As shown in the case presentation, Mr D’s Ixazomib Ki infection was treated promptly and aggressively, albeit unsuccessfully. Establishing causality between clozapine therapy and pneumonia and diabetic complications in this specific case is of course not possible. It is possible that there was no correlation and that the patient’s death may have been independent of clozapine therapy. Patients with schizophrenia are known to have higher rates of diabetes irrespective of antipsychotic therapy [Holt et al. 2005], reflecting a likely multifactorial association. Mr D’s diabetes had been historically difficult to manage and

his deterioration may have been part of his disease course. In addition, Mr D also had risk factors Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical for pneumonia. However, given the current Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical understanding of clozapine’s adverse effects, it is likely that a combination of pre-existing risk factors and clozapine therapy contributed to his death. Conclusions Given the evidence in the literature linking clozapine with diabetogenic effects and pneumonia, as illustrated Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical in the case presented, we suggest there is a need to reconsider routine monitoring in early therapy. Guidelines and consensus opinion fail to highlight what may be a high-risk period for clozapine-treated patients,

specifically the first month of treatment. Diabetic screening using FPG within the first month of treatment would not represent an extra burden on the patient because it could be incorporated into the weekly full blood Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical count sampling. In patients with pre-existing diabetes, simple CBG could be conducted on a daily basis to monitor diabetic control. We would also suggest that patients with risk factors

for developing pneumonia should be closely monitored for infection and steps taken to minimize risk by selleckchem Axitinib addressing modifiable risk factors. It is also important to note that these issues have implications when considering the safety of clozapine titration in the community rather than under closer Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical supervision in the hospital setting. We appreciate that patients with schizophrenia have high levels of physical comorbidity irrespective of specific iatrogenic mechanisms. Therefore, in clinical practice, the decision to treat patients with clozapine Cilengitide will be based on a risk—benefit analysis. However with further research, high-risk patients requiring closer monitoring, who are more susceptible to presenting with diabetic emergencies and/or pneumonia may be identifiable in the future. In conclusion, we recommend raised clinician awareness of the potential for serious diabetic and respiratory complications in early clozapine therapy. In addition to closer monitoring and prompt treatment, we suggest a rethink of clinical guidelines reflecting the need for early detection of such cases. Footnotes This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

Twin studies can provide insight into whether clinical heterogeneity may reflect differences in etiological risk factors. For example, alcohol dependence with comorbid drug dependence has been found to be a particularly heritable form of the disorder,19,20 and twin studies have suggested a genetic influence on typical versus atypical forms of major depression.21 Changing genetic influence across Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical development Another active area of research is the clarification of how genetic and environmental influences may change across development. A recent meta-analysis

examined published studies with at least two heritability time points across adolescence and young adulthood for eight different behavioral domains. These analyses revealed significant cross-time Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical heritability increases for externalizing behaviors, anxiety symptoms, depressive symptoms, IQ, and social attitudes, and nonsignificant increases for alcohol consumption and nicotine initiation.

The only domain that showed no evidence of heritability changes across time was attention-deficit/hyperactivity Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical disorder.22 Similarly, in a large study of >11 000 pairs of twins from four countries, the heritability of general cognitive ability was found to increase significantly and linearly from 41% in childhood (9 years) to 55% in adolescence (12 years) and to 66% in young adulthood (17 years).23 The robust finding Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical of increases in the importance of genetic influences across development likely reflects, in part, active gene-environment correlation, as individuals increasingly select and create their own experiences based on their genetic propensities. In addition to changes in the relative magnitude of importance of genetic and environmental influences, another

dynamic change is that different genes Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical may be acting at different time points. This is nicely illustrated in recent analyses of alcohol use problems, as assessed at five time points from ages 19 to 28 in the Dutch Twin Registry (Kendler et al, in preparation). Kendler and colleagues found strong innovation and attenuation of genetic factors across this age range – indicating that some genetic influences on alcohol problems that were evident at age 19 declined in importance Cilengitide across time, while new genetic influences became important starting at ages 21 and 23. Thus, although the overall heritability of alcohol problems remained fairly stable, it appeared that different genetic factors were important at different timepoints. In analyses in the TCHAD Swedish study which followed twins from ages 9 to 20 across four waves of assessment, large changes were seen in the genetic risk factors for fears and phobias24 and for symptoms of anxiety and depression,25 with particularly pronounced evidence for genetic innovation at puberty. These analyses suggest that genetic influences of many psychiatric and substance use disorders are likely to be developmentally dynamic.

