Publications by authors named "Cross E"

Acute liver injury results from exposure to toxins, pharmacological agents, or viral infections, contributing to significant morbidity and mortality worldwide. While hepatic inflammation is critical for liver repair, the transcriptional mechanisms required for the recruitment of inflammatory cells to the liver are not understood. Forkhead box M1 (Foxm1) transcription factor is a master regulator of hepatocyte proliferation, but its role in inflammatory cells remains unknown.

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Background: Chest pain attendances at the emergency department (ED) in the UK are continuing to rise. Chest pain units (CPU) provide nurse-led, protocol-driven care for patients attending the ED with acute chest pain. The ESCAPE trial evaluated the effectiveness, cost-effectiveness and acceptability of CPU care in the NHS.

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Blood vessel/epicardial substance (Bves) is a transmembrane protein that influences cell adhesion and motility through unknown mechanisms. We have discovered that Bves directly interacts with VAMP3, a SNARE protein that facilitates vesicular transport and specifically recycles transferrin and beta-1-integrin. Two independent assays document that cells expressing a mutated form of Bves are severely impaired in the recycling of these molecules, a phenotype consistent with disruption of VAMP3 function.

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Social interaction and comprehension of non-verbal behaviour requires a representation of people's bodies. Research into the neural underpinnings of body representation implicates several brain regions including extrastriate and fusiform body areas (EBA and FBA), superior temporal sulcus (STS), inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) and inferior parietal lobule (IPL). The different roles played by these regions in parsing familiar and unfamiliar body postures remain unclear.

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Observation of human actions recruits a well-defined network of brain regions, yet the purpose of this action observation network (AON) remains under debate. Some authors contend that this network has developed to respond specifically to observation of human actions. Conversely, others suggest that this network responds in a similar manner to actions prompted by human and non-human cues, and that one's familiarity with the action is the critical factor that drives this network.

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Using a novel morphology segregation technique, we observed minority populations ( approximately 3%) of submicron-sized, cluster-dilute fractal-like aggregates, formed in the soot-formation window (fuel-to-air equivalence ratio of 2.0-3.5) of a premixed flame, to have mass fractal dimensions between 1.

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Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) was used to probe the involvement of the left primary motor cortex (M1) in the consolidation of a sequencing skill. In particular we asked: (1) if M1 is involved in consolidation of planning processes prior to response execution (2) whether movement preparation and movement execution can undergo consolidation independently and (3) whether sequence consolidation can occur in a stimulus specific manner. TMS was applied to left M1 while subjects prepared left hand sequential finger responses for three different movement sequences, presented in an interleaved fashion.

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The eponymous Muir-Torre syndrome (MTS) is a clinical variant of hereditary non polyposis colorectal cancer, and is defined as an autosomal dominant condition with simultaneous sebaceous neoplasms of the skin and visceral malignant disease resulting from germline mutations in the DNA mismatch repair (MMR) genes. To date the most common visceral malignancy described is colorectal cancer, which is seen in approximately 50% of cases. Other clearly associated tumours include endometrial adenocarcinomas, urothelial transitional cell carcinomas, upper gastrointestinal adenocarcinomas, sebaceous adenomas and ovarian (often mucinous) carcinomas.

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According to Milner and Goodale's theory of the two visual streams, the dorsal (action) stream controls actions in real-time, whereas the ventral (perceptual) stream stores longer-term information for object identification. By this account, the dorsal stream subserves actions carried out immediately. However, when a delay is required before the response, the ventral (perceptual) stream is recruited.

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Mutations in the gene encoding fibrillin 1 (FBN1) cause Marfan syndrome (MFS), and related connective tissue disorders. The disease spectrum is wide and while many genotype-phenotype correlations have been reported, few have been consistent. In this study FBN1 was analyzed in 113 patients with MFS or Marfan-like features.

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For many, a cancer death in the family is the immediately obvious part of what is actually a double devastation. Overwhelming financial damage also results for many families, from the cost of medical care and from the loss of earning power by the patient and family. For some families, the consequences may be multigenerational and can affect the health of the survivors.

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Diffuse mesangial sclerosis occurs as an isolated abnormality or as a part of a syndrome. Recently, mutations in phospholipase C epsilon 1 (PLCE1) were found to cause a nonsyndromic, autosomal recessive form of this disease. Here we describe three children from one consanguineous kindred of Pakistani origin with diffuse mesangial sclerosis who presented with congenital or infantile nephrotic syndrome.

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Mutations in the RNA interference (RNAi) genes aubergine (aub), homeless and piwi were tested for effects on the frequency, distribution and coincidence of meiotic crossovers in the long arm of the X chromosome. Some increases in crossover frequency were seen in these tests, but they may have been due to a maternal effect of the balancer chromosomes that were used to maintain the RNAi mutations in stocks rather than to the RNAi mutations themselves. These same balancers produced strong zygotic interchromosomal effects when tested separately.

