Principles of appropriate antibiotic use for treatment of uncomplicated acute bronchitis: background.

The following principles of appropriate antibiotic use for adults with acute bronchitis apply to immunocompetent adults without complicating comorbid conditions, such as chronic lung or heart disease. The evaluation of adults with an acute cough illness or a presumptive diagnosis of uncomplicated acute bronchitis should focus on ruling out serious illness, particularly pneumonia. In healthy, nonelderly adults, pneumonia is uncommon in the absence of vital sign abnormalities or asymmetrical lung sounds, and chest radiography is usually not indicated. In patients with cough lasting 3 weeks or longer, chest radiography may be warranted in the absence of other known causes. Routine antibiotic treatment of uncomplicated acute bronchitis is not recommended, regardless of duration of cough. If pertussis infection is suspected (an unusual circumstance), a diagnostic test should be performed and antimicrobial therapy initiated. Patient satisfaction with care for acute bronchitis depends most on physician--patient communication rather than on antibiotic treatment

Parametric study of EEG sensitivity to phase noise during face processing

<b>Background: </b> The present paper examines the visual processing speed of complex objects, here faces, by mapping the relationship between object physical properties and single-trial brain responses. Measuring visual processing speed is challenging because uncontrolled physical differences that co-vary with object categories might affect brain measurements, thus biasing our speed estimates. Recently, we demonstrated that early event-related potential (ERP) differences between faces and objects are preserved even when images differ only in phase information, and amplitude spectra are equated across image categories. Here, we use a parametric design to study how early ERP to faces are shaped by phase information. Subjects performed a two-alternative force choice discrimination between two faces (Experiment 1) or textures (two control experiments). All stimuli had the same amplitude spectrum and were presented at 11 phase noise levels, varying from 0% to 100% in 10% increments, using a linear phase interpolation technique. Single-trial ERP data from each subject were analysed using a multiple linear regression model. <b>Results: </b> Our results show that sensitivity to phase noise in faces emerges progressively in a short time window between the P1 and the N170 ERP visual components. The sensitivity to phase noise starts at about 120–130 ms after stimulus onset and continues for another 25–40 ms. This result was robust both within and across subjects. A control experiment using pink noise textures, which had the same second-order statistics as the faces used in Experiment 1, demonstrated that the sensitivity to phase noise observed for faces cannot be explained by the presence of global image structure alone. A second control experiment used wavelet textures that were matched to the face stimuli in terms of second- and higher-order image statistics. Results from this experiment suggest that higher-order statistics of faces are necessary but not sufficient to obtain the sensitivity to phase noise function observed in response to faces. <b>Conclusion: </b> Our results constitute the first quantitative assessment of the time course of phase information processing by the human visual brain. We interpret our results in a framework that focuses on image statistics and single-trial analyses

Prostate Cancer and Race

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/72215/1/j.1525-1497.2003.30801.x.pd

Effect of betaine supplementation on plasma nitrate/nitrite in exercise-trained men

Background: Betaine, beetroot juice, and supplemental nitrate have recently been reported to improve certain aspects of exercise performance, which may be mechanistically linked to increased nitric oxide. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the effect of betaine supplementation on plasma nitrate/nitrite, a surrogate marker or nitric oxide, in exercise-trained men.Methods: We used three different study designs (acute intake of betaine at 1.25 and 5.00 grams, chronic intake of betaine at 2.5 grams per day for 14 days, and chronic [6 grams of betaine per day for 7 days] followed by acute intake [6 grams]), all involving exercise-trained men, to investigate the effects of orally ingested betaine on plasma nitrate/nitrite. Blood samples were collected before and at 30, 60, 90, and 120 min after ingestion of 1.25 and 5.00 grams of betaine (Study 1); before and after 14 days of betaine supplementation at a dosage of 2.5 grams (Study 2); and before and after 7 days of betaine supplementation at a dosage of 6 grams, followed by acute ingestion of 6 grams and blood measures at 30 and 60 min post ingestion (Study 3).Results: In Study 1, nitrate/nitrite was relatively unaffected and no statistically significant interaction (p = 0.99), dosage (p = 0.69), or time (p = 0.91) effects were noted. Similar findings were noted in Study 2, with no statistically significant interaction (p = 0.57), condition (p = 0.98), or pre/post intervention (p = 0.17) effects noted for nitrate/nitrite. In Study 3, no statistically significant changes were noted in nitrate/nitrite between collection times (p = 0.97).Conclusion: Our data indicate that acute or chronic ingestion of betaine by healthy, exercise-trained men does not impact plasma nitrate/nitrite. These findings suggest that other mechanisms aside from increasing circulating nitric oxide are likely responsible for any performance enhancing effect of betaine supplementation. © 2011 Bloomer et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd

