Memorial University of Newfoundland

About: Memorial University of Newfoundland is a education organization based out in St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Gadus. The organization has 13818 authors who have published 27785 publications receiving 743594 citations. The organization is also known as: Memorial University & Memorial University of Newfoundland and Labrador.

Impact of renal transplantation on uremic cardiomyopathy

Abstract: In chronic uremia, cardiomyopathy manifests itself as systolic dysfunction, concentric left ventricular (LV) hypertrophy, or LV dilatation. To determine the impact of renal transplantation on uremic cardiomyopathy, all dialysis patients participating in a long-term cohort study who received a successful renal transplant were followed with echocardiography. The transplanted group comprised 102 of 433 (24%) endstage renal disease (ESRD) patients. They were significantly younger and, on starting ESRD therapy, had significantly less ischemic heart disease and cardiac failure than the overall ESRD cohort. During followup, ischemic heart disease developed in only 1 patient and none experienced cardiac failure. In the 12% (n = 12) of patients with systolic dysfunction before renal transplant, fractional shortening normalized in all patients, increasing from 21.5 +/- 4.6% to 33.5 +/- 5.6% after transplantation. In the 41% (n = 41) with concentric LV hypertrophy before transplantation, the LV mass index improved from 158 +/- 39 g/m2 to 132 +/- 39 g/m2. LV dilatation was present in 32% (n = 32) of patients before transplantation. After transplantation, LV volume fell from 116 +/- 3.1 ml/m2 to 89 +/- 21 ml/m2, and LV mass index in this group fell from 166 +/- 55 g/m2 to 135 +/- 37 g/m2. It was not possible to associate risk factors characteristic of the uremic state with the improvement in cardiac structure and function, although the fall in LV mass was significantly associated with fall in blood pressure. We conclude that correction of the uremic state by renal transplantation leads to normalization of LV contractility in systolic dysfunction, regression of hypertrophy in concentric LV hypertrophy, and improvement of cavity volume in LV dilatation. The degree of improvement suggests that dialysis patients with uremic cardiomyopathy would benefit from renal transplantation.

Interpreting pragmatic meaning when reading popular reports of science

Abstract: Ninety-one Grade 12 science students were asked to read five popular reports of science. The students were within 4 months of graduation, and all were taking at least one course of senior biology, chemistry, or physics. On average, the students had completed about four high school science courses. The reports were chosen from widely available published work appearing in newspapers, science magazines, and general interest magazines. The tasks given to students required them to interpret the pragmatic meaning of the reports, that is, the meaning of the reports in relation to the goals and intentions of the authors and the context set by the reports. The students interpreted statements in the reports with a bias towards truth ascription by attributing to the statements a higher degree of certainty than was expressed by the authors. Also, no more than one half of the students accurately understood the scientific status and role of statements when that understanding required contextualized interpretation on the basis of the relationships among statements in the reports. Implications for the development of scientific literacy follow from the fact that these students were top science students, yet they did not fully grasp the fundamentals of interpreting texts that are major sources of new scientific knowledge for most laypeople.