Macrovascular and microvascular disease in diabetic foot disease

The objective was to examine how diabetes mellitus (DM) impacts the arterial system of the lower limbs by assessing both macrovascular disease and the microvascular function. A retrospective cohort study assessed the distribution of disease on digital subtraction angiography in 306 patients, half with DM. The Bollinger score was applied to all infra-inguinal vessels seen. There was a trend towards patients with DM having a higher burden of disease throughout the infra-inguinal arterial tree. When divided by indication for procedure patients without DM had more disease in the pedal vessels. Secondly, in a prospective study, 24 patients with active foot ulceration were recruited and grouped as having no significant arterial disease (n=14) and those requiring percutaneous angioplasty (PCA, n=10). Laser Doppler fluxmetry (LDF) assessed the microcirculation at regular intervals until healing. Using LDF, the time to maximum flux significantly reduced following PCA, in those that healed (210.5s (72.18-231) to 50.71s (27.38-105.18) p=0.046). The microcirculation is suggested to improve following PCA; further research is required to explore how changes in the macrocirculation relate to the microcirculation particularly in patients with DM

Age and Context Dependency in Causal Learning

The ability to make associations between causal cues and outcomes is an important adaptive trait that allows us to properly prepare for an upcoming event. Encoding context is a type of associative processing; thus, context is also an important aspect of acquiring causal relationships. Context gives us additional information about how two events are related and allows us to be flexible in how we respond to causal cues. Research indicates that older adults exhibit an associative deficit as well as a deficit in contextual processing; therefore, it seems likely that these deficits are responsible for the deficit in older adults’ causal learning. The purpose of the current study was to more directly test how associative deficits related to older adults’ contextual processing affect their causal learning. Based on past research, it was hypothesized that older adults would be less likely than younger adults to acquire and use contextual information in causal learning. A causal learning scenario from Boddez, Baeyens, Hermans, and Beckers (2011) was used to test the hypothesis that older adults show deficits in contextual processing in a causal learning scenario. This task examined contextual processing using blocking and extinction. Participants went through eight blocks of trials in which they were exposed to various cues and outcomes. They provided expectancy ratings that indicated how likely they believed an outcome was to occur, and these ratings were used to assess age differences in use of contextual information in a causal learning scenario. As expected, both younger and older adults demonstrated blocking in that they assigned higher causal value to a previously trained target cue (A+) than to another cue (X) that was only presented in compound with cue A later in the task (i.e., AX+). Additionally, when tested in the context where the association was originally learned following extinction training (i.e., A-), the causal value of cue A decreased for all groups, even if extinction training took place in a different context. However, ratings for cue A decreased even more for younger adults whose extinction training took place in a different context when tested in their extinction context

Estimation of peptide concentration by a modified bicinchoninic acid assay

Although biuret based protein assays are theoretically applicable to peptide measurement, there is a high level of inter-peptide variation, determined largely by peptide hydrophobicity. This variation in peptide reactivity can be significantly reduced by heat-denaturation of peptides at 95 °C for 5 minutes in the presence of 0.1 M NaOH containing 1% (w/v) SDS, prior to incubation for 30 min at 37 °C in BCA standard working reagent. This modification to the standard bicinchoninic acid (BCA) assay protocol allows for an accurate, rapid and economical estimation of the peptide concentration within an unknown sample

Cyclopia: An epidemiologic study in a large dataset from the International Clearinghouse of Birth Defects Surveillance and Research

