Development and Validation of the Pre-Hospital Stroke Symptoms Coping Test

Background and Purpose

Measures of specific knowledge of coping with pre-hospital stroke symptoms can help educate high-risk patients and family caregivers. This study aimed to develop and validate the Pre-hospital Stroke Symptoms Coping Test (PSSCT).

Materials and Methods

Reliability and validity were analyzed using multiple data sources. The Delphi expert consultation method was applied to assess the test’s surface validity and content validity index. The final edition of the 19-item PSSCT contained 3 sections assessing coping with typical symptoms and symptoms associated with vomiting and twitching. Its psychometric properties were investigated in a community sample of 300 high-risk patients and family members.

Results

The PSSCT was readily accepted by participants. It demonstrated adequate surface validity and content validity, and good internal consistency (KR₂₀ = 0.822) and test-retest reliability (0.769), with difficulty (P) and degree of differentiation (D) ranges of 0.28–0.83 and 0.15–0.66, respectively. It was also able to distinguish between individuals who had/had not experienced a stroke. Experienced individuals scored significantly higher overall and on coping with typical symptoms and twitching (P<0.01).

Conclusions

The PSSCT can practically and directly assess critical knowledge regarding coping with pre-hospital stroke symptoms and has good reliability and validity.     

Involvement of a velvet protein FgVeA in the regulation of asexual development, lipid and secondary metabolisms and virulence in Fusarium graminearum

The velvet protein, VeA, is involved in the regulation of diverse cellular processes. In this study, we explored functions of FgVeA in the wheat head blight pathogen, Fusarium graminearum,using a gene replacement strategy. The FgVEA deletion mutant exhibited a reduction in aerial hyphae formation, hydrophobicity, and deoxynivalenol (DON) biosynthesis. Deletion of FgVEA gene led to an increase in conidial production, but a delay in conidial germination. Pathogencity assays showed that the mutant was impaired in virulence on flowering wheat head. Sensitivity tests to various stresses exhibited that the FgVEA deletion mutant showed increased resistance to osmotic stress and cell wall-damaging agents, but increased sensitivity to iprodione and fludioxonil fungicides. Ultrastructural and histochemical analyses revealed that conidia of FgVeA deletion mutant contained an unusually high number of large lipid droplets, which is in agreement with the observation that the mutant accumulated a higher basal level of glycerol than the wild-type progenitor. Serial analysis of gene expression (SAGE) in the FgVEA mutant confirmed that FgVeA was involved in various cellular processes. Additionally, six proteins interacting with FgVeA were identified by yeast two hybrid assays in current study. These results indicate that FgVeA plays a critical role in a variety of cellular processes in F. graminearum.     

Effect of irradiation and/or leucocyte filtration on RBC storage lesions

Red blood cell (RBC) storage lesions have been shown to be associated with some adverse reactions; numerous studies have focused on the lesions caused by storage, and few data on the RBC storage lesions caused by prestorage treatments of leucocyte filtration and irradiation. In this study, we examined the changes related with the RBC storage lesions, including 2,3-diphosphatidylglyceric acid (2,3-DPG), pH, free hemoglobin (Hb), supernatant free K+ and Na+ concentration, mean corpuscular volume (MCV), mean corpuscular hemoglobin (MCH). Along with the increasing storage time, decreases in 2, 3-DPG levels, pH and Na+ concentration, increases in K+ and free Hb concentrations, and significant morphological changes in RBC in all groups were found. The changes in the groups of irradiation, leucocyte filtration and the combined irradiation and leucocyte filtration were more significant than those in the untreated group. Meanwhile, the MCV levels of the three treated groups were significantly lower than those in the untreated group, while the MCH variations were significantly higher. Our results suggest that irradiation and leucocyte filtration before storage may aggravate blood storage lesions.     

Sliding Mode Control of Outbreaks of Emerging Infectious Diseases

This paper proposes and analyzes a mathematical model of an infectious disease system with a piecewise control function concerning threshold policy for disease management strategy. The proposed models extend the classic models by including a piecewise incidence rate to represent control or precautionary measures being triggered once the number of infected individuals exceeds a threshold level. The long-term behaviour of the proposed non-smooth system under this strategy consists of the so-called sliding motion-a very rapid switching between application and interruption of the control action. Model solutions ultimately approach either one of two endemic states for two structures or the sliding equilibrium on the switching surface, depending on the threshold level. Our findings suggest that proper combinations of threshold densities and control intensities based on threshold policy can either preclude outbreaks or lead the number of infecteds to a previously chosen level.     

