Telemedicine Consultation to Assess Neonatal Encephalopathy in Rural Community Hospitals

We studied the feasibility of tele consults in community hospitals for neonatal encephalopathy evaluation.https://knowledgeconnection.mainehealth.org/lambrew-retreat-2021/1048/thumbnail.jp

Tomographic reconstruction of the three-dimensional structure of the HH30 jet

The physical parameters of Herbig-Haro jets are usually determined from emission line ratios, obtained from spectroscopy or narrow band imaging, assuming that the emitting region is homogeneous along the line of sight. Under the more general hypothesis of axisymmetry, we apply tomographic reconstruction techniques to the analysis of Herbig-Haro jets. We use data of the HH30 jet taken by Hartigan & Morse (2007) with the Hubble space telescope using the slitless spectroscopy technique. Using a non-parametric Tikhonov regularization technique, we determine the volumetric emission line intensities of the [SII]6716,6731, [OI]6300 and [NII]6583 forbidden emission lines. From our tomographic analysis of the corresponding line ratios, we produce "three-dimensional" images of the physical parameters. The reconstructed density, temperature and ionization fraction present much steeper profiles than those inferred using the assumption of homogeneity. Our technique reveals that the reconstructed jet is much more collimated than the observed one close to the source (a width ~ 5 AU vs. ~ 20 AU at a distance of 10 AU from the star), while they have similar widths at larger distances. In addition, our results show a much more fragmented and irregular jet structure than the classical analysis, suggesting that the the ejection history of the jet from the star-disk system has a shorter timescale component (~ some months) superimposed on a longer, previously observed timescale (of a few years). Finally, we discuss the possible application of the same technique to other stellar jets and planetary nebulae.Comment: 13 pages, 9 figures, accepted by Ap

Book Reviews

Reviews of the following books: Was Baseball Really Invented in Maine? by Will Anderson; Acadian Hard Times: The Farm Security Administration in Maine\u27s St. John Valley, 1940-1943 by C. Stewart Doty; The Latchstring Was Always Out: A History of Lodging Hospitality and Tourism in Bartlett, New Hampshire by Aileen M. Carroll; A Fair Field and No Favor: A Concise History of the Maine State Grange by Stanley Russell Howe; Dell Turner: The Stories of His Life by John T. Meader; Hail Britannia: Maine Pewter and Silverplate: An Exhibition of Maine Britannia Ware and Silverplate, 1829-1941, in the Collections of the Maine State Museum, May 15, 1992-May 15, 1993 by Edwin A. Churchil

The histone demethylase enzyme KDM3A is a key estrogen receptor regulator in breast cancer

Endocrine therapy has successfully been used to treat estrogen receptor (ER)-positive breast cancer, but this invariably fails with cancers becoming refractory to treatment. Emerging evidence has suggested that fluctuations in ER co-regulatory protein expression may facilitate resistance to therapy and be involved in breast cancer progression. To date, a small number of enzymes that control methylation status of histones have been identified as co-regulators of ER signalling. We have identified the histone H3 lysine 9 mono- and di-methyl demethylase enzyme KDM3A as a positive regulator of ER activity. Here, we demonstrate that depletion of KDM3A by RNAi abrogates the recruitment of the ER to cis-regulatory elements within target gene promoters, thereby inhibiting estrogen-induced gene expression changes. Global gene expression analysis of KDM3A-depleted cells identified gene clusters associated with cell growth. Consistent with this, we show that knockdown of KDM3A reduces ER-positive cell proliferation and demonstrate that KDM3A is required for growth in a model of endocrine therapy-resistant disease. Crucially, we show that KDM3A catalytic activity is required for both ER-target gene expression and cell growth, demonstrating that developing compounds which target demethylase enzymatic activity may be efficacious in treating both ER-positive and endocrine therapy-resistant disease

Effect of changes in antibiotic prescribing on patient outcomes in a community setting: A natural experiment in Australia

© 2002 by the Infectious Diseases Society of America.This study examined whether a significant change in antibiotic use caused by an Australian government directive targeted at amoxicillin with clavulanic acid (AC) was associated with changes in prescription share, health care costs, and patient outcomes. We used an integrated database of computerized general practice medical records, which included data regarding 34,242 patients and 318,234 recorded patient visits. There were 15,303 antibiotic prescriptions provided to 9921 patients during a 4-year period, with AC prescribed for 1453 (14.6%) of these patients. A total of 5125 patient outcomes were identified. There was a shift away from best-practice antibiotic prescribing, and a significant association was identified between the rate and cost of process-of-care and patient outcomes and the decrease in AC-prescription share. This policy initiative created unintended changes in prescribing behavior, increased costs to the government, and a trend toward poorer patient outcomes. Detailed analyses are required before instigating initiatives aimed at changing clinicians' prescribing behavior.Justin Beilby, John Marley, Don Walker, Nicole Chamberlain, and Michelle Burke for the FIESTA Study Grou

Altimeter sampling characteristics using a single satellite

This is the published version. Copyright 1998 WileyAltimetric satellites have characteristic sampling patterns in both space and time based on their repeat period and orbit inclination. Aliased phenomena measured by altimetric measurements can appear as propagating waves with both wavelength and direction of propagation different from the underlying phenomena. All signals that contribute to the altimetric measurement can be aliased and produce such patterns, not just tidal signals. For example, mesoscale energy will be aliased as will unmodeled atmospheric variations. Past discussions of aliasing have only considered spatially homogeneous signals. This paper extends this work to phenomena with finite wavelengths and considers both the north-south and east-west components of the resulting aliases

