Currently, MVA virus vectors carrying HIV-1 genes are being developed as HIV-1/AIDS prophylactic/therapeutic vaccines. Nevertheless, little is known about the impact of these vectors on human dendritic cells (DC) and their capacity to present HIV-1 antigens to human HIV-specific T cells. This study aimed to characterize the interaction of MVA and MVA expressing the HIV-1 genes Env-Gag-Pol-Nef o...

We derive a generalization of barycentric coordinates which allows a vertex in a planar triangulation to be expressed as a convex combination of its neighbouring vertices. The coordinates are motivated by the Mean Value Theorem for harmonic functions and can be used to simplify and improve methods for parameterization and morphing.  2003 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

Transfinite mean value interpolation has recently emerged as a simple and robust way to interpolate a function f defined on the boundary of a planar domain. In this paper we study basic properties of the interpolant, including sufficient conditions on the boundary of the domain to guarantee interpolation when f is continuous. Then, by deriving the normal derivative of the interpolant and of a m...

OBJECTIVE Studies from the USA have reported the efficacy and high acceptability of surgical abortion using manual vacuum aspiration (MVA) under local anaesthesia. The aim of this study was to assess the feasibility, acceptability and efficacy of surgical abortion using MVA under local anaesthesia for termination of pregnancy up to 63 days' gestation, within a UK National Health Service setting...

Bézier surfaces are an important design tool in Computer Aided Design. They are parameterized surfaces where the parameterization can be represented as a homogeneous polynomial in barycentric coordinates. Usually, Wachspress coordinates are used to obtain tensor product Bézier surfaces over rectangular domains. Recently, Floater introduced mean value coordinates as an alternative to Wachspress ...

Geometry editing operations commonly use mesh encodings which capture the shape properties of the models. Given modified positions for a set of anchor vertices, the encoding is used to compute the positions for the rest of the mesh vertices, preserving the model shape as much as possible. In this paper, we introduce a new shape preserving and rotation invariant mesh encoding. We use this encodi...

To determine if mitral valve morphology influences the results of double-balloon catheter balloon valvuloplasty (CBV) for mitral stenosis, two-dimensional echocardiography was performed in 33 patients before CBV. The two-dimensional echocardiographic features of leaflet motion, leaflet thickness, subvalvular disease, and commissural calcium and 14 pre-CBV clinical and hemodynamic variables were...

BACKGROUND Replicating smallpox vaccines can cause severe complications in individuals with atopic dermatitis (AD). Prior studies evaluating Modified Vaccinia Ankara virus (MVA), a non-replicating vaccine in humans, showed a favorable safety and immunogenicity profile in healthy volunteers. OBJECTIVE This Phase II study compared the safety and immunogenicity of MVA enrolling groups of 350 sub...

BACKGROUND Vaccinia-associated myo/pericarditis was observed during the US smallpox vaccination (DryVax) campaign initiated in 2002. A highly-attenuated vaccinia strain, modified vaccinia Ankara (MVA) has been evaluated in clinical trials as a safer alternative to DryVax and as a vector for recombinant vaccines. Due to the lack of prospectively collected cardiac safety data, the US Food and Dru...

Poxvirus vector Modified Vaccinia Virus Ankara (MVA) expressing HIV-1 Env, Gag, Pol and Nef antigens from clade B (termed MVA-B) is a promising HIV/AIDS vaccine candidate, as confirmed from results obtained in a prophylactic phase I clinical trial in humans. To improve the immunogenicity elicited by MVA-B, we have generated and characterized the innate immune sensing and the in vivo immunogenic...