White Blood Cell Density Research Articles

Trans-cortical vessels in the mouse temporal bulla bone are a means to recruit myeloid cells in chronic otitis media and limit peripheral leukogram changes.

Chronic otitis media, inflammation of the middle ear, is a sequel to acute otitis media in ∼8% of children. Chronic otitis media with effusion is the most common cause of childhood deafness and is characterised by effusion of white blood cells into the auditory bulla cavity. Skull flat bones have trans-cortical vessels which are responsible for the majority of blood flow in and out of the bone. In experimental models of stroke and aseptic meningitis there is preferential recruitment of myeloid cells (neutrophils and monocytes) from the marrow in skull flat bones. We report trans-cortical vessels in the mouse temporal bone connect to the bulla mucosal vasculature and potentially represent a means to recruit myeloid cells directly into the inflamed bulla. The mutant mouse strains Junbo (Mecom Jbo/+ ) and Jeff (Fbxo11 Jf/+ ) develop chronic otitis spontaneously; Mecom Jbo/+ mice have highly cellular neutrophil (90%) rich bulla exudates whereas Fbxo11 Jf/+ mice have low cellularity serous effusions (5% neutrophils) indicating differing demand for neutrophil recruitment. However we found peripheral leukograms of Mecom Jbo/+ and Fbxo11 Jf/+ mice are similar to their respective wild-type littermate controls with healthy bullae and infer preferential mobilization of myeloid cells from temporal bulla bone marrow may mitigate the need for a systemic inflammatory reaction. The cytokines, chemokines and haematopoietic factors found in the inflamed bulla represent candidate signalling molecules for myeloid cell mobilization from temporal bone marrow. The density of white blood cells in the bulla cavity is positively correlated with extent of mucosal thickening in Mecom Jbo/+ , Fbxo11 Jf/+ , and Eda Ta mice and is accompanied by changes in epithelial populations and bone remodelling. In Mecom Jbo/+ mice there was a positive correlation between bulla cavity WBC numbers and total bacterial load. The degree of inflammation varies between contralateral bullae and between mutant mice of different ages suggesting inflammation may wax and wane and may be re-initiated by a new wave of bacterial infection. Clearance of white blood cells and inflammatory stimuli from the bulla cavity is impaired and this may create a pro-inflammatory feedback loop which further exacerbates otitis media and delays its resolution.

Protective effect of rhubarb combined with ulinastatin for patients with sepsis.

Background:Sepsis is the leading cause of death in critically ill patients. Ulinastatin (UTI), a protease inhibitor, and rhubarb, used as a traditional Chinese medication, are proved to be effective in treating sepsis, but the effect of the combination therapy of these two drugs on sepsis remains unclear. This study aimed to investigate the effect of the combination treatment of UTI and rhubarb on sepsis patients.Methods:A total of 75 septic patients were randomly divided into control group, UTI group, Rhubarb group, and UTI plus Rhubarb group. Clinical data and score of Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation II (APACHE II) were collected; lymphocyte subtypes in the peripheral blood were analyzed before and after the 5-day treatment in the Intensive Care Unit.Results:All the therapeutic interventions (UTI alone, rhubarb alone, or UTI plus rhubarb) significantly reduced the levels of C-Reactive protein, white blood cell density, lactic acid, and APACH II scores, and elevated the levels of CD4/CD8, but only UTI plus rhubarb treatment obviously decreased the level of procalcitonin.Conclusion:This study suggested that the combination of UTI and rhubarb may be a promising therapeutic scheme to ameliorate sepsis.

