Early Utilization Of The 6-Minute Walk Test (6MWT) In An Active Patient After Cardiac Surgery - A Case Report

Coronary artery disease affects more than 13 million Americans. A sub-population of these patients, despite exercising regularly, can develop cardiac disease. The 6-Minute Walk Test (6MWT) is a functional outcome measure that is easy to implement and has been used across multiple populations. There is limited literature that has investigated the use of the 6MWT on post-operative day one (POD1) after cardiac surgery. Patients participating in self motivated exercise programs prior to surgery are found to excel with early utilization of the 6MWT. For this active sub-population the 6MWT on POD1 may be a more specific and sensitive outcome measure. The purpose of this case report is to investigate the use of the 6MWT as an outcome measure POD1 in a patient after cardiac surgery who participated in a self-exercise pre-op program.https://dune.une.edu/pt_studcrposter/1099/thumbnail.jp

Integrated Regulation of the Type III Secretion System and Other Virulence Determinants in Ralstonia solanacearum

In many plant and animal bacterial pathogens, the Type III secretion system (TTSS) that directly translocates effector proteins into the eukaryotic host cells is essential for the development of disease. In all species studied, the transcription of the TTSS and most of its effector substrates is tightly regulated by a succession of consecutively activated regulators. However, the whole genetic programme driven by these regulatory cascades is still unknown, especially in bacterial plant pathogens. Here, we have characterised the programme triggered by HrpG, a host-responsive regulator of the TTSS activation cascade in the plant pathogen Ralstonia solanacearum. We show through genome-wide expression analysis that, in addition to the TTSS, HrpG controls the expression of a previously undescribed TTSS-independent pathway that includes a number of other virulence determinants and genes likely involved in adaptation to life in the host. Functional studies revealed that this second pathway co-ordinates the bacterial production of plant cell wall-degrading enzymes, exopolysaccharide, and the phytohormones ethylene and auxin. We provide experimental evidence that these activities contribute to pathogenicity. We also show that the ethylene produced by R. solanacearum is able to modulate the expression of host genes and can therefore interfere with the signalling of plant defence responses. These results provide a new, integrated view of plant bacterial pathogenicity, where a common regulator activates synchronously upon infection the TTSS, other virulence determinants and a number of adaptive functions, which act co-operatively to cause disease

Entropic Projections and Dominating Points

Generalized entropic projections and dominating points are solutions to convex minimization problems related to conditional laws of large numbers. They appear in many areas of applied mathematics such as statistical physics, information theory, mathematical statistics, ill-posed inverse problems or large deviation theory. By means of convex conjugate duality and functional analysis, criteria are derived for their existence. Representations of the generalized entropic projections are obtained: they are the ``measure component" of some extended entropy minimization problem.Comment: ESAIM P&S (2011) to appea

Underestimation of the Tambora effects in North American taiga ecosystems

The Tambora eruption (1815 AD) was one of the major eruptions of the last two millennia and has no equivalents over the last two centuries. Here, we collected an extensive network of early meteorological time series, climate simulation data and numerous, well-replicated proxy records from Eastern Canada to analyze the strength and the persistence of the Tambora impact on the regional climate and forest processes. Our results show that the Tambora impacts on the terrestrial biosphere were stronger than previously thought, and not only affected tree growth and carbon uptake for a longer period than registered in the regional climate, but also determined forest demography and structure. Increased tree mortality, four times higher than the background level, indicates that the Tambora climatic impact propagated to influence the structure of the North American taiga for several decades. We also show that the Tambora signal is more persistent in observed data (temperature, river ice dynamics, forest growth, tree mortality) than in simulated ones (climate and forest-growth simulations), indicating that our understanding of the mechanisms amplifying volcanic perturbations on climates and ecosystems is still limited, notably in the North American taiga.Peer reviewe

Humoral responses to the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine are impaired in Leigh Syndrome French Canadian patients

Leigh Syndrome French Canadian (LSFC) is a rare autosomal recessive metabolic disorder characterized by severe lactic acidosis crises and early mortality. LSFC patients carry mutations in the Leucine Rich Pentatricopeptide Repeat Containing (LRPPRC) gene, which lead to defects in the respiratory chain complexes and mitochondrial dysfunction. Mitochondrial respiration modulates cellular metabolic activity, which impacts many cell types including the differentiation and function of immune cells. Hence, we postulated that, in addition to neurological and metabolic disorders, LSFC patients may show impaired immune activity. To gain insight into the quality of the immune response in LSFC patients, we examined the response to the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine by measuring antibody titers to MMR in the plasma. In a cohort of eight LSFC patients, the response to the MMR vaccine was variable, with some individuals showing antibodies to all three viruses, while others had antibodies to two or fewer viruses. These results suggest that the mutations in the LRPPRC gene present in LSFC patients may affect the immune response to vaccines. Monitoring vaccine response in this fragile population should be considered to ensure full protection against pathogens

Triplet Dispersion in CuGeO_3: Perturbative Analysis

We reconsider the 2d model for CuGeO_3 introduced previously (Phys. Rev. Lett. 79, 163 (1997)). Using a computer aided perturbation method based on flow equations we expand the 1-triplet dispersion up to 10th order. The expansion is provided as a polynom in the model parameters. The latter are fixed by fitting the theoretical result to experimental data obtained by INS. For a dimerization delta = 0.08(1) we find an excellent agreement with experiment. This value is at least 2 to 3 times higher than values deduced previously from 1d chain approaches. For the intrachain frustration alpha_0 we find a smaller value of 0.25(3). The existence of interchain frustration conjectured previously is confirmed by the analysis of temperature dependent susceptibility.Comment: 8 pages, 10 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev.