Accelerated return to sport after osteochondral autograft plug transfer

Background:Previous studies have reported varying return-to-sport protocols after knee cartilage restoration procedures.Purpose:To (1) evaluate the time for return to sport in athletes with an isolated chondral injury who underwent an accelerated return-to-sport protocol after osteochondral autograft plug transfer (OAT) and (2) evaluate clinical outcomes to assess for any consequences from the accelerated return to sport.Study Design:Case series; Level of evidence, 4.Methods:An institutional cohort of 152 OAT procedures was reviewed, of which 20 competitive athletes met inclusion and exclusion criteria. All patients underwent a physician-directed accelerated rehabilitation program after their procedure. Return to sport was determined for all athletes. Clinical outcomes were assessed using International Knee Documentation Committee (IKDC) and Tegner scores as well as assessment of level of participation on return to sport.Results:Return-to-sport data were available for all 20 athletes; 13 of 20 athletes (65%) were available for clinical evaluation at a mean 4.4-year follow-up. The mean time for return to sport for all 20 athletes was 82.9 ± 25 days (range, 38-134 days). All athletes were able to return to sport at their previous level and reported that they were satisfied or very satisfied with their surgical outcome and ability to return to sport. The mean postoperative IKDC score was 84.5 ± 9.5. The mean Tegner score prior to injury was 8.9 ± 1.7; it was 7.7 ± 1.9 at final follow-up.Conclusion:Competitive athletes with traumatic chondral defects treated with OAT managed using this protocol had reduced time to preinjury activity levels compared with what is currently reported, with excellent clinical outcomes and no serious long-term sequelae.</jats:sec

A Preliminary Study of Disproportionate Representation and Response to Intervention

Disproportionate representation occurs when the percentage of an identified group enrolled in special education varies significantly from that group’s overall percentage of the school population (Harry, 1994). Response to Intervention (RTI), a paradigm for educational intervention, is designed to minimize many factors contributing to disproportionality. The study examined disproportionality risk ratios for African American students, ages 6 through 21, who received special education services in a southeastern state supporting the RTI initiative during the 2006-2009 school years. Data suggest that African American students identified with a specific learning disability experienced increased referral and placement in special education in the three years corresponding to the initial RTI implementation efforts. Definitive conclusions about the fidelity of RTI implementation or effectiveness of intervention are beyond the scope of the current study, but disproportionality findings may be used as a comparative baseline for future research

Susceptibility of swine to H5 and H7 low pathogenic avian influenza viruses

Citation: Balzli, C., Lager, K., Vincent, A., Gauger, P., Brockmeier, S., Miller, L., . . . Swayne, D. E. (2016). Susceptibility of swine to H5 and H7 low pathogenic avian influenza viruses. Influenza and other Respiratory Viruses. doi:10.1111/irv.12386Background: The ability of pigs to become infected with low pathogenic avian influenza (LPAI) viruses and then generate mammalian adaptable influenza A viruses is difficult to determine. Yet, it is an important link to understanding any relationship between LPAI virus ecology and possible epidemics among swine and/or humans. Objectives: Assess susceptibility of pigs to LPAI viruses found within the United States and their direct contact transmission potential. Methods: Pigs were inoculated with one of ten H5 or H7 LPAI viruses selected from seven different bird species to test infectivity, virulence, pathogenesis, and potential to transmit virus to contact pigs through histological, RRT-PCR and seroconversion data. Results: Although pigs were susceptible to infection with each of the LPAI viruses, no clinical disease was recognized in any pig. During the acute phase of the infection, minor pulmonary lesions were found in some pigs and one or more pigs in each group were RRT-PCR-positive in the lower respiratory tract, but no virus was detected in upper respiratory tract (negative nasal swabs). Except for one group, one or more pigs in each LPAI group developed antibody. No LPAI viruses transmitted to contact pigs. Conclusions: LPAI strains from various bird populations within the United States are capable of infecting pigs. Although adaptability and transmission of individual strains seem unlikely, the subclinical nature of the infections demonstrates the need to improve sampling and testing methods to more accurately measure incidence of LPAI virus infection in pigs, and their potential role in human-zoonotic LPAI virus dynamics. © 2016 John Wiley & Sons Ltd

\u3cem\u3eIn Vivo\u3c/em\u3e Validation of Predicted and Conserved T Cell Epitopes in a Swine Influenza Model

