This article tries to draw this forum together in three ways. First, a Christian poetics has to do with hermeneutics, informed by a long tradition of biblical interpretation. Second, a Christian ...poetics takes up the discipline of wonder, which remains crucial to the scholarly work of research and teaching. Finally, a Christian poetics combines a sense of wonder with an emphasis on care. It asks how awe and action relate, seeking to understand the many ways texts not just transcend this world, but also transform it.
CARD9 is an immune adaptor protein in myeloid cells that is involved in C-type lectin signaling and antifungal immunity. CARD9 is implicated in autoimmune and inflammatory-related diseases, such as ...rheumatoid arthritis, IgA nephropathy, ankylosing spondylitis, and inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Given that Lyn-deficient (
mice are susceptible to both autoimmunity and IBD, we investigated the immunological role of CARD9 in the development of these diseases using the
mouse model. We found that genetic deletion of CARD9 was sufficient to reduce the development of both spontaneous autoimmune disease as well as DSS- or IL-10 deficiency-associated colitis in
mice. Mechanistically, CARD9 was a vital component of the Lyn-mediated regulation of Toll-like receptor (TLR2 and TLR4) signaling in dendritic cells, but not in macrophages. In the absence of Lyn, signaling through a CD11b-Syk-PKCδ-CARD9 pathway was amplified, leading to increased TLR-induced production of inflammatory cytokines. Dendritic cell-specific deletion of CARD9 reversed the development of autoimmune and experimental colitis observed in dendritic cell-specific, Lyn-deficient mice. These findings suggest that targeting CARD9 may suppress the development of colitis and autoimmunity by reducing dendritic cell-driven inflammation.
Male Fertility Preservation Abram McBride, J.; Lipshultz, Larry I.
Current urology reports,
07/2018, Letnik:
19, Številka:
7
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Purpose of Review
With improvements in cancer treatment outcomes and an increase in cancer survivorship, understanding the importance of fertility preservation options prior to undergoing cancer ...treatment is essential. Therefore, we review herein the effect of cancer and its treatment on male fertility, the rationale for sperm cryopreservation, options for sperm retrieval, ART outcomes, and experimental options.
Recent Findings
Recent data update fertility outcomes with newer cancer therapies and provide longitudinal insight into survivor paternity with and without fertility preservation. Likewise, updated ART outcomes and future preservation options are discussed.
Summary
The effect of cancer and its treatment on spermatogenesis is well established. Sperm cryopreservation is the best pre-treatment insurance for the opportunity of future fertility. Post-therapy patients may also achieve fertility restoration with ART, using cryopreserved or freshly obtained sperm. Meanwhile, utilization of cryopreserved testicular stem cells for future transfer or for in vitro maturation represents exciting alternatives on the horizon.
Objectives. Meniscal extrusion is often present in knees with OA, and has been associated with cartilage changes. It is unknown whether meniscal extrusion is related to subchondral bone. The aim of ...the study was to examine the relationship between meniscal extrusion and knee cartilage and subchondral bone, and also changes in these structures over 2 years in a cohort with mild to moderate knee OA. Methods. One hundred and seventeen subjects with knee OA entered the study and underwent MRI on their symptomatic knee at baseline and ∼2 years later. Meniscal extrusion was assessed at baseline; tibial cartilage volume and plateau bone area, subchondral bone marrow lesions (BMLs) and bone cysts were measured at baseline and follow-up. Results. At baseline, meniscal extrusion was associated with reduced tibial cartilage volume, increased tibial plateau area, increased prevalence of BMLs and bone cysts in both medial and lateral tibiofemoral compartments (all P ⩽ 0.001). Baseline medial meniscal extrusion was associated with increased expansion of tibial plateau bone (P = 0.04), increases in BMLs (P = 0.02) and bone cysts (P = 0.003) in the medial tibiofemoral compartment over 2 years. Conclusions. Meniscal extrusion predicts increases in subchondral bone lesions and tibial plateau bone expansion in patients with knee OA. These data suggest that subchondral bone changes are an early consequence of meniscal extrusion. This may reflect the impaired ability of an extruded meniscus to optimally distribute mechanical loading across the tibial plateau.
Abstract
Human-caused climate changes are increasing the risk of dangerous wildfires in many regions of the world. There are multiple, compounding aspects of climate change that are increasing fire ...risk, including large-scale climate changes driving hotter and drier conditions that are generally well observed and predicted. However, changes in synoptic-scale processes that can exacerbate dangerous fire weather and promote extreme pyroconvective events are often not well known in historical observations and are poorly represented in climate models, making it difficult to fully quantify and anticipate changing fire risk. In this study, we statistically test the association between synoptic-scale cold front passage and large fires in southeast Australia during Australia’s 2019–2020 ‘Black Summer’ fire disaster, and analyse daily gridded temperature data to detect long-term changes in the intensity and frequency of strong cold fronts over southeast Australia. We demonstrate that the passage of cold fronts over southeast Australia significantly increased the likelihood of large fire days during the entire Black Summer fire season. Additionally, the intensity and frequency of strong cold front events were anomalously high during the Black Summer, and this is part of a long-term significant increase in the intensity and frequency of strong cold fronts since the 1950s. These changes in fire-promoting cold front activity are expected to imminently emerge above the range of historical experience across large areas of southeast Australia if current trends continue. Our results provide new insights into a previously poorly constrained contributor to fire risk in southeast Australia, highlighting the potential of synoptic-scale weather changes to compound previously documented broad-scale climate changes in intensifying future forest fire risk.
