Management of personal protective equipment during the COVID-19 pandemic in England and the state of New York: A comparative case study.

Background: The COVID-19 crisis placed extraordinary demands on the supply of personal protective equipment (PPE) at the beginning of 2020. These were coupled with shocks to the supply chain resulting from the disease. Many typically well-resourced health systems faced subsequent shortages of equipment and had to implement new strategies to manage their stocks.

STRmix™ collaborative exercise on DNA mixture interpretation.

An intra and inter-laboratory study using the probabilistic genotyping (PG) software STRmix™ is reported. Two complex mixtures from the PROVEDIt set, analysed on an Applied Biosystems™ 3500 Series Genetic Analyzer, were selected. 174 participants responded.

Multi-scale, whole-system models of liver metabolic adaptation to fat and sugar in non-alcoholic fatty liver disease.

Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is a serious public health issue associated with high fat, high sugar diets. However, the molecular mechanisms mediating NAFLD pathogenesis are only partially understood. Here we adopt an iterative multi-scale, systems biology approach coupled to in vitro experimentation to investigate the roles of sugar and fat metabolism in NAFLD pathogenesis.

Assessing the hydration status of children with chronic kidney disease and on dialysis: a comparison of techniques.

Background: Fluid balance is pivotal in the management of children with chronic kidney disease (CKD) and on dialysis. Although many techniques are available to assess fluid status, there are only a few studies for children, of which none have been comparable against cardiovascular outcome measures.

Methods: We performed a longitudinal study in 30 children with CKD5-5D and 13 age-matched healthy controls (71 measurements) to determine a correlation between optimal weight by bioimpedance spectroscopy (Wt-BIS) and clinical assessment (Wt-CA).

Single brain death examination is equivalent to dual brain death examinations.

Background: Although the new Practice Parameters for brain death support a single examination, there is paucity of data comparing its impact to dual brain death (DBD) examinations.

Methods: We reviewed all brain deaths in our hospital over a 39-month period and compared the optional single brain death (SBD) exam requiring an apnea and a mandatory confirmatory blood flow test to the DBD for organ function at the time of death, rate of donation, and cost.

Results: Thirty-six patients had a SBD and 59 DBD exams, without any of them regaining neurological functioning.

The inhibitory effect of rosiglitazone on agonist-induced or spontaneous regulation of contractility.

The present study was undertaken to determine whether rosiglitazone treatment influences on the agonist-induced or spontaneous regulation of vascular smooth muscle contraction and, if so, to investigate the related mechanism. Stimulants were directly added without any preanesthetic stress or spontaneous vasoconstriction was induced by preanesthetic physical stress where rat aortic ring preparations isolated from rat exposed to preanesthetic stress such as pinch or prick for 30 min were mounted in organ baths and then exposed to contractile agents. Previously and subchronically ingested rosiglitazone decreased Rho-kinase activating agonist-induced contraction but not depolarization- or alpha adrenergic agonist-induced contraction.

The utility of whole genome amplification for typing compromised forensic samples.

Biological evidence has become invaluable in the crime laboratory; however, it may exist in limited quantity and/or quality. Given this, the ability to amplify total DNA obtained from evidence, in an unbiased manner, would be highly advantageous. Methods for whole genome amplification (WGA) have the potential to fulfill this role, resulting in a virtually unlimited supply of DNA.

Differential functional properties of calmodulin-dependent protein kinase IIgamma variants isolated from smooth muscle.

Six variants of calmodulin-dependent protein kinase IIgamma were isolated from a ferret-aorta smooth-muscle cDNA library. Variant G-2 is generated by a novel alternative polyadenylation, utilizing a site contained in an intron. The last 77 residues of the association domain are replaced with 99 residues of a unique sequence containing Src homology 3-domain-binding motifs, which alter catalytic activity.