Results of a novel screening tool measuring dietary sodium knowledge in patients with chronic kidney disease.

BackgroundReducing dietary sodium has potential to benefit patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD). Little research is available defining dietary sodium knowledge gaps in patients with pre-dialysis CKD. We designed a brief screening tool to rapidly identify patient knowledge gaps related to dietary sodium for patients with CKD not yet on dialysis.MethodsA Short Sodium Knowledge Survey (SSKS) was developed and administered to patients with pre-dialysis CKD. We also asked patients if they received counseling on dietary sodium reduction and about recommended intake limits. We performed logistic regression to examine the association between sodium knowledge and patient characteristics. Characteristics of patients who answered all SSKS questions correctly were compared to those who did not.ResultsOne-hundred fifty-five patients were surveyed. The mean (SD) age was 56.6 (15.1) years, 84 (54%) were men, and 119 (77%) were white. Sixty-seven patients (43.2%) correctly identified their daily intake sodium limit. Fifty-eight (37.4%) were unable to answer all survey questions correctly. In analysis adjusted for age, sex, race, education, health literacy, CKD stage, self-reported hypertension and attendance in a kidney education class, women and patients of non-white race had lower odds of correctly answering survey questions (0.36 [0.16,0.81]; p = 0.01 women versus men and 0.33 [0.14,0.76]; p = 0.01 non-white versus white, respectively).ConclusionsOur survey provides a mechanism to quickly identify dietary sodium knowledge gaps in patients with CKD. Women and patients of non-white race may have knowledge barriers impeding adherence to sodium reduction advice

Diagnosis of gastric carcinoma by classification on feature projections

Cataloged from PDF version of article.A new classification algorithm, called benefit maximizing classifier on feature projections (BCFP), is developed and applied to the problem of diagnosis of gastric carcinoma. The domain contains records of patients with known diagnosis through gastroscopy results. Given a training set of such records, the BCFP classifier learns how to differentiate a new case in the domain. BCFP represents a concept in the form of feature projections on each feature dimension separately. Classification in the BCFP algorithm is based on a voting among the individual predictions made on each feature. In the gastric carcinoma domain, a lesion can be an indicator of one of nine different Levels of gastric carcinoma, from early to late stages. The benefit of correct classification of early levels is much more than that of late cases. Also, the costs of wrong classifications are not symmetric. In the training phase, the BCFP algorithm learns classification rules that maximize the benefit of classification. In the querying phase, using these rules, the BCFP algorithm tries to make a prediction maximizing the benefit. A genetic algorithm is applied to select the relevant features. The performance of the BCFP algorithm is evaluated in terms of accuracy and running time. The rules induced are verified by experts of the domain. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved

From Traditional to Modern : Domain Adaptation for Action Classification in Short Social Video Clips

Short internet video clips like vines present a significantly wild distribution compared to traditional video datasets. In this paper, we focus on the problem of unsupervised action classification in wild vines using traditional labeled datasets. To this end, we use a data augmentation based simple domain adaptation strategy. We utilise semantic word2vec space as a common subspace to embed video features from both, labeled source domain and unlablled target domain. Our method incrementally augments the labeled source with target samples and iteratively modifies the embedding function to bring the source and target distributions together. Additionally, we utilise a multi-modal representation that incorporates noisy semantic information available in form of hash-tags. We show the effectiveness of this simple adaptation technique on a test set of vines and achieve notable improvements in performance.Comment: 9 pages, GCPR, 201

