Scarf osteotomy versus metatarsophalangeal arthrodesis in forefoot first ray disorders: Comparison of functional outcomes

SummaryIntroductionScarf osteotomies of the first metatarsal and metatarsophalangeal arthrodesis are the two most frequent surgical forefoot reconstructive procedures.HypothesisWe compared functional results of isolated arthrodesis of the first metatarsophalangeal joint with an isolated Scarf osteotomy of the first metatarsal.Materials and methodsThis was a retrospective, observational, continuous study of patients operated between 1993 and 2008. After patients who had undergone a procedure on the lateral rays, extremely elderly patients, lost to follow-up patients and those with incomplete questionnaires had been excluded, there remained two comparable groups of 25 patients. Mean age was 60 in the arthrodesis group [41–70] and 59.8 in the Scarf group [47–71]. The Scarf group included 25 hallux valgus (100%) compared to 16 hallux valgus (64%) and nine hallux rigidus (36%) in the arthrodesis group. Complications were recorded. Evaluation of functional results was based on the most recent functional or quality of life scores (AOFAS, FFI, FAAM, SF 36) and a questionnaire on physical and athletic ability.ResultsThere was no significant difference in the rate of complications between the two groups. There was no difference in pain according to the AOFAS score with 35.6/40 (±6.5) in the Scarf group and 34.5 (±5.9) in the arthrodesis group. Global satisfaction was also similar between the Scarf and arthrodesis groups: 91.4% and 90% of very satisfied or satisfied patients, respectively. The FFI score was higher in the Scarf group than in the arthrodesis group: 8.6 (±20.1) and 19.8 (±17.7) respectively. Functional results were better in the Scarf group than in the arthrodesis group with a FAAM Daily Activity score of 80.2 (±12.1) compared to 68 (±7.2), a FAAM Sports Activity score of 29.7 (±6.7) compared to 25.2 (±7.6) and a FAAM Global Function score of 94% (±10.8) compared to 87% (±15.7), respectively. The Global SF36 score was higher in the Scarf group than in the arthrodesis group: 70.9% (±14.1) and 62.3% (±20.6) respectively, which was due to a higher Mental Health score in the Scarf group: 68.7% (±14.2) and 60.4% (±19.3) respectively. In the area of sports activities the Scarf group practiced more hiking than the arthrodesis group (74% versus 42% respectively). There was no difference for other activities.Discussion and conclusionThis study provides detailed information on the level of physical and sports activities that are practiced following these procedures, so that the patient can be better informed.Level of evidenceLevel III. Comparative retrospective

Compact birefringent waveplates photo-induced in silica by femtosecond laser

© 2014 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. Recently, we showed that femtosecond laser induced "nanogratings" consist of thin regions with a low refractive index (Δn = -0.15), due to the formation of nanoporous silica surrounded by regions with a positive index change. In this paper, we investigate a wide range of laser parameters to achieve very high retardance within a single layer; as much as 350 nm at λ = 546 nm but also to minimize the competing losses. We show that the total retardance depends on the number of layers present and can be accumulated in the direction of laser propagation to values higher than 1600 nm. This opens the door to using these nanostructures as refined building blocks for novel optical elements based on strong retardance

Vibrio cholerae Pathogenic Clones

We resolved the relationships between 2 pandemic clones of Vibrio cholerae. Using 26 housekeeping genes, we showed that the US Gulf clone, the Australian clone, and 3 El Tor strains isolated before the seventh pandemic were related to the seventh pandemic clone. The sixth pandemic clone was well separated from them

Medicinal and ethnoveterinary remedies of hunters in Trinidad

BACKGROUND: Ethnomedicines are used by hunters for themselves and their hunting dogs in Trinidad. Plants are used for snakebites, scorpion stings, for injuries and mange of dogs and to facilitate hunting success. RESULTS: Plants used include Piper hispidum, Pithecelobium unguis-cati, Bauhinia excisa, Bauhinia cumanensis, Cecropia peltata, Aframomum melegueta, Aristolochia rugosa, Aristolochia trilobata, Jatropha curcas, Jatropha gossypifolia, Nicotiana tabacum, Vernonia scorpioides, Petiveria alliacea, Renealmia alpinia, Justicia secunda, Phyllanthus urinaria,Phyllanthus niruri,Momordica charantia, Xiphidium caeruleum, Ottonia ovata, Lepianthes peltata, Capsicum frutescens, Costus scaber, Dendropanax arboreus, Siparuma guianensis, Syngonium podophyllum, Monstera dubia, Solanum species, Eclipta prostrata, Spiranthes acaulis, Croton gossypifolius, Barleria lupulina, Cola nitida, Acrocomia ierensis (tentative ID). CONCLUSION: Plant use is based on odour, and plant morphological characteristics and is embedded in a complex cultural context based on indigenous Amerindian beliefs. It is suggested that the medicinal plants exerted a physiological action on the hunter or his dog. Some of the plants mentioned contain chemicals that may explain the ethnomedicinal and ethnoveterinary use. For instance some of the plants influence the immune system or are effective against internal and external parasites. Plant baths may contribute to the health and well being of the hunting dogs

