For applications of carbon nanotubes in electronic components site‐specific assembly of nanotubes onto patterned substrates is required. The Figure shows, as an example, a surface modification that ...favors attachment of nanotubes to an electrode (Au/Pd). The adsorbed nanotube (gray) has a partial surfactant shell and there is an alkanethiol monolayer between the nanotube and electrode. The Si/SiO2 wafer is unaffected.
Abstract
Background
Parents’ mental illness (MI) and parental history of early life maltreatment (ELM) are known to be significant risk factors for poor parenting while poor parenting is a crucial ...mediator of the intergenerational continuity of child maltreatment. Hence, maltreatment prevention programs for families with an MI parent, which pay particular attention to experiences of ELM in the parent, are urgently needed. Parental mentalizing was previously found to mediate successful parenting. Interventions aimed at improving the parental mentalizing capacity reduced maltreatment risk in parents. The aim of the present study is to investigate the effectiveness of a mentalization-based parenting-counseling in acutely mentally ill parents currently treated at a psychiatric hospital.
Methods
Mentalization-based parenting-counseling (MB-PC) vs. enhanced standard clinical care (SCC+) will be administered in a cluster-randomized-controlled trial (RCT). Patients treated at psychiatric hospitals with children between 1.5 and 15 years will be included in the trial. MB-PC will be administered as a 12-h combined individual and group program enriched by social counseling (over a course of 5 weeks) as add-on to standard clinical care, while the control condition will be standard clinical care plus a 90-min psychoeducation workshop on positive parenting. Primary efficacy endpoint is self-reported parenting practices at follow-up. Embedded within the RCT will be two sub-studies investigating social cognition and dyadic synchrony as biobehavioral mechanisms of change.
Discussion
The main goal of the present study is to investigate ways to break the intergenerational continuity of maltreatment by assessing the benefits of a prevention program which aims at improving parenting in vulnerable mothers and fathers. MB-PC is a short, low-cost intervention which can be delivered by nurses and social workers and is applicable to MI patients with children with a broad range of diagnoses. If it is shown to be effective, it can be directly implemented into standard psychiatric hospital care thereby providing help to prevent child maltreatment.
Trial registration
German Clinical Trials Register
DRKS00017398
. Registered on 5 July 2019
Prematurity and the associated risk for bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD) remain a significant threat to extremely low birth weight (ELBW) infants. Vitamin A has been considered a therapeutic ...alternative in reducing the rate of BPD and mortality.
To investigate whether early postnatal, additional high-dose oral vitamin A supplementation for 28 days is more efficient in reducing BPD or death in ELBW infants than placebo treatment.
This is a multicenter, double-blind RCT comparing postnatal high-dose oral vitamin A supplementation (5,000 IU vitamin A/kg/day vs. placebo) for 28 days in ELBW neonates requiring mechanical ventilation, noninvasive ventilatory support or supplemental oxygen at 24 h of age. The primary end point is the proportion of children who died before 36 weeks' gestational age or developed moderate or severe BPD. BPD is defined as the need for supplemental oxygen to maintain SaO2 of ≥92% at rest at 36 weeks' postmenstrual age (PMA). Clinical secondary end points include the following: BPD (including mild form), intraventricular hemorrhage, periventricular leukomalacia, retinopathy of prematurity, necrotizing enterocolitis, total number of days of mechanical ventilation and oxygen supplementation, and safety and tolerability of high-dose vitamin A supplementation.
The results of the NeoVitaA trial will provide robust data with regard to the efficacy of high-dose oral vitamin A supplementation in reducing the incidence of BPD or death at 36 weeks' PMA in ELBW infants.
Does cross-cultural philosophy stand in need of a hermeneutical expansion? In engaging with this question, the symposium focuses upon methodological issues salient to cross-cultural inquiry. Douglas ...L. Berger lays out the ground for the debate by arguing for a methodological approach, which is able to rectify the discipline’s colonial legacies and bridge the hermeneutical distance with its objects of study. From their own perspectives, Hans-Georg Moeller, Paul Roth and A. Raghuramaraju analyze whether such a processual and hermeneutically-sensitive approach can indeed open up new hermeneutic horizons. Their responses shed light upon cross-cultural philosophy’s continued embedment in Euroamerican professional philosophy and how the locality of its knowledge-seeking endeavors may indeed have repercussions on attempts to bridge temporal and spatial distances.
Aim
In acute large vessel occlusions, endovascular therapy (EVT) achieves flow restoration in the majority of cases; however, EVT fails to achieve sufficient reperfusion in a substantial minority of ...patients. This study aimed to identify predictors of failed reperfusion.
Methods
In this study 2211 patients from the German Stroke Registry who received EVT for anterior circulation stroke were retrospectively analyzed. Failure of reperfusion was defined as thrombolysis in cerebral infarction (TICI) grades 0/1/2a, and sufficient reperfusion as TICI 2b/3. In 1629 patients with complete datasets, associations between failure of reperfusion and baseline clinical data, comorbidities, location of occlusion, and procedural data were assessed with multiple logistic regression.
