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Munksgaard Pena posted an update 8 hours, 29 minutes ago
We stress the need for organizations and authorities to work together to better understand the issue. The keeping of macaques as pets is the cause of serious welfare and conservation issues in Vietnam.Understanding the preferred place of death may assist to organize and deliver palliative health care services. The study aims to assess preference for place of death among cancer patients in receipt of home-based palliative care, and to determine the variables that affect their preference for a home death. A prospective cohort design was carried out from July 2010 to August 2012. Over the course of their palliative care trajectory, a total of 303 family caregivers of cancer patients were interviewed. Multivariate regression analysis was employed to assess the determinants of a preferred home death. The majority (65%) of patients had a preference of home death. The intensity of home-based physician visits and home-based personal support worker (PSW) care promotes a preference for a home death. Married patients, patients receiving post-graduate education and patients with higher Palliative Performance Scale (PPS) scores were more likely to have a preference of home death. Patients reduced the likelihood of preferring a home death when their family caregiver had high burden. This study suggests that the majority of cancer patients have a preference of home death. Health mangers and policy makers have the potential to develop policies that facilitate those preferences.Syndromic hereditary hearing impairment (HHI) is a clinically and etiologically diverse condition that has a profound influence on affected individuals and their families. As cutaneous findings are more apparent than hearing-related symptoms to clinicians and, more importantly, to caregivers of affected infants and young individuals, establishing a correlation map of skin manifestations and their underlying genetic causes is key to early identification and diagnosis of syndromic HHI. In this article, we performed a comprehensive PubMed database search on syndromic HHI with cutaneous abnormalities, and reviewed a total of 260 relevant publications. Our in-depth analyses revealed that the cutaneous manifestations associated with HHI could be classified into three categories pigment, hyperkeratosis/nail, and connective tissue disorders, with each category involving distinct molecular pathogenesis mechanisms. This outline could help clinicians and researchers build a clear atlas regarding the phenotypic features and pathogenetic mechanisms of syndromic HHI with cutaneous abnormalities, and facilitate clinical and molecular diagnoses of these conditions.Streptococcal toxic shock-like syndrome (STSLS) likely occurs when an individual is infected with the Streptococcus suis (S. suis) epidemic strain and is characterized by a cytokine storm, multiple organ dysfunction syndrome (MODS) and a high incidence of mortality despite adequate treatment. A number of antibiotics exhibit excellent bactericidal effects in vivo, such as fluoroquinolones, aminoglycosides (gentamicin) and β-lactams (penicillin G, ceftiofur, or amoxicillin), but are less effective for treating STSLS. Brusatol mw Therefore, there is an urgent need to identify new compounds that can reduce the damage caused by STSLS. In the present study, we identified auranofin, an orally bioavailable FDA-approved anti-rheumatic drug as a candidate repurposed drug to treat severe S. suis infections. Our results showed that auranofin can bind to the functional domain of bacterial thioredoxin reductase, decreasing the reducing redox-responsive capacity of target bacteria and allowing for the killing of S. suis cells. We also observed that auranofin has antibacterial activity against other gram-positive bacteria, such as multidrug resistant Streptococcus pneumoniae (MDRSP), Streptococcus agalactiae, and vancomycin-resistant strains of Staphylococcus aureus. Additionally, auranofin is capable of eradicating intracellular S.suis present inside infected macrophage cells. Mouse model experimental results showed that auranofin could effectively reduce the mortality of mice infected with S. suis. Compared to the ampicillin treatment group, the survival rate of mice in the auranofin treatment group in severely infected model mice was significantly improved. These results suggest that auranofin has the potential for use as an effective antibiotic against S. suis.Dentists should present to patients as good role models in their oral health behaviour. Previous studies have demonstrated how education can improve dental students’ oral health. This pilot investigation aimed to compare and evaluate the features of the oral health behaviour and attitudes of preclinical and clinical dental students at Ain Shams University, a public Egyptian university. The Hiroshima University-Dental Behaviour Inventory (HU-DBI) survey was provided to 149 (78 female/71 male) dental students. Dichotomised (agree/disagree) answers to 20 HU-DBI items were possible, with a maximum conceivable score of 19. An estimation of oral health behaviour and attitudes was calculated by the sum of correct oral health answers to every item by the study groups and evaluated statistically. The score of oral health-favouring answers was higher in clinical (11.50) than preclinical students (10.63) and was statistically significant (p less then 0.05). Single-item evaluations showed no statistical significance, except in one survey item. This survey exhibited weak differences in the improvement of oral hygiene behaviour and attitudes between participating preclinical and clinical students, as well as overall poor oral health behaviour in both groups. This inadequacy of Egyptian public dental education in terms of sufficient student oral health progress emphasises the necessity for supplementary courses and curricular reviews that accentuate the need for future dentists to display the correct oral health behaviour.Ionic electroactive polymer actuators are typically implemented as bending trilayer laminates. While showing high displacements, such designs are not straightforward to implement for useful applications. To enable practical uses in actuators with ionic electroactive polymers, membrane-type film designs can be considered. The significantly lower displacement of the membrane actuators due to the lack of freedom of motion has been the main limiting factor for their application, resulting in just a few works considering such devices. However, bioinspired patterning designs have been shown to significantly increase the freedom of motion of such membranes. In this work, we apply computer simulations to design cutting patterns for increasing the performance of membrane actuators based on polypyrrole doped with dodecylbenzenesulfonate (PPy/DBS) in trilayer arrangements with a polyvinylidene fluoride membrane as the separator. A dedicated custom-designed device was built to consistently measure the response of the membrane actuators, demonstrating significant and pattern-specific enhancements of the response in terms of displacement, exchanged charge and force.