Foot Muscle Energy Reserves in Diabetic Patients Without and With Clinical Peripheral Neuropathy

Objective: To investigate changes in the foot muscle energy reserves in diabetic non-neuropathic and neuropathic patients. Research Design and Methods: We measured the phosphocreatinine (PCr)/inorganic phosphate (Pi) ratio, total $^{31}$P concentration, and the lipid/water ratio in the muscles in the metatarsal head region using MRI spectroscopy in healthy control subjects and non-neuropathic and neuropathic diabetic patients. Results: The PCr/Pi ratio was higher in the control subjects (3.23 $\pm$ 0.43) followed by the non-neuropathic group (2.61 $\pm$ 0.36), whereas it was lowest in the neuropathic group (0.60 $\pm$ 1.02) (P < 0.0001). There were no differences in total $^{31}$P concentration and lipid/water ratio between the control and non-neuropathic groups, but both measurements were different in the neuropathic group (P < 0.0001). Conclusions: Resting foot muscle energy reserves are affected before the development of peripheral diabetic neuropathy and are associated with the endothelial dysfunction and inflammation

Modeling the evolution space of breakage fusion bridge cycles with a stochastic folding process

Breakage-Fusion-Bridge cycles in cancer arise when a broken segment of DNA is duplicated and an end from each copy joined together. This structure then 'unfolds' into a new piece of palindromic DNA. This is one mechanism responsible for the localised amplicons observed in cancer genome data. The process has parallels with paper folding sequences that arise when a piece of paper is folded several times and then unfolded. Here we adapt such methods to study the breakage-fusion-bridge structures in detail. We firstly consider discrete representations of this space with 2-d trees to demonstrate that there are 2^(n(n-1)/2) qualitatively distinct evolutions involving n breakage-fusion-bridge cycles. Secondly we consider the stochastic nature of the fold positions, to determine evolution likelihoods, and also describe how amplicons become localised. Finally we highlight these methods by inferring the evolution of breakage-fusion-bridge cycles with data from primary tissue cancer samples

L’intégration d’un traitement psychologique en réadaptation cardiaque à l’Hôpital Montfort : une diminution des risques associés aux maladies cardiaques

Les buts de cette étude étaient l’intégration et la mise à l’épreuve d’un traitement psychologique au sein du Service de réadaptation cardiaque à l’Hôpital Montfort. Des patients (hommes et femmes), âgés entre 35 et 85 ans, avec une maladie cardiaque et qui se plaignaient de symptômes d’anxiété et de dépression ont participé à cette étude. Les résultats suggèrent que la thérapie cognitivo-comportementale (TCC) peut réduire de façon significative les symptômes de dépression et d’anxiété chez les patients cardiaques. Dans notre échantillon (N = 11), les patients ayant suivi au moins dix séances de traitement ont présenté une diminution importante de leurs symptômes, et personne ne répondait aux critères d’un diagnostic de dépression ou d’anxiété après l’intervention.The goals of the study were to introduce and test a psychological treatment at the Montfort Hospital’s Cardiac Rehabilitation Service. The participants were male and female patients between the ages of 35 and 85 with heart disease who reported symptoms of anxiety and depression. The results suggest that cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT) may significantly reduce symptoms of depression and anxiety in cardiac patients. In our sample (N = 11), patients completing at least 10 treatment sessions showed a significant decrease in their symptoms, and none met the criteria for a diagnosis of depression or anxiety after the treatment

Dislocation Mobility in Copper

The velocity of dislocations of mixed edge-screw type in copper crystals of 99.999% purity has been measured as a function of stress at room temperature. Dislocation displacements produced by torsion stress pulses of microsecond duration were detected by etch pitting {100} surfaces. A nearly linear relationship between dislocation velocity and resolved shear stress was found. Stresses from 2.8×10^6 to 23.1×10^6 dyn/cm^2 produced velocities from 160 to 710 cm/sec. These data give a value of the damping constant for high-velocity dislocations of 7×10^(-4) dyn·sec/cm^2, in good agreement with the values deduced from internalfriction measurements. The results also agree, within experimental and theoretical uncertainties, with the phonon viscosity model for the mobility of dislocations

