Detailed characterisation of invasive aspergillosis in a murine model of X-linked chronic granulomatous disease shows new insights in infections caused by versus .

Introduction: Invasive aspergillosis (IA) is the most prevalent infectious complication in patients with chronic granulomatous disease (CGD). Yet, understanding of fungal pathogenesis in the CGD host remains limited, particularly with regards to infection.

Methods: We have used a murine model of X-linked CGD to investigate how the pathogenesis of IA varies between and , comparing infection in both X-linked CGD (gp91) mice and their parent C57BL/6 (WT) mice.

Individual differences in selective attention and engagement shape students' learning from visual cues and instructor presence during online lessons.

Although some researchers recommend minimizing extraneous visual information in multimedia lessons, others have demonstrated that features such as visual cues and instructor videos can enhance learning. However, variability in selective attention skills may influence students' ability to benefit from these additional features. This study investigated links between college students' selective attention skills and their learning from video lessons that varied in the use of visual cues and the instructor video.

Selective attention to lesson-relevant contextual information promotes 3- to 5-year-old children's learning.

Attending to distracting or competing information is typically considered detrimental to learning, but the presence of competing information can also facilitate learning when it is relevant to ongoing task goals. Educational settings often contain contextual elements such as classroom decorations or visual aids to enhance student learning. Despite this, most research examining effects of contextual information on children's learning has only utilized lesson-irrelevant stimuli.

Individual differences in selective attention and scanning dynamics influence children's learning from relevant non-targets in a visual search task.

Efficient selective attention is critical for engaging in task-oriented behavior but may also limit our processing of potentially meaningful, task-irrelevant details. Both older adults and younger children demonstrate poor selective attention skills but show increased processing of task-irrelevant information. This broader attention to non-targets can benefit learning among older adults when the non-target information is relevant to a primary learning goal.

The Influence of Naproxen on Biological Factors in Leukocyte-Rich Platelet-Rich Plasma: A Prospective Comparative Study.

Purpose: To quantify and compare normative catabolic and anabolic factor concentrations in leukocyte-rich platelet-rich plasma (LR-PRP) at various time points, including baseline, 1 week after initiating naproxen use, and after a 1-week washout period.

Methods: Asymptomatic healthy donors aged between 18 and 70 years were recruited (average age, 36.6 years; range, 25-64 years).

Perceptual Characterization of the Macronutrient Picture System (MaPS) for Food Image fMRI.

Food image fMRI paradigms are used widely for investigating the neural basis of ingestive behavior. However, these paradigms have not been validated in terms of ingestive behavior constructs, engagement of food-relevant neural systems, or test-retest reliability, making the generalizability of study findings unclear. Therefore, we validated the Macronutrient Picture System (MaPS) (McClernon et al.

Recognition and Clinical Presentation of Invasive Fungal Disease in Neonates and Children.

Invasive fungal diseases (IFDs) are devastating opportunistic infections that result in significant morbidity and death in a broad range of pediatric patients, particularly those with a compromised immune system. Recognizing them can be difficult, because nonspecific clinical signs and symptoms or isolated fever are frequently the only presenting features. Therefore, a high index of clinical suspicion is necessary in patients at increased risk of IFD, which requires knowledge of the pediatric patient population at risk, additional predisposing factors within this population, and the clinical signs and symptoms of IFD.

Live Imaging of Antifungal Activity by Human Primary Neutrophils and Monocytes in Response to A. fumigatus.

Aspergillus fumigatus is an opportunistic fungal pathogen causing invasive infections in immunocompromised hosts with a high case-fatality rate. Research investigating immunological responses against A. fumigatus has been limited by the lack of consistent and reliable assays for measuring the antifungal activity of specific immune cells in vitro.

Aspergillosis in Chronic Granulomatous Disease.

Patients with chronic granulomatous disease (CGD) have the highest life-time incidence of invasive aspergillosis and despite the availability of antifungal prophylaxis, infections by species remain the single most common infectious cause of death in CGD. Recent developments in curative treatment options, such as haematopoietic stem cell transplantation, will change the prevalence of infectious complications including invasive aspergillosis in CGD patients. However, invasive aspergillosis in a previously healthy host is often the first presenting feature of this primary immunodeficiency.

Aspergillus infections in cystic fibrosis.

Patients with cystic fibrosis (CF) suffer from chronic lung infection and airway inflammation. Respiratory failure secondary to chronic or recurrent infection remains the commonest cause of death and accounts for over 90% of mortality. Bacteria as Staphylococcus aureus, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Burkholderia cepacia complex have been regarded the main CF pathogens and their role in progressive lung decline has been studied extensively.

Impact of the new density reporting laws: radiologist perceptions and actual behavior.

Rationale And Objectives: To assess radiologists' perceptions of how the new Breast Density Notification Act (BDNA) of Pennsylvania would affect their breast density reporting and their actual reporting patterns after implementation.

Materials And Methods: Under an institutional review board-approved protocol, we surveyed 21 radiologists about how they believe the new law affected their breast density reporting patterns and analyzed actual changes for 16 respondents before and after the law took effect. Three hundred consecutive reports were assessed for each radiologist before and after the effective date.

Mechanisms underlying methamphetamine-induced dopamine transporter complex formation.

