Veterinarians are reluctant to recommend virtual consultations to a fellow veterinarian.

Objective: To explore veterinarians' use of virtual veterinarian-client-patient consultations before and during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic and examine veterinarians' attitudes toward virtual consultations.

Sample: 135 companion animal veterinarians in Canada, the US, and Europe.

Methods: An anonymous online survey was distributed to gather participating veterinarians' use of information and communication technologies and their perception of virtual consultations' effect on patient care, client communication, and their own well-being.

Australasian interstitial lung disease registry (AILDR): objectives, design and rationale of a bi-national prospective database.

Background: Interstitial Lung Disease (ILD) is a group of respiratory conditions affecting the lung interstitium often associated with progressive respiratory failure. There is increasing recognition of the need for improved epidemiological data to help determine best practice and improve standardisation of care. The Australasian ILD Registry (AILDR) is a bi-national registry of patients with all ILD subtypes designed to establish a clinically meaningful database reflecting real world practice in Australasia with an objective to improve diagnostic and treatment pathways through research and collaboration.

Understanding cough in interstitial lung disease: a cross-sectional study on the adequacy of treatment.

Background: Cough is a common symptom in interstitial lung disease (ILD), often leading to treatment dissatisfaction for patients and physicians.

Aim: To identify the prevalence and subjective adequacy of control of cough in patients with ILD.

Methods: A cross-sectional study of patients with ILD attending a tertiary ILD clinic in Perth was undertaken using a pre-designed questionnaire that patients were invited to complete when attending clinic.

Idiopathic and immune-related pulmonary fibrosis: diagnostic and therapeutic challenges.

Interstitial lung disease (ILD) encompasses a large group of pulmonary conditions sharing common clinical, radiological and histopathological features as a consequence of fibrosis of the lung interstitium. The majority of ILDs are idiopathic in nature with possible genetic predisposition, but is also well recognised as a complication of connective tissue disease or with certain environmental, occupational or drug exposures. In recent years, a concerted international effort has been made to standardise the diagnostic criteria in ILD subtypes, formalise multidisciplinary pathways and standardise treatment recommendations.

A review of strategies used to retain participants in clinical research during an infectious disease outbreak: The PREVAIL I Ebola vaccine trial experience.

Introduction: This article describes a retrospective review of participant follow-up and retention strategies in the Partnership for Research on the Ebola Virus in Liberia (PREVAIL) I Vaccine Trial. It illustrates and analyzes strategies used to retain participants in an emergency clinical research response vaccine trial conducted during the 2014 Ebola outbreak in Liberia.

Methods: An anecdotal review of participant retention strategies developed and employed during the PREVAIL I vaccine trial.

Exploring the Impact of Toxic Attitudes and a Toxic Environment on the Veterinary Healthcare Team.

The objective of this qualitative study was to compare veterinarians' and Registered Veterinary Technicians' (RVT's) perceptions of the veterinary healthcare team with respect to the impact of toxic attitudes and a toxic environment. Focus group interviews using a semi-structured interview guide and follow up probes were held with four veterinarian groups (23 companion animal veterinarians) and four Registered Veterinary Technician groups (26 RVTs). Thematic analysis of the discussions indicated both veterinarian and RVT participants felt team members with manifestations of toxic attitudes negatively impacted veterinary team function.

Assessing the geriatric patient: planning for transitions of care.

Transitioning older adults from one care setting to another is often challenging, both for the patient and the health professional. The older adult often is stressed, both physically and psychologically, and may well be overwhelmed by requests for information, including a complete list of medications from different members of the interdisciplinary team. The goals of geriatric assessment are to begin a review of a patient's lifestyle and medication therapy prior to crisis and trauma, improving the outcomes of interventions and decreasing anxiety, for both patients and caregivers.

The role of veterinary team effectiveness in job satisfaction and burnout in companion animal veterinary clinics.

Objective: To determine the role of veterinary team effectiveness regarding job satisfaction and burnout in companion animal veterinary practice.

Design: Cross-sectional observational study.

Sample: 48 companion animal veterinary health-care teams.

Teaching resident physicians chronic disease management: simulating a 10-year longitudinal clinical experience with a standardized dementia patient and caregiver.

Background: Education for all physicians should include specialty-specific geriatrics-related and chronic disease-related topics.

Objective: We describe the development, implementation, and evaluation of a chronic disease/geriatric medicine curriculum designed to teach Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education core competencies and geriatric medicine competencies to residents by using longitudinal encounters with a standardized dementia patient and her caregiver daughter.

Intervention: Over 3 half-day sessions, the unfolding standardized patient (SP) case portrays the progressive course of dementia and simulates a 10-year longitudinal clinical experience between residents and a patient with dementia and her daughter.

Structure-based identification of new high-affinity nucleosome binding sequences.

The substrate for the proteins that express genetic information in the cell is not naked DNA but an assembly of nucleosomes, where the DNA is wrapped around histone proteins. The organization of these nucleosomes on genomic DNA is influenced by the DNA sequence. Here, we present a structure-based computational approach that translates sequence information into the energy required to bend DNA into a nucleosome-bound conformation.

Community physician education in geriatrics: applying the assessing care of vulnerable elders model with a multisite primary care group.

Providing practicing physicians with effective education that leads to better patient outcomes remains challenging. In 2003, the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine developed a comprehensive program to enhance practicing physician geriatric medicine education based on the Assessing the Care of Vulnerable Elders model. The program was implemented with a large, multisite primary care group based in the greater Cincinnati area and was designed to increase physicians' clinical skills and assist them in implementing new office and system strategies that could improve the quality of care for their older patients.

