Purpose: The depth within the body, small diameter, long length, and varying tissue surrounding the spinal cord impose specific considerations when designing radiofrequency coils. The optimal coil configuration for 7 T cervical spinal cord MRI is unknown and, currently, there are very few coil options. The purpose of this work was (1) to establish a quality control protocol for evaluating 7 T cervical spinal cord coils and (2) to use that protocol to evaluate the performance of 4 different coil designs.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDiverse sources of inhibition serve to modulate circuits and control cell assembly spiking across various timescales. For example, in hippocampus area CA1 the competition between inhibition and excitation organizes spike timing of pyramidal cells (PYR) in network events, including sharp wave-ripples (SPW-R). Specific cellular-synaptic sources of inhibition in SPW-R remain unclear, as there are >20 types of GABAergic interneurons in CA1.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Black women and other minorities have higher age adjusted incidence risk for cervical and endometrial cancer than White women. However, the extent of racial and ethnic disparities in clinical trial enrollment among studies performed mainly in North America and Europe for gynecologic malignancy is unknown.
Objective: This study analyzed enrollment rates by race/ethnicity in trials that led to Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approvals for gynecological cancers from 2010 to 2024.
Preschool-onset major depressive disorder (PO-MDD) is an impairing pediatric mental health disorder that impacts children as young as three years old. There is limited work dedicated to uncovering neural measures of this early childhood disorder which could be leveraged to further understand both treatment responsiveness and future depression risk. Event-related potentials (ERPs) such as the P300 have been employed extensively in adult populations to examine depression-related deficits in cognitive and motivational systems.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFForecasting emergent pest spread is paramount to mitigating their impacts. For host-specialized pests, epidemiological models of spread through a single host population are well developed. However, most pests attack multiple host species; the challenge is predicting which communities are most vulnerable to infestation.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: A survey conducted by the European Society of Breast Imaging (EUSOBI) in 2023 revealed significant variations in Quality Assurance (QA) practices across Europe. The UK encourages regular performance monitoring for screen readers. This study aimed to assess the variability in diagnostic performance among readers participating in a wider prospective randomised trial across multiple countries.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTo understand differences in anti-factor-Xa levels produced by two different dosing strategies (conventional and individualized) for therapeutic enoxaparin in a cohort of hospital inpatients. A multicenter, retrospective cohort study over a two- and a half-year period for inpatients with stable renal function and on therapeutic enoxaparin. Anti-factor-Xa levels were taken 3-5 h after enoxaparin administration and a minimum of 48 h of dosing.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: To systematically review qualitative studies on outcomes, needs, experiences, preferences, concerns and health-related quality of life (HRQoL) of people surviving cancer in Europe in the last decade.
Methods: Protocol registered ( https://www.crd.
Glioblastoma (GBM) is a devastating malignant brain tumor with a poor prognosis. GBM is associated with radioresistance. Post-translational modifications (PTMs) such as protein phosphorylation can play an important role in the cellular response to radiation.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Community Health Workers locally known as Village Health Workers (VHW) in Lesotho are key members of the primary health workforce, and has been playing a significant role in building primary health systems in many countries and they can fill significant gaps in human resources as low and middle income countries work towards universal health coverage in the era of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The 2014 Lesotho health reform restructured the VHW program to compensate, professionalize, and integrate VHWs into primary care services. We sought to document the ways in which the VHW program changed as a result of the health reform and the perceived impact of those changes.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: Among health researchers, there is a growing appreciation of the importance of the involvement of service users and members of the public. This recognition has not only resulted in involvement guidelines and improved research ethics but also an increasing use of consensus processes with service users and members of the public to determine research priorities and questions and to agree outcomes to be measured in intervention studies. There is, however, limited advice about how to safely involve survivors of violence and abuse in consensus-based studies.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Children with speech, language, and communication disorders require specialized support in response to their emotional expression challenges. Not only is such support key for their development, but it is also essential for their mental well-being. Art making emerges as a valuable tool for enabling these children to convey emotions both verbally and non-verbally, fostering a positive self-concept.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBreast cancer is the most prevalent cancer in women in Europe, and while all European countries have some form of screening for breast cancer, disparities in organization and implementation exist. Breast density is a well-established risk factor for breast cancer; however, most countries in Europe do not have recommendations in place for notification of breast density or additional supplementary imaging for women with dense breasts. Various supplemental screening modalities have been investigated in Europe, and when comparing modalities, MRI has been shown to be superior in cancer detection rate and in detecting small invasive disease that may impact long-term survival, as demonstrated in the Dense Tissue and Early Breast Neoplasm Screening (DENSE) trial in the Netherlands.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjectives: To estimate tumour volume doubling time (TVDT) of interval cancers (ICs).
