Impaired carotid viscoelastic properties in women with polycystic ovaries

Background-The purpose of this study was to assess the elastic properties of the carotid arteries in women with polycystic ovarian syndrome, asymptomatic women with polycystic ovaries. and healthy controls.Methods and Results-We recruited the following 60 subjects: 20 symptomatic women with polycystic ovaries attending the reproductive endocrinology clinics, 20 asymptomatic women with polycystic ovaries attending the family planning clinic, and 20 staff volunteers as healthy controls with normal ovaries on transvaginal scan. Compliance and stiffness index were assessed in the common and internal carotid arteries using duplex ultrasound equipped with an echo-locked arterial wall-tracking system. Compliance was significantly lower in the common carotid artery in symptomatic and asymptomatic women with polycystic ovaries than in the controls (10.7, 14.1, and 19.2%mm Hg-1 x 10(-2), respectively). The arterial stiffness index was correspondingly increased (12.3, 10.2, and 6.7, respectively). Similar results were obtained in the internal carotid artery for compliance (10.1. 11.0, and 16.9 %mm Hg-1 x 10(-2), respectively) and stiffness index (14.8, 16.2, and 8.7, respectively).Conclusions-The results of this study provide additional evidence of vascular dysfunction in women with polycystic ovaries and are compatible with the hypothesis that they are at increased risk from coronary artery disease and stroke

Differential Gene Expression in Liver, Gill, and Olfactory Rosettes of Coho Salmon (Oncorhynchus kisutch) After Acclimation to Salinity.

Most Pacific salmonids undergo smoltification and transition from freshwater to saltwater, making various adjustments in metabolism, catabolism, osmotic, and ion regulation. The molecular mechanisms underlying this transition are largely unknown. In the present study, we acclimated coho salmon (Oncorhynchus kisutch) to four different salinities and assessed gene expression through microarray analysis of gills, liver, and olfactory rosettes. Gills are involved in osmotic regulation, liver plays a role in energetics, and olfactory rosettes are involved in behavior. Between all salinity treatments, liver had the highest number of differentially expressed genes at 1616, gills had 1074, and olfactory rosettes had 924, using a 1.5-fold cutoff and a false discovery rate of 0.5. Higher responsiveness of liver to metabolic changes after salinity acclimation to provide energy for other osmoregulatory tissues such as the gills may explain the differences in number of differentially expressed genes. Differentially expressed genes were tissue- and salinity-dependent. There were no known genes differentially expressed that were common to all salinity treatments and all tissues. Gene ontology term analysis revealed biological processes, molecular functions, and cellular components that were significantly affected by salinity, a majority of which were tissue-dependent. For liver, oxygen binding and transport terms were highlighted. For gills, muscle, and cytoskeleton-related terms predominated and for olfactory rosettes, immune response-related genes were accentuated. Interaction networks were examined in combination with GO terms and determined similarities between tissues for potential osmosensors, signal transduction cascades, and transcription factors

Labor and Employment: The Battle for the Gig Economy

The following is a transcript of a 2016 Federalist Society panel entitled Labor & Employment Law: The Battle for the Gig Economy. The panel originally occurred on November 17, 2016 during the National Lawyers Convention in Washington, D.C. The panelists were: Mark Brnovich, Attorney General, Arizona; Mr. Mark Floyd, Senior Director and Global Relations Lead, Uber Technologies Inc.; Mr. Randel K. Johnson, Senior Vice President, Labor, Immigration and Employee Benefits, U.S. Chamber of Commerce; and Mr. Bill Samuel, Director of Government Affairs, AFL-CIO. The moderator was the Honorable Judge Thomas M. Hardiman of the U.S. Court of Appeals, Third Circuit

