Circulating cell-free mitochondrial DNA in pregnancy

Circulating cell-free mitochondrial DNA (ccf-mtDNA) released upon cell injury or death stimulates diverse pattern recognition receptors to activate innate immune responses and initiate systemic inflammation. In this review, we discuss the temporal changes of ccf-mtDNA during pregnancy and its potential contribution to adverse pregnancy outcomes in pregnancy complications.

Association of Sexual Attitudes with Sexual Function: General vs. Specific Attitudes

Background: Sexual attitudes are related to the expression of sexuality and have been associated with indicators for sexual health. The main aim of this study was to determine the explanatory capacity of general (i.e., erotophilia) and specific (i.e., toward sexual fantasies and masturbation) sexual attitudes on different sexual functioning dimensions (sexual desire, sexual arousal, lubrication/erection, ability to have an orgasm and orgasm satisfaction). Methods: The sample consisted of 2000 heterosexual adults (1044 women, 956 men) aged 18–83 years. Results: The explanatory models for women mainly showed that positive attitudes toward sexual fantasies (β range = −0.35, −0.249) and age (β range = −0.111, 0.086) explained sexual function. The models proposed for men revealed a more diverse pattern, although the variable essential for explaining sexual function was a positive attitude toward sexual fantasies (β range = −0.266, −0.097). Conclusions: These results indicate that specific sexual attitudes, particularly in relation to sexual fantasies, are more sensitive variables than erotophilia in examining sexual health.

Establishing the prevalence of common, clinically relevant tissue-specific autoantibodies following SARS CoV-2 infection

COVID-19 has been associated with both transient and persistent systemic symptoms that do not appear to be a direct consequence of viral infection. The generation of autoantibodies has been proposed as a mechanism to explain these symptoms. To understand this phenomenon in more detail, we investigated the frequency and specificity of clinically relevant autoantibodies in 84 individuals previously infected with SARS-CoV-2, suffering from COVID-19 of varying severity in both the acute and convalescent setting. These were compared with results from 32 individuals who were on ITU for non COVID reasons. We demonstrate a higher frequency of autoantibodies in the COVID-19 ITU group compared with non-COVID-19 ITU disease control patients and that autoantibodies were also found in the serum 3-5 months post COVID-19 infection. Non-COVID patients displayed a diverse pattern of autoantibodies; in contrast, the COVID-19 groups had a more restricted panel of autoantibodies including skin, skeletal muscle and cardiac antibodies. Our results demonstrate that severe COVID-19 induces a pattern of autoantibodies that may correlate with and contribute to the immune pathology associated with the long-term sequelae of infection.

Asia

The widespread acceptance of Christmas in Asia hinges on several factors, such as the adoption of the Gregorian calendar, the influence of Christian missionary evangelization and local churches, relatively stable church–state relations, and the integration of host societies into a global consumer economy. Following a chronological approach, this chapter explores how Western missionaries and Asian converts indigenized the ritual of Christmas celebrations and remembrance from the nineteenth century on. Examples are given from China, Hong Kong, India, and Korea, showing how the spread of Christmas took place in an environment different from Europe and America, where most people self-identified as Christians and had observed Christmas for generations. The nineteenth century, the era of missionary expansion and colonialism, witnessed a regionally diverse pattern of localizing Christmas. By the early twentieth century, the spread of nationalistic sentiments led to public attacks on Christmas as a symbol of imperialism. From the late twentieth century to the present, Christmas celebrations have been commercialized worldwide and the festival has become a magnet, not only for Christians concerned about spiritual reflection, but also for merchants and consumers intent on business activities.

