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Aquarius was the first NASA satellite to observe the sea surface salinity (SSS) over the global ocean. The mission successfully collected data from 25 August 2011 to 7 June 2015. The Aquarius project released its final version (Version-5) of the SSS data product in December 2017. The purpose of this paper is to summarize the validation results from the Aquarius Validation Data System (AVDS) and other statistical methods, and to provide a general view of the Aquarius SSS quality to the users. The results demonstrate that Aquarius has met the mission target measurement accuracy requirement of 0.2 psu on monthly averages on 150 km scale. From the triple point analysis using Aquarius, in situ field and Hybrid Coordinate Ocean Model (HYCOM) products, the root mean square errors of Aquarius Level-2 and Level-3 data are estimated to be 0.17 psu and 0.13 psu, respectively. It is important that caution should be exercised when using Aquarius salinity data in areas with high radio frequency interference (RFI) and heavy rainfall, close to the coast lines where leakage of land signals may significantly affect the quality of the SSS data, and at high-latitude oceans where the L-band radiometer has poor sensitivity to SSS.

We present the case of a 43-year-old Caucasian man who developed visceral leishmaniasis (VL) following treatment with a combination of brentuximab vedotin and doxorubicin, vinblastine, and dacarbazine (A+AVD) for advanced-stage classical Hodgkin’s lymphoma (cHL). The patient initially showed a favorable response to the treatment, but shortly after completing six cycles, he experienced recurrent fever, splenomegaly, and severe anemia. Extensive infectious disease evaluations led to a diagnosis of VL, confirmed by PCR testing. The patient was treated with amphotericin B, resulting in full clinical recovery. In addition to presenting this rare case, we conducted a full review of the literature on VL in the context of hematological disorders, including non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, splenic marginal zone lymphoma, and other lymphoproliferative diseases. This review highlights the increasing prevalence of VL in immunocompromised individuals, particularly those undergoing treatments like chemotherapy or immunotherapy, and underscores the importance of considering VL in differential diagnoses when such patients present with persistent fever and splenomegaly.

The movement of water across the cell membrane is a natural biological process that occurs during growth, cell division, and cell death. Many cells are known to regulate changes in their cell volume through inherent compensatory regulatory mechanisms. Cells can sense an increase or decrease in their cell volume, and compensate through mechanisms known as a regulatory volume increase (RVI) or decrease (RVD) response, respectively. The transport of sodium, potassium along with other ions and osmolytes allows the movement of water in and out of the cell. These compensatory volume regulatory mechanisms maintain a cell at near constant volume. A hallmark of the physiological cell death process known as apoptosis is the loss of cell volume or cell shrinkage. This loss of cell volume is in stark contrast to what occurs during the accidental cell death process known as necrosis. During necrosis, cells swell or gain water, eventually resulting in cell lysis. Thus, whether a cell gains or loses water after injury is a defining feature of the specific mode of cell death. Cell shrinkage or the loss of cell volume during apoptosis has been termed apoptotic volume decrease or AVD. Over the years, this distinguishing feature of apoptosis has been largely ignored and thought to be a passive occurrence or simply a consequence of the cell death process. However, studies on AVD have defined an underlying movement of ions that result in not only the loss of cell volume, but also the activation and execution of the apoptotic process. This review explores the role ions play in controlling not only the movement of water, but the regulation of apoptosis. We will focus on what is known about specific ion channels and transporters identified to be involved in AVD, and how the movement of ions and water change the intracellular environment leading to stages of cell shrinkage and associated apoptotic characteristics. Finally, we will discuss these concepts as they apply to different cell types such as neurons, cardiomyocytes, and corneal epithelial cells.

Immunization against the Yellow fever virus (YFV) with the 17D live-attenuated vaccine is the most effective way to prevent the disease. However, unexpected severe adverse events can occur. They consist in a neurological impairment - neurological disease (YEL-AND), a YF-like illness - viscerotropic disease (YEL-AVD) or anaphylaxis. In this article, we describe the epidemiology, clinical and biological features of YEL-AND and YEL-AVD cases reported to the French National Reference Center for Arboviruses (NRCA) in the past 10 years. We conducted a national, retrospective study using the database of the NRCA from June 2012 to June 2022. All patients whose biological samples were sent to the NRCA for detection of YFV by serology and/or RT-qPCR for a suspected vaccine-associated adverse event were included. We collected data by reading medical records and conducted complementary neuro-immunological analysis, followed by a search for autoimmunity against type-1-interferon when samples were available at the NRCA. There were 10 cases of YEL-AND and 2 cases of YEL-AVD reported to the NRCA in the past 10 years, which represented an overall incidence of 0.6 for 100 000 doses. A total of 6/12 cases were previously healthy patients (50%, mean age 31 years), and 4/12 cases had cardiovascular co-morbidities (42%, mean age 56 years). The majority of YEL-AND had a favourable outcome at 6 months of follow up. One YEL-AVD patient passed. In secondary analyses, we evidenced a significant blood cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) barrier dysfunction, without intrathecal synthesis of immunoglobulin and without argument for a neuron damage. We further detected a significant rate of anti-type-1alpha interferon antibodies in 3/10 tested patients (2 YEL-AND and 1 YEL-AVD). YEL-AND and YEL-AVD are rare events that can underlie defect in the innate immunity of apparently healthy or mild co-morbid subjects. Outcome was generally favourable in the YEL-AND cases of our series, but still life-threatening or even fatal in the YEL-AVD cases.

