Incidence and differential characteristics of culture-negative fever following pancreas transplantation with anti-thymocyte globulin induction.

BACKGROUND: Limited data are available on the incidence and characteristics of culture-negative fever following pancreas transplantation (PTx) with anti-thymocyte globulin (ATG) induction. Our study aims to better define the features of culture-negative fever, so it can be delineated from infectious fever, hopefully helping clinicians to guide antibiotic therapy in this high-risk patient population. METHODS: We performed a retrospective cohort study of postoperative fever among 198 consecutive patients undergoing PTx at our center between August 1, 2004 and December 31, 2014. Fever was classified as culture-negative if there was neither a positive culture nor a documented clinical diagnosis of infection. RESULTS: Fever was identified in 113 patients; 66 were deemed to be infectious, 39 were culture-negative, and 8 were indeterminate. High body mass index of recipient (odds ratio 1.87, 95% confidence interval: 1.15-3.03, P = 0.011) was a significant factor associated with culture-negative fever in multivariate analysis. No patients with culture-negative fever were diagnosed with infiltrates or effusion on chest radiography. In addition, an increase in white blood cell count, C-reactive protein, and serum amylase was less prominent in culture-negative fever. Culture-negative fever developed most frequently at postoperative 7 or 14 days, showing a biphasic curve. CONCLUSION: Culture-negative fever develops in a substantial proportion of patients early after PTx. The awareness of the possibility and clinical features of post-transplant culture-negative fever might help clinicians to guide antibiotic therapy in this high-risk patient population, especially following ATG induction and early steroid withdrawal.

Generalized hydromechanical model for stomatal responses to hydraulic perturbations.

Stomata respond in a common pattern to various hydraulic perturbations on any part of the 'soil-plant-air' system: initial transient 'wrong-way' responses and final stationary 'right-way' responses. In order to describe this pattern on the basis of statistical physics, we propose a simple model where turgor pressure of a cell is taken to be a power function of its volume, and obtain results in qualitative agreement with experimental data for responses to a variety of hydraulic perturbations: Firstly, stationary stomatal conductance as a function of the vapor pressure deficit divides into three regimes characterized by sensitivities of the stomatal conductance and the transpiration rate with respect to vapor pressure deficit; secondly, for every hydraulic perturbation, the initial transient 'wrong-way' responses always appear; thirdly, on condition that water is supplied insufficiently, stomatal oscillations are often observed; finally, stomatal responses following leaf excision exhibit, after the initial transient wrong-way responses, slow relaxation to stomatal closing. In particular, comparison of areoles having different numbers of stomata demonstrates that areoles with small numbers of stomata tend to provoke lack of water in the soil as well as in the plant. In addition, our model also describes well dependence of the stomatal conductance on temperature. It may be extended further to describe stomatal responses to other environmental factors such as carbon dioxide, light, and temperature.

Information exchange dynamics of the two-dimensional XY model.

Information exchange dynamics of the two-dimensional XY model is studied by means of the entropic sampling algorithm. Combining the analytic and numerical results, we obtain the entropy in the whole range of the energy at various system sizes. The time evolution of the order parameter and of the number of vortices is explored, and the corresponding relaxation times are found to grow algebraically with the system size. Such absence of characteristic time scales in the thermodynamic limit manifests the emergent criticality of the exchanging process of information with the environment. The mechanism of information exchange in the XY model is discussed in terms of the dynamic exponents, in comparison with the Ising model.

Comment on "Dynamical phase transition of a one-dimensional transport process including death".

Motivated by the mycologic situation, Dorosz and collaborators considered a modification of the totally asymmetric exclusion process, including the probabilities of injection and of death. In the case of the backward-ordered sequential dynamics with the death probability larger than the critical value, the average particle density in the stationary state was erroneously reported to equal the injection probability. Correcting the error, we find that the average density is given by the death probability rather than the injection probability.

Emergence of skew distributions in controlled growth processes.

Starting from a master equation, we derive the evolution equation for the size distribution of elements in an evolving system, where each element can grow, divide into two, and produce new elements. We then probe general solutions of the evolution equation, to obtain such skew distributions as power-law, log-normal, and Weibull distributions, depending on the growth or division and production. Specifically, repeated production of elements of uniform size leads to power-law distributions, whereas production of elements with the size distributed according to the current distribution as well as no production of new elements results in log-normal distributions. Finally, division into two, or binary fission, bears Weibull distributions. Numerical simulations are also carried out, confirming the validity of the obtained solutions.

