Publications by authors named "Albert I"

Background: Utilization of diabetic care services remains a challenge among adult patients in low- and middle-income countries. Optimal utilization of diabetic care services could reduce morbidity and mortality and delay the development of long-term complications. This study assessed the utilization of basic diabetic care services and associated factors among diabetes mellitus patients at Mbarara Regional Referral Hospital in Western Uganda.

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The 24-item Social Provision Scale is among the most frequently used self-report scales to assess perceived social support. A shortened 10-item version (SPS-10) with promising psychometric properties has been proposed. However, so far only a few studies in specific cultural contexts investigated its psychometric properties.

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Twister ribozymes are an extensively studied class of nucleolytic RNAs. Thousands of natural twisters have been proposed using sequence homology and structural descriptors. Yet, most of these candidates have not been validated experimentally.

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  • CCR4-NOT is a complex involved in various stages of gene regulation like transcription, mRNA decay, and protein ubiquitylation, with extensive research in yeast but limited knowledge in mammals.
  • A study using an auxin-induced degron system showed that depleting key components CNOT1 and CNOT4 in human cells led to significant changes in mRNA stability and synthesis; CNOT1 depletion increased mRNA levels while CNOT4 depletion accelerated mRNA decay.
  • The results indicated that CCR4-NOT maintains the expression of certain transcriptional repressors (KZNFs), which in turn suppress retrotransposable elements (rTEs), establishing the complex as a crucial regulator of gene expression in mammals.
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Individuals diagnosed with autism, attachment disorders, emotionally unstable personality disorder (EUPD) or complex post-traumatic stress disorder (CPTSD) can present with similar features. This renders differential and accurate diagnosis of these conditions difficult, leading to diagnostic overshadowing and misdiagnosis. The purpose of this study was to explore professionals' perspectives on the differential diagnosis of autism, attachment disorders and CPTSD in young people; and of autism, CPTSD and EUPD in adults.

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Background: Adolescent sensitivity to alcohol is influenced by genetic background. Data from our laboratory suggested that adolescent C57BL/6J and DBA/2J inbred mice differed in susceptibility to alcohol-induced deficits in dorsal hippocampus-dependent contextual fear learning.

Methods: To investigate the biological underpinnings of this strain difference, we examined dorsal hippocampus gene expression using RNA-sequencing after alcohol or saline administration followed by Pavlovian fear conditioning across male and female C57BL/6J and DBA/2J adolescents.

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  • The study aimed to assess the effectiveness and safety of rectal diclofenac for managing postoperative pain in women undergoing diagnostic hystero-laparoscopy and dye test.
  • In a double-blind, placebo-controlled trial with 108 participants, pain levels were measured at various time points, showing diclofenac provided slightly lower pain scores but not significantly better than the placebo.
  • Overall, while rectal diclofenac was deemed safe, it did not substantially enhance pain relief or patient satisfaction when compared to placebo treatments following surgery.
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  • Historical texts on materia medica are valuable for ethnopharmacological insights, but converting this information into usable data sets is challenging.
  • The study aims to catalog pharmacobotanical information from Burkhard von Hallwyl's Receptarium to identify plants for further pharmacological research.
  • A relational database was created to analyze dermatological recipes, and candidate plants were screened in vitro for their effects on inflammatory skin disorders using extracts from plants collected in Switzerland.
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Congenital lung malformations are fatal at birth in their severe forms. Prevention and early intervention of these birth defects require a comprehensive understanding of the molecular mechanisms of lung development. We find that the loss of inturned (Intu), a cilia and planar polarity effector gene, severely disrupts growth and branching morphogenesis of the mouse embryonic lungs.

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Twister ribozymes are an extensively studied class of nucleolytic RNAs. Thousands of natural twisters have been proposed using sequence homology and structural descriptors. Yet, most of these candidates have not been validated experimentally.

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Migrant integration trajectories have become more complex, open, uncertain, and continuously changing, over time. For young migrants, their integration endeavour intersects with their process of transition to adulthood, a double transition that poses additional challenges. Recent theoretical perspectives such as "liquid integration" aim at focusing on the dynamic, processual, and temporal nature of migrant integration.

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  • In psychology, people often think of happiness and subjective well-being as the same thing, but this text argues they are different.
  • It suggests that cultures that focus a lot on being super happy (especially in Western countries) might be influenced by their nicer living environments.
  • Lastly, the text warns that trying to make everyone happy the same way can be tricky because it doesn't work for all cultures equally.
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After a traumatic incident in the workplace organisations want to provide support for their employees to prevent PTSD. However, what is safe and effective to offer has not yet been established, despite many organisations offering some form of intervention after a traumatic event. To systematically review the evidence for post-incident psychosocial interventions offered within one month of a workplace trauma, and to compare the content, effectiveness and acceptability of these interventions.

