Improving Domestic Violence Screening and Follow-Up in a Community Health Clinic.

Purpose: To implement an improved DV screening and follow-up protocol at a suburban community health clinic that is consistently used by staff with appropriate female patients as well as to assess provider/staff barriers to this.

Methods: The project was completed at a community health clinic and included 2 presentations: the first to outline current practices as well as the intervention plan at the pre-intervention time point and then to review results of the intervention and elicit feedback post intervention. Provider/staff barrier surveys were completed at both time points.

Semaglutide treatment attenuates vessel remodelling in ApoE-/- mice following vascular injury and blood flow perturbation.

Background And Aims: Randomized clinical studies have shown a reduction in cardiovascular outcomes with glucagon-like peptide 1 receptor agonist (GLP-1RA) treatment with the hypothesized mechanisms being an underlying effect on atherosclerosis. Here, we aimed to assess the pharmacological effects of semaglutide in an atheroprone murine model that recapitulates central mechanisms related to vascular smooth muscle cell (VSMC) phenotypic switching and endothelial dysfunction known to operate within the atherosclerotic plaque.

Methods: In study A, we employed an electrical current to the carotid artery in ApoE-/- mice to induce severe VSMC injury and death, after which the arteries were allowed to heal for 4 weeks.

Influence of mechanical power and its components on mechanical ventilation in SARS-CoV-2.

Objective: To analyze the influence of mechanical power and its components on mechanical ventilation for patients infected with SARS-CoV-2; identify the values of the mechanical ventilation components and verify their correlations with each other and with the mechanical power and effects on the result of the Gattinoni-S and Giosa formulas.

Methods: This was an observational, longitudinal, analytical and quantitative study of respirator and mechanical power parameters in patients with SARS-CoV-2.

Results: The mean mechanical power was 26.

Are Clinicians Contributing to Excess African American COVID-19 Deaths? Unbeknownst to Them, They May Be.

African Americans are overrepresented among reported coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) cases and deaths. There are a multitude of factors that may explain the African American disparity in COVID-19 outcomes, including higher rates of comorbidities. While individual-level factors predictably contribute to disparate COVID-19 outcomes, systematic and structural factors have not yet been reported.

Relationship of Iron Deposition to Calcium Deposition in Human Aortic Valve Leaflets.

Background: Intraleaflet hematomas are associated with advanced stages of aortic valve calcification and suspected to be involved in disease progression. However, the mechanism by which the entry of blood cells into the valves affects the biology of aortic valvular interstitial cells (VICs) remains to be elucidated.

Objectives: This study sought to evaluate the putative link between intraleaflet hematoma and aortic valve calcification and to assess its pathophysiological implications.

Haemodynamic stress-induced breaches of the arterial intima trigger inflammation and drive atherogenesis.

Aims: Inflammatory mediators, including blood cells and their products, contribute critically to atherogenesis, but the igniting triggers of inflammation remain elusive. Atherosclerosis develops at sites of flow perturbation, where the enhanced haemodynamic stress could initiate the atherogenic inflammatory process due to the occurrence of mechanic injury. We investigated the role of haemodynamic stress-induced breaches, allowing the entry of blood cells in the arterial intima, in triggering inflammation-driven atherogenesis.

Neutrophil Extracellular Traps Induce Endothelial Cell Activation and Tissue Factor Production Through Interleukin-1α and Cathepsin G.

Objective- Coronary artery thrombosis can occur in the absence of plaque rupture because of superficial erosion. Erosion-prone atheromata associate with more neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs) than lesions with stable or rupture-prone characteristics. The effects of NETs on endothelial cell (EC) inflammatory and thrombogenic properties remain unknown.

Recent dynamics of hydro-ecosystems in thermokarst depressions in Central Siberia from satellite and in situ observations: Importance for agriculture and human life.

Alases, which are thermokarst depressions that are occupied by grasslands and lakes, are an important element of the Central Yakutian periglacial landscape. In recent decades, climatic changes in Central Yakutia have resulted in important changes in environmental conditions. We use different remote-sensing instruments (Landsat 8, TerraSAR-X, ENVISAT-RA2, and Jason-2) alongside in situ observations to investigate 1) the spatial distribution and water regime of alas lakes and their relationships with climatic and geomorphologic factors, 2) the relationship of the alas' grassland productivity with the water regime and 3) the potential of alas grasslands for local agriculture.

