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Hyperoxia activates secretion of interleukin-8 (IL-8) from U937 cells and human alveolar macrophages (AM) and dexamethasone reduces generation of IL-8 and expression of IL-8 mRNA by U937 cells. IL-8 may play a significant role in pulmonary oxygen toxicity pathogenesis. IL-8 generation can be inhibited by therapeutic concentrations of dexamethasone. Hyperoxia also increases the expression of IL-8 mRNA in U937 cells.

Context: Runners often experience acute/chronic pain due to pre-existing structural somatic dysfunction and/or acquired various overuse injuries of the lower extremity, specifically affecting the ligaments, tendons, muscles, and bones. Common structural and function dysfunctions include but are not limited to patellofemoral pain syndrome (PFPS), Achilles tendonitis, iliotibial band syndrome (ITBS), ligamentous and muscle tears, muscle sprains/strains, stress fractures, pes planus, plantar fasciitis, and shin splints., Objectives: The purpose of this study is to assess the correlation between acute and chronic pain, overuse injuries, and observational and palpatory findings upon evaluation to establish common trends of somatic dysfunctions and determine possible etiology of the pain/injury., Methods: A total of 103 individuals were recruited (54.4% female, 45.6% male) aged 23-67 years old who consistently run at least 1 mile each week. They were categorized based on their weekly mileage - Novice (1-5 miles per week), Moderate (6-15), Advanced (15+) - with the intention to have a diversity of running types and to assess the data at various levels of commitment to running. The average was 7.8 miles/week with the range at 1 to 28 miles per week. The subjects included Touro students and individuals in the community. A history was collected through an anonymous survey on the individual's running habits, chronic/acute injuries, and any other relevant medical information. Data analyzing investigators were blinded to subjects' identifying information. Additionally, an osteopathic assessment was performed by two student investigators for reliability purposes and conducted under supervision by a board-certified osteopathic physician., Results: Analysis of the data suggested an existing correlation between the number of somatic dysfunctions and years of running. A slight correlation was found between somatic dysfunctions and miles per week, sports injuries, time per week, and lower extremity pain. Finally, statistical correlations were also identified between the presence of pes planus and limb length discrepancy with three distinct muscular hypertonicities., Conclusions: Runners' pains and injuries of the lower extremity are complex, and injury treatment and prevention is equally multifaceted. An association was found between both pes planus and limb length discrepancy with lower extremity muscle hypertonicity, suggesting the interrelated nature of these somatic dysfunctions. The survey concluded that many runners continue to run in pain and/or after significant injury but do not necessarily capitalize on existing support such as fitted shoes, custom arches, and osteopathic treatment that may help to minimize their risk of or treat injury. The intention of the research is to bring awareness to practitioners to the most common somatic dysfunctions such that they can recommend runners to obtain gait analyses and/or osteopathic treatments, which may not only alleviate injuries faster but also prevent future injury., (© 2024 the author(s), published by De Gruyter, Berlin/Boston.)

High-resolution electron microscopy of nervous systems has enabled the reconstruction of synaptic connectomes. However, we do not know the synaptic sign for each connection (i.e., whether a connection is excitatory or inhibitory), which is implied by the released transmitter. We demonstrate that artificial neural networks can predict transmitter types for presynapses from electron micrographs: a network trained to predict six transmitters (acetylcholine, glutamate, GABA, serotonin, dopamine, octopamine) achieves an accuracy of 87% for individual synapses, 94% for neurons, and 91% for known cell types across a D. melanogaster whole brain. We visualize the ultrastructural features used for prediction, discovering subtle but significant differences between transmitter phenotypes. We also analyze transmitter distributions across the brain and find that neurons that develop together largely express only one fast-acting transmitter (acetylcholine, glutamate, or GABA). We hope that our publicly available predictions act as an accelerant for neuroscientific hypothesis generation for the fly., Competing Interests: Declaration of interests The authors declare no competing interests., (Copyright © 2024 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Animals communicate using sounds in a wide range of contexts, and auditory systems must encode behaviorally relevant acoustic features to drive appropriate reactions. How feature detection emerges along auditory pathways has been difficult to solve due to challenges in mapping the underlying circuits and characterizing responses to behaviorally relevant features. Here, we study auditory activity in the Drosophila melanogaster brain and investigate feature selectivity for the two main modes of fly courtship song, sinusoids and pulse trains. We identify 24 new cell types of the intermediate layers of the auditory pathway, and using a new connectomic resource, FlyWire, we map all synaptic connections between these cell types, in addition to connections to known early and higher-order auditory neurons-this represents the first circuit-level map of the auditory pathway. We additionally determine the sign (excitatory or inhibitory) of most synapses in this auditory connectome. We find that auditory neurons display a continuum of preferences for courtship song modes and that neurons with different song-mode preferences and response timescales are highly interconnected in a network that lacks hierarchical structure. Nonetheless, we find that the response properties of individual cell types within the connectome are predictable from their inputs. Our study thus provides new insights into the organization of auditory coding within the Drosophila brain., Competing Interests: Declaration of interests The authors declare no competing interests., (Copyright © 2022 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Background: It has been suggested that single rooms for patients improve patient dignity and privacy and reduce infection transmission, but they can be socially isolating. It is not well understood how single rooms affect long-stay patients., Aims: To understand the experience of being an inpatient in a ward with single-room design., Methods: A qualitative, phenomenological study was conducted using semi-structured interviews with patients ( n =10) in a newly built cancer hospital with a 100% single-room haematology ward. Interviews were analysed using Colaizzi's (1978) seven-step analysis., Findings: Patients described their experiences of their acute stay using the concepts of privacy, isolation and independence, as well as enabling sleep. Privacy enabled patients to have their own toilet, was perceived to aid infection control and provided silence. Privacy came at a cost of isolation, but patients re-framed this as expected and necessary for self-preservation. Furthermore, they were unsure as to whether other patients would reciprocate social contact and instead relied on the healthcare team. Patients sought independence during their acute stay as it enabled them to control the environment and create a space for healing. The ability to sleep and be rested was also a critical feature of patients' stay., Conclusion: The research highlighted that haematology patients prefer single rooms. However, because they experienced isolation, it also highlighted the importance of facilitating and enabling peer support within the haematology setting.

