PASK

Implantable hydrogels should ideally possess mechanical properties matched to the surrounding tissues to enable adequate mechanical function while regeneration occurs. This can be challenging, especially when degradable systems with a high water content and hydrolysable chemical bonds are required in anatomical sites under constant mechanical stimulation, e.g., a foot ulcer cavity. In these circumstances, the design of hydrogel composites is a promising strategy for providing controlled structural features and macroscopic properties over time...

BACKGROUND: Telephone advice lines have been recommended internationally to support around-the-clock care for people living at home with advanced illness. While they undoubtedly support care, there is little evidence about what elements are needed for success. A national picture is needed to understand, improve and standardise service delivery/care. AIM: To explore telephone advice lines for people living at home with advanced illness across the four UK nations, and to construct a practical framework to improve services...

In previous reports, we described a PCR cycle control approach in which the hybridization state of optically labeled L-DNA enantiomers of the D-DNA primers and targets determined when the thermal cycle was switched from cooling to heating and heating to cooling. A consequence of this approach is that it also "adapts" the cycling conditions to compensate for factors that affect the hybridization kinetics of primers and targets. It assumes, however, that the hybridization state of the labeled L-DNA analogs accurately reflects the hybridization state of the D-DNA primers and targets...

Erectile dysfunction (ED) is an extremely prevalent condition which significantly impacts quality of life. The rapid increase of ED in recent decades suggests the existence of unidentified environmental risk factors contributing to this condition. Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals (EDCs) are one likely candidate, given that development and function of the erectile tissues are hormonally dependent. We use the estrogenic-EDC diethylstilbestrol (DES) to model how widespread estrogenic-EDC exposure may impact erectile function in humans...

[Fe(bpp)2 ][ClO4 ]2 (bpp = 2,6-bis{pyrazol-1-yl}pyridine; monoclinic, C 2/ c ) is high-spin between 5-300 K, and crystallises with a highly distorted molecular geometry that lies along the octahedral-trigonal prismatic distortion pathway. In contrast, [Ni(bpp)2 ][ClO4 ]2 (monoclinic, P 21 ) adopts a more regular, near-octahedral coordination geometry. Gas phase DFT minimisations (ω-B97X-D/6-311G**) of [M(bpp)2 ]2+ complexes show the energy penalty associated with that coordination geometry distortion runs as M2+ = Fe2+ (HS) ≈ Mn2+ (HS) < Zn2+ ≈ Co2+ (HS) ≲ Cu2+ ≪ Ni2+ ≪ Ru2+ (LS; HS = high-spin, LS = low-spin)...

Whether neurodegenerative diseases linked to misfolding of the same protein share genetic risk drivers or whether different protein-aggregation pathologies in neurodegeneration are mechanistically related remains uncertain. Conventional genetic analyses are underpowered to address these questions. Through careful selection of patients based on protein aggregation phenotype (rather than clinical diagnosis) we can increase statistical power to detect associated variants in a targeted set of genes that modify proteotoxicities...

Introduction: During early development in most male mammals the testes move from a position near the kidneys through the abdomen to eventually reside in the scrotum. The transabdominal phase of this migration is driven by insulin-like peptide 3 (INSL3) which stimulates growth of the gubernaculum, a key ligament connecting the testes with the abdominal wall. While all marsupials, except the marsupial mole ( Notoryctes typhlops ), have a scrotum and fully descended testes, it is unclear if INSL3 drives this process in marsupials especially given that marsupials have a different mechanism of scrotum determination and position relative to the phallus compared to eutherian mammals...

We report the crystal growth and characterization of a rare-earth-containing material, Dy3.00(1) Pt2 Sb4.48(2) . This compound possesses a similar structure to the previously reported Y3 Pt4 Ge6 , but it lacks two layers of Pt atoms. Crystallographic disorder was found in Dy3.00(1) Pt2 Sb4.48(2) . Additionally, the Dy-Dy framework was found to have both square net and triangular lattices. Dy3.00(1) Pt2 Sb4.48(2)8 was determined to be antiferromagnetically ordered around ∼15 K while a competing antiferromagnetic sublattice also exists at lower temperature...

Most intracavity MgO:LiNbO3 terahertz polariton lasers generate output in the 1-3 THz range. In this study, we investigate the potential to extend this tuning range toward 6 THz. We predict broader tuning using a modified polariton gain theory that takes account of additional polariton damping at 3.15 THz and the angle-dependent field overlap in the crystal. We achieved continuous tuning between 1.5 and 5.4 THz and characterised the gain in this range-so far the widest THz frequency range achieved from a nonlinear crystal via intracavity SPS...

