Data from randomized controlled trials suggest that treating hypertension in the elderly, including octogenarians, may substantially reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease and death. However, treatment remains challenging because of comorbidities and aging-related changes. We present common case scenarios encountered while managing elderly patients with hypertension, including secondary hypertension, adverse ...

BACKGROUND: The percentage of US seniors choosing primary care careers remains well below the nation's future workforce needs. Data in this article are collected from the 2012 National Resident Matching Program (NRMP) Main Residency Match and the 2012 American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) Medical Education Residency Census, which had ...

Abstract In this article, the authors relate the life of Chris through narrative snapshots. Chris asked the authors to tell her story. They decided that it could be used to provide an insight into the different ways people with labels are confronted with professional practices and rituals. Although Chris lived ...

This study determined the effect of pulmonary disease on outcomes after endovascular abdominal (EVAR) and endovascular thoracoabdominal aortic aneurysm (eTAAA) repair. A prospective study of high-risk patients undergoing EVAR and eTAAA repair between 1998 and 2009 was used to contrast clinical and endovascular outcomes between patients with (group 1) and ...

To assess the use of elective knee arthroscopy procedures for all adults 20 years and older, and for adults with a concomitant diagnosis of osteoarthritis (OA) in Victoria. Retrospective, longitudinal cohort study of 807 030 elective orthopaedic admissions using routinely collected public and private hospital data from 1 July 2000 ...

A sensitive and selective optical technique to detect potassium chloride (KCl) vapor is introduced. The technique is based on the photofragmentation of KCl molecules, using a pulsed UV laser, and optical probing of the temporarily increased amount of potassium atoms with a near-infrared laser. The two laser beams are aligned ...

A simple and practical method for measuring the angle-resolved light scattering (ARLS) from individual objects is reported. Employing the principle of inline holography and a Fourier transform light scattering technique, both the static and dynamic scattering patterns from individual micrometer-sized objects can be effectively and quantitatively obtained. First, the light ...

The purpose of this anatomic study was to determine the extent of lateral dissection that can be performed during anterior cervical decompression and fusion to maximize decompression without compromising the vertebral arteries. Although vertebral artery injury is rare, it is sometimes catastrophic and leads to significant morbidity and mortality. Previous ...

There is a growing need to improve heart preservation benefit the performance of cardiac operations, decrease morbidity, and more important, increase the donor pool. Therefore, the objective of this study was to evaluate the cardioprotective effects of Krebs-Henseleit buffer (KHB), Bretschneider-HTK (HTK), St. Thomas No. 1 (STH-1), and Celsior (CEL) ...

Khelline is naturally occurring furochromone exhibited significant Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor (EGFR) inhibitory activity. The newly synthesized compounds 2-5 displayed the most potent EGFR inhibitory activity on MCF-7 and HeLa. In vitro study against 59 different human tumour cell lines derived from nine cancer type in NCI (USA), which was ...

BACKGROUND: Small vitiliginous patches have been treated with epidermal grafts or their cell suspensions. In an attempt to overcome some of the shortcomings of cell suspension delivery, we have delivered melanocytes on a polymeric film. OBJECTIVES: To evaluate the clinical effectiveness of a cultured graft consisting of autologous cultured melanocytes ...

Introduction:  Understanding the distribution of incisal translucency will provide clinicians a guide to use this knowledge to improve the esthetic replication of anterior restorations. The aim of this study is to investigate the distribution of incisal translucency of unrestored vital natural maxillary central, lateral, and canine vital teeth from a ...

An attempted proteomic study of Daphnia pulex response to sodium chloride exposure revealed an unexpected result: very strong proteome degradation previously observed in D. pulex is halted when animals have been exposed to elevated salinity prior to protein extraction. Further characterization of conditions controlling proteome degradation shows that the proteolytic ...

Approximately half of prostate cancers (PCa) carry TMPRSS2-ERG translocations; however, the clinical impact of this genomic alteration remains enigmatic. Expression of v-ets erythroblastosis virus E26 oncogene like (avian) gene (ERG) promotes prostatic epithelial dysplasia in transgenic mice and acquisition of epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT) characteristics in human prostatic epithelial cells (PrECs). ...

Neurofilaments are transported along axons in a rapid intermittent and bidirectional manner but there is a long-standing controversy about whetherthis applies to allaxonal neurofilaments. Some have proposed thatonly a small proportion of axonal neurofilaments are mobile and that most are deposited into a persistently stationary and extensively cross-linked cytoskeleton that ...

The lung is the site of entry for Bacillus anthracis in inhalation anthrax, the deadliest form of the disease. Bacillus anthracis produces virulence toxins required for disease. Alveolar macrophages were considered the primary target of the Bacillus anthracis virulence factor lethal toxin because lethal toxin inhibits mouse macrophages through cleavage ...

The diversity of Salmonella was analyzed in biofilm and water samples from the spring and slough arms of Spring Lake, the headwaters of the San Marcos River, Texas, during the drought of 2011, with only one potential run-off event at the beginning of the study. Salmonellae were detected in semi-selective ...