Sustained changes in mood or action require persistent changes in neural activity, but it has been difficult to identify the neural circuit mechanisms that underlie persistent activity and contribute to long-lasting changes in behavior. Here, we show that a subset of Doublesex+ pC1 neurons in the Drosophila female brain, called pC1d/e, can drive minutes-long changes in female behavior in the presence of males. Using automated reconstruction of a volume electron microscopic (EM) image of the female brain, we map all inputs and outputs to both pC1d and pC1e. This reveals strong recurrent connectivity between, in particular, pC1d/e neurons and a specific subset of Fruitless+ neurons called aIPg. We additionally find that pC1d/e activation drives long-lasting persistent neural activity in brain areas and cells overlapping with the pC1d/e neural network, including both Doublesex+ and Fruitless+ neurons. Our work thus links minutes-long persistent changes in behavior with persistent neural activity and recurrent circuit architecture in the female brain., Competing Interests: DD, DP, LE, TP, RF, JC, CG, AC, EI, AB, SD, CM, TM, RL, KL, NK, DI, MC, AH, CJ, WS, JW, HS, MM No competing interests declared, (© 2020, Deutsch et al.)

In the Drosophila model of aggression, males and females fight in same-sex pairings, but a wide disparity exists in the levels of aggression displayed by the 2 sexes. A screen of Drosophila Flylight Gal4 lines by driving expression of the gene coding for the temperature sensitive dTRPA1 channel, yielded a single line ( GMR26E01-Gal4 ) displaying greatly enhanced aggression when thermoactivated. Targeted neurons were widely distributed throughout male and female nervous systems, but the enhanced aggression was seen only in females. No effects were seen on female mating behavior, general arousal, or male aggression. We quantified the enhancement by measuring fight patterns characteristic of female and male aggression and confirmed that the effect was female-specific. To reduce the numbers of neurons involved, we used an intersectional approach with our library of enhancer trap flp-recombinase lines. Several crosses reduced the populations of labeled neurons, but only 1 cross yielded a large reduction while maintaining the phenotype. Of particular interest was a small group (2 to 4 pairs) of neurons in the approximate position of the pC1 cluster important in governing male and female social behavior. Female brains have approximately 20 doublesex (dsx )-expressing neurons within pC1 clusters. Using dsx FLP instead of 357 FLP for the intersectional studies, we found that the same 2 to 4 pairs of neurons likely were identified with both. These neurons were cholinergic and showed no immunostaining for other transmitter compounds. Blocking the activation of these neurons blocked the enhancement of aggression., Competing Interests: The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Invasive lionfish ( Pterois volitans and P. miles ) have spread widely across the western Atlantic and are recognized as a major threat to native marine biodiversity. Although lionfish inhabit both shallow reefs and mesophotic coral ecosystems (MCEs; reefs from 30 to 150 m depth), the primary management response implemented by many countries has been diver-led culling limited to reefs less than 30 m. However, many reef fish undergo ontogenetic migrations, with the largest and therefore most fecund individuals found at greatest depths. Here, we study lionfish density, body size, maturity and dietary patterns across the depth gradient from the surface down to 85 m on heavily culled reefs around Utila, Honduras. We found lionfish at increased densities, body size and weight on MCEs compared with shallow reefs, with MCEs also containing the greatest proportion of actively spawning females, while shallow reefs contained the greatest proportion of immature lionfish. We then compared lionfish behaviour in response to divers on shallow culled and mesophotic unculled Utilan reefs, and on shallow unculled reefs in Tela Bay, on the Honduran mainland. We found that mesophotic lionfish exhibited high alert distances, consistent with individuals previously exposed to culling despite being below the depth limits of removal. In addition, when examining stomach content, we found that fish were the major component of lionfish diets across the depth gradient. Importantly, our results suggest that despite adjacent shallow culling, MCEs retain substantial lionfish populations that may be disproportionately contributing towards continued lionfish recruitment onto the shallow reefs of Utila, potentially undermining current culling-based management., Competing Interests: Operation Wallacea provided financial support in the form of salaries for authors D.A.A.-B, R.G., A.H., D.H., E.G. and D.A.E., but did not have any additional role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish or preparation of the manuscript.

