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Semi-technical vocabulary, a type of vocabulary with both a technical and non-technical meaning (e.g., colon : part of the large intestine; punctuation mark), is an area of controversy owing to disagreement over its definition and characteristics. While it is widely held that learning technical vocabulary is critical for learners of English for Specific Purposes (ESP), several studies have also focused on semi-technical vocabulary because these words often have multiple meanings, depending on the context, and may therefore be harder to learn and understand than purely technical words. This study aims to revisit semi-technical vocabulary in medicine to address these controversial issues by re-evaluating a 595 semi-technical medical word list developed by Hsu (2013). A core meaning-based analysis identified 302 potentially confusing semi-technical medical words. These are mostly mid-frequency words; some are academic and low-frequency words. The findings also revealed pedagogic challenges associated with word form frequency-based lists deserving of further research. • The study analyzed core meanings in Hsu's (2013) Medical Word List (MWL). • Analysis revealed potentially problematic semi-technical medical words (STM). • These STM words are polysemous and have homographs, causing pedagogic challenges. • The findings revealed these STM words can be academic, mid-, or low-frequency. • 302 words (51%) with polysemes/homographs challenge the usefulness of the MWL. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASDs) are comprised of developmental, behavioral, and cognitive abnormalities caused by prenatal alcohol exposure, affecting an estimated 2%-5% of children and costing $4 billion annually in the United States. While some behavioral therapies help, the neurobiological mechanisms that underpin FASDs need further elucidation for development of effective pharmacotherapeutics. The role of the tau protein in the hippocampus is likely to be involved. Tau catalyzes microtubule polymerization in developing neurons. However, this function can become disrupted by hyperphosphorylation. Many of the cognitive deficits observed in neurodegenerative tauopathies overlap to some degree with what is observed in juvenile developmental disabilities, such as FASDs (e.g., selective memory, executive dysfunction). Thus, tau protein phosphorylation may be one important mechanism of dysfunction in FASDs. The purpose of this study is to provide an empirical basis for a tauopathic characterization of FASDs. To do so, hippocampal slices were extracted from rats at postnatal day 10 (PND10); hippocampal slices were then exposed to 5 days of 50-mM ethanol between 6 days in vitro (DIV) and 11DIV. Immunoblots were taken for Total and p-Tau (Threonine231) at 12DIV and 24DIV. Immunohistochemical fluorescent images were taken for p-Tau (Threonine231) at 12DIV and 24DIV. Separate p-Tau measures were taken for the cornu ammonis 1 (CA1), CA3, and dentate gyrus (DG). Total Tau protein expression remained unchanged between 12DIV and 24DIV regardless of ethanol condition. In the control group, longer DIV was associated with decreased p-Tau. However, in the ethanol-exposed group, p-Tau was sustained across DIV. This is the first study to show that ethanol exposure sustains tau Threonine231 phosphorylation in the perinatal hippocampus regardless of Total Tau expression. These findings could lead to innovative pharmacotherapeutic targets for the treatment of cognitive deficits seen in FASDs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Medical students with English as an additional language often face difficulties in acquiring English medical terminology derived from Greek and Latin morphemes. To address this problem, this study used a corpus-based approach to identify the most commonly occurring medical morphemes in four sources: Stedman's list of medical morphemes; the Cengage list of general English morphemes; the Center for Development in Learning list of general English morphemes; and the Medical Web Corpus—a web-based corpus of current medical texts available through Sketch Engine text analysis software. Three medical dictionaries were used to validate the findings, leading to a final list of 136 specialized medical morphemes which cover 8.5% of the lexical items in the Medical Web Corpus. The findings provide a reliable and useful resource to help medical students with English as an additional language enhance their English medical vocabulary. • The final list contains 136 frequently used medical morphemes. • These 136 morphemes cover 8.5% of the Medical Web Corpus. • 136 morphemes are a manageable learning target for students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Olcegepant is one of the most potent and selective small molecule CGRP antagonists for the treatment of migraine headaches. Herein, we describe a new and efficient synthesis of the key piperidinyl dihydroquinazolinone (PDQ) fragment of olcegepant. PDQ plays a key