Amino acid and albumin losses during hemodialysis

Amino acid and albumin losses during hemodialysis. Protein and calorie malnutrition are prevalent in chronic hemodialysis (HD) patients and has been linked to increased mortality and morbidity in this patient population, Concern has been raised that the open pore structure of high flux membranes may induce the loss of more amino acids (AA) compared to low flux membranes. To address this issue, we prospectively analyzed pre- and post-HD plasma AA profiles with three different membranes in nine patients. Simultaneously, we measured dialysate AA losses during HD. The membranes studied were: cellulosic (cuprophane-CU), low flux polymethylmethacrylate (LF-PMMA), and high flux polysulfone (HF-PS) during their first use. Our results show that pre-HD plasma AA profiles were abnormal compared to controls and decreased significantly during HD with all dialyzers. The use of HF-PS membranes resulted in significantly more AA losses into the dialysate when compared to LF-PMMA membranes (mean ± SD; 8.0 ± 2.8 g/dialysis for HF-PS, 6.1 ± 1.5 g/dialysis for LF-PMMA, p < 0.05, and 7.2 ± 2.6 g/dialysis for CU membranes, P = NS). When adjusted for surface area and blood flow, AA losses were not different between any of the dialyzers. We also measured dialysate AA losses during the sixth reuse of the HF-PS membrane. Losses of total AA increased by 50% during the sixth reuse of HF-PS membrane compared to its first use. In addition, albumin was detected in the dialysate during the sixth reuse of HF-PS membrane. We therefore measured albumin losses in all patients dialyzed with HF-PS membranes as a function of reuse. Albumin losses increased significantly beyond 15 reuses. Average albumin losses were 1.5 ± 1.3 g/dialysis below the 15th reuse, but increased to 9.3 ± 5.5 g/dialysis during the 20th reuse. We conclude that the abnormal plasma AA profile in HD patients is further exacerbated with hemodialysis for most of the individual amino acids, and that dialysate AA losses are modulated by membrane characteristics and reuse. Further, HF-PS membranes with reuse numbers over 15 lose substantial amounts of albumin in the dialysate

Comparative Study of Influenza Virus Replication in MDCK Cells and in Primary Cells Derived from Adenoids and Airway Epithelium

Although clinical trials with human subjects are essential for determination of safety, infectivity, and immunogenicity, it is de- sirable to know in advance the infectiousness of potential candidate live attenuated influenza vaccine strains for human use. We compared the replication kinetics of wild-type and live attenuated influenza viruses, including H1N1, H3N2, H9N2, and B strains, in Madin-Darby canine kidney (MDCK) cells, primary epithelial cells derived from human adenoids, and human bron- chial epithelium (NHBE cells). Our data showed that despite the fact that all tissue culture models lack a functional adaptive im- mune system, differentiated cultures of human epithelium exhibited the greatest restriction for all H1N1, H3N2, and B vaccine viruses studied among three cell types tested and the best correlation with their levels of attenuation seen in clinical trials with humans. In contrast, the data obtained with MDCK cells were the least predictive of restricted viral replication of live attenuated vaccine viruses in humans. We were able to detect a statistically significant difference between the replication abilities of the U.S. (A/Ann Arbor/6/60) and Russian (A/Leningrad/134/17/57) cold-adapted vaccine donor strains in NHBE cultures. Since live at- tenuated pandemic influenza vaccines may potentially express a hemagglutinin and neuraminidase from a non-human influenza virus, we assessed which of the three cell cultures could be used to optimally evaluate the infectivity and cellular tropism of vi- ruses derived from different hosts. Among the three cell types tested, NHBE cultures most adequately reflected the infectivity and cellular tropism of influenza virus strains with different receptor specificities. NHBE cultures could be considered for use as a screening step for evaluating the restricted replication of influenza vaccine candidates

Mitochondrial dysfunction and oxidative stress in patients with chronic kidney disease.

Mitochondria abnormalities in skeletal muscle may contribute to frailty and sarcopenia, commonly present in patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD). Dysfunctional mitochondria are also a major source of oxidative stress and may contribute to cardiovascular disease in CKD We tested the hypothesis that mitochondrial structure and function worsens with the severity of CKD Mitochondrial volume density, mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) copy number, BNIP3, and PGC1α protein expression were evaluated in skeletal muscle biopsies obtained from 27 subjects (17 controls and 10 with CKD stage 5 on hemodialysis). We also measured mtDNA copy number in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs), plasma isofurans, and plasma F2-isoprostanes in 208 subjects divided into three groups: non-CKD (eGFR&gt;60 mL/min), CKD stage 3-4 (eGFR 60-15 mL/min), and CKD stage 5 (on hemodialysis). Muscle biopsies from patients with CKD stage 5 revealed lower mitochondrial volume density, lower mtDNA copy number, and higher BNIP3 content than controls. mtDNA copy number in PBMCs was decreased with increasing severity of CKD: non-CKD (6.48, 95% CI 4.49-8.46), CKD stage 3-4 (3.30, 95% CI 0.85-5.75, P = 0.048 vs. non-CKD), and CKD stage 5 (1.93, 95% CI 0.27-3.59, P = 0.001 vs. non-CKD). Isofurans were higher in patients with CKD stage 5 (median 59.21 pg/mL, IQR 41.76-95.36) compared to patients with non-CKD (median 49.95 pg/mL, IQR 27.88-83.46, P = 0.001), whereas F2-isoprostanes did not differ among groups. Severity of CKD is associated with mitochondrial dysfunction and markers of oxidative stress. Mitochondrial abnormalities, which are common in skeletal muscle from patients with CKD stage 5, may explain the muscle dysfunction associated with frailty and sarcopenia in CKD Further studies are required to evaluate mitochondrial function in vivo in patients with different CKD stages

