Effectiveness of a physical activity intervention in preschoolers: A cluster-randomized controlled trial.

Several activity interventions in preschool settings exist, but little attention has been paid to effects on hemodynamic factors. The study aimed to assess the effectiveness of an exercise program on health-related outcomes including blood pressure (BP) and markers of vascular function in preschoolers, with focus on socioeconomic background. This study is a cluster-randomized controlled trial, with preschool as unit of randomization and children as unit of analysis.

Implementation of a Clinical Reasoning Course in the Internal Medicine trimester of the final year of undergraduate medical training and its effect on students' case presentation and differential diagnostic skills.

Clinical reasoning, comprising the processes of clinical thinking, which form the basis of medical decisions, constitutes a central competence in the clinical routine on which diagnostic and therapeutic steps are based. In medical curricula in Germany, clinical reasoning is currently taught explicitly only to a small extend. Therefore, the aim of this project was to develop and implement a clinical reasoning course in the final year of undergraduate medical training.

Prognostic value of perioperative near-infrared spectroscopy during neonatal and infant congenital heart surgery for adverse in-hospital clinical events.

Background: Perioperative monitoring with multisite near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) for congenital cardiac surgery with cardiopulmonary bypass may aid in predicting adverse clinical outcomes.

Methods: Forty-one consecutive neonates and infants undergoing bypass were monitored with right + left cerebral and renal NIRS. Near-infrared spectroscopy and lactate were measured at 20 time points, from baseline 1 day preoperatively, during bypass and modified ultrafiltration (MUF; 10 minutes), until 24 hours postoperatively.

The giant extracellular matrix-binding protein of Staphylococcus epidermidis mediates biofilm accumulation and attachment to fibronectin.

Virulence of nosocomial pathogen Staphylococcus epidermidis is essentially related to formation of adherent biofilms, assembled by bacterial attachment to an artificial surface and subsequent production of a matrix that mediates interbacterial adhesion. Growing evidence supports the idea that proteins are functionally involved in S. epidermidis biofilm accumulation.

A new clade of hepatitis B virus subgenotype F1 from Peru with unusual properties.

There are eight genotypes A-H of hepatitis B virus (HBV). Most genotypes are further divided into subgenotypes. Genotypes and subgenotypes influence the natural course of infection and therapy.