Loss of ATRX in Chondrocytes Has Minimal Effects on Skeletal Development

BACKGROUND:Mutations in the human ATRX gene cause developmental defects, including skeletal deformities and dwarfism. ATRX encodes a chromatin remodeling protein, however the role of ATRX in skeletal development is currently unknown. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS:We induced Atrx deletion in mouse cartilage using the Cre-loxP system, with Cre expression driven by the collagen II (Col2a1) promoter. Growth rate, body size and weight, and long bone length did not differ in Atrx(Col2cre) mice compared to control littermates. Histological analyses of the growth plate did not reveal any differences between control and mutant mice. Expression patterns of Sox9, a transcription factor required for cartilage morphogenesis, and p57, a marker of cell cycle arrest and hypertrophic chondrocyte differentiation, was unaffected. However, loss of ATRX in cartilage led to a delay in the ossification of the hips in some mice. We also observed hindlimb polydactily in one out of 61 mutants. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE:These findings indicate that ATRX is not directly required for development or growth of cartilage in the mouse, suggesting that the short stature in ATR-X patients is caused by defects in cartilage-extrinsic mechanisms

MCMC for Bayesian uncertainty quantification from time-series data

In computational neuroscience, Neural Population Models (NPMs) are mechanistic models that describe brain physiology in a range of different states. Within computational neuroscience there is growing interest in the inverse problem of inferring NPM parameters from recordings such as the EEG (Electroencephalogram). Uncertainty quantification is essential in this application area in order to infer the mechanistic effect of interventions such as anaesthesia. This paper presents Open image in new window software for Bayesian uncertainty quantification in the parameters of NPMs from approximately stationary data using Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC). Modern MCMC methods require first order (and in some cases higher order) derivatives of the posterior density. The software presented offers two distinct methods of evaluating derivatives: finite differences and exact derivatives obtained through Algorithmic Differentiation (AD). For AD, two different implementations are used: the open source Stan Math Library and the commercially licenced Open image in new window tool distributed by NAG (Numerical Algorithms Group). The use of derivative information in MCMC sampling is demonstrated through a simple example, the noise-driven harmonic oscillator. And different methods for computing derivatives are compared. The software is written in a modular object-oriented way such that it can be extended to derivative based MCMC for other scientific domains

Thromboelastography results on citrated whole blood from clinically healthy cats depend on modes of activation

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>During the last decade, thromboelastography (TEG) has gained increasing acceptance as a diagnostic test in veterinary medicine for evaluation of haemostasis in dogs, however the use of TEG in cats has to date only been described in one previous study and a few abstracts. The objective of the present study was to evaluate and compare three different TEG assays in healthy cats, in order to establish which assay may be best suited for TEG analyses in cats.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>90 TEG analyses were performed on citrated whole blood samples from 15 clinically healthy cats using assays without activator (native) or with human recombinant tissue factor (TF) or kaolin as activators. Results for reaction time (R), clotting time (K), angle (α), maximum amplitude (MA) and clot lysis (LY30; LY60) were recorded.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Coefficients of variation (CVs) were highest in the native assay and comparable in TF and kaolin activated assays. Significant differences were observed between native and kaolin assays for all measured parameters, between kaolin and TF for all measured parameters except LY60 and between native and TF assays for R and K.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The results indicate that TEG is a reproducible method for evaluation of haemostasis in clinically healthy cats. However, the three assays cannot be used interchangeably and the kaolin- and TF activated assays have the lowest analytical variation indicating that using an activator may be superior for performing TEG in cats.</p

Measurement of the charm structure function F_{2,c)^{γ} of the photon at LEP

The production of charm quarks is studied in deep-inelastic electron–photon scattering using data recorded by the OPAL detector at LEP at nominal e⁺e⁻ centre-of-mass energies from 183 to 209 GeV. The charm quarks have been identified by full reconstruction of charged D* mesons using their decays into D⁰π with the D⁰ observed in two decay modes with charged particle final states, Kπ and Kπππ. The cross-section σ^{D*} for production of charged D* in the reaction e⁺e⁻→e⁺e⁻D*Χ is measured in a restricted kinematical region using two bins in Bjorken x, 0.00140.1 the perturbative QCD calculation at next-to-leading order agrees perfectly with the measured cross-section. For x<0.1 the measured cross-section is 43.8±14.3±6.3±2.8 pb with a next-to-leading order prediction of 17.0⁺²·⁹_₂.₃ pb

Cross-protection between attenuated Plasmodium berghei and P. yoelii sporozoites

An attenuatedPlasmodium falciparum sporozoite (PfSPZ) vaccine is under development, in part, based on studies in mice withP. berghei. We usedP. berghei andP. yoelii to study vaccine-induced protection against challenge with a species of parasite different from the immunizing parasite in BALB/c mice. One-hundred percent of mice were protected against homologous challenge. Seventy-nine percent immunized with attenuatedP. berghei sporozoite (PbSPZ)(six experiments) were protected against challenge withP. yoelii sporozoite (PySPZ), and 63% immunized with attenuatedPySPZ(three experiments) were protected against challenge withPbSPZ. Antibodies in sera of immunized mice only recognized homologous sporozoites and could not have mediated protection against heterologous challenge. Immunization with attenuatedPySPZ orPbSPZ induced CD8+ T cell-dependent protection against heterologous challenge. Immunization with attenuatedPySPZ induced CD8+ T cell-dependent protection against homologous challenge. However, homologous protection induced by attenuatedPbSPZ was not dependent on CD8+ or CD4+ T cells, and depletion of both populations only reduced protection by 36%. Immunization of C57BL/10 mice withPbSPZ induced CD8+ T cell-dependent protection againstP. berghei, but no protection againstP. yoelii. The cross-protection data in BALB/c mice support testing a human vaccine based on attenuatedPfSPZ for its efficacy againstP. vivax