The Problem With Asymptomatic Cerebral Embolic Complications in Vascular Procedures What If They Are Not Asymptomatic?

Cerebral embolic events related to carotid and cardiac disease have been known for decades. Recently, cerebral embolic events have become a focus of clinical importance as complications of vascular procedures. Further, the development of new technologies and procedures has increased the overall clinical significance. Although the relative safety of these procedures is usually defined by acute stroke risk, it is also becoming clear that far more subclinical events are occurring. Recent reports provided substantial evidence of memory loss, cognitive decline, and dementia related to these so-called silent infarcts. Literature reports of magnetic resonance imaging events lead to an estimate of as many as 600,000 patients with new brain injury each year in the United States alone. Given the magnitude of the numbers involved, the impact of accelerated cognitive loss and premature senescence in a vulnerable at-risk population could well be significant

Determining the role of epigenetic factors in antifungal drug resistance

Epigenetic factors are proteins that regulate gene expression by altering transcriptional machinery access to nucleosomes, DNA wrapped around histone proteins. Two classes of epigenetic factors are ATP-dependent chromatin remodelers and histone modifiers such as histone methyltransferases (HMTs), proteins that add methyl groups to histone tails. This study focuses on AIF4 (Antifungal-Induced Factor 4), a possible HMT induced upon neutral lipid depletion that we hypothesize is regulating antifungal drug resistance genes. Overexpression of AIF4 results in hypersensitivity to antifungal drugs. Studying epigenetic factors in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, including AIF4, can lead to better understanding of cell adaptation to their environments and insight into antifungal drug resistance of pathogenic yeast. This project will focus on identifying suppressors of AIF4’s hypersensitive phenotype and exploring whether genes in the neutral lipid pathway are necessary for AIF4 expression. To support our hypothesis, I will grow yeast colonies with overexpressed AIF4 on media containing antifungal drugs. Overexpressing AIF4 strains exposed to antifungal drugs over time suppressed the grow defect. Re-plating the suppressor colonies showed drug resistance, suggesting that a genetic mutation(s) occurred. Suppressor colonies will be analyzed for AIF4 expression and genome-wide sequencing to identify the suppressor mutation(s). In addition, I have generated deletions for genes that encode neutral lipid production enzymes, and I will determine if AIF4 expression is affected. Single and double deletions will determine if a particular neutral lipid is required for the expression of AIF4. Overall, my work will help to characterize a pathway required for AIF4 expression and drug resistance

Archaean and Proterozoic diamond growth from contrasting styles of large-scale magmatism

Precise dating of diamond growth is required to understand the interior workings of the early Earth and the deep carbon cycle. Here we report Sm-Nd isotope data from 26 individual garnet inclusions from 26 harzburgitic diamonds from Venetia, South Africa. Garnet inclusions and host diamonds comprise two compositional suites formed under markedly different conditions and define two isochrons, one Archaean (2.95 Ga) and one Proterozoic (1.15 Ga). The Archaean diamond suite formed from relatively cool fluid-dominated metasomatism during rifting of the southern shelf of the Zimbabwe Craton. The 1.8 billion years younger Proterozoic diamond suite formed by melt-dominated metasomatism related to the 1.1 Ga Umkondo Large Igneous Province. The results demonstrate that resolving the time of diamond growth events requires dating of individual inclusions, and that there was a major change in the magmatic processes responsible for harzburgitic diamond formation beneath Venetia from the Archaean to the Proterozoic

Лечение артериальной гипертензии в преклонном возрасте: от отрицания до признания необходимости

Представлен анализ результатов клинических исследований антигипертензивной терапии у пожилых пациентов, позволяющий сделать заключение о целесообразности ее проведения даже после достижения 80−летнего возраста.The analysis of the findings of clinical research of antihypertensive therapy in elderly patients, which allowed to conclude about the necessity about the expediency of its administration even in patients over 80, is presented

