The Sikkim flood of October 2023: Drivers, causes and impacts of a multihazard cascade.

On 3 October 2023, a multihazard cascade in the Sikkim Himalaya, India, was triggered by 14.7 million m of frozen lateral moraine collapsing into South Lhonak Lake, generating an ~20 m tsunami-like impact wave, breaching the moraine, and draining ~50 million m of water. The ensuing Glacial Lake Outburst Flood (GLOF) eroded ~270 million m of sediment, which overwhelmed infrastructure, including hydropower installations along the Teesta River.

Use of Oral Rub and Rinse Technique for Oral Cancer Screening: Results from a Community-based Program in an LMIC.

Background: Oral cancer screening programs can aid in the early identification of potentially malignant oral lesions. The objective of the present study was to evaluate the effectiveness of the Oral Rub and Rinse (ORR) technique as an oral cancer screening tool and to test its potential in detecting genetic alterations in exfoliated cells obtained through ORR.

Methods: The screening programs were conducted in rural Dakshina Kannada and Udupi districts in Karnataka.

A review on amino acids as proxies for organic matter degradation in aquatic ecosystems: implications for nutrient cycling, climate change, and ecosystem management.

The fate and degradation of organic matter in aquatic systems is a vital link in nutrient cycling and sedimentation processes influenced by exogenous and endogenous factors, such as inputs from upstream sources, sediment suspension, and the decomposition of aquatic organisms. The interplay of organic carbon, microbes, and environmental factors shapes the distribution and degradation of organic matter. Characterizing the source distribution of sedimentary organic matter in aquatic systems using novel proxies can unravel new insights into the mechanisms that control its dispersal, preservation and fate, which is essential to understanding the global carbon and nitrogen cycles.

Targeting Wnt signaling pathway with small-molecule therapeutics for treating osteoporosis.

Small molecules are emerging as potential candidates for treating osteoporosis by activating canonical Wnt signaling. These candidates work either by inhibiting DKK-1, sclerostin, SFRP-1, NOTUM, and S1P lyase or by preventing β-catenin degradation through inhibition of GSK-3β, or by targeting Dvl-CXXC5 and axin/β-catenin interactions. While many of these anti-osteoporotic small molecules are in preclinical development, the paucity of FDA-approved small molecules, or promising candidates, that have progressed to clinical trials for treating bone disorders through this mechanism poses a challenge.

De novo design of peptide binders to conformationally diverse targets with contrastive language modeling.

Designing binders to target undruggable proteins presents a formidable challenge in drug discovery. In this work, we provide an algorithmic framework to design short, target-binding linear peptides, requiring only the amino acid sequence of the target protein. To do this, we propose a process to generate naturalistic peptide candidates through Gaussian perturbation of the peptidic latent space of the ESM-2 protein language model and subsequently screen these novel sequences for target-selective interaction activity via a contrastive language-image pretraining (CLIP)-based contrastive learning architecture.

Routine Fundoscopy: Unravelling Undiagnosed Significant Coarctation of the Aorta.

A 10-year-old boy was brought to the outpatient department with complaints of diminished vision for two years. On examination, the best-corrected visual acuity (BCVA) in oculus dexter (OD) was 20/40 and in oculus sinister (OS) was 20/80. The patient was dilated for routine fundoscopy, which revealed grade IV hypertensive retinopathy changes in both eyes, with a macular fan in the left eye.

Combatting Salmonella: a focus on antimicrobial resistance and the need for effective vaccination.

Background: Salmonella infections represent a major global public health concern due to their widespread zoonotic transmission, antimicrobial resistance, and associated morbidity and mortality. This review aimed to summarize the zoonotic nature of Salmonella, the challenges posed by antimicrobial resistance, the global burden of infections, and the need for effective vaccination strategies to mitigate the rising threat of Salmonella.

Methods: A systematic review of literature was conducted using databases such as PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, and Google Scholar.

