Imaging techniques are a vital part of clinical diagnostics, biomedical research and nanotechnology. Optical molecular imaging makes use of relatively harmless, low-energy light and technically ...straightforward instrumentation. Self-illuminating, chemiluminescent systems are particularly attractive because they have inherently high signal contrast due to the lack of background emission. Currently, chemiluminescence imaging involves short-lived molecular species that are not stored but are instead generated in situ, and they typically emit visible light, which does not penetrate far through heterogeneous biological media. Here, we describe a new paradigm for optical molecular imaging using squaraine rotaxane endoperoxides, interlocked fluorescent and chemiluminescent dye molecules that have a squaraine chromophore encapsulated inside a macrocycle endoperoxide. Squaraine rotaxane endoperoxides can be stored indefinitely at temperatures below -20 °C, but upon warming to body temperature they undergo a unimolecular chemical reaction and emit near-infrared light that can pass through a living mouse.
Ethnic minorities across the globe encounter disparities in healthcare. While a great deal of research has been conducted on the experiences of these patients, studies focusing on the perspectives of ...healthcare professionals are limited, particularly in the context of Asia. This study explores the perceptions of and challenges faced by Hong Kong healthcare professionals in the provision of culturally appropriate care to South Asian ethnic minority patients. Taking a qualitative approach, interviews were conducted with 22 healthcare professionals. Two main themes were identified: ‘lack of support’ at the healthcare system level and ‘dysfunctional relationship with South Asian ethnic minority patients’ at the interpersonal level. Challenges at the healthcare system level include information outreach, cultural competency, utilisation of available resources and time and workload, whereas challenges at the interpersonal level include patient–provider interaction, patient–provider perceptions of illness and care and patient–provider sociocultural discordance. Intercultural care was found to be influenced by both the healthcare system and interpersonal characteristics. The study highlights the need for healthcare professional education and training in cultural competency, in order to improve the provision of intercultural care. Identifying the challenges faced by healthcare professionals and the implications of these challenges for the provision of healthcare to South Asian ethnic minority patients will help practitioners, policy makers and care provider agencies to improve quality of care and health outcomes for culturally diverse patients.
While text messaging has proven effective for smoking cessation (SC), engagement in the intervention remains suboptimal.
This study aims to evaluate whether using more interactive and adaptive ...instant messaging (IM) apps on smartphones, which enable personalization and chatting with SC advisors, can enhance SC outcomes beyond the provision of brief SC advice and active referral (AR) to SC services.
From December 2018 to November 2019, we proactively recruited 700 adult Chinese daily cigarette users in Hong Kong. Participants were randomized in a 1:1 ratio. At baseline, all participants received face-to-face brief advice on SC. Additionally, they were introduced to local SC services and assisted in selecting one. The intervention group received an additional 26 personalized regular messages and access to interactive chatting through IM apps for 3 months. The regular messages aimed to enhance self-efficacy, social support, and behavioral capacity for quitting, as well as to clarify outcome expectations related to cessation. We developed 3 sets of messages tailored to the planned quit date (within 30 days, 60 days, and undecided). Participants in the intervention group could initiate chatting with SC advisors on IM themselves or through prompts from regular messages or proactive inquiries from SC advisors. The control group received 26 SMS text messages focusing on general health. The primary outcomes were smoking abstinence validated by carbon monoxide levels of <4 parts per million at 6 and 12 months after the start of the intervention.
Of the participants, 505/700 (72.1%) were male, and 450/648 (69.4%) were aged 40 or above. Planning to quit within 30 days was reported by 500/648 (77.2%) participants, with fewer intervention group members (124/332, 37.3%) reporting previous quit attempts compared with the control group (152/335, 45.4%; P=.04). At the 6- and 12-month follow-ups (with retention rates of 456/700, 65.1%, and 446/700, 63.7%, respectively), validated abstinence rates were comparable between the intervention (14/350, 4.0%, and 19/350, 5.4%) and control (11/350, 3.1% and 21/350, 6.0%) groups. Compared with the control group, the intervention group reported greater utilization of SC services at 12 months (RR 1.26, 95% CI 1.01-1.56). Within the intervention group, engaging in chat sessions with SC advisors predicted better validated abstinence at 6 months (RR 3.29, 95% CI 1.13-9.63) and any use of SC services (RR 1.66, 95% CI 1.14-2.43 at 6 months; RR 1.67, 95% CI 1.26-2.23 at 12 months).
An IM-based intervention, providing support and assistance alongside brief SC advice and AR, did not yield further increases in quitting rates but did encourage the utilization of SC services. Future research could explore whether enhanced SC service utilization leads to improved long-term SC outcomes.