Molecular characterization of the Aedes aegypti odorant receptor gene family.

The olfactory-driven blood-feeding behaviour of female Aedes aegypti mosquitoes is the primary transmission mechanism by which the arboviruses causing dengue and yellow fevers affect over 40 million individuals worldwide. Bioinformatics analysis has been used to identify 131 putative odourant receptors from the A. aegypti genome that are likely to function in chemosensory perception in this mosquito. Comparison with the Anopheles gambiae olfactory subgenome demonstrates significant divergence of the odourant receptors that reflects a high degree of evolutionary activity potentially resulting from their critical roles during the mosquito life cycle. Expression analyses in the larval and adult olfactory chemosensory organs reveal that the ratio of odourant receptors to antennal glomeruli is not necessarily one to one in mosquitoes.

A divalent recombinant immunotoxin formed by a disulfide bond between the extension peptide chains.

Recombinant immunotoxin for the treatment of cancer was made by connecting toxins to 'carcinoma-specific' antibodies that selectively bind to cancer cells, then kills them without harming the normal cells. The divalent recombinant immunotoxin, [B3(Fab)-ext-PE38]2, is a derivative of B3(Fab)-PE38. B3(Fab)-PE38 was made by fusing the Fab domain of the monoclonal antibody (MAb) B3 to PE38, a truncated mutant form of Pseudomonas exotoxin (PE). In this study, B3(Fab)-ext-PE38 was constructed, which has the hinge region of the B3(Fab)-PE38 extended with the peptide extension, G4C(G4S)2, and connected to the C3 connector. The Cys residue of the extension peptide chain makes the disulfide bond between the two Fab domains. The extension sequence (ext) makes the dimerization of B3(Fab)-ext-PE38 easier to form the divalent immunotoxin, because it decreases the steric hindrance between the two PE38s. The constructed genes were expressed in E. coli as inclusion bodies. Polypeptides that were obtained from the inclusion body were refolded, and the active forms were purified. The ID50 values of the divalent molecule, [B3(Fab)-ext-PE38]2, were about 4 ng/ml on A431 cell lines, about 1 ng/ml on CRL1739 cell lines, and 5 ng/ml on MCF-7 cell lines. The [B3(Fab)-ext-PE38]2 showed about a 12-fold higher cytotoxicity on CRL1739 cell lines than B3(scFv)-PE40 did.

[A study regarding estimates of the trends in the family life cycle in Korea: 1935-1975 (author's transl)].

PIP: The concept of the family life cycle is important because it leads one away from thinking in terms of static family ideal types and towards an appreication of actual process. It concerns the hypothetically "typical" family as it progresses from marriage through childrearing, children leaving home, the "empty nest" period, and the final dissolution of the family. One underlying idea of family life cycle studies is to establish a priori phases in the structure of the family as a group which are related to the process of family formation and the phases of the life cycles of those who compose it. The purpose of this paper is to look at the relationship between family types and industrialization, and to review and update previous work done in this area, as well as to estimate and discuss trends in the family life cycle on the basis of actual data available. In this study, the WHO basic model of a nuclear family life cycle is used which consists of 6 stages: formation, extension, completed extension, contraction, completed contraction, and dissolution. Some conclusions which can be drawn follow. The median age at marriage has been increasing, and although Korean women begin their childbearing later, they completed childbirth earlier, by means of reducing the number of children and by shortening the birth interval. In 1935 and 1945, husbands appeared to die before the marriage of the last child, which means the deviation of the assumption that both are alive when the last child gets married. Recent data shows that more childfree years will be spent by couples during old age than ever before. The length of each phase of the family life cycle in Korea portrays a consistent picture. The interval from marriage to the birth of the last child decreased by about 1/2, from 14.8 years in 1935 to 7.1 years in 1975. And the period of contraction has shortened about 1/2, which is an effect of smaller number of children/family and the shorter birth interval. Korean women now enjoy a longer interval between the end of the childbearing period and the final dissolution of marriage by the death of 1 spouse. The effect of the increasing divorce rate among couples could have a more profound effect on life-cycle studies. The above results and speculations remind us of the fact that patterns of action governing the ultimate disposition of persons to marry, bear children, divorce, emerge from a complex of interacting factors. (author's)^ieng