Development of an automated CBCT-based simulation-free platform for expedited palliative radiotherapy on a conventional linear accelerator.

Background: Conventional approaches for emergent or expedited palliative radiotherapy (RT) involve the application of cumbersome vendor-provided solutions and/or multiple patient appointments to complete the RT workflow within a compressed timeframe.

Purpose: This report delineates the clinical development of an in-house, semi-automated Cone-beam computed tomography (CBCT)-based simulation-free platform for expedited palliative RT on conventional linacs, intended to supplant existing techniques employed at this institution.

Methods: The internal software, termed SimFree Wizard (SFW), was engineered utilizing a C#-based application programming interface integrated within the treatment planning system (TPS).

An explainable analysis of diabetes mellitus using statistical and artificial intelligence techniques.

Background: Diabetes mellitus (DM) is a chronic disease prevalent worldwide, requiring a multifaceted analytical approach to improve early detection and subsequent mitigation of morbidity and mortality rates. This research aimed to develop an explainable analysis of DM by combining sociodemographic and clinical data with statistical and artificial intelligence (AI) techniques.

Methods: Leveraging a small dataset that includes sociodemographic and clinical profiles of diabetic and non-diabetic individuals, we employed a diverse set of statistical and AI models for predictive purposes and assessment of DM risk factors.

Magnetic resonance-guided focused ultrasound in dystonia: a scoping review.

Background: Magnetic resonance guided focused ultrasound (MRgFUS) is a non-invasive therapeutic technique that utilizes focused ultrasound waves to generate heat at specific tissue targets within the brain. This emerging technology holds promise for its precision and potential benefits in comparison to traditional surgical interventions. This investigation involves a scoping review, summarizing insights from various studies that explore the advantages, limitations, and outcomes associated with MRgFUS in the treatment of dystonia.

Our needs have been ignored for a long time: Factors affecting willingness of Black and Hispanic/Latinx sexual and gender minority communities to donate biospecimens.

The study aimed to document factors affecting willingness to engage in biospecimen donation for substance use research among Black and Hispanic/Latinx sexual and gender minority (SGM) people. From May to July 2022, we interviewed 22 Black and Hispanic/Latinx SGM people from The PRIDE Study, a cohort of SGM people in the United States and its territories, using Zoom videoconferencing software. Fourteen participants were sexual minority people, and eight participants were gender minority people.

Heart Failure with Reduced Ejection Fraction and COVID-19, when the Sick Get Sicker: Unmasking Racial and Ethnic Inequities During a Pandemic.

Minoritized racial and ethnic groups have the highest incidence, prevalence, and hospitalization rate for heart failure. Despite improvement in medical therapies and overall survival, the morbidity and mortality of these groups remain elevated. The reasons for this disparity are multifactorial, including social determinant of health (SDOH) such as access to care, bias, and structural racism.

Establishing and developing a magnetic resonance-guided focused ultrasound program in a resource-limited setting: the Philippine experience.

Magnetic resonance-guided focused ultrasound (MRgFUS) is a non-invasive lesioning technique used to treat movement disorders such as essential tremor (ET), Parkinson's disease (PD), and X-linked dystonia-parkinsonism (XDP). We would like to report our experience in establishing and developing our MRgFUS program and preliminary results. Adult patients with tremor-dominant PD (TDPD), ET, and XDP were considered for initial screening (neurologic evaluation, skull density ratio [SDR] determination).

Globospiramine from Exerts Robust Cytotoxic and Antiproliferative Activities on Cancer Cells by Inducing Caspase-Dependent Apoptosis in A549 Cells and Inhibiting MAPK14 (p38α): In Vitro and Computational Investigations.

Bisindole alkaloids are a source of inspiration for the design and discovery of new-generation anticancer agents. In this study, we investigated the cytotoxic and antiproliferative activities of three spirobisindole alkaloids from the traditional anticancer Philippine medicinal plant , along with their mechanisms of action. Thus, the alkaloids globospiramine (), deoxyvobtusine (), and vobtusine lactone () showed in vitro cytotoxicity and antiproliferative activities against the tested cell lines (L929, KB3.

