Elevated Septal Native T1 Time in CMR Imaging Suggesting Myocardial Fibrosis in Young Kidney Transplant Recipients.

Background: Patients after kidney transplantation (KTx) in childhood show a high prevalence of cardiac complications, but the underlying mechanism is still poorly understood. In adults, myocardial fibrosis detected in cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) imaging is already an established risk factor. Data for children after KTx are not available.

Higher blood pressure targets for hypertension in older adults.

Background: This is an update of the original Cochrane review, published in 2017. Eight out of 10 major antihypertensive trials in adults, 65 years of age or older, attempted to achieve a target systolic blood pressure (BP) of < 160 mmHg. Collectively, these trials demonstrated cardiovascular benefit for treatment, compared to no treatment, for older adults with BP > 160 mmHg.

Relationship between high-resolution computed tomography quantitative imaging analysis and physiological and clinical features in antisynthetase syndrome-related interstitial lung disease.

Objectives: To explore the association between the extent of CT abnormalities by quantitative imaging analysis (QIA) and clinical/physiological disease parameters in patients with antisynthetase syndrome associated interstitial lung disease (ARS-ILD).

Methods: We analysed 20 patients with antisynthetase antibodies and active ILD enrolled in the Abatacept in Myositis-Associated Interstitial Lung Disease study. High-resolution chest CT was obtained at weeks 0, 24 and 48 and QIA scored the extent of ground glass (quantitative score for ground glass), fibrosis (quantitative score for lung fibrosis, QLF) and total ILD (quantitative ILD, QILD).

Personal choice shields against affective influences on effort in a "do your best" task: Effects on cardiac response.

This experiment (N = 113) tested whether personal choice vs. external assignment of task characteristics moderates the effect of incidental affective stimulation on effort-related cardiovascular response in a "do your best" task context. When participants could choose themselves the color of the stimuli (i.

Cognitive functions explain discrete parameters of normal walking and dual-task walking, but not postural sway in quiet stance among physically active older people.

Background: Postural control is dependent on the central nervous system's accurate interpretation of sensory information to formulate and execute adequate motor actions. Research has shown that cognitive functions are associated with both postural control and fall risk, but specific associations are not established. The aim of this study was to explore how specific components of everyday postural control tasks are associated with both general and specific cognitive functions.

Associations between 6-minute walk distance and physiologic measures and clinical outcomes in myositis-associated interstitial lung disease.

Objective: The 6-min walk test (6MWT) is a simple test widely used to assess sub-maximal exercise capacity in chronic respiratory diseases. We explored the relationship of 6-min walk distance (6MWD) with measurements of physiological, clinical, radiographic measures in patients with myositis-associated interstitial lung disease (MA-ILD).

Method: We analyzed data from the Abatacept in Myositis Associated Interstitial lung disease (Attack My-ILD) study, a 48-week multicentre randomized trial of patients with anti-synthetase antibodies and active MA-ILD.

Trend in Prescription Medication Utilization for Opioid Use Disorder and Alcohol Use Disorder From 2015 to 2021: A Population-wide Study in a Canadian Province.

Objective: To examine the quarterly incidence and prevalence of medications for opioid use disorder (OUD) and alcohol use disorder (AUD) from 2015 to 2021.

Methods: A retrospective population-wide observational study in Manitoba, Canada, was conducted using administrative claims data from the Manitoba Centre for Health Policy to examine the incidence and prevalence of OUD (methadone, buprenorphine-naloxone, buprenorphine) or AUD medications (naltrexone, acamprosate, disulfiram) per 10,000 individuals in each quarter between January 1, 2015, and December 31, 2021.

Results: There were 1179 and 451 individuals who received at least one prescription for OUD and AUD, respectively, in the first quarter of 2020.

Depressive symptoms, task choice, and effort: The moderating effect of personal control on cardiac response.

Dysphoric individuals perceive mental tasks as more demanding and show increased cardiovascular responses during the performance of easy cognitive tasks. Recent research on action shielding indicates that providing individuals with personal control over their tasks can mitigate the effects of manipulated affective states on cardiovascular responses reflecting effort. We investigated whether the shielding effect of personal choice also applies to the effect of dispositional negative mood on effort.

3D exploration of gene expression in chicken embryos through combined RNA fluorescence in situ hybridization, immunofluorescence, and clearing.

Background: Fine characterization of gene expression patterns is crucial to understand many aspects of embryonic development. The chicken embryo is a well-established and valuable animal model for developmental biology. The period spanning from the third to sixth embryonic days (E3 to E6) is critical for many organ developments.