My starting point in this article is the suggestion that names in Beowulf are always sites of potential significance, without prejudice as to whether the poem's author invented them or deployed them ...on the basis of their etymologies. Beowulf can be read without paying any special regard to the characters' names, but to do so is to deny ourselves one source of hermeneutic value in a poem notably short of clues about how it expects us to read it. Plausible and useful readings of Beowulf--readings that open up new interpretative possibilities in the poem--have often been made on the basis that anthroponyms might carry some sort of significance. It is the immanent significance of two of these names--Beowulf and Sigemund--that I explore in this article.
In drought-prone Australia, multi-year droughts have detrimental impacts on both the natural environment and human societies. For responsible water management, we need a thorough understanding of the ...full range of variability in multi-year droughts and how this might change in a warming world. But research into the long-term frequency, persistence, and severity of Australian droughts is limited. This is partly due to the length of the observational record, which is short relative to the timescales of hydroclimatic variability and hence may not capture the range of possible variability. Using simulations of Australian precipitation over the full past millennium (850–2000), we characterise the nature of multi-year meteorological droughts across Australia and include a particular focus on the Murray–Darling Basin (MDB), the largest agricultural region in Australia. We find that simulated Australian droughts in the 20th century (1900–2000) are within the bounds of pre-industrial natural variability in terms of drought intensity, severity, and frequency. A tendency for droughts to last longer in southwestern and eastern Australia (including the MDB) in the 20th century, compared with the pre-industrial period, suggests an emerging anthropogenic influence, consistent with projected rainfall changes in these regions. Large volcanic eruptions tend to promote drought-free intervals in the MDB. Model simulations of droughts over the last millennium suggest that future droughts across Australia could be much longer than what was experienced in the 20th century, even without any human influence. With the addition of anthropogenic climate change, which favours drought conditions across much of southern Australia due to reduced cool-season rainfall, it is likely that future droughts in Australia will exceed recent historical experience.
Responding to increases in overdose, addiction, and substance misuse, local public health experts need accurate data to plan and implement evidence-based prevention and treatment programs. In many ...countries, national data are the tool most readily available for these efforts. In the United States, the National Study on Drug Use and Health and the Treatment Episode Data Set are data sources used by states to determine the extent of addiction. This project sought to determine if these national data sources are applicable for local use in addiction prevention and program planning. NSDUH prevalence estimates from 2015 to 2019 were applied to the state population to determine the number of persons estimated to be substance users. The prevalence estimates were compared over time with the population data and substance use treatment admissions to assess the covariance and population change as an indicator of efficacy. The primary drivers of fatal overdose in Alaska are fentanyl, heroin, and methamphetamine. Fentanyl use was not assessed in either dataset. When applying the estimated use prevalence to the population, heroin users varied annually by 1777 persons and methamphetamine varied up to 2143 persons. These observed variances did not correspond with state population changes nor any trend in the persons seeking treatment for these substances. Our analyses do not support the use of NSDUH data for planning in rural and remote areas. The methods used in NSDUH data collection exclude ~ 20% of the state population, mostly Native persons, based on location and language. The annual prevalence estimates applied to the population did not correspond with changes in population nor changes in treatment. Fentanyl, which causes the most overdoses in Alaska and is of primary concern locally, was not assessed.
The most pressing problems facing mankind today require for their solution some form of worldwide collective action at the level of states. In order to combat the global threat of the COVID-19 ...pandemic, wealthy countries must cooperate to provide vaccines for people in low-income countries, if only to prevent these populations from becoming breeding grounds for new strains of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that will also endanger the richer nations. Another, even more pertinent case is the campaign against global warming, which requires concerted action by committed state regimes to curtail the worldwide emission of greenhouse gases. Such figurations give rise to the classic dilemmas of collective action. Throughout human history, with ups and downs, the scale of collective action has extended. This is a corollary of the gradual increase in the scale of governance, from villages to small kingdoms to nation states. National economies, too, have expanded with the increasing control and consumption of fossil energy, as Johan Goudsblom has demonstrated. By the end of the 19th century, nation states were the largest units of effective coordination, each one comprising between one and a hundred million citizens. In the course of the 20th century, a few entities have evolved to the next higher order of magnitude with hundreds of millions, or more than a billion citizens and with a gross national product exceeding in most cases 10 trillion US dollars: these "gigants" are China, the USA, India, and the EU. They are at present the initiators and managers of global collective action. The recent COVID-19 pandemic created an urgent coordination problem. The enduring climate crisis evokes very similar dilemmas of collective action. The Russian invasion of Ukraine quite suddenly compelled the USA and the EU to join in antagonistic collaboration and overcome challenges that were much the same. State actors resort to a limited set of strategies and practices in order to overcome the pitfalls of collective action and the gigants have a leading role in coordinating them.
The impact of inadequate empirical antibiotic treatment on patient outcomes and hospitalization duration for non-life-threatening infections in children remains poorly understood. We aimed to assess ...the effects of inadequate empirical antibiotic treatment on these factors in pediatric patients.
The medical records of children admitted for infectious diseases with bacteria isolated from sterile sites between 2018 and 2020 were retrospectively reviewed. Patients who received adequate empirical treatment were compared with those who received inadequate treatment in terms of demographic, clinical, and laboratory variables.
Forty-eight patients who received inadequate empirical antimicrobial treatment were compared to 143 patients who received adequate empirical treatment. Inadequate empirical antimicrobial treatment did not significantly affect the length of hospital stay or the incidence of complications in non-critically ill children with bacterial infections. Younger age and underlying renal abnormalities were identified as risk factors for inadequate antimicrobial treatment, while associated bacteremia was more common in the adequate antimicrobial treatment group.
inadequate antibiotic treatment did not affect the outcomes of non-critically ill children with bacterial infectious diseases. Therefore, routine empirical broad-spectrum treatment may not be necessary for these cases, as it can lead to additional costs and contribute to antibiotic resistance. Larger prospective studies are needed to confirm these findings.
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