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Background: Few studies have tested the effects of a depression intervention on the risk for death associated with depression. Objective: To test whether an intervention to improve depression care can modify the risk for death. Design: Practice-based, randomized, controlled trial. Setting: 20 primary care practices in New York, New York, and Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Patients: 1226 randomly sampled patients identified through a 2-stage, age-stratified (60 to 74 years and [greater than or equal to] 75 years) depression screening. Intervention: Depression care manager working with primary care physicians to provide algorithm-based care. Measurements: Depression status based on clinical interview and vital status at 5 years by using the National Death Index. Results: At baseline, 396 patients met criteria for major depression and 203 patients met criteria for clinically significant minor depression. After a median follow-up of 52.8 months, 223 patients died. Patients with depression in intervention practices were less likely to have died than those in usual care practices (adjusted hazard ratio, 0.67 [95% Cl, 0.44 to 1.00]). Risk for death was reduced in patients with major depression (adjusted hazard ratio, 0.55 [Cl, 0.36 to 0.84]) but not in patients with clinically significant minor depression (adjusted hazard ratio, 0.97 [Cl, 0.49 to 1.92]). The benefit seemed to be almost entirely attributable to a reduction in deaths due to cancer. Limitations: The mechanism for an effect on deaths due to cancer is unclear. Depression status, cause of death, and vital status might have been misclassified. Conclusions: Older primary care patients with major depression in practices that implemented depression care management were less likely to die over a 5-year period than were patients with major depression in usual care practices. The effect seemed to be limited to deaths due to cancer. The mechanism for such an effect is unclear and warrants further investigation.

Travel time, an access barrier, may contribute to attrition of women veterans from Veterans Health Administration (VHA) care.

We assess whether posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) varies in prevalence, diagnostic criteria endorsement, and type and frequency of potentially traumatic events (PTEs) among a nationally representative US sample of 5071 non-Latino whites, 3264 Latinos, 2178 Asians, 4249 African Americans, and 1476 Afro-Caribbeans.

IMPORTANCE To date, no study has defined the consequences of radial artery harvest based on a large number of patients in a prospective randomized trial. OBJECTIVE To compare pain at the harvest site and functional changes associated with harvesting the radial artery vs saphenous vein for coronary artery bypass grafting. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS This study compares the consequences of radial artery harvest with saphenous vein harvest in patients undergoing elective coronary artery bypass grafting procedures in Veterans Affairs hospitals. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES Eleven hospitals screened 6148 patients, of whom 751 were included in this trial. We analyzed 2 variables: pain at the harvest site as measured on a scale of 0 to 100 (least to most painful) and hand performance testing. Patients included in this analysis had radial artery only (n = 80) or saphenous vein only (n = 337) harvest. Pain score, grip strength, and dexterity were measured before surgery and at 3 and 12 months after surgery. We adjusted for pain scores of the nonharvested extremity, age, whether the patient underwent endoscopic vein harvesting, and comorbid health conditions (smoking history, type 2 diabetes mellitus, hypertension, and heart failure). RESULTS There was a significant difference in change of pain score at 3 months from the preoperative baseline between radial artery and saphenous vein groups after adjusting for covariates (P < .001) but not at 12 months (P = .07). No significant changes occurred in grip strength or dexterity from preoperative baseline to 3 and 12 months after surgery (P > .05). CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE The radial artery group reported significantly more pain than the saphenous vein group 3 months after surgery; however, similar levels of pain were observed in both groups at 12 months after surgery. Grip strength and manual dexterity were not changed by radial artery harvesting at 3 and 12 months.

In this paper, we report critical design rules for improving the sensitivity of plasmonic biosensors. We use a scalable, parallel method to fabricate Au plasmonic crystal substrates patterned with an array of pits for real-time sensing. Capture ligands printed selectively in these pits resulted in a strong response to the binding of macromolecules. Angle-resolved sensorgrams showed quantitative differences between wavelength shifts produced by protein analyte bound within regions supporting localized and long-range electromagnetic fields. Contributions from the localized fields dominated the sensing response, especially at high angles. The angle-dependent far-field and near-field optical properties of selectively functionalized plasmonic crystals suggest that optimal performance is achieved at excitation parameters that produce an intense resonance with narrow spectral bandwidth and highly localized electromagnetic fields.

This paper describes the fabrication and characterization of nested Au pyramidal nanoshells. These particles exhibited two plasmon resonances at visible and near-infrared wavelengths that could be manipulated depending on the size of the gap between inner and outer pyramidal shells. We found that larger gaps (30 nm) exhibited much larger Raman scattering responses compared to smaller gaps (5 nm) in the nested pyramidal shells. The SERS activity of these anisotropic particles can be optimized by adjusting the distances between the inner and outer Au shells.

Hochdichte Molekülmusterbestehend aus Goldfilmen mit Nanolöchern wurden auf Poly(dimethylsiloxan)‐Stempeln (PDMS) erzeugt. Löchrige Filme unterschiedlicher Dicke ergaben entweder Ätz‐ oder 1:1‐Muster (siehe die Beispiele; Maßstab je 2 μm). Hierarchische Muster wurden mit einer einzigen Nanoschablone unter Verwendung gemusterter PDMS‐Stempel oder durch Kombination von Nanoschablonen‐ und Mikrokontaktdruck erhalten.