Reward components of feeding behavior are preserved during mouse aging

Eating behavior depends on associations between the sensory and energetic properties of foods. Healthful balance of these factors is a challenge for industrialized societies that have an abundance of food, food choices and food-related cues. Here, we were interested in whether appetitive conditioning changes as a function of age. Operant and pavlovian conditioning experiments (rewarding stimulus was a palatable food) in male mice (aged 3, 6, and 15 months) showed that implicit (non-declarative) memory remains intact during aging. Two other essential components of eating behavior, motivation and hedonic preference for rewarding foods, were also found not to be altered in aging mice. Specifically, hedonic responding by satiated mice to isocaloric foods of differing sensory properties (sucrose, milk) was similar in all age groups; importantly, however, this paradigm disclosed that older animals adjust their energy intake according to energetic need. Based on the assumption that the mechanisms that control feeding are conserved across species, it would appear that overeating and obesity in humans reflects a mismatch between ancient physiological mechanisms and today's cue-laden environment. The implication of the present results showing that aging does not impair the ability to learn stimulus-food associations is that the risk of overeating in response to food cues is maintained through to old age.This work was partly supported by European Commission's FP7 Initial Training Network NINA (Early Stage Researcher Fellowship to Mazen R. Harb) and Collaborative Project SwitchBox (to Osborne F. X. Almeida, Nuno Sousa and Joseph Zihl). The funding agencies had no influence over the design of experiments, interpretation of results or writing of the paper

Characterization of Ceftazidime Resistance Mechanisms in Clinical Isolates of Burkholderia pseudomallei from Australia

Burkholderia pseudomallei is a Gram-negative bacterium that causes the serious human disease, melioidosis. There is no vaccine against melioidosis and it can be fatal if not treated with a specific antibiotic regimen, which typically includes the third-generation cephalosporin, ceftazidime (CAZ). There have been several resistance mechanisms described for B. pseudomallei, of which the best described are amino acid changes that alter substrate specificity in the highly conserved class A β-lactamase, PenA. In the current study, we sequenced penA from isolates sequentially derived from two melioidosis patients with wild-type (1.5 µg/mL) and, subsequently, resistant (16 or ≥256 µg/mL) CAZ phenotypes. We identified two single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) that directly increased CAZ hydrolysis. One SNP caused an amino acid substitution (C69Y) near the active site of PenA, whereas a second novel SNP was found within the penA promoter region. In both instances, the CAZ resistance phenotype corresponded directly with the SNP genotype. Interestingly, these SNPs appeared after infection and under selection from CAZ chemotherapy. Through heterologous cloning and expression, and subsequent allelic exchange in the native bacterium, we confirmed the role of penA in generating both low-level and high-level CAZ resistance in these clinical isolates. Similar to previous studies, the amino acid substitution altered substrate specificity to other β-lactams, suggesting a potential fitness cost associated with this mutation, a finding that could be exploited to improve therapeutic outcomes in patients harboring CAZ resistant B. pseudomallei. Our study is the first to functionally characterize CAZ resistance in clinical isolates of B. pseudomallei and to provide proven and clinically relevant signatures for monitoring the development of antibiotic resistance in this important pathogen

Evaluation of Colloids and Activation Agents for Determination of Melamine Using UV-SERS

UV-SERS measurements offer a great potential for environmental or food (detection of food contaminats) analytics. Here, the UV-SERS enhancement potential of various kinds of metal colloids, such as Pd, Pt, Au, Ag, Au-Ag core-shell, and Ag-Au core-shell with different shapes and sizes, were studied using melamine as a test molecule. The influence of different activation (KF, KCl, KBr, K 2SO 4) agents onto the SERS activity of the nanomaterials was investigated, showing that the combination of a particular nanoparticle with a special activation agent is extremely crucial for the observed SERS enhancement. In particular, the size dependence of spherical nanoparticles of one particular metal on the activator has been exploited. By doing so, it could be shown that the SERS enhancement increases or decreases for increasing or decreasing size of a nanoparticle, respectively. Overall, the presented results demonstrate the necessity to adjust the nanoparticle size and the activation agent for different experiments in order to achieve the best possible UV-SERS results

High-level integration of murine intestinal transcriptomics data highlights the importance of the complement system in mucosal homeostasis.

BACKGROUND: The mammalian intestine is a complex biological system that exhibits functional plasticity in its response to diverse stimuli to maintain homeostasis. To improve our understanding of this plasticity, we performed a high-level data integration of 14 whole-genome transcriptomics datasets from samples of intestinal mouse mucosa. We used the tool Centrality based Pathway Analysis (CePa), along with information from the Reactome database. RESULTS: The results show an integrated response of the mouse intestinal mucosa to challenges with agents introduced orally that were expected to perturb homeostasis. We observed that a common set of pathways respond to different stimuli, of which the most reactive was the Regulation of Complement Cascade pathway. Altered expression of the Regulation of Complement Cascade pathway was verified in mouse organoids challenged with different stimuli in vitro. CONCLUSIONS: Results of the integrated transcriptomics analysis and data driven experiment suggest an important role of epithelial production of complement and host complement defence factors in the maintenance of homeostasis