There is optimism that advances in molecular genetics will increase our understanding of the progression from genetic susceptibility to clinically overt schizophrenia. The mainstay of managing most schizophrenia at present, however, is drug therapy. Indeed, if the susceptibility gene with a required degree of predictive power can be identified, but. cannot, be modified, there is much ethical and

clinical discussion as to whether “pharmacological prophylaxis” of the potential patient, with schizophrenia with atypical neuroleptics ought to be initiated at the Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical “prodromal” stage or even earlier. While the principles of clinical trials aimed at demonstrating the efficacy of new neuroleptic agents are relatively well Enzastaurin Phase 3 established, the task of establishing their safety still remains a challenging one. This class of drugs is known to have a wide range of serious and troublesome safety problems, which include neurological, cardiac, endocrine, and metabolic side Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical effects. Recently, developed atypical neuroleptics have succeeded in modestly reducing

these risks. The present, efficacy-orientated approach is primarily responsible for the failure of clinical trials to detect the risks that are likely to be encountered during the uncontrolled Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical use of the drug after it is approved. The number of patients exposed is not large enough nor are all the patient subgroups likely to receive the drug during its uncontrolled clinical use Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical represented in these preapproval clinical trials. Despite very tight, inclusion and exclusion criteria, clinical trials with neuroleptic drugs are among those with very high patient withdrawal rates. It is usually the case that the subgroups excluded from clinical trials are in fact those who are at a much greater Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical risk. These include those patients with predisposing diseases or those receiving drugs with a potential for pharmacokinetic or pharmacodynamic interactions. Thus, the scope for detecting drug-disease or drug-drug interactions in

clinical trials is also very limited. And yet, experience has shown that these are among the most important risk factors! There are additional reasons why the safety of neuroleptic drugs should be adequately Brefeldin_A characterized. Atypical antipsychotics have revolutionized the treatment of schizophrenia, becoming the treatment of choice for patients not only during their first, episode, but also throughout their life course. However, of particular regulatory interest, are the reports that more than 70% of prescriptions for these drugs are written for conditions other than schizophrenia, such as affective disorders (both mania and depression), autism, geriatric agitation, substance abuse disorder, senile dementia, and pathologic aggression.

More recently, the combination of oxaliplatin and irinotecan has also been explored. In a randomized phase III study by Falcone et al., patients received either 48-h infusional 5-FU (3,200 mg/m2), LV (200 mg/m2), oxaliplatin (85 mg/m2), and irinotecan (165 mg/m2) (FOLFOXIRI) vs. FOLFIRI (20). The FOLFOXIRI regimen was associated with significantly increased ORR (66% vs. 41%, respectively), PFS (9.8 vs. 6.9 months, respectively), and OS (median, 22.6 vs. 16.7 months, respectively). Even though FOLFOXIRI was also Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical associated with higher

levels of Grade 2/3 toxicities, the FOLFOXIRI regimen has been accepted as another first-line therapeutic option for patients with mCRC. Emergence of targeted therapies for metastatic colorectal cancer Although outcomes Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical have improved with advances in systemic chemotherapy for

mCRC, potent small molecules and selleckbio antibodies targeting specific proteins have also been developed over the past decade and have further improved the efficacy of standard chemotherapy regimens. The first of these aptly named “targeted agents” to show benefit as first-line therapy for patients with mCRC was bevacizumab, a recombinant humanized monoclonal IgG1 antibody targeting vascular endothelial growth screening library factor Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical (VEGF). Hurwitz et al. showed that patients with mCRC who received bevacizumab + IFL had significantly better ORR (44.8% vs. 34.8%, respectively), PFS (10.6 vs. 6.2 months, respectively), and OS (median, 20.3 vs. 15.6 months, respectively) compared to IFL alone (21). By virtue of its mechanism of action as an anti-angiogenesis Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical agent, bevacizumab must be used with caution in both medical and surgical

