaccines.