Gene variants affect pain susceptibility in children

Dec. 24, 2012 ? At least two common gene variants are linked to "clinically meaningful" differences in pain scores in children after major surgery, reports a study in the January issue of Anesthesia & Analgesia, official journal of the International Anesthesia Research Society (IARS).

"[O]ur study is highly suggestive of a genetic component in pain response among children," concludes the study by Dr Chantal Mamie and colleagues of Geneva University Hospitals, Geneva, Switzerland. But an accompanying editorial question the relevance of this and previous studies of pain-related genes for management of pain in individual patients.

Gene Variants Influence Pain Scores after Surgery ?

The study was designed to explore whether several "candidate" gene variants affected pain scores in a group of 168 children undergoing major surgery -- either abdominal or bone and joint operations. The children and their parents were tested for variant forms ("polymorphisms") of six different genes previously reported as having a possible impact on pain.

The genetic results were compared with the children's pain scores, as routinely monitored during the 24-hour recovery period after surgery. During that time, the children had access to patient- (or parent- or nurse-controlled) analgesia with strong opioid (morphine-related) pain relievers.

Variants of two genes were related to "clinically meaningful" increases in pain scores -- at least four "peak" scores higher than six (on a ten-point scale) during the 24 hours after surgery. After adjustment for other factors, the risk of elevated pain scores was 4.5 times higher for children with a specific variant of the gene ABCB1, which affects the transport of opioid drugs to the central nervous system.

Risk of elevated pain scores was 3.5 times higher for children with a certain variant of the gene OPRM, a key target receptor for opioid binding. The associations with ABCB1 and OPRM variants remained significant after adjustment for patterns of gene inheritance from parents. Variants of two additional genes affecting pain perception -- NTRK and COMT -- were linked to more subtle, "subclinical" effects on pain scores.

? But Have No Effect on Use of Pain Medications

Surprisingly -- even though the gene variants affected pain scores -- they were unrelated to the total dosage of opioid medications used. The dosage of patient-controlled analgesia provides an important objective measure of pain and pain control after surgery.

"The present results are plausible given the known functionality of the candidate genes, and are consistent with the findings in adults," Dr Mamie and colleagues write. Although there has been a wealth of research on the genetic basis of pain in adults, the researchers add, "This first but small cohort study provides clues to further explore the genetic foundations of pediatric pain."

In an accompanying editorial, Drs Debra Schwinn and Ruth Landau of University of Washington, Seattle, put the findings in perspective. A decade ago, researchers thought that the discovery of genes affecting pain perception and opioid responses would soon play an important role in "individualizing" pain control after surgery. Subsequent studies have shown that the situation is more complex, and that the inheritance of pain susceptibility and opioid responsiveness is "probably less straightforward and predictable than previously foreseen."

Especially with the lack of effect on pain medication dosage, Drs Schwinn and Landau suggest that the presence of gene variants (genotype) may be less important than the way those genes are expressed in the individual (phenotype). Because of the complexity of the associations, they conclude, "[T]ailoring opioid analgesia based on selective genotyping is unlikely to occur anytime soon."

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by International Anesthesia Research Society (IARS), via Newswise.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

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Journal References:

1. Chantal Mamie, Michela C. Rebsamen, Michael A. Morris, Alfredo Morabia. First Evidence of a Polygenic Susceptibility to Pain in a Pediatric Cohort. Anesthesia & Analgesia, 2013; 116 (1): 170 DOI: 10.1213/ANE.0b013e31826f0637
2. Ruth Landau, Debra Schwinn. Genotyping Without Phenotyping. Anesthesia & Analgesia, 2013; 116 (1): 8 DOI: 10.1213/ANE.0b013e318275355a

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/~3/Ice5yYobJfs/121224113344.htm

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Home Based Business University - Internet Radio

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Source: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/homebasedbusinessuniversity/2012/12/25/home-based-business-university

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Aerobic Cardio Fitness: Proper Aerobic Training Will Require during ...