Psychological wellbeing in teachers. Study in teachers of early childhood and primary education.

Recently, there has been a growing interest in emotional wellbeing, even from the early stages of education. In order to work wellbeing among the students it is essential to analyze the wellbeing of the teachers who are teaching and working with the children. This study examines psychological wellbeing in early childhood (0-6 years) and primary school teachers (6-12 years).

Research Note: Bovine lactoferrin in chickens: an investigation into its viability as an antibiotic alternative.

Finding effective antibiotic alternatives is crucial to managing the re-emerging health risk of Clostridium perfringens (CP) type A/G-induced avian necrotic enteritis (NE), a disease that has regained prominence in the wake of governmental restrictions on antibiotic use in poultry. Known for its antimicrobial and immunomodulatory effects, the use of bovine lactoferrin (bLF) in chickens is yet to be fully explored. In this study, we hypothesized that bLF can accumulate in the small intestines of healthy chickens through gavage and intramuscular supplementation and serves as a potential antibiotic alternative.

Characterization of Gelatin-Polycaprolactone Membranes by Electrospinning.

New advances in materials science and medicine have enabled the development of new and increasingly sophisticated biomaterials. One of the most widely used biopolymers is polycaprolactone (PCL) because it has properties suitable for biomedical applications, tissue engineering scaffolds, or drug delivery systems. However, PCL scaffolds do not have adequate bioactivity, and therefore, alternatives have been studied, such as mixing PCL with bioactive polymers such as gelatin, to promote cell growth.

Performance and explainability of feature selection-boosted tree-based classifiers for COVID-19 detection.

In this paper, we evaluate the performance and analyze the explainability of machine learning models boosted by feature selection in predicting COVID-19-positive cases from self-reported information. In essence, this work describes a methodology to identify COVID-19 infections that considers the large amount of information collected by the University of Maryland Global COVID-19 Trends and Impact Survey (UMD-CTIS). More precisely, this methodology performs a feature selection stage based on the recursive feature elimination (RFE) method to reduce the number of input variables without compromising detection accuracy.

Case studies of clinical decision-making through prescriptive models based on machine learning.

Background: The development of computational methodologies to support clinical decision-making is of vital importance to reduce morbidity and mortality rates. Specifically, prescriptive analytic is a promising area to support decision-making in the monitoring, treatment and prevention of diseases. These aspects remain a challenge for medical professionals and health authorities.

Heart Failure with Reduced Ejection Fraction and COVID-19, when the Sick Get Sicker: Unmasking Racial and Ethnic Inequities During a Pandemic.

Minoritized racial and ethnic groups have the highest incidence, prevalence, and hospitalization rate for heart failure. Despite improvement in medical therapies and overall survival, the morbidity and mortality of these groups remain elevated. The reasons for this disparity are multifactorial, including social determinant of health (SDOH) such as access to care, bias, and structural racism.

Dental restoration operative time and analysis of the internal gap of conventional resins (Incremental Technique) vs. Bulk Fill (Single-Increment Technique): study.

Background: To determine the operative time and the internal restoration gap in the restoration-tooth interface in the cavity floor using an incremental technique for conventional resins and the single-increment technique for the bulk fill resin.

Material And Methods: In this experimental study, the internal gaps of the restoration-tooth interfaces in the cavity floors of two conventional resins and two bulk fill resins were microscopically analyzed, and the restoration times of the single-increment technique and the incremental technique were determined.

Results: Bulk fill resins had smaller internal gap (63.

Transcranial magnetic resonance-guided focused ultrasound pallidothalamic tractotomy for patients with X-linked dystonia-parkinsonism: a study protocol.

Transcranial magnetic resonance-guided focused ultrasound (MRgFUS) is a noninvasive method for controlling tremor and has recently been used in patients with X-linked dystonia-parkinsonism (XDP). This study aims to determine the improvement in dystonia and parkinsonism in patients with XDP after MRgFUS pallidothalamic tractotomy. This prospective study will be conducted at the Philippine General Hospital, University of the Philippines Manila.