patients because of known adverse events including gastrointestinal perforation, hemorrhage, and impaired wound healing (22,23). The second well-established Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical molecular target in mCRC is epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR), which is overexpressed in nearly 85% of colorectal cancers (24,25). Cetuximab, a chimeric IgG1 monoclonal antibody directed against the external surface of EGFR, was first evaluated in combination with chemotherapy in patients who were refractory to irinotecan and also as a single agent in patients intolerant to standard chemotherapy (26-29). These randomized, phase II and phase III trials showed improved PFS without differences Cilengitide in OS (29). More recently, Van Cutsem et al., demonstrated an OS benefit with cetuximab when the cohort was limited to patients with wild-type KRAS in their cancers (30). A 2nd EGFR-targeted antibody, panitumumab is a fully humanized IgG2 monoclonal antibody that was initially approved by the FDA as a third-line treatment for mCRC in 2007 (31). The PRIME trial utilized a combination of panitumumab + FOLFOX4 in patients with wild-type KRAS that revealed improved PFS but a non-significant increase in OS compared to FOLFOX4 alone. Currently, panitumumab is FDA-approved for use in patients with refractory mCRC (32).

They found that patients with the bulbar-onset type showed marked prolongation of P3 latency

compared to patients with the limb-onset type and controls. Furthermore, correlation studies revealed that the relative selleck chem bulbar functional rating scale correlated with prolonged P3 latency and low P3 amplitude. These results further suggested that patients with bulbar-onset ALS had consistently poorer cognitive test performance than those with Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical limb-onset ALS (Schreiber et al. 2005). In addition, a significant correlation was found between the respiratory function tests and P3 amplitude, by suggesting that ventilatory impairment overrides cognitive impairment caused by the disease itself. The described evidences with regard to the P300 component of the ERPs in ALS patients suggest the presence of an impairment of novelty detection mechanisms, which are associated with the dorsofrontal–orbitoselleck compound frontal Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical and anterior cingulate cortices. Such results confirm the dysfunction of the frontal network in ALS, according to neuropsychological, neuroimaging, neuropathological, and genetic evidences and with the hypothesis of an overlapping between ALS and FTD. The discussed abnormalities in brain structures and functions and in psychophysiology

observed in ALS, which turn into an impaired cognitive profile in a consistent Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical proportion of patients, apparently represent a challenge for the use of P300 as an input signal in BCIs. However, some studies have investigated this issue, providing encouraging results against the hypothesis of a generalized “ALS illiteracy.” Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical In particular, (Kübler and Birbaumer 2008) investigated the relationship between the level of motor and physical impairment and the ability to use brain computer interface, by comparing three different Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical BCI systems (P300, SCP, and sensorimotor rhytms [SMRs]). They found no continuous decrement in BCI performance with physical decline, even if in completed locked in state (CLIS) no communication was possible. According to these evidences, the major challenge remains the use of BCI-based systems with CLIS patients, who have the

greatest need for a BCI in order to communicate. Cognitive assessment of ALS and locked-in syndrome (LIS) patients through BCI-based AAC systems BCIs have been studied with the primary motivation of providing assistive technologies for people with severe motor disabilities, particularly locked-in syndrome (LIS) caused by neurodegenerative disease such as ALS GSK-3 or by stroke. These patients are conscious and alert but they are unable to use their muscles and therefore can not communicate neither vocally nor by writing (Kubler et al. 2001b). In LIS, vertical eye movements and eye blinks are spared while in the complete LIS (CLIS) patient lose any control of the eye muscular response. BCI usually requires a training that can be physically and emotionally very exhausting for patients, especially when they show some degree of cognitive impairment.

