Manuscript

PURPOSE: Quality of life is an outcome often examined in treatment research contexts such as biomedical trials, but has been studied less often in alcohol use disorder (AUD) treatment. The importance of considering QoL in substance use treatment research has recently been voiced, and measures of QoL have been administered in large AUD treatment trials. Yet, the viability of popular QoL measures has never been evaluated in AUD treatment samples. Accordingly, the present manuscript describes a psychometric examination of and prospective changes in the World Health Organization Quality of Life measure (WHOQOL-BREF) in a large sample (N = 1383) of patients with AUD recruited for the COMBINE Study...

Despite considerable efforts, healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) continue to be globally responsible for serious morbidity, increased costs and prolonged length of stay. Among potentially preventable sources of microbial pathogens causing HAIs, patient care items and environmental surfaces frequently touched play an important role in the chain of transmission. Microorganisms contaminating such high-touch surfaces include Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria, viruses, yeasts and parasites, with improved cleaning and disinfection effectively decreasing the rate of HAIs...

BACKGROUND: Non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) is a self-destructive act that represents a considerable burden on the individual and society. Low self-esteem may be a psychological variable that is related to NSSI. However, little is known about the nature of this relationship in adulthood. This systematic review therefore aimed to provide a synthesis of the available literature on the relationship between self-esteem and NSSI. METHODS: Articles were independently identified and risk of bias assessed by two reviewers searching PsycINFO, CINAHL, Medline and Web of Science databases...

BACKGROUND: A direct comparison of the stroke prediction utility of the ABCD2 and ABCD3-I scores has not been performed. Thus, we conducted a diagnostic meta-analysis and applied the results to a hypothetical cohort of 1000 patients with transient ischemic attack (TIA) to assess the power of stroke prediction by ABCD2 and ABCD3-I scores. METHODS: Medline, PubMed, Embase, and manuscript references were searched to identify studies that directly compared the stroke predictive powers of ABCD2 and ABCD3-I scores...

Varicella and zoster continue to cause significant morbidity and even mortality in children and adults. Complications include bacterial superinfection, central nervous system manifestations such as meningitis, encephalitis, and cerebellar ataxia, and pain syndromes especially post herpetic neuralgia. Many developed countries but not all, are now administering live attenuated varicella vaccine routinely, with a decrease in the incidence of disease, providing personal and herd immunity. There is some controversy, however, in some countries concerning whether a decrease in the circulation of wild type virus will result in loss of immunity to VZV in persons who have already had varicella...

IFNγ-producing CD4(+) T cells (IFNγ(+)CD4(+) T cells) are the key orchestrators of protective immunity against Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb). Primarily, these cells act by enabling Mtb-infected macrophages to enforce phagosome-lysosome fusion, produce reactive nitrogen intermediates (RNIs), and activate autophagy pathways. However, TB is a heterogeneous disease and a host of clinical and experimental findings has also implicated IFNγ(+)CD4(+) T cells in TB pathogenesis. High frequency of IFNγ(+)CD4(+) T cells is the most invariable feature of the active disease...

Epidemic increases in opioid use in the USA and globally highlight the need for effective adjunctive therapies to opioid-based analgesia. Given the shortcomings of behavioral adjuncts to opioid-based pain treatment, an urgent need exists for pain-related behavioral interventions that resonate with broad patient populations, can be delivered confidentially in any environment, and can incorporate new content automatically. Understanding the potential for automated behavioral therapies like music therapy in modulating the experience of pain may unlock methods to transition patients to lower doses of pharmacologic therapy or provide alternatives to opioids during acute exacerbations of pain...

The European Medicines Agency (EMA), the Pharmaceutical and Medical Devices Agency and the Food and Drug Administration have issued guidances for the conduct of drug-drug interaction (DDI) studies. To examine the applicability of these regulatory recommendations specifically for induction, a group of scientists, under the auspices of the Drug Metabolism Leadership Group of the Innovation and Quality (IQ) Consortium, formed the Induction Working Group (WG). A team of 20 scientists, from 16 of the 39 pharmaceutical companies, which are members of the IQ Consortium, and three Contract Research Organizations, reviewed the recommendations, focusing initially on the current EMA guidance...

The purpose of this manuscript is to summarize the reign, life and death of Charles VIII of France. Also the authors intend to investigate current views on his cause of death, contradictions and opinions of his biographers. Poisoning, disease and injury are the possible causes of his death but, according to the literature, cranial trauma was the most probable cause of death of the king Charles VIII of France.

BACKGROUND: As cancer metastasis is the deadliest aspect of cancer, causing 90% of human deaths, evaluating the molecular mechanisms underlying this process is the major interest to those in the drug development field. Both therapeutic target identification and proof-of-concept experimentation in anti-cancer drug development require appropriate animal models, such as xenograft tumor transplantation in transgenic and knockout mice. In the progression of cancer metastasis, circulating tumor cells (CTCs) are the most critical factor in determining the prognosis of cancer patients...