Gallium phosphide (GaP) nanowire photocathodes synthesized using a surfactant-free solution-liquid-solid (SLS) method were investigated for their photoelectrochemical evolution of hydrogen. Zinc as a p-type dopant was introduced into the nanowires during synthesis to optimize the photocathode's response. Investigation of the electrical properties of Zn-doped GaP nanowires confirmed their p-type conductivity. ...

To understand how organisms adapt to novel habitats, which involves both demographic and selective events, we require knowledge of the evolutionary history of populations and also selected alleles. There are still few cases in which the precise mutations (and hence, defined alleles) that contribute to adaptive change have been identified ...

This study evaluates kinematic movements of the jaw and lips in six children (3-11 years) with moderate-to-severe speech impairment associated with cerebral palsy before, during, and after participation in a motor-speech (PROMPT) intervention program. An ABCA single subject research design was implemented. Subsequent to the baseline phase (A), phase B ...

We report a case of severe daptomycin-induced immune thrombocytopenia in a patient treated for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus epidermidis and ampicillin-resistant Enterococcus faecalis bacteremia acquired in an intensive care unit. Serum antibodies bound to platelets in the presence of daptomycin on flow cytometry. There was no evidence of other causes of thrombocytopenia. ...

Chemotherapeutic drug resistance is one of the major causes for treatment failure in high-risk neuroblastoma (NB), the most common extra cranial solid tumor in children. Poor prognosis is typically associated with MYCN amplification. Here, we utilized a loss-of-function kinome-wide RNA interference screen to identify genes that cause cisplatin sensitization. We ...

• Premise of the study: Informative markers are required for assessing the diversity of Amborella trichopoda, the only species of its order, endemic to New Caledonia and considered to be the sister species to all flowering plants. Therefore, expressed sequence tag (EST)-based microsatellite markers were developed.• Methods and Results: Fifty-five ...

Abstract Background: Patients who exhibit a suboptimal peak inspiratory flow rate (PIFR) against the resistance (resist) of a dry powder inhaler (DPI) may not be able to effectively inhale the medication into their lower respiratory tract. PIFRresist was measured using the In-Check DIAL(®) to simulate the resistance of the Diskus(®) ...

Transcription activator-like effector nucleases (TALENs) are programmable nucleases that join FokI endonuclease with the modular DNA-binding domain of TALEs. Although zinc-finger nucleases enable a variety of genome modifications, their application to genetic engineering of livestock has been slowed by technical limitations of embryo-injection, culture of primary cells, and difficulty in ...

Continual and rapid mutation of seasonal influenza viruses by antigenic drift necessitates the almost annual reformulation of flu vaccines, which may offer little protection if the match to the dominant circulating strain is poor. S139/1 is a cross-reactive antibody that neutralizes multiple HA strains and subtypes, including those from H1N1 ...

Implementation of policies (decisions) in the health sector is sometimes defeated by the system's response to the policy itself. This can lead to counter-intuitive, unanticipated, or more modest effects than expected by those who designed the policy. The health sector fits the characteristics of complex adaptive systems (CAS) and complexity ...

Abstract Since the introduction of combination antiretroviral therapy (cART) resulting in the prolonged survival of HIV-infected patients, HIV infection is no longer considered to be a contraindication for solid organ transplantation (SOT). The combined management of antiretroviral and immunosuppressive therapy proved to be extremely challenging, as witnessed by high rates ...

Management of infected pancreatic necrosis (IPN) has for decades been based on early operative débridement. This approach is associated with mortality rates as high as 58 per cent. Recently, the care of these patients has evolved and emphasizes delayed operation and early intervention with percutaneous drainage. In 2002, we began ...

There is the potential for substantial gains in dental epidemiology with increasing use of population-level data and data linkage. The advantage of population record linkage, from an epidemiological perspective, is that it is not biased and no-one is excluded. This has important implications for human rights because generally the people ...

One of the greatest thrills a biomedical researcher may experience is seeing the product of many years of dedicated effort finally make its way to the patient. As a team, we have worked for the past eight years to discover a drug that could treat a devastating childhood neuromuscular disease, ...

Clostridium difficile associated disease (CDAD) is the result of colonic bacterial overgrowth with this gram positive anaerobic organism and the production of toxins that typically induce diarrhea. Most patients with CDAD respond to treatment with oral metronidazole or vancomycin, but a subset of patients will develop a severe systemic illness, ...

We propose several applications of graded-index (GRIN) time lenses including time-frequency conversion (time-to-frequency conversion and frequency-to-time conversion simultaneously), temporal filtering, and temporal imaging. The evolution of the signal pulses in these systems is demonstrated. As two important parameters, the focal length and the time-frequency conversion factors of time-frequency conversion based ...