Several small case series with sequential OHT and ASCT have revived enthusiasm about heart transplantation for patients with end-stage amyloidosis. Cardiac transplantation

in patients with AL amyloidosis without sequential ASCT is associated with a poor 3- to 5-year survival. In contrast, based on our ongoing experience as well as that reported by others,18, 27, 28 sequential OHT-ASCT improves survival measured after 1 year. Our planned waiting time after 2004 of at least 1-year post-OHT prior to ASCT is different from other reported small case series (waiting times between 6 and 9 months between OHT Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical and ASCT) and importantly has not translated into amyloid disease recurrence in the cardiac allograft or clinically significant cardiac allograft dysfunction. However, our patient with partial remission post-ASCT did require a kidney transplant due to amyloid-related kidney progression. It is unclear if ASCT

sooner Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical after OHT would have halted amyloid-related disease progression. Conclusion Unfortunately, patients with end-stage amyloidosis listed for heart transplantation selleck chem inhibitor continue to have an extraordinarily poor prognosis, Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical with 50% death on the waiting list reported by others18 and similarly high at our institution (death during the evaluation process plus wait-list mortality ~ 35%). Death on the waiting list is often due to progressive biventricular failure and/or complications of Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical systemic amyloidosis coupled with long waiting times for a donor heart. Earlier use of biventricular unlike mechanical circulatory support may be beneficial in this high-risk patient population. More importantly, perhaps earlier referral to an established amyloid center like ours Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical may allow for earlier listing and initiation of less-invasive mechanical support (i.e., IABP support) to successfully bridge

patients to OHT followed by ASCT. At our program, we place the IABP percutaneously in the left axillary artery position to permit upright sitting and ambulation Cilengitide while waiting for OHT.30 At our center, a multidisciplinary approach including hematology and cardiovascular specialists is dedicated to promptly obtaining an exact diagnosis, initiating appropriate screening to determine the extent of end-organ involvement and, most importantly, carefully selecting patients for OHT or heart-multi-organ transplantation. In addition, after heart transplantation we use standard and newer treatments (i.e., bortezomib) in conjunction with anti-rejection therapy, all guided by our Amyloid Working Group, to minimize AL amyloid-related disease progression and to best prepare our patients to undergo ASCT for the most optimal chance at remission and improvement in long-term survival.

3 Since then, another era has opened for patients with critical calcific aortic stenosis (AS) who had been considered too ill for conventional surgical AVR. Now, a decade later, there is good evidence that TAVI represents a true treatment advance for AS patients who are considered too ill to undergo AVR. In these carefully selected patients, TAVI has produced a markedly improved survival and relief of symptoms. In the United States, TAVI using the Edwards SAPIEN device is now approved by the FDA for use in patients considered too sick for conventional AVR and who have

a calcified aortic annulus. Throughout its history, however, TAVI has been Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical associated with the risk of five persistent major complications: high Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical perioperative and late mortality, elevated early and late stroke rates; major vascular complications; patient prosthesis mismatch; and the occurrence of significant and progressive post-implant periprosthetic insufficiency. Additionally, the long-term natural history after TAVI of the progressive proliferative disease that causes calcific AS is unknown. Results of the PARTNER Trial The PARTNER trial represents the most definitive data available to compare TAVI with other therapies. The PARTNER Cohort B randomized prospective trial compared

the results of TAVI in 179 patients considered to be surgically inoperable for AVR with standard medical Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical therapy (including balloon aortic valvuloplasty if needed) in 179 similarly ill control patients.4 In the TAVI group, 30-day mortality was 6.4%. At 1 year the overall mortality for TAVI was 30.7% vs. 50.7% for standard therapy (P <0.0001). The overall Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical stroke rate at 1 year was 10.6% vs. 4.5% for standard therapy (P=0.04). At 1 year the incidence of significant paravalvular leak was unchanged Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical at 12.2% and the rate of relief of aortic stenosis in the TAVI group was stable. At 2 years of follow-up, the overall mortality was 43.3% for the TAVI patients and 67.6% for those receiving standard care.5 The stroke

rate at 2 years had risen to 13.8% in the TAVI group and 5.5% in the standard group (P=0.009). Of the 61 patients alive with echo data at 30 days and 2 years, Carfilzomib the paravalvular AI with TAVI was improved in 42.6%, unchanged in 41%, and worse in 16.49%. Relief of severity of aortic stenosis was well maintained in the TAVI group at 2 years, with a mean gradient of 10.6 mm and aortic valve effective area of 1.68 cm2. Thus the 2-year data from the Partner Cohort B study continues to confirm the view that TAVI should be seriously considered for patients who are not deemed operable with AVR and who fit the selection criteria of the PARTNER Cohort B trial, including the many exclusion criteria shown in Table 1. The very high early and late mortality and morbidity in some of the most severely ill of these already critically ill patients suggest that some patients may be too ill to even tolerate TAVI. Table 1 Key exclusion criteria for PARTNER trial.

