The influenza epidemic of 2006/'07 began late in the season, like the two previous influenza epidemics. In week 8 a peak of modest height was reached. As usual, the causal strains were mainly A/H3N2 viruses and to a lesser extent A/H1N1 and B viruses. A new A/H1N1 virus variant has emerged, an event that on average takes place only every 10 years. However, almost all A/H1N1 virus isolates belonged to the old variant and were similar to the vaccine virus. The A/H3N2 virus isolates appeared to deviate from the vaccine strain, but after antigenic cartographic analysis and correction for low avidity they proved also closely related to the vaccine strain. The few type B virus isolates belonged to the B/Yamagata/16/88 lineage, whereas the used B vaccine virus had been chosen from the B/Victoria/2/87 lineage. The vaccine therefore will have provided almost optimal protection against the circulating influenza A/H1N1 and A/H3N2 viruses but not against the influenza B viruses. For the 2007/'08 influenza season the World Health Organization has recommended the following vaccine composition: A/Solomon Islands/3/06 (H1N1) (new), A/Wisconsin/67/05 (H3N2), and B/Malaysia/2506/04.
This evidence and consensus-based guideline was developed following the methods recommended by Cochrane and the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE) working group. The conference was held on December 1st, 2016. It is a joint initiative of the Dermatology Section of the European Academy of Allergology and Clinical Immunology (EAACI), the EU-founded network of excellence, the Global Allergy and Asthma European Network (GA²LEN), the European Dermatology Forum (EDF), and the World Allergy Organization (WAO) with the participation of 48 delegates of 42 national and international societies. This guideline was acknowledged and accepted by the European Union of Medical Specialists (UEMS). Urticaria is a frequent, mast cell-driven disease, presenting with wheals, angioedema, or both. The lifetime prevalence for acute urticaria is approximately 20%. Chronic spontaneous urticaria and other chronic forms of urticaria are disabling, impair quality of life, and affect performance at work and school. This guideline covers the definition and classification of urticaria, taking into account the recent progress in identifying its causes, eliciting factors and pathomechanisms. In addition, it outlines evidence-based diagnostic and therapeutic approaches for the different subtypes of urticaria.
Malaysian author: AH Abdul Latiff, Allergy & Immunology Centre, Pantai Hospital Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Malaysian organization involved in guideline development: Malaysian Society of Allergy and Immunology (MSAI)
When performed based on cytology, histological accuracy of the laser cone specimen improved with the more severe cytology. The incidence of adenocarcinoma in situ is 1.0%. With and without residual disease, the rate of abnormal cytology after laser excision cone are 0.6% and 1.6% respectively. There is good correlation between colposcopic biopsy and cone specimen in the more severe lesions. Out of 139 cases of incomplete excision, only 3 cases had abnormal cytology at follow-up. The complication rates are very low.
A human-porcine reassortant rotavirus, strain R1207, was identified from 74 group A rotaviruses detected in 197 (37.6%) stool samples collected from patients who attended a tertiary care hospital in Ragama, Sri Lanka. This is the first report of a human-porcine reassortant rotavirus in Sri Lanka. The patient was a 12-month-old boy who had been hospitalized with fever and acute diarrhea with a duration of 6 days. The family had pigs at home before the birth of this boy. However, the neighbors still practice pig farming. The genotype constellation of R1207 was G4-P[6]-I1-R1-C1-M1-A1-N1-T1-E1-H1. This is based on the assignment of all the eleven gene segments a full genome-based genotyping system. R1207 showed a 4-2-3-2 genomic electrophoretic migration pattern, which is characteristic of group A rotaviruses. Our analyses revealed that five (NSP2, NSP4, VP1, VP2, and VP7) of the 11 genes were closely related to the respective genes of porcine strains. Although the remaining six genes (NSP1, NSP3, NSP5, VP3, VP4, and VP6) were related to human strains, with the exception of the gene sequence of NSP1, all of these human strains were human-porcine reassortants. With a genogroup 1 genetic backbone, this strain was possibly formed via multiple genetic reassortments. We do not know whether this strain is circulating in pigs, as no data are available on porcine rotaviruses in Sri Lanka. Surveillance should be strengthened to determine the epidemiology of this genotype of rotavirus in Sri Lanka and to assess whether the infection was limited or sustained by ongoing human-to-human transmission.
