Union Made: fostering entrepreneurial opportunities

This research explores how product design graduates can use products they have designed as a vehicle to become more entrepreneurial, with particular reference to barriers and opportunities experienced by ‘designer-maker’ product designers in New Zealand. Inspiration and ideation can dominate focus for product design graduates, with little support for design implementation. Attempting to implement a product designed during post-graduate study the researcher discovered barriers as he pursued opportunities to implement the product. In order to better explore these barriers and opportunities faced during implementation, a case study involving entrepreneurial activities was pursued and documented by the researcher, a post-graduate product designer in New Zealand. Along with the case study, a group of New Zealand Product Design professionals were interviewed in order to analyse their journey from study to the product design profession. The insights are described and brought together with the insights from the case study in order to explore the opportunities and barriers faced by product design graduates. Important themes include personal values, guiding principles and ideals as well as established relationships, collaboration and the ability to use whatever means available to implement a design. Alongside the design of a business and range of furniture these themes have been designed into two further outcomes, a guide and a proposal for a collaborative workspace in order to help the opportunities and barriers found. The two extra outcomes include a simplified booklet for post graduate students thinking about pursuing an entrepreneurial opportunity and a proposal for a test space to better aid product designer-maker students with workshop resources

Little Red

Little Red is an artefact so prompt and stimulate reflective practice

Interhospital Transfer Before Thrombectomy Is Associated With Delayed Treatment and Worse Outcome in the STRATIS Registry (Systematic Evaluation of Patients Treated With Neurothrombectomy Devices for Acute Ischemic Stroke).

BACKGROUND: Endovascular treatment with mechanical thrombectomy (MT) is beneficial for patients with acute stroke suffering a large-vessel occlusion, although treatment efficacy is highly time-dependent. We hypothesized that interhospital transfer to endovascular-capable centers would result in treatment delays and worse clinical outcomes compared with direct presentation. METHODS: STRATIS (Systematic Evaluation of Patients Treated With Neurothrombectomy Devices for Acute Ischemic Stroke) was a prospective, multicenter, observational, single-arm study of real-world MT for acute stroke because of anterior-circulation large-vessel occlusion performed at 55 sites over 2 years, including 1000 patients with severe stroke and treated within 8 hours. Patients underwent MT with or without intravenous tissue plasminogen activator and were admitted to endovascular-capable centers via either interhospital transfer or direct presentation. The primary clinical outcome was functional independence (modified Rankin Score 0-2) at 90 days. We assessed (1) real-world time metrics of stroke care delivery, (2) outcome differences between direct and transfer patients undergoing MT, and (3) the potential impact of local hospital bypass. RESULTS: A total of 984 patients were analyzed. Median onset-to-revascularization time was 202.0 minutes for direct versus 311.5 minutes for transfer patients ( CONCLUSIONS: In this large, real-world study, interhospital transfer was associated with significant treatment delays and lower chance of good outcome. Strategies to facilitate more rapid identification of large-vessel occlusion and direct routing to endovascular-capable centers for patients with severe stroke may improve outcomes. CLINICAL TRIAL REGISTRATION: URL: https://www.clinicaltrials.gov. Unique identifier: NCT02239640

Union Made: fostering entrepreneurial opportunities

This research explores how product design graduates can use products they have designed as a vehicle to become more entrepreneurial, with particular reference to barriers and opportunities experienced by ‘designer-maker’ product designers in New Zealand. Inspiration and ideation can dominate focus for product design graduates, with little support for design implementation. Attempting to implement a product designed during post-graduate study the researcher discovered barriers as he pursued opportunities to implement the product. In order to better explore these barriers and opportunities faced during implementation, a case study involving entrepreneurial activities was pursued and documented by the researcher, a post-graduate product designer in New Zealand. Along with the case study, a group of New Zealand Product Design professionals were interviewed in order to analyse their journey from study to the product design profession. The insights are described and brought together with the insights from the case study in order to explore the opportunities and barriers faced by product design graduates. Important themes include personal values, guiding principles and ideals as well as established relationships, collaboration and the ability to use whatever means available to implement a design. Alongside the design of a business and range of furniture these themes have been designed into two further outcomes, a guide and a proposal for a collaborative workspace in order to help the opportunities and barriers found. The two extra outcomes include a simplified booklet for post graduate students thinking about pursuing an entrepreneurial opportunity and a proposal for a test space to better aid product designer-maker students with workshop resources

Reentrant liquid-liquid phase separation in protein solutions at elevated hydrostatic pressures

