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Atrial fibrosis is an essential contributor to atrial fibrillation (AF). It remains unclear whether atrial endocardial endothelial cells (AEECs) that undergo endothelial-mesenchymal transition (EndMT) are among the sources of atrial fibroblasts. We studied human atria, TGF-[beta]-treated human AEECs, cardiac-specific TGF-[beta]-transgenic mice, and heart failure rabbits to identify the underlying mechanism of EndMT in atrial fibrosis. Using isolated AEECs, we found that miR-181b was induced in TGF-[beta]-treated AEECs, which decreased semaphorin 3A (Sema3A) and increased EndMT markers, and these effects could be reversed by a miR-181b antagomir. Experiments in which Sema3A was increased by a peptide or decreased by a siRNA in AEECs revealed a mechanistic link between Sema3A and LIM-kinase 1/phosphorylated cofilin (LIMK/p-cofilin) signaling and suggested that Sema3A is upstream of LIMK in regulating actin remodeling through p-cofilin. Administration of the miR181b antagomir or recombinant Sema3A to TGF-[beta]-transgenic mice evoked increased Sema3A, reduced EndMT markers, and significantly decreased atrial fibrosis and AF vulnerability. Our study provides a mechanistic link between the induction of EndMT by TGF-[beta] via miR-181b/Sema3A/LIMK/p-cofilin signaling to atrial fibrosis. Blocking miR-181b and increasing Sema3A are potential strategies for AF therapeutic intervention., Introduction Atrial fibrillation (AF) is the most common sustained arrhythmia and results in increased morbidity and mortality. Rhythm control in persistent long-term AF, which is characterized by severe atrial myocyte [...]

Byline: Yi-Fei. Hsin, Shu-Hsin. Chen, Teng-Jen. Yu, Chung-Chi. Huang, Yen-Huey. Chen PURPOSE: Muscle atrophy and diaphragm dysfunction are common with prolonged mechanical ventilation (PMV). Electrical stimulation on peripheral muscles has [...]

Formulaic language is important to language acquisition; however, English language learners are often reported to have problems with formulaic expressions. Several lists of formulaic sequences have been proposed, mainly for developing teaching and testing materials. However, their limited numbers and insufficient usage information seem unable to benefit formulaic language use. To address these issues we have developed GRASP, a reference aid for formulaic expressions, to promote learners' productive competence. Users are allowed multi-word inputs to target their desired phrases or collocations. Utilizing natural language processing techniques, our system categorizes and displays the structures and sequences in a hierarchical way. The corresponding example sentences are also provided. The formulaic structures serve as a quick access index. The formulaic sequences and corpus examples illustrate the real world language use. Importantly, automatic summarization from language data lends support to the idea of data-driven learning. A single-group pre-posttest design was adopted to assess the effectiveness of GRASP on 150 Chinese-speaking college freshmen. The results indicated that our reference aid made a substantial contribution to students' performance on formulaic expression use in a sentence completion task, compared with the existing tools. Notably, the less proficient students showed marked improvement.

Background/Objective: Bereaved family surrogates from intensive care units (ICU) are at risk of comorbid anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), but the temporal reciprocal relationships among them have only been examined once among veterans. This study aimed to longitudinally investigate these never-before-examined temporal reciprocal relationships for ICU family members over their first two bereavement years. Methods: In this prospective, longitudinal, observational study, symptoms of anxiety, depression, and PTSD were assessed among 321 family surrogates of ICU decedents from 2 academically affiliated hospitals in Taiwan by the anxiety and depression subscales of the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale, and the Impact of Event Scale-Revised, respectively at 1, 3, 6, 13, 18, and 24 months postloss. Cross-lagged panel modeling was conducted to longitudinally examine the temporal reciprocal relationships among anxiety, depression, and PTSD. Results: Examined psychological-distress levels were markedly stable over the first 2 bereavement years: autoregressive coefficients for symptoms of anxiety, depression, and PTSD were 0.585–0.770, 0.546–0.780, and 0.440–0.780, respectively. Cross-lag coefficients showed depressive symptoms predicted PTSD symptoms in the first bereavement year, whereas PTSD symptoms predicted depressive symptoms in the second bereavement year. Anxiety symptoms predicted symptoms of depression and PTSD at 13 and 24 months postloss, whereas depressive symptoms predicted anxiety symptoms at 3 and 6 months postloss while PTSD symptoms predicted anxiety symptoms during the second bereavement year. Conclusions: Different patterns of temporal relationships among symptoms of anxiety, depression, and PTSD over the first 2 bereavement years present important opportunities to target symptoms of specific psychological distress at different points during bereavement to prevent the onset, exacerbation, or maintenance of subsequent psychological distress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]