To evaluate the profile of hepatitis D virus replication and the corresponding immunoresponse after acute hepatitis D virus infection, sera from 50 patients with acute hepatitis D (36 with acute hepatitis B virus-hepatitis D virus coinfection and 14 HBsAg carriers with hepatitis D virus superinfection) were investigated for the presence of hepatitis D virus RNA and other serological hepatitis D virus markers. During the first week after onset of symptoms, hepatitis D virus RNA was detected by spot hybridization with a similar frequency among patients with coinfection (64%) and those with superinfection (71%). The presence of hepatitis D virus RNA in the first serum sample correlated with that of circulating hepatitis D antigen in both groups of patients. The presence of hepatitis D virus RNA was transient and its clearance paralleled that of serum hepatitis D antigen among patients with coinfection, so that 1 month after the onset of symptoms serum hepatitis D virus RNA was no longer detectable in any of these patients. Conversely, serum hepatitis D virus RNA was still present in 78% of those with superinfection, all of whom developed chronic liver disease, thus suggesting that the persistence of hepatitis D virus RNA in the serum for more than 4 weeks might indicate progression to chronicity. In nine of the 14 patients (64%) with hepatitis D virus superinfection progressing to chronicity, hepatitis D virus RNA was persistently detected throughout the follow-up, whereas in five patients it was detected occasionally. In four superinfected patients hepatitis D virus RNA and hepatitis B virus DNA were detected simultaneously in serial samples, thus suggesting that, at least during early stages of chronic hepatitis D virus infection, both viruses may replicate at the same time.

This article addresses one of the main challenges related to the practical deployment of Internet of Things (IoT) solutions: the coordinated operation of entities at different infrastructures to support the automated orchestration of end-to-end Internet of Things services. This idea is referred to as “Internet of Things slicing” and is based on the network slicing concept already defined for the Fifth Generation (5G) of mobile networks. In this context, we present the architectural design of a slice orchestrator addressing the aforementioned challenge, based on well-known standard technologies and protocols. The proposed solution is able to integrate existing technologies, like cloud computing, with other more recent technologies like edge computing and network slicing. In addition, a functional prototype of the proposed orchestrator has been implemented, using open-source software and microservice platforms. As a first step to prove the practical feasibility of our solution, the implementation of the orchestrator considers cloud and edge domains. The validation results obtained from the prototype prove the feasibility of the solution from a functional perspective, verifying its capacity to deploy Internet of Things related functions even on resource constrained platforms. This approach enables new application models where these Internet of Things related functions can be onboarded on small unmanned aerial vehicles, offering a flexible and cost-effective solution to deploy these functions at the network edge. In addition, this proposal can also be used on commercial cloud platforms, like the Google Compute Engine, showing that it can take advantage of the benefits of edge and cloud computing respectively.

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