Hidden breakpoints in genome alignments

During the course of evolution, an organism's genome can undergo changes that affect the large-scale structure of the genome. These changes include gene gain, loss, duplication, chromosome fusion, fission, and rearrangement. When gene gain and loss occurs in addition to other types of rearrangement, breakpoints of rearrangement can exist that are only detectable by comparison of three or more genomes. An arbitrarily large number of these "hidden" breakpoints can exist among genomes that exhibit no rearrangements in pairwise comparisons. We present an extension of the multichromosomal breakpoint median problem to genomes that have undergone gene gain and loss. We then demonstrate that the median distance among three genomes can be used to calculate a lower bound on the number of hidden breakpoints present. We provide an implementation of this calculation including the median distance, along with some practical improvements on the time complexity of the underlying algorithm. We apply our approach to measure the abundance of hidden breakpoints in simulated data sets under a wide range of evolutionary scenarios. We demonstrate that in simulations the hidden breakpoint counts depend strongly on relative rates of inversion and gene gain/loss. Finally we apply current multiple genome aligners to the simulated genomes, and show that all aligners introduce a high degree of error in hidden breakpoint counts, and that this error grows with evolutionary distance in the simulation. Our results suggest that hidden breakpoint error may be pervasive in genome alignments.Comment: 13 pages, 4 figure

Study of particles collected by the 1966 Luster rocket /Luster 2/ Final report

Electron diffraction and microprobe analysis of extraterrestrial particles collected by Luster 2 rocket during Orionid showe

A microfluidic chip based model for the study of full thickness human intestinal tissue using dual flow

© 2016 Author(s). The study of inflammatory bowel disease, including Ulcerative Colitis and Crohn's Disease, has relied largely upon the use of animal or cell culture models; neither of which can represent all aspects of the human pathophysiology. Presented herein is a dual flow microfluidic device which holds full thickness human intestinal tissue in a known orientation. The luminal and serosal sides are independently perfused ex vivo with nutrients with simultaneous waste removal for up to 72 h. The microfluidic device maintains the viability and integrity of the tissue as demonstrated through Haematoxylin & Eosin staining, immunohistochemistry and release of lactate dehydrogenase. In addition, the inflammatory state remains in the tissue after perfusion on the device as determined by measuring calprotectin levels. It is anticipated that this human model will be extremely useful for studying the biology and tes ting novel interventions in diseased tissue

Study of particles collected by the 1965 Luster rocket

Heat annealing tests of Luster rocket collected micrometeorites to determine whether radiation damage can distinguish extraterrestrial from terrestrial particle

Daily reduction of oral malodor with the use of a sonic tongue brush combined with an antibacterial tongue spray in a randomized cross-over clinical investigation

Abstract The objective of this clinical investigation was to test the effectiveness on breath odor of a newly designed sonic tongue brush (TongueCare+, TC). It consists of a soft silicone brush optimally designed based on the tongue's anatomy to remove bacterial biofilm from the tongue's complex surface, and it is coupled with a sonic power toothbrush handle. TC was used in combination with an antibacterial tongue spray (BreathRx, BRx) containing 0.09% cetylpyridinium chloride and 0.7% zinc gluconate. A total of 21 participants with oral malodor exceeding the threshold for recognition took part in this cross-over clinical investigation, which consisted of a single use of four treatment arms with one week washout period in between. The treatments consisted of: (1) TC  +  BRx, (2) TC  +  water, (3) BRx and (4) water. Malodor levels and bacterial density were monitored up to 6 h by organoleptic scoring and selective plating, respectively. The organoleptic score and bacterial density were significantly lower after using TC  +  BRx compared to all alternative treatments at all time points. A significant decrease in both parameters was detected after a single use of TC  +  BRx, from levels characteristic of high oral malodor, to barely noticeable levels after treatment and this was maintained up to 6 h. Moreover, we identified a significant positive correlation between bacterial density and organoleptic score, confirming that bacterial tongue biofilm is the root cause of oral malodor in these subjects. The results of this clinical investigation demonstrated that the combined treatment of a sonic tongue brush with the antibacterial tongue spray is able to deliver more than 6 h of fresh breath following a single use. The clinical investigation was registered at the ISRCTN registry under study identification number ISRCTN38199132