hope 3

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder characterized by memory impairment, a loss of cholinergic neurons, and cognitive decline that insidiously progresses to dementia. The pathoetiology of AD is complex, as genetic predisposition, age, inflammation, oxidative stress, and dysregulated proteostasis all contribute to its development and progression. The histological hallmarks of AD are the formation and accumulation of amyloid-β plaques and interfibrillar tau tangles within the central nervous system...

Ionic charge transport is a ubiquitous language of communication in biological systems. As such, bioengineering is in constant need of innovative, soft, and biocompatible materials that facilitate ionic conduction. Low molecular weight gelators (LMWGs) are complex self-assembled materials that have received increasing attention in recent years. Beyond their biocompatible, self-healing, and stimuli responsive facets, LMWGs can be viewed as a "solid" electrolyte solution. In this work, we investigate 3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene (EDOT) as a capping group for a small peptide library, which we use as a system to understand the relationship between modes of assembly and charge transport in supramolecular gels...

BACKGROUND: Liver cancer is one of the deadliest malignant tumors worldwide. Immunotherapy has provided hope to patients with advanced liver cancer, but only a small fraction of patients benefit from this treatment due to individual differences. Identifying immune-related gene signatures in liver cancer patients not only aids physicians in cancer diagnosis but also offers personalized treatment strategies, thereby improving patient survival rates. Although several methods have been developed to predict the prognosis and immunotherapeutic efficacy in patients with liver cancer, the impact of cell-cell interactions in the tumor microenvironment has not been adequately considered...

Dengue becomes the most common life-threatening infectious arbovirus disease globally, with prevalence in the tropical and subtropical areas. The major clinical features include dengue haemorrhagic fever (DHF) and dengue shock syndrome (DSS), a condition of hypovolemic shock. Four different serotypes of the dengue virus, known as dengue virus serotype (DENV)- 1, 2, 3 and 4 can infect humans. Only one vaccine is available in the market, named Dengvaxia by Sanofi Pasteur, but there is no desired outcome of this treatment due the antibody dependent enhancement (ADE) of the multiple dengue serotypes...

BACKGROUND: Few clinical trials include a detailed protocol for stakeholder engagement in the design and execution of the clinical trial. Deliver-EE is a pragmatic clinical trial to assess how different types of home-delivered meals can affect older adults' health and well-being. We present the protocol for stakeholder engagement in this national, multi-site trial and initial findings from our efforts. METHODS: Twenty-nine participants were recruited to two stakeholder advisory panels...

INTRODUCTION: The use of stereotactic body radiotherapy (SBRT) for tumors in close proximity to the central mediastinal structures has been associated with a high risk of toxicity. This study (BLINDED FOR REVIEW) aimed to determine the maximally tolerated dose (MTD) of SBRT for ultra-central (UC) non-small cell lung carcinoma (NSCLC), using a time-to-event continual reassessment methodology (TITE-CRM). METHODS: Patients with T1-3N0M0 (≤ 6 cm) NSCLC were eligible...

BACKGROUND: It is unclear when people with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and their family carers think about their future, what they would prefer in terms of care, and how their ideas change over time. AIM: Understanding experiences with advance care planning of persons with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and their family carers-and if, when, how, and why these experiences change over time. DESIGN: A qualitative longitudinal interview study...

Trauma scientists have raised the alarm about the devastating consequences of the Ukraine war on mental health. We examined how higher education students-as indirect victims-coped with this conflict and how they emotionally reacted during 2022. We involved 2314 students from 16 countries through an online survey. A structural equation model indicated significant relations between war-related worry about military and macroeconomics domains and two coping strategies (opposition, support giving), in turn significantly linked with six emotions...

Biomolecular condensates play important roles in a wide array of fundamental biological processes, such as cellular compartmentalization, cellular regulation, and other biochemical reactions. Since their discovery and first observations, an extensive and expansive library of tools has been developed to investigate various aspects and properties, encompassing structural and compositional information, material properties, and their evolution throughout the life cycle from formation to eventual dissolution. This Review presents an overview of the expanded set of tools and methods that researchers use to probe the properties of biomolecular condensates across diverse scales of length, concentration, stiffness, and time...

Natural language processing (NLP) has become an essential technique in various fields, offering a wide range of possibilities for analyzing data and developing diverse NLP tasks. In the biomedical domain, understanding the complex relationships between compounds and proteins is critical, especially in the context of signal transduction and biochemical pathways. Among these relationships, protein-protein interactions (PPIs) are of particular interest, given their potential to trigger a variety of biological reactions...