role in the activity of CGRP antagonists. Primary improvements over existing methods include a high-yielding reductive amination step, greater overall yield, and operational simplicity. Coupling of PDQ to a d -tyrosine derivative effectively produced over one half of the total molecular structure of olcegepant. A unique tandem deprotection-nucleophilic addition sequence was also applied to the coupling of Fmoc-PDQ with phenyl isocyanate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ethanol is one of the most widely used and abused drugs. Following ethanol consumption, ethanol enters the bloodstream from the small intestine where it gets distributed to peripheral tissues. In the bloodstream, ethanol is cleared from the system by the liver. The primary metabolism of ethanol uses alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH). In mammals, females appear to have higher ADH activity in liver samples than males. The purpose of the first experiment was to analyze sex differences in ADH levels following 12 d of ethanol administration (i.e., water or 2 g/kg) in male and female quail. Following the last daily treatment of ethanol, quail were euthanized, their livers were extracted, and ADH was analyzed in liver homogenate samples. Results showed that female quail had higher ADH levels, heavier livers, and a greater liver to body weight ratio than male quail. In a second experiment, we aimed to develop a blood ethanol concentration (BEC) profile for both male and female quail. Quail were administered 0.75 or 2 g/kg of ethanol and blood was collected at 0.5, 1, 2, 4, 6, 8, 12, 24 h after gavage administration. Blood ethanol concentration was analyzed using an Analox. We found that quail had a fairly rapid increase in BECs followed by a steady and slow disappearance of ethanol from the blood samples. Female quail had a lower peak of ethanol concentration and a smaller area under the curve (AUC) than male quail. The current research suggests that higher ADH levels in female quail may be responsible for increased metabolism of ethanol. In general, quail appear to eliminate ethanol more slowly than rodents. Thus, as a model, they may allow for a prolonged window with which to investigate the effects of ethanol. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• SAA is a consistent marker of acute viral infection • SAA is elevated in patients with clinical EHV-1 disease • SAA is not consistently elevated in horses with subclinical EHV-1 infection • There is no correlation between SAA and viral loads in EHV-1 infected horses The objective of this study was to study the SAA response of horses with various forms of EHV-1 infection. Archived serum samples from 153 horses with various disease forms of EHV-1 infection (48 healthy non-infected horses, 48 subclinically infected horses, 40 horses with respiratory EHV-1 infection and 17 horses with neurological EHV-1 infection) were available for SAA testing. SAA values ranged from 0 to 31 µg/mL (median 0 µg/mL) in healthy horses, from 0 to 2,416 µg/mL (median 8.5 µg/mL) in subclinically infected horses, from 0 to 3,000 µg/mL (median 597 µg/mL) in horse with respiratory EHV-1 infection and from 0 to 1,640 µg/mL (median 58 µg/mL) in horse with neurological EHV-1 disease. Infected horses had significantly higher SAA values compared to healthy, non-infected horses. While SAA was elevated in the majority of horses with evidence of EHV-1 infection, a single point in time SAA test was unable to consistently support infection in horses with subclinical disease [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many researchers with English as an additional language (EAL), as well as EAL teachers and students, believe that idioms are not used in English academic speech or writing. By 'idiom', they usually mean an expression that is figurative, opaque, multiword, largely fixed, and institutionalised, in keeping with traditional EAL textbook definitions. By contrast, researchers addressing multiword expressions in academic corpora have frequently used the term 'idiom' very broadly, resulting in lists that include lexical bundles and other types of collocation, rather than more traditional idioms. This study identifies all the traditional, textbook-type idioms in the British Academic Spoken English (BASE) corpus, examines the range of texts in which they appear, then compares their frequency to the same idioms used in the Oxford Corpus of Academic English (OCAE). The resulting list of 545 idioms, 56 of which appear in four or more BASE texts and 43 of which appear at least 100 times in OCAE, can be used confidently by EAL writers and teachers to enrich their own and their students' English academic speech and writing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Loss or downregulation of the tumor-suppressor KAI1 correlates with poor cancer patient prognosis. KAI1 functions by interacting with other proteins, including integrin cell adhesion and signaling receptors. We previously showed that KAI1 physically and functionally