Family Caregiving of Patients With Heart Failure and Vascular Dementia in Rural Appalachia: A Mixed-Methods Study.

Introduction: Vascular dementia and heart failure (HF) are common co-existing conditions among adult populations. Each condition requires extensive home caregiving from family caregivers, especially those in rural Appalachia. This study aimed to assess caregivers' burden and their physical and mental health status, as well as explore their experiences and needs.

You're Not Who You Used to Be: A Case Report of a Family Living with Heart Failure and Vascular Dementia.

Heart failure and vascular dementia have similar underlying pathologies, so it is not uncommon for one condition to exist in the presence of the other. In-home management of each condition is challenging for patients and their family caregivers, but when both conditions are present, those challenges are amplified. The purpose of this case report is to describe one family's experience managing heart failure and vascular dementia at home.

Being treated with compassion by nursing students in their baccalaureate program.

Background/purpose: Compassion is an essential component of nursing education. Having nursing students describe situations in which they were treated with compassion may offer guidance for faculty. The purpose of the study was to uncover themes in descriptions of undergraduate nursing students who described self as being treated with compassion during their Baccalaureate nursing education.

Orchestration of ErbB3 signaling through heterointeractions and homointeractions.

Members of the ErbB family of receptor tyrosine kinases are capable of both homointeractions and heterointeractions. Because each receptor has a unique set of binding sites for downstream signaling partners and differential catalytic activity, subtle shifts in their combinatorial interplay may have a large effect on signaling outcomes. The overexpression and mutation of ErbB family members are common in numerous human cancers and shift the balance of activation within the signaling network.

Resources, mortality, and disease ecology: Importance of positive feedbacks between host growth rate and pathogen dynamics.

Resource theory and metabolic scaling theory suggest that the dynamics of a pathogen within a host should strongly depend upon the rate of host cell metabolism. Once an infection occurs, key ecological interactions occur on or within the host organism that determine whether the pathogen dies out, persists as a chronic infection, or grows to densities that lead to host death. We hypothesize that, in general, conditions favoring rapid host growth rates should amplify the replication and proliferation of both fungal and viral pathogens.

Filaggrin gene mutations in African Americans with both ichthyosis vulgaris and atopic dermatitis.

Atopic dermatitis (AD) and ichthyosis vulgaris (IV) are two common disorders of epidermal homeostasis resulting in dry skin. The profilaggrin gene, located on chromosome 1q22, encodes a keratin filament aggregating protein (filaggrin) that is essential to forming the epidermal barrier and maintaining hydration. Null mutations in filaggrin have been found to underlie IV and are common in patients with AD, but the minority of African Americans with AD or IV show these mutations in filaggrin.

Intimate partner violence and the meaning of love.

Despite physical, emotional, verbal, and sexual abuse from their partner, many women remain in an abusive relationship, often proclaiming to love the one who is hurting them. Nineteen females who had experienced intimate partner violence were interviewed and asked to share their experiences and describe their meaning of love. An analysis of the transcripts was done using qualitative content analysis.

Elders' experiences of the death of an adult child.

The death of a child can result in complicated grief. Thirty-one adults, 60 years of age or older, who lost an adult child, participated in a qualitative study using a focus group format that allowed them to discuss their experience. A hermeneutical approach was used to develop an overall thematic description of what it meant to an older person to lose an adult child.

Correlations between in situ denitrification activity and nir-gene abundances in pristine and impacted prairie streams.

Denitrification is a process that reduces nitrogen levels in headwaters and other streams. We compared nirS and nirK abundances with the absolute rate of denitrification, the longitudinal coefficient of denitrification (i.e.

Homicide of an intimate male partner: the impact on the woman.

Using existential-phenomenological interview procedures, two women who killed their husbands during an altercation were asked to share their experiences. Analysis of individual transcripts was done within the context of a hermeneutical approach. Their stories are divided into three distant phases of their life: (1) choosing to fight back in order to live, (2) dealing with the legal system, and (3) the emotional aftermath.

Electroconvulsive therapy: the struggles in the decision-making process and the aftermath of treatment.

The perceptions of patients and their family members about electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) are crucial to understanding the meaning attached to having ECT and the impact it has on quality of life. Thus, in this qualitative study, patients and their family members described their perceptions of having electroconvulsive therapy (ECT). The experience occurred in two distinct periods in the patient's life: making the decision to have ECT and the physical and emotional aftermath of treatment.

Energetic effects for observed and unobserved HIV-1 reverse transcriptase mutations of residues L100, V106, and Y181 in the presence of nevirapine and efavirenz.

The effect of mutations on amino acid residues L100, V106, and Y181 for unbound HIV-1 reverse transcriptase (RT) and RT bound to nevirapine and efavirenz was investigated using Monte Carlo/free energy perturbation calculations. Using both native and bound crystal structures of RT, mutation of the amino acid residues to both those observed and unobserved in patients was carried out. The results of the calculations revealed that the variant that survives in patients dosed with either nevirapine or efavirenz had a more positive Delta Delta G value than other variants that were not observed in patients.

Protection of macaques against AIDS with a live attenuated SHIV vaccine is of finite duration.

Using background data that live vaccines against several viral pathogens are effective in inducing life-long protection against disease, we undertook studies in macaques to determine the duration of protection that two live SHIV vaccines could induce against AIDS. Earlier studies had established that macaques immunized once with a live vaccine and challenged 6 months later were protected, and that other macaques given two sequential inoculations of live vaccines were protected for at least 1 year. Protection was associated with persistence of the vaccine viruses.

