The application of environmental health assessment strategies to detect Streptococcus pyogenes in Kimberley school classrooms.

Background: Children spend almost one-third of their waking hours at school. Streptococcus pyogenes (Strep A) is a common childhood bacterial infection that can progress to causing serious disease. We aimed to detect Strep A in classrooms by using environmental settle plates and swabbing of high-touch surfaces in two remote schools in the Kimberley, Western Australia.

Disruption of the OsWRKY71 transcription factor gene results in early rice seed germination under normal and cold stress conditions.

Background: Early seed germination in crops can confer a competitive advantage against weeds and reduce the time to maturation and harvest. WRKY transcription factors regulate many aspects of plant development including seed dormancy and germination. Both positive and negative regulators of seed germination have been reported in many plants such as rice and Arabidopsis.

Exploiting graph theory in MD simulations for extracting chemical and physical properties of materials.

Some of our recent developments and applications of algorithmic graph theory for extracting the physical and chemical properties of materials from molecular dynamics simulations are presented. From the chemical viewpoint, the power of graph theory is illustrated in the search for a catalyst's active sites at a silica solid surface. From the physical viewpoint, we present graph algorithms that recognize the structural motifs that exist at the silica/liquid water interface.

CFD modeling of CO fixation by microalgae cultivated in a lab scale photobioreactor.

The green microalga Chlorella vulgaris has been studied for efficient fixation of carbon dioxide, CO, from elevated concentrations of in-feed gas flows. In this work, a Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) model for algae cultivation including the dependence on CO concentration in liquid has been derived based on cultivation experiments of Chlorella vulgaris. The experiments were performed in a laboratory scale cylindrical stirred tank reactor with a range of enriched CO concentrations in-feed (0.

Genome wide clustering on integrated chromatin states and Micro-C contacts reveals chromatin interaction signatures.

We can now analyze 3D physical interactions of chromatin regions with chromatin conformation capture technologies, in addition to the 1D chromatin state annotations, but methods to integrate this information are lacking. We propose a method to integrate the chromatin state of interacting regions into a vector representation through the contact-weighted sum of chromatin states. Unsupervised clustering on integrated chromatin states and Micro-C contacts reveals common patterns of chromatin interaction signatures.

Dataset of an operating education modular building for simulation and artificial intelligence.

Improving energy efficiency in the building sector is a subject of significant interest, considering the environmental impact of buildings. Energy efficiency involves many aspects, such as occupant comfort, system monitoring and maintenance, data treatment, instrumentation… Physical modeling and calibration, or artificial intelligence, are often employed to explore these different subjects and, thus, to limit energy consumption in buildings. Even though these techniques are well-suited, they have one thing in common, i.

Prenatal broad-spectrum cannabidiol administration prevents an autism-like phenotype in male offspring from a maternal stress/terbutaline rat model.

Recently, the diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) has increased from 1 in 150 to every 1 in 36 children in the United States, warranting a need for novel prevention and therapeutic strategies. Broad-spectrum cannabidiol oil, free from delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol, the psychoactive component of cannabis, may be one such therapeutic. It has a high safety profile and is frequently used as a complementary and integrative intervention by persons experiencing symptoms of anxiety, stress, and inflammation.

Simulation of Mechanical Stresses in BaTiO Multilayer Ceramic Capacitors during Desoldering in the Rework of Electronic Assemblies Using a Framework of Computational Fluid Dynamics and Thermomechanical Models.

Multilayer ceramic capacitors (MLCCs) are critical components when thermal processes such as reflow desoldering are used during rework of electronic assemblies. The capacitor's ferroelectric BaTiO body is very brittle. Therefore, thermomechanical stresses can cause crack formation and create conductive paths that may short the capacitor.

Supervised learning of enhancer-promoter specificity based on genome-wide perturbation studies highlights areas for improvement in learning.

Motivation: Understanding the rules that govern enhancer-driven transcription remains a central unsolved problem in genomics. Now with multiple massively parallel enhancer perturbation assays published, there are enough data that we can utilize to learn to predict enhancer-promoter (EP) relationships in a data-driven manner.

