Epidermal growth factor stimulates rabbit achilles tendon histologically and biomechanically healing

Background. Epidermal Growth Factor (EGF) stimulates epidermis cell growth, proliferation and differentiation in skin regeneration. The aim of this study was to pre-clinically investigation of the role of EGF in tendon healing. Methods. One cm defects were created at the right Achilles tendons of 30 New Zealand White rabbits. Ten rabbits were allocated to one of three groups: Group-1-(Sham) tendon defect with a gap that was splinted with a non-absorbable suture; Group-2-(EGF +) tendon defect with a gap that was splinted with a non-absorbable suture and a 25 µg/kg EGF injection into the defect; Group-3-(Scaffold + EGF) tendon defect was grafted with a biodegradable, porous Polycaprolactone (PCL) scaffold loaded with 25 µg/kg EGF and stabilized with a non-absorbable suture. Animals were sacrificed at 8 weeks post-surgery and Achilles tendon repair and healing status was investigated using histopathologic and biomechanical analysis methods. Results. Group-2-(EGF +) had greater adipocyte development (moderate) than Group1-(Sham) and Group-3-(Scaffold + EGF). Group-2-(EGF +) and Group-3-(Scaffold + EGF) had greater peripheral nerve development (weak) than Group-1-(Sham). Group-2- (EGF +) had greater vascularization (moderate) than Group-1-(Sham) and Group-3-(Scaffold + EGF). Group-2-(EGF +) had greater collagen Type-III development (moderate) than Group-1-(Sham) and Group-3-(Scaffold + EGF). Group-3-(Scaffold + EGF) had greater collagen Type-I development (moderate) than Group-1-(Sham) and Group2-(EGF +). Groups did not display statistically significant differences for load to failure or elongation at failure. Group-2-(EGF +) and Group-3-(Scaffold + EGF) displayed less stiffness that the control (healthy contralateral Achilles tendon) (p 0.05). Conclusions. The application of EGF and scaffold displayed superior histological tendon healing evidence, but there was no significant difference in terms of biomechanics

Relational job crafting: Exploring the role of employee motives with a weekly diary study

© The Author(s) 2018. In this weekly diary study, we integrated research on job crafting to explore the associations between expansion and contraction oriented relational job crafting, work engagement and manager-rated employee behaviours (work performance and voice). Furthermore, we investigated cross-level moderations of prosocial and impression management motives on our proposed associations. We tested our hypotheses with matched data collected over seven weeks in Istanbul, Turkey. The results from multilevel analyses revealed that (a) expansion oriented relational job crafting is positively related with work performance and voice via work engagement, while (b) contraction oriented relational job crafting is negatively related with work performance and voice via work engagement, all measured at the week level. Furthermore, impression management motives of employees moderated the association between expansion oriented relational job crafting and work engagement in that this positive association is stronger for employees low on impression management motives. Our results contribute to job crafting research in two ways. First, it focuses on relational job crafting and discusses how and why the two opposite types of relational job crafting (expansion versus contraction oriented) impact on work engagement and employees’ key outcomes in the way they do. This addresses the question ‘is there a dark side to job crafting?’ Second, it focuses on the importance of context and integrates two motives relevant to understand how relational job crafting unfolds, thereby taking a step to address questions for whom (i.e. what kinds of employees), relational job crafting is more effective and translates into enhanced (vs deteriorated) work outcomes. Moreover, our use of a weekly within-person design adds to a recently growing research stream emphasizing the dynamic nature of job crafting

Disentangling Content and Motion for Text-Based Neural Video Manipulation

Giving machines the ability to imagine possible new objects or scenes from linguistic descriptions and produce their realistic renderings is arguably one of the most challenging problems in computer vision. Recent advances in deep generative models have led to new approaches that give promising results towards this goal. In this paper, we introduce a new method called DiCoMoGAN for manipulating videos with natural language, aiming to perform local and semantic edits on a video clip to alter the appearances of an object of interest. Our GAN architecture allows for better utilization of multiple observations by disentangling content and motion to enable controllable semantic edits. To this end, we introduce two tightly coupled networks: (i) a representation network for constructing a concise understanding of motion dynamics and temporally invariant content, and (ii) a translation network that exploits the extracted latent content representation to actuate the manipulation according to the target description. Our qualitative and quantitative evaluations demonstrate that DiCoMoGAN significantly outperforms existing frame-based methods, producing temporally coherent and semantically more meaningful results

The impact of concurrent HPV infections on the presentation of high grade cervical intraepithelial lesions

