Contact tracing, coupled with molecular epidemiologic investigation, is especially useful for identifying an infection with few cases in the population, such as human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection in China. No such research is available on Chinese men who have sex with men (MSM). From 2008 to 2010 in Taizhou Prefecture ...

Background Multipotent stromal cells exhibit immunomodulatory capacities and have been applied in transplantation and autoimmune diseases. One of the effects of MSC involves the inhibition of dendritic cell differentiation. Since IL-6 and IL-10 are known to play a role in inhibiting immature dendritic cell differentiation, we hypothesized that these cytokines ...

BACKGROUND: /st>Dynamic preload variables to predict fluid responsiveness are based either on the arterial pressure waveform (APW) or on the plethysmographic waveform (PW). We compared the ability of APW-based variations in stroke volume (SVV) and pulse pressure (PPV) and of PW-based plethysmographic variability index (PVI) to predict fluid responsiveness and ...

BACKGROUND: Endothelial dysfunction and injury are thought to play an important role in progression of coronary-artery-disease (CAD). High-density-lipoprotein from healthy subjects (HDLHealthy) has been proposed to exert endothelial anti-apoptotic effects that may represent an important anti-atherogenic property of the lipoprotein. The present study therefore aimed to compare effects of HDLCAD ...

Nanoaggregates of a supramolecular ensemble of triphenylene derivative and Cu(2+) ions exhibit 'turn-on' response towards CN(-) ions in an aqueous medium and can detect the trace amount of inorganic cyanide ions (NaCN) in tap water and blood serum milieu.

In oocyte maturation in Xenopus laevis, nuclear material induces rapid maturation and is required for entry into meiosis II. Nuclear material contains a large number of RNAs and proteins, including histone deacetylase (HDAC); however, it is not known which materials induce accelerated maturation. The HDAC activity modifies transcription rate and ...

Chronic tooth decay is the most common chronic condition in the United States among children ages 5-17 and also affects a large percentage of adults. Oral health conditions are preventable, but less than half of the US population uses dental services annually. We seek to examine the extent to which ...

Scleraxis (Scx) is a basic helix-loop-helix transcription factor that is a marker for the tendon/ligament cell lineage. The approximately 11 kb genomic region from the mouse Scx gene locus faithfully recapitulates the endogenous Scx expression pattern in ScxGFP transgenic (Tg) mice. We have established two Tg mouse lines expressing Cre-recombinase ...

INTRODUCTION: Hypoactive sexual desire is defined as a persistent or recurrent deficient or absent sexual fantasies or desire for sexual activity that should not be comorbid with other medical conditions or with the use of psychoactive medications. Reduced libido is a symptom referring more to a reduction in sexual drive ...

Glutamine is an important amino acid for immune function. Though high intensity and prolonged exercise decreases plasma glutamine concentration and causes immune suppression, the relationship between neutrophil functions and glutamine has not yet been found. The purpose of this study was to investigate the impacts of glutamine supplementation on neutrophil ...

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND: Persistent digestive disorders account for considerable disease burden in the tropics. Despite advances in understanding acute gastrointestinal infections, important issues concerning epidemiology, diagnosis, treatment and control of most persistent digestive symptomatologies remain to be elucidated. Helminths and intestinal protozoa are considered to play major roles, but the full ...

Chervenak and McCullough, authors of the most acknowledged ethical framework for maternal-fetal surgery, rely on the 'ethical-obstetrical' concept of the fetus as a patient in order to determine what is morally owed to fetuses by both physicians and the women who gestate them in the context of prenatal surgery. In ...

Patients with type 2 diabetes often show slowing of information processing. Disruptions in the brain white matter network, possibly secondary to vascular damage, may underlie these cognitive disturbances. The present study reconstructed the white matter network of 55 nondemented individuals with type 2 diabetes (mean age 71±4y) and 50 age-, ...

OBJECTIVES: Proper ancestral populations are required to determine accurate ancestry estimates for Afro-derived Brazilian populations. Herein, we have genotyped Y-STRs in Amazonian Amerindians to determine the ancestral contribution in quilombo remnant communities. METHODS: The frequencies for five Y-chromosome linked microsatellites (DYS19, DYS390, DYS391, DYS392, and DYS393) were characterized in four ...

When examining microscopically lymph nodes removed as part of the surgical therapy for thyroid carcinoma, one should be aware of the fact that high endothelial venules, when dilated and near the capsule, can lead to a wrong diagnosis of metastasis. We present a case in which such a situation arose.

Sustaining high quality respirometry measurements on animals for estimating metabolic rate and fuel use is challenging. I present a general discussion and selected methods for automated measurements spanning over >4 months with little need for adjustments or maintenance: 1) Lack of compensation for respiratory volume change may cause 6% error ...

Clinical trials do not report sputum eosinophil data in a consistent method and this makes it difficult to compare across studies and to evaluate the sample sizes estimated in these studies. The objectives of the paper are 1) to systemically review reporting effect size and sample calculations in randomized controlled ...