ClinicalTrials.gov NCT03800719; https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03800719.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Objectives. To investigate clinical features of dimethylacetamide-induced hepatic injuries (DIHIs). Methods. Workers exposed to dimethylacetamide (DMAc) in two spandex factories were monitored for ...DIHI. We identified 38 DIHI cases as study subjects between 2001 and 2004. DMAc exposure was estimated with urinary N-methylacetamide (NMAc) results from 2003 to 2004. Results. All 38 cases showed hepatocellular-type liver injury. The interval between first exposure and identification of hepatic injury (latent period) was mostly less than two months and never exceeded six months. In addition, three repeat DIHI cases showed much shorter latent periods for recurrence than their initial latent periods of hepatic injury. A 50% decline of serum alanine aminotransferase (ALT) levels after the cessation of DMAc exposure took less than 14 days and a 90% decline less than 31 days. The median urinary NMAc level of DIHI group (samples from the department of DIHI cases) was 25.1 mg/g Cr; higher than that of all other urinary NMAc results (11.8 mg/g Cr). Conclusions. Our data suggest that DMAc can induce hepatocellular-type liver injury and the mechanism of DIHI may be idiosyncratic. Although our exposure estimation was incomplete, the workers with DIHIs might be exposed to higher levels of environmental DMAc than the workers who did not develop DIHIs. All workers exposed to DMAc need to be closely observed for occurrence of hepatic injury for at least six months.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IJS, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
5.
요양보호사의 당뇨발 예방간호에 대한 지식과 수행도 김윤경(Kim, Yoon-Kyung); 박경희(Park, Kyung Hee); Lee, Jay Jung Jae ...
근관절건강학회지,
2020, Letnik:
27, Številka:
2
Journal Article
Odprti dostop
Purpose: This study aimed to provide basic data for the development of an education program on diabetic foot prevention care for care helpers in long term care facilities. Additionally, it sought to ...determine care helpers' knowledge and practice regarding diabetic foot prevention care, and to identify the correlation between such knowledge and practice. Methods: This cross-sectional study employed a structured questionnaire. Participants consisted of 90 care helpers who were working in three long term care facilities in Jeju city. Data collection was conducted from September to November 2016. Results: The mean knowledge and practice scores were 8.77±1.28 (range 0~10) and 28.17±2.44 (range 10~30), respectively. Practice regarding diabetic foot prevention care was significantly different by care helpers' gender (t=-2.28, p=.024), period of career in the long term care facility (F=3.29, p=.025), and received education on diabetic foot prevention care (t=3.08, p=.005). A positive correlation was observed between knowledge and practice (r=.35, p<.001). Conclusion: To improve the practice of diabetic foot prevention care, specialized education programs that consider gender and period of career in the long term care facility as well as the improvement of the level of knowledge of care helpers on diabetic foot prevention care are needed.
A potent P2Y12 inhibitor-based dual antiplatelet therapy is recommended for up to 1 year in patients with acute coronary syndrome receiving percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI). The greatest ...benefit of the potent agent is during the early phase, whereas the risk of excess bleeding continues in the chronic maintenance phase. Therefore, de-escalation of antiplatelet therapy might achieve an optimal balance between ischaemia and bleeding. We aimed to investigate the safety and efficacy of a prasugrel-based dose de-escalation therapy.
HOST-REDUCE-POLYTECH-ACS is a randomised, open-label, multicentre, non-inferiority trial done at 35 hospitals in South Korea. We enrolled patients with acute coronary syndrome receiving PCI. Patients meeting the core indication for prasugrel were randomly assigned (1:1) to the de-escalation group or conventional group using a web-based randomisation system. The assessors were masked to the treatment allocation. After 1 month of treatment with 10 mg prasugrel plus 100 mg aspirin daily, the de-escalation group received 5 mg prasugrel, while the conventional group continued to receive 10 mg. The primary endpoint was net adverse clinical events (all-cause death, non-fatal myocardial infarction, stent thrombosis, repeat revascularisation, stroke, and bleeding events of grade 2 or higher according to Bleeding Academic Research Consortium BARC criteria) at 1 year. The absolute non-inferiority margin for the primary endpoint was 2·5%. The key secondary endpoints were efficacy outcomes (cardiovascular death, myocardial infarction, stent thrombosis, and ischaemic stroke) and safety outcomes (bleeding events of BARC grade ≥2). The primary analysis was in the intention-to-treat population. This trial is registered with ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT02193971.
From Sept 30, 2014, to Dec 18, 2018, 3429 patients were screened, of whom 1075 patients did not meet the core indication for prasugrel and 16 were excluded due to randomisation error. 2338 patients were randomly assigned to the de-escalation group (n=1170) or the conventional group (n=1168). The primary endpoint occurred in 82 patients (Kaplan-Meier estimate 7·2%) in the de-escalation group and 116 patients (10·1%) in the conventional group (absolute risk difference −2·9%, pnon-inferiority<0·0001; hazard ratio 0·70 95% CI 0·52–0·92, pequivalence=0·012). There was no increase in ischaemic risk in the de-escalation group compared with the conventional group (0·76 0·40–1·45; p=0·40), and the risk of bleeding events was significantly decreased (0·48 0·32–0·73; p=0·0007).