A quantum-chemical study on 3,3'-bi(4H-1,2,4-triazole)

1246-125

Serotype-specific differences in inhibition of reovirus infectivity by human-milk glycans are determined by viral attachment protein σ1

AbstractHuman milk contains many bioactive components, including secretory IgA, oligosaccharides, and milk-associated proteins. We assessed the antiviral effects of several components of milk against mammalian reoviruses. We found that glucocerebroside (GCB) inhibited the infectivity of reovirus strain type 1 Lang (T1L), whereas gangliosides GD3 and GM3 and 3′-sialyllactose (3SL) inhibited the infectivity of reovirus strain type 3 Dearing (T3D). Agglutination of erythrocytes mediated by T1L and T3D was inhibited by GD3, GM3, and bovine lactoferrin. Additionally, α-sialic acid, 3SL, 6′-sialyllactose, sialic acid, human lactoferrin, osteopontin, and α-lactalbumin inhibited hemagglutination mediated by T3D. Using single-gene reassortant viruses, we found that serotype-specific differences segregate with the gene encoding the viral attachment protein. Furthermore, GD3, GM3, and 3SL inhibit T3D infectivity by blocking binding to host cells, whereas GCB inhibits T1L infectivity post-attachment. These results enhance an understanding of reovirus cell attachment and define a mechanism for the antimicrobial activity of human milk

Etiology of the Protein-Energy Wasting Syndrome in Chronic Kidney Disease: A Consensus Statement From the International Society of Renal Nutrition andMetabolism (ISRNM)

Protein-energy wasting (PEW), a term proposed by the International Society of Renal Nutrition and Metabolism (ISRNM), refers to the multiple nutritional and catabolic alterations that occur in chronic kidney disease (CKD) and associate with morbidity and mortality. To increase awareness, identify research needs, and provide the basis for future work to understand therapies and consequences of PEW, ISRNM provides this consensus statement of current knowledge on the etiology of PEW syndrome in CKD. Although insufficient food intake (true undernutrition) due to poor appetite and dietary restrictions contribute, other highly prevalent factors are required for the full syndrome to develop. These include uremia-induced alterations such as increased energy expenditure, persistent inflammation, acidosis, and multiple endocrine disorders that render a state of hypermetabolism leading to excess catabolism of muscle and fat. in addition, comorbid conditions associated with CKD, poor physical activity, frailty, and the dialysis procedure per se further contribute to PEW. Published by Elsevier Inc. on behalf of the National Kidney Foundation, Inc.Abbott NutritionShireAbbot Renal NutritionBaxter HealthcareKarolinska Inst, Div Renal Med, Dept Clin Sci Intervent & Technol, Solna, SwedenUniversidade Federal de São Paulo, Div Nephrol, Dept Med, São Paulo, BrazilVanderbilt Univ, Sch Med, Dept Med, Div Nephrol, Nashville, TN 37212 USAUniv Calif Irvine, Med Ctr, Harold Simmons Ctr, Div Nephrol & Hypertens, Orange, CA USAUniv Calif Davis, Dept Internal Med, Davis, CA 95616 USAUniv Calif Davis, Dept Biochem & Mol Med, Davis, CA 95616 USABaylor Coll Med, Dept Med, Div Nephrol, Houston, TX 77030 USAEmory Univ, Sch Med, Div Renal, Dept Med, Atlanta, GA 30306 USAAtlanta Dept Vet Affairs Med Ctr, Res Serv, Decatur, GA 30033 USAUniv Wurzburg, Div Nephrol, Dept Internal Med, D-97070 Wurzburg, GermanyUniv Hong Kong, Dept Med, Queen Mary Hosp, Hong Kong, Hong Kong, Peoples R ChinaVrije Univ Amsterdam Med Ctr, Dept Nephrol, Amsterdam, NetherlandsUniversidade Federal de São Paulo, Div Nephrol, Dept Med, São Paulo, BrazilWeb of Scienc