Cyclopia is characterized by the presence of a single eye, with varying degrees of doubling of the intrinsic ocular structures, located in the middle of the face. It is the severest facial expression of the holoprosencephaly (HPE) spectrum. This study describes the prevalence, associated malformations, and maternal characteristics among cases with cyclopia. Data originated in 20 Clearinghouse (ICBDSR) affiliated birth defect surveillance systems, reported according to a single pre-established protocol. A total of 257 infants with cyclopia were identified. Overall prevalence was 1 in 100,000 births (95%CI: 0.89-1.14), with only one program being out of range. Across sites, there was no correlation between cyclopia prevalence and number of births (r=0.08; P=0.75) or proportion of elective termination of pregnancy (r=-0.01; P=0.97). The higher prevalence of cyclopia among older mothers (older than 34) was not statistically significant. The majority of cases were liveborn (122/200; 61%) and females predominated (male/total: 42%). A substantial proportion of cyclopias (31%) were caused by chromosomal anomalies, mainly trisomy 13. Another 31% of the cases of cyclopias were associated with defects not typically related to HPE, with more hydrocephalus, heterotaxia defects, neural tube defects, and preaxial reduction defects than the chromosomal group, suggesting the presence of ciliopathies or other unrecognized syndromes. Cyclopia is a very rare defect without much variability in prevalence by geographic location. The heterogeneous etiology with a high prevalence of chromosomal abnormalities, and female predominance in HPE, were confirmed, but no effect of increased maternal age or association with twinning was observed.Fil: Orioli, Ieda Maria. Instituto de Biologia; Brasil. Instituto Nacional de Genética Médica Populacional; BrasilFil: Amar, Emmanuelle. Rhone-alps Registry Of Birth Defects Remera; FranciaFil: Bakker, Marian K.. University of Groningen; Países BajosFil: Bermejo Sánchez, Eva. Instituto de Salud Carlos III; Brasil. Centro de Investigación Biomédica En Red de Enfermedades Raras; BrasilFil: Bianchi, Fabrizio. Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche; ItaliaFil: Canfield, Mark A.. Texas Department Of State Health Services; Estados UnidosFil: Clementi, Maurizio. Università di Padova; ItaliaFil: Correa, Adolfo. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; BrasilFil: Csáky Szunyogh, Melinda. National Center for Healthcare Audit and Inspection; HungríaFil: Feldkamp, Marcia L.. Utah Department Of Health; Estados Unidos. University Of Utah Health Sciences; Estados UnidosFil: Landau, Danielle. Soroka University Medical Center; IsraelFil: Leoncini, Emanuele. Centre Of The International Clearinghouse For Birth Defects Surveillance And Research; ItaliaFil: Li, Zhu. Peking University Health Science Center; ChinaFil: Lowry, R. Brian. Alberta Congenital Anomalies Surveillance System; CanadáFil: Mastroiacovo, Pierpaolo. Centre Of The International Clearinghouse For Birth Defects Surveillance And Research; ItaliaFil: Morgan, Margery. the Congenital Anomaly Register for Wales; Reino UnidoFil: Mutchinick, Osvaldo M.. Instituto Nacional de la Nutrición Salvador Zubiran; MéxicoFil: Rissmann, Anke. Otto-von-Guericke-Universität Magdeburg; AlemaniaFil: Ritvanen, Annukka. National Institute For Health And Welfare; FinlandiaFil: Scarano, Gioacchino. General Hospital G. Rummo Benevento; ItaliaFil: Szabova, Elena. Slovak Medical University; EslovaquiaFil: Castilla, Eduardo Enrique. Instituto Nacional de Genética Médica Populacional; Brasil. Centro de Educación Medica E Invest.clinicas; Argentina. Fundación Oswaldo Cruz; Brasil. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentin

Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead

What Can I Do?: A Book for Children of Divorce

https://stars.library.ucf.edu/diversefamilies/1224/thumbnail.jp

Three Essays on the Pittsburgh Promise

Promise programs are place-based programs that discount the price of postsecondary education with the goal of increasing degree attainment. I contribute to the growing literature on the effectiveness of promise programs in this dissertation. In my first paper, I evaluate the impact of the Pittsburgh Promise Extension Scholarship on college-going outcomes. The Extension Scholarship is a component of the Pittsburgh Promise’s Core Scholarship that is available to students that do not meet the Core GPA minimum of 2.5. The Extension Scholarship is a generous award that is available at the local community college. I use regression discontinuity and difference-in-differences designs to assess the program’s impact. I find that the scholarship has no impact on student enrollment outcomes at the margin of eligibility, but does produce modest increases in associate’s degree attainment. Higher along the GPA range, students are more likely to substitute out of four-year institutions and into two-year institutions. This leads to a reduction in degree attainment. Next, I examine the possibility of award displacement within the context of the Pitts-burgh Promise. Award displacement occurs when one type of financial aid award directly con-tributes to the change in quantity of another award. I explore whether postsecondary institutions displaced awards in response to the Pittsburgh Promise scholarship by capitalizing on the doubling of the maximum Promise amount in 2012. I assess differences in costs and awards be-tween Promise students and their peers, on average, and examine whether and in what ways these differences changed after the increase in Promise funding. I do not find evidence that in-situations are responding to the Promise increase through aid reductions. The final study is part of an ongoing research-practice partnership with the Pittsburgh Promise. In response to decreasing Promise usage trends, the Pittsburgh Promise launched a college coaching pilot program in three high schools. The program was implemented during the 2020-2021 academic year when the COVID-19 pandemic prompted schools to move to online instruction. Using interviews with program staff, I analyze the relationship-building between Promise coaches and guidance counselors. I offer recommendations to consider from the literature on school-community partnerships that may strengthen collaboration