Collaboration in chronic care: unpacking the relationship of pharmacists and general medical practitioners in primary care.

Objectives: The objective of this research was to gain deeper understanding of the expectations, experiences and perceptions of Australian general medication practitioners (GPs) and pharmacists around collaboration in chronic illness (asthma) management in the primary care setting.

Methods: A qualitative research methodology utilising a semi-structured interview guide, based on theory and an empirical approach, was used to fulfill the objectives of this study. Face-to-face interviews with pharmacists (n = 18) and GPs (n = 7) were recorded, transcribed and coded for concepts and themes.

Isolated traumatic bilateral first rib fracture: a rare entity.

Since the first rib is protected very well by the overlying soft tissue and bones, its fracture is a major injury and a considerable force is required to do it. Therefore, an isolated fracture of this rib is unusual. A 28-year-old healthy female had an accident while crossing the road and a heavy object fell on her.

Circulation of a novel pattern of infections by enteric adenovirus serotype 41 among children below 5 years of age in Kolkata, India.

Human adenovirus of strains subgenus F (AdV F) are the most common strains detected in acute gastroenteritis cases in developing countries. Subgenus F is represented by AdV serotype 40 (AdV-40) and AdV-41. Most of the reports have described the predominance of AdV-41 in acute gastroenteritis cases.

Role of nerve growth factor in ozone-induced neural responses in early postnatal airway development.

Airway neural plasticity contributes to the process of airway remodeling in response to airway irritants. However, the mechanisms of neural remodeling in the airways during the early postnatal period, when responses to airway irritation may be most sensitive, have not been characterized. This study used a rat model to examine a possible mechanism of ozone (O(3))-induced neural hyperresponsiveness during a critical period of developmental, postnatal day (PD) 6, that may be mediated by the neurotrophin nerve growth factor (NGF), resulting in an enhanced release of inflammatory neuropeptide substance P (SP) from airway nerves.

Using more environmentally friendly solvents and benign catalysts in performing conventional organic reactions.

The protection of the environment from toxic materials is an area of increasing concern. This review describes selected chemical processes that use more environmentally friendly solvents and less toxic catalysts. For example, water, ionic liquids and supercritical fluids have demonstrated promising activity as alternative benign reaction media for various reactions.

Treatment of asthma: Identification of the practice behavior and the deviation from the guideline recommendations.

Background: Despite an exponential development of the understanding of the disease with availability of good therapy and feasibility of good control along with availability of globally accepted guidelines, there remains a significant gap between the guidelines and prevailing practice behavior for treating asthma all over the globe. This perhaps stands as the single most deterrent factor for good asthma care worldwide. The objective of the study is to analyze the asthma prescriptions to find out the available status of the practice behaviour and the deviations from the guideline in asthma practice.

Ocular leech infestation.

A 67-year-old myopic man presented to the Ophthalmology Department of a teaching hospital in the mountainous state of Sikkim with complaints of red eye, ocular discomfort, and sensation of something moving in his right eye that led to occasional visual blurring from the previous four days. His symptoms started after washing his face in a stream. Clinical diagnosis was a leech in the limbus of the right eye at the 12 o'clock position.

On the [3 + 2] annulation of cyclic allylsilanes with N-phenyltriazolinedione: an enantio- and diastereoselective synthesis of cis-1,3-diaminocyclitols.

Improved conditions were found to trigger [3 + 2] annulation of cyclic allylsilanes with N-phenyltriazolinedione (PTAD); the products from this reaction were readily tailored into cis-1,3-diaminocyclitols in highly enantioenriched form with full stereochemical control of up to four contiguous stereogenic centers.

Characterization of a Leishmania stage-specific mitochondrial membrane protein that enhances the activity of cytochrome c oxidase and its role in virulence.

Leishmaniasis is caused by the dimorphic protozoan parasite Leishmania. Differentiation of the insect form, promastigotes, to the vertebrate form, amastigotes, and survival inside the vertebrate host accompanies a drastic metabolic shift. We describe a gene first identified in amastigotes that is essential for survival inside the host.