Bifurcation Features of Periodic Solutions of the Mackey–Glass Equation

Bifurcations of periodic solutions of the well-known Mackey–Glass equation from its unique equilibrium state under varying equation parameters are considered. The equation is used as a mathematical model of variations in the density of white blood cells (neutrophils). Written in dimensionless variables, the equation contains a small parameter multiplying the derivative, which makes this equation singular. It is shown that the behavior of solutions to the equation with initial data from a fixed neighborhood of the equilibrium state in the equation phase space is described by a countable system of nonlinear ordinary differential equations. This system has a minimal structure and is called the normal form of the equation in the neighborhood of the equilibrium state. One fast variable and a countable number of slow variables can be extracted from this system of equations. As a result, the averaging method can be applied to the obtained system. It is shown that the equilibrium states of the averaged system of equations in slow variables are associated with periodic solutions of the same stability type in the original equation. The possibility of simultaneous bifurcation of a large number of periodic solutions (multistability bifurcation) is shown. It is also shown that, with a further increase in the bifurcation parameter, each of the periodic solutions exhibits the transition to a chaotic attractor through a series of period-doubling bifurcations. Thus, the behavior of the solutions of the Mackey–Glass equation is characterized by chaotic multistability.

Feet in danger: short exposure to contaminated soil causing health damage—an experimental study

In this study, hematological and behavioral changes in Wistar rats exposed to soil collected from urban areas next to an industrial complex were investigated. Animals were exposed to soil samples placed at the bottom of cages for 4days. After this period, behavioral parameters were measured by the open field test and the elevated plus-maze. Blood was collected to measure hematological parameters. The soil from the vicinity of the oil refining industry caused changes in hematological parameters and altered behavioral parameters in both tests. The soil from the vicinity of the petroleum refining industry and fertilizer industries increased the density of white blood cells and decreased exploratory activity in the exposed animals. The results demonstrate that contact with contaminated soils, even for short periods, can cause physiological damage in organisms and that special attention should be given to people who live under constant exposure to these soils.

Bifurcation of Periodic Solutions of the Mackey– Glass Equation

We study the bifurcation of the equilibrium states of periodic solutions for the Mackey– Glass equation. This equation is considered as a mathematical model of changes in the density of white blood cells. The equation written in dimensionless variables contains a small parameter at the derivative, which makes it singular. We applied the method of uniform normalization, which allows us to reduce the study of the solutions behavior in the neighborhood of the equilibrium state to the analysis of the countable system of ordinary differential equations. We poot out the equations in ”fast” and ”slow” variables from this system. Equilibrium states of the ”slow” variables equations determine the periodic solutions. The analysis of equilibrium states allows us to study the bifurcation of periodic solutions depending on the parameters of the equation and their stability. The possibility of simultaneous bifurcation of a large number of stable periodic solutions is shown. This situation is called the multistability phenomenon.

Adaptive Neuro Fuzzy Inference System for White Blood Cell Classification

Dean, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, SNS College of Technology, CoimbatoreABSTRACTThis paper describes the practical application of Adaptive Neuro-Fuzzy Inference System (A NFIS) framework forclassification of white blood cells. Differential count of the several types of white blood cells (WBC) in bone marrowsmears is applied to assist find infection, anemia and leukemia or to observe the process of treatment. In this paperwe represent a fuzzy Inference system approach to discover edge inside color bone marrow microscopic pictures, toget a solution for iteration level for image processing. In this paper, we investigate whether selective informationabout the nucleus only is sufficient to classify white blood cells. This is essential because partitioning of nucleusis very much simpler than the partitioning of the total cell, particularly in the bone marrow where the whiteblood cell density is really high.Keyword: Anfis, white Blood Cells, Fuzzy Logic, Neural Network, Segmentation, ClassificationINTRODUCTIONThe traditional method for an expert is to use a microscope to select an area of interest in a bone marrow slide,detect a white blood cell, classify the cell based on his knowledge and experience, increase the count of thecorresponding cell class, and repeat the cycle until all cells in the area of interest are counted. Research and studyabout leukocyte or white blood cell are realized a is an important issue in Hematology for a long time[2].It also recognized as a one of many challenging and complicate investigation in medical image processing andrelated field both cell component segmentation and cell classification for blood cell counting. White blood cell isthe most important cell in an immune system and can be found generally in the whole body [1]. Its function is toeliminate a foreign body in blood circulation system. In general, an increasing or decreasing in a number of totalwhite blood cells from normal level can be used statistically as an efficient primary indicator for an infection,inflammatory or disease in a human body. This figure can also be used for medical cure or follow up treatment anddrug. From the reason described above , the counting of white blood cell in order to specify a cell type and gainan amount of white blood cell in blood sample is necessary and very important. A normal stained blood sampleslide will typically compose of red blood cell, white blood cell and plasma as a background. Each WBC cell hasnaturally different in both size and shape of nucleus. Some complications usually found during manual blood cellcounting are mostly due to an unclear boundary between membrane both cytoplasm and plasma or cytoplasmand nucleus[4]. Although the blood cell counting is realized as an important tank in blood componentdiagnosis, however this is a very time consuming process and quite inherent biasing from an expertise skilland experience, person by person. These cause an implicit result intentionally [13].An automatic blood cell counter by using computer vision technique can help to perform this medical test rapidlyand accurately. Most available commercial automatic white blood cell analysis composed of three main stepsincluding cell component segmentation, feature extraction and cell type classification [9]. Among those describedprocessing steps, blood cell segmentation plays an important role as the first essential step of blood cell countingprocess to separate a composition of white blood cell into nucleus region and cytoplasm region. A correction andaccuracy of the following cell classification is affected from this segmentation .Several segmentation techniqueswere introduced and applied into white blood cell images and organ cell [3].Hea

