Comparison of two nicotine dependence measures for use with Korean American Women: The FTND and AUTOS

This study compares psychometric properties of the Fagerström Test for Nicotine Dependence (FTND) and Autonomy over Tobacco Scale (AUTOS), which are measures of nicotine dependence. This study is a secondary analysis of data obtained from a smoking cessation study conducted with 49 Korean American women. We compared the FTND and AUTOS assessed at baseline regarding their internal consistency reliability and concurrent and predictive validities. The AUTOS outperformed the FTND in reliability and concurrent validity by yielding a higher Cronbach’s alpha and having significant relationships with smoking-related variables such as age at smoking onset, perceived risks of quitting, and self-efficacy in quitting. In contrast, there was no relationship between the FTND and any of the variables. Both measures had a significant relationship with post-quit nicotine withdrawal symptoms but failed to predict abstinence at follow-ups. The AUTOS seems to be a better assessment tool for Korean American women than the FTND. Before fully adopting the AUTOS as a measure of nicotine dependence for this group, factor structure of the scale should be tested with a larger sample of Korean American women

Regional difference of the start time of the recent warming in Eastern China: prompted by a 165-year temperature record deduced from tree rings in the Dabie Mountains

Tree-ring studies from tropical to subtropical regions are rarer than that from extratropical regions, which greatly limit our understanding of some critical climate change issues. Based on the tree-ring-width chronology of samples collected from the Dabie Mountains, we reconstructed the April-June mean temperature for this region with an explained variance of 46.8%. Five cold (1861-1869, 1889-1899, 1913-1920, 1936-1942 and 1952-1990) and three warm (1870-1888, 1922-1934 and 2000-2005) periods were identified in the reconstruction. The reconstruction not only agreed well with the instrumental records in and around the study area, but also showed good resemblance to previous temperature reconstructions from nearby regions, indicating its spatial and temporal representativeness of the temperature variation in the central part of eastern China. Although no secular warming trend was found, the warming trend since 1970 was unambiguous in the Dabie Mountains (0.064 A degrees C/year). Further temperature comparison indicated that the start time of the recent warming in eastern China was regional different. It delayed gradually from north to south, starting at least around 1940 AD in the north part, around 1970 AD in the central part and around 1980s in the south part. This work enriches the high-resolution temperature reconstructions in eastern China. We expect that climate warming in the future would promote the radial growth of alpine Pinus taiwanensis in the subtropical areas of China, therefore promote the carbon capture and carbon storage in the Pinus taiwanensis forest. It also helps to clarify the regional characteristic of recent warming in eastern China.</p

Key nodes of a microRNA network associated with the integrated mesenchymal subtype of high-grade serous ovarian cancer

Metastasis is the main cause of cancer mortality. One of the initiating events of cancer metastasis of epithelial tumors is epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT), during which cells dedifferentiate from a relatively rigid cell structure/morphology to a flexible and changeable structure/morphology often associated with mesenchymal cells. The presence of EMT in human epithelial tumors is reflected by the increased expression of genes and levels of proteins that are preferentially present in mesenchymal cells. The combined presence of these genes forms the basis of mesenchymal gene signatures, which are the foundation for classifying a mesenchymal subtype of tumors. Indeed, tumor classification schemes that use clustering analysis of large genomic characterizations, like The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA), have defined mesenchymal subtype in a number of cancer types, such as high-grade serous ovarian cancer and glioblastoma. However, recent analyses have shown that gene expression-based classifications of mesenchymal subtypes often do not associate with poor survival. This “paradox” can be ameliorated using integrated analysis that combines multiple data types. We recently found that integrating mRNA and microRNA (miRNA) data revealed an integrated mesenchymal subtype that is consistently associated with poor survival in multiple cohorts of patients with serous ovarian cancer. This network consists of 8 major miRNAs and 214 mRNAs. Among the 8 miRNAs, 4 are known to be regulators of EMT. This review provides a summary of these 8 miRNAs, which were associated with the integrated mesenchymal subtype of serous ovarian cancer