Endocannabinoids inhibit the growth of free-living amoebae.

The cannabinoid Delta(9)-tetrahydrocannabinol inhibits the growth of some pathogenic amoebae in vitro and exacerbates amoebic encephalitis in animal models. However, the effects of endogenous cannabinoids on amoebae remain unknown. Therefore, we tested several endocannabinoids (N-acyl ethanolamines and 2-O-acyl glycerol) on different genera of amoebae.

The role of long-term doxycycline in patients of idiopathic pulmonaryfibrosis: The results of an open prospective trial.

Objective: To evaluate the effect of long term use of doxycycline in IPF patients.

Materials And Methods: Patients of IPF, selected randomly from out patient services and diagnosed on the basis of HRCT chest, were put on doxycycline in an open prospective trial. They were followed up with monitoring of subjective well being along with measurement of pulse rate and arterial oxygen saturation at rest and after a fixed and certain exercise, forced vital capacity, six minutes walk test, St Georges Respiratory questionnaire, and serial chest X-rays.

Electrochemically derived redox molecular architecture: a novel electrochemical interface for voltammetric sensing.

Redox-active molecular architectures are electrochemically derived on the electrode surface by Michael addition reaction of o-quinone with surface adsorbed nucleophiles. Electrogenerated o-quinone undergoes facile Michael addition reaction with nucleophile mercaptotriazole (MTz) and mercaptoimidazole (MIm) preassembled on Au electrode. The Michael addition reaction yields redox molecular architectures of 4-(3-mercapto-[1,2,4]triazol-1-yl)-benzene-1,2-diol (MTBD) and 4-(2-mercapto-imidazol-1-yl)-benzene-1,2-diol (MIBD).

Bioanalytical applications of au nanoparticles.

Nanoscale Au particles are received with significant interest in the recent years owing to their unique properties, which originate from the quantum scale dimension. Although colloidal Au has been known since ancient times for the decoration of glasses and for its curative powers, the technological importance has been understood only in the last two decades. The fascinating optical and electronic properties of the Au nanoparticles made them an excellent candidate in the development of nanoscale devices.

Crystal structure of the p53 core domain bound to a full consensus site as a self-assembled tetramer.

Recent studies suggest that p53 binds predominantly to consensus sites composed of two decameric half-sites with zero spacing in vivo. Here we report the crystal structure of the p53 core domain bound to a full consensus site as a tetramer at 2.13A resolution.

Structure of the MADS-box/MEF2 domain of MEF2A bound to DNA and its implication for myocardin recruitment.

Myocyte enhancer factor 2 (MEF2) regulates specific gene expression in diverse developmental programs and adaptive responses. MEF2 recognizes DNA and interacts with transcription cofactors through a highly conserved N-terminal domain referred to as the MADS-box/MEF2 domain. Here we present the crystal structure of the MADS-box/MEF2 domain of MEF2A bound to DNA.

Sensory neural responses to ozone exposure during early postnatal development in rat airways.

Airway infections or irritant exposures during early postnatal periods may contribute to the onset of childhood asthma. The purpose of this study was to examine critical periods of postnatal airway development during which ozone (O(3)) exposure leads to heightened neural responses. Rats were exposed to O(3) (2 ppm) or filtered air for 1 hour on specific postnatal days (PDs) between PD1 and PD29, and killed 24 hours after exposure.

Prenatal and early, but not late, postnatal exposure of mice to sidestream tobacco smoke increases airway hyperresponsiveness later in life.

Background: Cigarette smoke exposure in utero and during early postnatal development increases the incidence of asthma and airway hyperresponsiveness (AHR) later in life, suggesting that a possible critical period of developmental sensitivity exists in the prenatal and early postnatal periods.

