Commercial Antivenoms Exert Broad Paraspecific Immunological Binding and In Vitro Inhibition of Medically Important Bothrops Pit Viper Venoms.

Snakebite envenoming is a life threatening neglected tropical disease that represents a considerable public health concern in the tropics. Viperid snakes of the genus Bothrops are among those of greatest medical importance in Latin America, and they frequently cause severe systemic haemotoxicity and local tissue destructive effects in human victims. Although snakebite antivenoms can be effective therapeutics, their efficacy is undermined by venom toxin variation among snake species. In this study we investigated the extent of paraspecific venom cross-reactivity exhibited by three distinct anti-Bothrops antivenoms (Soro antibotrópico-crotálico, BothroFav and PoliVal-ICP) against seven different Bothrops pit viper venoms from across Latin America. We applied a range of in vitro assays to assess the immunological binding and recognition of venom toxins by the antivenoms and their inhibitory activities against specific venom functionalities. Our findings demonstrated that, despite some variations, the monovalent antivenom BothroFav and the polyvalent antivenoms Soro antibotrópico-crotálico and PoliVap-ICP exhibited extensive immunological recognition of the distinct toxins found in the different Bothrops venoms, with Soro antibotrópico-crotálico generally outperformed by the other two products. In vitro functional assays revealed outcomes largely consistent with the immunological binding data, with PoliVap-ICP and BothroFav exhibiting the greatest inhibitory potencies against procoagulant and fibrinogen-depleting venom activities, though Soro antibotrópico-crotálico exhibited potent inhibition of venom metalloproteinase activities. Overall, our findings demonstrate broad levels of antivenom paraspecificity, with in vitro immunological binding and functional inhibition often highly comparable between venoms used to manufacture the antivenoms and those from related species, even in the case of the monovalent antivenom BothroFav. Our findings suggest that the current clinical utility of these antivenoms could possibly be expanded to other parts of Latin America that currently suffer from a lack of specific snakebite therapies.

ZrN Phase Formation, Hardening and Nitrogen Diffusion Kinetics in Plasma Nitrided Zircaloy-4.

Plasma nitridation was conducted to modify the surfaces of Zircaloy-4. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and Raman analysis were used to characterize microstructures and phases. Surface indentation and cross-sectional indentation were performed to evaluate mechanical property changes. Nitridation forms a thin layer of ZrN phase, followed by a much deeper layer affected by nitrogen diffusion. The ZrN phase is confirmed by both TEM and Raman characterization. The Raman peaks of ZrN phase show a temperature dependence. The intensity increases with increasing nitridation temperatures, reaches a maximum at 700 °C, and then decreases at higher temperatures. The ZrN layer appears as continuous small columnar grains. The surface polycrystalline ZrN phase is harder than the bulk by a factor of ~8, and the nitrogen diffusion layer is harder by a factor of ~2-5. The activation energy of nitrogen diffusion was measured to be 2.88 eV. The thickness of the nitrogen-hardened layer is controllable by changing the nitridation temperature and duration.

[Nursing care on an external fixator]. / Les soins infirmiers sur un fixateur externe.

The external fixator is one of the treatments for fractures. It is classically used for serious fractures, polytraumatized patients or when there is a large influx of patients. The resulting paramedical care, which is often unknown, must be rigorous in order to avoid minor and frequent, or serious but less frequent, complications. The stock of what the caregiver must master in this regard: local care, information, monitoring.

Parental Adjustment following Pediatric Burn Injury: The Role of Guilt, Shame, and Self-Compassion.

Objective: The purpose of this study was to examine the association between factors: guilt, shame, self-compassion, and parents' psychological adjustment to their child's burn injury. Methods: Participants were 91 parents and primary caregivers (63 mothers, 25 fathers, 3 other) of 71 children recruited on the ward or at outpatient clinics during the first 8 weeks following their child's burn injury. In 20 cases, both parents participated, while for 51 children only one parent participated. Participants completed questionnaires which assessed adjustment (symptoms of depression, anxiety, and posttraumatic stress syndrome [PTSS]) as well as guilt, shame, and self-compassion. Results: Multilevel analysis indicated that feelings of guilt and shame were associated with poorer adjustment in parents, while parents who rated high in self-compassion reported fewer symptoms of depression and PTSS. Guilt and shame showed a differing pattern of effects with shame explaining more variance for anxiety and depression. Length of hospitalization predicted PTSS; however, the remaining injury factors (size of burn, requiring a skin graft) were unrelated to parental adjustment. Conclusions: Health-care professionals should pay close attention to families' subjective injury experiences. Screening for psychological distress should be offered to all families regardless of the size and severity of the burn injury.

Outcomes After Functional Electrical Stimulation Cycle Training in Individuals with Multiple Sclerosis Who Are Nonambulatory.

