Membrane-bound receptor for advanced glycation end products (RAGE) is a stable biomarker of low-quality sperm.

Study Question: Does receptor for advanced glycation end products (RAGE) on the surface membrane of the sperm cell function as a biomarker of low-quality sperm?

Summary Answer: Membrane-bound RAGE at a cellular level directly correlates with low sperm motility, high cell permeability, decreased mitochondrial function, DNA fragmentation, and higher levels of apoptosis.

What Is Known Already: RAGE has previously been measured by ELISA in low-quality sperm in diabetic men and has been shown to correlate with DNA fragmentation (terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase dUTP nick end labelling (TUNEL) assay).

Study Design Size Duration: Semen samples were recovered from 60 non-obese, non-diabetic and non-smoking subjects, washed with fresh media, and analysed directly or purified further by differential gradient centrifugation (DGC) or fractionated by direct swim-up before being analysed for sperm motility and molecular health parameters, including cell membrane permeability, cell death, mitochondrial membrane potential, DNA fragmentation, and RAGE protein expression.

COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy and patient self-advocacy: a statistical analysis of those who can and can't get vaccinated.

Background: This study applies the Patient Self-Advocacy scale to investigate vaccine hesitancy in New Zealand. Due to New Zealand's very limited tertiary hospital system and vulnerable populations, the Government's strategy to address COVID-19 has been to prevent the virus from entering the nation and to eliminate it when it does cross the border. Therefore, there is no opportunity for the nation to generate any acquired immunity through exposure.

"You're kind of at war with yourself as a nurse": Perspectives of inpatient nurses on treating people who present with a comorbid opioid use disorder.

Background: In the midst of an opioid epidemic, health care workers are encountering an increasing number of patients who have opioid use disorder in addition to complex social, behavioral and medical issues. Of all the clinicians in the hospital, nurses spend the most time with hospitalized patients who have opioid use disorder, yet there has been little research exploring their experiences in caring for this population. The objective of this study was to assess the attitudes, perceptions, and training needs of nurses in the inpatient setting when caring for patients who have opioid use disorder.

Evaluation of Whatsapp for Promoting Social Presence in a First Year Undergraduate Radiography Problem-Based Learning Group.

The article reports the findings of an analysis into student postings on a mobile instant messaging service (WhatsApp) established to develop social presence in a small group of first-year undergraduate radiography students. The analysis was carried out using a validated and reported tool specifically designed to identify categories of social presence, developed using the Community of Enquiry theoretical model. The students themselves undertook the analysis, which enhanced validity due to participant verification of findings.

(1)H NMR based metabolic profiling of day 2 spent embryo media correlates with implantation potential.

Morphological assessment is currently the primary technique for selection of viable embryos for uterine transfer during assisted reproductive techniques, however this method has limited predictive power. The objective of this study was to employ NMR based metabolic profiling analysis of spent embryo culture media to identify novel biomarkers of embryo viability and provide insight into the metabolism of a viable embryo. A total of 37 patients undergoing IVF/ICSI treatment were recruited and 58 media samples were collected from embryos that were transferred back to the uterus.

Patients' and relatives' experiences of transfer from intensive care unit to wards.

Aims: This literature review looks at the evidence around transferring patients from intensive care units (ICU) to wards. The literature informs us that patients and their families experience problems when being transferred from an ICU environment and that this increases overall anxiety.

Background: The effects of surviving critical illness often have a profound psychological impact on patients and families This study examines the experiences of adult patients, and their families, following their transfer from the ICU to the ward.

Thallophilic interactions and Tl-aryl π-interactions are competitive with cation-cation repulsion: [LTl2L]2+ dications as salts of weakly co-ordinating anions.

The synthesis and characterization by single-crystal X-ray diffraction of two thallium salts of the non-co-ordinating anion [B{3,5-(CF3)2C6H3}4] are reported. They possess Tl-Tl contacts supported by Tl-aryl interaction. This cation association overcomes both electrostatic repulsion and cation-anion size and charge matching considerations in the [LTl2L](2+) dications so formed.

Potential sources of bisphenol A in the neonatal intensive care unit.

Objectives: To determine whether nutritional intake and medical devices are bisphenol A (BPA) exposure sources among premature infants in the NICU.

Methods: Mothers and their premature infants cared for in the NICU for the past 3 days were recruited for this exposure assessment study. Forty-three mothers contributed 1 nutrition sample (breast milk or formula) to characterize the infant's intake.

Cadmium teratogenesis in the chick: period of vulnerability using the early chick culture method, and prevention by divalent cations.

Cadmium (Cd) is teratogenic in chick embryos following treatment in ovo or in shell-less culture. We investigated the ability of other divalent cations (Mn, Ni, Se, Mg and Ca) to influence the effects of Cd. As the proposed mechanism of protection of these ions is prevention of Cd influx by blocking or competing for Ca channels, we also assessed verapamil, a Ca-channel blocker.

The domestication of AIDS: stigma, gender, and the body politic in Japan.

In this article, I examine the processes by which AIDS has been "domesticated," and Japanese women stigmatized as vectors of HIV/AIDS, once regarded as a "foreign" disease in Japan. Women are associated with ritual pollution and impurity in the Shinto tradition. At the same time, Japanese women are blamed for eschewing marriage and motherhood in favor of material pursuits.

Tainted blood and vengeful spirits: the legacy of Japan's yakugai eizu (AIDS) trial.

Medical anthropologists often point to the importance of "illness narratives" as emergent or incipient forms in which patients attempt to make sense of the moral dimensions of illness and suffering (Kleinman 1988; Mattingly 1998). In this article I draw upon published accounts, newspapers, and legal documents, supplemented by ethnographic interviews carried out from 1999 to 2001, to show how plaintiffs in the yakugai AIDS trials brought by HIV-infected hemophiliacs against the Japanese government and the pharmaceutical industries that sold them tainted blood products appropriated powerful cultural themes in producing narrative accounts of their suffering. These narratives resonate with themes of lost trust, filial piety, and the desire for a "good death.

Gastroenteritis and environmental health among Aboriginal infants and children in Western Australia.

Objective: To retrospectively examine rates of hospitalization of infants and children in Western Australia for gastroenteritis from 1994 through 2000.

Methodology: Analysis of hospital separations data from the Hospital Morbidity Data System of the Department of Health, Western Australia.

Results: Rates of hospitalization of Aboriginal infants and children for gastroenteritis from 1994 to 2000 in Western Australia were approximately seven times higher than for their non-Aboriginal peers.

Transport of the lipophilic analog minocycline differs from that of tetracycline in susceptible and resistant Escherichia coli strains.

Plasmids which specify resistance to tetracycline offer much less resistance to its more lipophilic analog, minocycline. Resistance to minocycline varies for different plasmids. In the case of plasmid R222 (bearing the class B tetracycline resistance determinant on Tn10), minocycline resistance is comparatively high (10 microgram/ml, or 6% of the tetracycline resistance level).

Active uptake of tetracycline by membrane vesicles from susceptible Escherichia coli.

A major portion of tetracycline accumulation by susceptible bacterial cells is energy dependent. Inner membrane vesicles prepared from susceptible Escherichia coli cells concentrated tetracycline 2.5 to 5 times above the external concentration when the electron transport substrate D-lactate or reduced phenazine methosulfate was added.

Medical staff bylaws: regulations or contract?

St. John's Hospital Medical Staff v. St.