Effects of increased white blood cell count on endothelin-induced vasoconstriction in healthy subjects

It is known that administration of granulocyte-colony stimulating factor is followed by an increase of white blood cell count. There is evidence from other vascular beds that an increase in white blood cell count impairs blood flow regulation especially in the microcirculation. Whether this also holds true for the ocular circulation is unknown. In the following study we investigated whether an increase in white blood cell count alters the endothelin-1 induced vasoconstriction in humans. Neither granulocyte-colony stimulating factor nor endothelin-1 had any consistent effect on blood pressure, pulse rate or intraocular pressure. Administration of granulocyte-colony stimulating factor induced a pronounced increase in retinal white blood cell density (p < 0.01). Administration of endothelin-1 decreased choroidal (p < 0.01) and retinal blood flow (p < 0.01). The change in choroidal blood flow in response to endothelin-1 was not altered by pre-treatment with granulocyte-colony stimulating factor. By contrast, the decrease in retinal blood flow was more pronounced during an increase in white blood cell count (p = 0.02) when compared to placebo. Our data indicates that during pronounced vasoconstriction, as induced by administration of endothelin-1, vascular regulation can be altered by the number of circulating white blood cells. Whether this effect is caused by an interaction of red and white blood cells in the microcirculation or a yet unknown mechanism needs further investigation.

Optofluidic Fluorescent Imaging Cytometry on a Cell Phone

Fluorescent microscopy and flow cytometry are widely used tools in biomedical sciences. Cost-effective translation of these technologies to remote and resource-limited environments could create new opportunities especially for telemedicine applications. Toward this direction, here we demonstrate the integration of imaging cytometry and fluorescent microscopy on a cell phone using a compact, lightweight, and cost-effective optofluidic attachment. In this cell-phone-based optofluidic imaging cytometry platform, fluorescently labeled particles or cells of interest are continuously delivered to our imaging volume through a disposable microfluidic channel that is positioned above the existing camera unit of the cell phone. The same microfluidic device also acts as a multilayered optofluidic waveguide and efficiently guides our excitation light, which is butt-coupled from the side facets of our microfluidic channel using inexpensive light-emitting diodes. Since the excitation of the sample volume occurs through guided waves that propagate perpendicular to the detection path, our cell-phone camera can record fluorescent movies of the specimens as they are flowing through the microchannel. The digital frames of these fluorescent movies are then rapidly processed to quantify the count and the density of the labeled particles/cells within the target solution of interest. We tested the performance of our cell-phone-based imaging cytometer by measuring the density of white blood cells in human blood samples, which provided a decent match to a commercially available hematology analyzer. We further characterized the imaging quality of the same platform to demonstrate a spatial resolution of ~2 μm. This cell-phone-enabled optofluidic imaging flow cytometer could especially be useful for rapid and sensitive imaging of bodily fluids for conducting various cell counts (e.g., toward monitoring of HIV+ patients) or rare cell analysis as well as for screening of water quality in remote and resource-poor settings.

