900 research outputs found
Quality of life and chronic pain four years after gastrointestinal surgery
PURPOSE: Little is known about the prevalence of chronic postsurgical pain after gastrointestinal surgery. This study was designed to assess the prevalence of chronic pain and quality of life in a cohort of patients who underwent surgery for benign and malignant gastrointestinal disease. METHODS: A prospective cohort design was used to assess quality of life and morbidity at four years postoperatively in 435 patients who had upper, hepatopancreaticobiliary, small-bowel, and/or colorectal anastomotic surgery in 1999 at one regional center in Northeast Scotland. Chronic pain and quality of life were assessed by postal survey using the European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer Quality of Life-C30 questionnaire and McGill Pain Questionnaire. RESULTS: Of the 435 patients recruited in 1999, 135 (31 percent) had died by censor date in 2003. There was a 74 percent (n = 202) response rate from surviving patients eligible for follow-up. Prevalence of chronic pain at four years postoperatively was 18 percent (95 percent confidence interval, 13-23 percent). Pain was predominantly neuropathic in character; a subgroup reported moderate-to-severe pain. Risk factors for chronic postsurgical pain included female gender, younger age, and surgery for benign disease. Compared with those who were pain-free at follow-up, patients with chronic pain had poorer functioning, poorer global quality of life, and more severe symptoms, independent of age, gender, and cancer status. CONCLUSIONS: The prevalence of chronic pain after laparotomy for gastrointestinal malignancy and nonmalignant conditions at four years after surgery was 18 percent. These patients had significantly poorer quality of life scores independent of age, gender, and cancer status.Dr. Julie Bruce is funded by the Medical Research Council (MRC) Special Training Fellowship in Health Services & Health of the Public Research
Models of Social Groups in Blogosphere Based on Information about Comment Addressees and Sentiments
This work concerns the analysis of number, sizes and other characteristics of
groups identified in the blogosphere using a set of models identifying social
relations. These models differ regarding identification of social relations,
influenced by methods of classifying the addressee of the comments (they are
either the post author or the author of a comment on which this comment is
directly addressing) and by a sentiment calculated for comments considering the
statistics of words present and connotation. The state of a selected blog
portal was analyzed in sequential, partly overlapping time intervals. Groups in
each interval were identified using a version of the CPM algorithm, on the
basis of them, stable groups, existing for at least a minimal assumed duration
of time, were identified.Comment: Gliwa B., Ko\'zlak J., Zygmunt A., Models of Social Groups in
Blogosphere Based on Information about Comment Addressees and Sentiments, in
the K. Aberer et al. (Eds.): SocInfo 2012, LNCS 7710, pp. 475-488, Best Paper
Awar
Preservation and sterilization methods of the meniscal allografts : literature review
Nowadays, there are four types of meniscal
allografts known: fresh, cryopreserved, deep-frozen
and lyophilized ones but only two of them are widely
used in clinical practice. Use of different types of
meniscal allografts still remains controversial due to
preparation method, their biomechanical properties as
well as cost which is connected with processing and
storage. The main aim of this review is to present the
current status of knowledge concerning meniscal
allograft preservation and sterilization, especially the
advantages and disadvantages of each method.
Authors wanted to show a broad spectrum of methods
used and conceptions presented by other authors. The
second aim is to gather available information about
meniscal preservation and sterilization methods in one
paper. Deep-frozen and cryopreserved meniscal allografts
are the most frequently used ones in the clinical
practice. The use of fresh grafts stays controversial but
also has many followers. Lyophilized grafts in turn are
not applied at present due to some serious drawbacks
including reduction of tensile strength, poor rehydration,
graft shrinkage and post-transplantation joint
effusion as well as increased risk of meniscal size
reduction. An application of sterilizing agents make
the meniscal allograft free from the bacteria and
viruses, but also it may cause serious structure changes.