Initial experience with off-pump left ventricular assist device implantation in single center: retrospective analysis

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>We hypothesize that implantation of left ventricular assist device through off-pump technique is feasible and has a comparable result to implantation on cardiopulmonary bypass and could improve one-year survival.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>This retrospective, observational, single-center study was conducted on 29 consecutive patients at our institution who underwent off-pump left ventricular assist device implantation by a single surgeon.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Twenty-seven procedures were performed successfully using the off-pump technique. The survival rate was 92% at 30 days, 76% at 90 days, and 67% at one year. We compared the one-year survival of different implantation periods, and divided our study into three time intervals (2004-2005, 2006, and 2007). There was a trend in reduction in number of deaths over one year that demonstrated a decrease in death rate from 50% to 17%, as well as improvement in our experience over time. However, this trend is not statistically significant (p = 0.08) due to limited sample size.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Based upon our findings, off-pump left ventricular assist device implantation is a feasible surgical technique, and combining this technique with improved device technology in the future may provide even greater improvement in patient outcomes.</p

Postnatal expression of myostain (MSTN) and myogenin (MYoG) genes in Hu sheep of China

The study of candidate genes is an important tool to identify genes associated with economic traits. Skeletal muscle development is an important physiological process in meat animals, and it directly affects meat production. The expression of myostain (MSTN) and myogenin (MYoG) genes in longissimus dorsi, during the early growth stage of Hu sheep, was studied by semi-quantitative Reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). The results demonstrate that age and gender were playing a very important role in the expression of sheep muscle. MSTN and MYOG genes showed similar variation pattern for the male and female. The expression level of the MSTN and MYoG genes all showed a positive correlation with live weight, carcass weight and meat percentage, but only showed a significant relationship with meat percentage. MSTN gene showed an extreme significant positive relationship with MYoG.Key words: Sheep, myostain (MSTN), myogenin (MYoG), gene expression, muscle trait

Incidence, etiology and predictors of adverse outcomes in 43,315 patients presenting to the Emergency Department with syncope: An international meta-analysis.

BACKGROUND: Syncope remains challenging for Emergency Department (ED) physicians due to difficulties in assessing the risk of future adverse outcomes. The aim of this meta-analysis is to establish the incidence and etiology of adverse outcomes as well as the predictors, in patients presenting with syncope to the ED. METHODS: A systematic electronic literature review was performed looking for eligible studies published between 1990 and 2010. Studies reporting multivariate predictors of adverse outcomes in patients presenting with syncope to the ED were included and pooled, when appropriate, using a random-effect method. Adverse events were defined as 'incidence of death, or of hospitalization and interventional procedures because of arrhythmias, ischemic heart disease or valvular heart disease'. RESULTS: 11 studies were included. Pooled analysis showed 42% (CI 95%; 32-52) of patients were admitted to hospital. Risk of death was 4.4% (CI 95%; 3.1-5.1) and 1.1% (CI 95%; 0.7-1.5) had a cardiovascular etiology. One third of patients were discharged without a diagnosis, while the most frequent diagnosis was 'situational, orthostatic or vasavagal syncope' in 29% (CI 95%; 12-47). 10.4% (CI 95%; 7.8-16) was diagnosed with heart disease, the most frequent type being bradyarrhythmia, 4.8% (CI 95%; 2.2-6.4) and tachyarrhythmia 2.6% (CI 95%; 1.1-3.1). Palpitations preceding syncope, exertional syncope, a history consistent of heart failure or ischemic heart disease, and evidence of bleeding were the most powerful predictors of an adverse outcome. CONCLUSION: Syncope carries a high risk of death, mainly related to cardiovascular disease. This large study which has established the most powerful predictors of adverse outcomes, may enable care and resources to be better focused at high risk patients. Copyright \ua9 2011 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved

Synthesis of titanate nanostructures using amorphous precursor material and their adsorption/photocatalytic properties