Results: We applied machine learning to one of the largest enhancer perturbation studies integrated with transcription factor (TF) and histone modification ChIP-seq.

Cluster-specific associations between the gut microbiota and behavioral outcomes in preschool-aged children.

Background: The gut microbiota is recognized as a regulator of brain development and behavioral outcomes during childhood. Nonetheless, associations between the gut microbiota and behavior are often inconsistent among studies in humans, perhaps because many host-microbe relationships vary widely between individuals. This study aims to stratify children based on their gut microbiota composition (i.

"You're Someone Different Now": An Autoethnography on Identity and Occupational Identity Disruption After Traumatic Brain Injury.

Importance: Identity disruption and occupational identity disruption are common after traumatic brain injury (TBI), but the relationship between these two phenomena is underexplored. Occupational therapy practitioners should be knowledgeable about identity challenges after TBI and ways to reconstruct a sense of self.

Objective: To sensitize readers to the experience of identity disruption and occupational identity disruption and describe how those two experiences are interrelated and transactional in nature.

Time-Resolved Graphs of Polymorphic Cycles for H-Bonded Network Identification in Flexible Biomolecules.

A novel approach based on a coarse-grained representation of topological graphs is proposed for the automatic analysis of molecular dynamics (MD) trajectories of hydrogen-bonded (H-Bonded) flexible biomolecules. Herein, our approach models an H-Bonded biomolecule by its H-Bonded cycles and its graph of cycles in which the vertices and links represent the intersections between these cycles. We propose a methodology in which each identified conformer/isomer from the MD is represented by a well-chosen set of H-Bonded cycles called a minimum cycle basis.

Complement-Mediated Thrombotic Microangiopathy in Pregnancy: An Educational Case Report.

Rationale: Thrombotic microangiopathy (TMA) is a spectrum of rare diseases characterized by thrombocytopenia, microangiopathic hemolytic anemia, and organ damage. Differentiating pre-eclampsia, HELLP (Hemolysis, Elevated Liver enzymes, Low Platelets) syndrome and atypical hemolytic uremic syndrome (aHUS) during pregnancy may be diagnostically challenging yet important as the treatment pathways differ. Most cases of aHUS are associated with dysregulation of the complement alternative pathway, for which current guidelines recommend prompt treatment with complement C5 inhibitor to prevent chronic sequelae.

Multicenter evaluation of the addition of eltrombopag to immunosuppressive therapy for adults with severe aplastic anemia.

Eltrombopag has been shown to improve response rates when added to standard therapy in adults with severe aplastic anemia in controlled trial settings. However, outcomes in real-world populations have mostly been examined in small retrospective studies. This robust, multicenter, retrospective cohort study across six academic health systems compared outcomes in patients who received immunosuppressive therapy with or without eltrombopag.

Impact of intraoperative therapeutic plasma exchange on bleeding in lung transplantation.

Background: Our program uses a desensitization protocol that includes intraoperative therapeutic plasma exchange (iTPE) for crossmatch-positive lung transplants, which improves access to lung transplant for sensitized candidates while mitigating immunologic risk. Although we have reported excellent outcomes for sensitized patients with the use of this protocol, concern for perioperative bleeding appears to have hindered broader adoption of it at other programs. We conducted a retrospective cohort study to quantify the impact of iTPE on perioperative bleeding in lung transplantation.

Propensity Score Matching Analysis Comparing the Efficacy and Steroid Tapering Benefit of Extracorporeal Photopheresis to Best Available Therapy in Third-Line or Beyond Treatment for Chronic GvHD.

Graft-versus host disease (GVHD) is one of the major limitations to allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HCT). Although corticosteroids with calcineurin inhibitors are established first line-therapy for chronic graft-versus-host disease (cGVHD), approximately one-half of cGVHD patients are refractory to corticosteroid therapy. The goal of the present study was to compare treatment outcomes of patients treated with extracorporeal photopheresis (ECP) and best available therapy (BAT) as third-line or beyond treatment for cGVHD.

