Eight boys aged 2-12 weeks with urinary tract malformations (UTMs) exhibited features of transient type 1 pseudo-hypoaldosteronism (TPHA1) in the course of urinary tract infection (UTI). Hyponatremia (120.9+/-5.8 mmol/l), hyperkalemia (6.9+/-0.9 mmol/l), metabolic acidosis (plasma bicarbonate 11+/-1.4 mmol/l), and a rise in serum creatinine levels (145+/-101 micromol/l) were associated with high urinary sodium (Na) and low potassium (K) excretion. Tubular resistance to aldosterone was indicated by high plasma aldosterone concentrations (170.4+/-100.5 ng/dl), high levels of the plasma aldosterone to potassium ratio (25.2+/-15.6), and diminished urinary K/Na values (0.31+/-0.19). With appropriate therapy, serum electrolytes, creatinine, and acid-base balance normalized within 2 weeks. A Medline search revealed another 85 cases of TPHA1 reported to date. All of the 93 patients were less than 7 months of age and 90% were less than 3 months of age, 90.3% suffered from UTM, with associated UTI in 89% of them, 11% had UTMin the absence of UTI, and 9.7% showed isolated UTI. These findings indicate that early infancy is the main contributing factor for TPHA1 to occur and that UTI and UTMare additional factors, with at least one being required for its development.

A small ring phosphacycle (1,2,2,3,4,4-hexamethylphosphetane) is found to catalyze deoxygenative N-N bond-forming Cadogan heterocyclization of o-nitrobenzaldimines, o-nitroazobenzenes and related substrates in the presence of hydrosilane terminal reductant. The reaction provides a chemoselective catalytic synthesis of 2H-indazoles, 2H-benzotriazoles, and related fused heterocyclic systems with good functional group compatibility. On the basis of both stoichiometric and catalytic mechanistic experiments, the reaction is proposed to proceed via catalytic PIII/PV=O cycling, where DFT modelling suggests a turnover limiting (3+1) cheletropic addition between the phosphetane catalyst and nitroarene substrate. Strain/distortion analysis of the (3+1) transition structure highlights the controlling role of frontier orbital effects underpinning the catalytic performance of the phosphetane.

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Social network-based engineering education (SNEE) is designed and implemented as a model of Education 3.0 paradigm. SNEE represents a new learning methodology, which is based on the concept of social networks and represents an extended model of project-led education. The concept of social networks was applied in the real-life experiment, considering two different dimensions: (1) to organize the education process as a social network-based process; and (2) to analyze the students' interactions in the context of evaluation of the students learning performance. The objective of this paper is to present a new model for students evaluation based on their behavior during the course and its validation in comparison with the traditional model of students' evaluation. The validation of the new evaluation model is made through an analysis of the correlation between social network analysis measures (degree centrality, closeness centrality, betweenness centrality, eigenvector centrality, and average tie strength) and the grades obtained by students (grades for quality of work, grades for volume of work, grades for diversity of work, and final grades) in a social network-based engineering education. The main finding is that the obtained correlation results can be used to make the process of the students' performance evaluation based on students interactions (behavior) analysis, to make the evaluation partially automatic, increasing the objectivity and productivity of teachers and allowing a more scalable process of evaluation. The results also contribute to the behavioural theory of learning performance evaluation. More specific findings related to the correlation analysis are: (1) the more different interactions a student had (degree centrality) and the more frequently the student was between the interaction paths of other students (betweenness centrality), the better was the quality of the work; (2) all five social network measures had a positive and strong correlation with the grade for volume of work and with the final grades; and (3) a student with high average tie strength had a higher grade for diversity of work than those with low ties.

Celiac disease (CD) is an autoimmune disorder of the small intestine with highly variable clinical presentation and frequently associated with various immune-mediated diseases. Among these immune-mediated diseases, atopy has been found frequently in individuals with CD. We aimed to study the prevalence of CD in Estonian children with atopic dermatitis (AD), a common multifactorial chronic inflammatory skin disease. We recruited 351 consecutive children with active AD (mean age 5.8 yrs, 57.6% boys) at Tallinn Children's Hospital, Estonia. Sera of all patients were tested for total serum immunoglobulin (Ig) A, for IgA- and IgG-type autoantibodies to tissue transglutaminase (IgA-anti-TG2, IgG-anti-TG2) and to deamidated gliadin peptides (IgA-anti-DGP, IgG-anti-DGP). The diagnosis of CD was confirmed histologically by small intestine biopsy according to the European Society of Paediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition diagnostic criteria. IgA deficiency was detected in nine patients with AD (2.6%), none of whom had IgG-anti-TG2 or IgG-anti-DGP seropositivity. IgA-anti-TG2 positivity was found in 4 (1.1%), IgG-anti-TG2 positivity in 2 (0.6%), IgA-anti-DGP positivity in 11 (3.1%), and IgG-anti-DGP in 10 (2.8%) patients. Celiac disease was confirmed in five (1.4%) patients with AD (95% confidence interval 0.46, 3.32) and all were histologically characterized as Marsh IIIa-IIIc stages and two presented with silent CD. In AD patients, CD prevalence was more than four times as high as in previously studied randomly selected schoolchildren in Estonia. Two patients with AD diagnosed with CD had no symptoms indicative of CD, in spite of extensive histologic changes in the small intestine mucosa. Therefore our study emphasizes the need for evaluating the cost-effectiveness of screening individuals with AD for CD in time to prevent long-term complications.