Feasibility study of early outpatient review and early cardiac rehabilitation after cardiac surgery: mixed-methods research design-a study protocol.

Introduction: Following cardiac surgery, patients currently attend an outpatient review 6 weeks after hospital discharge, where recovery is assessed and suitability to commence cardiac rehabilitation (CR) is determined. CR is then started from 8 weeks. Following a median sternotomy, cardiac surgery patients are required to refrain from upper body exercises, lifting of heavy objects and other strenuous activities for 12 weeks.

Liposomal Irinotecan + 5-FU/LV in Metastatic Pancreatic Cancer: Subgroup Analyses of Patient, Tumor, and Previous Treatment Characteristics in the Pivotal NAPOLI-1 Trial.

Objectives: The NAnoliPOsomaL Irinotecan (NAPOLI-1) study (NCT01494506) was the largest global phase 3 study in a post-gemcitabine metastatic pancreatic adenocarcinoma (mPAC) population (N = 417). The subanalyses reported here investigated the prognostic effect of tumor characteristics and disease stage, prior treatment characteristics, baseline patient characteristics on survival outcomes in NAPOLI-1, and whether liposomal irinotecan (nal-IRI) + 5-fluorouracil/leucovorin (5-FU/LV) benefited patients with mPAC across subgroups.

Methods: Post hoc analyses were performed in the NAPOLI-1 population (4 across tumor characteristics and disease stage, 6 across prior treatment characteristics, and 4 across patient baseline characteristics).

Poor allocation concealment methods are associated with heterogeneity in age and statistical significance of the primary outcome: Review of recent trials published in four general medical journals.

Objective: To assess the association of the quality of allocation concealment with heterogeneity in age, the P value of the primary outcome and statistical significance of the primary outcome.

Study Design And Setting: We extracted data from articles published in four major medical journals in 2017 and 2018 that reported the results of randomized controlled trials. The outcome measures were the quality of allocation concealment used in the trial, the P value of the primary outcome, whether the P value of the primary outcome was statistically significant and the level of heterogeneity in age between the treatment groups (measured using the I statistic).

Engineering of Chinese hamster ovary cell lipid metabolism results in an expanded ER and enhanced recombinant biotherapeutic protein production.

Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cell expression systems have been exquisitely developed for the production of recombinant biotherapeutics (e.g. standard monoclonal antibodies, mAbs) and are able to generate efficacious, multi-domain proteins with human-like post translational modifications at high concentration with appropriate product quality attributes.

Weekly dose-dense chemotherapy in first-line epithelial ovarian, fallopian tube, or primary peritoneal carcinoma treatment (ICON8): primary progression free survival analysis results from a GCIG phase 3 randomised controlled trial.

Background: Carboplatin and paclitaxel administered every 3 weeks is standard-of-care first-line chemotherapy for epithelial ovarian cancer. The Japanese JGOG3016 trial showed a significant improvement in progression-free and overall survival with dose-dense weekly paclitaxel and 3-weekly carboplatin. In this study, we aimed to compare efficacy and safety of two dose-dense weekly regimens to standard 3-weekly chemotherapy in a predominantly European population with epithelial ovarian cancer.

Highly efficient head-only magnetic field insert gradient coil for achieving simultaneous high gradient amplitude and slew rate at 3.0T (MAGNUS) for brain microstructure imaging.

Purpose: To develop a highly efficient magnetic field gradient coil for head imaging that achieves 200 mT/m and 500 T/m/s on each axis using a standard 1 MVA gradient driver in clinical whole-body 3.0T MR magnet.

Methods: A 42-cm inner diameter head-gradient used the available 89- to 91-cm warm bore space in a whole-body 3.

Evaluating Soybean Aphid-Resistant Varieties in Different Environments to Estimate Financial Outcomes.

Farmers face many choices when selecting seed for soybean (Glycine max (L.) Merr.) production, including highly desired herbicide tolerance traits.

Landholder typologies illuminate pathways for social change in a deforestation hotspot.

Psychosocial factors determine individual and collective behaviours, and there is growing evidence of their influence on land management behaviours. Native vegetation management encompasses biophysical, economic, political, and cultural dimensions that are immensely complex, and a more thorough understanding of the personal and cultural dimensions of deforestation activity is required. We emphasise this interdisciplinary imperative using Queensland, Australia, as an exemplar case study, where the controversial Vegetation Management Act1999 has been met with significant scrutiny over its effects on private landholders and its ability to curb deforestation behaviours.