Objectives: We investigate how concurrent high-risk (hr) HPV (human papillomavirus) genotypes affect CIN2-3 risk and evaluate the relationship of different genotype combinations with cervical epithelial lesions. Material and methods: This study included HPV positive patients between the ages of 30 and 60 who underwent liquid-based cervical smears and HPV screening through community-based, cervical cancer screening programs between June 2015 and June 2017. The impact of the increase in hrHPV types was calculated by estimating how it changed the odds ratio of CIN2-3 risk. Results: The rate of multiple concurrent HPV infections was 48.7% in the CIN2-3 group and 58.4% in the CIN1 group. Among patients in the CIN2-3 and CIN1 groups, the most common HPV coinfection was respectively HPV 16+31 and HPV 16+51. The HPV 51 ratio in CIN1 patients was 28.9% and the HPV 51 ratio in the CIN2-3 patient was 6.6%. With every increase in the number of hrHPV infection types, the frequency of CIN2-3 decreased [OR: 0.72, 95% CI: 0.54-0.95]. For all hrHPV combinations, the addition of HPV 16 was associated with a higher risk of CIN2-3. Conclusions: An increase in number of hrHPV types is associated with lower CIN2-3 risk. Further cohort studies with larger samples are needed to clarify this relationship. The available evidence suggests that HPV 16 genotype plays an important role in patients with high-grade cervical lesions and has a negative impact on the cervix in concurrent multiple HPV infections

Mortality from gastrointestinal congenital anomalies at 264 hospitals in 74 low-income, middle-income, and high-income countries: a multicentre, international, prospective cohort study

Background: Congenital anomalies are the fifth leading cause of mortality in children younger than 5 years globally. Many gastrointestinal congenital anomalies are fatal without timely access to neonatal surgical care, but few studies have been done on these conditions in low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs). We compared outcomes of the seven most common gastrointestinal congenital anomalies in low-income, middle-income, and high-income countries globally, and identified factors associated with mortality. // Methods: We did a multicentre, international prospective cohort study of patients younger than 16 years, presenting to hospital for the first time with oesophageal atresia, congenital diaphragmatic hernia, intestinal atresia, gastroschisis, exomphalos, anorectal malformation, and Hirschsprung's disease. Recruitment was of consecutive patients for a minimum of 1 month between October, 2018, and April, 2019. We collected data on patient demographics, clinical status, interventions, and outcomes using the REDCap platform. Patients were followed up for 30 days after primary intervention, or 30 days after admission if they did not receive an intervention. The primary outcome was all-cause, in-hospital mortality for all conditions combined and each condition individually, stratified by country income status. We did a complete case analysis. // Findings: We included 3849 patients with 3975 study conditions (560 with oesophageal atresia, 448 with congenital diaphragmatic hernia, 681 with intestinal atresia, 453 with gastroschisis, 325 with exomphalos, 991 with anorectal malformation, and 517 with Hirschsprung's disease) from 264 hospitals (89 in high-income countries, 166 in middle-income countries, and nine in low-income countries) in 74 countries. Of the 3849 patients, 2231 (58·0%) were male. Median gestational age at birth was 38 weeks (IQR 36–39) and median bodyweight at presentation was 2·8 kg (2·3–3·3). Mortality among all patients was 37 (39·8%) of 93 in low-income countries, 583 (20·4%) of 2860 in middle-income countries, and 50 (5·6%) of 896 in high-income countries (p<0·0001 between all country income groups). Gastroschisis had the greatest difference in mortality between country income strata (nine [90·0%] of ten in low-income countries, 97 [31·9%] of 304 in middle-income countries, and two [1·4%] of 139 in high-income countries; p≤0·0001 between all country income groups). Factors significantly associated with higher mortality for all patients combined included country income status (low-income vs high-income countries, risk ratio 2·78 [95% CI 1·88–4·11], p<0·0001; middle-income vs high-income countries, 2·11 [1·59–2·79], p<0·0001), sepsis at presentation (1·20 [1·04–1·40], p=0·016), higher American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) score at primary intervention (ASA 4–5 vs ASA 1–2, 1·82 [1·40–2·35], p<0·0001; ASA 3 vs ASA 1–2, 1·58, [1·30–1·92], p<0·0001]), surgical safety checklist not used (1·39 [1·02–1·90], p=0·035), and ventilation or parenteral nutrition unavailable when needed (ventilation 1·96, [1·41–2·71], p=0·0001; parenteral nutrition 1·35, [1·05–1·74], p=0·018). Administration of parenteral nutrition (0·61, [0·47–0·79], p=0·0002) and use of a peripherally inserted central catheter (0·65 [0·50–0·86], p=0·0024) or percutaneous central line (0·69 [0·48–1·00], p=0·049) were associated with lower mortality. // Interpretation: Unacceptable differences in mortality exist for gastrointestinal congenital anomalies between low-income, middle-income, and high-income countries. Improving access to quality neonatal surgical care in LMICs will be vital to achieve Sustainable Development Goal 3.2 of ending preventable deaths in neonates and children younger than 5 years by 2030