A taxonomic study of the genus Padina from Japan, Southeast Asia, and Hawaii based on morphology and gene sequence data (rbcL and cox3) resulted in the recognition of four new species, that is, Padina macrophylla and Padina ishigakiensis from Ryukyu Islands, Japan; Padina maroensis from Hawaii; and Padina usoehtunii from Myanmar and Thailand. All species are bistratose and morphologically different from one another as well as from any known taxa by a combination of characters relating to degree of calcification; the structure, position, and arrangement of hairlines (HLs) and reproductive sori; and the presence or absence of rhizoid-like groups of hairs and an indusium. Molecular phylogenetic analyses demonstrated a close relationship between P. ishigakiensis, P. macrophylla, P. maroensis, and Padina australis Hauck. The position of P. usoehtunii, however, was not fully resolved, being either sister to a clade comprising the other three new species and P. australis in the rbcL tree or more closely related to a clade comprising several other recently described species in the cox3 tree. The finding of the four new species demonstrates high species diversity particularly in southern Japan. The following characters were first recognized here to be useful for species delimitation: the presence or absence of small rhizoid-like groups of hairs on the thallus surface, structure and arrangement of HLs on both surfaces either alternate or irregular, and arrangement of the alternating HLs between both surfaces in equal or unequal distance. The evolutionary trajectory of these and six other morphological characters used in species delineation was traced on the phylogenetic tree.
Pig (Sus sp.) and pig by-products are considered as najasa (impurities) in Islam and forbidden in Muslim consumer products. Animals fed on najasa are categorised as al-jallālah (contaminated animals) which are allowed to be consumed as long as they have been quarantined for a certain period of time. During this quarantine period the animals will have undergone a natural purification process or istihālah. African catfish (Clarias gariepinus) are commonly consumed in Malaysia and may be fed on najasa. This study was carried out to estimate the istihālah period for catfish after feeding with pig offal, based on the absence of pig DNA in catfish gut and to suggest the quarantine period in catfish fed with pig offal. The results indicated that the maximum istihālah period could reach 36h in the stomach, 6h in the midgut and less than 2h in the hindgut although in many cases shorter periods were observed. Based on these results it is estimated that the minimum quarantine period for catfish fed with pig offal is 1.5days.
Safety regarding herbal products is very necessary; therefore, routine identification of raw materials should be performed to ensure that the raw materials used in pharmaceutical products are suitable for their intended use. In order for the identification-related data obtained to be accurate, the identification of various kinds of markers is also very necessary. The purpose of this study was to describe the characteristics of Eclipta alba (L.) Hassk. based on qualitative morpho-anatomical markers and quantitative DNA coding. The morphology of this plant has herbaceous habit with a taproot and a stem with branches that appear from the middle. Leaves are single type imperfectly arranged oppositely, lanceolatus, finely serrated on the edges, tapered at the base, pointed at the end, and have a pinnate and hairy leaf surface. The flowers consist of ray flowers and tube flowers with a cup shape. Meanwhile, in terms of anatomy, E. alba has aerenchyma, which are scattered in the cortex of the root and stem. In addition, there are anisocytic stomata, glandular trichomes, and non-glandural trichomes with an elongated shape accompanied by ornamentation found on the leaf epidermis. The results of sequence alignment and phylogenetic tree reconstruction show that the sample plants are closely related to species in the genus Eclipta.
Cadmium chloride (CdCl2 ) has been reported to cause reproductive toxicity in male rats, mainly through oxidative stress. This study examined its effect on sexual behaviour, as one of the mechanisms of reproductive dysfunction, as well as the possible ameliorative effect of quercetin (QE) on same. Thirty male Wistar rats (10 weeks old), weighing 270-300 g, were used for this study. They were either orally administered 2% DMSO, CdCl2 (5 mg/kg b.w.), QE (20 mg/kg b.w.) or CdCl2 +QE, once daily for 4 weeks, before sexual behavioural studies. The 5th group received CdCl2 for 4 weeks and allowed 4-week recovery period, before sexual behavioural test. Rats were sacrificed after sexual behavioural studies. The blood, testis and penis were collected for biochemical assays. Cadmium increased mount, intromission and ejaculatory latencies, but reduced their frequencies, compared to control. Serum nitric oxide increased, while penile cyclic guanosine monophosphate reduced in the CdCl2 -exposed rats, compared to control. CdCl2 increased testicular cholesterol, but reduced 3β-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase (3β-HSD) and 17β-HSD activities, and testosterone concentration. QE better attenuated these negative changes compared to withdrawal of CdCl2 treatment. In conclusion, CdCl2 suppressed steroidogenesis, penile erection and sexual behaviour, with poor reversal following withdrawal, while QE attenuated these effects.
