Publications by authors named "Bell P"

Pleural infections are common and associated with substantial healthcare costs, morbidity, and mortality. Accurate diagnosis remains challenging due to low culture positivity rates, frequent polymicrobial involvement, and non-specific diagnostic biomarkers. Here, we undertook a prospective study examining the feasibility and performance of molecular methods for diagnosing suspected pleural infection.

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Background: Second-generation antipsychotic medications (SGAs) are often used by primary care physicians (PCPs) to treat multiple psychiatric diagnoses. SGAs have been connected to a number of adverse effects, including cardiovascular disease. Currently, there are no published evidence-based recommendations addressing SGAs and cardiotoxicity that are directed toward PCPs.

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SARS-CoV-2 3C-like protease (3CL or M) cleaves the SARS-CoV-2 polyprotein and >300 intracellular host proteins to enhance viral replication. By lytic cell death following gasdermin (GSDM) pore formation in cell membranes, antiviral pyroptosis decreases 3CL expression and viral replication. Unexpectedly, 3CL and nucleocapsid proteins undergo unconventional secretion from infected cells via caspase-activated GSDMD/E pores in the absence of cell lysis.

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Article Synopsis
  • Molecular studies indicate that ALT is a crucial prognostic marker for shorter relapse-free survival (RFS) in pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors (PanNETs) and other neoplasms.
  • The development of a new chromogenic ALT assay (ALT-CISH) was initiated to address clinical limitations of the traditional fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) method, showing a 100% agreement with FISH results in validating that ALT is present in 31% of primary PanNETs.
  • The study demonstrated that ALT status is significantly associated with poorer RFS in both PanNET and leiomyosarcoma (LMS) patients, with ALT being an independent prognostic factor
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Hypersensitivity pneumonitis (HP) is an immune-mediated interstitial lung disease (ILD) relating to specific occupational, environmental or medication exposures. Disease behaviour is influenced by the nature of exposure and the host response, with varying degrees of lung inflammation and fibrosis seen within individuals. The differentiation of HP from other ILDs is important due to distinct causes, pathophysiology, prognosis and management implications.

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Information on the effects of changing agricultural management on crop and livestock performance is critical for developing evidence-based policies, investments, and programs. Evidence for Resilient Agriculture (ERA) v1.0.

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Multiplexed imaging technologies have made it possible to interrogate complex tissue microenvironments at sub-cellular resolution within their native spatial context. However, proper quantification of this complexity requires the ability to easily and accurately segment cells into their sub-cellular compartments. Within the supervised learning paradigm, deep learning-based segmentation methods demonstrating human level performance have emerged.

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Appendiceal adenocarcinoma (ApAC) is a rare malignancy, comprising less than 1 % of all gastrointestinal tumors. The current World Health Organization classifies ApAC as mucinous or nonmucinous. Mucinous ApAC are composed of pools of mucin lined by cells with low- and high-grade cytology and areas of infiltrative invasion.

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Percutaneous liver procedures are frequently performed in patients with abnormal coagulation tests. Current guidelines suggest prophylactic transfusion is not mandatory in all patients with liver disease or cirrhosis, depending on the risk of bleeding. This study aims to describe the incidence and risk of major bleeding after percutaneous liver procedure in patients with and without cirrhosis.

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Gastrointestinal follicular lymphoma (GI-FL) is an uncommon non-Hodgkin lymphoma that affects the gastrointestinal tract. It typically occurs within the duodenum with the appearance of multiple nodules. Treatment options, depending on stage and grade of the tumor, include aggressive chemotherapy, immunotherapy, radiotherapy, surgical or endoscopic resection, or simply monitoring as focal disease may be indolent.

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Background: A high proportion of patients do not regain outdoor mobility after hip fracture. Rehabilitation explicitly targeting outdoor mobility is needed to enable these older adults to recover activities which they value most. The overarching aim of this study is to determine the feasibility of a randomised controlled trial which aims to assess the clinical- and cost-effectiveness of an intervention designed to enable recovery of outdoor mobility among older adults after hip fracture (the OUTDOOR intervention).

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Inertial confinement fusion experiments taking place at the National Ignition Facility are generating ever increasing amounts of fusion energy, with the deuterium tritium fusion neutron yield growing a hundredfold over the past ten years. Strategies must be developed to mitigate this harsh environment's deleterious effects on the operation and the performance of the time-resolved x-ray imagers deployed in the National Ignition Facility target bay to record the dynamics of the implosions. We review the evolution of these imagers in recent years and detail some of the past and present efforts undertaken to maintain or improve the quality of the experimental data collected on high neutron yield experiments.