Global respiratory syncytial virus–related infant community deaths

Background Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is a leading cause of pediatric death, with >99% of mortality occurring in low- and lower middle-income countries. At least half of RSV-related deaths are estimated to occur in the community, but clinical characteristics of this group of children remain poorly characterized. Methods The RSV Global Online Mortality Database (RSV GOLD), a global registry of under-5 children who have died with RSV-related illness, describes clinical characteristics of children dying of RSV through global data sharing. RSV GOLD acts as a collaborative platform for global deaths, including community mortality studies described in this supplement. We aimed to compare the age distribution of infant deaths <6 months occurring in the community with in-hospital. Results We studied 829 RSV-related deaths <1 year of age from 38 developing countries, including 166 community deaths from 12 countries. There were 629 deaths that occurred <6 months, of which 156 (25%) occurred in the community. Among infants who died before 6 months of age, median age at death in the community (1.5 months; IQR: 0.8−3.3) was lower than in-hospital (2.4 months; IQR: 1.5−4.0; P < .0001). The proportion of neonatal deaths was higher in the community (29%, 46/156) than in-hospital (12%, 57/473, P < 0.0001). Conclusions We observed that children in the community die at a younger age. We expect that maternal vaccination or immunoprophylaxis against RSV will have a larger impact on RSV-related mortality in the community than in-hospital. This case series of RSV-related community deaths, made possible through global data sharing, allowed us to assess the potential impact of future RSV vaccines

Mortality from gastrointestinal congenital anomalies at 264 hospitals in 74 low-income, middle-income, and high-income countries: a multicentre, international, prospective cohort study

Summary Background Congenital anomalies are the fifth leading cause of mortality in children younger than 5 years globally. Many gastrointestinal congenital anomalies are fatal without timely access to neonatal surgical care, but few studies have been done on these conditions in low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs). We compared outcomes of the seven most common gastrointestinal congenital anomalies in low-income, middle-income, and high-income countries globally, and identified factors associated with mortality. Methods We did a multicentre, international prospective cohort study of patients younger than 16 years, presenting to hospital for the first time with oesophageal atresia, congenital diaphragmatic hernia, intestinal atresia, gastroschisis, exomphalos, anorectal malformation, and Hirschsprung’s disease. Recruitment was of consecutive patients for a minimum of 1 month between October, 2018, and April, 2019. We collected data on patient demographics, clinical status, interventions, and outcomes using the REDCap platform. Patients were followed up for 30 days after primary intervention, or 30 days after admission if they did not receive an intervention. The primary outcome was all-cause, in-hospital mortality for all conditions combined and each condition individually, stratified by country income status. We did a complete case analysis. Findings We included 3849 patients with 3975 study conditions (560 with oesophageal atresia, 448 with congenital diaphragmatic hernia, 681 with intestinal atresia, 453 with gastroschisis, 325 with exomphalos, 991 with anorectal malformation, and 517 with Hirschsprung’s disease) from 264 hospitals (89 in high-income countries, 166 in middleincome countries, and nine in low-income countries) in 74 countries. Of the 3849 patients, 2231 (58·0%) were male. Median gestational age at birth was 38 weeks (IQR 36–39) and median bodyweight at presentation was 2·8 kg (2·3–3·3). Mortality among all patients was 37 (39·8%) of 93 in low-income countries, 583 (20·4%) of 2860 in middle-income countries, and 50 (5·6%) of 896 in high-income countries (p<0·0001 between all country income groups). Gastroschisis had the greatest difference in mortality between country income strata (nine [90·0%] of ten in lowincome countries, 97 [31·9%] of 304 in middle-income countries, and two [1·4%] of 139 in high-income countries; p≤0·0001 between all country income groups). Factors significantly associated with higher mortality for all patients combined included country income status (low-income vs high-income countries, risk ratio 2·78 [95% CI 1·88–4·11], p<0·0001; middle-income vs high-income countries, 2·11 [1·59–2·79], p<0·0001), sepsis at presentation (1·20 [1·04–1·40], p=0·016), higher American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) score at primary intervention (ASA 4–5 vs ASA 1–2, 1·82 [1·40–2·35], p<0·0001; ASA 3 vs ASA 1–2, 1·58, [1·30–1·92], p<0·0001]), surgical safety checklist not used (1·39 [1·02–1·90], p=0·035), and ventilation or parenteral nutrition unavailable when needed (ventilation 1·96, [1·41–2·71], p=0·0001; parenteral nutrition 1·35, [1·05–1·74], p=0·018). Administration of parenteral nutrition (0·61, [0·47–0·79], p=0·0002) and use of a peripherally inserted central catheter (0·65 [0·50–0·86], p=0·0024) or percutaneous central line (0·69 [0·48–1·00], p=0·049) were associated with lower mortality. Interpretation Unacceptable differences in mortality exist for gastrointestinal congenital anomalies between lowincome, middle-income, and high-income countries. Improving access to quality neonatal surgical care in LMICs will be vital to achieve Sustainable Development Goal 3.2 of ending preventable deaths in neonates and children younger than 5 years by 2030