A las mujeres con ataques cardiacos les va mejor con médicas / Women with heart attacks do better with medical

Los investigadores examinaron las disparidades entre los géneros de los pacientes en las tasas de supervivencia después de los infartos agudos de miocardio (ataques cardíacos) según el sexo del médico tratante. Utilizando un censo de pacientes con un ataque cardíaco ingresados en hospitales de la Florida entre 1991 y 2010, encontraron una mayor mortalidad en pacientes mujeres que son tratadas por médicos hombres y, en general, tienen menos probabilidades de sobrevivir que los hombres.

Researchers examined the disparities between the genders of patients in the survival rates after acute myocardial infarctions (heart attacks) according to the sex of the attending physician. Using a census of patients with a heart attack admitted to Florida hospitals between 1991 and 2010, they found higher mortality in female patients who are treated by male doctors and, in general, are less likely to survive than men.

Prebiotics in obesity.

Obesity was probably rare in ancient times, with the current increase starting in the Industrial Revolution of the eighteenth century, and becoming much more widespread from about 1950, so concurrent with the increased consumption of carbohydrates from cereals in the Green Revolution. However, dietary components such as oligosaccharides from plants including cereals may improve health following fermentation to short-chain carboxylic acids in the intestine by bacteria which constitute of the microbiome. Such non-digestible and fermentable components of diet, called prebiotics, have been part of the human diet since at least Palaeolithic times, and include components of the cereals domesticated in the Neolithic Revolution. If consumption of these cereals has now increased, why is obesity increasing? One reason could be lowered prebiotic intake combined with increased intake of simple sugars, thus changing the bacteria in the microbiome. Processing of food has played an important role in this change of diet composition. Since obesity is a low-grade inflammation, changing the microbiome by increased consumption of simple carbohydrates and saturated fats may lead to obesity via increased systemic inflammation. Conversely, there is now reasonable evidence that increased dietary prebiotic intake decreases inflammation, improves glucose metabolism and decreases obesity. Would widespread increases in prebiotics in the modern diet, so mimicking Palaeolithic or Neolithic nutrition, decrease the incidence and morbidity of obesity in our communities?

DNA sequence recognition by hybridization to short oligomers: experimental verification of the method on the E. coli genome.

A newly developed method for sequence recognition by hybridization to short oligomers is verified for the first time in genome-scale experiments. The experiments involved hybridization of 15,328 randomly selected 2-kb genomic clones of Escherichia coli with 997 short oligomer probes to detect complementary oligomers within the clones. Lists of oligomers detected within individual clones were compiled into a database. The database was then searched using known E. coli sequences as queries. The goal was to recognize the clones that are identical or similar to the query sequences. A total of 76 putative recognitions were tested in two separate but complementary recognition experiments. The results indicate high specificity of recognition. Current and prospective applications of this novel method are discussed.

Genome-scale DNA sequence recognition by hybridization to short oligomers.

Recently developed hybridization technology (Drmanac et al. 1994) enables economical large-scale detection of short oligomers within DNA fragments. The newly developed recognition method (Milosavljevic 1995b) enables comparison of lists of oligomers detected within DNA fragments against known DNA sequences. We here describe an experiment involving a set of 4,513 distinct genomic E.coli clones of average length 2kb, each hybridized with 636 randomly selected short oligomer probes. High hybridization signal with a particular probe was used as an indication of the presence of a complementary oligomer in the particular clone. For each clone, a list of oligomers with highest hybridization signals was compiled. The database consisting of 4,513 oligomer lists was then searched using known E.coli sequences as queries in an attempt to identify the clones that match the query sequence. Out of a total of 11 clones that were recognized at highest significance level by our method, 8 were single-pass sequenced from both ends. The single-pass sequenced ends were then compared against the query sequences. The sequence comparisons confirmed 7 out of the total of 8 examined recognitions. This experiment represents the first successful example of genome-scale sequence recognition based on hybridization data.

Family involvement in multidisciplinary team evaluation: professional and parent perspectives.

For many children and families, a multidisciplinary team evaluation is their introduction to special education systems. Increasingly, federal guidelines mandating parent involvement in all aspects of service provision have meant that parents are being asked to participate as part of the evaluation team. If families and professionals are to serve as partners in the evaluation process, mutual respect and understanding of one another's perspectives will be crucial. This paper uses survey data from 39 parents and 81 professionals to examine the various expectations and perceptions brought by participants to the assessment process. Results indicated that there is substantial variability of perceptions among parents and professionals about the nature of child assessment and their respective roles in it. Implications for research and practice are discussed, along with techniques for involving families in the assessment process in more meaningful ways.

Characterization of an evolutionarily old human alphoid DNA.

A recently isolated human alphoid DNA (in plasmid pHH550) has been sequenced and found to have an exceptionally high degree of similarity to the human alphoid consensus sequence, while its component monomers are unusually heterogeneous in sequence. In contrast to other alphoid DNAs, this DNA is found in all primates tested. Thus this may be an evolutionarily old sequence similar to the one from which other human alphoid DNAs diverged. The pHH550 sequences are found on a number of human chromosomes, including 21 and 22. On chromosome 21 most members of this new sequence group are located distal to other alphoid DNAs.

Predictors of Haitian-American infant development at twelve months.

Perinatal and early childhood influences on the development of 66 Haitian-American children were examined as part of an ongoing home visiting program. Although all participants were impoverished, approximately two-thirds lived in an urban setting with some access to social and health services, while one-third lived in a rural farmworkers' community where housing and services were sharply substandard. Measures used to examine the development of infants in these 2 settings included birthweight, household crowding, parental contributions to the child-rearing environment (the HOME), and developmental progress at 12 months on the Bayley Scales of Infant Development. Results showed that the urban sample was advanced on the Mental Development Index of the Bayley Scales. Regression analyses showed birthweight and the HOME score measuring child-rearing environment to be significant predictors of mental development, while psychomotor development was related to birthweight and household crowding. The results indicate that even within this disadvantaged Haitian entrant population, environmental differences exist that influence infant development in subtle but significant ways.

A new human alphoid-like repetitive DNA sequence.

A new tandemly repetitive sequence family, having the 170 bp basic repeat characteristic of alphoid sequences, has been identified in the human genome. Its organization in the whole genome and on chromosome 21 is different from that of any of the previously described alphoid families. Members of this new family are unusually heterogeneous in sequence, and there are a number of variant sequence classes. Some of the variant classes exist in separate genomic domains, and even on a single chromosome the members of such a class are not significantly intermixed with members of another class.