Nanoparticle Interactions with the Blood Brain Barrier: Insights from Drosophila and Implications for Human Astrocyte Targeted Therapies.

This review explores the intricate connections between Drosophila models and the human blood-brain barrier (BBB) with nanoparticle-based approaches for neurological treatment. Drosophila serves as a powerful model organism due to its evolutionary conservation of key biological processes, particularly in the context of the BBB, which is formed by glial cells that share structural and functional similarities with mammalian endothelial cells. Recent advancements in nanoparticle technology have highlighted their potential for effective drug delivery across the BBB, utilizing mechanisms such as passive diffusion, receptor-mediated transcytosis, and carrier-mediated transport.

Metal-organic framework catalysed multicomponent reactions towards the synthesis of Pyrans.

Metal-Organic Frameworks (MOFs) gaining increasing interest in heterogeneous catalysis owing to their advantageous properties such as superior porosity, high surface area, ample catalytic sites. Their properties can be tailored by varying the metal ions or metal clusters (nodes) and organic linkers. Magnetically active nano core-shell MOF composites are also discovered for easy separation and reuse of catalyst.

Attention-guided erasing for enhanced transfer learning in breast abnormality classification.

Purpose: Breast cancer remains one of the most prevalent cancers globally, necessitating effective early screening and diagnosis. This study investigates the effectiveness and generalizability of our recently proposed data augmentation technique, attention-guided erasing (AGE), across various transfer learning classification tasks for breast abnormality classification in mammography.

Methods: AGE utilizes attention head visualizations from DINO self-supervised pretraining to weakly localize regions of interest (ROI) in images.

Numerical and experimental methods for the assessment of a human finger-inspired soft pneumatic actuator for gripping applications.

The increasing demand for soft robotic systems in agricultural, biomedical and other applications has driven the development of actuators that can mimic the flexibility and adaptability of human muscles. Several studies have explored the design and implementation of soft actuators for robotic applications, however, there is a need for soft actuators demonstrating delicate gripping capabilities but also excel in specific biomedical applications, such as therapeutic massaging. The objective of this work is to develop a multi-finger soft pneumatic actuator mimicking human fingers for Ayurvedic therapeutic massaging and gripping applications.

Emerging Trends in Neuroblastoma Diagnosis, Therapeutics, and Research.

This review explores the current understanding and recent advancements in neuroblastoma, one of the most common extracranial solid pediatric cancers, accounting for ~ 15% of childhood cancer-related mortality. The hallmarks of NBL, including angiogenesis, metastasis, apoptosis resistance, cell cycle dysregulation, drug resistance, and responses to hypoxia and ROS, underscore its complex biology. The tumor microenvironment's significance in disease progression is acknowledged in this study, along with the pivotal role of cancer stem cells in sustaining tumor growth and heterogeneity.

Guselkumab: A New Therapeutic Option for the Treatment of Moderately to Severely Active Ulcerative Colitis.

Objective: To summarize the evidence and pharmacologic profile of guselkumab for moderate to severe ulcerative colitis (UC).

Data Sources: A PubMed search from inception to end of October 2024 using keywords was conducted. Additional information was obtained from abstracts and package insert.

Prevalence of visually significant cataract and cataract surgical coverage in Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

Aims: Compare the prevalence of age-related cataract and the cataract surgical coverage rate between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians and explore differences in these estimates across location and time.

Methods: The Joanna Briggs Institute guidance for systematic reviews of prevalence studies was followed. A systematic search of Medline, Embase, Web of Science and grey literature from database inception to June 2022 was performed.

Parametric finite element modeling of reinforced polymeric leaflets for improved durability.

Hyaluronic acid-enhanced polyethylene polymeric TAVR shows excellent in vivo anti-calcific, anti-thrombotic, and in vitro hydrodynamic performance. However, during durability testing, impact wear and fatigue cause early valve failure. Heart valve durability can be improved by strengthening the leaflet with fiber reinforcement.