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Will Obama include his Hollywood supporters in the discussion about repairing a culture that ?glorifies guns and violence?? (Michellemalkin)

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Genetic Gamble : Drugs Aim to Make Several Types of Cancer Self-Destruct

[unable to retrieve full-text content]Three pharmaceutical firms are trying to restore a mechanism that normally tells cells to die if their DNA is badly damaged, an approach that might work against half of all cancers.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/23/health/new-drugs-aim-to-make-cells-destroy-cancer.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

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Western Digital MyNet AC1300

Western Digital's MyNet AC1300 is the company's first pre-draft 802.11ac router. Western Digital?only recently got into the wireless router market with its debut router, the MyNet N900 this past summer. While the MyNet N900 is a surprisingly good first effort, the AC1300, when tested in 11ac mode, gave some of the lowest throughput we've seen among the current crop of 11ac routers; lost its Internet connection a couple times; and did not provide the QoS streaming improvements we saw with the N900. On the plus side, the AC1300 provides excellent throughput at 5GHz in 802.11n and offers the same uncomplicated setup and attractive interface of the N900. Still, on the merits of 11ac alone, there are better pre-draft 11ac routers. Western Digital's own MyNet N900 is a more impressive router in general.

Specs
The MyNet AC1300 is similar in design to the MyNet N900 except that it's smaller and has an all-black casing opposed to the black and silver housing of the N900. Another difference between the two: Western Digital surprised the consumer networking world by going off the beaten track and adding seven Gigabit LAN ports to the rear panel of the N900 instead of the standard four. The AC1300 has just the four Gigabit ports. I was a bit disappointed that Western Digital did not also offer the extra three LAN ports that made their first router stand out from the pack.

On the front of the router are fours LEDs representing power, wireless status, WAN, and USB device connectivity. A WPS button for connecting clients at a touch is also on the front. WPS works very well with Western Digital's router as I found when connecting the AC1300 to its companion MyNet Wi-Fi bridge.

The rear of the device has four Gigabit LAN ports, WAN port, two USB ports, a reset button, and a power button.

The AC1300 is a dual-band router supporting up to 450 Mbps on the 2.4GHz band and 1300Mbps on 5GHz.

Setup
Western Digital has one of the easiest router setups on the market, rivaled by the setup process of Cisco Linksys' Smart Wi-Fi routers. While the router ships with a setup and resource CD, a hard copy guide is included in the packaging. The guide details through illustrations how to set the router up in five steps.

The first couple of steps show how to plug in the power adapter and connect cables. As soon as the router is powered on, two default SSIDs are already created for connecting clients. Once I connected a Windows client to the 2.4GHz WLAN, I received a message in Windows, "Do you want to set up your network? This is a new router that has not been set up. Click OK to start set up."

After I clicked "OK," I was prompted to enter the router's eight-digit PIN. This PIN is printed on a sticker affixed to the underside of the router. A wizard then walked me through giving my wireless network a name and setting up security.
This completes the router's initial set up; from there, you can access the router's interface for further configuration.

Features and Settings
The AC1300's interface is the same My Dashboard interface that I liked in the MyNet N900. As in the N900, the AC1300's web-based GUI displays a nice round-up of initial "to-do" tasks via a notification message drop down list in the home screen. The notifications provide a good reminder for customers to perform important specific configurations such as changing the router's default admin password.

The home page dashboard provides an overview of the AC1300's settings such as SSIDs, Internet connection status, number of devices connected, and more general information about the router and network.

Through the dashboard, you can also see any USB devices connected and if parental controls are enabled. There's an advanced settings tab which will allow configuration of more granular features including WAN, IPv6, and Dynamic DNS settings.

The features have not changed since the launch of the N900. You can read that review for a more in-depth overview of specific features such as parental controls. As with the N900, there aren't a lot of advanced capabilities to make this a router a choice for many small businesses. There's no VPN server and IPv6 support is light. However, there are robust settings for home networks. For instance, you can create up to 32 firewall rules, enable MAC filtering, and Application Level Gateway (ALG) which allows traffic such as PPTP, IPSec, and SIP for VoIP to pass through the network.

You have some very light NAS capabilities through the software. I was pleased to see when I added a flash drive, the AC1300's interface picked right up on the drive's make, model, and capacity.

Multimedia
Western Digital's big push behind its MyNet line of router is that they are optimized for multimedia.? FasTrack QoS is Western Digital's proprietary Quality-of-Service feature that's baked-into the AC1300 (and the N900, as well).

