Nasal high flow (NHF) is an emerging therapy for respiratory support, but knowledge of the mechanisms and applications is limited. It was previously observed that NHF reduces the tidal volume but does not affect the respiratory rate during sleep. The authors hypothesized that the decrease in tidal volume during NHF is due to a reduction in carbon dioxide (CO) rebreathing from dead space.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFGraphene is a 2-dimensional nanomaterial with unique mechanical, thermal, electrical, and optical properties. With increasing applications of graphene-family nanomaterials (GFNs) in electronics, biomedicine, and surface coatings, concern for their impacts on aquatic ecosystems is rising. Current information on the toxicity of GFNs, including graphene oxide, is scarce.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Case-mix adjustment is an established method to take account of variations across cohorts in baseline patient factors, when comparing health outcomes. Although commonplace, there is a lack of evidence as to the most appropriate case-mix adjustment model to use to enable fair comparisons of PROM data in musculoskeletal services.
Objectives: To conduct a systematic review summarising evidence of the development, validation, and performance of musculoskeletal case-mix adjustment models, and to make recommendations for future methods.
Objective: To delineate the epileptology, a key part of the phenotypic spectrum, in a large patient cohort.
Methods: Patients were recruited via investigators' practices or social media. We included patients with (likely) pathogenic variants or chromosome 6p21.
During neural development, self-avoidance ensures that a neuron's processes arborize to evenly fill a particular spatial domain. At the individual cell level, self-avoidance is promoted by genes encoding cell-surface molecules capable of generating thousands of diverse isoforms, such as (Down syndrome cell adhesion molecule 1) in Isoform choice differs between neighboring cells, allowing neurons to distinguish "self" from "nonself". In the mouse retina, promotes self-avoidance at the level of cell types, but without extreme isoform diversity.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIncreased consumption and improper disposal of prescription medication, such as beta (β)-blockers, contribute to their introduction into waterways and may pose threats to non-target aquatic organisms. There has been rising concern about the impacts of these prescription drugs on coastal ecosystems, especially because wastewater treatment plants are not designed to eliminate them from the discharge. Few studies have characterized the sublethal effects of β-blocker exposures in marine invertebrates.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIt is well known that copper (Cu) is toxic to marine organisms. We measured and compared the acute toxicity of several forms of Cu (including nanoCu) amended into a marine sediment with mysids and amphipods. For all the forms of Cu tested, toxicity, measured as the median lethal concentration, ranged from 708 to > 2400 mg Cu/kg (dry sediment) for mysids and 258 to 1070 mg Cu/kg (dry sediment) for amphipods.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: Selected patients with intractable focal epilepsy who have failed a previous epilepsy surgery can become seizure-free with reoperation. Preoperative evaluation is exceedingly challenging in this cohort. We aim to investigate the diagnostic value of two noninvasive approaches, magnetoencephalography (MEG) and ictal single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT), in patients with failed epilepsy surgery.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFImportance: Literature on ictal magnetoencephalography (MEG) in clinical practice and the relationship to other modalities is limited because of the brevity of routine studies.
Objective: To investigate the utility and reliability of ictal MEG in the localization of the epileptogenic zone.
Design, Setting, And Participants: A retrospective medical record review and prospective analysis of a novel ictal rhythm analysis method was conducted at a tertiary epilepsy center with a wide base of referrals for epilepsy surgery evaluation and included consecutive cases of patients who experienced epileptic seizures during routine MEG studies from March 2008 to February 2012.