KDM4B is a master regulator of the estrogen receptor signalling cascade

The importance of the estrogen receptor (ER) in breast cancer (BCa) development makes it a prominent target for therapy. Current treatments, however, have limited effectiveness, and hence the definition of new therapeutic targets is vital. The ER is a member of the nuclear hormone receptor superfamily of transcription factors that requires co-regulator proteins for complete regulation. Emerging evidence has implicated a small number of histone methyltransferase (HMT) and histone demethylase (HDM) enzymes as regulators of ER signalling, including the histone H3 lysine 9 tri-/di-methyl HDM enzyme KDM4B. Two recent independent reports have demonstrated that KDM4B is required for ER-mediated transcription and depletion of the enzyme attenuates BCa growth in vitro and in vivo. Here we show that KDM4B has an overarching regulatory role in the ER signalling cascade by controlling expression of the ER and FOXA1 genes, two critical components for maintenance of the estrogen-dependent phenotype. KDM4B interacts with the transcription factor GATA-3 in BCa cell lines and directly co-activates GATA-3 activity in reporter-based experiments. Moreover, we reveal that KDM4B recruitment and demethylation of repressive H3K9me3 marks within upstream regulatory regions of the ER gene permits binding of GATA-3 to drive receptor expression. Ultimately, our findings confirm the importance of KDM4B within the ER signalling cascade and as a potential therapeutic target for BCa treatment

Exercise Programming for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder: Recommendations for Strength and Conditioning Specialists

The purpose of this article is to introduce strength and conditioning specialists to autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and to identify the many benefits of delivering exercise programs to children with ASD. Additionally, the manuscript aims to inform strength and conditioning specialists on how to minimize some of the inherent challenges associated with the delivery of such programs by highlighting critical issues for practitioners to consider when designing and implementing exercise programs for children with ASD

An epigenetic clock for human skeletal muscle.

BACKGROUND: Ageing is associated with DNA methylation changes in all human tissues, and epigenetic markers can estimate chronological age based on DNA methylation patterns across tissues. However, the construction of the original pan-tissue epigenetic clock did not include skeletal muscle samples and hence exhibited a strong deviation between DNA methylation and chronological age in this tissue. METHODS: To address this, we developed a more accurate, muscle-specific epigenetic clock based on the genome-wide DNA methylation data of 682 skeletal muscle samples from 12 independent datasets (18-89 years old, 22% women, 99% Caucasian), all generated with Illumina HumanMethylation (HM) arrays (HM27, HM450, or HMEPIC). We also took advantage of the large number of samples to conduct an epigenome-wide association study of age-associated DNA methylation patterns in skeletal muscle. RESULTS: The newly developed clock uses 200 cytosine-phosphate-guanine dinucleotides to estimate chronological age in skeletal muscle, 16 of which are in common with the 353 cytosine-phosphate-guanine dinucleotides of the pan-tissue clock. The muscle clock outperformed the pan-tissue clock, with a median error of only 4.6 years across datasets (vs. 13.1 years for the pan-tissue clock, P < 0.0001) and an average correlation of ρ = 0.62 between actual and predicted age across datasets (vs. ρ = 0.51 for the pan-tissue clock). Lastly, we identified 180 differentially methylated regions with age in skeletal muscle at a false discovery rate < 0.005. However, gene set enrichment analysis did not reveal any enrichment for gene ontologies. CONCLUSIONS: We have developed a muscle-specific epigenetic clock that predicts age with better accuracy than the pan-tissue clock. We implemented the muscle clock in an r package called Muscle Epigenetic Age Test available on Bioconductor to estimate epigenetic age in skeletal muscle samples. This clock may prove valuable in assessing the impact of environmental factors, such as exercise and diet, on muscle-specific biological ageing processes

Human α2β1HI CD133+VE epithelial prostate stem cells express low levels of active androgen receptor

Stem cells are thought to be the cell of origin in malignant transformation in many tissues, but their role in human prostate carcinogenesis continues to be debated. One of the conflicts with this model is that cancer stem cells have been described to lack androgen receptor (AR) expression, which is of established importance in prostate cancer initiation and progression. We re-examined the expression patterns of AR within adult prostate epithelial differentiation using an optimised sensitive and specific approach examining transcript, protein and AR regulated gene expression. Highly enriched populations were isolated consisting of stem (α(2)β(1)(HI) CD133(+VE)), transiently amplifying (α(2)β(1)(HI) CD133(-VE)) and terminally differentiated (α(2)β(1)(LOW) CD133(-VE)) cells. AR transcript and protein expression was confirmed in α(2)β(1)(HI) CD133(+VE) and CD133(-VE) progenitor cells. Flow cytometry confirmed that median (±SD) fraction of cells expressing AR were 77% (±6%) in α(2)β(1)(HI) CD133(+VE) stem cells and 68% (±12%) in α(2)β(1)(HI) CD133(-VE) transiently amplifying cells. However, 3-fold lower levels of total AR protein expression (peak and median immunofluorescence) were present in α(2)β(1)(HI) CD133(+VE) stem cells compared with differentiated cells. This finding was confirmed with dual immunostaining of prostate sections for AR and CD133, which again demonstrated low levels of AR within basal CD133(+VE) cells. Activity of the AR was confirmed in prostate progenitor cells by the expression of low levels of the AR regulated genes PSA, KLK2 and TMPRSS2. The confirmation of AR expression in prostate progenitor cells allows integration of the cancer stem cell theory with the established models of prostate cancer initiation based on a functional AR. Further study of specific AR functions in prostate stem and differentiated cells may highlight novel mechanisms of prostate homeostasis and insights into tumourigenesis