Adoptive Infusion of Tolerogenic Dendritic Cells Prolongs the Survival of Pancreatic Islet Allografts: A Systematic Review of 13 Mouse and Rat Studies

Objective

The first Phase I study of autologous tolerogenic dendritic cells (Tol-DCs) in Type 1 diabetes (T1D) patients was recently completed. Pancreatic islet transplantation is an effective therapy for T1D, and infusion of Tol-DCs can control diabetes development while promoting graft survival. In this study, we aim to systematically review islet allograft survival following infusion of Tol-DCs induced by different methods, to better understand the mechanisms that mediate this process.

Methods

We searched PubMed and Embase (from inception to February 29^th, 2012) for relevant publications. Data were extracted and quality was assessed by two independent reviewers. We semiquantitatively analyzed the effects of Tol-DCs on islet allograft survival using mixed leukocyte reaction, Th1/Th2 differentiation, Treg induction, and cytotoxic T lymphocyte activity as mechanisms related-outcomes. We discussed the results with respect to possible mechanisms that promote survival.

Results

Thirteen articles were included. The effects of Tol-DCs induced by five methods on allograft survival were different. Survival by each method was prolonged as follows: allopeptide-pulsed Tol-DCs (42.14±44 days), drug intervention (39 days), mesenchymal stem cell induction (23 days), genetic modification (8.99±4.75 days), and other derivation (2.61±6.98 days). The results indicate that Tol-DC dose and injection influenced graft survival. Single-dose injections of 10⁴ Tol-DCs were the most effective for allograft survival, and multiple injections were not superior. Tol-DCs were also synergistic with immunosuppressive drugs or costimulation inhibitors. Possible mechanisms include donor specific T cell hyporesponsiveness, Th2 differentiation, Treg induction, cytotoxicity against allograft reduction, and chimerism induction.

Conclusions

Tol-DCs induced by five methods prolong MHC mismatched islet allograft survival to different degrees, but allopeptide-pulsed host DCs perform the best. Immunosuppressive or costimulatory blockade are synergistic with Tol-DC on graft survival. Multiple injections are not superior to single injection. Yet more rigorously designed studies with larger sample sizes are still needed in future.     

Studies on carbohydrates in reptiles

Summary Sugar tolerance tests were performed on Uromastyx at different temperatures ranging from 15–47° C. Temperature has an effect on the height of sugar tolerance curves, on the time needed for reaching maximum hyperglycemia, and on the rate of disposal of excess glucose from the blood stream.The magnitude of the rise of blood glucose is proportional to the dose of glucose given to the animal. The maximum glucose in blood is reached after a constant time, regardless of the amount of glucose added.In hepatomised animals, the reaction towards injected glucose is of a short duration. Further the extrahepatic tissue shares in the removal of excess glucose from the blood.In depancreatised animals sugar tolerance curves are of diabetic type.     

Designing Patterns and Profiles for Faster HMM Search

Profile HMMs are powerful tools for modeling conserved motifs in proteins. They are widely used by search tools to classify new protein sequences into families based on domain architecture. However, the proliferation of known motifs and new proteomic sequence data poses a computational challenge for search, requiring days of CPU time to annotate an organism's proteome. It is highly desirable to speed up HMM search in large databases. We design PROSITE-like patterns and short profiles that are used as filters to rapidly eliminate protein-motif pairs for which a full profile HMM comparison does not yield a significant match. The design of the pattern-based filters is formulated as a multichoice knapsack problem. Profile-based filters with high sensitivity are extracted from a profile HMM based on their theoretical sensitivity and false positive rate. Experiments show that our profile-based filters achieve high sensitivity (near 100 percent) while keeping around 20times speedup with respect to the unfiltered search program. Pattern-based filters typically retain at least 90 percent of the sensitivity of the source HMM with 30-40times speedup. The profile-based filters have sensitivity comparable to the multistage filtering strategy HMMERHEAD and are faster in most of our experiments.     

RhoC、Rho-GDIα在肺癌细胞系中过表达并与转移相关

目的 分析Rhoc及其调节蛋白GDP解离抑制因子α(Guanine dissociation inhibitor,GDIα)在肺癌细胞中的表达及其与肺癌细胞转移能力间的关系.方法 应用Western blot、RT-PCR分别检测正常支气管上皮细胞、不同的肺癌细胞系中的RhoC、Rho-GDIa蛋白及RNA的表达.结果 RhoC、Rho-GDIα在人支气管上皮细胞、肺腺癌细胞系、肺巨细胞癌细胞系均有表达,免疫荧光显示均表达于细胞浆.RhoC、Rho-GDIα在肺癌中的表达高于人支气管上皮细胞.在高转移能力的肺巨细胞癌亚系BEl RhoC、Rho-GDIα的表达均高于低转移能力的肺巨细胞癌亚系LH7.结论 RhoC、RhoGDIα在肺癌细胞系中过表达并与转移能力相关.