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The circadian system influences many different biological processes, including memory performance. While the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) functions as the brain's central pacemaker, downstream "satellite clocks" may also regulate local functions based on the time of day. Within the dorsal hippocampus (DH), for example, local molecular oscillations may contribute to time-of-day effects on memory.

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Malaria causes >600 thousand fatalities each year, with most cases attributed to the human-infectious Plasmodium falciparum species. Many rodent-infectious Plasmodium species, like Plasmodium berghei and Plasmodium yoelii, have been used as model species that can expedite studies of this pathogen. P.

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Background: Increasing SERCA2 (sarco[endo]-plasmic reticulum Ca ATPase 2) activity is suggested to be beneficial in chronic heart failure, but no selective SERCA2-activating drugs are available. PDE3A (phosphodiesterase 3A) is proposed to be present in the SERCA2 interactome and limit SERCA2 activity. Disruption of PDE3A from SERCA2 might thus be a strategy to develop SERCA2 activators.

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Malaria causes over 200 million infections and over 600 thousand fatalities each year, with most cases attributed to a human-infectious species, . Many rodent-infectious species, like , and , have been used as genetically tractable model species that can expedite studies of this pathogen. In particular, is an especially good model for investigating the mosquito and liver stages of parasite development because key attributes closely resemble those of .

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  • Cervical cerclage is a procedure used to prevent preterm delivery in women with cervical insufficiency and is indicated based on reproductive history or ultrasound findings, though outcomes can vary.* -
  • A study at two hospitals in Nigeria compared the effectiveness of McDonald's cervical cerclage based on historical versus ultrasound indications, involving 103 women over nearly a decade.* -
  • Results showed no significant difference in miscarriage rates between the two groups, but a higher prevalence of preterm births was noted in women with ultrasound-indicated cerclage compared to those with history-indicated.*
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Macrophages play a pivotal role in mediating inflammation and subsequent resolution of inflammation. The availability of selenium as a micronutrient and the subsequent biosynthesis of selenoproteins, containing the 21 amino acid selenocysteine (Sec), are important for the physiological functions of macrophages. Selenoproteins regulate the redox tone in macrophages during inflammation, the early onset of which involves oxidative burst of reactive oxygen and nitrogen species.

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The emergence of Plasmodium falciparum parasite resistance to dihydroartemisinin + piperaquine (PPQ) in Southeast Asia threatens plans to increase the global use of this first-line antimalarial combination. High-level PPQ resistance appears to be mediated primarily by novel mutations in the P. falciparum chloroquine resistance transporter (PfCRT), which enhance parasite survival at high PPQ concentrations in vitro and increase the risk of dihydroartemisinin + PPQ treatment failure in patients.

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According to their lifestyle, plant pathogens are divided into biotrophic and necrotrophic organisms. Biotrophic pathogens exclusively nourish living host cells, whereas necrotrophic pathogens rapidly kill host cells and nourish cell walls and cell contents. To this end, the necrotrophic fungus Botrytis cinerea secretes large amounts of phytotoxic proteins and cell wall-degrading enzymes.

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Lipid membrane destruction by microbial pore-forming toxins (PFTs) is a ubiquitous mechanism of damage to animal cells, but is less prominent in plants. Nep1-like proteins (NLPs) secreted by phytopathogens that cause devastating crop diseases, such as potato late blight, represent the only family of microbial PFTs that effectively damage plant cells by disrupting the integrity of the plant plasma membrane. Recent research has elucidated the molecular mechanism of NLP-mediated membrane damage, which is unique among microbial PFTs and highly adapted to the plant membrane environment.

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During the Covid-19 pandemic, older people have been in the spotlight of the public debate. Given their higher risk of severe outcomes of the disease, they have been described as especially vulnerable and as a burden to others and society. We thus wanted to investigate how older people's perception of their own age, that is their subjective age, as well as their Covid-19 related risks and worries were related during the pandemic and whether these relationships varied according to participants' subjective health.

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Extracellular vesicles (EVs), nanovesicles released by cells to effectively exchange biological information, are gaining interest as drug delivery system. Yet, analogously to liposomes, they show short blood circulation times and accumulation in the liver and the spleen. For tissue specific delivery, EV surfaces will thus have to be functionalized.

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