The Diagnostic and Prognostic Roles Played by Homocysteine and Other Aminothiols in Patients with Chronic Kidney Disease.

We examined standard clinical and laboratory biochemical parameters, as well as the levels of aminothiols in the blood and urine (homocysteine (Hcy), cysteine (Cys), S-adenosylmethionine (SAM), and S-adenosylhomocysteine (SAH)) via capillary electrophoresis in patients with CKD at stages II-V. Patient outcomes were assessed after five years. To complete forecasting, correlation and ROC analysis were performed. It was found that the levels of Cys and Hcy in blood plasma were earlier markers of CKD starting from stage II, while the levels of SAM and SAM/SAH in urine made it possible to differentiate between CKD at stages II and III. Blood plasma Hcy and urinary SAM and SAM/SAH correlated with mortality, but plasma Hcy concentrations were more significant. Thus, plasma Hcy, urine SAM, and SAM/SAH can be considered to be potential diagnostic and prognostic markers in patients with CKD.

Titanium Dichalcogenides as Nanoreactors for Magnetic High-Anisotropy Phases.

Composite single crystals consisting of nanoscaled Fe3Se4 inclusions encapsulated into the interlayer space of TiSe2 matrix were obtained by the decay of homogeneous Fe0.5TiSe2 intercalation compound. These composites have a high magnetic anisotropy due to the coherent bond between inclusions and the host lattice of TiSe2. The influence of selenium pressure over the composite surface on the composition of the inclusions is studied, and the possibility of controlling their content is demonstrated. The thermodynamic stability of the composite with a small excess of selenium in comparison with the stoichiometric material is established based on theoretical calculations. The estimated energy of the chemical bond between components of the composite is close to the van der Waals bond energy. A method to control the orientation and defects within the inclusions in the host lattice is proposed.

Implementation and applications of EMOD, an individual-based multi-disease modeling platform.

Individual-based models provide modularity and structural flexibility necessary for modeling of infectious diseases at the within-host and population levels, but are challenging to implement. Levels of complexity can exceed the capacity and timescales for students and trainees in most academic institutions. Here we describe the process and advantages of a multi-disease framework approach developed with formal software support. The epidemiological modeling software, EMOD, has undergone a decade of software development. It is structured so that a majority of code is shared across disease modeling including malaria, HIV, tuberculosis, dengue, polio and typhoid. In additional to implementation efficiency, the sharing increases code usage and testing. The freely available codebase also includes hundreds of regression tests, scientific feature tests and component tests to help verify functionality and avoid inadvertent changes to functionality during future development. Here we describe the levels of detail, flexible configurability and modularity enabled by EMOD and the role of software development principles and processes in its development.

Draft Genome Sequencing of Vibrio cholerae O1 El Tor Isolates Collected in the Russian Federation from Imported Cholera Cases.

We report the draft genome sequencing of five Vibrio cholerae O1 El Tor clinical isolates collected in the Russian Federation from imported cholera cases in 2006, 2010, and 2012. In the initial phylogenetic analysis, one isolate clustered with the Haiti/Nepal-4 group.