BACKGROUND: Exercise is safe and beneficial for people with multiple sclerosis (MS). Functional electrical stimulation (FES) cycling offers people with significant weakness and mobility challenges an option for exercise. We sought to evaluate the safety of FES cycling and its potential to improve fatigue, pain, spasticity, and quality of life in people with moderate-to-severe MS. METHODS: Sixteen participants with MS who were nonambulatory cycled for 30 minutes two to three times a week for 1 month. Outcomes assessed included MS Quality of Life Inventory (MSQLI) subscales, Modified Ashworth Scale (MAS), and manual muscle test (MMT). RESULTS: Fourteen participants (six women and eight men) with MS completed the training. All were able to maintain or increase their cycle time; half increased the resistance while cycling. Participants demonstrated a significant decrease in the Physical (P = .02) and Psychosocial (P < .01) subscales of the Modified Fatigue Impact Scale. There was no significant change in the other MSQLI subscale scores. There was no change in MAS and MMT scores. Type of MS and the use of antispasticity medications, disease-modifying therapies, or dalfampridine did not seem to influence response to training. There were no adverse events. CONCLUSIONS: Functional electrical stimulation cycling may be a viable and effective exercise option for people with moderate-to-severe MS. Further study is required to examine the parameters of FES cycling that are most effective for people with different MS symptoms and to fully explore the potential benefits of optimizing function and improving health in people with MS.

The functional architecture of mother-infant communication, and the development of infant social expressiveness in the first two months.

By two-three months, infants show active social expressions during face-to-face interactions. These interactions are important, as they provide the foundation for later emotional regulation and cognition, but little is known about how infant social expressiveness develops. We considered two different accounts. One emphasizes the contingency of parental responsiveness, regardless of its form; the other, the functional architecture account, emphasizes the preparedness of both infants and parents to respond in specific ways to particular forms of behaviour in their partner. We videotaped mother-infant interactions from one to nine weeks, and analysed them with a micro-analytic coding scheme. Infant social expressiveness increased through the nine-week period, particularly after 3 weeks. This development was unrelated to the extent of maternal contingent responsiveness, even to infant social expressions. By contrast, specific forms of response that mothers used preferentially for infant social expressions-mirroring, marking with a smile- predicted the increase in these infant behaviours over time. These results support a functional architecture account of the perceptual and behavioural predispositions of infants and parents that allow young infants to capitalize on relatively limited exposure to specific parental behaviours, in order to develop important social capacities.

The Prostate, Lung, Colorectal and Ovarian Cancer (PLCO) Screening Trial Pathology Tissue Resource.

BACKGROUND: Pathology tissue specimens with associated epidemiologic and clinical data are valuable for cancer research. The Prostate, Lung, Colorectal and Ovarian (PLCO) Cancer Screening Trial undertook a large-scale effort to create a public resource of pathology tissues from PLCO participants who developed a cancer during the trial. METHODS: Formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded tissue blocks were obtained from pathology laboratories on a loan basis for central processing of tissue microarrays, with additional free-standing tissue cores collected for nucleic acid extraction. RESULTS: Pathology tissue specimens were obtained for prostate cancer (n = 1,052), lung cancer (n = 434), colorectal cancer (n = 675) and adenoma (n = 658), ovarian cancer and borderline tumors (n = 212), breast cancer (n = 870), and bladder cancer (n = 204). The process of creating this resource was complex, involving multidisciplinary teams with expertise in pathology, epidemiology, information technology, project management, and specialized laboratories. CONCLUSIONS: Creating the PLCO tissue resource required a multistep process, including obtaining medical records and contacting pathology departments where pathology materials were stored after obtaining necessary patient consent and authorization. The potential to link tissue biomarkers to prospectively collected epidemiologic information, screening and clinical data, and matched blood or buccal samples offers valuable opportunities to study etiologic heterogeneity, mechanisms of carcinogenesis, and biomarkers for early detection and prognosis. IMPACT: The methods and protocols developed for this effort, and the detailed description of this resource provided here, will be useful for those seeking to use PLCO pathology tissue specimens for their research and may also inform future tissue collection efforts in other settings. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev; 25(12); 1635-42. ©2016 AACR.

Infants Prefer Female Body Phenotypes; Infant Girls Prefer They Have an Hourglass Shape.