Protein Expr Purif
October 2018
Through years of research, teaching, troubleshooting, and editing, I have developed a solid working understanding of many aspects of protein purification and protein biochemistry. I have also found that many researchers do not understand the basics, let alone the pitfalls, of the techniques they use. In the case of size exclusion chromatography (SEC), I summarize below some of the rules of thumb, suggestions, limitations and troubleshooting I have found most useful in helping my students and colleagues carry out successful SEC.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe mental health of migrant communities is an important public health concern. A growing body of literature suggests that social and cultural determinants of health significantly contribute to the mental health and wellbeing of older migrants in their host countries. Despite the increasing population of older Nepalese migrants in the UK, there is little research exploring the mental health needs of this community.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPerformance reference compounds (PRCs) are often added to passive samplers prior to field deployments to provide information about mass transfer kinetics between the sampled environment and the passive sampler. Their popularity has resulted in different methods of varying complexity to estimate mass transfer and better estimate freely dissolved concentrations (C ) of targeted compounds. Three methods for describing a mass transfer model are commonly used: a first-order kinetic method, a nonlinear least squares fitting of sampling rate, and a diffusion method.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMagnetoencephalography (MEG) records weak magnetic fields outside the human head and thereby provides millisecond-accurate information about neuronal currents supporting human brain function. MEG and electroencephalography (EEG) are closely related complementary methods and should be interpreted together whenever possible. This manuscript covers the basic physical and physiological principles of MEG and discusses the main aspects of state-of-the-art MEG data analysis.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntimate partner violence (IPV) has significant impacts on mental health. Community-focused interventions have shown promising results for addressing IPV in low-income countries, however, little is known about the implications of these interventions for women's mental wellbeing. This paper analyses data from a community-focused policy intervention in Rwanda collected in 2013-14, including focus group discussions and in-depth interviews with community members (n = 59).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTo support the goals articulated in the vision for exposure and risk assessment in the twenty-first century, we highlight the application of a thermodynamic chemical activity approach for the exposure and risk assessment of chemicals in the environment. The present article describes the chemical activity approach, its strengths and limitations, and provides examples of how this concept may be applied to the management of single chemicals and chemical mixtures. The examples demonstrate that the chemical activity approach provides a useful framework for 1) compiling and evaluating exposure and toxicity information obtained from many different sources, 2) expressing the toxicity of single and multiple chemicals, 3) conducting hazard and risk assessments of single and multiple chemicals, 4) identifying environmental exposure pathways, and 5) reducing error and characterizing uncertainty in risk assessment.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFLittle is known about the release of metal engineered nanomaterials (ENMs) from consumer goods, including lumber treated with micronized copper. Micronized copper is a recent form of antifouling wood preservative containing nanosized copper particles for use in pressure-treated lumber. The present study investigated the concentrations released and the release rate of total copper over the course of 133 d under freshwater, estuarine, and marine salinity conditions (0, 1, 10, and 30‰) for several commercially available pressure-treated lumbers: micronized copper azole (MCA) at 0.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFOne application of nanocopper is as a wood-preserving pesticide in pressure-treated lumber. Recent research has shown that pressure-treated lumber amended with micronized copper azole (MCA), which contains nanosized copper, releases copper under estuarine and marine conditions. The form of copper released (i.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDominant mutations in glycyl-tRNA synthetase (GlyRS) cause a subtype of Charcot-Marie-Tooth neuropathy (CMT2D). Although previous studies have shown that GlyRS mutants aberrantly interact with Nrp1, giving insight into the disease's specific effects on motor neurons, these cannot explain length-dependent axonal degeneration. Here, we report that GlyRS mutants interact aberrantly with HDAC6 and stimulate its deacetylase activity on α-tubulin.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAn increase in production of commercial products containing graphene-family nanomaterials (GFNs) has led to concern over their release into the environment. The fate and potential ecotoxicological effects of GFNs in the environment are currently unclear, partially due to the limited analytical methods for GFN measurements. In this review, the unique properties of GFNs that are useful for their detection and quantification are discussed.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThis work presents the results of an international interlaboratory comparison on ex situ passive sampling in sediments. The main objectives were to map the state of the science in passively sampling sediments, identify sources of variability, provide recommendations and practical guidance for standardized passive sampling, and advance the use of passive sampling in regulatory decision making by increasing confidence in the use of the technique. The study was performed by a consortium of 11 laboratories and included experiments with 14 passive sampling formats on 3 sediments for 25 target chemicals (PAHs and PCBs).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe tumor microenvironment (TME) is a considerably heterogeneous niche, which is created by tumor cells, the surrounding tumor stroma, blood vessels, infiltrating immune cells, and a variety of associated stromal cells. Intercellular communication within this niche is driven by soluble proteins synthesized by local tumor and stromal cells and include chemokines, growth factors, interferons, interleukins, and angiogenic factors. The interaction of tumor cells with their microenvironment is essential for tumorigenesis, tumor progression, growth, and metastasis, and resistance to drug therapy.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPoststroke pain syndrome (PSPS) is an often intractable disorder characterized by hemiparesis associated with unrelenting chronic pain. Although traditional analgesics have largely failed, integrative approaches targeting affective-cognitive spheres have started to show promise. Recently, we demonstrated that deep brain stimulation (DBS) of the ventral striatal area significantly improved the affective sphere of pain in patients with PSPS.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFUptake of lead from soil was examined in order to establish a site-specific ecological protective concentration level for the Texas Horned Lizard (Phrynosoma cornutum) at the Former Humble Refinery in San Antonio, Texas. Soils, harvester ants, and rinse water from the ants were analyzed at 11 Texas Harvester Ant (Pogonomyrmex barbatus) mounds. Soil concentrations at the harvester ant mounds ranged from 13 to 7474 mg/kg of lead dry weight.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF