No baseline volumetric abnormalities were detected in the gray matter volumes (GMV), white matter volumes, cerebrospinal fluid and caudate nucleus. Longitudinally, there were progressive GMV decreases and LV enlargements in patients but not in controls. The GMV decreases were inversely correlated with cumulative exposure to antipsychotic treatments, while no effects were observed for duration of illness or illness severity.
Conclusions: Schizophrenia
CP-868596 in vitro is characterized by progressive gray matter volume decreases and lateral ventricular volume increases. Some of these neuroanatomical alterations may be associated with antipsychotic treatment. (C) 2013 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.”
“Introduction: This study evaluated the readability, accessibility, usability, and reliability of vascular surgery information on the Internet in the English language.
Methods: The Google, Yahoo, and MSN/Bing search engines were searched for “”carotid endarterectomy,”" “”EVAR or endovascular aneurysm repair,”" and “”varicose veins or varicose veins surgery.”" The first 50 Web sites from each search engine for each topic were analyzed. GSI-IX concentration The Flesch Reading Ease Score and Gunning Fog Index were calculated to assess readability. The LIDA tool (Minervation Ltd, Oxford, UK) was used to assess accessibility, usability, and reliability.
Results: The Web sites were difficult to
read and comprehend. The mean Flesch Reading Ease scores were 53.53 for carotid endarterectomy, 50.53 for endovascular aneurysm repair, and 58.59 for varicose veins. The mean Gunning Fog Index scores were 12.3 for carotid endarterectomy, 12.12 for endovascular aneurysm repair, and 10.69 for varicose veins. The
LIDA values for accessibility were good, but the results for usability and reliability were poor.
Conclusions: Internet information on vascular surgical conditions and procedures is poorly written and unreliable. We suggest that health professionals should recommend Web sites that are easy to read and contain high-quality surgical information. Medical information on the Internet must be readable, accessible, usable, and reliable. (J Vasc Surg 2012;56:1461-7.)”
“Site-saturation libraries of the Pseudomonas fluorescens esterase were created targeting three surface BCKDHA positions to increase its thermostability on the basis of the B-factor iterative test principle. All three positions were saturated simultaneously using our recently developed protocol for the design of ‘small, but smart’ mutant libraries bearing only consensus-like mutations. Hence, the library size could be significantly reduced while ensuring a high hit rate. Variants could be identified that showed significantly improved stability (8 degrees C higher compared with the wild type) without compromising specific activity. Subsequent iterative saturation mutagenesis gave an esterase mutant with a 9 degrees C increased melting point, but unchanged catalytic properties.