A Novel Technique to Secure the Skull Post in a Thin Skull Allowing for Surgical Navigation in Infants.

Several surgical procedures have been described to correct the deformities associated with craniosynostosis. To simplify the prediction of results, virtual planning techniques and image-guided surgery have been used. Digital planning can be transferred to the operating room using osteotomy and cutting guides or surgical navigation.

Tobacco Use and Tobacco-Related Behaviors - 11 Countries, 2008-2017.

Each year, tobacco use is responsible for approximately 8 million deaths worldwide, including 7 million deaths among persons who use tobacco and 1.2 million deaths among nonsmokers exposed to secondhand smoke (SHS) (1). Approximately 80% of the 1.

Are we SAFE now? An evaluation of the Seatbelts Are for Everyone teen traffic safety program in Kansas.

Teens represent the highest risk group for automobile accidents and are almost 3 times as likely to be killed in an accident. Seat belt use interventions are one way to address this issue, and a student-led program in Kansas called Seatbelts Are For Everyone (SAFE) has increased seat belt use for the past decade. An evaluation of SAFE enabled decisions to be made about program improvement and expansion.

One-step pentaplex real-time polymerase chain reaction assay for detection of zika, dengue, chikungunya, West nile viruses and a human housekeeping gene.

Background: Recent emergence of Zika virus (ZIKV), and the global spread of dengue (DENV), chikungunya (CHIKV) and West Nile viruses (WNV) raised urgent need of accurate and affordable molecular diagnosis of these clinically indistinguishable arboviral infections.

Objectives: We established a pentaplex real-time reverse transcription PCR (rRT-PCR) assay (CII-ArboViroPlex rRT-PCR) for specific and sensitive detection of the African and American genotypes of ZIKV, all four serotypes of DENV, CHIKV, WNV and a housekeeping gene as internal control in single reaction.

Study Design: Specific primers and probe sets were designed for ZIKV, DENV, CHIKV, WNV and RNase P (housekeeping gene) and tested for in-vitro transcribed RNA standards, virus cultures, clinical samples positive for ZIKV, DENV, CHIKV and WNV and limit of detection (LOD) were determined for each.

Design, Synthesis, Characterization, and Insecticidal Bioefficacy Screening of Some New Pyridine Derivatives.

A lot of insecticides are found nowadays, but neonicotinoids are considered the most famous. So, a series of pyridine derivatives neonicotinoids analogues, namely, 3-cyano-4,6-dimethylpyridine-2(1)-one (), 2-chloro-3-cyano-4,6-dimethylpyridine (), 3-cyano-4,6-dimethylpyridine-2(1)-thione (), 3-cyano-4,6-distyrylpyridine-2(1)-thione (), 2-((3-cyano-4,6-distyrylpyridin-2-yl)thio)--phenylacetamide (), 3-amino--phenyl-4,6-distyrylthieno[2,3-]pyridine-2-carboxamide (), 2-((3-cyano-4,6-distyrylpyridin-2-yl)thio)--(-tolyl)acetamide (), 3-amino-4,6-distyryl--(-tolyl)thieno[2,3-]pyridine-2-carboxamide (), 2-((3-cyano-4,6-distyrylpyridin-2-yl)thio)--(4-methoxyphenyl)acetamide (), and 3-amino--(4-methoxyphenyl)-4,6-distyrylthieno[2,3-]pyridine-2-carboxamide (), have been designed and synthesized in pure state, and their agricultural bioefficacy as insecticides against cowpea aphid Koch was screened. The structures of the synthesized compounds were verified by means of spectroscopic and elemental analyses.

The holistic management of fatigue within palliative care.

Background: Fatigue is a common symptom experienced by people with cancer and other long-term, non-malignant conditions. It can be disease-related or caused by treatments such as chemotherapy or radiotherapy. Patients frequently report this as a distressing symptom and, while some international guidelines for its management exist, evidence suggests that these are not always implemented.

Macroalgae as spatial and temporal bioindicators of coastal metal pollution following remediation and diversion of acid mine drainage.

Acid mine drainage (AMD) is a significant contributor of metal pollution leading to ecosystem damage. Bioindicator organisms such as intertidal brown macroalgae have an important role in quantifying the risks of metal bioaccumulation in coastal locations exposed to AMD contamination. Measurement of As, Cd, Cu, Fe, Pb, and Zn accumulation was performed in Fucus serratus, Fucus vesiculosus and Ascophyllum nodosum sampled from two marine locations near to an abandoned Cu mine in Anglesey, Wales, UK.

