Bioresorbable scaffold - A magic bullet for the treatment of coronary artery disease?

Today, drug-eluting metal stents are considered the gold standard for interventional treatment of coronary artery disease. While providing inhibition of neointimal hyperplasia, drug-eluting metal stents have many limitations such as the risk of late and very late stent thrombosis, restriction of vascular vasomotion and chronic local inflammatory reaction due to permanent implantation of a 'metallic cage', recognized as a foreign body. Bioresorbable scaffold stents (BRS) are a new solution, which is trying to overcome the limitation of the 'metallic cage'. This structure provides short-term scaffolding of the vessel and then disappears, leaving nothing behind. The purpose of this review is to present the theoretical rationale for the use of BRS and to outline the clinical outcomes associated with their use in terms of data obtained from RCTs, clinical trials, registries and real life use. We have also tried to answer all questions on this intervention based on available data, with a focus on ABSORB BVS (Abbott Vascular, Santa Clara, USA). We consider that this new technology can be the "magic bullet" to treat coronary artery disease

The impact of abnormal glucose tolerance and obesity on fetal growth

Factors linked with insulin resistance were examined for their association with large-for-gestational-age (LGA) infant birth weight and gestational diabetes. Study Design. Data came from a longitudinal cohort study of 2,305 subjects without overt diabetes, analyzed using multinomial logistic and linear regression. Results. High maternal BMI (OR = 1.53 (1.11, 2.12)), height (1.98 (1.62, 2.42)), antidepressant use (1.71 (1.20, 2.44)), pregnancy weight-gain exceeding 40 pounds (1.79 (1.25, 2.57)), and high blood sugar (2.68, (1.53, 5.27)) were all positively associated with LGA birth. Strikingly, the difference in risk from diagnosed and treated gestational diabetes compared to women with a single abnormal glucose tolerance test (but no diagnosis of gestational diabetes) was significant (OR = 0.65, p = 0.12 versus OR = 2.84, p \u3c 0.01). When weight/length ratio was used instead, different factors were found to be significant. BMI and pregnancy weight-gain were found to influence the development of gestational diabetes, through an additive interaction. Conclusions. High prepregnancy BM, height, antidepressant use, pregnancy weight-gain exceeding 40 pounds, and high blood sugar were associated with LGA birth, but not necessarily infant weight/length ratio. An additive interaction between BMI and pregnancy weight-gain influenced gestational diabetes development

A Community-Based Participatory Research Approach to Developing the Harvest for Healthy Kids Curriculum

Background: A diet rich in fruits and vegetables is associated with reduced risk of diet-related chronic diseases. However, fewer than half of children in the United States consume the recommended amount. Objectives: This article describes the community-based participatory research (CBPR) process used to develop the Harvest for Healthy Kids curriculum. Methods: Harvest for Healthy Kids is a intervention research project designed to increase access to and intake of fruits and vegetables among preschoolers enrolled in Head Start. The curriculum is composed of eight kits, each focusing on a different fruit or vegetable. Results: The Harvest for Healthy Kids curriculum was developed through an iterative process in which Head Start teachers were highly involved. The final product reflects the teachers’ experiences using the curriculum and their suggestions for improving. Conclusions: The CBPR process used to develop the Harvest for Healthy Kids curriculum led to a product that is grounded in theory and practice

Granular Packings: Nonlinear elasticity, sound propagation and collective relaxation dynamics

Experiments on isotropic compression of a granular assembly of spheres show that the shear and bulk moduli vary with the confining pressure faster than the 1/3 power law predicted by Hertz-Mindlin effective medium theories (EMT) of contact elasticity. Moreover, the ratio between the moduli is found to be larger than the prediction of the elastic theory by a constant value. The understanding of these discrepancies has been a longstanding question in the field of granular matter. Here we perform a test of the applicability of elasticity theory to granular materials. We perform sound propagation experiments, numerical simulations and theoretical studies to understand the elastic response of a deforming granular assembly of soft spheres under isotropic loading. Our results for the behavior of the elastic moduli of the system agree very well with experiments. We show that the elasticity partially describes the experimental and numerical results for a system under compressional loads. However, it drastically fails for systems under shear perturbations, particularly for packings without tangential forces and friction. Our work indicates that a correct treatment should include not only the purely elastic response but also collective relaxation mechanisms related to structural disorder and nonaffine motion of grains.Comment: 21 pages, 13 figure

Professional Development for Early Career DBER Scholars through In-Person and Virtual Career Panel Workshops