In east Asian patients with acute coronary syndrome patients receiving PCI, a prasugrel-based dose de-escalation strategy from 1 month after PCI reduced the risk of net clinical outcomes up to 1 year, mainly driven by a reduction in bleeding without an increase in ischaemia.
Daiichi Sankyo, Boston Scientific, Terumo, Biotronik, Qualitech Korea, and Dio.
New Era of Air Quality Monitoring from Space Kim, Jhoon; Jeong, Ukkyo; Ahn, Myoung-Hwan ...
Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society,
01/2020, Letnik:
101, Številka:
1
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
The Geostationary Environment Monitoring Spectrometer (GEMS) is scheduled for launch in February 2020 to monitor air quality (AQ) at an unprecedented spatial and temporal resolution from a ...geostationary Earth orbit (GEO) for the first time. With the development of UV–visible spectrometers at sub-nm spectral resolution and sophisticated retrieval algorithms, estimates of the column amounts of atmospheric pollutants (O₃, NO₂, SO₂, HCHO, CHOCHO, and aerosols) can be obtained. To date, all the UV–visible satellite missions monitoring air quality have been in low Earth orbit (LEO), allowing one to two observations per day. With UV–visible instruments on GEO platforms, the diurnal variations of these pollutants can now be determined. Details of the GEMS mission are presented, including instrumentation, scientific algorithms, predicted performance, and applications for air quality forecasts through data assimilation. GEMS will be on board the Geostationary Korea Multi-Purpose Satellite 2 (GEO-KOMPSAT-2) satellite series, which also hosts the Advanced Meteorological Imager (AMI) and Geostationary Ocean Color Imager 2 (GOCI-2). These three instruments will provide synergistic science products to better understand air quality, meteorology, the long-range transport of air pollutants, emission source distributions, and chemical processes. Faster sampling rates at higher spatial resolution will increase the probability of finding cloud-free pixels, leading to more observations of aerosols and trace gases than is possible from LEO. GEMS will be joined by NASA’s Tropospheric Emissions: Monitoring of Pollution (TEMPO) and ESA’s Sentinel-4 to form a GEO AQ satellite constellation in early 2020s, coordinated by the Committee on Earth Observation Satellites (CEOS).
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
BFBNIB, DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
The objective of this study was to investigate the effects of supplementing with L-tryptophan (L-Trp) on milk protein synthesis using an immortalized bovine mammary epithelial (MAC-T) cell line. ...Cells were treated with 0, 0.3, 0.6, 0.9, 1.2, and 1.5 mM of supplemental L-Trp, and the most efficient time for protein synthesis was determined by measuring cell, medium, and total protein at 0, 24, 48, 72, and 96 h. Time and dose tests showed that the 48 h incubation time and a 0.9 mM dose of L-Trp were the optimal values. The mechanism of milk protein synthesis was elucidated through proteomic analysis to identify the metabolic pathway involved. When L-Trp was supplemented, extracellular protein (medium protein) reached its peak at 48 h, whereas intracellular cell protein reached its peak at 96 h with all L-Trp doses. β-casein mRNA gene expression and genes related to milk protein synthesis, such as mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) and ribosomal protein 6 (RPS6) genes, were also stimulated (
< 0.05). Overall, there were 51 upregulated and 59 downregulated proteins, many of which are involved in protein synthesis. The results of protein pathway analysis showed that L-Trp stimulated glycolysis, the pentose phosphate pathway, and ATP synthesis, which are pathways involved in energy metabolism. Together, these results demonstrate that L-Trp supplementation, particularly at 0.9 mM, is an effective stimulus in β-casein synthesis by stimulating genes, proteins, and pathways related to protein and energy metabolism.
Abstract The long-term association between mRNA-based coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccination and the development of autoimmune connective tissue diseases (AI-CTDs) remains unclear. In this ...nationwide, population-based cohort study involving 9,258,803 individuals, we aim to determine whether the incidence of AI-CTDs is associated with mRNA vaccination. The study spans over 1 year of observation and further analyses the risk of AI-CTDs by stratifying demographics and vaccination profiles and treating booster vaccination as time-varying covariate. We report that the risk of developing most AI-CTDs did not increase following mRNA vaccination, except for systemic lupus erythematosus with a 1.16-fold risk in vaccinated individuals relative to controls. Comparable results were reported in the stratified analyses for age, sex, mRNA vaccine type, and prior history of non-mRNA vaccination. However, a booster vaccination was associated with an increased risk of some AI-CTDs including alopecia areata, psoriasis, and rheumatoid arthritis. Overall, we conclude that mRNA-based vaccinations are not associated with an increased risk of most AI-CTDs, although further research is needed regarding its potential association with certain conditions.
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