Infected Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm After Transrectal Ultrasound-Guided Biopsy of the Prostate: A Report of Two Cases.

Primary infected abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) is an uncommon presentation which can be associated with significant morbidity and mortality. In this report, we present 2 cases of infected AAAs less than 10 days after a transrectal ultrasound-guided (TRUS) prostate biopsy. A 63-year-old male presenting with sepsis and back pain 9 days after TRUS biopsy was found to have a 27-mm ectatic abdominal aorta which expanded to 59 mm in the course of a week, despite antibiotic therapy.

Toxin-mediated competition in weakly motile bacteria.

Many bacterial species produce toxins that inhibit their competitors. We model this phenomenon by extending classic two-species Lotka-Volterra competition in one spatial dimension to incorporate toxin production by one species. Considering solutions comprising two adjacent single-species colonies, we show how the toxin inhibits the susceptible species near the interface between the two colonies.

Free trade and opioid overdose death in the United States.

Opioid overdose deaths in the U.S. rose dramatically after 1999, but also exhibited substantial geographic variation.

High-fidelity detection and sorting of nanoscale vesicles in viral disease and cancer.

Biological nanoparticles, including viruses and extracellular vesicles (EVs), are of interest to many fields of medicine as biomarkers and mediators of or treatments for disease. However, exosomes and small viruses fall below the detection limits of conventional flow cytometers due to the overlap of particle-associated scattered light signals with the detection of background instrument noise from diffusely scattered light. To identify, sort, and study distinct subsets of EVs and other nanoparticles, as individual particles, we developed nanoscale Fluorescence Analysis and Cytometric Sorting (nanoFACS) methods to maximise information and material that can be obtained with high speed, high resolution flow cytometers.

The thin profunda femoral artery perforator flap for tongue reconstruction.

Background: With the ongoing global epidemic of obesity in the Western countries, thigh flaps such as the profunda artery perforator (PAP) free flap, have been less favorable for glossectomy reconstruction due to large bulk of adipose tissue associated with traditional subfascial harvest. In this article, we present a series of 10 patients who underwent reconstruction with suprafascial PAP free flaps following oncologic tongue resection.

Methods: Our series included six men and four women with an average age of 53.

A Co-Rotational Based Anisotropic Elasto-Plastic Model for Geometrically Non-Linear Analysis of Fibre Reinforced Polymer Composites: Formulation and Finite Element Implementation.

Geometrical non-linearity is one of the aspects to be taken into account for accurate analysis of fibre reinforced polymers (FRPs), since large displacements and rotations may be observed in many of its structural applications such as in aircraft wings and wind turbine blades. In this paper, a co-rotational formulation and implementation of an invariant-based anisotropic plasticity model are presented for geometrically non-linear analysis of FRPs. The anisotropic constitutive equations are formulated in the format of isotropic tensors functions.

Lysine 68 acetylation directs MnSOD as a tetrameric detoxification complex versus a monomeric tumor promoter.

Manganese superoxide dismutase (MnSOD) functions as a tumor suppressor; however, once tumorigenesis occurs, clinical data suggest MnSOD levels correlate with more aggressive human tumors, implying a potential dual function of MnSOD in the regulation of metabolism. Here we show, using in vitro transformation and xenograft growth assays that the MnSOD-K68 acetylation (Ac) mimic mutant (MnSOD) functions as a tumor promoter. Interestingly, in various breast cancer and primary cell types the expression of MnSOD is accompanied with a change of MnSOD's stoichiometry from a known homotetramer complex to a monomeric form.

Achieving conservation impact by shifting focus from human attitudes to behaviors.

Attitudes have been a commonly used psychological measure of program effectiveness in conservation social science research. The major limitation of this approach is that attitudes do not always translate into behavior and therefore may not provide an accurate assessment of program success. Given that achieving conservation goals generally relies on understanding and changing human behavior, we argue for the need to assess behavior rather than attitudes as an indicator of conservation outcomes.

The association of microbial activity with Fe, S and trace element distribution in sediment cores within a natural wetland polluted by acid mine drainage.

Natural recovery and remediation of acid mine drainage (AMD) reduces the generation of acidity and transport of trace elements in the runoff. A natural wetland that receives and remediates AMD from an abandoned copper mine at Parys Mountain (Anglesey, UK) was investigated for better understanding of the remediation mechanisms. Water column concentrations of dissolved Fe and S species, trace metal (loid)s and acidity decreased markedly as the mine drainage stream passed through the wetland.