Swine influenza is a highly contagious respiratory viral infection in pigs that is responsible for significant financial losses to pig farmers annually. Current measures to protect herds from infection include: inactivated whole-virus vaccines, subunit vaccines, and alpha replicon-based vaccines. As is true for influenza vaccines for humans, these strategies do not provide broad protection against the diverse strains of influenza A virus (IAV) currently circulating in U.S. swine. Improved approaches to developing swine influenza vaccines are needed. Here, we used immunoinformatics tools to identify class I and II T cell epitopes highly conserved in seven representative strains of IAV in U.S. swine and predicted to bind to Swine Leukocyte Antigen (SLA) alleles prevalent in commercial swine. Epitope-specific interferon-gamma (IFNγ) recall responses to pooled peptides and whole virus were detected in pigs immunized with multi-epitope plasmid DNA vaccines encoding strings of class I and II putative epitopes. In a retrospective analysis of the IFNγ responses to individual peptides compared to predictions specific to the SLA alleles of cohort pigs, we evaluated the predictive performance of PigMatrix and demonstrated its ability to distinguish non-immunogenic from immunogenic peptides and to identify promiscuous class II epitopes. Overall, this study confirms the capacity of PigMatrix to predict immunogenic T cell epitopes and demonstrate its potential for use in the design of epitope-driven vaccines for swine. Additional studies that match the SLA haplotype of animals with the study epitopes will be required to evaluate the degree of immune protection conferred by epitope-driven DNA vaccines in pigs

Sustaining Interferon Induction by a High-Passage Atypical Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome Virus Strain

Partial funding for Open Access provided by the UMD Libraries' Open Access Publishing Fund.Porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus (PRRSV) strain A2MC2 induces type I interferons in cultured cells. The objective of this study was to attenuate this strain by serial passaging in MARC-145 cells and assess its virulence and immunogenicity in pigs. The A2MC2 serially passaged 90 times (A2MC2-P90) retains the feature of interferon induction. The A2MC2-P90 replicates faster with a higher virus yield than wild type A2MC2 virus. Infection of primary pulmonary alveolar macrophages (PAMs) also induces interferons. Sequence analysis showed that the A2MC2-P90 has genomic nucleic acid identity of 99.8% to the wild type but has a deletion of 543 nucleotides in nsp2. The deletion occurred in passage 60. The A2MC2-P90 genome has a total of 35 nucleotide variations from the wild type, leading to 26 amino acid differences. Inoculation of three-week-old piglets showed that A2MC2-P90 is avirulent and elicits immune response. Compared with Ingelvac PRRS® MLV strain, A2MC2-P90 elicits higher virus neutralizing antibodies. The attenuated IFN inducing A2MC2-P90 should be useful for development of an improved PRRSV vaccine

The narrative self, distributed memory, and evocative objects

In this article, I outline various ways in which artifacts are interwoven with autobiographical memory systems and conceptualize what this implies for the self. I first sketch the narrative approach to the self, arguing that who we are as persons is essentially our (unfolding) life story, which, in turn, determines our present beliefs and desires, but also directs our future goals and actions. I then argue that our autobiographical memory is partly anchored in our embodied interactions with an ecology of artifacts in our environment. Lifelogs, photos, videos, journals, diaries, souvenirs, jewelry, books, works of art, and many other meaningful objects trigger and sometimes constitute emotionally-laden autobiographical memories. Autobiographical memory is thus distributed across embodied agents and various environmental structures. To defend this claim, I draw on and integrate distributed cognition theory and empirical research in human-technology interaction. Based on this, I conclude that the self is neither defined by psychological states realized by the brain nor by biological states realized by the organism, but should be seen as a distributed and relational construct

Generation and evaluation of a Glaesserella (Haemophilus) parasuis capsular mutant

Glaesserella (Haemophilus) parasuis is a commensal of the upper respiratory tract in pigs and also the causative agent of Glässer's disease, which causes significant morbidity and mortality in pigs worldwide. Isolates are characterized into 15 serovars by their capsular polysaccharide, which has shown a correlation to isolate pathogenicity. To investigate the role capsule plays in G. parasuis virulence and host interaction, a capsule mutant of the serovar 5 strain HS069 was generated (HS069Δcap) through allelic exchange following natural transformation. HS069Δcap was unable to cause signs of systemic disease during a pig challenge study and had increased sensitivity to complement killing and phagocytosis by alveolar macrophages. When compared to the parent strain, HS069Δcap produced more robust biofilm and adhered equivalently to 3D4/31 cells; however, it was unable to persistently colonize the nasal cavity of inoculated pigs, with all pigs clearing HS069Δcap by 5 days post-challenge. Our results indicate the importance of capsular polysaccharide to G. parasuis virulence as well as nasal colonization in pigs