Transition-metal-oxide@heteroatom doped porous carbon composites have attracted considerable research interest because of their large theoretical adsorption capacity, excellent electrical conductivity and well-developed pore structure. Herein, Mn3 O4 -loaded phosphorus-doped porous carbon composites (Mn3 O4 @PC-900) were designed and fabricated for the electrosorption of La3+ in aqueous solutions. Due to the synergistic effect between Mn3 O4 and PC-900, and the active sites provided by Mn-O-Mn, C/PO, C-P-O and Mn-OH, Mn3 O4 @PC-900 exhibits high electrosorption performance...

OBJECTIVE: Neuronavigation is common technology used by skull base teams when performing endoscopic endonasal surgery. A common practice of MRI imagining is to obtain 3D isotopic gadolinium enhanced T1W magnetisation prepared rapid gradient echo (MPRAGE) sequences. These are prone to distortion when undertaken on 3 T magnets. The aim of this project is to compare the in vivo accuracy of MRI sequences between current and new high resolution 3D sequences. The goal is to determine if geometric distortion significantly affects neuronavigation accuracy...

Today, cleaning the environment using photocatalytic technology is one of the main research activities. In this study, carbon dots (C-dots) were anchored on oxygen-vacancy-enriched TiO2 quantum dots (QDs)/TiO2 oxygen vacancies (OVs) using a facile procedure. The resultant ternary TiO2 QDs/TiO2 OVs/C-dots photocatalysts with a quantum dot size of almost 4.55 nm were used for detoxification of aqueous solutions containing four antibiotics and three organic dyes as well as inactivation of two pathogenic bacteria, including Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus , upon visible light...

UNLABELLED: Ameloblastomas are benign neoplasms of the jaw, but frequently require extensive surgery. The aim of the study was to analyze the demographic and clinicopathological features of ameloblastoma cases at a single Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery group in the United States. STUDY DESIGN: A retrospective chart review of patients evaluated for ameloblastoma between 2010 and 2020 at a single tertiary care center. Age, race, sex, tumor size, tumor location, and histological subtypes were recorded...

INTRODUCTION: Cervical spine disease is a leading cause of pain and disability. Degenerative conditions of the spine can result in neurologic compression of the cervical spinal cord or nerve roots and may be surgically treated with an anterior cervical discectomy and fusion (ACDF) in up to 137,000 people per year in the United States. A common sequelae of ACDF is reduced cervical range of motion (CROM) with patient-based complaints of stiffness and neck pain. Currently, tools for assessment of CROM are manual, subjective, and only intermittently utilized during doctor or physical therapy visits...

Image-based criteria have been adopted to diagnose femoroacetabular impingement (FAI). However, the overlapping property of the two-dimensional X-ray outlines and static and supine posture of taking computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging images potentially affect the accuracy of the criteria. This study developed a CT image-based dynamic criterion to effectively simulate FAI, thereby providing a basis for physicians to perform pre-operative planning for arthroscopic surgery. Post-operative CT images of 20 patients with satisfactory surgical results were collected, and 10 sets of models were used to define the flexion rotation centre (FRC) of the three-dimensional FAI model...

In 1993, a passionate and provocative call to arms urged cereal researchers to consider the taxon they study as a single genetic system and collaborate with each other. Since then, that group of scientists has seen their discipline blossom. In an attempt to understand what unity of genetic systems means and how the notion was borne out by later research, we survey the progress and prospects of cereal genomics: sequence assemblies, population-scale sequencing, resistance gene cloning and domestication genetics...

The incorporation of sex and gender (S/G) related factors is commonly acknowledged as a necessary step to advance towards more personalized diagnoses and treatments for somatic, psychiatric, and neurological diseases. Until now, most attempts to integrate S/G-related factors have been reduced to identifying average differences between females and males in behavioral/ biological variables. The present commentary questions this traditional approach by highlighting three main sets of limitations: 1) Issues stemming from the use of classic parametric methods to compare means; 2) challenges related to the ability of means to accurately represent the data within groups and differences between groups; 3) mean comparisons impose a results' binarization and a binary theoretical framework that precludes advancing towards precision medicine...

BACKGROUND: The use of left ventricular assist devices (LVADs) is increasing with an estimated 2500 devices implanted each year. When burdens of the LVAD outweigh benefits, most individuals with LVADs will undergo deactivation in the hospital setting. While the decision to deactivate an LVAD is considered an ethical practice, little is known about the experience and needs of bereaved family members. OBJECTIVE: To investigate the experiences of bereaved family members of patients who died following LVAD deactivation...

OBJECTIVE: Recently, the ILAE Nosology and Definitions Task Force defined diagnostic criteria for epilepsy syndromes. There is paucity of data on the use of these new diagnostic criteria in children with epilepsy, and how these criteria may lead to changes from previous practice. METHODS: This was a retrospective chart review of data of children attending the epilepsy clinic in a tertiary care children's hospital from January 2011 to January 2023. The clinical details such as age at onset, types of seizures, co-morbidities, and results of EEG, MRI and genetic testing were reviewed...