Successful ACL reconstruction with a variant of the pes anserinus

An anatomical variant of the pes anserinus encountered during anterior cruciate ligament reconstructive surgery which has not been previously described is discussed. During routine harvesting, the sartorius fascia was incised and the semitendinosus and gracilis tendons were identified. At the distal portion, it was noted that each tendon gave off an additional tendinous slip. The slip from the semitendinosus tendon had attached to the gracilis tendon and vice versa, thereby creating a double pes anserinus. This variant was used to construct the graft, and at 1 year review the patient had returned to full sporting activities with no complications encountered

Metabolomics demonstrates divergent responses of two Eucalyptus species to water stress

Past studies of water stress in Eucalyptus spp. generally highlighted the role of fewer than five “important” metabolites, whereas recent metabolomic studies on other genera have shown tens of compounds are affected. There are currently no metabolite profiling data for responses of stress-tolerant species to water stress. We used GC–MS metabolite profiling to examine the response of leaf metabolites to a long (2 month) and severe (Ψpredawn < −2 MPa) water stress in two species of the perennial tree genus Eucalyptus (the mesic Eucalyptus pauciflora and the semi-arid Eucalyptus dumosa). Polar metabolites in leaves were analysed by GC–MS and inorganic ions by capillary electrophoresis. Pressure–volume curves and metabolite measurements showed that water stress led to more negative osmotic potential and increased total osmotically active solutes in leaves of both species. Water stress affected around 30–40% of measured metabolites in E. dumosa and 10–15% in E. pauciflora. There were many metabolites that were affected in E. dumosa but not E. pauciflora, and some that had opposite responses in the two species. For example, in E. dumosa there were increases in five acyclic sugar alcohols and four low-abundance carbohydrates that were unaffected by water stress in E. pauciflora. Re-watering increased osmotic potential and decreased total osmotically active solutes in E. pauciflora, whereas in E. dumosa re-watering led to further decreases in osmotic potential and increases in total osmotically active solutes. This experiment has added several extra dimensions to previous targeted analyses of water stress responses in Eucalyptus, and highlights that even species that are closely related (e.g. congeners) may respond differently to water stress and re-waterin

The Cyprinodon variegatus genome reveals gene expression changes underlying differences in skull morphology among closely related species

Genes in durophage intersection set at 15 dpf. This is a comma separated table of the genes in the 15 dpf durophage intersection set. Given are edgeR results for each pairwise comparison. Columns indicating whether a gene is included in the intersection set at a threshold of 1.5 or 2 fold are provided. (CSV 13 kb

Identification of Ventricular Tachycardia Using Intracardiac Electrograms: A Comparison of Unipolar Versus Bipolar Waveform Analysis

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/75535/1/j.1540-8159.1991.tb04091.x.pd

Correlates of cigarette smoking among male college students in Karachi, Pakistan

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>About 1.3 billion people are regular smokers world wide and every day between 8,200 and 9,900 young people start to smoke, risking rapid addiction to nicotine. Transition from high school to college is a critical period to adopt healthy habits and life style. Therefore, it is important to understand the factors that might influence their smoking habit. Our study aims to assess the influence of factors that encourage college students to smoke cigarettes.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>The data used in this survey were obtained from a representative sample of registered colleges of Karachi. A random sample of 576 male college students of ages ranging from 15–30 years was interviewed using a questionnaire administered by survey officers, by applying multi stage cluster sampling during the academic year 2004–2005.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>In this study, we found 26.7% of students had ever tried smoking, whereas 24%(95% CI: 21.0%–28.0%) of college students reported current smoking (that is whether one had smoked a cigarette in past 30 days). Among different age groups, prevalence of current smoking was 19.2% in 15–17 years, 26.5% in 18–20 years and 65% in 21 years and above. After adjusting for age of respondent, students in public schools were more likely to smoke as compared to students in private schools (adjusted OR = 2.3; 95% CI: 1.3–4.2). Students whose friends are smokers were 5 times more likely to smoke compared to those whose friends are non-smokers (adjusted OR = 4.8; 95%CI: 3.1 – 7.4). Those students having fathers with no formal schooling were more likely to smoke (adjusted OR = 2.2; 95% CI: 1.1–4.2) as compared to those whose fathers had some degree of education. Students having non-working mothers were more likely to smoke as compared to students with working mothers (adjusted OR = 2.8; 95% CI: 0.9–9.1). Students belonging to Bin Qasim (adjusted OR = 2.1; 95% C.I: 1.1–4.1) and Gadap town (adjusted OR = 2.1; 95%C.I) were more likely to smoke as compared to students residing in other towns.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>This study shows that smoking is strongly associated with age, which may suggest social tolerance to smoking in this setting and that social and educational variables appear to play a significant role in smoking among college students. Our study suggests that such factors should be taken into account when designing effective tobacco control programs among college students. This is an effort which has been done to reduce tobacco consumption among college students and introduce awareness programs to amend their health risk behavior.</p

Assessing the accuracy of an inter-institutional automated patient-specific health problem list

