Chinese translation and validation of the Oxford Knee Scale for patients with knee osteoarthritis

Background: Oxford Knee Scale (OKS) is a commonly used instrument to assess the symptoms and functional status in people with knee osteoarthritis. However, a Chinese version of this scale is not yet available. Objective: The objective of this study was to translate the OKS into Chinese and validate the Chinese version of OKS. Methods: The Chinese OKS was translated from the original English version following the recommendations of the International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research. One hundred Chinese reading patients with knee osteoarthritis were recruited from local hospitals and physiotherapy clinics. Psychometric properties were evaluated in terms of test-retest reliability and internal consistency. Convergent validity was examined by Spearman rank correlation coefficient tests by comparing its score with the validated Chinese version of the Western Ontario and McMaster Universities Osteoarthritis Index and Health Outcome Survey Short Form-36. Results: Chinese OKS demonstrated excellent reliability (intraclass correlation coefficient = 0.88). Cronbach a of individual questions was > 0.7. Strong correlation was found between the Chinese OKS and the Western Ontario and McMaster Universities Osteoarthritis Index (r > 0.553, p < 0.001). Fairly strong negative correlation was also found between Chinese OKS and Health Outcome Survey Short Form-36 (p = -0.273 to -0.666, p < 0.05). Conclusion: The Chinese translated version of OKS is a reliable and valid instrument for clinical evaluation in Chinese reading patients with knee osteoarthritis

A Critical Role for Perivascular Cells in Amplifying Vascular Leakage Induced by Dengue Virus Non-Structural Protein 1

ABSTRACT Dengue is the most prevalent arthropod-borne viral disease affecting humans, with severe dengue typified by potentially fatal microvascular leakage and hypovolemic shock. Blood vessels of the microvasculature are composed of a tubular structure of endothelial cells ensheathed by perivascular cells (pericytes). Pericytes support endothelial cell barrier formation and maintenance through paracrine and contact-mediated signaling and are critical to microvascular integrity. Pericyte dysfunction has been linked to vascular leakage in noncommunicable pathologies such as diabetic retinopathy but has never been linked to infection-related vascular leakage. Dengue vascular leakage has been shown to result in part from the direct action of the secreted dengue virus (DENV) nonstructural protein NS1 on endothelial cells. Using primary human vascular cells, we show here that NS1 also causes pericyte dysfunction and that NS1-induced endothelial hyperpermeability is more pronounced in the presence of pericytes. Notably, NS1 specifically disrupted the ability of pericytes to support endothelial cell function in a three-dimensional (3D) microvascular assay, with no effect on pericyte viability or physiology. These effects are mediated at least in part through contact-independent paracrine signals involved in endothelial barrier maintenance by pericytes. We therefore identify a role for pericytes in amplifying NS1-induced microvascular hyperpermeability in severe dengue and thus show that pericytes can play a critical role in the etiology of an infectious vascular leakage syndrome. These findings open new avenues of research for the development of drugs and diagnostic assays for combating infection-induced vascular leakage, such as severe dengue. IMPORTANCE The World Health Organization considers dengue one of the top 10 global public health problems. There is no specific antiviral therapy to treat dengue virus and no way of predicting which patients will develop potentially fatal severe dengue, typified by vascular leakage and circulatory shock. We show here that perivascular cells (pericytes) amplify the vascular leakage-inducing effects of the dengue viral protein NS1 through contact-independent signaling to endothelial cells. While pericytes are known to contribute to noncommunicable vascular leakage, this is the first time these cells have been implicated in the vascular effects of an infectious disease. Our findings could pave the way for new therapies and diagnostics to combat dengue and potentially other infectious vascular leakage syndromes

Evaluation of Concussion Incidence and Modulating Factors in the 2013-2017 Australian Football League

The increasing awareness and popularization of concussions in the research realm over the last few years have begun to shed more light on the detrimental effects associated with repetitive head trauma. While the majority of the current literature focuses on the National Football League (NFL) and National Hockey League (NHL), several other high-impact sports have been implementing concussion management protocols to protect their players. The Australian Football League (AFL) is a prime example of a major contact sport that has undertaken recent changes to its concussion assessment and management modalities. We recognize the benefit of reporting potential changes in concussion rates over the 2013-2017 AFL seasons. We were interested in some of the factors not yet evaluated before, which may contribute to the overall concussion incidence such as “style-of-play” factors” (home/away, win/loss, points scored, time of season). We hope the results of this analysis shed light on the mechanisms by which concussion rates can be mitigated across major contact sports

Galaxy Zoo: Are Bars Responsible for the Feeding of Active Galactic Nuclei at 0.2 < z < 1.0?