We present results from small-angle x-ray scattering data on the effect of high pressure on the phase behavior of dense lysozyme solutions in the liquid-liquid phase separation region, and characterize the underlying intermolecular protein-protein interactions as a function of temperature and pressure in this region of phase space. A reentrant liquid-liquid phase separation region has been discovered at elevated pressures, which originates in the pressure dependence of the solvent-mediated protein-protein interactions

Data presentation in rodent stroke studies and the predictive value of confidence intervals

The clinical failure of neuroprotective agents stems partly from inappropriate statistical presentation of preclinical data, which causes an overestimation of effect size and underpowered clinical studies. We searched for studies utilizing neuroprotective agents in a rodent middle cerebral artery occlusion model. We identified all experimental groups demonstrating statistically significant claims of neuroprotection within these studies and calculated the mean, 95% confidence intervals (CI), and meta-analyses of effect size for each agent. The lower limits of the CI (LLCI) of effect size were less than 0.2 in 161/221 (73%) of all experimental groups, corresponding to small effects. After meta-analysis, 29/60 (48%) and 11/18 (61%) of the agents had an effect size LLCI\u3c0.2 for infarct volume and neurological function, respectively. This difference was statistically significant (p\u3c0.05). These results suggest that the preclinical neuroprotective effect size of many of these drugs is small, although that of neurological function is smaller and is thus a more conservative and appropriate estimate of effect

Mechanical Thrombectomy for Delayed Thrombosis of Pipeline Embolization Device

BACKGROUND: In-stent thrombosis is a potentially dangerous complication of flow diversion for cerebral aneurysms. The optimal management strategy for such thrombosis is not known. Here we present a case of acute ischemic stroke caused by occlusion of a Pipeline Embolization Device (PED) construct placed 18 months earlier for treatment of a fusiform middle cerebral artery aneurysm. This was successfully treated with mechanical thrombectomy with good neurologic outcome. CASE DESCRIPTION: A 40-year-old woman presented with acute onset of left-sided weakness and occlusion of the right middle cerebral artery harboring a PED construct. Intraarterial glycoprotein IIb/IIIa inhibitor was administered without success. Mechanical thrombectomy was then performed using a stent retriever and aspiration, and the patient was loaded with dual antiplatelet therapy. The patient showed initial neurologic improvement but several hours later demonstrated recurrent symptoms due to reocclusion of the PED construct. This was again treated with mechanical thrombectomy followed by an intravenous P2Y12 inhibitor infusion. She ultimately made an excellent neurologic recovery with persistent patency of the PED construct. CONCLUSIONS: Mechanical thrombectomy with a stent retriever and aspiration is a therapeutic option for treatment of delayed thrombosis of a flow-diverting stent

An improved test of neurological dysfunction following transient focal cerebral ischemia in rats

The Adhesive Removal (sticky-tape) test is a commonly used test of somatosensory dysfunction following cerebral ischemia in rats. This test requires several days of pre-training prior to surgery, which can be time consuming. We present our results with an improved version of the sticky-tape test. Male Wistar rats were subjected to either sham surgery ( n = 4) or right middle cerebral artery occlusion (rMCAo) using an intraluminal filament ( n = 9), followed by a 10-day survival period. On post-operative days (POD) 1, 3, 7, and 10 animals underwent both the conventional sticky-tape test (CST) with measurement of the time to remove the stimulus ( trs), as well as a modified sticky-tape test (MST), in which a non-removable tape sleeve was placed around the animal's paw. Time spent attending to this stimulus ( tas) was recorded. Despite 3 days of pre-training, animals undergoing baseline CST still exhibited marked variability in pre-operative baseline test performance ( trs range 1–60 s). In contrast, animals undergoing MST for the first time demonstrated nearly uniformly excellent performance (% tas range 91.5–98.5% of the 30 s testing period). Although, affected (left) limb performance on both CST (6.8-fold increase in trs on POD 1 compared to baseline) and MST (100% decrease in tas on POD 1 compared to baseline) was markedly altered by rMCAo, CST performance declined bilaterally, and no significant differences in the ratio of affected (left) and unaffected (right) limb performance between sham-operated and rMCAo animals were observed at any time point. In contrast, the ratio of left to right performance on the MST was significantly different at all time points ( P < 0.01). In conclusion, we present a simple modification of the widely used Adhesive Removal test and provide evidence that this test can accurately assess neurological dysfunction in rodents, not only with minimal pre-training, but also with improved localization of the side of injury