This paper reports on a new and swift hydrothermal chemical route to prepare titanate nanostructures (TNS) avoiding the use of crystalline TiO2 as starting material. The synthesis approach uses a commercial solution of TiCl3 as titanium source to prepare an amorphous precursor, circumventing the use of hazardous chemical compounds. The influence of the reaction temperature and dwell autoclave time on the structure and morphology of the synthesised materials was studied. Homogeneous titanate nanotubes with a high length/diameter aspect ratio were synthesised at 160^{\circ}C and 24 h. A band gap of 3.06\pm0.03 eV was determined for the TNS samples prepared in these experimental conditions. This value is red shifted by 0.14 eV compared to the band gap value usually reported for the TiO2 anatase. Moreover, such samples show better adsorption capacity and photocatalytic performance on the dye rhodamine 6G (R6G) photodegradation process than TiO2 nanoparticles. A 98% reduction of the R6G concentration was achieved after 45 minutes of irradiation of a 10 ppm dye aqueous solution and 1 g/L of TNS catalyst.Comment: 29 pages, 10 figures, accepted for publication in Journal of Materials Scienc

Graphene Photonics and Optoelectronics

The richness of optical and electronic properties of graphene attracts enormous interest. Graphene has high mobility and optical transparency, in addition to flexibility, robustness and environmental stability. So far, the main focus has been on fundamental physics and electronic devices. However, we believe its true potential to be in photonics and optoelectronics, where the combination of its unique optical and electronic properties can be fully exploited, even in the absence of a bandgap, and the linear dispersion of the Dirac electrons enables ultra-wide-band tunability. The rise of graphene in photonics and optoelectronics is shown by several recent results, ranging from solar cells and light emitting devices, to touch screens, photodetectors and ultrafast lasers. Here we review the state of the art in this emerging field.Comment: Review Nature Photonics, in pres

First insights into the phylogenetic diversity of Mycobacterium tuberculosis in Nepal

BACKGROUND: Tuberculosis (TB) is a major public health problem in Nepal. Strain variation in Mycobacterium tuberculosis may influence the outcome of TB infection and disease. To date, the phylogenetic diversity of M. tuberculosis in Nepal is unknown. METHODS AND FINDINGS: We analyzed 261 M. tuberculosis isolates recovered from pulmonary TB patients recruited between August 2009 and August 2010 in Nepal. M. tuberculosis lineages were determined by single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) typing and spoligotyping. Drug resistance was determined by sequencing the hot spot regions of the relevant target genes. Overall, 164 (62.8%) TB patients were new, and 97 (37.2%) were previously treated. Any drug resistance was detected in 50 (19.2%) isolates, and 16 (6.1%) were multidrug-resistant. The most frequent M. tuberculosis lineage was Lineage 3 (CAS/Delhi) with 106 isolates (40.6%), followed by Lineage 2 (East-Asian lineage, includes Beijing genotype) with 84 isolates (32.2%), Lineage 4 (Euro-American lineage) with 41 (15.7%) isolates, and Lineage 1 (Indo-Oceanic lineage) with 30 isolates (11.5%). Based on spoligotyping, we found 45 different spoligotyping patterns that were previously described. The Beijing (83 isolates, 31.8%) and CAS spoligotype (52, 19.9%) were the dominant spoligotypes. A total of 36 (13.8%) isolates could not be assigned to any known spoligotyping pattern. Lineage 2 was associated with female sex (adjusted odds ratio [aOR] 2.58, 95% confidence interval [95% CI] 1.42-4.67, p = 0.002), and any drug resistance (aOR 2.79; 95% CI 1.43-5.45; p = 0.002). We found no evidence for an association of Lineage 2 with age or BCG vaccination status. CONCLUSIONS: We found a large genetic diversity of M. tuberculosis in Nepal with representation of all four major lineages. Lineages 3 and 2 were dominating. Lineage 2 was associated with clinical characteristics. This study fills an important gap on the map of the M. tuberculosis genetic diversity in the Asian reg