Algebraic-Delay Differential Systems, State-Dependent Delay, and Temporal Order of Reactions

Systems of the form $$\begin{array}{ll}x'(t) = g(r(t),x_t)\\ \quad\,\, 0 = \Delta(r(t),x_t) \end{array}$$ generalize differential equations with delays r(t) < 0 which are given implicitly by the history x t of the state. We show that the associated initial value problem generates a semiflow with differentiable solution operators on a Banach manifold. The theory covers reaction delays, signal transmission delays, threshold delays, and delays depending on the present state x(t) only. As an application we consider a model for the regulation of the density of white blood cells and study monotonicity properties of the delayed argument function $${\tau:t\mapsto t+r(t)}$$ . There are solutions (r, x) with τ′(t) > 0 and others with τ′(t) < 0. These other solutions correspond to feedback which reverses temporal order; they are short-lived and less abundant. Transient behaviour with a sign change of τ′ is impossible.

Reactivity of retinal blood flow to 100% oxygen breathing after lipopolysaccharide administration in healthy subjects

Administration of low doses of Escherichia coli endotoxin (LPS) to humans enables the study of inflammatory mechanisms. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the retinal vascular reactivity after LPS infusion. In a randomized placebo-controlled cross-over study, 18 healthy male volunteers received 20 IU/kg LPS or placebo as an intravenous bolus infusion. Outcome parameters were measured at baseline and 4 h after LPS/placebo administration. At baseline and at 4 h after administration a short period of 100% oxygen inhalation was used to assess retinal vasoreactivity to this stimulus. Perimacular white blood cell velocity, density and flux were assessed with the blue-field entoptic technique, retinal branch arterial and venous diameters were measured with a retinal vessel analyzer and red blood cell velocity in retinal branch veins was measured with laser Doppler velocimetry. LPS is associated with peripheral blood leukocytosis and increased white blood cell density in ocular microvessels ( p < 0.001). In addition, retinal arterial ( p = 0.02) and venous ( p < 0.01) diameters were increased. All retinal hemodynamic parameters showed a decrease during 100% oxygen breathing. This decrease was significantly blunted by LPS for all retinal outcome parameters except venous diameter ( p = 0.04 for white blood cell velocity, p = 0.0002 for white blood cell density, p < 0.0001 for white blood cell flux, p = 0.01 for arterial diameter, p = 0.02 for red blood cell velocity and p = 0.006 for red blood cell flux). These data indicate that LPS-induced inflammation induces vascular dysregulation in the retina. This may provide a link between inflammation and vascular dysregulation. Further studies are warranted to investigate whether this model may be suitable to study inflammation induced vascular dysregulation in the eye.

Morphological Granulometric Features of Nucleus in Automatic Bone Marrow White Blood Cell Classification

The proportion of counts of different types of white blood cells in the bone marrow, called differential counts, provides invaluable information to doctors for diagnosis. Due to the tedious nature of the differential white blood cell counting process, an automatic system is preferable. In this paper, we investigate whether information about the nucleus alone is adequate to classify white blood cells. This is important because segmentation of nucleus is much easier than the segmentation of the entire cell, especially in the bone marrow where the white blood cell density is very high. In the experiments, a set of manually segmented images of the nucleus are used to decouple segmentation errors. We analyze a set of white-blood-cell-nucleus-based features using mathematical morphology. Fivefold cross validation is used in the experiments in which Bayes' classifiers and artificial neural networks are applied as classifiers. The classification performances are evaluated by two evaluation measures: traditional and classwise classification rates. Furthermore, we compare our results with other classifiers and previously proposed nucleus-based features. The results show that the features using nucleus alone can be utilized to achieve a classification rate of 77% on the test sets. Moreover, the classification performance is better in the classwise sense when the a priori information is suppressed in both the classifiers.

