Reflux Symptoms Increase Following Sleeve Gastrectomy Despite Triage of Symptomatic Patients to Roux-en-Y Gastric Bypass.

Background And Aims: Bariatric surgical options in obese patients include sleeve gastrectomy (SG) and roux-en-Y gastric bypass (RYGB), which may not be equivalent in risk of postoperative reflux symptoms. We evaluated risk and predictive factors for postbariatric surgery reflux symptoms.

Methods: Patients with obesity evaluated for bariatric surgery over a 15-month period were prospectively followed with validated symptom questionnaires (GERDQ, dominant symptom index: product of symptom frequency and intensity from 5-point Likert scores) administered before and after SG and RYGB.

Here and now: Lived experiences of professional nurses practising caring presence in a rural public hospital in the North West Province, South Africa.

Background: Practising caring presence is recognised as an important nursing intervention indispensable to high-quality, patient-centred care. An awareness of the real world of professional nurses (PNs) practising caring presence will assist in expanding and supporting the existing literature on the same. A clear and rich description of what the concept of caring presence entails within the unique South African nursing context may guide nurses in the art of this nursing skill, enhance their professionalism and facilitate the formulation of recommendations on how to encourage nurses to implement the practice of caring presence within nursing.

The toxin goniodomin, produced by Alexandrium spp., is identical to goniodomin A.

In 1968 Burkholder and associates (J. Antibiot. (Tokyo)1968, 21, 659-664) isolated the antifungal toxin goniodomin from an unidentified Puerto Rican dinoflagellate and partially characterized its structure.

Biodiversity-function relationships in methanogenic communities.

Methanogenic communities play a crucial role in carbon cycling and biotechnology (anaerobic digestion), but our understanding of how their diversity, or composition in general, determines the rate of methane production is very limited. Studies to date have been correlational because of the difficulty in cultivating their constituent species in pure culture. Here, we investigate the causal link between methanogenesis and diversity in laboratory anaerobic digesters by experimentally manipulating the diversity of cultures by dilution and subsequent equilibration of biomass.