Repeated, high-dose methamphetamine (METH) administrations cause persistent dopaminergic deficits in rodents, nonhuman primates, and humans. In rats, this treatment also causes the formation of high-molecular mass (greater than approximately 120 kDa) dopamine transporter (DAT)-associated complexes, the loss of DAT monomer immunoreactivity, and a decrease in DAT function, as assessed in striatal synaptosomes prepared 24 h after METH treatment. The present study extends these findings by demonstrating the regional selectivity of DAT complex formation and monomer loss because these changes in DAT immunoreactivity were not observed in the nucleus accumbens.

Binary and multi-category ratings in a laboratory observer performance study: a comparison.

The authors investigated radiologists, performances during retrospective interpretation of screening mammograms when using a binary decision whether to recall a woman for additional procedures or not and compared it with their receiver operating characteristic (ROC) type performance curves using a semi-continuous rating scale. Under an Institutional Review Board approved protocol nine experienced radiologists independently rated an enriched set of 155 examinations that they had not personally read in the clinic, mixed with other enriched sets of examinations that they had individually read in the clinic, using both a screening BI-RADS rating scale (recall/not recall) and a semi-continuous ROC type rating scale (0 to 100). The vertical distance, namely the difference in sensitivity levels at the same specificity levels, between the empirical ROC curve and the binary operating point were computed for each reader.

Methylphenidate administration alters vesicular monoamine transporter-2 function in cytoplasmic and membrane-associated vesicles.

In vivo methylphenidate (MPD) administration increases vesicular monoamine transporter-2 (VMAT-2) immunoreactivity, VMAT-2-mediated dopamine (DA) transport, and DA content in a nonmembrane-associated (referred to herein as cytoplasmic) vesicular subcellular fraction purified from rat striatum: a phenomenon attributed to a redistribution of VMAT-2-associated vesicles within nerve terminals. In contrast, the present study elucidated the nature of, and the impact of MPD on, VMAT-2-associated vesicles that cofractionate with synaptosomal membranes after osmotic lysis (referred to herein as membrane-associated vesicles). Results revealed that, in striking contrast to the cytoplasmic vesicles, DA transport velocity versus substrate concentration curves in the membrane-associated vesicles were sigmoidal, suggesting positive cooperativity with respect to DA transport.

The prevalence effect in a laboratory environment: Changing the confidence ratings.

Rationale And Objectives: We sought to assess whether or not prevalence levels affected the confidence ratings of readers during the interpretation of cases in a laboratory receiver operating characteristic-type observer performance study.

Materials And Methods: We reanalyzed a previously conducted observer performance study that included 14 readers and 5 different levels of prevalence. The previous study yielded the observation that in the laboratory we could not detect a "prevalence effect" in terms of differences in areas under the receiver operating characteristic curves.

The effect of image display size on observer performance an assessment of variance components.

Rationale And Objective: Our goal was to investigate the effect of the displayed image size on variance components during the performance of an observer performance study to detect masses on abdominal computed tomography (CT) examinations.

Materials And Methods: A previously performed receiver operating characteristic (ROC) study with eight observers to detect abdominal masses on 166 CT examinations was reanalyzed to assess variance components when comparing two similar modes with displayed image sizes varying by a factor of 2. Case, mode, and reader-related variance components were estimated for the group of eight observers and subsets of readers after excluding each of the participants.

Screening mammography: do women prefer a higher recall rate given the possibility of earlier detection of cancer?

Purpose: To prospectively survey women undergoing screening mammography to assess their attitudes toward and preference for the level of recall rates given the possibility that an increase in recall rates may result in earlier detection of cancer.

Materials And Methods: This HIPAA-compliant survey was performed with an institutional review board-approved protocol. Women who arrived for their routine screening mammographic examination from November 2004 to March 2005 were informed before they consented to participate.

Variability in observer performance studies experimental observations.

Rationale And Objectives: The aim of the study is to assess variance components in observer performance studies and the possible impact on study results and conclusions.

Materials And Methods: Two previously performed retrospective receiver operating characteristic-type observer performance studies to evaluate the performance of seven radiologists in detecting interstitial disease on conventional posteroanterior chest films and nine radiologists in detecting interstitial disease on a high-resolution workstation were reanalyzed by using the Beiden, Wagner, and Campbell nine-component model to estimate the different variance components. We estimated case-, reader-, and mode-related components of the variance for the group as a whole and after excluding (round robin) each reader.

Mutation of the regulator of G protein signaling Crg1 increases virulence in Cryptococcus neoformans.

The regulator of G protein signaling homolog Crg1 was found to be a key regulator of pheromone-responsive mating in the opportunistic human fungal pathogen Cryptococcus neoformans. A mutation in the CRG1 gene has greatly increased virulence in the prevalently distributed MATalpha strains of the fungus. Mouse survival time was shortened by 40%, and the lethal dosage was 100-fold less than that of wild-type strains.

Prescreening mammography by technologists: a preliminary assessment.

Objective: We assessed the ability of technologists to accurately classify screening mammograms as either showing negative findings or requiring follow-up.

Subjects And Methods: In a prospective study, 33 technologists at a central facility and five satellite breast imaging facilities recorded whether mammograms obtained during 3019 examinations showed negative findings or findings that indicated that additional procedures were required. The technologists were not specifically trained for the experiment.