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Background: After surgery for a broken ankle, patients are usually instructed to avoid walking for 6 weeks (delayed weight-bearing). Walking 2 weeks after surgery (early weight-bearing) might be a safe and preferable rehabilitation strategy. This study aimed to determine the clinical and cost effectiveness of an early weight-bearing strategy compared with a delayed weight-bearing strategy.

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Small, fragmented, or isolated populations are at risk of population decline due to fitness costs associated with inbreeding and genetic drift. The King Island scrubtit Acanthornis magna greeniana is a critically endangered subspecies of the nominate Tasmanian scrubtit A. m.

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Article Synopsis
  • The study aimed to explore how the concentration of chlorhexidine gluconate (CHG) on the skin affects microbial colonization, particularly in adult patients in medical ICUs across several hospitals.
  • By collecting skin swab samples and measuring CHG concentration, researchers found that higher CHG levels correlated with fewer detections of gram-positive bacteria and specific species, while gram-negative bacteria were less affected.
  • The findings suggest that increasing CHG skin concentrations could enhance infection control for certain pathogens, although no specific threshold level was identified for reducing microbial detection.
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SARS-CoV-2 3C-like main protease (3CL) is essential for protein excision from the viral polyprotein. 3CL inhibitor drug development to block SARS-CoV-2 replication focuses on the catalytic non-prime (P) side for specificity and potency, but the importance of the prime (P') side in substrate specificity and for drug development remains underappreciated. We determined the P6-P6' specificity for 3CL from >800 cleavage sites that we identified using Proteomic Identification of Cleavage site Specificity (PICS).

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Background: Admission and discharge screening of patients for asymptomatic gut colonization with multidrug-resistant organisms (MDROs) is a common approach to active surveillance, but its sensitivity for detecting colonization is uncertain.

Methods: Daily rectal or fecal swab samples and associated clinical data were collected over 12 months from patients in one 25-bed medical intensive care unit (ICU) in Chicago, IL and tested for the following MDROs: vancomycin-resistant enterococci; third-generation cephalosporin-resistant Enterobacterales, including extended-spectrum β-lactamase-producing Enterobacterales; and carbapenem-resistant Enterobacterales. MDRO detection by (1) admission and discharge surveillance cultures or (2) clinical cultures were compared to daily surveillance cultures.

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Article Synopsis
  • * This experiment produced 2.05 MJ of laser energy, resulting in 3.1 MJ of total fusion yield, which exceeds the Lawson criterion for ignition, demonstrating a key milestone in fusion research.
  • * The report details the advancements in target design, laser technology, and experimental methods that contributed to this historic achievement, validating over five decades of research in laboratory fusion.
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We analyzed retrospective data from toxicology studies involving administration of high doses of adeno-associated virus expressing different therapeutic transgenes to 21 cynomolgus and 15 rhesus macaques. We also conducted prospective studies to investigate acute toxicity following high-dose systemic administration of enhanced green fluorescent protein-expressing adeno-associated virus to 10 rhesus macaques. Toxicity was characterized by transaminitis, thrombocytopenia, and alternative complement pathway activation that peaked on post-administration day 3.

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The SWItch/Sucrose Non-Fermentable (SWI/SNF) complex is a multimeric protein involved in transcription regulation and DNA damage repair. SWI/SNF complex abnormalities are observed in approximately 14-34 % of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinomas (PDACs). Herein, we evaluated the immunohistochemical expression of a subset of the SWI/SNF complex proteins (ARID1A, SMARCA4/BRG1, SMARCA2/BRM, and SMARCB1/INI1) within our PDAC tissue microarray to determine whether SWI/SNF loss is associated with any clinicopathologic features or patient survival in PDAC.

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Autosomal recessive polycystic kidney disease (ARPKD; MIM#263200) is a severe, hereditary, hepato-renal fibrocystic disorder that leads to early childhood morbidity and mortality. Typical forms of ARPKD are caused by pathogenic variants in the gene, which encodes the fibrocystin/polyductin (FPC) protein. MYC overexpression has been proposed as a driver of renal cystogenesis, but little is known about MYC expression in recessive PKD.

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