AIM: The aim of this study is to directly compare published prediction tools with triage nurse (TN) predictions within a defined paediatric population. METHOD: A prospective observational study carried out over a week in May 2010 in the Emergency Department (ED) at Princess Margaret Hospital for Children in Perth, Western ...

OBJECTIVES: We retrospectively investigated the prognostic value of hepatocyte nuclear factor-1 (HNF1) proteins in 159 liver transplant patients with hepatocellular carcinomas (HCC), including 36 (22.6%) exceeding the Milan criteria. METHODS: Expression of alpha-fetoprotein (AFP), HNF1α, and HNF1β was examined by immunohistochemistry on duplicate tissue microarray slides containing the HCC tumor ...

Significance: The broad classes of O2-binding proteins known as hemoglobins (Hbs) carry out oxygenation and redox functions that allow organisms with significantly different physiological demands to exist in a wide range of environments. This is aided by allosteric controls that modulate the protein's redox reactions as well as its O2-binding ...

The denaturation of three model proteins, bovine serum albumin (BSA), ovalbumin and lysozyme, with fully fluorinated potassium sulfonate surfactants was studied using small angle x-ray scattering (SAXS), dynamic light scattering (DLS), polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (PAGE) and circular dichroism (CD). Scattering analysis revealed that protein-surfactant complexes of fluorinated molecules could also ...

Mechanisms of protein recognition have been extensively studied for single-domain proteins, but are less well characterized for dynamic multidomain systems. Ubiquitin chains represent a biologically important multidomain system that requires recognition by structurally diverse ubiquitin-interacting proteins. Ubiquitin chain conformations in isolation are often different from conformations observed in ubiquitin-interacting protein ...

Aims: The potential "receptor" for hydrogen sulfide (H2S) remains unknown. Results: H2S could directly activate vascular endothelial growth factor receptor 2 (VEGFR2) and that a small interfering RNA (siRNA) -mediated knockdown of VEGFR2 inhibited H2S-induced migration of human vascular endothelial cells. H2S promoted angiogenesis in Matrigel plug assay in mice ...

AIM: The study aims to describe the developmental and behavioural difficulties in pre-school children who have experienced maltreatment and/or neglect METHODS: A retrospective medical file audit of all children assessed at the Cottage Family Care Centre, a child protection pre-school, between April 2004 and June 2010. Demographic characteristics, parent and ...

AIM: To describe the presence and type of disturbed eating behaviours and thoughts in a combined male/female Australian sample of adolescents with type 1 diabetes, and examine the association of eating behaviours and thoughts with glycaemic control as evidenced by high glycosylated haemoglobin levels (HbA1c). METHODS: In this cross-sectional descriptive ...

We present a machine learning-based system for automatically computing interpretable, quantitative measures of animal behavior. Through our interactive system, users encode their intuition about behavior by annotating a small set of video frames. These manual labels are converted into classifiers that can automatically annotate behaviors in screen-scale data sets. Our ...

We report the colloidal synthesis of monodisperse nanocrystals (NCs) of InSb, which is an important member of III-V semiconductor family. Colloidal InSb NC quantum dots showed well-resolved excitonic transitions in the near-infrared spectral range, with the optical band gaps tunable from ~1.03 eV (1200 nm) to ~0.71 eV (1750 nm) ...

Ultrathin films of organic networks on various substrates were fabricated through solution-based molecular layer deposition (MLD) technique. The rigid tetrahedral geometries of polyfunctional amine and acyl chloride involved in the reaction ensure the continuity of the polymerization process. A linear increase in film thickness with respect to cycle number was ...

The exoRNase Eri1 inhibits RNA interference and trims the 5.8S rRNA 3' end. It also binds to the stem-loop of histone mRNAs, but the functional importance of this interaction remains elusive. Histone mRNAs are normally degraded at the end of S phase or after pharmacological inhibition of replication. Both processes ...

A molecularly imprinted polymer was prepared using E-resveratrol as template and was evaluated for multi-component multi-class analysis of polyphenolic compounds in complex matrices such as natural and alcoholic beverages. Chromatographic evaluation of the polymer exhibited high selectivity for E-resveratrol and its structural analogues as quercetin and other flavonoids. An analytical ...

AIM: The study aims to review the contemporary presentation, diagnosis and treatment of children with infantile hypertrophic pyloric stenosis (IHPS) at an Australian paediatric tertiary centre. METHODS: A retrospective case review of patients with IHPS presenting to our institution between January 2004 and December 2010 was performed. Results were compared ...

Generalized linear mixed models with random intercepts and slopes provide useful analyses of clustered and longitudinal data and typically require the specification of the distribution of the random effects. Previous work for models with only random intercepts has shown that misspecifying the shape of this distribution may bias estimates of ...

Mechanisms controlling the proliferative activity of neural stem and progenitor cells (NSPCs) have a pivotal role to ensure life-long neurogenesis in the mammalian brain. How metabolic programs are coupled with NSPC activity remains unknown. Here we show that fatty acid synthase (Fasn), the key enzyme of de novo lipogenesis, is ...