Therefore, choosing just one ideal method of meniscal
allograft preservation and sterilization is complicated
and should be based on broad knowledge and experience
of surgeon performing the transplantation
On Critical Velocities in Exciton Superfluidity
The presence of exciton phonon interactions is shown to play a key role in
the exciton superfluidity. We apply the Landau criterion for an exciton-phonon
condensate moving uniformly at zero temperature. It turns out that there are
essentially two critical velocities in the theory. Within the range of these
velocities the condensate can exist only as a bright soliton. The excitation
spectrum and differential equations for the wave function of this condensate
are derived.Comment: 7 pages, Latex; to be published in Phys.Rev.Lett (1997
Single port/incision laparoscopic surgery compared with standard three-port laparoscopic surgery for appendicectomy : a randomized controlled trial
Acknowledgments The authors thank John Norrie for advice regarding the reporting of the study, and clinical staff in the Department of General Surgery, Aberdeen Royal Infirmary, for helping with the conduct of the study. This work was supported by a Grant from the Chief Scientist Office (CSO) of the Scottish Government Health Directorates (Grant Number reference CZG/2/498). Jonathan A. Cook held a Medical Research Council, UK, training fellowship (G0601938) while this research was undertaken. The Health Services Research Unit is funded by the CSO of the Scottish Government Health Directorates. The views expressed in this paper are those of the authors and may not necessarily be shared by the funding bodies. The study was overseen by an Advisory Group comprising Professor Marion Campbell (Director, Health Services Research Unit, Aberdeen), Professor John Norrie (CHaRT Director) and Professor Craig Ramsay (Health Care Assessment Programme Director, Health Services Research Unit, Aberdeen). Professor W. Alastair Chambers was the independent chair of the Trial Steering Committee. Contributing surgeons to the SCARLESS study (in alphabetical order): Bassam Alkari, Emad Aly, Norman Binnie, Duff Bruce, Jan Jansen, Peter King, Tim MacAdam, Aileen McKinley, Terry OâKelly, Ken Park, Abdul Qadir. The National Health Service provided support through the contribution of the following research nurses: Anu Joyson, Hazel Forbes, and Julie Shotton.Peer reviewedPublisher PD
Different Approaches to Community Evolution Prediction in Blogosphere
Predicting the future direction of community evolution is a problem with high
theoretical and practical significance. It allows to determine which
characteristics describing communities have importance from the point of view
of their future behaviour. Knowledge about the probable future career of the
community aids in the decision concerning investing in contact with members of
a given community and carrying out actions to achieve a key position in it. It
also allows to determine effective ways of forming opinions or to protect group
participants against such activities. In the paper, a new approach to group
identification and prediction of future events is presented together with the
comparison to existing method. Performed experiments prove a high quality of
prediction results. Comparison to previous studies shows that using many
measures to describe the group profile, and in consequence as a classifier
input, can improve predictions.Comment: SNAA2013 at ASONAM2013 IEEE Computer Societ
On the mechanism of autoinhibition of the RhoA-specific nucleotide exchange factor PDZRhoGEF
<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The Dbl-family of guanine nucleotide exchange factors (GEFs) activate the cytosolic GTPases of the Rho family by enhancing the rate of exchange of GTP for GDP on the cognate GTPase. This catalytic activity resides in the DH (Dbl-homology) domain, but typically GEFs are multidomain proteins containing other modules. It is believed that GEFs are autoinhibited in the cytosol due to supramodular architecture, and become activated in diverse signaling pathways through conformational change and exposure of the DH domain, as the protein is translocated to the membrane. A small family of RhoA-specific GEFs, containing the RGSL (regulators of G-protein signaling-like) domain, act as effectors of select GPCRs <it>via </it>Gα<sub>12/13</sub>, although the molecular mechanism by which this pathway operates is not known. These GEFs include p115, LARG and PDZRhoGEF (PRG).</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Here we show that the autoinhibition of PRG is caused largely by an interaction of a short negatively charged sequence motif, immediately upstream of the DH-domain and including residues Asp706, Glu708, Glu710 and Asp712, with a patch on the catalytic surface of the DH-domain including Arg867 and Arg868. In the absence of both PDZ and RGSL domains, the DH-PH tandem with additional 21 residues upstream, is 50% autoinhibited. However, within the full-length protein, the PDZ and/or RGSL domains significantly restore autoinhibition.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Our results suggest a mechanism for autoinhibition of RGSL family of GEFs, in which the RGSL domain and a unique sequence motif upstream of the DH domain, act cooperatively to reduce the ability of the DH domain to bind the nucleotide free RhoA. The activation mechanism is likely to involve two independent steps, i.e. displacement of the RGSL domain and conformational change involving the autoinhibitory sequence motif containing several negatively charged residues.</p
The function of visual search and memory in sequential looking tasks
Eye and head movements were recorded as unrestrained subjects tapped or only looked at nearby targets. Scanning patterns were the same in both tasks: subjects looked at each target before tapping it; visual search had similar speeds and gaze-shift accuracies. Looking however, took longer and, unlike tapping, benefitted little from practice. Looking speeded up more than tapping when memory load was reduced: memory was more efficient during tapping. Conclusion: eye movements made when only looking are different from those made when tapping. Visual search functions as a separate process, incorporated into both tasks: it can be used to improve performance when memory load is heavy
Universal Constraints on Low-Energy Flavour Models
It is pointed out that in a general class of flavour models one can identify
certain universally present FCNC operators, induced by the exchange of heavy
flavour messengers. Their coefficients depend on the rotation angles that
connect flavour and fermion mass basis. The lower bounds on the messenger scale
are derived using updated experimental constraints on the FCNC operators. The
obtained bounds are different for different operators and in addition they
depend on the chosen set of rotations. Given the sensitivity expected in the
forthcoming experiments, the present analysis suggests interesting room for
discovering new physics. As the highlights emerge the leptonic processes,
, and
conversion in nuclei.Comment: 18 pages, 3 figures; v2 matches published versio
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