Consistent comparison of symptom-based methods for COVID-19 infection detection.

Background: During the global pandemic crisis, various detection methods of COVID-19-positive cases based on self-reported information were introduced to provide quick diagnosis tools for effectively planning and managing healthcare resources. These methods typically identify positive cases based on a particular combination of symptoms, and they have been evaluated using different datasets.

Purpose: This paper presents a comprehensive comparison of various COVID-19 detection methods based on self-reported information using the University of Maryland Global COVID-19 Trends and Impact Survey (UMD-CTIS), a large health surveillance platform, which was launched in partnership with Facebook.

Validation of formulas calculating normalized protein catabolic rate in patients undergoing home hemodialysis.

Depner and Daugirdas developed a simplified formula to estimate the normalized protein catabolic rate in patients on twice- or thrice-weekly hemodialysis (JASN, 1996). The aim of our work was to establish formulas in more frequent schedules and validate them in home-based hemodialysis patients. We realized that the structure of Depner and Daugirdas' normalized protein catabolic rate formulas has a general meaning and can be expressed as PCRn = C0/[a + b*(Kt/V) + c/(Kt/V)] + d, where C0 is pre-dialysis blood urea nitrogen, Kt/V is dialysis dose, a, b, c, d are the specific coefficients for each combination of home-based hemodialysis schedules and the day of blood sampling.

Diversity of Cellulolytic Microorganisms Associated with the Subterranean Termite .

is a subterranean termite species that forages on woody structures of the Iberian Peninsula, and is often a building and crops pest. A total of 23 microorganisms associated with the activity of were isolated from colonized ecosystems in southern Spain. They were morphologically and molecularly characterized, with fungi being the most prevalent ones.

Microglia-containing cerebral organoids derived from induced pluripotent stem cells for the study of neurological diseases.

Microglia play an important role in neuroinflammation and neurodegeneration. Here, we report an approach for generating microglia-containing cerebral organoids derived from human pluripotent stem cells involving the supplementation of growth factors (FGF, EGF, heparin) and 10% CO2 culture conditions. Using this platform, Western Pacific Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis and Parkinsonism-Dementia Complex (ALS-PDC) cerebral organoids were generated from patient-derived induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs).

An autonomous cycle of data analysis tasks for the clinical management of dengue.

Dengue is the most widespread vector-borne disease worldwide. Timely diagnosis and treatment of dengue is the main objective of medical professionals to decrease mortality rates. In this paper, we propose an autonomous cycle that integrates data analysis tasks to support decision-making in the clinical management of dengue.

Successful conservative management of a large acute epidural hematoma in a patient with arrested hydrocephalus: A case report.

Background: Arrested hydrocephalus is a condition wherein congenital hydrocephalus spontaneously ceases to progress due to a balance between production and absorption of cerebrospinal fluid. These patients rarely present with pressure symptoms so conservative treatment may be instituted. There are, however, little data on the long-term outcomes of these patients and how they present in the presence of other intracranial pathologies as they transition into adulthood.

Analysis of the socioeconomic impact due to COVID-19 using a deep clustering approach.

One of the main problems that countries are currently having is being able to measure the impact of the pandemic in other areas of society (for example, economic or social). In that sense, being able to combine variables about the behavior of COVID-19 with other variables in the environment, to build models about its impact, which help the decision-making of national authorities, is a current challenge. In this sense, this work proposes an approach that allows monitoring the socioeconomic behavior of the regions/departments of a country (in this case, Colombia) due to the effect of COVID-19.

A clinical decision-support system for dengue based on fuzzy cognitive maps.

Dengue is a viral infection widely distributed in tropical and subtropical regions of the world. Dengue is characterized by high fatality rates when the diagnosis is not made promptly and effectively. To aid in the diagnosis of dengue, we propose a clinical decision-support system that classifies the clinical picture based on its severity, and using causal relationships evaluates the behavior of the clinical and laboratory variables that describe the signs and symptoms related to dengue.