High nucleosome occupancy is encoded at human regulatory sequences.

Active eukaryotic regulatory sites are characterized by open chromatin, and yeast promoters and transcription factor binding sites (TFBSs) typically have low intrinsic nucleosome occupancy. Here, we show that in contrast to yeast, DNA at human promoters, enhancers, and TFBSs generally encodes high intrinsic nucleosome occupancy. In most cases we examined, these elements also have high experimentally measured nucleosome occupancy in vivo.

Gene expression divergence in yeast is coupled to evolution of DNA-encoded nucleosome organization.

Eukaryotic transcription occurs within a chromatin environment, whose organization has an important regulatory function and is partly encoded in cis by the DNA sequence itself. Here, we examine whether evolutionary changes in gene expression are linked to changes in the DNA-encoded nucleosome organization of promoters. We find that in aerobic yeast species, where cellular respiration genes are active under typical growth conditions, the promoter sequences of these genes encode a relatively open (nucleosome-depleted) chromatin organization.

The DNA-encoded nucleosome organization of a eukaryotic genome.

Nucleosome organization is critical for gene regulation. In living cells this organization is determined by multiple factors, including the action of chromatin remodellers, competition with site-specific DNA-binding proteins, and the DNA sequence preferences of the nucleosomes themselves. However, it has been difficult to estimate the relative importance of each of these mechanisms in vivo, because in vivo nucleosome maps reflect the combined action of all influencing factors.

Distinct modes of regulation by chromatin encoded through nucleosome positioning signals.

The detailed positions of nucleosomes profoundly impact gene regulation and are partly encoded by the genomic DNA sequence. However, less is known about the functional consequences of this encoding. Here, we address this question using a genome-wide map of approximately 380,000 yeast nucleosomes that we sequenced in their entirety.

Muscle-specific IRS-1 Ser->Ala transgenic mice are protected from fat-induced insulin resistance in skeletal muscle.

Objective: Insulin resistance in skeletal muscle plays a critical role in the pathogenesis of type 2 diabetes, yet the cellular mechanisms responsible for insulin resistance are poorly understood. In this study, we examine the role of serine phosphorylation of insulin receptor substrate (IRS)-1 in mediating fat-induced insulin resistance in skeletal muscle in vivo.

Research Design And Methods: To directly assess the role of serine phosphorylation in mediating fat-induced insulin resistance in skeletal muscle, we generated muscle-specific IRS-1 Ser(302), Ser(307), and Ser(612) mutated to alanine (Tg IRS-1 Ser-->Ala) and IRS-1 wild-type (Tg IRS-1 WT) transgenic mice and examined insulin signaling and insulin action in skeletal muscle in vivo.

Overexpression of uncoupling protein 3 in skeletal muscle protects against fat-induced insulin resistance.

Insulin resistance is a major factor in the pathogenesis of type 2 diabetes and is strongly associated with obesity. Increased concentrations of intracellular fatty acid metabolites have been postulated to interfere with insulin signaling by activation of a serine kinase cascade involving PKCtheta in skeletal muscle. Uncoupling protein 3 (UCP3) has been postulated to dissipate the mitochondrial proton gradient and cause metabolic inefficiency.

Aging-associated reductions in AMP-activated protein kinase activity and mitochondrial biogenesis.

Recent studies have demonstrated a strong relationship between aging-associated reductions in mitochondrial function, dysregulated intracellular lipid metabolism, and insulin resistance. Given the important role of the AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) in the regulation of fat oxidation and mitochondrial biogenesis, we examined AMPK activity in young and old rats and found that acute stimulation of AMPK-alpha(2) activity by 5'-aminoimidazole-4-carboxamide-1-beta-D-ribofuranoside (AICAR) and exercise was blunted in skeletal muscle of old rats. Furthermore, mitochondrial biogenesis in response to chronic activation of AMPK with beta-guanidinopropionic acid (beta-GPA) feeding was also diminished in old rats.

n-3 Fatty acids preserve insulin sensitivity in vivo in a peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor-alpha-dependent manner.

Recent studies have suggested that n-3 fatty acids, abundant in fish oil, protect against high-fat diet-induced insulin resistance through peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor (PPAR)-alpha activation and a subsequent decrease in intracellular lipid abundance. To directly test this hypothesis, we fed PPAR-alpha null and wild-type mice for 2 weeks with isocaloric high-fat diets containing 27% fat from either safflower oil or safflower oil with an 8% fish oil replacement (fish oil diet). In both genotypes the safflower oil diet blunted insulin-mediated suppression of hepatic glucose production (P < 0.

A genomic code for nucleosome positioning.

Eukaryotic genomes are packaged into nucleosome particles that occlude the DNA from interacting with most DNA binding proteins. Nucleosomes have higher affinity for particular DNA sequences, reflecting the ability of the sequence to bend sharply, as required by the nucleosome structure. However, it is not known whether these sequence preferences have a significant influence on nucleosome position in vivo, and thus regulate the access of other proteins to DNA.

Contrasting effects of fish oil and safflower oil on hepatic peroxisomal and tissue lipid content.

To examine the mechanism by which fish oil protects against fat-induced insulin resistance, we studied the effects of control, fish oil, and safflower oil diets on peroxisomal content, fatty acyl-CoA, diacylglycerol, and ceramide content in rat liver and muscle. We found that, in contrast to control and safflower oil-fed rats, fish oil feeding induced a 150% increase in the abundance of peroxisomal acyl-CoA oxidase and 3-ketoacyl-CoA thiolase in liver but lacked similar effects in muscle. This was paralleled by an almost twofold increase in hepatic peroxisome content (both P < 0.