crosstalks with the tumor-biologically relevant integrin αvβ3, thereby suppressing ovarian cancer cell migration and proliferation. Interestingly, in metastases, a KAI1 splice variant had been identified, indicating poor patient prognosis. Thus, we here characterized differential effects of the two KAI1 proteins upon their cellular restoration. Opposite to KAI1, KAI1-splice reduced αvβ3-mediated cell adhesion, thereby inducing cell migration. This was accompanied by elevated αvβ3 levels and drastically elevated focal adhesion kinase activation, however, without any obvious colocalization with αvβ3, as observed for KAI1. Moreover, codistribution of KAI1 with the cell/cell-adhesion molecule E-cadherin was abrogated in KAI1-splice. Whereas KAI1 diminished cell proliferative activity, KAI1-splice prominently enhanced cell proliferation concomitant with elevated transcription and cell-surface expression of the epidermal growth factor receptor. Thus KAI1-splice does not only counteract the tumor-suppressive actions of KAI1, but – beyond that – promotes αvβ3-mediated biological functions in favor of tumor progression and metastasis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A certain percentage of patients complain of “glare” at night after undergoing a refractive surgical procedure. When patients speak of glare they are, technically, describing a decrease in quality of vision secondary to glare disability, decreased contrast sensitivity, and image degradations, or more succinctly, “night vision disturbances.” The definitions, differences, and methods of measurement of such vision disturbances after refractive surgery are described in our article. In most cases of corneal refractive surgery, there is a significant increase in vision disturbances immediately following the procedure. The majority of patients improve between 6 months to 1 year post-surgery. The relation between pupil size and the optical clear zone are most important in minimizing these disturbances in RK. In PRK and LASIK, pupil size and the ablation diameter size and location are the major factors involved. Treatment options for disabling glare are also discussed. With the exponential increase of patients having refractive surgery, the increase of patients complaining of scotopic or mesopic vision disturbances may become a major public health issue in the near future. Currently, however, there are no gold-standard clinical tests available to measure glare disability, contrast sensitivity, or image degradations. Standardization is essential for objective measurement and follow-up to further our understanding of the effects of these surgeries on the optical system and thus, hopefully, allow for modification of our techniques to decrease or eliminate post-refractive vision disturbances. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

To collect data about the current practice of recovering horses from general anesthesia and recovery personnel safety. Online survey. An online questionnaire, including questions on general demographic data, recovery drugs, modality and characteristics of equine recovery and morbidity and mortality, was designed and distributed via e-mail to equine practitioners worldwide. Practitioners from 22 countries completed 373 questionnaires; 53% of the participants were board-certified equine surgeons, and the remainder were board-certified anesthesiologists (18%), large animal residents (8%), general practitioners (7%), large animal interns (6%), anesthesia residents (4.5%) and veterinary technicians (1.6%). Respondents were employed by academia (58%) or private practice (42%). Of the respondents employed at a university, 93% had a board-certified anesthesiologist on staff compared with 7% of respondents employed at a private practice. Most of the respondents assist horses during recovery, with 23% assisting every recovery and 44% assisting recovery in the majority of cases. Reasons for choosing to assist horses during recovery were: orthopedic procedures (57%), neurological deficits (49%), bad health (47%), history of poor recovery (44%), foals (42%), draft breeds (30%), magnetic resonance imaging (17%) and computed tomography (16%). Unacceptable recoveries were reported by 77% of participants. Commonly reported complications during recovery with any method were: orthopedic injury (66%), myopathy (54%), skin abrasion (53%) and airway obstruction (37%). The incidences of unacceptable quality of recovery (p = 0.09) or personnel injury (p = 0.56) were not different between assisted and nonassisted recoveries; however, more equine fatalities were reported for assisted recoveries (p < 0.006). Practitioners in academia reported more unacceptable recoveries (p < 0.0007) and personnel injuries (p < 0.002) compared with those in private practice. The method of recovery differs among hospitals. Recovery personnel injuries associated with assisting horses during recovery are an important and previously unreported finding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]