2,3 This approach should not to be confused with facilitated PCI where thrombolysis (full- HER2 phosphorylation or half-dose) is followed by immediate pre-planned PCI to mitigate the delay associated with PCI. The latter strategy, while being intuitively appealing, is not recommended owing to increased risk of adverse events including death, intracranial hemorrhage, and paradoxically,

ischemic events (likely due to fibrinolysis-induced platelet activation). 4,5 Data from the Strategic Reperfusion Early After Myocardial Infarction (STREAM) trial 6 and 5-year results from the French Registry of Acute ST-Elevation and Non-ST-Elevation Myocardial Infarction (FAST-MI) 7 provide further evidence on the effectiveness and safety of a pharmacoinvasive approach. Stream Trial This open-label, multicenter, prospective, randomized trial was designed to test whether fibronlytic therapy – administered before arrival to hospital, or early after admission – coupled with early coronary angiography provides outcomes similar to PPCI in patients presenting with acute STEMI. Patients were eligible for enrollment if they presented within 3 hours from onset of symptoms, had evidence of acute STEMI on their initial electrocardiogram (ECG), and were unable to undergo primary PCI

within one hour after the first medical contact (FMC). Over a period of 4 years, 1915 patients were enrolled from 99 sites in 15 countries. 1892 ultimately underwent randomization (81% in the ambulance setting) to either receiving tenecteplase along with antiplatelet and anticoagulant therapy, followed by coronary angiography within 6–24 hours (pharmacoinvasive

group) or to primary PCI (PPCI group). According to the investigator’s judgment, urgent coronary angiography (and PCI when appropriate) in the pharmacoinvasive group was allowed at any stage in the presence of hemodynamic or electrical instability, worsening ischemia or sustained/progressive ST-segment elevation. The primary end-point was a composite of death from any cause, shock, congestive heart failure or reinfarction at 30 days. Safety end-points included ischemic stroke, intracranial and non-intracranial hemorrhage bleeding. Upon the advice of the data and safety monitoring board, the trial Batimastat protocol was amended after 21% of the study population had been enrolled: the dose of tenecteplase was reduced by 50% in patients 75 years of age or older because of an excess rate of intracranial hemorrhage observed in that group. At 30 days, the primary end-point occurred in 116 patients (12.4%) in the pharmacoinvasive group and 135 patients (14.3%) in the PPCI group (relative risk in the pharmacoinvasive group, 0.86; 95% CI, 0.68–1.09; p = 0.21).

Some other groups have also developed the pH-sensitive oral drug delivery systems. In an earlier report, Sant et al. prepared and characterized a pH-sensitive PMs incorporating poorly water-soluble model drugs [104]. The

self-assemblies were constructed from novel pH-sensitive polymers composed of poly(ethylene glycol)-block-poly(alkyl acrylate-co-methacrylic acid) (PEG-b-P(AlA-co-MAA)). Due to the presence of pendant carboxyl groups in the hydrophobic part, these copolymers exhibit pH-dependent aggregation Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical behavior and form supramolecular micelles below pH 4.7. Hence, these copolymers dissociate partially or completely with increase in pH owing to the ionization of carboxylic groups. Two water-insoluble model drugs,