Nanoparticles (NPs) have been shown to accumulate in organs, cross the blood-brain barrier and placenta, and have the potential to elicit developmental neurotoxicity (DNT). Here, we developed a human embryonic stem cell (hESC)-derived 3-dimensional (3-D) in vitro model that allows for testing of potential developmental neurotoxicants. Early central nervous system ...

Protein action in nature is largely controlled by the level of expression and by posttranslational modifications. Posttranslational modifications result in a proteome that is at least two orders of magnitude more diverse than the genome. There are three basic types of posttranslational modifications: covalent modification of an amino acid side ...

Background:Up to one-third of intensive care unit (ICU) patients require mechanical ventilation. Mechanical ventilation is associated with numerous complications including ventilator-induced lung injury and gastrointestinal bleeding due to ulcerations.(1) Sedation protocols are used in order to optimize treatment and decrease days spent on mechanical ventilation.Objective:The purpose of this trial is ...

Two new photoinitiators with unprecedented light absorption properties are proposed on the basis of a suitable truxene skeleton where several UV photoinitiators PI units such as benzophenone and thioxanthone are introduced at the periphery and whose molecular orbitals MO can be coupled with those of the PI units: a red-shifted ...

The twin-arginine translocation (Tat) pathway is one of two general protein transport systems found in the prokaryotic cytoplasmic membrane and is conserved in the thylakoid membrane of plant chloroplasts. The defining, and highly unusual, property of the Tat pathway is that it transports folded proteins, a task that must be ...

BACKGROUND: Bodily changes after breast cancer treatment can lead to long-term distress. Self-compassion, the ability to be kind to oneself, is an internal resource that may enhance a woman's ability to adjust to cancer-related bodily changes. The aim of the present study was to test the hypothesis that self-compassion mediates ...

Significance: Photosynthesis, the process that drives life on earth, relies on transition metal (e.g., Fe and Cu) containing proteins that participate in electron transfer in the chloroplast. However, the light reactions also generate high levels of reactive oxygen species (ROS), which makes metal use in plants a challenge. Recent Advances: ...

The complexity of natural triacylglycerols (TAGs) in various edible oils is prodigious due to the hundreds of set is of TAG compositions, which makes the identification of TAGs quite difficult. In this investigation, the off-line 2D system coupling of nonaqueous RP and silver-ion HPLC with atmospheric pressure chemical ionization MS ...

Iron is a crucial factor for life. However it also has the potential to cause the formation of noxious free radicals. These "double-edged sword"characteristics demand a tight regulation of cellular iron metabolism. In this review we discuss the various pathways of cellular iron uptake, cellular iron storage and transport. Recent ...

In the search for room-temperature batteries with high energy densities, rechargeable metal-air (more precisely metal-oxygen) batteries are considered as particularly attractive owing to the simplicity of the underlying cell reaction at first glance. Atmospheric oxygen is used to form oxides during discharging, which-ideally-decompose reversibly during charging. Much work has been ...

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND: Receptor-like kinases (RLKs) play key roles during development and in responses to the environment. Despite the relevance of the RLK family and the completion of the tomato genome sequencing, the tomato RLK family has not yet been characterized, and a framework for functional predictions of the members of ...

Two genome duplications early in the vertebrate lineage expanded gene families, including GluN2 subunits of the NMDA receptor. Diversification between the four mammalian GluN2 proteins occurred primarily at their intracellular C-terminal domains (CTDs). To identify shared ancestral functions and diversified subunit-specific functions, we exchanged the exons encoding the GluN2A (also ...

Aims: The lack of understanding of the biology of bone cancer metastasis has limited the development of effective treatment strategies. The aim of this study was to characterize tumor cell adhesion molecules and determine active tumor cell interactions with human bone marrow endothelial (BME) cells using atomic force microscopy. Materials ...

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND: Methods of weakening and attenuating pathogens' abilities to infect and propagate in a host, thus allowing the natural immune system to more easily decimate invaders, have gained attention as alternatives to broad-spectrum targeting approaches. The following work describes a technique to identifying proteins involved in virulence by relying ...

Aims: Our previous studies have shown that nitric oxide (NO) plays an important role in increasing the invasion and proliferation of human melanoma cells, suggesting that targeting NO signaling may facilitate therapy and prevention. Neuronal nitric oxide synthase (nNOS) is present in melanocytes, a cell type that originates from the ...

Elevated triglyceride and cholesterol levels are risk factors for cardiovascular disease and are often associated with diabetes and metabolic syndrome. Recent reports suggest that FGF19 and FGF21 can dramatically improve metabolic dysfunction, including hyperglycemia, hypertriglyceridemia, and hypercholesterolemia. Due to their similar receptor specificities and co-receptor requirements, FGF19 and FGF21 share ...

We explore transport of electrons between electrodes that encase a two-dimensional array of metallic quantum dots linked by molecular bridges (such as α,ω alkaline dithiols). Because the molecules can move at finite temperatures, the entire transport structure comprising the quantum dots and the molecules is in dynamical motion while the ...