Single centre retrospective analysis of extracorporeal photopheresis (ECP) therapy in patients heavily pre-treated for chronic graft-versus-host disease (cGvHD) with steroid failure.

Background: Extracorporeal photopheresis (ECP) is recommended as a second- or later-line therapy for chronic GvHD (cGvHD). Benefits include reasonable response with avoidance of intense systemic immunosuppression, which can translate into lowering the risk of systemic toxicity and opportunistic infection.

Methods: We evaluated 75 patients treated with ECP for cGvHD from 2007 to 2021 at Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, and analyzed overall response rate (ORR) and clinical benefit (CB) at 3, 6 and 12 months plus other long-term treatment outcomes.

Supramolecular presentation of bioinstructive peptides on soft multilayered nanobiomaterials stimulates neurite outgrowth.

Peptide amphiphiles (PAs) have emerged as effective molecular building blocks for creating self-assembling nanobiomaterials for multiple biomedical applications. Herein, we report a straightforward approach to assemble soft bioinstructive platforms to recreate the native neural extracellular matrix (ECM) aiming for neuronal regeneration based on the electrostatic-driven supramolecular presentation of laminin-derived IKVAV-containing self-assembling PA (IKVAV-PA) on biocompatible multilayered nanoassemblies. Spectroscopic and microscopic techniques show that the co-assembly of positively charged low-molecular-weight IKVAV-PA with oppositely charged high-molecular-weight hyaluronic acid (HA) triggers the formation of ordered β-sheet structures denoting a one-dimensional nanofibrous network.

Sex hormones influence survival of patients with metastatic urothelial carcinoma undergoing immune checkpoint therapy.

Introduction: Clinical trials investigating efficacy of immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICI) revealed sex-specific divergent outcomes in urothelial cancer (UC), suggesting that sex hormones might play an important role in gender-specific dimorphisms of response upon ICI. However, further clinical investigations are still needed to understand the influence of sex hormones in UC. The aim of this study was to get further insights on the prognostic and predictive value of sex hormone levels in patients with metastatic UC (mUC) who underwent ICI.

Outcomes after flow cytometry crossmatch-positive lung transplants managed with perioperative desensitization.

Our program previously reported successful outcomes following virtual crossmatch (VXM)-positive lung transplants managed with perioperative desensitization, but our ability to stratify their immunologic risk was limited without flow cytometry crossmatch (FCXM) data before 2014. The aim of this study was to determine allograft and chronic lung allograft dysfunction (CLAD)-free survival following VXM-positive/FCXM-positive lung transplants, which are performed at a minority of programs due to the high immunologic risk and lack of data on outcomes. All first-time lung transplant recipients between January 2014 and December 2019 were divided into 3 cohorts: VXM-negative (n = 764), VXM-positive/FCXM-negative (n = 64), and VXM-positive/FCXM-positive (n = 74).

Combination of Urinary MiR-501 and MiR-335 With Current Clinical Diagnostic Parameters as Potential Predictive Factors of Prostate Biopsy Outcome.

Background: The detection of prostate cancer (PCa) is currently based on prostate-specific antigen (PSA) quantification as an initial screening followed by ultrasound-guided transrectal biopsy. However, the high rate of false-negative biopsies often leads to inappropriate treatment. Therefore, new molecular biomarkers, such as urine microRNAs (miRNAs), are a possible way to redefine PCa diagnostics.

Algorithmic Graph Theory, Reinforcement Learning and Game Theory in MD Simulations: From 3D Structures to Topological 2D-Molecular Graphs (2D-MolGraphs) and Vice Versa.

This paper reviews graph-theory-based methods that were recently developed in our group for post-processing molecular dynamics trajectories. We show that the use of algorithmic graph theory not only provides a direct and fast methodology to identify conformers sampled over time but also allows to follow the interconversions between the conformers through graphs of transitions in time. Examples of gas phase molecules and inhomogeneous aqueous solid interfaces are presented to demonstrate the power of topological 2D graphs and their versatility for post-processing molecular dynamics trajectories.