We present a new study investigating whether active galactic nuclei (AGN) beyond the local universe are preferentially fed via large-scale bars. Our investigation combines data from Chandra and Galaxy Zoo: Hubble (GZH) in the AEGIS, COSMOS, and GOODS-S surveys to create samples of face-on, disc galaxies at 0.2 < z < 1.0. We use a novel method to robustly compare a sample of 120 AGN host galaxies, defined to have 10^42 erg/s < L_X < 10^44 erg/s, with inactive control galaxies matched in stellar mass, rest-frame colour, size, Sersic index, and redshift. Using the GZH bar classifications of each sample, we demonstrate that AGN hosts show no statistically significant enhancement in bar fraction or average bar likelihood compared to closely-matched inactive galaxies. In detail, we find that the AGN bar fraction cannot be enhanced above the control bar fraction by more than a factor of two, at 99.7% confidence. We similarly find no significant difference in the AGN fraction among barred and non-barred galaxies. Thus we find no compelling evidence that large-scale bars directly fuel AGN at 0.2<z<1.0. This result, coupled with previous results at z=0, implies that moderate-luminosity AGN have not been preferentially fed by large-scale bars since z=1. Furthermore, given the low bar fractions at z>1, our findings suggest that large-scale bars have likely never directly been a dominant fueling mechanism for supermassive black hole growth.Comment: 13 pages, 5 figures, 2 tables, accepted by MNRA

Trust as a mediator in the relationship between childhood sexual abuse and IL-6 level in adulthood

Childhood sexual abuse (CSA) has been shown to predict the coupling of depression and inflammation in adulthood. Trust within intimate relationships, a core element in marital relations, has been shown to predict positive physical and mental health outcomes, but the mediating role of trust in partners in the association between CSA and inflammation in adulthood requires further study. The present study aimed to examine the impact of CSA on inflammatory biomarkers (IL-6 and IL-1β) in adults with depression and the mediating role of trust. A cross-sectional survey data set of adults presenting with mood and sleep disturbance was used in the analysis. CSA demonstrated a significant negative correlation with IL-6 level (r = -0.28, p&lt;0. 01) in adults with clinically significant depression, while trust showed a significant positive correlation with IL-6 level (r = 0.36, p &lt; .01). Sobel test and bootstrapping revealed a significant mediating role for trust between CSA and IL-6 level. CSA and trust in partners were revealed to have significant associations with IL-6 level in adulthood. Counterintuitively, the directions of association were not those expected. Trust played a mediating role between CSA and adulthood levels of IL-6. Plausible explanations for these counterintuitive findings are discussed

Revisiting a Cutting-Plane Method for Perfect Matchings

In 2016, Chandrasekaran, V\'egh, and Vempala published a method to solve the minimum-cost perfect matching problem on an arbitrary graph by solving a strictly polynomial number of linear programs. However, their method requires a strong uniqueness condition, which they imposed by using perturbations of the form $c(i)=c_0(i)+2^{-i}$. On large graphs (roughly $m>100$), these perturbations lead to cost values that exceed the precision of floating-point formats used by typical linear programming solvers for numerical calculations. We demonstrate, by a sequence of counterexamples, that perturbations are required for the algorithm to work, motivating our formulation of a general method that arrives at the same solution to the problem as Chandrasekaran et al. but overcomes the limitations described above by solving multiple linear programs without using perturbations. We then give an explicit algorithm that exploits are method, and show that this new algorithm still runs in strongly polynomial time.Comment: 19 page