Biological stoichiometry in human cancer.

Background: A growing tumor in the body can be considered a complex ecological and evolutionary system. A new eco-evolutionary hypothesis (the "Growth Rate Hypothesis", GRH) proposes that tumors have elevated phosphorus (P) demands due to increased allocation to P-rich nucleic acids, especially ribosomal RNA, to meet the protein synthesis demands of accelerated proliferation.

Methodology/principal Findings: We determined the elemental (C, N, P) and nucleic acid contents of paired malignant and normal tissues from colon, lung, liver, or kidney for 121 patients.

Self-deception among men who are mandated to attend a batterer intervention program.

Topic: Intimate partner violence continues to be a confounding national health problem, especially for women and children. Certified batterers' intervention programs are one means currently being used to combat intimate partner violence.

Method: Existential phenomenology was utilized in this qualitative study to gain an understanding of the perceptions of the perpetrator prior to beginning a batterer intervention program.

Batterer intervention program: the victim's hope in ending the abuse and maintaining the relationship.

In this existential-phenomenological investigation, women whose partners were mandated to attend a batterers' intervention program (BIP) were interviewed about their experiences before their partner attended his first class. The goal of this study was to gain an understanding of the woman's expectations of the BIP in the aftermath of her experience of abuse and her reasons for maintaining the relationship. Women described their experience as one of living in a dangerous environment that keeps them nervous, confused, fearful, and feeling bad about themselves, but yet hopeful that the abuse will stop now that their partner is being sent to treatment.

Synthesis, biological activity, and crystal structure of potent nonnucleoside inhibitors of HIV-1 reverse transcriptase that retain activity against mutant forms of the enzyme.

In an ongoing effort to develop novel and potent nonnucleoside HIV-1 reverse transcriptase (RT) inhibitors that are effective against the wild type (WT) virus and clinically observed mutants, 1,2-bis-substituted benzimidazoles were synthesized and tested. Optimization of the N1 and C2 positions of benzimidazole led to the development of 1-(2,6-difluorobenzyl)-2-(2,6-difluorophenyl)-4-methylbenzimidazole (1) (IC50 = 0.2 microM, EC50 = 0.

Cognitive functioning under stress: evidence from informal caregivers of palliative patients.

Background: Caring for a terminally ill family member can be extremely stressful, and stress is known to have a negative influence on aspects of cognition. In contrast to the well-known physical and mental health risks associated with caregiving, little is known about its impact on cognitive functioning.

Objective: The primary objective of this study was to explore cognition among caregivers of palliative family members with a battery of neuropsychological tests.

Abundance of six tetracycline resistance genes in wastewater lagoons at cattle feedlots with different antibiotic use strategies.

The abundance of six tetracycline resistance genes tet(O), tet(Q), tet(W), tet(M), tet(B) and tet(L), were quantified over time in wastewater lagoons at concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFO) to assess how feedlot operation affects resistance genes in downstream surface waters. Eight lagoons at five cattle feedlots in the Midwestern United States were monitored for 6 months. Resistance and 16S-rRNA gene abundances were quantified using real-time PCR, and physicochemical lagoon conditions, tetracycline levels, and other factors (e.

Cyclooxygenase 2 induced by Kaposi's sarcoma-associated herpesvirus early during in vitro infection of target cells plays a role in the maintenance of latent viral gene expression.

Infection of human dermal microvascular endothelial (HMVEC-d) cells and human foreskin fibroblast (HFF) cells in vitro by Kaposi's sarcoma-associated herpesvirus (KSHV) provides an excellent in vitro model system to study viral latency. KSHV infection is characterized by the induction of preexisting host signal cascades; sustained expression of the latency-associated open reading frame 73 (ORF73) (LANA-1), ORF72, and K13 genes; transient expression of a limited number of lytic genes, including the lytic cycle switch ORF50 (replication and transcription activator) gene; and reprogramming of host transcriptional machinery regulating a variety of cellular processes, including several proinflammatory responses. The cyclooxygenase 2 (COX-2) gene was one of the host cell genes that was highly up-regulated at 2 and 4 h postinfection (p.

Assault on resistance: the use of computational chemistry in the development of anti-HIV drugs.

While many inhibitors of the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), the causative agent of Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS), have been developed, the problem of drug resistance has continued to plague the fight against the disease. The ability of computers to aid in the drug discovery process, and by default the resistance problem, has increased dramatically as the speed of computers and sophistication of associated calculation programs has grown. In particular, the capability of predicting a compound's ability to combat resistance prior to synthesis of drug candidates has proven particularly desirable.

Immunoprophylaxis against AIDS in macaques with a lentiviral DNA vaccine.

We earlier reported that immunization of macaques with a reverse transcriptase-deleted SHIV(KU2) (DeltartSHIV(KU2)) plasmid that contained HIV-1(HXB2) env and SIV gag-nef induced protection against AIDS caused by challenge virus SHIV89.6P with a heterologous env. We further deleted vif and integrase from DeltartSHIV(KU2) and substituted the 3'LTR with SV40 poly A sequences, creating Delta4SHIV(KU2) (M) and a parallel construct containing gag-nef of HIV-1(SF2), Delta4SHIV(KU2) (H).

Antigen expression kinetics and immune responses of mice immunized with noninfectious simian-human immunodeficiency virus DNA.

In a previous report we demonstrated that three injections of an rt-deleted noninfectious genome of the simian-human immunodeficiency virus SHIV(KU2) induced protection against AIDS in macaques (D. K. Singh, Z.