How Patient-Centred Are Inhaler Device Choices? A Survey of Canadian Prescribers.

Background: The choice of inhaler device type can play a crucial role in managing asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). With various devices available, differences in choice and application may lead to confusion for both prescribers and patients. Furthermore, improper use of a device may lead to suboptimal or inadequate treatment.

The i-gel supraglottic airway device compared to endotracheal intubation as the initial prehospital advanced airway device: A natural experiment during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Objective: Unlike randomized controlled trials, practical real-world studies can offer important information about implementation of prehospital interventions, particularly in community settings where there may be reluctance to adopt new practices. We present the results of a natural experiment that was driven by mandated COVID-19 pandemic-driven shift from endotracheal intubation (ETI) to the i-gel supraglottic airway (SGA) as a primary advanced airway management device in the prehospital setting to reduce emergency medical services (EMS) personnel exposure to potentially infectious secretions. The objective was to compare first-pass success and timing to successful airway placement between ETI and the i-gel SGA under extenuating circumstances.

Morphology and phosphate distribution in bottom ash particles from fixed-bed co-combustion of sewage sludge and two agricultural residues.

The purpose of this study was to provide detailed knowledge of the morphological properties of ash particles, including the volumetric fractions and 3D distributions of phosphates that lay within them. The ash particles came from digested sewage sludge co-combusted with K- and Si-rich wheat straw or K-rich sunflower husks. X-ray micro-tomography were combined with elemental composition and crystalline phase information to analyse the ash particles in 3D.

Noise annoys-But personal choice can attenuate noise effects on cardiac response reflecting effort.

Since personal choice fosters commitment and shields action execution against potentially conflicting influences, two laboratory experiments with university students (N = 228) tested whether engaging in action by personal choice versus external assignment of task characteristics moderates the effect of irrelevant acoustic noise on cardiovascular responses reflecting effort. Participants who could personally choose the stimulus color of moderately difficult cognitive tasks were expected to be shielded against the irrelevant noise. By contrast, when the stimulus color was externally assigned, we predicted receptivity for the irrelevant noise to be high.

Equine Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell Culture.

Groundbreaking work by Takahashi and Yamanaka in 2006 demonstrated that non-embryonic cells can be reprogrammed into pluripotent stem cells (PSCs) by forcing the expression of a defined set of transcription factors in culture, thus overcoming ethical concerns linked to embryonic stem cells. Induced PSCs have since revolutionized biomedical research, holding tremendous potential also in other areas such as livestock production and wildlife conservation. iPSCs exhibit broad accessibility, having been derived from a multitude of cell types and species.

Personal task choice attenuates implicit happiness effects on effort: A study on cardiovascular response.

Research on the Implicit-Affect-Primes-Effort model (Gendolla, 2012) found that priming happiness or anger in challenging tasks results in stronger sympathetically mediated cardiovascular responses, reflecting effort, than priming sadness or fear. Recent studies on action shielding revealed that personal task choice can attenuate affective influences on action execution (e.g.

The power of personal control: Task choice attenuates the effect of implicit sadness on sympathetically mediated cardiac response.

Implicitly processed pictures of facial expressions of emotions have been found to systematically influence sympathetically mediated cardiovascular reactivity during task performance. According to the Implicit-Affect-Primes-Effort model, this happens because different affect primes activate the concepts of performance ease versus performance difficulty. Grounded in a recent action shielding model, our laboratory experiment (N = 129 university students) tested whether engaging in action by personal choice can immunize against those implicit affective influences on effort.

Patient values and preferences regarding communicating risk versus benefit of benzodiazepine initiation: A cross-sectional survey study.

Background And Aims: Communicating information about the risks and benefits of benzodiazepines so that it is meaningful to the patient has not been previously described. This study aims to determine patient preferences regarding information received before initiating a benzodiazepine.

Methods: An online survey was distributed through social media and advertisements to Canadians ≥18 years old over a 6-month period (May-Oct 2022) to collect participant's rating of importance of statements and factors about the risk and benefits of benzodiazepines before initiating treatment using a 10-point Likert-type scale.

Implementation of Video Blood Pressure Visits in the Veterans Health Administration.

oronavirus disease 2019 .

Robust Meta-Representation Learning via Global Label Inference and Classification.

Few-shot learning (FSL) is a central problem in meta-learning, where learners must efficiently learn from few labeled examples. Within FSL, feature pre-training has become a popular strategy to significantly improve generalization performance. However, the contribution of pre-training to generalization performance is often overlooked and understudied, with limited theoretical understanding.