Noninvasive Assessment of Exercise-Related Intramyocellular Acetylcarnitine in Euglycemia and Hyperglycemia in Patients With Type 1 Diabetes Using 1H Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy: A randomized single-blind crossover study

Intramyocellular acetylcarnitine (IMAC) is involved in exercise-related fuel metabolism. It is not known whether levels of systemic glucose influence IMAC levels in type 1 diabetes

Green Infrastructure

The transportation industry has increasingly recognized the vital role sustainability serves in promoting and protecting the transportation infrastructure of the nation. Many state Departments of Transportation have correspondingly increased efforts to incorporate concepts of sustainability into the planning, design, and construction phases of projects and congruently adopted sustainability measures into their internal standard policies and procedures. Sustainably constructed highways foster economic development, promote stewardship of the environment, and solicit citizen involvement for an integrated, comprehensive approach to project planning. As part of an effort to understand the extent to which sustainable design and construction principles are being used, this report selects and analyzes three case studies involving previously completed KYTC projects and assesses their commitment to sustainable concepts. Specifically, this report examines the extent to which KYTC utilized sustainable concepts for each case study as described in FHWA’s INVEST rating system. This research effort comprised three components. First, KTC researchers analyzed KYTC’s policies and manuals for project planning, design, and construction and determined the extent to which INVEST criteria and related principles were incorporated into their standard processes. Second, KTC analyzed the individual case studies themselves, to include project plans and other relevant documentation. Finally, KTC conducted interviews with each of the KYTC district offices responsible for managing those previously completed projects and obtained feedback on the INVEST criteria used for each particular project. Following this approach, KTC validated and finalized the assigned scoring ratings for each case study in accordance with the INVEST scoring guidance. In summary, this report describes the sustainable concepts and corresponding INVEST scores for each project, presents a summary of the main findings, and provides recommendations for the way ahead

Shot Noise in Digital Holography

We discuss on noise in heterodyne holography in an off-axis configuration. We show that, for a weak signal, the noise is dominated by the shot noise on the reference beam. This noise corresponds to an equivalent noise on the signal beam of one photoelectron per pixel, for the whole sequence of images used to build the digital hologram

Sacral nerve stimulation in patients with ileal pouch-anal anastomosis

Purpose: Functional results after proctocolectomy and ileal pouch-anal anastomosis (IPAA) are generally good. However, some patients suffer from high stool frequency or fecal incontinence. Sacral nerve stimulation (SNS) may represent a therapeutic alternative in these patients, but little is known about indication and results. The aim of this study was to evaluate incontinence after IPAA and demonstrate SNS feasibility in these patients. Methods: This retrospective study includes patients who received a SNS between 1993 and 2020 for increased stool frequency or fecal incontinence after proctocolectomy with IPAA for ulcerative colitis. Proctocolectomy was performed in a two- or three-step approach with ileostomy closure as the last step. Demographic, follow-up data and functional results were obtained from the hospital database. Results: SNS was performed in 23 patients. Median follow-up time after SNS was 6.5 years (min. 4.2-max. 8.8). Two patients were lost to follow-up. The median time from ileostomy closure to SNS implantation was 6 years (min. 0.5-max. 14.5). Continence after SNS improved in 16 patients (69%) with a median St. Marks score for anal incontinence of 19 (min. 4-max. 22) before SNS compared to 4 (0-10) after SNS placement (p = 0.012). In seven patients, SNS therapy was not successful. Conclusion: SNS implantation improves symptoms in over two-thirds of patients suffering from high stool frequency or fecal incontinence after proctocolectomy with IPAA. Awareness of the beneficial effects of SNS should be increased in physicians involved in the management of these patients

A Microscopic Mechanism for Muscle's Motion

The SIRM (Stochastic Inclined Rods Model) proposed by H. Matsuura and M. Nakano can explain the muscle's motion perfectly, but the intermolecular potential between myosin head and G-actin is too simple and only repulsive potential is considered. In this paper we study the SIRM with different complex potential and discuss the effect of the spring on the system. The calculation results show that the spring, the effective radius of the G-actin and the intermolecular potential play key roles in the motion. The sliding speed is about $4.7\times10^{-6}m/s$ calculated from the model which well agrees with the experimental data.Comment: 9 pages, 6 figure

Validation of the German Classification of Diverticular Disease (VADIS)—a prospective bicentric observational study