Results
Failure of reperfusion occurred in 371 patients (16.8%) and was associated with the following locations of occlusion: cervical internal carotid artery (ICA, adjusted odds ratio, OR 2.01, 95% confidence interval, CI 1.08–3.69), intracranial ICA without carotid T occlusion (adjusted OR 1.79, 95% CI 1.05–2.98), and M2 segment (adjusted OR 1.86, 95% CI 1.21–2.84). Failed reperfusion was also associated with cervical ICA stenosis (>70% stenosis, adjusted OR 2.90, 95% CI 1.69–4.97), stroke of other determined etiology by TOAST (Trial of ORG 10172 in acute stroke treatment) criteria (e.g. nonatherosclerotic vasculopathies, adjusted OR 2.73, 95% CI 1.36–5.39), and treatment given outside the usual working hours (adjusted OR 1.41, 95% CI 1.07–1.86). Successful reperfusion was associated with higher Alberta stroke program early CT score (ASPECTS) on initial imaging (adjusted OR 0.85, 95% CI 0.79–0.92), treatment with the patient under general anesthesia (adjusted OR 0.72, 95% CI 0.54–0.96), and concomitant ICA stenting in patients with ICA stenosis (adjusted OR 0.20, 95% CI 0.11–0.38).
Conclusion
Several factors are associated with failure of reperfusion, most notably occlusions of the proximal ICA and low ASPECTS on admission. Conversely, stent placement in the proximal ICA was associated with reperfusion success.
Background
The pathogenesis of intestinal dysmotility in gastroschisis is not completely understood. Peel formation and disorganization of interstitial Cajal cells (ICC) have been proposed in humans. ...The aim of this study was to evaluate the impact of prenatal coverage of gastroschisis on gut inflammation and expression of ICC in a fetal lamb model.
Methods
Twenty-one German blackhead sheep with an abdominal wall defect that was created fetoscopically on day 77 of 145 days gestation were used in this study. Intrauterine surgery with the aim to cover the defect was performed 3 weeks later; two fetuses were covered completely, 5 partially and 11 remained uncovered. Three fetuses without gastroschisis were used as controls. All fetuses were retrieved by cesarean section at day 135. Samples of the small intestine were stained with hematoxylin and eosin for histologic analysis of peel formation and serosal and muscular thickness. For ICC detection, immunohistochemistry using anti-CD117 (c-Kit) antibody was used.
Results
In all samples with exposure to amniotic fluid, peel formation and significantly decreased ICC were found. Complete coverage reduced peel formation and disorganization of ICC compared to uncovered animals almost to the level of controls.
Conclusions
Peel formation and ICC derangement were significantly reduced by prenatal coverage of gastroschisis. Moreover, this animal model mimics the histopathological bowel changes as seen in human gastroschisis and may, therefore, be used for further research on the pathophysiology and fetal therapy of this malformation.
The main cause of death from novel (swine origin) influenza A/H1N1 infection is acute respiratory distress syndrome. Most fatal cases are immunocompromised patients or patients with a severe ...underlying disease. Here, we report a fatal case of acute interstitial myocarditis associated with novel influenza A/H1N1 infection in an immunocompetent young woman. A previously healthy 18-year-old woman experienced malaise, diarrhea, and fever for several days prior to a sudden collapse at home. Autopsy revealed a predominantly lymphocytic myocarditis in the absence of a significant respiratory tract infection. Infection with novel (swine origin) influenza A/H1N1 was confirmed by PCR analysis of blood as well as myocardial tissue. Influenza-caused diarrhea with consecutive hypokalemia potentially contributed to the fatal outcome of the myocarditis, characterized by ventricular fibrillation. In conclusion, sudden death by myocarditis may be a rare complication of novel influenza A/H1N1 infection in otherwise healthy individuals, even in the absence of significant respiratory tract infection.
Defects in long-range regulatory elements have recently emerged as previously underestimated factors in the genesis of human congenital disorders. Léri-Weill dyschondrosteosis is a dominant skeletal ...malformation syndrome caused by mutations in the short stature homeobox gene SHOX. We have analysed four families with Léri-Weill dyschondrosteosis with deletions in the pseudoautosomal region but still with an intact SHOX coding region. Using fluorescence in situ hybridization and single nucleotide polymorphism studies, we identified an interval of ∼200 kb that was deleted in all tested affected family members but retained in the unaffected members and in 100 control individuals. Comparative genomic analysis of this interval revealed eight highly conserved non-genic elements between 48 and 215 kb downstream of the SHOX gene. As mice do not have a Shox gene, we analysed the enhancer potential in chicken embryos using a green fluorescent protein reporter construct driven by the β-globin promoter, by in ovo electroporation of the limb bud. We observed cis-regulatory activity in three of the eight non-genic elements in the developing limbs arguing for an extensive control region of this gene. These findings are consistent with the idea that the deleted region in the affected families contains several distinct elements that regulate Shox expression in the developing limb. Furthermore, the deletion of these elements in humans generates a phenotype apparently undistinguishable to those patients identified with mutations in the SHOX coding region and, for the first time, demonstrates the potential of an in vivo assay in chicken to monitor putative enhancer activity in relation to human disease.
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