Associations among individual gilt birth weight, litter birth weight phenotype, and the efficiency of replacement gilt production.

Selection for larger litter size has increased the number of low individual birth weight (BWi) pigs and produced sows with a repeatable low average litter birth weight phenotype (BWP). Using an average of 3.6 litters records per sow, BWP was established in 644 nucleus-multiplication sows producing replacement gilts in a large commercial operation and classified as low (L-BWP, <1.18 kg, n = 85), medium (M-BWP, ≥1.18 to ≤1.35 kg, n = 250), or high (H-BWP, >1.35 kg, n = 309) on the basis of a BWi of 1.18 kg below which there was a high risk of early mortality and the average BWi (1.35 kg) for the population. In subsequent litters, potential replacement gilts born to these sows (n = 7,341) received a unique identification tag that allowed the impact of BWi, BWP, and their interactions on the efficiency of replacement gilt production to be evaluated. Negative effects of BWi on mortality until day 4 after birth were confirmed (P < 0.05) and cumulative losses to weaning, to day 70 of age, and to final pre-selection at 165 d of age were affected (P ≤ 0.05) by the interaction between BWP and BWi. Among the 2,035 gilts for which records for selection efficiency and production to fourth parity were available, a lower BWi decreased the probability of gilts reaching pubertal estrus (P < 0.05) after 21 and 28 d of boar stimulation starting at 180 d of age, with no effect of BWP. Overall, neither BWi, BWP, nor their interaction affected age at puberty. After breeding, only the main effect of BWP affected productivity and retention in the sow herd. In parities 1 and 2, percent stillborn was higher in litters born to gilts from H-BWP compared with L-BWP dams (P < 0.05), and in parity 2, total born and born alive were lower in sows derived from H-BWP compared with other BWPs. There were no differences in retention based on BWP classes until parity 2, after which retention tended (P ≤ 0.09) to be lower in sows derived from H-BWP compared with L-BWP dams. These results provide evidence that sow BWP is an important factor in the overall efficiency of replacement gilt management. This study also confirms that effective gilt selection and pre-breeding management protocols support excellent sow lifetime productivity and mitigate the risk of a high BWP in the litter of origin affecting retention in the breeding herd.

A qualitative study of the at-home pain experience for children with an arm fracture.

OBJECTIVE: Most children treated in the emergency department (ED) with painful conditions are discharged home to the care of their parents. There is growing evidence that at-home pain management is inadequate. No studies have evaluated the child's report of their at-home pain experience. Our objective was to explore the child's perspective on the pain experience at home after ED discharge. METHODS: We performed semistructured interviews with children aged 4 to 14 years discharged from the ED with an arm fracture. Interviews occurred at the child's home and were recorded and transcribed verbatim. Using a narrative analysis, themes were identified. RESULTS: A total of 30 children were interviewed. Overall, three distinct themes regarding the pain experience were identified: (1) issues of communication between children and their parents regarding pain management, (2) issues of communication between children and ED health care personnel and (3) misunderstandings by children about pain and pain medication. CONCLUSION: Communication is a critical barrier to optimizing the at-home pain experience. This novel information may be used to develop innovative interventions directed at the child and parent to improve the at-home pain experience.

The Feasibility of Utilizing a Comic for Education in the Emergency Department Setting.

The objective of this study was to determine the feasibility of a comic education module in the Emergency Department setting. A convenience sample of 50 injured children and their caregivers were enrolled. The comic was found to be likeable, easy to read, and provided important information to both children and their caregivers. Total time to read the comic was three minutes (SD 1.4, range 1.4-7.1). Most children (60%) read the comic independently, including all children over age 14 years. At 72-hour phone follow-up, 86% of caregivers had accurate recall of all three comic teaching points. This innovative comic educational module is feasible for use for children ages 4-18 years in the Emergency Department. Though this comic was intended to educate children, caregivers recalled all three teaching points 72 hours after discharge.

Photosensitive fluorescent dye contributes to phototoxicity and inflammatory responses of dye-doped silica NPs in cells and mice.

Dye-doped fluorescent silica nanoparticles provide highly intense and photostable fluorescence signals. However, some dopant dye molecules are photosensitive. A widely-used photosensitive fluorescent dopant, RuBpy, was chosen to systematically investigate the phototoxicity of the dye-doped silica nanoparticles (NPs). We investigated cell viability, DNA damage, and Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS) levels in alveolar macrophages using the dye-doped NPs with or without irradiation. Our results showed that the RuBpy-doped silica NPs could induce significant amount of ROS, DNA damage, apoptosis and impaired proliferation in MH-S cells. In vivo studies in mice showed that RuBpy-doped silica NPs induced significant inflammatory cytokine production and lowered expression in signaling proteins such as ERK1/2 and NF-κB as well as increased lung injury determined by myeloperoxidase and lipid peroxidation. Strikingly, we also found that both RuBpy alone and NPs induced systemic signaling activation in the kidney compared to the liver and lung where showed highly selective signaling patterns, which is more pronounced than RuBpy-doped silica NPs. Moreover, we discovered a critical biomarker (e.g., HMGB1) for silica NPs-induced stress and toxicity and demonstrated differentially-regulated response patterns in various organs. Our results indicate for the first time that the RuBpy-doped silica NPs may impose less inflammatory responses but stronger thermotherapeutic effects on target cells in animals than naked NPs in a time- and dose-dependent manner.

Methods for studying toxicity of silica-based nanomaterials to living cells.

A number of silica-based nanomaterials have been developed in recent years. An important application of these nanomaterials is in the field of biological and biomedical applications. However, a major concern about the safety of the nanomaterials in vitro has been proposed. To address this problem, several approaches have been developed for a systematic investigation of the cytotoxicity and genotoxicity of silica-based nanoparticles. These methods are mainly based on the traditional toxicity study approaches but with some modifications. In this chapter, four important methods for studying of toxicity of silica-based nanomaterials are summarized. These methods can detect cell proliferation, cell viability, DNA damage, and the generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS). The protocols of each method are introduced in detail.