Purpose: The German Classification of Diverticular Disease was introduced a few years ago. The aim of this study was to determine whether Classification of Diverticular Disease enables an exact stratification of different types of diverticular disease in terms of course and treatment. Methods: This was a prospective, bicentric observational trial. Patients aged ≥ 18 years with diverticular disease were prospectively included. The primary endpoint was the rate of recurrence within 2 year follow-up. Secondary outcome measures were Gastrointestinal Quality of Life Index, Quality of life measured by SF-36, frequency of gastrointestinal complaints, and postoperative complications. Results: A total of 172 patients were included. After conservative management, 40% of patients required surgery for recurrence in type 1b vs. 80% in type 2a/b (p = 0.04). Sixty percent of patients with type 2a (micro-abscess) were in need of surgery for recurrence vs. 100% of patients with type 2b (macro-abscess) (p = 0.11). Patients with type 2a reached 123 ± 15 points in the Gastrointestinal Quality of Life Index compared with 111 ± 14 in type 2b (p = 0.05) and higher scores in the “Mental Component Summary” scale of SF-36 (52 ± 10 vs. 43 ± 13; p = 0.04). Patients with recurrent diverticulitis without complications (type 3b) had less often painful constipation (30% vs. 73%; p = 0.006) when they were operated compared with conservative treatment. Conclusion: Differentiation into type 2a and 2b based on abscess size seems reasonable as patients with type 2b required surgery while patients with type 2a may be treated conservatively. Sigmoid colectomy in patients with type 3b seems to have gastrointestinal complaints during long-term follow-up. Trial registration: https://www.drks.de ID: DRKS0000557

Foveal Cone Structure in Patients With Blue Cone Monochromacy

Purpose: Blue cone monochromacy (BCM) is a rare inherited cone disorder in which both long- (L-) and middle- (M-) wavelength sensitive cone classes are either impaired or nonfunctional. Assessing genotype-phenotype relationships in BCM can improve our understanding of retinal development in the absence of functional L- and M-cones. Here we examined foveal cone structure in patients with genetically-confirmed BCM, using adaptive optics scanning light ophthalmoscopy (AOSLO). / Methods: Twenty-three male patients (aged 6-75 years) with genetically-confirmed BCM were recruited for high-resolution imaging. Eight patients had a deletion of the locus control region (LCR), and 15 had a missense mutation-Cys203Arg-affecting the first two genes in the opsin gene array. Foveal cone structure was assessed using confocal and non-confocal split-detection AOSLO across a 300 × 300 µm area, centered on the location of peak cell density. / Results: Only one of eight patients with LCR deletions and 10 of 15 patients with Cys203Arg mutations had analyzable images. Mean total cone density for Cys203Arg patients was 16,664 ± 11,513 cones/mm2 (n = 10), which is, on average, around 40% of normal. Waveguiding cone density was 2073 ± 963 cones/mm2 (n = 9), which was consistent with published histological estimates of S-cone density in the normal eye. The one patient with an LCR deletion had a total cone density of 10,246 cones/mm2 and waveguiding density of 1535 cones/mm2. / Conclusions: Our results show that BCM patients with LCR deletions and Cys203Arg mutations have a population of non-waveguiding photoreceptors, although the spectral identity and level of function remain unknown

Mortality Prediction after the First Year of Kidney Transplantation: An Observational Study on Two European Cohorts.

After the first year post transplantation, prognostic mortality scores in kidney transplant recipients can be useful for personalizing medical management. We developed a new prognostic score based on 5 parameters and computable at 1-year post transplantation. The outcome was the time between the first anniversary of the transplantation and the patient's death with a functioning graft. Afterwards, we appraised the prognostic capacities of this score by estimating time-dependent Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curves from two prospective and multicentric European cohorts: the DIVAT (Données Informatisées et VAlidées en Transplantation) cohort composed of patients transplanted between 2000 and 2012 in 6 French centers; and the STCS (Swiss Transplant Cohort Study) cohort composed of patients transplanted between 2008 and 2012 in 6 Swiss centers. We also compared the results with those of two existing scoring systems: one from Spain (Hernandez et al.) and one from the United States (the Recipient Risk Score, RRS, Baskin-Bey et al.). From the DIVAT validation cohort and for a prognostic time at 10 years, the new prognostic score (AUC = 0.78, 95%CI = [0.69, 0.85]) seemed to present significantly higher prognostic capacities than the scoring system proposed by Hernandez et al. (p = 0.04) and tended to perform better than the initial RRS (p = 0.10). By using the Swiss cohort, the RRS and the the new prognostic score had comparable prognostic capacities at 4 years (AUC = 0.77 and 0.76 respectively, p = 0.31). In addition to the current available scores related to the risk to return in dialysis, we recommend to further study the use of the score we propose or the RRS for a more efficient personalized follow-up of kidney transplant recipients