Exploring the Feasibility of a Bracketing Approach Utilizing Modeling for Development of Long-Acting Injectables for Regulatory Approval-A Case Study Using Levonorgestrel.

Background: The development of long-acting products of a characterized drug substance is of great interest. It is possible to support the development of these products with available clinical data by matching the exposure to a predefined bracket of a minimal concentration for efficacy and a maximal concentration for safety. This bracketing approach would cut down on the time and cost of new long-acting contraceptive products progressing to market.

Subgroup specific transcriptional regulation of salmonid non-classical MHC class I L lineage genes following viral challenges and interferon stimulations.

Non-classical MHC class I genes which, compared to classical MHC class I, are typically less polymorphic and have more restricted expression patterns are attracting interest because of their potential to regulate immune responses to various pathogens. In salmonids, among the numerous non-classical MHC class I genes identified to date, L lineage genes, including Sasa- and , are differentially induced in response to microbial challenges. In the present study, we show that while transcription of both and are induced in response to SAV3 infection the transcriptional induction patterns are distinct for each gene.

Biological functions of extracellular vesicle double C2-like domain beta in cervical cancer.

Double C-2 Like Domain Beta (DOC2B) located at 17q13.3 prevents metastasis by senescence induction and epithelial to mesenchymal transition inhibition in cervical cancer (CC). The extracellular vesicle (EV) mediated trafficking of DOC2B and its impact on tumor suppressive activity are not investigated in CC.

Examining the Association Between Public Health Accreditation and COVID-19 Outcomes.

Objective: To examine the association between local health department (LHD) accreditation and COVID-19 community outcomes, including rates of adult vaccination, hospitalization, and death.

Design: We examined county level rates of adult vaccination, hospitalization, and death by LHD accreditation status over the course of the COVID pandemic. Additional independent variables included time period, COVID-19 Community Vulnerability Index (CCVI), state public health governance structure, and state policy environment.

"They Surge-on…The Journey of an Early Career Plastic Surgeon in India as I see it".

The journey to becoming a plastic surgeon is a long one. Most nonsurgeons are unaware of the actual scope of plastic surgery and the spectrum of surgeries done by plastic surgeons. The constant look-out for "cutting chances" from early in the career can be quite exhausting and may take a toll on the professional relationships as well as personal lives of plastic surgeons.

Surveillance for surgical site infections developed during hospital stay & after discharge: A multicentric study.

Background & objectives Surgical site infections (SSIs) are among the most prevalent healthcare-associated infections (HCAIs). They cause significant morbidity, leading to excess health expenditures and increased length of hospital stay. Despite a high population burden, data on post-discharge SSIs is lacking from low-and middle-income countries (LMICs).

Evaluating the activity of cefoperazone-sulbactam against Gram negative pathogens in blood stream infections using automated systems.

Background And Objectives: The incidence of multidrug-resistant, Gram-negative organisms, isolated as the etiological agents of infections is ascending. The advent of novel antibiotics poses significant challenges, necessitating the optimization and utilization of extant antimicrobial agents. Cefoperazone, a third-generation cephalosporin and β-lactam antimicrobial, when combined with sulbactam, an irreversible β-lactamase inhibitor, mitigates the vulnerability of cefoperazone to β-lactamase-producing organisms.

Evaluating Emotional Intelligence in Medical Students: A Comparative Analysis of Their Trait Emotional Intelligence (TEI) Scores Before and During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Medical education, which generally relied heavily on intelligence quotients, has found a new value in emotional intelligence (EI), specifically after the challenges faced during the COVID-19 pandemic. The COVID-19 pandemic has had some apparent and some intangible effects, as this required an emergency switch to online teaching and learning.  Aim: This study was conducted to compare the trait emotional intelligence (TEI) score of medical undergraduates with the increasing number of years of medical curriculum.