Penicillium marneffei recombinant antigen Mp1p and penicilliosis marneffei in HIV and non-HIV patients

published_or_final_versio

DNA-PK: Relaying the insulin signal to USF in lipogenesis

published_or_final_versio

Predicting protein-ligand binding site using support vector machine with protein properties

Identification of protein-ligand binding site is an important task in structure-based drug design and docking algorithms. In the past two decades, different approaches have been developed to predict the binding site, such as the geometric, energetic, and sequence-based methods. When scores are calculated from these methods, the algorithm for doing classification becomes very important and can affect the prediction results greatly. In this paper, the support vector machine (SVM) is used to cluster the pockets that are most likely to bind ligands with the attributes of geometric characteristics, interaction potential, offset from protein, conservation score, and properties surrounding the pockets. Our approach is compared to LIGSITE, LIGSITEcsc, SURFNET, Fpocket, PocketFinder, Q-SiteFinder, ConCavity, and MetaPocket on the data set LigASite and 198 drug-target protein complexes. The results show that our approach improves the success rate from 60 to 80 percent at AUC measure and from 61 to 66 percent at top 1 prediction. Our method also provides more comprehensive results than the others

Pilot project of integration of Chinese medicine (acupuncture) and Western medicine for neurohabilitation of children with acquired brain injury: a study of 2 cases

PURPOSE: To demonstrate if there is any efficacy of integration of Chinese medicine (acupuncture) and western medicine for rehabilitation for two children with acquired brain injury (ABI). METHODS: Two children (M/1 year, with dystonic cerebral palsy, cortical visual impairment and global developmental delay due to acute encephalitis; and M/12 years, with spastic tetraplegia, cortical visual impairment, and severe mental retardation due to hypoxic-ischaemic encephalopathy related to hypertrophic cardiomyopathy) were enrolled into our pilot programme which had started as the ‘First Integrated Chinese Medicine and Western Medicine for Neurorehabilitation of Children with Traumatic or Acquired Brain Injury under the Hospital Authority’ in June 2008. Both of them received daily acupuncture treatment and conventional neurohabilitation programme for 4 months. Pre- and post-assessment were performed for both cases. Deoxyglucose PET scan of the brain, parental daily reports for any change after each acupuncture session were monitored. Objective outcome measures were performed by the Neurohabilitation Team with allied health disciplines including physiotherapist, occupational therapist, optometrist, audiologist, speech therapist and clinical psychologist in pre- and post-acupuncture treatment using objective outcome measures including Modified Ashworth Spasticity Scale, CVI assessment, Video Fluoroscopic Swallow Study (VFSS) and Functional Independence Measure of Children (WeeFIM). Videos were taken by blind assessors. RESULTS: PET scan of the brain showed mild-to-moderate increase in glucose uptake for both cases. Videos and clinical outcome measures showed improvement in vision and other parameters. CONCLUSIONS: A short and intensive course of acupuncture can be effective in improving visual and functional outcome for children with ABI. Further research is underway to assess the practicability of organising this model of integration of Chinese medicine (acupuncture) and western medicine for neurohabilitation of children with ABI in Hong Kong.published_or_final_versio

Review article: Mycobacterium marinum infection of the hand and wrist.

Misdiagnosis and delayed treatment of Mycobacterium marinum infection is common because of its diverse manifestations. This leads to inappropriate use of antimicrobials, extension of the infection from the skin to the tenosynovium, and a poor prognosis (loss of tendons and prolonged immobilisation, secondary to multiple debridements and joint contractures). Clinicians should be aware of this type of infection, especially in subjects at risk (fishermen and aquarium enthusiasts), and those with a history of trauma coupled with exposure to water or marine life. A proactive approach to obtain a biopsy for histopathological and microbiological diagnosis is advised. Anti-mycobacterial treatment should be started promptly. The combined use of rifampicin, ethambutol, and clarithromycin appears to be effective, and debridement is indicated in patients with deep-seated infections.published_or_final_versio

Endoscopic submucosal dissection vs laparoscopic colorectal resection for early colorectal epithelial neoplasia

published_or_final_versio

Screening of cognitive function and hearing impairment in older adults: A preliminary study

published_or_final_versio

Nightmares in Children with Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders, Autism Spectrum Disorders, and Their Typically Developing Peers

Children with Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD) and Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) experience significantly higher rates of sleep disturbances than their typically developing (TD) peers. Pre-sleep anxiety and waking emotional content is known to affect the content and frequency of nightmares, which can be distressing to children and caregivers. This is the first study to analyse nightmare frequency and content in FASD, and to assess its association with psychometric outcomes. Using online caregiver questionnaires, we assessed reports from 277 caregivers of children with ASD (n = 61), FASD (n = 112), and TD children (n = 104) using the Children’s Sleep Habits Questionnaire (CSHQ), the Child Behaviour Checklist (CBCL), the Spence Children’s Anxiety Scale (SCAS), and the Behaviour Rating Inventory for Executive Functioning (BRIEF). Within the ASD group, 40.3% of caregivers reported their children had nightmares. Within the FASD group, 73.62% of caregivers reported their children had nightmares, and within the TD group, 21.36% of caregivers reported their children had nightmares. Correlation analysis revealed significant associations between anxiety and nightmares, maladaptive behaviour and nightmares, and executive functioning and nightmares in the TD and FASD groups, but not ASD group. This paper adds to the emerging body of work supporting the need for sleep interventions as part of clinical practice with regard to children with ASD and FASD. As a relatively niche but important area of study, this warrants much needed further research

MEG/EEG source reconstruction, statistical evaluation, and visualization with NUTMEG.

NUTMEG is a source analysis toolbox geared towards cognitive neuroscience researchers using MEG and EEG, including intracranial recordings. Evoked and unaveraged data can be imported to the toolbox for source analysis in either the time or time-frequency domains. NUTMEG offers several variants of adaptive beamformers, probabilistic reconstruction algorithms, as well as minimum-norm techniques to generate functional maps of spatiotemporal neural source activity. Lead fields can be calculated from single and overlapping sphere head models or imported from other software. Group averages and statistics can be calculated as well. In addition to data analysis tools, NUTMEG provides a unique and intuitive graphical interface for visualization of results. Source analyses can be superimposed onto a structural MRI or headshape to provide a convenient visual correspondence to anatomy. These results can also be navigated interactively, with the spatial maps and source time series or spectrogram linked accordingly. Animations can be generated to view the evolution of neural activity over time. NUTMEG can also display brain renderings and perform spatial normalization of functional maps using SPM's engine. As a MATLAB package, the end user may easily link with other toolboxes or add customized functions