Early prognosis of respiratory virus shedding in humans.

This paper addresses the development of predictive models for distinguishing pre-symptomatic infections from uninfected individuals. Our machine learning experiments are conducted on publicly available challenge studies that collected whole-blood transcriptomics data from individuals infected with HRV, RSV, H1N1, and H3N2. We address the problem of identifying discriminatory biomarkers between controls and eventual shedders in the first 32 h post-infection. Our exploratory analysis shows that the most discriminatory biomarkers exhibit a strong dependence on time over the course of the human response to infection. We visualize the feature sets to provide evidence of the rapid evolution of the gene expression profiles. To quantify this observation, we partition the data in the first 32 h into four equal time windows of 8 h each and identify all discriminatory biomarkers using sparsity-promoting classifiers and Iterated Feature Removal. We then perform a comparative machine learning classification analysis using linear support vector machines, artificial neural networks and Centroid-Encoder. We present a range of experiments on different groupings of the diseases to demonstrate the robustness of the resulting models.

c-Met-induced epithelial carcinogenesis is initiated by the serine protease matriptase.

The progression and negative outcome of a variety of human carcinomas are intimately associated with aberrant activity of the c-Met oncogene. The underlying cause of this dysregulation, however, remains a subject of discussion, as the majority of cancer patients do not present with activating mutations in c-Met receptor itself. In this study, we show that the oncogenic protease matriptase is ubiquitously co-expressed with the c-Met in human squamous cell carcinomas and amplifies migratory and proliferative responses of primary epithelial cells to the cognate ligand for c-Met, pro-hepatocyte growth factor/scatter factor (proHGF/SF), through c-Met and Gab1 signaling. Furthermore, the selective genetic ablation of c-Met from matriptase-expressing keratinocytes completely negates the oncogenic potential of matriptase. In addition, matriptase-dependent carcinoma formation could be blocked by the pharmacological inhibition of the Akt-mammalian target of Rapamycin (mTor) pathway. Our data identify matriptase as an initiator of c-Met-Akt-mTor-dependent signaling axis in tumors and reveal mTor activation as an essential component of matriptase/c-Met-induced carcinogenesis. The study provides a specific example of how epithelial transformation can be promoted by epigenetic acquisition of the capacity to convert a widely available paracrine growth factor precursor to its signaling competent state.

[Refugee and immigrant children referred to a department of pediatric psychiatry during the years 1991-1994]. / Flygtninge- og indvandrerbørn henvist til et børnepsykiatrisk hospital i årene 1991-1994.

The purpose of this study was to describe a group of 42 refugee- and immigrant children up to 14 years old compared to Danish controls in order to identify groups at risk and describe course, examination, treatment and contact. The investigation was based on case records. The only statistically significant results were higher frequencies of referral than expected regarding children from Lebanon and Somalia. However, the data indicate differences between the foreign and Danish groups as to greater problems of speech and language and less behavioural and emotional problems among the foreigners. No foreign children were offered foster homes. The attitudes of the parents towards referral, examination and treatment are more negative in the foreign group. The need for more research is emphasized.

Effect of feed withdrawal on composition and quality of broiler meat.

The effect of feed withdrawal or total withdrawal (simultaneous feed and water withdrawal) on the composition and quality of broiler meat was evaluated. Feed or water or both were withdrawn 0, 6, 12, or 18 h before slaughter. A gradual and significant (P less than .05) increase in weight loss was seen as hours of withdrawal increased. Overall, birds subjected to feed withdrawal treatments experienced a 3.8% shrinkage; birds on total withdrawal treatments lost 4.4% in body weight. Percentage of water uptake during chilling increased gradually as feed withdrawal time increased. Birds on total withdrawal absorbed water in this fashion until 18 h of chilling, when there was a sharp and significant drop in water uptake. No significant differences were found among treatments for precook and cooked weights, cooking loss, total loss, proximate analysis, and shear. Withdrawal times for feed or feed and water did not influence the tenderness or flavor of breast or thigh meat.

A Reference Calorimeter for Laser Energy Measurements.

Principles and detailed procedures are described for measuring laser energy and power in terms of electrical energy based on voltage, resistance, and frequency standards. The construction of a small isoperibol calorimeter used for the measurements is described. The calorimeter will accommodate 0.01 to 20 J and 4 × 10-5 to 1 W cw and is limited to a maximum pulse intensity of 0.1 J/cm2. The standard deviation of comparison measurements using two calorimeters and a beam splitter is 0.08 percent when the smaller energy input is not less than 0.3 J. The estimated limits of systematic error for one calorimeter are ± 1.0 percent of the laser energy measured by the calorimeter.