A combination of searches for top squark pair production using proton-proton collision data at a center-of-mass energy of 13 Te at the CERN LHC, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 137 fb - 1 collected by the CMS experiment, is presented. Signatures with at least 2 jets and large missing transverse momentum are categorized into events with 0, 1, or 2 leptons. New results for regions of parameter space where the kinematical properties of top squark pair production and top quark pair production are very similar are presented. Depending on the model, the combined result excludes a top squark mass up to 1325 Ge for a massless neutralino, and a neutralino mass up to 700 Ge for a top squark mass of 1150 Ge . Top squarks with masses from 145 to 295 Ge , for neutralino masses from 0 to 100 Ge , with a mass difference between the top squark and the neutralino in a window of 30 Ge around the mass of the top quark, are excluded for the first time with CMS data. The results of theses searches are also interpreted in an alternative signal model of dark matter production via a spin-0 mediator in association with a top quark pair. Upper limits are set on the cross section for mediator particle masses of up to 420 Ge .
The first measurements of diboson production cross sections in proton-proton interactions at a center-of-mass energy of 5.02 TeV are reported. They are based on data collected with the CMS detector at the LHC, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 302 pb^{-1}. Events with two, three, or four charged light leptons (electrons or muons) in the final state are analyzed. The WW, WZ, and ZZ total cross sections are measured as σ_{WW}=37.0_{-5.2}^{+5.5}(stat)_{-2.6}^{+2.7}(syst) pb, σ_{WZ}=6.4_{-2.1}^{+2.5}(stat)_{-0.3}^{+0.5}(syst) pb, and σ_{ZZ}=5.3_{-2.1}^{+2.5}(stat)_{-0.4}^{+0.5}(syst) pb. All measurements are in good agreement with theoretical calculations at combined next-to-next-to-leading order quantum chromodynamics and next-to-leading order electroweak accuracy.
A search for long-lived particles (LLPs) produced in decays of standard model (SM) Higgs bosons is presented. The data sample consists of 137 fb^{-1} of proton-proton collisions at sqrt[s]=13 TeV, recorded at the LHC in 2016-2018. A novel technique is employed to reconstruct decays of LLPs in the end cap muon detectors. The search is sensitive to a broad range of LLP decay modes and to masses as low as a few GeV. No excess of events above the SM background is observed. The most stringent limits to date on the branching fraction of the Higgs boson to LLPs subsequently decaying to quarks and τ^{+}τ^{-} are found for proper decay lengths greater than 6, 20, and 40 m, for LLP masses of 7, 15, and 40 GeV, respectively.
The dependence of the ratio between the B_{s}^{0} and B^{+} hadron production fractions, f_{s}/f_{u}, on the transverse momentum (p_{T}) and rapidity of the B mesons is studied using the decay channels B_{s}^{0}→J/ψϕ and B^{+}→J/ψK^{+}. The analysis uses a data sample of proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 13 TeV, collected by the CMS experiment in 2018 and corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 61.6 fb^{-1}. The f_{s}/f_{u} ratio is observed to depend on the B p_{T} and to be consistent with becoming asymptotically constant at large p_{T}. No rapidity dependence is observed. The ratio of the B^{0} to B^{+} meson production fractions, f_{d}/f_{u}, is also measured, for the first time in proton-proton collisions, using the B^{0}→J/ψK^{*0} decay channel. The result is found to be within 1 standard deviation of unity and independent of p_{T} and rapidity, as expected from isospin invariance.
We present an observation of photon-photon production of τ lepton pairs in ultraperipheral lead-lead collisions. The measurement is based on a data sample with an integrated luminosity of 404 μb^{-1} collected by the CMS experiment at a center-of-mass energy per nucleon pair of sqrt[s_{NN}]=5.02 TeV. The γγ→τ^{+}τ^{-} process is observed for τ^{+}τ^{-} events with a muon and three charged hadrons in the final state. The measured fiducial cross section is σ(γγ→τ^{+}τ^{-})=4.8±0.6(stat)±0.5(syst) μb, where the second (third) term corresponds to the statistical (systematic) uncertainty in σ(γγ→τ^{+}τ^{-}) in agreement with leading-order QED predictions. Using σ(γγ→τ^{+}τ^{-}), we estimate a model-dependent value of the anomalous magnetic moment of the τ lepton of a_{τ}=0.001_{-0.089}^{+0.055}.
The first search exploiting the vector boson fusion process to probe heavy Majorana neutrinos and the Weinberg operator at the LHC is presented. The search is performed in the same-sign dimuon final state using a proton-proton collision dataset recorded at sqrt[s]=13 TeV, collected with the CMS detector and corresponding to a total integrated luminosity of 138 fb^{-1}. The results are found to agree with the predictions of the standard model. For heavy Majorana neutrinos, constraints on the squared mixing element between the muon and the heavy neutrino are derived in the heavy neutrino mass range 50 GeV-25 TeV; for masses above 650 GeV these are the most stringent constraints from searches at the LHC to date. A first test of the Weinberg operator at colliders provides an observed upper limit at 95% confidence level on the effective μμ Majorana neutrino mass of 10.8 GeV.