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Health problem lists are a key component of electronic health records and are instrumental in the development of decision-support systems that encourage best practices and optimal patient safety. Most health problem lists require initial clinical information to be entered manually and few integrate information across care providers and institutions. This study assesses the accuracy of a novel approach to create an inter-institutional automated health problem list in a computerized medical record (MOXXI) that integrates three sources of information for an individual patient: diagnostic codes from medical services claims from all treating physicians, therapeutic indications from electronic prescriptions, and single-indication drugs.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Data for this study were obtained from 121 general practitioners and all medical services provided for 22,248 of their patients. At the opening of a patient's file, all health problems detected through medical service utilization or single-indication drug use were flagged to the physician in the MOXXI system. Each new arising health problem were presented as 'potential' and physicians were prompted to specify if the health problem was valid (Y) or not (N) or if they preferred to reassess its validity at a later time.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>A total of 263,527 health problems, representing 891 unique problems, were identified for the group of 22,248 patients. Medical services claims contributed to the majority of problems identified (77%), followed by therapeutic indications from electronic prescriptions (14%), and single-indication drugs (9%). Physicians actively chose to assess 41.7% (n = 106,950) of health problems. Overall, 73% of the problems assessed were considered valid; 42% originated from medical service diagnostic codes, 11% from single indication drugs, and 47% from prescription indications. Twelve percent of problems identified through other treating physicians were considered valid compared to 28% identified through study physician claims.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Automation of an inter-institutional problem list added over half of all validated problems to the health problem list of which 12% were generated by conditions treated by other physicians. Automating the integration of existing information sources provides timely access to accurate and relevant health problem information. It may also accelerate the uptake and use of electronic medical record systems.</p

Socio-demographic, behavioural and cognitive correlates of work-related sitting time in German men and women

Background: Sitting time is ubiquitous for most adults in developed countries and is most prevalent in three domains: in the workplace, during transport and during leisure time. The correlates of prolonged sitting time in workplace settings are not well understood. Therefore, the aim of this study was to examine the gender-specific associations between the socio-demographic, behavioural and cognitive correlates of work-related sitting time. Methods: A cross-sectional sample of working German adults (n = 1515; 747 men; 43.5 ± 11.0 years) completed questionnaires regarding domain-specific sitting times and physical activity (PA) and answered statements concerning beliefs about sitting. To identify gender-specific correlates of work-related sitting time, we used a series of linear regressions. Results The overall median was 2 hours of work-related sitting time/day. Regression analyses showed for men (β = -.43) and for women (β = -.32) that work-related PA was negatively associated with work-related sitting time, but leisure-related PA was not a significant correlate. For women only, transport-related PA (β = -.07) was a negative correlate of work-related sitting time, suggesting increased sitting times during work with decreased PA in transport. Education and income levels were positively associated, and in women only, age (β = -.14) had a negative correlation with work-related sitting time. For both genders, TV-related sitting time was negatively associated with work-related sitting time. The only association with cognitive correlates was found in men for the belief ‘Sitting for long periods does not matter to me’ (β = .10) expressing a more positive attitude towards sitting with increasing sitting durations. Conclusions: The present findings show that in particular, higher educated men and women as well as young women are high-risk groups to target for reducing prolonged work-related sitting time. In addition, our findings propose considering increasing transport-related PA, especially in women, as well as promoting recreation-related PA in conjunction with efforts to reduce long work-related sitting times

Autism as a disorder of neural information processing: directions for research and targets for therapy

The broad variation in phenotypes and severities within autism spectrum disorders suggests the involvement of multiple predisposing factors, interacting in complex ways with normal developmental courses and gradients. Identification of these factors, and the common developmental path into which theyfeed, is hampered bythe large degrees of convergence from causal factors to altered brain development, and divergence from abnormal brain development into altered cognition and behaviour. Genetic, neurochemical, neuroimaging and behavioural findings on autism, as well as studies of normal development and of genetic syndromes that share symptoms with autism, offer hypotheses as to the nature of causal factors and their possible effects on the structure and dynamics of neural systems. Such alterations in neural properties may in turn perturb activity-dependent development, giving rise to a complex behavioural syndrome many steps removed from the root causes. Animal models based on genetic, neurochemical, neurophysiological, and behavioural manipulations offer the possibility of exploring these developmental processes in detail, as do human studies addressing endophenotypes beyond the diagnosis itself

The intronic G13964C variant in p53 is not a high-risk mutation in familial breast cancer in Australia

BACKGROUND: Mutations in BRCA1 and BRCA2 account for approximately 50% of breast cancer families with more than four affected cases, whereas exonic mutations in p53, PTEN, CHK2 and ATM may account for a very small proportion. It was recently reported that an intronic variant of p53 - G13964C - occurred in three out of 42 (7.1%) 'hereditary' breast cancer patients, but not in any of 171 'sporadic' breast cancer control individuals (P = 0.0003). If this relatively frequent occurrence of G13964C in familial breast cancer and absence in control individuals were confirmed, then this would suggest that the G13964C variant plays a role in breast cancer susceptibility. METHOD: We genotyped 71 familial breast cancer patients and 143 control individuals for the G13964C variant using polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) analysis. RESULTS: Three (4.2%; 95% confidence interval [CI] 0–8.9%) G13964C heterozygotes were identified. The variant was also identified in 5 out of 143 (3.5%; 95% CI 0.6–6.4%) control individuals without breast cancer or a family history of breast cancer, however, which is no different to the proportion found in familial cases (P = 0.9). CONCLUSION: The present study would have had 80% power to detect an odds ratio of 4.4, and we therefore conclude that the G13946C polymorphism is not a 'high-risk' mutation for familial breast cancer