Frosted branch angiitis in a patient with systemic juvenile idiopathic arthritis: a case report.

BACKGROUND: Frosted branch angiitis is a retinal vascular condition that is associated with a viral infection or autoimmune disorders like Crohn's disease, systemic lupus erythematosus, and Behcet's disease. Frosted branch angiitis presents with vascular inflammation, retinal edema, and severe retinal vascular sheathing. We present a case of systemic juvenile idiopathic arthritis, an autoinflammatory disease, presenting with frosted branch angiitis. REPORT OF CASE: A 14-year-old female with systemic juvenile idiopathic arthritis and a history of bilateral anterior uveitis developed acute unilateral vision loss and was found to have frosted branch angiitis complicated by branch retinal vein occlusion. She underwent an extensive serology workup and aqueous viral PCR to rule out other possible autoimmune and viral etiologies for forested branch angiitis. She received systemic and intravitreal antiviral treatment due to positive CMV IgM initially. However, the clinical picture improved following the use of a higher dose of oral steroids and the switch of the immunosuppressive agent to a TNF-a inhibitor. CONCLUSION: To our knowledge, this would be the first case in the literature demonstrating a systemic juvenile idiopathic arthritis patient presenting with frosted branch angiitis. Infectious causes still must be ruled out, especially CMV, as it is the most common cause of secondary frosted branch angiitis.

Trust in the police and affective evaluation of police faces: a preliminary study.

Introduction: A study was conducted to investigate if an individual's trust in law enforcement affects their perception of the emotional facial expressions displayed by police officers. Methods: The study invited 77 participants to rate the valence of 360 face images. Images featured individuals without headgear (condition 1), or with a baseball cap (condition 2) or police hat (condition 3) digitally added to the original photograph. The images were balanced across sex, race/ethnicity (Asian, African American, Latine, and Caucasian), and facial expression (Happy, Neutral, and Angry). After rating the facial expressions, respondents completed a survey about their attitudes toward the police. Results: The results showed that, on average, valence ratings for "Angry" faces were similar across all experimental conditions. However, a closer examination revealed that faces with police hats were perceived as angrier compared to the control conditions (those with no hat and those with a baseball cap) by individuals who held negative views of the police. Conversely, participants with positive attitudes toward the police perceived faces with police hats as less angry compared to the control condition. This correlation was highly significant for angry faces (p < 0.01), and stronger in response to male faces compared to female faces but was not significant for neutral or happy faces. Discussion: The study emphasizes the substantial role of attitudes in shaping social perception, particularly within the context of law enforcement.

Would a National Antibody Register contribute to improving patient outcomes?

Despite stringent testing protocols, there always remains a chance of a delayed haemolytic transfusion reaction (DHTR) occurring as a result of an undetected or unknown antibody. In this systemic review and meta-analysis, we aimed to investigate improvements to patient outcomes that could be achieved through the implementation of a national antibody registry. A series of searches through PubMed and SCOPUS identified a collection of articles with relevant information, restricted to full text, English language articles available through the RMIT Library service. 25 articles were considered for the review, four of these found to have relevant, extractable data for use in the meta-analysis. Alloantibody evanescence rates were analysed for the potential for reducing DHTRs associated with transfusion services, returning significant results indicating antibody evanescence rates of up to 68.4% in one study, with p-values less than 0.001. Due to the small number of included studies however, the interference values were quite high for these analyses at greater than 90% for each. Additional, beneficial side-effects of such a system were also considered, along with reductions in DHTRs. In conclusion it was determined that a National antibody registry would contribute to improving patient outcomes, however further studies could be performed to determine a stronger correlation, and exact levels of improvement that could be achieved.

Would a National Antibody Register contribute to improving patient outcomes?

Despite stringent testing protocols, there always remains a chance of a delayed haemolytic transfusion reaction (DHTR) occurring as a result of an undetected or unknown antibody. In this systemic review and meta-analysis, we aimed to investigate improvements to patient outcomes that could be achieved through the implementation of a national antibody registry. A series of searches through PubMed and SCOPUS identified a collection of articles with relevant information, restricted to full text, English language articles available through the RMIT Library service. 25 articles were considered for the review, four of these found to have relevant, extractable data for use in the meta-analysis. Alloantibody evanescence rates were analysed for the potential for reducing DHTRs associated with transfusion services, returning significant results indicating antibody evanescence rates of up to 68.4% in one study, with p-values less than 0.001. Due to the small number of included studies however, the interference values were quite high for these analyses at greater than 90% for each. Additional, beneficial side-effects of such a system were also considered, along with reductions in DHTRs. In conclusion it was determined that a National antibody registry would contribute to improving patient outcomes, however further studies could be performed to determine a stronger correlation, and exact levels of improvement that could be achieved.

A π-conjugated inorganic polymer constructed from boron difluoride formazanates and platinum(ii) diynes.

The first example of a π-conjugated polymer incorporating boron difluoride (BF2) formazanates is introduced. The film-forming properties, controllable reduction chemistry, and low optical band gap (ca. 1.4 eV) of the polymer make it an excellent candidate for use as a light-harvesting n-type semiconductor in organic electronics. Comparison of the polymer to model compounds confirmed that its unique optoelectronic properties can be directly attributed to the presence of the BF2 formazanate repeat unit and that the [Pt(PBu3)2]2+ unit must also be present to achieve the narrow band gaps observed.

pH-dependent regulation of the α-subunit of H+-K+-ATPase (HKα2).

The H(+)-K(+)-ATPase α-subunit (HKα(2)) participates importantly in systemic acid-base homeostasis and defends against metabolic acidosis. We have previously shown that HKα(2) plasma membrane expression is regulated by PKA (Codina J, Liu J, Bleyer AJ, Penn RB, DuBose TD Jr. J Am Soc Nephrol 17: 1833-1840, 2006) and in a separate study demonstrated that genetic ablation of the proton-sensing G(s)-coupled receptor GPR4 results in spontaneous metabolic acidosis (Sun X, Yang LV, Tiegs BC, Arend LJ, McGraw DW, Penn RB, Petrovic S. J Am Soc Nephrol 21: 1745-1755, 2010). In the present study, we investigated the ability of chronic acidosis and GPR4 to regulate HKα(2) expression in HEK-293 cells. Chronic acidosis was modeled in vitro by using multiple methods: reducing media pH by adjusting bicarbonate concentration, adding HCl, or by increasing the ambient concentration of CO(2). PKA activity and HKα(2) protein were monitored by immunoblot analysis, and HKα(2) mRNA, by real-time PCR. Chronic acidosis did not alter the expression of HKα(2) mRNA; however, PKA activity and HKα(2) protein abundance increased when media pH decreased from 7.4 to 6.8. Furthermore, this increase was independent of the method used to create chronic acidosis. Heterologous expression of GPR4 was sufficient to increase both basal and acid-stimulated PKA activity and similarly increase basal and acid-stimulated HKα(2) expression. Collectively, these results suggest that chronic acidosis and GPR4 increase HKα(2) protein by increasing PKA activity without altering HKα(2) mRNA abundance, implicating a regulatory role of pH-activated GPR4 in homeostatic regulation of HKα(2) and acid-base balance.