Heat acclimation reduces the effects of whole-body hyperthermia on knee-extensor relaxation rate, but does not affect voluntary torque production.

Purpose: This study investigated the effects of acute hyperthermia and heat acclimation (HA) on maximal and rapid voluntary torque production, and their neuromuscular determinants.

Methods: Ten participants completed 10 days of isothermic HA (50 °C, 50% rh) and had their knee-extensor neuromuscular function assessed in normothermic and hyperthermic conditions, pre-, after 5 and after 10 days of HA. Electrically evoked twitch and octet (300 Hz) contractions were delivered at rest.

Outpatient grip strength measurement predicts survival, perioperative adverse events, and nonhome discharge among patients with vascular disease.

Objectives: Frailty is associated with adverse outcomes among patients with vascular disease. Grip strength measurement is a comparatively simple, quick, and inexpensive screening test for weakness (a component of frailty) that is potentially applicable to clinical practice. We hypothesized that grip strength and categorical weakness are associated with clinical outcomes among patients with vascular disease.

Short-term isothermic heat acclimation elicits beneficial adaptations but medium-term elicits a more complete adaptation.

Purpose: To investigate the effects of 60 min daily, short-term (STHA) and medium-term (MTHA) isothermic heat acclimation (HA) on the physiological and perceptual responses to exercise heat stress.

Methods: Sixteen, ultra-endurance runners (female = 3) visited the laboratory on 13 occasions. A 45 min sub-maximal (40% W) cycling heat stress test (HST) was completed in the heat (40 °C, 50% relative humidity) on the first (HST), seventh (HST) and thirteenth (HST) visit.

Impairment of Cycling Capacity in the Heat in Well-Trained Endurance Athletes After High-Intensity Short-Term Heat Acclimation.

Purpose: To investigate the effects of short-term, high-intensity interval-training (HIIT) heat acclimation (HA).

Methods: Male cyclists/triathletes were assigned into either an HA (n = 13) or a comparison (COMP, n = 10) group. HA completed 3 cycling heat stress tests (HSTs) to exhaustion (60% Wmax; HST1, pre-HA; HST2, post-HA; HST3, 7 d post-HA).

Grip strength measurement for frailty assessment in patients with vascular disease and associations with comorbidity, cardiac risk, and sarcopenia.

Objective: Frailty is associated with adverse events, length of stay, and nonhome discharge after vascular surgery. Frailty measures based on walking-based tests may be impractical or invalid for patients with walking impairment from symptoms or sequelae of vascular disease. We hypothesized that grip strength is associated with frailty, comorbidity, and cardiac risk among patients with vascular disease.

A Glucose Sensing System Based on Transmission Measurements at Millimetre Waves using Micro strip Patch Antennas.

We present a sensing system operating at millimetre (mm) waves in transmission mode that can measure glucose level changes based on the complex permittivity changes across the signal path. The permittivity of a sample can change significantly as the concentration of one of its substances varies: for example, blood permittivity depends on the blood glucose levels. The proposed sensing system uses two facing microstrip patch antennas operating at 60 GHz, which are placed across interrogated samples.

Endovascular Treatment of Chronic Mesenteric Ischemia in the Setting of Occlusive Superior Mesenteric Artery Lesions.

Background: Endovascular intervention is considered the first-line treatment for chronic mesenteric ischemia (CMI) when feasible. Two-vessel revascularization is most definitive when celiac (CA) and superior mesenteric arteries (SMA) are diseased, but single-vessel intervention may be performed in patients with 2-vessel disease due to anatomic/technical factors. We evaluated anatomic predictors of clinical outcomes associated with endovascular treatment of CMI among patients with occlusive SMA lesions.

The β-lactamase gene regulator AmpR is a tetramer that recognizes and binds the D-Ala-D-Ala motif of its repressor UDP-N-acetylmuramic acid (MurNAc)-pentapeptide.

Inducible expression of chromosomal AmpC β-lactamase is a major cause of β-lactam antibiotic resistance in the Gram-negative bacteria Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Enterobacteriaceae. AmpC expression is induced by the LysR-type transcriptional regulator (LTTR) AmpR, which activates ampC expression in response to changes in peptidoglycan (PG) metabolite levels that occur during exposure to β-lactams. Under normal conditions, AmpR represses ampC transcription by binding the PG precursor UDP-N-acetylmuramic acid (MurNAc)-pentapeptide.

AmpG inactivation restores susceptibility of pan-beta-lactam-resistant Pseudomonas aeruginosa clinical strains.

Constitutive AmpC hyperproduction is the most frequent mechanism of resistance to the weak AmpC inducers antipseudomonal penicillins and cephalosporins. Previously, we demonstrated that inhibition of the β-N-acetylglucosaminidase NagZ prevents and reverts this mechanism of resistance, which is caused by ampD and/or dacB (PBP4) mutations in Pseudomonas aeruginosa. In this work, we compared NagZ with a second candidate target, the AmpG permease for GlcNAc-1,6-anhydromuropeptides, for their ability to block AmpC expression pathways.

Crystal structure of the AmpR effector binding domain provides insight into the molecular regulation of inducible ampc beta-lactamase.

Hyperproduction of AmpC beta-lactamase (AmpC) is a formidable mechanism of resistance to penicillins and cephalosporins in Gram-negative bacteria such as Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Enterobacteriaceae. AmpC expression is regulated by the LysR-type transcriptional regulator AmpR. ampR and ampC genes form a divergent operon with overlapping promoters to which AmpR binds and regulates the transcription of both genes.

NagZ inactivation prevents and reverts beta-lactam resistance, driven by AmpD and PBP 4 mutations, in Pseudomonas aeruginosa.

AmpC hyperproduction is the most frequent mechanism of resistance to penicillins and cephalosporins in Pseudomonas aeruginosa and is driven by ampD mutations or the recently described inactivation of dacB, which encodes the nonessential penicillin-binding protein (PBP) PBP 4. Recent work showed that nagZ inactivation attenuates beta-lactam resistance in ampD mutants. Here we explored whether the same could be true for the dacB mutants with dacB mutations alone or in combination with ampD mutations.

The University of Sydney Endocrine Surgery Database: 50 years of data accrual.

Surgical databases are now a fundamental part of clinical practice and research but have only been commonplace in the past decade or so. The University of Sydney Endocrine Surgery Database has now been in existence for more than 50 years since it was started by Tom Reeve in 1957. It includes comprehensive documentation of every aspect of every thyroid, parathyroid and adrenal procedure carried out by its surgeons while they were active members of the unit.

Parathyroidectomy for tertiary hyperparathyroidism associated with X-linked dominant hypophosphatemic rickets.

Background: X-linked dominant hypophosphatemic rickets (XLHR) is a hereditary metabolic bone syndrome that is only beginning to be understood and is rarely associated with progression to irreversible tertiary hyperparathyroidism. We report our surgical experience with 6 patients with XLHR who underwent parathyroidectomy for associated autonomous parathyroid hyperfunction.

Hypothesis: Parathyroidectomy can successfully treat tertiary hyperparathyroidism in the setting of XLHR, although an understanding of expected operative findings and postoperative complications is essential.

Changing pattern of adrenalectomy at a tertiary referral centre 1970-2000.

Background: In 1987, a report from this unit described the changing indications for open adrenalectomy over a 15-year period. The indications for adrenalectomy had switched from it being the principal therapeutic procedure used in advanced breast cancer in the early 1970s, to being predominately performed for Cushing's disease or incidental, asymptomatic, adrenal masses by the early 1980s. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the changes in the presentation and management of adrenal disease in the last 15 years and to compare these findings with our previously published results.