Asrama Mahasiswa di Semarang

Peningkatan jumlah penduduk yang pesat merupakan hal yang selalu mendasari munculnya tuntutan kebutuhan akan tempat tinggal di kota-kota besar. Badan Pusat Statistik mencatat jumlah penduduk Kota Semarang pada tahun 2011 mencapai 1.544.358 jiwa. Tentu saja jumlah tersebut belum termasuk jumlah perpindahan penduduk dari luar kota ke Semarang. Adanya Perguruan Tinggi Negeri (PTN) yang sedang berkembang pesat seperti Universitas Diponegoro (UNDIP) di daerah Tembalang (bagian tenggara Kota Semarang) menjadikan banyaknya jumlah pendatang lebih didominasi oleh kalangan pelajar. Seiring dengan meningkatnya jumlah peminat PTN ini, jumlah migrasi mahasiswa pendatang ke kawasan kampus UNDIP Tembalang-pun dari tahun ke tahun semakin meningkat, sehingga BPS mencatat pada tahun 2011 kecamatan ini sebagai penyumbang jumlah pendatang terbesar di Semarang. Perkembangan yang pesat membuat pembangunan cenderung tidak beraturan di sekitar lingkungan kampus, sehingga lahan yang tersedia tidak mampu dimanfaatkan secara efektif dan efisien. Harga tanahpun semakin melonjak dan langka. Fenomena ini tentu mendorong minat investasi perusahaan pengembang untuk membuat hunian vertikal baru sekelas apartemen yang saat ini menjadi solusi praktis dari masalah yang ada, serta lebih banyak diminati oleh kalangan mahasiswa di kota-kota besar. Untuk itu diperlukan sebuah kajian yang meninjau lebih dalam mengenai pengertian hunian vertikal untuk mahasiswa, dalam hal ini dinamakan ‘asrama mahasiswa’ untuk kelas menengah keatas yang memiliki fasilitas sekelas apartemen. Dilakukan juga beberapa studi banding mengenai hunian vertikal untuk mahasiswa di beberapa kota besar lain, untuk kemudian disesuaikan dan diterapkan berdasarkan kondisi di kecamatan Tembalang, Semarang. Pendekatan perancangan dilakukan dengan penekanan desain arsitektur tropis menyesuaikan iklim setempat, dengan mempertimbangkan aspek fungsional, kinerja, teknis dan kontekstual bangunan setipe

Benefits, pitfalls, and future design of population-based registers in neurodegenerative disease

Population-based disease registers identify and characterize all cases of disease, including those that might otherwise be neglected. Prospective population-based registers in neurodegeneration are necessary to provide comprehensive data on the whole phenotypic spectrum and can guide planning of health services. With the exception of the rare disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, few complete population-based registers exist for neurodegenerative conditions. Incomplete ascertainment, limitations and uncertainty in diagnostic categorization, and failure to recognize sources of bias reduce the accuracy and usefulness of many registers. Common biases include population stratification, the use of prevalent rather than incident cases in earlier years, changes in disease understanding and diagnostic criteria, and changing demographics over time. Future registers are at risk of funding shortfalls and changes to privacy legislation. Notwithstanding, as heterogeneities of clinical phenotype and disease pathogenesis are increasingly recognized in the neurodegenerations, well-designed longitudinal population-based disease registers will be an essential requirement to complete clinical understanding of neurodegenerative diseases.Health Research Board (Ireland

A comparative framework: how broadly applicable is a 'rigorous' critical junctures framework?

The paper tests Hogan and Doyle's (2007, 2008) framework for examining critical junctures. This framework sought to incorporate the concept of ideational change in understanding critical junctures. Until its development, frameworks utilized in identifying critical junctures were subjective, seeking only to identify crisis, and subsequent policy changes, arguing that one invariably led to the other, as both occurred around the same time. Hogan and Doyle (2007, 2008) hypothesized ideational change as an intermediating variable in their framework, determining if, and when, a crisis leads to radical policy change. Here we test this framework on cases similar to, but different from, those employed in developing the exemplar. This will enable us determine whether the framework's relegation of ideational change to a condition of crisis holds, or, if ideational change has more importance than is ascribed to it by this framework. This will also enable us determined if the framework itself is robust, and fit for the purposes it was designed to perform — identifying the nature of policy change

Where are the Pots and Pans? Collective Responses in Ireland to Neoliberalization in a Time of Crisis: Learning from Latin America