"Last-Mile" preparation for a potential disaster

Extreme natural events, like e.g. tsunamis or earthquakes, regularly lead to catastrophes with dramatic consequences. In recent years natural disasters caused hundreds of thousands of deaths, destruction of infrastructure, disruption of economic activity and loss of billions of dollars worth of property and thus revealed considerable deficits hindering their effective management: Needs for stakeholders, decision-makers as well as for persons concerned include systematic risk identification and evaluation, a way to assess countermeasures, awareness raising and decision support systems to be employed before, during and after crisis situations. The overall goal of this study focuses on interdisciplinary integration of various scientific disciplines to contribute to a tsunami early warning information system. In comparison to most studies our focus is on high-end geometric and thematic analysis to meet the requirements of small-scale, heterogeneous and complex coastal urban systems. Data, methods and results from engineering, remote sensing and social sciences are interlinked and provide comprehensive information for disaster risk assessment, management and reduction. In detail, we combine inundation modeling, urban morphology analysis, population assessment, socio-economic analysis of the population and evacuation modeling. The interdisciplinary results eventually lead to recommendations for mitigation strategies in the fields of spatial planning or coping capacity

Long-term monitoring of Scripps’s Murrelet and Guadalupe Murrelet at San Clemente Island, California: evaluation of baseline data in 2012–2016

San Clemente Island (SCI) supports one of the smallest Scripps’s Murrelet (Synthliboramphus scrippsi; SCMU) colonies in the world, and perhaps the only colony of Guadalupe Murrelets (S. hypoleucus; GUMU) in California. In 2012–2016, the U.S. Navy sponsored development of a long-term murrelet monitoring program at SCI that utilized nocturnal spotlight surveys, night-lighting at-sea captures, and nest monitoring. Standardized spotlight survey transects were established in nearshore waters off breeding areas at Seal Cove and southeast SCI (SESCI). Baseline mean spotlight counts were 29 ± 15 murrelets (n = 31) at Seal Cove in 2013–2016 and 21 ± 10 murrelets (n = 15) at SESCI in 2014–2016. We banded 201 SCMU captured in congregations at Seal Cove (n = 158) and SESCI (n = 43); 12% of the SCMU from Seal Cove and 7% from SESCI were recaptured ≥1 year after banding. We also banded 21 GUMU at Seal Cove, but none were recaptured. Murrelet nests or eggs were found in 6 shoreline breeding “refuges” at Seal Cove and SESCI that were seldom if ever visited by island foxes (Urocyon littoralis clementae) and feral cats (Felis catus). Incubating SCMU were observed in 4 nest sites, but in 8 other sites only eggs or eggshells were found. Overall hatching success was very low (12%; n = 17 clutches) in 2012–2016, apparently due to intraspecific competition for limited nest crevices at Seal Cove and predation (or possibly abandonment and subsequent egg scavenging) by foxes or black rats (Rattus rattus) at SESCI. Using spotlight survey data, we estimated 115 murrelet pairs (range 79–208) at SCI, including 110 pairs (range 76–199) of SCMU and 5 pairs (range 3–9) of GUMU, although a GUMU nest has not yet been found. Power analyses of Seal Cove spotlight data indicated that surveys conducted over 9 nights per year for 20 years could reliably (power ≥ 0.90) detect minimum population changes of ± 1.7% per annum. Additional efforts are needed to (1) confirm the breeding status of GUMU; (2) investigate alternative methods of rat control to increase hatching success in murrelet breeding refuges; and (3) enhance breeding habitats to reduce intraspecific competition for nest sites and increase the number of monitored nests

Widest geographic distribution of a shallow and mesophotic antipatharian coral (Anthozoa: Hexacorallia): Antipathes grandis VERRILL, 1928 – confirmed by morphometric and molecular analyses

We provide the first record of the shallow and mesophotic ( 200 m depth) benthic taxa have such wide geographic distributions