The ligand-regulated PAS domains are one of the most diverse signal-integrating domains found in proteins from prokaryotes to humans. By biochemically connecting cellular processes with their environment, PAS domains facilitate an appropriate cellular response. PAS domain-containing Kinase (PASK) is an evolutionarily conserved protein kinase that plays important signaling roles in mammalian stem cells to establish stem cell fate. We have shown that the nuclear translocation of PASK is stimulated by differentiation signaling cues in muscle stem cells...

We present a Δ-machine learning model for obtaining Kohn-Sham accuracy from orbital-free density functional theory (DFT) calculations. In particular, we employ a machine-learned force field (MLFF) scheme based on the kernel method to capture the difference between Kohn-Sham and orbital-free DFT energies/forces. We implement this model in the context of on-the-fly molecular dynamics simulations and study its accuracy, performance, and sensitivity to parameters for representative systems. We find that the formalism not only improves the accuracy of Thomas-Fermi-von Weizsäcker orbital-free energies and forces by more than two orders of magnitude but is also more accurate than MLFFs based solely on Kohn-Sham DFT while being more efficient and less sensitive to model parameters...

No abstract text is available yet for this article.

PURPOSE: The pharmacy team has been shifting its role from primarily dispensing medications to providing patient-centred pharmaceutical care. Establishing a trust relation between the pharmacy team and their patients is fundamental for this new role. This study aimed to (i) identify the level of trust in the pharmacy team among patients with asthma and/or COPD, (ii) assess whether the level of trust patients have in pharmacists differs from their trust in pharmacy technicians, and (iii) identify factors that contribute to building trust in the pharmacy team...

The family environment is essential but underused for promoting sexual and reproductive health protective behaviors (SHPB). However, previous literature had no consistent findings regarding how families can efficiently provide sex education and what aspects of family communication may facilitate SHPB. Based on family communication patterns theory (FCPT) and new research that segments family conformity orientation into four sub-dimensions (i.e., respecting parental authority, experiencing parental control, adopting parents' values, and questioning parents' beliefs), we explored the roles that family communication patterns (FCP) and parents' (direct and indirect) sexual communication play in influencing adult daughters' intentions to engage in SHPB...

We introduce a general, variational scheme for systematic approximation of a given Kohn-Sham free-energy functional by partitioning the density matrix into distinct spectral domains, each of which may be spanned by an independent diagonal representation without requirement of mutual orthogonality. It is shown that by generalizing the entropic contribution to the free energy to allow for independent representations in each spectral domain, the free energy becomes an upper bound to the exact (unpartitioned) Kohn-Sham free energy, attaining this limit as the representations approach Kohn-Sham eigenfunctions...

No abstract text is available yet for this article.

Mobile element insertions (MEIs) are a known cause of genetic disease but have been underexplored due to technical limitations of genetic testing methods. Various bioinformatic tools have been developed to identify MEIs in Next Generation Sequencing data. However, most tools have been developed specifically for genome sequencing (GS) data rather than exome sequencing (ES) data, which remains more widely used for routine diagnostic testing. In this study, we benchmarked six MEI detection tools (ERVcaller, MELT, Mobster, SCRAMble, TEMP2 and xTea) on ES data and on GS data from publicly available genomic samples (HG002, NA12878)...

BACKGROUND: The mechanism by which infiltrating CD8+ T lymphocytes in the tumour microenvironment influence the survival of patients with ovarian cancer (OC) remains unclear. METHODS: To identify biomarkers to optimise OC treatment, 13 immune-cell-line-associated datasets, RNA sequencing data, and clinical data from the GEO, TCGA, and the ICGC were collected. Gene expression in OC was assessed using quantitative reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) and immunohistochemistry (IHC) staining...

Jasminoidin (JAS) can alleviate ischemic stroke (IS) injury, but its molecular mechanism remains undefined. The polarization of microglia affects IS process. This research is powered to probe whether the molecular mechanism of JAS for IS treatment is coupled with microglia polarization. IS modeling in mice was accomplished by middle cerebral artery occlusion (MCAO) and model mice were injected with 25 and 50 mg/mL JAS, followed by determination of infarct volume, brain water content, and histological changes in mouse brains...

INTRODUCTION: Trust in healthcare and medication, defined as feelings of reassurance and confidence in the healthcare system or medication, may be a key prerequisite before engaging in the use of medication. However, earlier studies have focussed on beliefs about medication rather than trust as predictors of medication adherence. This study therefore aims to simultaneously explore the relationship of trust in healthcare, medication and beliefs about medication, with medication adherence...