For streaming Internet content to a home network, the speed of streaming largely depends on how fast your Internet connection is. Yet, with the FasTrack QoS enabed on the N900 router, time to buffer and play a movie from Netflix decreased about ten seconds. I did not see the same results with the AC1300. I did see slightly better streaming on the internal network with FasTrack enabled on the AC1300, decreasing the time to buffer and stream a movie from one client machine to another about 3 seconds.
In fairness, other router manufacturers also offer some sort of multimedia streaming enhancement. I tested Netgear's solution on its R6300 router and time to stream and buffer a Netflix movie was reduced about six seconds. For streaming within the network from device-to-device, the R6300's QoS shaved also about three minutes off time to buffer. With Belkin's AC 1200 DB Wi-Fi Dual-Band AC+ Gigabit Router, that buffering time was shaved about a second and-a-half.

So I don't see huge difference with streaming with proprietary QoS technology enabled or disabled among different routers. However, QoS is more helpful when streaming within a network between devices, and is also dependent on capabilities of a client's wireless adapter. I did receive better streaming in testing with Western Digital's N900 than with the AC1300, using the same file and equipment, which is a bit puzzling.

Further Issues
I have to note a couple of times during a course of two-day testing; two clients I had connected to the AC1300 lost Internet connectivity. When I went into the router's interface, I saw a notification message stating that Internet was not set up. I quick on and off of the router resolved the issue (and reconnected the clients) but the software seems a bit buggy. I also noticed at times, some slow responsiveness switching through differed settings pages within the interface.

Performance
With an 11ac router, the main criterion in gauging performance is throughput at the 802.11ac mode. Of course, with the exception of D-Link's Wireless AC1200 Dual Band USB Adapter (DWA-182) , there are no compatible 11ac wireless adapters for clients on the market.

Instead, I tested 11ac throughput using Western Digital's 11ac MyNet Wi-Fi Bridge, Intel's 3x3 6300 AGN wireless adapter, and D-Link's DWA-182 USB adapter.
Unfortunately, as compared with other pre-draft 11ac routers, the AC1300 gave some of the lowest throughput in 11ac mode. At 15 feet, its wireless throughput averaged 75 Mbps. This is quite below other 11ac routers such as the Asus RT-AC66U, which averaged 129 Mbps at the same distance; Cisco Linksys' Smart Wi-Fi Router AC 1750HD Video Pro EA6500 ?which tested at 133 Mbps; and Buffalo's?AirStation AC1300/N900 Gigabit Dual-Band Wireless router which managed 187 Mbps at the same distance.?

In 802.11n mode at the 5GHz band, the AC1300 fared better. It cranked out speed only second to the Cisco Linksys EA6500. At the 2.4 GHz band, in Mixed mode, the AC1300 did not again, perform as well as the Asus or Buffalo router. Western Digital's device also had worse range, decreasing 30 percent in throughput testing from 5 feet and then from 30 feet away from the router.
While performance in 5 GHz 802.11n mode was excellent; overall, the AC1300's throughput and range was underwhelming.? Below are charts comparing it to other pre-draft 11ac routers:

Second Router Not as Impressive as Debut
The AC1300 is the second router I've tested from Western Digital and, frankly, it's not as impressive as Western Digital's debut MyNet N900. The performance at 11ac mode, even using Western Digital's 11ac bridge was below that of several competing 11ac router. The range drop at 2.4 GHz mode is also troubling. While the same good interface from the N900 is carried over into the AC1300, it's unfortunate that Western Digital did not retain the seven LAN ports. Finally, I saw no improvement with multimedia streaming.

The AC1300 is a 3.5 out of 5 star earner for consumer routers; the current Editors' Choice being the Cisco Linksys EA6500 has better throughput, just as easy a setup and better range in 2.4 GHz Mixed mode?a common mode most home users are likely to use.

More?Router Reviews:
??? Western Digital MyNet AC1300
??? Asus RT-AC66U Dual Band 3x3 802.11AC Gigabit Router
??? Cisco Linksys Smart Wi-Fi AC 1750HD Video Pro EA6500
??? Homecloud
??? Belkin AC 1200 DB Wi-Fi Dual-Band AC+ Gigabit Router
?? more

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/Ycsd6iYkjxM/0,2817,2413501,00.asp

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First groups get invitations to inaugural parade

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Spouses of those serving in the armed forces, military and civilian colleges, gay musicians, service dogs trainers and a drill team from President Barack Obama?s hometown are among the diverse groups that were invited Tuesday to participate in next month?s inaugural parade down Pennsylvania Avenue.