Mechanisms of erosion of atherosclerotic plaques.

Purpose Of Review: The present review explores the mechanisms of superficial intimal erosion, a common cause of thrombotic complications of atherosclerosis.

Recent Findings: Human coronary artery atheroma that give rise to thrombosis because of erosion differ diametrically from those associated with fibrous cap rupture. Eroded lesions characteristically contain few inflammatory cells, abundant extracellular matrix, and neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs).

Flow Perturbation Mediates Neutrophil Recruitment and Potentiates Endothelial Injury via TLR2 in Mice: Implications for Superficial Erosion.

Rationale: Superficial erosion currently causes up to a third of acute coronary syndromes; yet, we lack understanding of its mechanisms. Thrombi because of superficial intimal erosion characteristically complicate matrix-rich atheromata in regions of flow perturbation.

Objective: This study tested in vivo the involvement of disturbed flow and of neutrophils, hyaluronan, and Toll-like receptor 2 ligation in superficial intimal injury, a process implicated in superficial erosion.

Diameter and thickness-related variations in mechanical properties of degraded arterial wall in the rat xenograft model.

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the diameter and thickness-related variations in mechanical properties of degraded arterial wall. To this end, ring tests were performed on 31 samples from the rat xenograft model of abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) and failure properties were determined. An inverse finite element method was then employed to identify the material parameters of a hyperelastic and incompressible strain energy function.

MicroRNA-181b inhibits thrombin-mediated endothelial activation and arterial thrombosis by targeting caspase recruitment domain family member 10.

Thrombogenic and inflammatory mediators, such as thrombin, induce NF-κB-mediated endothelial cell (EC) activation and dysfunction, which contribute to pathogenesis of arterial thrombosis. The role of anti-inflammatory microRNA-181b (miR-181b) on thrombosis remains unknown. Our previous study demonstrated that miR-181b inhibits downstream NF-κB signaling in response to TNF-α.

Genesis and growth of extracellular-vesicle-derived microcalcification in atherosclerotic plaques.

Clinical evidence links arterial calcification and cardiovascular risk. Finite-element modelling of the stress distribution within atherosclerotic plaques has suggested that subcellular microcalcifications in the fibrous cap may promote material failure of the plaque, but that large calcifications can stabilize it. Yet the physicochemical mechanisms underlying such mineral formation and growth in atheromata remain unknown.

Evidence of estrone-sulfate uptake modification in young and middle-aged rat prostate.

High plasma exposure to estrogens is often associated with prostate cancer. Reducing this phenomenon may present therapeutic benefits. The involvement of estrone sulphate (E1S), the most abundant circulating estrogen in men, has been partially studied in this age-related pathology.

TLR2 and neutrophils potentiate endothelial stress, apoptosis and detachment: implications for superficial erosion.

Aims: Superficial erosion of atheromata causes many acute coronary syndromes, but arises from unknown mechanisms. This study tested the hypothesis that Toll-like receptor-2 (TLR2) activation contributes to endothelial apoptosis and denudation and thus contributes to the pathogenesis of superficial erosion.

Methods And Results: Toll-like receptor-2 and neutrophils localized at sites of superficially eroded human plaques.

The wage of fame: how non-epistemic motives have enabled the phenomenal success of modern science.

This paper ventures an economic view of modern science. It points out how science works as a closed economy of attention where researchers invest their own attention in order to get the attention of fellow researchers. Attention thus enters economy in two properties: (1) as a scarce resource energising scientific production and (2) as a means of gratification rewarding the effort of the working scientist.

Chemokine (C-X-C motif) receptor 4 blockade by AMD3100 inhibits experimental abdominal aortic aneurysm expansion through anti-inflammatory effects.

Objective: Inflammation plays a critical role in the development of abdominal aortic aneurysms (AAAs). Because stromal cell-derived factor 1 (SDF-1) is known for its ability to attract inflammatory cells, we investigated whether SDF-1/chemokine (C-X-C motif) receptor 4 (CXCR4) axis is expressed in aneurysmal aortic wall and plays a role in AAA physiopathology and asked whether its blockade modulates AAA formation and expansion.

Approach And Results: Quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction analysis showed that SDF-1α and CXCR4 mRNA levels are increased in both human and CaCl2-induced mouse AAA wall and are positively correlated to the aortic diameter in mice.