A translational multiplex serology approach to profile the prevalence of anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies in home-sampled blood

The COVID-19 pandemic has posed a tremendous challenge for the global community. We established a translational approach combining home blood sampling by finger-pricking with multiplexed serology to assess the exposure to the SARS-CoV-2 virus in a general population. The developed procedure determines the immune response in multiplexed assays against several spike (S, here denoted SPK), receptor binding domain (RBD) and nucleocapsid (NCP) proteins in eluates from dried capillary blood. The seroprevalence was then determined in two study sets by mailing 1000 blood sampling kits to random households in urban Stockholm during early and late April 2020, respectively. After receiving 55% (1097/2000) of the cards back within three weeks, 80% (878/1097) were suitable for the analyses of IgG and IgM titers. The data revealed diverse pattern of immune response, thus seroprevalence was dependent on the antigen, immunoglobulin class, stringency to include different antigens, as well as the required analytical performance. Applying unsupervised dimensionality reduction to the combined IgG and IgM data, 4.4% (19/435; 95% CI: 2.4%-6.3%) and 6.3% (28/443; 95% CI: 4.1%-8.6%) of the samples clustered with convalescent controls. Using overlapping scores from at least two SPK antigens, prevalence rates reached 10.1% (44/435; 95% CI: 7.3%-12.9%) in study set 1 and 10.8% (48/443; 95% CI: 7.9%-13.7%). Measuring the immune response against several SARS-CoV-2 proteins in a multiplexed workflow can provide valuable insights about the serological diversity and improve the certainty of the classification. Combining such assays with home-sampling of blood presents a viable strategy for individual-level diagnostics and towards an unbiased assessment of the seroprevalence in a population and may serve to improve our understanding about the diversity of COVID-19 etiology.One Sentence SummaryA multiplexed serology assay was developed to determine antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 proteins in home-sampled dried blood spots collected by finger pricking.

ANALISIS KRIGING UNTUK MENDETEKSI POLA SPASIAL KASUS DBD DI KABUPATEN TANAH LAUT

Geostatistics is a data processing in geological field that contains spatial information in it. Spatial information is information that identifies geographical location, characteristics of natural conditions and boundaries of the earth. Geostatistics is used to handle regionalized variables. One of the method that used to handle regionalized variables is the kriging method. The kriging method has a lot of expansion in its development, including the Simple Kriging method and the Cokriging method. Both of these methods will be applied in case studies of spatial patterns of dengue in Tanah Laut District. The purpose of this study was to estimate the distribution pattern of DHF in Tanah Laut District and compare the results of the RMSE method of Simple Kriging and Cokriging. The smallest RMSE value was compared and selected, followed by estimation using the Cokriging and Simple Kriging methods. From the two methods used the smallest RMSE value is in the Simple Kriging method. But when you looked from the thematic map of the distribution of dengue patients with the Cokriging and Simple Kriging method, it can be seen that the Cokriging method has a more diverse pattern. Keywords: geostatisticts , Cokriging , Simple Kriging , DHF

From the Citizen’s Constitution to REDD+

This article identifies forest and climate change public policy instruments in Brazil. The country created a complex network of forest protection, deforestation control policies and Measurement, Reporting and Verification (MRV) instruments, culminating with institutional arrangements for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+). Brazil’s positions at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) negotiations relied on a diverse pattern of leadership, blockage, and flexibility. Under the Warsaw REDD+ Framework, Brazil reduced 8,2 billion tons of CO2 equivalent (tCO2e) and received almost 1,4 billion American dollars as results-based payments, by the end of 2018.

Analisis Kualitas Produk dalam Keputusan Pembelian Batik pada UKM An Nisa di Kota Jambi

The research aims to analyse and describe the quality of batik products based on the assumptions and opinions of batik consumers in their purchasing decisions. The type of research used is a qualitative descriptive approach. The population of this research is the number of consumers of Batik An Nisa who use Batik products in 2018. While the sample withdrawal using Slovin formula with 10% precision, the sample obtained as many as 57 people with the technique of random sampling. Method of collecting data using questionnaires. The results showed that from the 7 indicators in variable product quality, the product conformity indicator is on the sub-indicator of the material used good quality shows the score of 198 which is the highest score compared to 6 indicators Other. This is very related to the target market of Batik An Nisa, where the average purchase of the product is a civil servant (PNS) with an income range of 2–3 million rupiah per month. While the lowest score of 156 is obtained on the product feature indicators a diverse pattern of motive sub can affect the quality of the product, with the results quite agreed. This gives the meaning that more motifs are certainly more and more choices of consumers to buy batik in An Nisa UKM, so that the batik become valuable for consumers.