Introduction: The evidence-based foundation of the health professions is dependent on research and its dissemination through peer-reviewed journals. The growth of a health profession is dependent on the sharing of knowledge. Various metrics have been used to measure the quality of journals, articles, and authors. These metrics, however, have many flaws. Publication productivity and patterns provide better insights that can guide professional and journal strategy., Methodology: Bibliometric data were collected from seven key peer-reviewed, international journals for the medical radiation sciences. These key journals were examined over the period 2009-2013 inclusive (5 years). Medical radiation technologists (MRTs) who had published two or more articles in the seven journals during the study period were further investigated through PubMed and ResearchGate to produce a list of publications (excluding those already identified in the seven primary journals) from the 5-year period. Further analysis was performed on the most prolific authors., Results: A total of 969 articles were published in the seven key peer-review journals that met the inclusion criteria. The 969 articles were written by a total of 2,083 different authors. Overall, 80.5% (1,676 of 2,083) of all authors only published once within the seven journals and 110 of these authors were the sole author of their article. A total of 165 MRTs were identified who had published three or more articles., Conclusion: MRTs contribute significantly to the knowledge base of both the medical radiation science professions and the wider health community through active research., (Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

This case study presents an incidental noting of a lingual thyroid on thyroid scintigraphy that had implications in later breast surgery. This information changed patient management and mitigated risk during intubation for breast cancer surgery., (© 2015 by the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging, Inc.)

Unlabelled: A positive blood culture is a critical result that requires prompt identification of the causative agent. This article describes a simple method to identify microorganisms from positive blood culture broth within the time taken to perform a Gram stain (<20 min). The method is based on intrinsic fluorescence spectroscopy (IFS) of whole cells and required development of a selective lysis buffer, aqueous density cushion, optical microcentrifuge tube, and reference database. A total of 1,121 monomicrobial-positive broth samples from 751 strains were analyzed to build a database representing 37 of the most commonly encountered species in bloodstream infections or present as contaminants. A multistage algorithm correctly classified 99.6% of unknown samples to the Gram level, 99.3% to the family level, and 96.5% to the species level. There were no incorrect results given at the Gram or family classification levels, while 0.8% of results were discordant at the species level. In 8/9 incorrect species results, the misidentified isolate was assigned to a species of the same genus. This unique combination of selective lysis, density centrifugation, and IFS can rapidly identify the most common microbial species present in positive blood cultures. Faster identification of the etiologic agent may benefit the clinical management of sepsis. Further evaluation is now warranted to determine the performance of the method using clinical blood culture specimens., Importance: Physicians often require the identity of the infective agent in order to make life-saving adjustments to empirical therapy or to switch to less expensive and/or more targeted antimicrobials. However, standard identification procedures take up to 2 days after a blood culture is signaled positive, and even most rapid molecular techniques take several hours to provide a result. Other techniques are faster (e.g., matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization-time of flight [MALDI-TOF] mass spectrometry) but require time-consuming manual processing steps and expensive equipment. There remains a clear need for a simple, inexpensive method to rapidly identify microorganisms directly from positive blood cultures. The promising new method described in this research article can identify microorganisms in minutes by optical spectroscopy, thus permitting the lab to simultaneously report the presence of a positive blood culture and the organism's identity.

The anti-HIV drug 4'-azidothymidine (ADRT) has been incorporated into DNA by the phosphoramidite method. The presence of the modified nucleotide was shown to have a minimal effect on duplex conformation and stability by CD spectroscopy and UV melting.

Atrial fibrillation is described in a champion pacer which earlier had been named Australian Harness Horse of the Year as a 3-year-old in 1986-87. Prior to conversion atrial fibrillation had been present for at least 6 weeks, during which the horse had not raced. Successful treatment was achieved with two 10g doses of quinidine sulphate per oesophageal tube, after slow digitalisation with intravenous digoxin over 4d. Four hours after commencement of quinidine therapy the arrhythmia had regressed to atrial flutter and converted to sinus rhythm 10 min later. Considering his age, standard of racing and high reputation the horse's overall performance as a 5-year-old after conversion from atrial fibrillation appeared comparable to his previous performance as a 4-year-old before the disorder occurred. In one of the wins since his return to sinus rhythm, the horse recorded his fastest winning speed and created a new track record at the major Melbourne racetrack. The absence of abnormalities of atrial and atrio-ventricular conduction after the cessation of the arrhythmia, together with the horse's return to successful racing, indicate that this was case of atrial fibrillation occurring as a functional disorder without persistent atrial pathology.