A search for the standard model Higgs boson decaying to a charm quark-antiquark pair, H→cc[over ¯], produced in association with a leptonically decaying V (W or Z) boson is presented. The search is performed with proton-proton collisions at sqrt[s]=13 TeV collected by the CMS experiment, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 138 fb^{-1}. Novel charm jet identification and analysis methods using machine learning techniques are employed. The analysis is validated by searching for Z→cc[over ¯] in VZ events, leading to its first observation at a hadron collider with a significance of 5.7 standard deviations. The observed (expected) upper limit on σ(VH)B(H→cc[over ¯]) is 0.94 (0.50_{-0.15}^{+0.22})pb at 95% confidence level (C.L.), corresponding to 14 (7.6_{-2.3}^{+3.4}) times the standard model prediction. For the Higgs-charm Yukawa coupling modifier, κ_{c}, the observed (expected) 95% C.L. interval is 1.1
The structure of nucleons is multidimensional and depends on the transverse momenta, spatial geometry, and polarization of the constituent partons. Such a structure can be studied using high-energy photons produced in ultraperipheral heavy-ion collisions. The first measurement of the azimuthal angular correlations of exclusively produced events with two jets in photon-lead interactions at large momentum transfer is presented, a process that is considered to be sensitive to the underlying nuclear gluon polarization. This study uses a data sample of ultraperipheral lead-lead collisions at sqrt[s_{NN}]=5.02 TeV, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 0.38 nb^{-1}, collected with the CMS experiment at the LHC. The measured second harmonic of the correlation between the sum and difference of the two jet transverse momentum vectors is found to be positive, and rising, as the dijet transverse momentum increases. A well-tuned model that has been successful at describing a wide range of proton scattering data from the HERA experiments fails to describe the observed correlations, suggesting the presence of gluon polarization effects.
A search for nonresonant Higgs boson (H) pair production via gluon and vector boson (V) fusion is performed in the four-bottom-quark final state, using proton-proton collision data at 13 TeV corresponding to 138 fb^{-1} collected by the CMS experiment at the LHC. The analysis targets Lorentz-boosted H pairs identified using a graph neural network. It constrains the strengths relative to the standard model of the H self-coupling and the quartic VVHH couplings, κ_{2V}, excluding κ_{2V}=0 for the first time, with a significance of 6.3 standard deviations when other H couplings are fixed to their standard model values.
A search for the standard model (SM) Higgs boson (H) produced with transverse momentum (p_{T}) greater than 450 GeV and decaying to a charm quark-antiquark (cc[over ¯]) pair is presented. The search is performed using proton-proton collision data collected at sqrt[s]=13 TeV by the CMS experiment at the LHC, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 138 fb^{-1}. Boosted H→cc[over ¯] decay products are reconstructed as a single large-radius jet and identified using a deep neural network charm tagging technique. The method is validated by measuring the Z→cc[over ¯] decay process, which is observed in association with jets at high p_{T} for the first time with a signal strength of 1.00_{-0.14}^{+0.17}(syst)±0.08(theo)±0.06(stat), defined as the ratio of the observed process rate to the SM expectation. The observed (expected) upper limit on σ(H)B(H→cc[over ¯]) is set at 47 (39) times the SM prediction at 95% confidence level.
We present the first direct search for exotic Higgs boson decays H→AA, A→γγ in events with two photonlike objects. The hypothetical particle A is a low-mass spin-0 particle decaying promptly to a merged diphoton reconstructed as a single photonlike object. We analyze the data collected by the CMS experiment at sqrt[s]=13 TeV corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 136 fb^{-1}. No excess above the estimated background is found. We set upper limits on the branching fraction B(H→AA→4γ) of (0.9-3.3)×10^{-3} at 95% confidence level for masses of A in the range 0.1-1.2 GeV.
The first observation of the production of W^{±}W^{±} bosons from double parton scattering processes using same-sign electron-muon and dimuon events in proton-proton collisions is reported. The data sample corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 138 fb^{-1} recorded at a center-of-mass energy of 13 TeV using the CMS detector at the CERN LHC. Multivariate discriminants are used to distinguish the signal process from the main backgrounds. A binned maximum likelihood fit is performed to extract the signal cross section. The measured cross section for production of same-sign W bosons decaying leptonically is 80.7±11.2(stat) _{-8.6}^{+9.5}(syst)±12.1(model) fb, whereas the measured fiducial cross section is 6.28±0.81(stat)±0.69(syst)±0.37(model) fb. The observed significance of the signal is 6.2 standard deviations above the background-only hypothesis.