•We assessed greater than 10 years of civilian YF vaccinee data in 3 US healthcare databases.•Most YF vaccinees were aged < 60 years (largest age group 18–29 years).•Few vaccinees (<1%) had medical conditions predisposing them to immunosuppression.•Incidence proportion of neurotropic disease ranged from 0 to 3.04 per 100,000 vaccinees.•There were no viscerotropic cases identified across the three databases assessed. Yellow fever (YF) vaccines are highly effective and have a well-established safety profile despite the risk of rare serious adverse events (SAEs), vaccine-associated neurotropic (YEL-AND) and viscerotropic disease (YEL-AVD). This study aimed to describe US civilian YF vaccine usage, the population characteristics and pre-existing immunosuppressive medical conditions among those vaccinated, and to provide updated risk estimates of neurotropic and viscerotropic disease post-vaccination. A retrospective cohort study was conducted using de-identified patient information from Optum Electronic Healthcare Record (EHR) (2007–2019), Optum Clinformatics Data Mart (CDM) (2004–2019) and IBM MarketScan (2007–2019) databases. YF vaccine recipients were identified using relevant vaccination and procedural codes. Demographic characteristics and pre-existing medical conditions were described. Incidence proportions with 95% confidence intervals (CI) of neurotropic and viscerotropic diseases occurring ≤ 30 days post-vaccination, after exclusion of unlikely cases based on current clinical guidelines of YEL-AND and YEL-AVD, were calculated. A total of 92,205, 46,539 and 125,235 YF vaccine recipients were retrieved from Optum EHR, Optum CDM and IBM MarketScan databases, respectively. The majority of vaccine recipients were aged < 60 years (highest proportion aged 18–29 years) with a higher proportion of females overall. Few vaccine recipients (<1%) had conditions predisposing them to immunosuppression. Four non-fatal cases of neurotropic disease and zero cases of viscerotropic disease were identified. The incidence proportion of post-vaccination neurotropic disease was 1.41 (95% CI: 0.15–6.61) and 3.04 (95% CI: 0.86–8.11) per 100,000 vaccine recipients in Optum EHR and IBM MarketScan, respectively, with no events identified in Optum CDM. This study provides updated insights into current YF vaccine usage in US civilian recipients and supports the safety profile of YF vaccines in US practice. The low frequency of pre-existing immunosuppressive medical conditions among vaccine recipients suggests good adherence to vaccination guidelines by healthcare practitioners. The risk of developing neurotropic and viscerotropic disease post-vaccination remains rare.

BackgroundRight ventricle dilatation (RVD) is a common complication of non-intubated COVID-19 pneumonia caused by pro-thrombotic pneumonitis, intra-pulmonary shunting, and pulmonary vascular dysfunction. In several pulmonary diseases, RVD is routinely measured on computed tomography pulmonary angiogram (CTPA) by the right ventricle-to-left ventricle (LV) diameter ratio > 1 for predicting adverse events.ObjectiveThe aim of the study was to evaluate the association between RVD and the occurrence of adverse events in a cohort of critically ill non-intubated COVID-19 patients.MethodsBetween February 2020 and February 2022, non-intubated patients admitted to the Amiens University Hospital intensive care unit for COVID-19 pneumonia with CTPA performed within 48 h of admission were included. RVD was defined by an RV/LV diameter ratio greater than one measured on CTPA. The primary outcome was the occurrence of an adverse event (renal replacement therapy, extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, 30-day mortality after ICU admission).ResultsAmong 181 patients, 62% ( n = 112/181) presented RVD. The RV/LV ratio was 1.10 [1.05–1.18] in the RVD group and 0.88 [0.84–0.96] in the non-RVD group ( p = 0.001). Adverse clinical events were 30% and identical in the two groups ( p = 0.73). In Receiving operative curves (ROC) analysis, the RV/LV ratio measurement failed to identify patients with adverse events. On multivariable Cox analysis, RVD was not associated with adverse events to the contrary to chest tomography severity score > 10 (hazards ratio = 1.70, 95% CI [1.03–2.94]; p = 0.04) and cardiovascular component (> 2) of the SOFA score (HR = 2.93, 95% CI [1.44–5.95], p = 0.003).ConclusionRight ventricle (RV) dilatation assessed by RV/LV ratio was a common CTPA finding in non-intubated critical patients with COVID-19 pneumonia and was not associated with the occurrence of clinical adverse events.