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Human motor skills can be acquired by observation without the benefit of immediate physical practice. The current study tested if physical rehearsal and observational learning share common neural substrates within an action observation network (AON) including premotor and inferior parietal regions, that is, areas activated both for execution and observation of similar actions. Participants trained for 5 days on dance sequences set to music videos.

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Using competition experiments in continuous cultures grown in different nutrient environments (glucose limited, ammonium limited, phosphate limited and white grape juice), we identified genes that show haploinsufficiency phenotypes (reduced growth rate when hemizygous) or haploproficiency phenotypes (increased growth rate when hemizygous). Haploproficient genes (815, 1,194, 733 and 654 in glucose-limited, ammonium-limited, phosphate-limited and white grape juice environments, respectively) frequently show that phenotype in a specific environmental context. For instance, genes encoding components of the ubiquitination pathway or the proteasome show haploproficiency in nitrogen-limited conditions where protein conservation may be beneficial.

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Article Synopsis
  • When learning new skills, practicing tasks in blocks initially leads to better performance and perceived ease, but random practice boosts long-term skill retention, a phenomenon called contextual interference (CI).
  • A study used fMRI to examine brain activity while participants learned sequences either through block or random practice.
  • Results showed that while both groups performed similarly at the end of training, the random practice group excelled in retention tests and exhibited greater brain activity in regions linked to motor preparation.
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This study compares the optical coefficients of size-selected soot particles measured at a wavelength of 870 nm with those predicted by three theories, namely, Rayleigh-Debye-Gans (RDG) approximation, volume-equivalent Mie theory, and integral equation formulation for scattering (IEFS). Soot particles, produced by a premixed ethene flame, were size-selected using two differential mobility analyzers in series, and their scattering and absorption coefficients were measured with nephelometry and photoacoustic spectroscopy. Scanning electron microscopy and image processing techniques were used for the parameterization of the structural properties of the fractal-like soot aggregates.

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Electrophysiological recordings from monkeys, as well as functional imaging and neuropsychological work with humans, have suggested that a region in the anterior portion of the intraparietal sulcus (aIPS) is involved in prehensile movements. With recent methodological advances using transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), we can now causally attribute anatomy with function to more precisely determine the specific involvement of aIPS in grasping. It has recently been demonstrated that aIPS is specifically involved in executing a grasp under conditions of both constant target requirements, as well as in correcting a movement under conditions in which a target perturbation occurs.

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Objective: To determine whether introducing chest pain unit care reduces emergency admissions without increasing reattendances and admissions over the next 30 days.

Design: Cluster randomised before and after intervention trial.

Setting: 14 diverse acute hospitals in the United Kingdom.

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This study examines the pharmaceutical websites of 44 leading direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertised drugs to determine the extent to which risk information was completely communicated. Three operational definitions of "completeness" were used: communication of the single highest incidence side effect, communication of top three highest incidence side effects, and communication of side effects with incidence of >or= 10% (all measured in terms of absolute percentage). Results indicated that regardless of the measures used, pharmaceutical websites are unlikely to completely communicate risk information.

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Background: In 2001, a survey of emergency departments in the UK showed wide variation in the management of acute undifferentiated chest pain. There has since been substantial development of chest pain services and research into chest pain units (CPUs).

Aim: To determine whether practice had changed in 2006.

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Research on action simulation identifies brain areas that are active while imagining or performing simple overlearned actions. Are areas engaged during imagined movement sensitive to the amount of actual physical practice? In the present study, participants were expert dancers who learned and rehearsed novel, complex whole-body dance sequences 5 h a week across 5 weeks. Brain activity was recorded weekly by fMRI as dancers observed and imagined performing different movement sequences.

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Cultures of Umbelopsis ramanniana (=Mucor ramannianus) were grown in fluid Sabouraud medium for 3 days, dosed with 0.23 mM benzo[f]quinoline, benzo[h]quinoline, or phenanthridine (benzo[c]quinoline), and incubated for another 18 days. Cultures were extracted and metabolites (66-75% of the UV absorbance) were separated by high-performance liquid chromatography.

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Background: Primary Care Groups and Trusts (PCG/Ts) are responsible for improving the health of local populations, but there is little evidence of their strategic involvement in accident prevention.

Objective: To determine the effect of providing information on local accidental injuries to PCG/Ts on the development of accident prevention strategies.

Methods: The study is a randomized controlled trial in PCG/Ts in the former Trent Region.

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Objectives: Waiting times in emergency departments (EDs) are an important government priority. Although substantial efforts are currently being made to reduce waiting times, little attention has been paid to the patients' view. We used qualitative methods to explore patients' perspectives on waiting times and other approaches to rationing and prioritisation.

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