Three-dimensional RNA models fitted into crystallographic density maps exhibit pervasive conformational ambiguities, geometric errors and steric clashes. To address these problems, we present enumerative real-space refinement assisted by electron density under Rosetta (ERRASER), coupled to Python-based hierarchical environment for integrated 'xtallography' (PHENIX) diffraction-based refinement. On 24 data sets, ERRASER automatically ...

BACKGROUND: Gadoxetic acid (Gd-EOB-DTPA) is a 'hepatocyte-specific' contrast agent for magnetic resonance (MR) in both the vascular and the hepatobiliary phases. AIM: To evaluate the contribution of the hepatobiliary phase of Gd-EOB-DTPA MR in the diagnosis of small hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) in cirrhotic patients under surveillance. METHODS: Between 2008 and ...

AIM: To determine the association between perinatal events and subsequent motor performance, cardiorespiratory endurance and respiratory function in non-disabled extremely low birthweight (ELBW) school children at 12 years of age. METHODS: Forty-eight ELBW infants were included in this study. The Movement Assessment Battery for Children (MABC), VO(2) max score as ...

BACKGROUND: Hospital-based breast cancer follow-up provides reassurance to patients despite limited evidence for clinical efficacy. Although alternative models of hospital/community-based follow-up have yielded encouraging results, traditional hospital follow-up continues to be offered to all patients. Survival rates continue to rise; consequently, more patients are likely to require support, as many ...

Purpose:To describe the role that an emergency medicine (EM) clinical pharmacist has on the management of patients presenting to the emergency department (ED) with sepsis, severe sepsis, or septic shock.Methods:The clinical consultations documented by the EM pharmacists at an academic, teaching hospital over a 2-year period were retrospectively reviewed.Results:During the ...

A library of approximately 40 N(1)-acylated (aza)indole alkanoic esters and acids was prepared employing a microwave-assisted approach. The optimized synthetic route allows for parallel synthesis, variation of the indole substitution pattern and high overall yield. Additionally, the procedure has been scaled up to yield multi-gram amounts of preferred indole compounds, ...

Tenofovir disoproxil fumarate (TDF), a nucleotide reverse transcriptase inhibitor used in the treatment of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and hepatitis B, is renally eliminated and has been associated with renal toxicities. Dose adjustments are recommended for patients with creatinine clearance (CrCL) <50 mL/min. We retrospectively determined the frequency in which ...

Pulsed magnetic resonance allows the quantum state of electronic and nuclear spins to be controlled on the timescale of nanoseconds and microseconds respectively. The time required to flip dilute spins is orders of magnitude shorter than their coherence times, leading to several schemes for quantum information processing with spin qubits. ...

Significance: Once thought of as unwanted by-products of cellular respiration in eukaryotes, reactive oxygen species (ROS) have been shown to facilitate essential physiological roles. It is now understood that ROS are critical mediators of intracellular signalling. Control of signal transduction downstream of growth factor receptors by ROS is a complex ...

A polymeric adsorbent for extraction of the antimalarial drug artemisinin from Artemisia annua L. was computationally designed. This polymer demonstrated a high capacity for artemisinin (120 mg g(-1) ), quantitative recovery (87%) and was found to be an effective material for purification of artemisinin from complex plant matrix. The artemisinin ...

A superhydrophobic surface on which the contact angle of a water droplet exceeds 170° was reversibly produced by alternate irradiation with UV and visible light. Superhydrophobicity is due to the formation of densely generated sub-micrometer sized needle-shaped crystals (less than 0.2~0.3 micrometer diameter and 10 micrometer long) at 30 °C, ...

Ribosome-associated chaperones act in early folding events during protein synthesis. Structural information is available for prokaryotic chaperones (such as trigger factor), but structural understanding of these processes in eukaryotes lags far behind. Here we present structural analyses of the eukaryotic ribosome-associated complex (RAC) from Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Chaetomium thermophilum, consisting ...

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND: There is no recent data addressing the long term survival of cirrhosis patients without transplantation, but with the availability of optimal pharmacological and endoscopic therapies. We compared the long term transplant free survival of alcoholic (AC) and cryptogenic (CC) cirrhosis patients in a setting where liver transplantation was, ...

Significance: Oxygen and circadian rhythmicity are essential in a myriad of physiological processes in order to maintain homeostasis, from blood pressure and sleep/wake cycles, down to cellular signaling pathways which play critical roles in health and disease. If the human body or cells experience significant stress, their ability to regulate ...

Aims. To identify yeast mutants which show a strong redox dependence of the ability to respire, we systematically screened a yeast deletion library for mutants that require the presence of reductants for growth on non-fermentable carbon sources. Results. Respirative growth of 44 yeast mutants was significantly improved by the addition ...

Optical antennas represent an enabling technology for enhancing the detection of molecular vibrational signatures at low concentrations and probing the chemical composition of a sample in order to identify target molecules. However, efficiently detecting different vibrational modes to determine the presence (or the absence) of a molecular species requires a ...

There is increasing evidence that oncogenic transformation modifies the metabolic program of cells. A common alteration is the upregulation of glycolysis, and efforts to target glycolytic enzymes for anticancer therapy are under way. Here, we performed a genome-wide haploid genetic screen to identify resistance mechanisms to 3-bromopyruvate (3-BrPA), a drug ...