Adolescents and adults show preferences for male and female body shapes consistent with evolutionary theories of reproductive fitness and mate selection. However, when these preferences for females with narrow waists (i.e., 0.7 waist-to-hip ratio) and men with broad shoulders (i.e., mesomorphic body shape) emerge during the lifespan is largely unknown. To address this knowledge gap, eye-movements were tracked in 146 infants (3-18 months of age) during computer presentation of three-dimensional human figures varying in body features thought relevant for reproductive success (e.g., secondary sex characteristics, waist-to-hip ratio). When presented with pairs of figures differing in apparent sex, male and female infants looked significantly longer at the female figure compared to the male figure, a new finding that extends previous research showing preferences for female faces in infancy. When presented with same-sex figures differing in characteristics associated with mate value, male and female infants looked longer at a low mate value male (i.e., an endomorphic body type) compared to a high mate value male (i.e., a mesomorphic body type), a finding that replicates the results of previous research. In addition, the novel use of high and low mate value female figures showed a sex difference in visual attention, such that female infants looked longer at the high mate value female figure compared to the low mate female figure whereas male infants showed the opposite pattern of results. In sum, these findings suggest that infants generally do not possess preferences for adult-defined attractive male body shapes. However, infant girls' greater attention to a female figure with an adult-preferred waist-to-hip ratio raises the possibility that evolved preferences for 0.7 waist-to-hip ratio influence girls' later preference for toys representing females with an hourglass shape, perhaps supporting elaboration of adult social behaviors that enhance reproductive success (e.g., cooperative breeding).

Pilot study: evaluation of the effect of functional electrical stimulation cycling on muscle metabolism in nonambulatory people with multiple sclerosis.

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the changes in muscle oxygen consumption (mV˙O2) using near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) after 4 weeks of training with functional electrical stimulation (FES) cycling in nonambulatory people with multiple sclerosis (MS). DESIGN: Four-week before-after trial to assess changes in mV˙O2 after an FES cycling intervention. SETTING: Rehabilitation hospital. PARTICIPANTS: People (N=8; 7 men, 1 women) from a volunteer/referred sample with moderate to severe MS (Expanded Disability Status Scale score>6.0). INTERVENTION: Participants cycled 30 minutes per session, 3d/wk for 4 weeks or a total of 12 sessions. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: mV˙O2 of the right vastus lateralis muscle was measured with NIRS before and within 1 week after the intervention. Six bouts of 15-second electrical stimulation increasing from 2 to 7Hz were used to activate the muscle. mV˙O2 was assessed by analyzing the slope of the NIRS oxygen signal during a 10-second arterial occlusion after each electrical stimulation bout. RESULTS: Significant FES training by electrical stimulation frequency level interaction was observed (P=.031), with an average increase in mV˙O2 of 47% across frequencies with a main effect of training (P=.047). CONCLUSIONS: FES cycling for 4 weeks improved mV˙O2, suggesting that FES cycling is a potential therapy for improving muscle health in people with MS who are nonambulatory.

Cortical activation to object shape and speed of motion during the first year.

A great deal is known about the functional organization of cortical networks that mediate visual object processing in the adult. The current research is part of a growing effort to identify the functional maturation of these pathways in the developing brain. The current research used near-infrared spectroscopy to investigate functional activation of the infant cortex during the processing of featural information (shape) and spatiotemporal information (speed of motion) during the first year of life. Our investigation focused on two areas that were implicated in previous studies: anterior temporal cortex and posterior parietal cortex. Neuroimaging data were collected with 207 infants across three age groups: 3-6 months (Experiment 1), 7-8 months (Experiment 2), and 10-12 months (Experiments 3 and 4). The neuroimaging data revealed age-related changes in patterns of activation to shape and speed information, mostly involving posterior parietal areas, some of which were predicted and others that were not. We suggest that these changes reflect age-related differences in the perceptual and/or cognitive processes engaged during the task.

The effect of color priming on infant brain and behavior.

Behavioral studies have identified select experiences that can prime infants to attend to color information as the basis for individuating objects prior to the time they do so spontaneously. For example, viewing pretest events in which the color of an object predicts the function in which it will engage leads 9-month-olds (who typically do not attend to color differences) to demonstrate increased sensitivity to color information in a subsequent individuation task (Wilcox and Chapa, 2004). In contrast, viewing pretest events in which the color of an object predicts distinct object motions, but the motions are not functionally relevant, does not produce color priming. The purpose of the present research was to identify the cortical underpinnings of these behavioral effects. Infants aged 8 and 9 months viewed function or motion pretest events and then their capacity to individuate-by-color was assessed in an object individuation task. Behavioral and neuroimaging data were collected. Two main findings emerged. First, as predicted, the infants who viewed the function but not the motion pretest events showed prolonged looking to the test event, a behavioral indicator of object individuation. In addition, they evidenced increased activation in anterior temporal cortex, thought to be a cortical signature of object individuation. A second and unexpected finding was that viewing either type of pretest events led to increased activation in the posterior temporal cortex, as compared to infants who did not see pretest events, revealing that prior exposure to the motion pretest events does influence infants' processing of the test event, even though it is not evident in the behavioral results. The cognitive processes involved, and the cortical structures that mediate these processes, are discussed.