In discipline-based education research (DBER), early career scholars, such as graduate students and postdoctoral researchers, observe a slew of possible career pathways. Yet, there is a lack of opportunities to learn about such pathways, particularly when transitioning from traditional science, technology, engineering, or math (STEM) disciplinary training into a DBER position. Thus, the DBER Scholars-in-Training Professional Development subcommittee was created within the Society for the Advancement of Biology Education Research (SABER) community to develop a collection of workshops that would serve the greatest professional development needs of early career scholars entering DBER. Through a series of surveys disseminated over multiple years, early career scholars expressed interest in better navigating their career options, which led to the development of the career panel workshop, held during the 2019 and 2020 SABER Annual National Conferences. In this report, we explore the development, implementation, and results of two career panel workshops and compare and contrast the 2019 in-person workshop with the 2020 virtual workshop. We also offer our insights on the value of the career workshop, discuss the next steps, and explore valuable resources for those planning on organizing similar events

Reproductive success of kittiwakes and murres in sequential stages of the nesting period: Relationships with diet and oceanography

Reproductive success is one of the most easily-measured and widely studied demographic parameters of colonial nesting seabirds. Nevertheless, factors affecting the sequential stages (egg laying, incubation, chick-rearing) of reproductive success are less understood. We investigated the separate sequential stages of reproductive success in piscivorous black-legged kittiwakes (Rissa tridactyla) and thick-billed murres (Uria lomvia) using a 36-year dataset (1975–2010) on the major Pribilof Islands (St. Paul and St. George), which have recently had contrasting population trajectories. Our objectives were to evaluate how the proportion of successful nests varied among stages, and to quantify factors influencing the probability of nest success at each stage in each island. We modeled the probability of nest success at each stage using General Linear Mixed Models incorporating broad-scale and local climate variables, and diet as covariates as well as other measures of reproduction such as timing of breeding and reproductive output in the previous year and previous stage. For both species we found: (1) Success in previous stages of the breeding cycle and success in the prior year better explained overall success than any environmental variables. Phenology was also an important predictor of laying success for kittiwakes. (2) Fledging success was lower when chick diets contained oceanic fish found farther from the colonies and small invertebrates, rather than coastal fish species. (3) Differences in reproductive variables at St. Paul and St. George islands did not correspond to population trends between the two islands. Our results highlight the potential importance of adult condition and annual survival to kittiwake and murre productivity and ultimately, populations. Adult condition carrying over from the previous year ultimately seems to drive annual breeding success in a cascade effect. Furthermore, condition and survival appear to be important contributors to population dynamics at each island. Therefore, adult condition and survival prior to breeding, and factors that influence these parameters such as foraging conditions in the non-breeding season, may be important datasets for understanding drivers of seabird demography at the Pribilof Islands.KEYWORDS: USA, Reproductive success, Pribilof Islands, Thick-billed murre, Marine birds, Bering Sea, Black-legged kittiwake, Alaska, DietsThis is the publisher’s final pdf. The published article is copyrighted by Elsevier and can be found at: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/deep-sea-research-part-ii-topical-studies-in-oceanograph

T2 FLAIR hyperintensity volume Is associated with cognitive function and quality of life in clinically stable patients with lower grade gliomas

Survival outcomes for patients with lower grade gliomas (LrGG) continue to improve. However, damage caused both by tumor growth and by the consequences of treatment often leads to significantly impaired cognitive function and quality of life (QoL). While neuropsychological testing is not routine, serial clinical MRIs are standard of care for patients with LrGG. Thus, having a greater understanding of MRI indicators of cognitive and QoL impairment risk could be beneficial to patients and clinicians. In this work we sought to test the hypothesis that in clinically stable LrGG patients, T2 FLAIR hyperintensity volumes at the time of cognitive assessment are associated with impairments of cognitive function and QoL and could be used to help identify patients for cognitive and QoL assessments and interventions. We performed anatomical MR imaging, cognitive testing and QoL assessments cross-sectionally in 30 clinically stable grade 2 and 3 glioma patients with subjective cognitive concerns who were 6 or more months post-treatment. Larger post-surgical T2 FLAIR volume at testing was significantly associated with lower cognitive performance, while pre-surgical tumor volume was not. Older patients had lower cognitive performance than younger patients, even after accounting for normal age-related declines in performance. Patients with Astrocytoma, IDH mutant LrGGs were more likely to show lower cognitive performance than patients with Oligodendroglioma, IDH mutant 1p19q co-deleted LrGGs. Previous treatment with combined radiation and chemotherapy was associated with poorer self-reported QoL, including self-reported cognitive function. This study demonstrates the importance of appreciating that LrGG patients may experience impairments in cognitive function and QoL over their disease course, including during periods of otherwise sustained clinical stability. Imaging factors can be helpful in identifying vulnerable patients who would benefit from cognitive assessment and rehabilitation