Since 2008, Ireland has experienced a profound multi-faceted crisis, stemming from the collapse of the financial and property sectors. Despite enduring six years of neoliberal austerity measures in response to this situation, popular protest has been muted. Using Silva's [(2009) Challenging Neoliberalism in Latin America (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press)] framework of analysis of popular responses in Latin America to that region's debt crisis of the 1980s and 1990s, this article seeks to investigate why this has been the case. We assess how the crisis is being framed among popular and civil society groups, and whether increased associational and collective power is developing. In doing so, we look at processes of intra-group cooperation, cross-group cooperation and framing and brokerage mechanisms. We then ask, where such processes exist, if they can lead to a comprehensive challenge to the neoliberal policies currently being implemented, as happened in much of Latin America. We conclude that the crisis has not yet reached sufficient depth or longevity to foster a more robust popular response, but propose that analysis of similar processes in Latin America can help us understand better why this is the case, not just in Ireland, but in other countries of Europe experiencing similar situations

Etiology of Childhood Bacteremia and Timely Antibiotics Administration in the Emergency Department

BACKGROUND: Bacteremia is now an uncommon presentation to the children’s emergency department (ED) but is associated with significant morbidity and mortality. Its evolving etiology may affect the ability of clinicians to initiate timely, appropriate antimicrobial therapy. METHODS: A retrospective time series analysis of bacteremia was conducted in the Alder Hey Children’s Hospital ED between 2001 and 2011. Data on significant comorbidities, time to empirical therapy, and antibiotic susceptibility were recorded. RESULTS: A total of 575 clinical episodes were identified, and Streptococcus pneumoniae (n = 109), Neisseria meningitidis (n = 96), and Staphylococcus aureus (n = 89) were commonly isolated. The rate of bacteremia was 1.42 per 1000 ED attendances (95% confidence interval: 1.31–1.53). There was an annual reduction of 10.6% (6.6%–14.5%) in vaccine-preventable infections, and an annual increase of 6.7% (1.2%–12.5%) in Gram-negative infections. The pneumococcal conjugate vaccine was associated with a 49% (32%–74%) reduction in pneumococcal bacteremia. The rate of health care–associated bacteremia increased from 0.17 to 0.43 per 1000 ED attendances (P = .002). Susceptibility to empirical antibiotics was reduced (96.3%–82.6%; P < .001). Health care–associated bacteremia was associated with an increased length of stay of 3.9 days (95% confidence interval: 2.3–5.8). Median time to antibiotics was 184 minutes (interquartile range: 63–331) and 57 (interquartile range: 27–97) minutes longer in Gram-negative bacteremia than in vaccine-preventable bacteremia. CONCLUSIONS: Changes in the etiology of pediatric bacteremia have implications for prompt, appropriate empirical treatment. Increasingly, pediatric bacteremia in the ED is health care associated, which increases length of inpatient stay. Prompt, effective antimicrobial administration requires new tools to improve recognition, in addition to continued etiological surveillance

Assessing behavioural changes in ALS: cross-validation of ALS-specific measures

Objective: The Beaumont Behavioural Inventory (BBI) is a behavioural proxy report for the assessment of behavioural changes in ALS. This tool has been validated against the FrSBe, a non-ALS specific behavioural assessment, and further comparison of the BBI against a disease-specific tool was considered. This study cross-validates the BBI against the ALS-FTD-Q. Methods: 60 ALS patients, 8% also meeting criteria for FTD, were recruited. All patients were evaluated using the BBI and the ALS-FTD-Q, completed by a carer. Correlational analysis was performed to assess construct validity. Precision, sensitivity, specificity and overall accuracy of the BBI, when compared to the ALS-FTD-Q, were obtained. Results: The mean score of the whole sample on the BBI was 11.45±13.06. ALS-FTD patients scored significantly higher than non-demented ALS patients (31.6±14.64, 9.62±11.38; p<.0001). A significant large positive correlation between the BBI and the ALS-FTD-Q was observed (r=.807, p<.0001), and no significant correlations between the BBI and other clinical/demographic characteristics, indicating good convergent and discriminant validity, respectively. 72% of overall concordance was observed. Precision, sensitivity and specificity for the classification of severely impaired patients were adequate. However, lower concordance in the classification of mild behavioural changes was observed, with higher sensitivity using the BBI, most likely secondary to BBI items which endorsed behavioural aspects not measured by the ALS-FTD-Q. Discussion: Good construct validity has been further confirmed when the BBI is compared to an ALS-specific tool. Furthermore, the BBI is a more comprehensive behavioural assessment for ALS, as it measures the whole behavioural spectrum in this condition