20 research outputs found

    Prevalence, associated factors and outcomes of pressure injuries in adult intensive care unit patients: the DecubICUs study

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    Funder: European Society of Intensive Care Medicine; doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100013347Funder: Flemish Society for Critical Care NursesAbstract: Purpose: Intensive care unit (ICU) patients are particularly susceptible to developing pressure injuries. Epidemiologic data is however unavailable. We aimed to provide an international picture of the extent of pressure injuries and factors associated with ICU-acquired pressure injuries in adult ICU patients. Methods: International 1-day point-prevalence study; follow-up for outcome assessment until hospital discharge (maximum 12 weeks). Factors associated with ICU-acquired pressure injury and hospital mortality were assessed by generalised linear mixed-effects regression analysis. Results: Data from 13,254 patients in 1117 ICUs (90 countries) revealed 6747 pressure injuries; 3997 (59.2%) were ICU-acquired. Overall prevalence was 26.6% (95% confidence interval [CI] 25.9–27.3). ICU-acquired prevalence was 16.2% (95% CI 15.6–16.8). Sacrum (37%) and heels (19.5%) were most affected. Factors independently associated with ICU-acquired pressure injuries were older age, male sex, being underweight, emergency surgery, higher Simplified Acute Physiology Score II, Braden score 3 days, comorbidities (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, immunodeficiency), organ support (renal replacement, mechanical ventilation on ICU admission), and being in a low or lower-middle income-economy. Gradually increasing associations with mortality were identified for increasing severity of pressure injury: stage I (odds ratio [OR] 1.5; 95% CI 1.2–1.8), stage II (OR 1.6; 95% CI 1.4–1.9), and stage III or worse (OR 2.8; 95% CI 2.3–3.3). Conclusion: Pressure injuries are common in adult ICU patients. ICU-acquired pressure injuries are associated with mainly intrinsic factors and mortality. Optimal care standards, increased awareness, appropriate resource allocation, and further research into optimal prevention are pivotal to tackle this important patient safety threat

    Structural stability analysis of models of dopamine synthesis and d1 receptor trafficking in RPT Cells using CRNT

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    Dopamine plays an important role in different physiological and metabolic functions, including the control of sodium excretion in the kidney. Studies have shown that there is a positive correlation between a defect in dopamine synthesis and/or dopamine receptor function, and a defect in renal sodium excretion - which may lead to the development of essential hypertension. Specific receptors for dopamine, such as the D1 receptor, have been identified in the various regions within the kidney. It is observed that errors regarding dopamine receptor-G protein coupling and changes in the signaling components may be responsible for the failure of dopamine to increase sodium excretion in hypertensive subjects. In this paper, two symbolic kinetic models of dopamine synthesis and one of dopamine D1 receptor trafficking are presented. The three models are chemical reaction networks constructed and analyzed using Chemical Reaction Network Theory (CRNT), a framework that provides different insights on the static properties of a chemical reaction network regarding the existence of steady states, their multiplicity, and structural stability. It is found that all three networks do not support multiple steady states. © 2019, Department of Science and Technology. All rights reserved

    An Improved Two-Rotor Function for Conformational Potential Energy Surfaces of 20 Amino Acid Diamides

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    Predicting the three-dimensional structure of a protein from its amino acid sequence requires a complete understanding of the molecular forces that influences the protein folding process. Each possible conformation has its corresponding potential energy, which characterizes its thermodynamic stability. This is needed to identify the primary intra- and intermolecular interactions, so that we can reduce the dimensionality of the problem, and create a relatively simple representation of the system. Investigating this problem using quantum chemical methods, albeit produces accurate results, this also entails large computational resources needed. In this study, an improved two-rotor potential energy function is proposed to represent the backbone interactions in amino acids, through a linear combination of a Fourier series and a mixture of Gaussian functions. This function is applied to approximate the 20 amino acid diamide Ramachandran-type PESs, and results yielded an average RMSE of 2.36 kJ路molThe accepted manuscript in pdf format is listed with the files at the bottom of this page. The presentation of the authors' names and (or) special characters in the title of the manuscript may differ slightly between what is listed on this page and what is listed in the pdf file of the accepted manuscript; that in the pdf file of the accepted manuscript is what was submitted by the author

    A Prelude to Building Mathematical Models for Polypeptide Folding: Analysis on the Conformational Potential Energy Hypersurface Cross-Sections of N-Acetyl-Glycyl-Glycine-N'-Methylamide

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    Finding a relationship on how a three-dimensional protein folds from its linear amino acid chain gets more complex with increasing chain length, so working on a smaller peptide conformational problem can provide initial ideas on what are the main molecular forces and how these influence the folding process. Following the study of conformations of amino acid units entering the proteins to understand the secondary structure of small peptides, this paper proposes mathematical models for the several two-rotor cross-sections of the 5D N-acetyl-glycyl-glycine-N'-methylamide potential energy hypersurface. These cross-sections are extracted along the first glycine subunit, with its coordinates fixed at the five energy minima of the glycine diamide. The resulting mathematical models yield an average RMSE of 1.36 kJ·molThe accepted manuscript in pdf format is listed with the files at the bottom of this page. The presentation of the authors' names and (or) special characters in the title of the manuscript may differ slightly between what is listed on this page and what is listed in the pdf file of the accepted manuscript; that in the pdf file of the accepted manuscript is what was submitted by the author

    Dimension Reduction in Conformational Analysis: A Two-Rotor Mathematical Model of Amino Acid Diamide Conformational Potential Energy Surface

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    The conformational potential energy surface (PES) of a molecule provides insights into the relative stability of the possible foldamers. However, the time and space complexity of electronic structure calculations, commonly used to generate PES, increases exponentially with an increasing number of atoms. The use of mathematical functions to model the topology of conformational PES is an alternative to more computer-intensive quantum chemical calculations, but the choice and complexity of functions used are crucial in achieving more accurate results. This paper presents a method to illustrate the topology of amino acid diamide PESs through a linear combination of a Fourier series and a mixture of Gaussian functions. Results yield a significantly small error, with an average RMSE of 4.9946 kJ路molThe accepted manuscript in pdf format is listed with the files at the bottom of this page. The presentation of the authors' names and (or) special characters in the title of the manuscript may differ slightly between what is listed on this page and what is listed in the pdf file of the accepted manuscript; that in the pdf file of the accepted manuscript is what was submitted by the author

    Erratum to: Guidelines for the use and interpretation of assays for monitoring autophagy (3rd edition) (Autophagy, 12, 1, 1-222, 10.1080/15548627.2015.1100356

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    Guidelines for the use and interpretation of assays for monitoring autophagy (3rd edition)

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    The value of open-source clinical science in pandemic response: lessons from ISARIC

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