Responses by peripheral blood leukocytes may contribute to the pathogenesis of dengue hemorrhagic fever (DHF). We used DNA microarrays to reveal transcriptional patterns in the blood of 14 adults with DHF. Acute DHF was defined by an abundance of transcripts from cell cycle- and endoplasmic reticulum (ER)-related genes, suggesting a proliferative response accompanied by ER stress. Transcript-abundance levels for immunoresponse-associated genes, including cell surface markers, immunoglobulin, and innate response elements, were also elevated. Twenty-four genes were identified for which transcript abundance distinguished patients with dengue shock syndrome (DSS) from those without DSS. All the gene transcripts associated with DSS, many of which are induced by type I interferons, were less abundant in patients with DSS than in those without DSS. To our knowledge, these data provide the first snapshot of gene-expression patterns in peripheral blood during acute dengue and suggest that DSS is associated with attenuation of selected aspects of the innate host response.

For too many Scots, the existing economic model is failing. Far from improving their lives, it traps them in a cycle of economic hardship. Yet it is possible to overcome poverty, both in Scotland and across the UK - many of the solutions already exist, hidden within the very communities hit hardest by an economic model that worships at the altar of ‘economic growth’. The extraordinary work of our partners in Scotland has helped frame this report, where we hope to show how allocating resources in a more effective and sustainable way can deliver lasting change. In this paper we argue that the Scottish economy must pursue policies which deliver for the people, and policy-makers must play a central and driving role as underwriters of community solutions. Some of our recommendations include: - Build on the National Performance Framework and the Oxfam Humankind Index to create a better way of measuring our collective prosperity. - Create a Poverty Commissioner to ensure spending decisions are poverty proofed and to support communities to challenge Government policies and private sector actions that do not contribute to socio-economic equality. - Employers in the public and private sectors should pay a living wage. - Tax havens, offshore earnings and loopholes which allow avoidance, should be pursued and closed. Business support, corporate social responsibility awards and government plaudits should be contingent on companies meeting their tax obligations. - A Sustainable Livelihoods Approach (SLA) to social protection should be pursued. This would recognise complex barriers to work, gender differences and caring responsibilities as well as rewarding individuals’ range of skills and contributions (including activities that deliver social benefit but are currently insufficiently valued by the market). - Funding is required to make it easier for deprived communities to own assets for local benefit. As part of a socio-economic duty, council staff should support deprived communities prepare for ownership, with upfront grants enabling communities to assess the merits of an opportunity.

Whether codon usage fine-tunes mRNA translation in mammals remains controversial, with recent papers suggesting that production of proteins in specific Gene Ontological (GO) pathways can be regulated by actively modifying the codon and anticodon pools in different cellular conditions. In this work, we compared the sequence content of genes in specific GO categories with the exonic genome background. Although a substantial fraction of variability in codon usage could be explained by random sampling, almost half of GO sets showed more variability in codon usage than expected by chance. Nevertheless, by quantifying translational efficiency in healthy and cancerous tissues in human and mouse, we demonstrated that a given tRNA pool can equally well translate many different sets of mRNAs, irrespective of their cell-type specificity. This disconnect between variations in codon usage and the stability of translational efficiency is best explained by differences in GC content between gene sets. GC variation across the mammalian genome is most likely a result of the interplay between genome repair and gene duplication mechanisms, rather than selective pressures caused by codon-driven translational rates. Consequently, codon usage differences in mammalian transcriptomes are most easily explained by well-understood mutational biases acting on the underlying genome.

BACKGROUND: In Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, more than one-third of admissions to the two paediatric hospitals are attributable to four infectious syndromes: dengue, diarrhoeal disease, acute respiratory infection, and hand, foot and mouth disease. We have established a large prospective birth cohort study to investigate individual, environmental, virological, and immunological determinants of infection and disease in infants. Specific research questions are focused on the role of maternal antibody in protection against infection in infancy, and the adaptive immune response to vaccination and natural infection. This paper presents the cohort design, methods, and baseline characteristics of the participants enrolled in the first two years. METHODS/DESIGN: Women are enrolled prior to delivery at one hospital in each of two catchment areas: an urban district in central HCMC, and a mixed urban/rural district in the Mekong Delta 150 km southwest of HCMC. Infants are enrolled within 3 days of birth, and maternal and cord blood samples are collected. Routine blood samples and data on growth, health status and vaccinations are collected from infants at scheduled visits at 4, 9 and 12 months. Clinical data and specimens are collected from infants presenting at a study clinic, or admitted to hospital, with any of the the four infectious syndromes of interest. DISCUSSION: In four years since since the study began in July 2009, >6400 infants have been enrolled, and enrolment is ongoing. Attrition is low: 84% of participants have completed the full 12-month follow-up period. Baseline characteristics of the first 4300 enrollees are presented here. We have demonstrated the feasibility of establishing a large prospective study of infectious diseases in infancy in a resource-limited setting, with minimal loss to follow-up. Our linked socio-demographic, clinical and laboratory data will help elucidate the viral aetiology and epidemiology of common infectious diseases of infancy, and can inform the implemention of existing and future vaccines. This study furthermore provides a platform to which additional endpoints could be added in the future.

Since becoming independent on 9 July 2011, South Sudan has faced many challenges. Poor harvests have led to severe food shortages, and there have been continuous conflicts across the border with Sudan. In September 2011, intense fighting broke out in the Blue Nile State of Sudan between the Sudan Armed Forces and the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (North). Thousands of people fled the fighting, and over 30,000 refugees arrived in the camps in Jamam, a village in the remote Upper Nile State of South Sudan. Since November 2011, Oxfam and other humanitarian agencies have been responding to emergency needs of refugees displaced from Blue Nile. Drawing on an independent review, this summary report reviews the speed and quality of Oxfam’s intervention in the first seven and a half months of 2012, and responds to questions raised by other humanitarian actors including UNHCR and MSF about its performance. The aim of this summary is to contribute to organisational learning on the implementation of humanitarian interventions. It acknowledges Oxfam’s achievements, but also addresses challenges about the nature of its response. The summary draws together key points to aid understanding of the context of this programme, and critically examines what Oxfam and others could do differently to deliver rapid, good-quality emergency WASH programmes in the future. It summarises findings from an independent review, and makes recommendations for policy and practice that could have enhanced the Maban response, and will help to improve the quality of further programmes by Oxfam and other agencies working in complex, fragile environments.

Visualizing natural language description is a difficult and complex task. When dealing with the process of generating images from natural language descriptions, we firstly should consider the real world and find out what key visual information can be extracted from the sentences which represents the most fundament concepts in both virtual and real environments. In this paper, we present the result of a prototype system called 3DSV (3D Story Visualiser) that generates a virtual scene by using simplified story-based descriptions. In particular, we describe the methodology used to parameterize the visual and describable words into XML formatted data structure. Then we discuss how to interpret the parameterized data and create an interactive real-time 3D virtual environment.