We demonstrate a nonlinear diffusion (NLD) regularization method to solve the transport of intensity equation (TIE). A novel NLD regularization function is proposed to enforce piecewise-constant priors and to remove low-frequency artifacts in the TIE solution.

Patients undergoing total knee arthroplasty (TKA) are likely to receive a blood transfusion, which may increase the risk of complications and prolong hospital stay. Considerable variation exists in transfusion practice among orthopedic surgeons following elective TKA. Previous studies have investigated the relationship between preoperative risk factors and the requirement for ...

A new liver allocation system driven by the model for end-stage liver disease (MELD) score was implemented in Brazil in 2006. In association with the new allocation policy, there was a concomitant expansion of the number of donors. We designed this study to assess whether a potential expansion of the ...

Organ transplant recipients with refractory rejection or intolerance to the prescribed immunosuppressant may respond to rescue therapy with tacrolimus. We sought to evaluate the clinical outcomes of children undergoing heart transplantation who required conversion from a cyclosporine-based, steroid-free therapy to a tacrolimus-based regimen. We performed a prospective, observational, cohort study ...

Efficient three-component domino strategies for the synthesis of multifunctionalized tetracyclic indeno[1,2-b]indole derivatives with different substituted patterns have been established successfully. The first pathway involves a novel sequential methyl migration, aromatization, and esterification, while a second reaction in HOAc leads to compounds 6 with high syn diastereoselectivity. Both reactions showed attractive ...

To identify novel oncogenic E3 ubiquitin ligases as anti-cancer targets, we screened an E3 ubiquitin ligase siRNA library containing siRNA pools against 555 individual E3s using the SRB assay in the MDA-MB-231 breast cancer cell line and the PC3 prostate cancer cell line. RNF126 was identified and validated as a ...

Soy foods have been suggested to have both positive health benefits and potentially adverse effects as a result of their content of phytoestrogens. However, studies on the estrogenicity of soy foods are lacking. Here we directly compared the effects of soy protein isolate (SPI), the protein in soy infant formula, ...

Kaposi's sarcoma (KS), a multifocal vascular neoplasm linked to human herpesvirus-8 (HHV-8/KS-associated herpesvirus [KSHV]) infection, is the most common AIDS-associated malignancy. Clinical management of KS has proven to be challenging because of its prevalence in immunosuppressed patients and its unique vascular and inflammatory nature that is sustained by viral and ...

Sensory neuron membrane proteins (SNMPs), which are located on the dendritic membrane of olfactory neurons, were considered as important components involved in pheromone reception in insects. In Drosophila melanogaster, mutants without SNMP are unable to evoke neuronal activities in the presence of pheromone cis-vaccenyl acetate (cVA). So deeply understanding the ...

KillerRed (KR) is a red fluorescent protein recognized as an efficient genetically encoded photosensitizer. KR generates reactive oxygen species via a complex process of photoreactions, ending up in photobleaching, the mechanism of which remains obscure. In order to clarify these mechanisms, we focus on a single mutant V44A (A44-KR) exhibiting ...

Whooping cough is a reemerging disease caused by two closely related pathogens, Bordetella pertussis and Bordetella parapertussis. The incidence of B. parapertussis in whooping cough cases has been increasing since the introduction of acellular pertussis vaccines containing purified antigens that are common to both strains. Recently published results demonstrated that ...

Packing interactions in the crystal structures of a series of cis-M(CNAr)(2)Cl(2) complexes (M = Pt, Pd; Ar = substituted phenyl) were examined and correlated with the luminescence properties of the Pt complexes. The structures of the PhNC and p-tolyl isocyanide complexes exhibit extended chains of metallophilic interactions with M···M distances ...

BACKGROUND: In SPECT images truncation artefacts may occur when the object does not remain in the field of view (FOV). This truncation may lead to distortions in the transmission map (μ map), which would affect the attenuation correction (AC) and possibly the final image. Our aim was to investigate this ...

Patient-specific analyses of the mechanical properties of bones become increasingly important for the management of patients with osteoporosis. The potential of composite finite elements (CFEs), a novel FE technique, to assess the apparent stiffness of vertebral trabecular bone is investigated in this study. Segmented volumes of cylindrical specimens of trabecular ...

Stomatin-like protein 2 (SLP-2) is a mostly mitochondrial protein that regulates mitochondrial biogenesis and function and modulates T cell activation. To determine the mechanism of action of SLP-2, we generated T cell-specific SLP-2-deficient mice. These mice had normal numbers of thymocytes and T cells in the periphery. However, conventional SLP-2-deficient ...

Heteroblasty refers to the changes in leaf shape and size (allometry) along stems. Although evolutionary changes involving heteroblasty might contribute to leaf diversity, little is known of the extent to which heteroblasty differs between species or how it might relate to other aspects of allometry or other developmental transitions. Here, ...

It takes people longer to name the ink colour of emotion or threat words than that of neutral words, the emotional Stroop effect (ESE). In three experiments with normal and patient populations, we show that the ESE is a special case of a generic attention model and effect entailed in ...