Immune Status, Carotenoid Coloration, and Wing Feather Growth in Relation to Organochlorine Pollutants in Great Black-Backed Gulls

Previous ecotoxicological studies have documented relationships between residues of various organochlorines (OCs) and immune status, carotenoid colors, and wing feather growth in different bird species. In this study, the density of white blood cells (WBC), carotenoid colors, and length of the same feathers on each wing were measured in breeding great black-backed gulls (Larus marinus) on the coast of northern Norway, and related to the blood residues of five OCs, including HCB (hexachlorobenzene), beta-HCH (beta-hexachlorocyclohexane), p,p'-DDE (p, p'-dichlorodiphenyldichloroethylene), oxychlordane, and polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB), in addition to SigmaOC. Neither, WBC density nor carotenoid colors were significantly related to blood residues of any of the OCs, suggesting that OC levels may have been too low to significantly affect these outcome parameters. However, in the colony where the OC concentrations were highest, there was a weak but significantly positive relationship between the probability of having different length of feathers on each wing and levels of PCB and SigmaOC, in males. Thus varying length of the wing primaries may reflect adverse impacts of OCs in great black-backed gulls. However, in gulls with moderate levels of OCs, it is probably not a sensitive indicator of progressing ecological impacts of OCs, since such adverse ecological relationships were found in the breeding colonies where there were no relationships between differences in wing feather lengths and OCs.

Response of Retinal Blood Flow to CO2-Breathing in Humans

To investigate the effect of systemic hypercapnia on retinal hemodynamics in humans. We studied the effect of breathing a mixture of normal air with 5% CO2 for 13 minutes in ten healthy young male volunteers, using the Zeiss retinal vessel analyzer for continuous measurement of retinal vessel diameter and the blue-field entoptic technique to quantify retinal white blood cell flux. In eight other subjects the effect of hypercapnia was measured with the Zeiss retinal vessel analyzer and by laser Doppler velocimetry to establish retinal blood flow velocity. Retinal arterial and venous vessel diameters increased by a maximum of 4.2% and 3.2%, respectively. Peak effect was observed after 3 minutes of breathing the mixture of normal air with 5% CO2. During hypercapnia red blood cell velocity increased 11.7% and, accordingly, retinal blood flow increased 19.1%. White blood cell density and velocity rose significantly during hypercapnia, resulting in an increase in white blood cell flux (19.2%). Our data indicate that CO2 induces vasodilation in retinal arteries and retinal veins. Retinal blood flow and perimacular white blood cell flux increased to the same extent in subjects breathing a mixture of normal air with 5% CO2.

Cyclosporin A Retards the Wallerian Degeneration of Peripheral Mammalian Axons

The distal (anucleate) segments of mammalian peripheral axons typically undergo complete Wallerian degeneration within 1–3 days after severance from their cell bodies, unlike invertebrates and lower vertebrates, where anucleate axons do not degenerate for weeks to months. This rapid Wallerian degeneration in mammals could be due to a more efficient immune system and/or to differences in calcium-dependent pathways relative to invertebrates and lower vertebrates. To suppress the immune system and to inhibit calcium-dependent pathways in axons, we gave daily subcutaneous injections of cyclosporin A (CsA: 10 mg/kg) to Sprague–Dawley rats for 7 days before, and 5 days after, severing their right ventral tail nerves. To confirm that CsA suppressed the immune system, white blood cell density was measured in CsA-treated and in non-treated rats. Our data showed that the number of surviving anucleate myelinated axons at 5 postoperative days in CsA-treated rats was significantly higher than the number in non-treated rats. Anucleate unmyelinated axons in the ventral tail nerve also exhibited better survival in CsA-treated rats than in nontreated rats. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that the immune response and/or calcium-dependent pathways play important roles in the rapid Wallerian degeneration of anucleate mammalian axons.