named indomethacin (IND) and fenofibrate (FNB), were incorporated in the supramolecular assemblies by dialysis or oil-in-water (O/W) emulsion methods. The pH-dependent drug release in vitro from the micelles Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical was also confirmed in their study. To make sure whether pH-sensitive PMs could improve the bioavailability of a poorly water-soluble drug, further in vivo study was carried out [1]. For in vivo study, FNB was chosen as the poorly water-soluble model drug. The pharmacokinetics of FNB incorporated in PMs was evaluated in male Sprague-Dawley rats after oral dosing and compared with the commercial micronized formulation, Lipidil MicroR Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical and an FNB www.selleckchem.com/products/mek162.html coarse suspension. The oral bioavailability of FNB from these self-assemblies revealed 156% and 15% increases versus FNB coarse suspension and Lipidil MicroR, respectively. The results suggest that these pH-sensitive PMs could efficiently improve the bioavailability Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical of poorly water-soluble drugs. Other types of pH-controlled release carriers such as pH-sensitive polymer-drug conjugates [107, 108] are beyond the scope of PMs and not discussed in this review. 4.3. Mucoadhesive PMs for Enhancement of Bioavailability 4.3.1. Introduction Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical of Mucoadhesive PMs Nanocarriers for oral administration

should adhere to mucus and cross the mucus layer. Drugs delivered to mucosal surfaces are usually efficiently removed by mucus clearance mechanisms [109]. The luminal surface of mucosal Vismodegib solubility tissues is protected by a highly viscoelastic layer [110], and the protective coatings rapidly remove foreign particles from the GI tract which probably lead to low bioavailability. Unlike the relatively high requirements of intravenous GSK-3 infusions, oral formulations could include high-molecular weight polymers as long as these components are metabolizable and cannot find their way into the systemic circulation. Hence, it may be an effective means of increasing uptake of drugs with mucoadhesive PMs [111, 112], and there have been considerable interests in the concept of mucoadhesive PMs. Firstly, mucosal retention can be used to increase the transit time in the GI tract, resulting in prolonged time window for the release of the payload.

They found that: (a) in the presence of the stump pain, a real circulation disturbance was highlighted by a distinctly lower temperature in the stump head region in comparison with the reference group; (b) an asymmetrical temperature rise was shown in localized areas corresponding to a pressure point, an infection, or a locally painful spot; (c) phantom pain was mostly related to thermal maps presenting a patchy distribution of cooler areas directly around regions with relatively higher temperatures. A temperature decrease from the proximal part to the stump head was observed in all cases.Wearable technologies can be applied to complement wide temperature maps with focused information on humidity inside the prosthesis during walking, integrated with temperature for a better assessment of the stump condition [1,2]. To the authors’ knowledge, no literature is available on this regard.Starting from these evidences and thanks to new miniaturized sensors, this study aimed at exploiting camera-based infrared thermography integrated with the ambulatory wearable monitoring of temperature (T) and relative humidity (RH) inside the prosthesis, for the assessment of the stump and of its interface with the liner. In particular, the system used for the assessment (hardware, software and measurement protocol), was expected: (1) to support in the analysis of temperature and humidity of the residual limb over time, e.g., before and after walking trials; and (2) to allow for the differential comparison of these parameters between measurement sessions. The goals of the present research were: (1) to develop and validate a wearable system measuring T and RH; (2) to propose an integrated clinical protocol based on infrared thermography and wearable sensors; and (3) to evaluate the in-vivo feasibility and relevance of this integrated protocol. Point 1 is addressed in Section 2, while reference 2 points 2 and 3 are covered in Section 3. A general discussion and conclusions are reported in Sections 4 and 5, respectively.2.?Wearable System��Development and Validation2.1. Materials and MethodsTo collect temperature and humidity data, the SHT21S sensor produced by Sensirion (Staefa, Switzerland) was chosen due to its limited size (3 �� 3 �� 1.1 mm), resolution (0.04% RH and 0.01 ��C) and expected accuracy tolerance (��2% RH, ��0.3 ��C)��Table 1 [23]. Sensors were mounted on a 1 cm diameter miniboard. A datalogger was also implemented to record data from at most 4 sensors, concurrently. It was based on the Seeeduino Stalker board (Seeedstudio, Shenzhen, China) and incorporated four USB ports for sensor connection. Sensors were connected to the USB ports through flat 4-wire cables. The datalogger embedded a 2 Gb micro-SD memory card for data storage. The data logger was programmed to store one temperature and one humidity datapoint every 2 s.