The Presidential Inaugural Committee has started sending out invitations to groups nationwide to march behind Obama from his swearing in at the Capitol to the White House on Jan. 21.

The first wave selected includes the marching band from Miami University of Ohio, the alma matter of GOP vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan where first lady Michelle Obama spoke during the final weekend of the campaign. Also selected was the Virginia Military Institute, a traditional performer in inaugural parades.

Others include Military Spouses of Michigan, the Lesbian and Gay Band Association of St. Louis, Chicago?s South Shore Drill Team and marching bands from Little Rock Central High School and Washington?s Ballou Senior High School.

?The talented groups chosen to participate in the inaugural parade reflect the spirit, values, and diversity of our great nation,? Obama said in a statement.

The application process was run by the military, beginning in October before the election and continuing through the end of last month. The Joint Task Force ? National Capital Region is charged with supporting inaugural ceremonies and reviewed about 3,000 online applications to make sure they met minimum requirements before presenting about 300 applicants to the Presidential Inaugural Committee for final selection.

The process included members of military bands reviewing video and audio files of performances to judge the skill of marching bands, musical acts and drill teams. Other applicants included floats, silent marching groups, dancers and other performers.

?As you can imagine, everybody wants to participate,? Maj. Gen. Michael Linnington told reporters at a briefing Wednesday.

More than 20 groups were invited Tuesday, with the committee still reviewing applications and planning to continue to invite others on a rolling basis to represent all 50 states.

Among those chosen in the first wave was Canine Companions for Independence, a Virginia-based nonprofit that provides free assistance dogs to people with disabilities. ?We couldn?t be more excited,? said Susan Lee Vick, the group?s national director of development. She said their marching team may include puppies in training and graduate teams of veterans and their animals, because supporting wounded warriors is a major focus. ?We feel that marching in the parade gives us a chance to really express our commitment and that value.?

Committee officials say they don?t have a specific target size for the parade, but about 130 groups with close to 15,000 participants were selected in 2009. This time organizers say the parade is expected to be smaller, keeping with plans to downsize the overall size of the event from his historic first inauguration, when a record 1.8 million people packed the National Mall.

Inaugural parades are a time-honored tradition following the president?s swearing in, beginning with the local militias that accompanied George Washington from his Virginia home to New York, where his inauguration was held in 1789. Thomas Jefferson charted the modern day route in 1805 when he rode a horse to the White House after being sworn in for his second term, followed by a spontaneous procession of local workers and a Marine Band. President Dwight Eisenhower had the longest parade in 1953, lasting about five hours, compared with about two hours for more recent events. President Jimmy Carter walked along Pennsylvania Avenue during his parade, which has since become traditional practice for the presidents as they begin their new terms.

The parade shuts down one of Washington?s main thoroughfares, and involves the temporary removal of all street lights along the Pennsylvania Ave. route.

Costs of the parade are covered by the Presidential Inaugural Committee?s fundraising. Participants must pay their own travel costs to attend, but the committee said it is trying to help them find affordable accommodations at a time when many Washington hotels are booked or charge inflated rates.

Obama begins his second term at noon on Sunday, Jan. 20, and is planning a private swearing in at the White House with limited press coverage. His public inauguration will be on the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, Monday, Jan. 21, since the ceremony is not traditionally held on Sundays.

Obama is kicking off the inaugural weekend by asking Americans to participate in a National Day of Service on Saturday, Jan. 19. He plans to end the festivities with a special prayer service at the Washington National Cathedral on Tuesday, Jan. 22.

?The beginning of President Obama?s second term will be marked by the acknowledgement and celebration of the role of people of faith in American life,? Presidential Inaugural Committee spokeswoman Addie Whisenant said in a statement Tuesday announcing the prayer service. ?President Obama?s own faith has played an integral role in his life, his commitment to service and his presidency, and this important tradition will celebrate the values and diversity that make us strong.?

The Presidential Inaugural Committee has yet to announce details of some other inaugural events, including the number of official balls the president plans to attend. Organizers have said there will be fewer parties than the 10 Obama had four years ago and that they will all be held at the Washington Convention Center.

___

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.

Source: http://thegrio.com/2012/12/20/first-groups-get-invitations-to-inaugural-parade/

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