Objective: We investigated mechanisms of susceptibility during critical developmental periods to sidestream smoke (SS) exposure and evaluated the possible effects of SS on neural responses.

Methods: We exposed three different age groups of mice to either SS or filtered air (FA) for 10 consecutive days beginning on gestation day (GD) 7 by maternal exposure or beginning on postnatal day (PND) 2 or PND21 by direct inhalation.

CH/pi interaction in benzene and substituted derivatives with halomethane: a combined density functional and dispersion-corrected density functional study.

The present work intends to establish the efficiency of dispersion-corrected density functionals in explaining the potential energy curves of benzene-methane, benzene-fluoroform, and 1,3,5-trifluoro benzene-methane complexes. The interaction energies of all of the complexes under investigation have been evaluated using both van der Waals-corrected and normal gradient-corrected Perdew-Burke-Ernzerhof and Becke-Lee-Yang-Parr density functionals. Our analyses suggest that the potential energy curves for both benzene-methane and benzene-fluoroform complexes are in excellent agreement with highly accurate coupled cluster (CCSD(T)) results as well as high-level counterpoise-corrected MP2 results.

Intracellular replication-deficient Leishmania donovani induces long lasting protective immunity against visceral leishmaniasis.

No vaccine is currently available for visceral leishmaniasis (VL) caused by Leishmania donovani. This study addresses whether a live attenuated centrin gene-deleted L. donovani (LdCen1(-/-)) parasite can persist and be both safe and protective in animals.

A2A adenosine receptor deficiency leads to impaired tracheal relaxation via NADPH oxidase pathway in allergic mice.

A(2A) adenosine receptor (A(2A)AR) has been shown to suppress superoxide generation in leukocytes via the cAMP-protein kinase A (PKA) pathway. However, no study has yet explored the role of A(2A)AR in relation to NADPH oxidase in murine tracheas in vitro, which may lead to altered smooth muscle relaxation in asthma. Therefore, the present study evaluated the effects of A(2A)AR deficiency on the NADPH oxidase pathway in tracheas of A(2A) wild-type (WT) and A(2A) knockout (KO) mice.

A cytokine-cytokine interaction in the assembly of higher-order structure and activation of the interleukine-3:receptor complex.

Interleukine-3 (IL-3) binds its receptor and initiates a cascade of signaling processes that regulate the proliferation and differentiation of hematopoietic cells. To understand the detailed mechanisms of IL-3 induced receptor activation, we generated a homology model of the IL-3:receptor complex based on the closely related crystal structure of the GM-CSF:receptor complex. Model-predicted interactions between IL-3 and its receptor are in excellent agreement with mutagenesis data, which validate the model and establish a detailed view of IL-3:receptor interaction.

Heat stress upregulates chaperone heat shock protein 70 and antioxidant manganese superoxide dismutase through reactive oxygen species (ROS), p38MAPK, and Akt.

Chinese hamster lung fibroblasts V79 cells were treated with heat stress for 4 weeks with short duration (15 min) heat shock every alternate day in culture. It was observed that Hsp 70 and the antioxidant enzyme MnSOD became overexpressed during the chronic heat stress period. Both p38 MAPK and Akt became phosphorylated by chronic heat stress exposure.

Climate change and respiratory disease: European Respiratory Society position statement.

Climate change will affect individuals with pre-existing respiratory disease, but the extent of the effect remains unclear. The present position statement was developed on behalf of the European Respiratory Society in order to identify areas of concern arising from climate change for individuals with respiratory disease, healthcare workers in the respiratory sector and policy makers. The statement was developed following a 2-day workshop held in Leuven (Belgium) in March 2008.

Cholesterol depletion associated with Leishmania major infection alters macrophage CD40 signalosome composition and effector function.

CD40, a costimulatory molecule expressed on macrophages, induces expression of interleukin 12 (IL-12) in uninfected macrophages and IL-10 in macrophages infected with Leishmania major. IL-12 suppresses, whereas IL-10 enhances, L. major infection.