Heregulins (HRGs) bind to the receptors HER3 or HER4, induce receptor dimerization, and trigger downstream signaling that leads to tumor progression and resistance to targeted therapies. Increased expression of HRGs has been associated with worse clinical prognosis; therefore, attempts to block HRG-dependent tumor growth have been pursued. This manuscript summarizes the function and signaling of HRGs and review the preclinical evidence of its involvement in carcinogenesis, prognosis, and treatment resistance in several malignancies such as colorectal cancer, non-small cell lung cancer, ovarian cancer, and breast cancer...

Multifocal osteonecrosis is a rare disease; chronic use of corticosteroids is considered the main risk factor. Patients with chronic renal failure can develop aluminum toxicity, which can lead to osteomalacia and encephalopathy. An association between osteonecrosis and aluminum toxicity has been reported among patients with dialytic renal insufficiency. Occupational exposure to aluminum rarely causes lung disease and no cases of bone lesions resulting from exposure to this metal have been reported. In this manuscript, we describe a novel case of a patient with multifocal osteonecrosis associated with chronic occupational exposure to aluminum...

In 2016, the Wood Library-Museum of Anesthesiology, Schaumburg, IL, acquired an unpublished 11-page manuscript written by Charles Thomas Jackson, MD, (1805-1880). The undated manuscript, now fully transcribed, provides Jackson's perspective of the first 6 weeks of the ether discovery, from early October 1846 to mid-November 1846. It chronicles Jackson's observations and discussions pertaining to United States Patent No. 4848, granted to him and William Thomas Green Morton, MD, (1819-1868). Jackson's manuscript did not yield new information on the discovery of surgical etherization or the subsequent dispute between him and Morton...

Protein nanocarriers possess unique merits including minimal cytotoxicity, numerous renewable sources, and high drug-binding capability. In opposition to delivery carriers utilizing hydrophilic animal proteins, hydrophobic plant proteins (e.g, zein) have great tendency in fabricating controlled-release particulate carriers without additional chemical modification to stiffen them, which in turn evades the use of toxic chemical crosslinkers. Moreover, zein is related to a class of alcohol-soluble prolamins and generally recognized as safe (GRAS) carrier for drug delivery...

OBJECTIVE: The objective of this manuscript is to present the method for determining the nature and values of the forces needed to set micro and nanoparticles sitting immobile at the blood vessel wall in motion. METHODS: The problem was tackled in two ways. Microparticles were examined as objects coming into contact with the wall with the actual large arteriole-type vessel structure. The forces acting on microparticles 10 μm, 30 μm and 50 μm in diameter were determined: drag force FD, lift force FL, electrostatic force FE and gravity force FG...

Iron-gall ink (IGI) has been used by scribes for writing since at least the 4th century CE. Another typical use of this ink was for drawing: many Old Masters created beautiful sketches in brown-black hues. Despite its widespread use to draw lines, it seems like IGI was hardly used for painting as well. In fact, the number of identification on manuscripts is very low at present. This could be partially due to a lack of reliable diagnostic information. In this work we tried to better define the possibility of identifying IGI as a pigment on illuminate manuscripts, evaluating the pros and cons of three different techniques: UV-visible diffuse reflectance spectrophotometry with optic fibres (FORS), Raman spectroscopy and XRF spectrometry...

This study reports a preparation method of a new moisture swing sorbent for CO2 capture from air. The new sorbent components include ion exchange resin (IER) and polyvinyl chloride (PVC) as a binder. The IER can absorb CO2 when surrounding is dry and release CO2 when surrounding is wet. The manuscript presents the studies of membrane structure, kinetic model of absorption process, performance of desorption process and the diffusivity of water molecules in the CO2 absorbent. It has been proved that the kinetic performance of CO2 absorption/desorption can be improved by using thin binder and hot water treatment...

Computers are now essential in all branches of science, but most researchers are never taught the equivalent of basic lab skills for research computing. As a result, data can get lost, analyses can take much longer than necessary, and researchers are limited in how effectively they can work with software and data. Computing workflows need to follow the same practices as lab projects and notebooks, with organized data, documented steps, and the project structured for reproducibility, but researchers new to computing often don't know where to start...

Violent video games are theorized to be a significant cause of aggressive thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. Important evidence for this claim comes from a large meta-analysis by Anderson and colleagues (2010), who found effects of violent games in experimental, cross-sectional, and longitudinal research. In that meta-analysis, the authors argued that there is little publication or analytic bias in the literature, an argument supported by their use of the trim-and-fill procedure. In the present manuscript, we reexamine their meta-analysis using a wider array of techniques for detecting bias and adjusting effect sizes...

From growth attenuation therapy for severely developmentally disabled children to the post-natal management of infants with trisomy 13 and 18, pediatric treatment decisions regularly involve assessments of the probability and severity of a child's disability. Because these decisions are almost always made by surrogate decision-makers (parents and caregivers) and because these decision-makers must often make decisions based on both prognostic guesses and potentially biased quality of life judgments, they are among the most ethically complex in pediatric care...