If our AVDS concept is valid, one could expect that the proportion of vascular volume found in non-affected COVID-19 lung volumes (3 ± 2%) would appear increased when compared to the proportion of vascular volume in normal subjects. [...]it will also be relevant for Fahrni et al. to check the potential correlations between arterial blood gases (that were sampled in the study) and the proportions of vascular volume in COVID-19 patients. According to our findings, increased proportion of vascular volume with intrapulmonary shunt in such patients should be associated with lower PaO2 and lower PaCO2 (6), as in hepatopulmonary syndrome (5). Conflict of interest The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

The article highlights the latest developments in the design of low-power 4-bit Absolute Value Detector (AVD) circuits that are utilized in digital signal processing (DSP) applications. DSP applications like audio and video processing, biological signal processing, and digital communication systems rely heavily on the AVD circuit, which determines the absolute value of an input signal. The article introduces a low-energy 4-bit AVD circuit based on pass transistors that incorporates advanced optimization techniques like adiabatic logic, approximation techniques, and layout optimization. This optimized AVD circuit achieves remarkable results in terms of power consumption and energy efficiency. With a power consumption of just 0.6 nW and an energy efficiency of 0.6 pJ per cycle, the circuit maintains precision and rapid response time. These advancements in AVD circuit design can be highly beneficial for portable and battery-powered devices such as earplugs, implants, and cell phones, as well as electronic components like Static Random Access Memory (SRAM) and motherboards. Overall, the proposed low-energy 4-bit AVD circuit is a significant development in the DSP field, enabling more efficient and effective processing of digital signals.

Aortic valve disease (AVD) has similarities to atherosclerosis in the case of aortic stenosis. The important role of platelet in the pathogenesis of atherosclerosis is known. The goal of this study is to evaluate whether platelet disorders play any role in aortic valve disease. We used patients with idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura (ITP) for this study. We evaluated any association between ITP and AVD using a large inpatient database. The International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision, and Clinical Modification (ICD-9-CM) codes for ITP and AVD from the Nationwide Inpatient Sample (NIS) database were used for this study. Uni- and multivariate analyses were performed on data from 2002 to 2011 to evaluate any association between ITP and AVD. In the 2002 database, AVD was present in 1.73% of ITP patients versus 1.12% in the control population (odds ratio [OR], 1.56; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.34–1.81; p < 0.001). In the 2011 database, AVD was present in 1.96% of ITP patients versus 1.33% in the control population (OR, 1.48; 95% CI, 1.30–1.68; p < 0.001). ITP remained independently associated with AVD following a multivariate logistic regression analysis adjusting for age, gender, diabetes mellitus, hypertension, and hyperlipidemia in 2002 (OR, 1.35; 95% CI, 1.16–1.57; p < 0.001) with a trend of this association in 2011 (OR, 1.12; 95% CI, 0.98–1.27; p = 0.096). ITP was strongly associated with AVD over the 10-year period analyzed in a large inpatient database. The reason for this association is not known warranting further investigations.

In the lungs, COVID-19, at least initially, is a vascular insult, leading to overperfusion of affected zones resulting in low VA/Q situation. Since CO2 excretion is not affected due to its much higher solubility and to the linear characteristics of the CO2 dissociation curve, hypocapnia develops, to a point where the respiratory centers do not respond to hypoxia anymore, resulting in the condition of hypocapnic hypoxia without respiratory distress that was termed “Happy Hypoxia”. Patients with risk factors of baseline increased level of ACE2 or ACE2 imbalance (i.e.: male, overweight, diabetes mellitus, hypertension, chronic heart failure, etc...) are particularly exposed to severe forms of COVID-19. [...]Bonato et al.evaluated in cohort study of COPD patients the risk factors of COVID-19. [...]the authors found that a high level of D-dimer is a good predictor of PE in these patients.