The concept of health literacy is evolving. The re-emergence of Freireian-inspired health literacy projects moves the conceptualisation of health literacy from merely the ability to apply functional literacy skills in a health-care context to a wider ability to exert control over the determinants of health. This article presents an example ...

There are several well-described acclimation responses to excess light in green algae but the effect on metabolism has not been thoroughly investigated. This study examines the metabolic changes during photoacclimation to high-light (HL) stress in Chlamydomonas reinhardtii using nuclear magnetic resonance and mass spectrometry. Using principal component analysis, a clear ...

We formed magnetic moment assisted layer-by-layer (LbL) films of a Prussian Blue analogue (PB). We applied an external magnetic field to each monolayer of PB to orient magnetic moment of the molecules perpendicular to the substrate. Aligned moments or orientation of the magnetic molecules themselves were immobilized in each monolayer, ...

Purpose:Newborn screening for cystic fibrosis is increasingly available, but cascade testing following the diagnosis in a child has received little attention. We previously reported low levels of cascade testing over time, and this study investigated motivators as well as barriers to testing.Methods:Parents were interviewed about communicating the genetic information and ...

Classically, opioids produce their effects by activating Gi-proteins that inhibit adenylate cyclase activity. Previous studies proposed that mu-opioid receptors can also stimulate adenylate cyclase due to an initial transient coupling to Gs-proteins. Treatment with ultra-low doses of the nonselective opioid antagonist (-)-naloxone or its inactive enantiomer (+)-naloxone blocks this excitatory ...

PURPOSE: Although differences in illness perceptions between neurologists and patients with epilepsy or psychogenic nonepileptic seizures (PNES) are likely to be clinically relevant, this is the first study to attempt a direct comparison. In addition, this study compares the illness perceptions of patients with epilepsy with those of patients with ...

Background Trithorax and polycomb group proteins antagonistically regulate the transcription of many genes, and cancer can result from the disruption of this regulation. Deregulation of trithorax function occurs through chromosomal translocations involving the trithorax gene MLL, leading to the expression of MLL fusion proteins and acute leukemia. It is poorly ...

BACKGROUND: Risk of transfusion-transmitted bacterial sepsis has been substantially reduced by a bacterial surveillance program (BST). However, new problems emerge as asymptomatic bacteremia is detected in blood donors. Streptococcus bovis bacteremia, which is known to associate with infective endocarditis and colonic carcinoma, is an example. STUDY DESIGN AND METHODS: A ...

The origin recognition complex (ORC) is a pivotal element in DNA replication, heterochromatin assembly, checkpoint regulation, and chromosome assembly. Although the functions of the ORC have been determined in yeast and model animals, they remain largely unknown in the plant kingdom. In this study, OsORC3 (Oryza sativa Origin Recognition Complex ...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Pediatric stroke, birth to 18 years, is a significant cause of long-term disability in the United States; however, there is currently little experimental data on the pathophysiology of childhood stroke owing to lack of animal models. We developed a novel mouse model of experimental childhood-onset arterial ischemic ...

SUMMARY: Despite the international significance of wheat, its large and complex genome hinders genome sequencing efforts. To assess the impact of selection on this genome, we have assembled genomic regions representing genes for chromosomes 7A, 7B and 7D. We demonstrate that the dispersion of wheat to new environments has shaped ...

OBJECTIVES: This report presents a perspective on the broad research trends in the biology of human populations at high-altitude and their contributions to the improved understanding of evolution and adaptation. A focus is on the research that has occurred over the past 50 years of anthropological fieldwork on the Andean, ...

This review provides a qualitative assessment of all known scientific studies on the impact of alcohol ingestion on nocturnal sleep in healthy volunteer's. At all dosages, alcohol causes a reduction in sleep onset latency, a more consolidated first half sleep and an increase in sleep disruption in the second half ...

ABSTRACT BACKGROUND: Self expandable metallic stents (SEMS) are effective in the palliation of malignant airway obstruction. Tumor in-growth, however, frequently occurs because of a shortage of effective local therapy. Additionally, SEMS are frequently associated with problems of fracture, migration, and difficult removals. Our goal was to develop a novel bioabsorbable ...

To develop a model of healthy aging from the perspective of Thais, a grounded theory approach, including in-depth interviews and focus groups, was used. A purposive sample of 39 community-dwelling adults aged 40-85 years old was interviewed. The Thai healthy aging model composed of three themes: normality, nature, and dharma. ...

Social support has been associated with positive outcomes regarding the mothering experience, and professional interventions have therefore been developed in formal settings to promote this. An ethnographic approach was used to consider the subjective experiences of mothers attending a professionally-facilitated group for parents and children aged 0-4 years, focusing on ...