Methods: Two radiologists retrospectively reviewed prior screening and diagnostic mammograms and measured mean diameter on "visible" ICs. Univariate analyses of clinicopathological variables (ER, HER2, grade, age at diagnosis, and breast density) were undertaken, and those with p < 0.
Vaccine
January 2025
The nutritive value of a protein is determined not only by its amino acid composition, but also by its digestibility in the gastrointestinal tract. The interaction between proteins and pepsin in the gastric stage is the first step and plays an important role in protein hydrolysis. Moreover, it affects the amino acid release rates and the allergenicity of the proteins.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDuring infection, dengue virus (DENV) and Zika virus (ZIKV), two (ortho)flaviviruses of public health concern worldwide, induce alterations of mitochondria morphology to favor viral replication, suggesting a viral co-opting of mitochondria functions. Here, we performed an extensive transmission electron microscopy-based quantitative analysis to demonstrate that both DENV and ZIKV alter endoplasmic reticulum-mitochondria contact sites (ERMC). This correlated at the molecular level with an impairment of ERMC tethering protein complexes located at the surface of both organelles.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: While marked gender-based differences in drug-related risk and harm between men women who use drugs have been characterized to some extent, the complex relationship between gendered socioeconomic conditions, overdose risk, and drug use patterns and behaviours remains underexplored.
Methods: We conducted gender-stratified repeated measures latent class analyses (RMLCA) with data from two ongoing cohorts of people who use drugs in Vancouver, Canada to identify discrete subgroups based on socioeconomic exposures. Multivariable generalized estimating equations models weighted by the respective posterior membership probabilities were applied to estimate the associations between socioeconomic class membership and non-fatal overdose.
Neutralizing antibody titer has been a surrogate endpoint for guiding COVID-19 vaccine approval and use, although the pandemic's evolution and the introduction of variant-adapted vaccine boosters raise questions as to this surrogate's contemporary performance. For 985 recipients of an mRNA second bivalent or monovalent booster containing various Spike inserts [Prototype (Ancestral), Beta, Delta, and/or Omicron BA.1 or BA.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFInt J Radiat Oncol Biol Phys
February 2025
Musculoskelet Sci Pract
January 2025
Background: Headache disorders are prevalent often leading to disability. The rectus capitus posterior major muscle (RCPMaj) may contribute to headache symptoms via nociceptive convergence and myodural bridging.
Objectives: To establish guidelines for needle length and needle angle to mitigate risks during dry needling RCPMaj.
Common ash (Fraxinus excelsior) is under intensive attack from the invasive alien pathogenic fungus Hymenoscyphus fraxineus, causing ash dieback at epidemic levels throughout Europe. Previous studies have found significant genetic variation among genotypes in ash dieback susceptibility and that host phenology, such as autumn yellowing, is correlated with susceptibility of ash trees to H. fraxineus; however, the genomic basis of ash dieback tolerance in F.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFRechargeable alkaline zinc batteries are emerging as promising candidates for next-generation energy storage systems, owing to their affordability, eco-friendliness and high energy density. However, their widespread application is hindered by stability challenges, particularly in alkaline environments, due to cathode corrosion and deformation, as well as dendrite formation and unwanted side reactions at the Zn anode. To address these issues, we successfully developed a 3D nickel micromesh-supported NiCoP (3D NM@NiCoP) electrode.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: This paper introduces a novel framework for evaluating phenotype algorithms (PAs) using the open-source tool, Cohort Diagnostics.
Materials And Methods: The method is based on several diagnostic criteria to evaluate a patient cohort returned by a PA. Diagnostics include estimates of incidence rate, index date entry code breakdown, and prevalence of all observed clinical events prior to, on, and after index date.
Background: Statistical shape atlases have been used in large-cohort studies to investigate relationships between heart shape and risk factors. The generalisability of these relationships between cohorts is unknown. The aims of this study were to compare left ventricular (LV) shapes in patients with differing cardiovascular risk factor profiles from two cohorts and to investigate whether LV shape scores generated with respect to a reference cohort can be directly used to study shape differences in another cohort.
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