Mechanisms of breast cancer metastasis

Invasive breast cancer tends to metastasize to lymph nodes and systemic sites. The management of metastasis has evolved by focusing on controlling the growth of the disease in the breast/chest wall, and at metastatic sites, initially by surgery alone, then by a combination of surgery with radiation, and later by adding systemic treatments in the form of chemotherapy, hormone manipulation, targeted therapy, immunotherapy and other treatments aimed at inhibiting the proliferation of cancer cells. It would be valuable for us to know how breast cancer metastasizes; such knowledge would likely encourage the development of therapies that focus on mechanisms of metastasis and might even allow us to avoid toxic therapies that are currently used for this disease. For example, if we had a drug that targeted a gene that is critical for metastasis, we might even be able to cure a vast majority of patients with breast cancer. By bringing together scientists with expertise in molecular aspects of breast cancer metastasis, and those with expertise in the mechanical aspects of metastasis, this paper probes interesting aspects of the metastasis cascade, further enlightening us in our efforts to improve the outcome from breast cancer treatments

High-contrast, fast chemical imaging by coherent Raman scattering using a self-synchronized two-colour fibre laser

Kong C, Pilger C, Hachmeister H, et al. High-contrast, fast chemical imaging by coherent Raman scattering using a self-synchronized two-colour fibre laser. Light: Science &amp; Applications. 2020;9(1): 25.Coherent Raman scattering (CRS) microscopy is widely recognized as a powerful tool for tackling biomedical problems based on its chemically specific label-free contrast, high spatial and spectral resolution, and high sensitivity. However, the clinical translation of CRS imaging technologies has long been hindered by traditional solid-state lasers with environmentally sensitive operations and large footprints. Ultrafast fibre lasers can potentially overcome these shortcomings but have not yet been fully exploited for CRS imaging, as previous implementations have suffered from high intensity noise, a narrow tuning range and low power, resulting in low image qualities and slow imaging speeds. Here, we present a novel high-power self-synchronized two-colour pulsed fibre laser that achieves excellent performance in terms of intensity stability (improved by 50 dB), timing jitter (24.3 fs), average power fluctuation (20 dB) and pulse width variation (<1.8%) over an extended wavenumber range (2700–3550 cm−1). The versatility of the laser source enables, for the first time, high-contrast, fast CRS imaging without complicated noise reduction via balanced detection schemes. These capabilities are demonstrated in this work by imaging a wide range of species such as living human cells and mouse arterial tissues and performing multimodal nonlinear imaging of mouse tail, kidney and brain tissue sections by utilizing second-harmonic generation and two-photon excited fluorescence, which provides multiple optical contrast mechanisms simultaneously and maximizes the gathered information content for biological visualization and medical diagnosis. This work also establishes a general scenario for remodelling existing lasers into synchronized two-colour lasers and thus promotes a wider popularization and application of CRS imaging technologies

A pilot controlled trial of a combination of dense cranial electroacupuncture stimulation and body acupuncture for post-stroke depression

BACKGROUND: Our previous studies have demonstrated the treatment benefits of dense cranial electroacupuncture stimulation (DCEAS), a novel brain stimulation therapy in patients with major depression, postpartum depression and obsessive-compulsive disorder. The purpose of the present study was to further evaluate the effectiveness of DCEAS combined with body acupuncture and selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) in patients with post-stroke depression (PSD). METHODS: In a single-blind, randomized controlled trial, 43 patients with PSD were randomly assigned to 12 sessions of DCEAS plus SSRI plus body electroacupuncture (n = 23), or sham (non-invasive cranial electroacupuncture, n-CEA) plus SSRI plus body electroacupuncture (n = 20) for 3 sessions per week over 4 weeks. Treatment outcomes were measured using the 17-item Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HAMD-17), the Clinical Global Impression - Severity scale (CGI-S) and Barthel Index (BI), a measure used to evaluate movement ability associated with daily self-caring activity. RESULTS: DCEAS produced a significantly greater reduction of both HAMD-17 and CGI-S as early as week 1 and CGI-S at endpoint compared to n-CEA, but subjects of n-CEA group exhibited a significantly greater improvement on BI at week 4 than DCEAS. Incidence of adverse events was not different in the two groups. CONCLUSIONS: These results indicate that DCEAS could be effective in reducing stroke patients’ depressive symptoms. Superficial electrical stimulation in n-CEA group may be beneficial in improving movement disability of stroke patients. A combination of DCEAS and body acupuncture can be considered a treatment option for neuropsychiatric sequelae of stroke. TRIAL REGISTRATION: http://www.clinicaltrials.gov, NCT01174394