RATIONALE: The NELSON trial is with 15,822 participants the largest European lung cancer computer tomography screening trial. A volumetry-based screening strategy, stringent criteria for a positive screening and an increasing length of the screening interval are particular features of the NELSON trial. OBJECTIVES: To determine the effect of stringent referral ...

The field metabolic rate (FMR) of a free-ranging animal can be considered as the sum of its maintenance costs (minimum metabolic rate; MMR), and additional costs associated with thermoregulation, digestion, production and activity. However, the relationships between these two quantities and how they relate to behaviour and extrinsic influences is ...

OBJECTIVE: Few cases of primary entecavir resistance in chronic hepatitis B patients have been reported to date. The serial profiling of the HBV polymerase gene mutations from a treatment-naive patient who developed drug resistance after 32 months of entecavir therapy is presented here. DESIGN: Serum samples were collected at multiple time ...

The oscillation of a polymer gel induced by the Belousov-Zhabotinsky (BZ) reaction was investigated under an external force composed of a square wave. The oscillation of the BZ reaction entrained to the periodic force, and the features of this entrainment changed depending on the period and duty cycle of the ...

INTRODUCTION.: Female sexual arousal disorder (FSAD) is a condition that can affect women of all ages and have a significant negative impact on emotional well-being. AIMS.: The aim of this study is to prospectively evaluate the effects of CP-866,087, a selective mu-opioid receptor antagonist, in premenopausal women with FSAD. METHODS.: ...

The glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor (GLP-1R) is a major therapeutic target for the treatment of type 2 diabetes due to its role in glucose homeostasis. Despite the availability of peptide based GLP-1R drugs for treatment of this disease, there is great interest in developing small molecules that can be administered orally. ...

Genome wide association studies have identified several type 2 diabetes (T2D) risk loci linked to impaired β-cell function. The identity and function of the causal genes in these susceptibility loci remain, however, elusive. The HHEX/IDE T2D locus is associated with decreased insulin secretion in response to oral glucose stimulation in ...

Proper chromosome organization is accomplished through binding of proteins such as condensins that shape the DNA and by modulation of chromosome topology by the action of topoisomerases. We found that the interaction between MukB, the bacterial condensin, and ParC, a subunit of topoisomerase IV, enhanced relaxation of negatively supercoiled DNA ...

In this work, a higher concentration of Ti ions are incorporated into hydrothermally grown Ti-doped (2.2% by atomic ratio) micro-nano-structured hematite films by an in situ solid-state reaction method. The doping concentration is improved from 2.2 % to 19.7 % after the in situ solid-state reaction. X-ray absorption analysis indicates ...

During post-translational modifications of von Willebrand factor (VWF) the VWF propeptide (VWFpp) is cleaved. The ratio between VWFpp and VWF antigen (VWF:Ag) and the ratio between factor VIII (FVIII:C) and VWF:Ag may be used to assess synthesis and clearance of VWF. We analyzed the contribution of VWFpp and ratios of ...

BACKGROUND:Bony deficiency of the anteroinferior glenoid rim can cause recurrent glenohumeral instability. To address this problem, bony reconstruction is recommended in patients with glenoid bone loss more than 20% to 25%. Recent advances in shoulder surgery techniques allow for the arthroscopic reconstruction of glenoid bone defects to restore stability. HYPOTHESIS:The ...

The acetylcholinesterase inhibitor (-)-huperzine A was synthesized from (S)-4-hydroxycyclohex-2-enone in 17 steps by a route that involved two cyclobutane fragmentations. The first of these employed a retro-aldol cleavage to generate the α-pyridone ring of huperzine A, and the second invoked a novel intramolecular aza-Prins reaction in tandem with stereocontrolled scission ...

Biotic interactions can shape phylogenetic community structure (PCS). However, we do not know how the asymmetric effects of foundation species on communities extend to effects on PCS. We assessed PCS of alpine plant communities around the world, both within cushion plant foundation species and adjacent open ground, and compared the ...

The effect of counterions was investigated to probe the principal ionic effects on the solubility in water and melting behavior of cationic gemini surfactants. We focused on two types of counterions: (1) small and inorganic counterions which are typically taken from the Hofmeister series were studied to focus on the ...

OBJECTIVES: To assess the impact of occipito-posterior position in the second stage of labour on operative delivery. METHODS: Double-blinded prospective cohort study of ultrasound determined occiput-posterior position during the second stage of labour compared with occiput-anterior position. The primary outcome was operative (caesarean section, forceps or vacuum) delivery. RESULTS: A ...

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND: The European level of alcohol consumption, and the subsequent burden of disease, is high compared to the rest of the world. While screening and brief interventions in primary healthcare are cost-effective, in most countries they have hardly been implemented in routine primary healthcare. In this study, we aim ...

Clinical trials comparing the efficacy and acceptability of high frequency repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (HF-rTMS) and electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) for treating major depression (MD) have yielded conflicting results. As this may have been the result of limited statistical power, we have carried out this meta-analysis to examine this issue. We searched the ...