Hospital teaching status is an independent predictor of surgical intervention of distal radius fractures.

Background: Distal radius fractures are among the most common orthopaedic injuries and are managed both surgically and non-surgically. To date, no study has examined the role hospital teaching status plays in the rates of surgical intervention.

Methods: The Nationwide Inpatient Sample (NIS) was queried for years 2003-2014.

Resident involvement in hand and upper extremity surgery: An analysis of 30-day complications.

Background: Rotations in hand and upper extremity surgery are a core component of the Orthopaedic and Plastic Surgery resident training curriculums. This study compares short-term outcomes in hand and upper extremity procedures with and without resident involvement.

Methods: The National Surgical Quality Improvement Program database was queried from years 2005-2012 for all procedures distal to the shoulder.

Assessing radiation dosimetry for microorganisms in naturally radioactive mineral springs using GATE and Geant4-DNA Monte Carlo simulations.

Mineral springs in Massif Central, France can be characterized by higher levels of natural radioactivity in comparison to the background. The biota in these waters is constantly under radiation exposure mainly from the α-emitters of the natural decay chains, with 226Ra in sediments ranging from 21 Bq/g to 43 Bq/g and 222Rn activity concentrations in water up to 4600 Bq/L. This study couples for the first time micro- and nanodosimetric approaches to radioecology by combining GATE and Geant4-DNA to assess the dose rates and DNA damages to microorganisms living in these naturally radioactive ecosystems.

Continuous atmospheric in-situ measurements of the CH/CO ratio at the Mt. Cimone station (Italy, 2165 m a.s.l.) and their possible use for estimating regional CH emissions.

Methane (CH) is an important climate forcer, contributing about 17% of the total radiative forcing by long living greenhouse gases. The Po basin is one of the most polluted and densely populated areas in Europe representing an important source region for CH. The aim of this work was to test an inter-species correlation approach to derive estimates of anthropogenic CH emissions for the period 2015-2019 from the Po basin by combining CO bottom-up inventory data and continuous CH and CO observations from a mountain site in the northern Italy.

Diatom DNA metabarcoding to assess the effect of natural radioactivity in mineral springs on ASV of benthic diatom communities.

Little is still known about the low dose effects of radiation on the microbial communities in the environment. Mineral springs are ecosystems than can be affected by natural radioactivity. These extreme environments are, therefore, observatories for studying the influence of chronic radioactivity on the natural biota.

Framing Perpetrators of Sexual Violence Who Participate in Circles of Support and Accountability (CoSA): An Analysis of Global Print Media Reporting.

Circles of Support and Accountability (CoSA) are now part of the criminal justice landscape in various parts of the world. While CoSA have received considerable media attention, it is not yet known how they are portrayed in the media. This study addressed this gap by analyzing newspaper coverage of CoSA from across the English-speaking world.

Automatic detection of prosodic boundaries in spontaneous speech.

Automatic speech recognition (ASR) and natural language processing (NLP) are expected to benefit from an effective, simple, and reliable method to automatically parse conversational speech. The ability to parse conversational speech depends crucially on the ability to identify boundaries between prosodic phrases. This is done naturally by the human ear, yet has proved surprisingly difficult to achieve reliably and simply in an automatic manner.

Characteristics and Publication Rates for Podium Presentations at National Hand Surgery Meetings from 2007 to 2012.

The purpose of this study was to evaluate and compare the research presented at the annual meetings of the American Society for Surgery of the Hand (ASSH) and the American Association for Hand Surgery (AAHS). Podium presentation data were extracted from the abstract books of the annual meetings of the ASSH and AAHS from 2007 to 2012. Corresponding publications were identified using searchable online publication databases and an algorithm linking authorship and content.

A Novel Machine Learning Model Developed to Assist in Patient Selection for Outpatient Total Shoulder Arthroplasty.

Introduction: Patient selection for outpatient total shoulder arthroplasty (TSA) is important to optimizing patient outcomes. This study aims to develop a machine learning tool that may aid in patient selection for outpatient total should arthroplasty based on medical comorbidities and demographic factors.

Methods: Patients undergoing elective TSA from 2011 to 2016 in the American College of Surgeons National Surgical Quality Improvement Program were queried.

Reducing the ionizing radiation background does not significantly affect the evolution of Escherichia coli populations over 500 generations.

Over millennia, life has been exposed to ionizing radiation from cosmic rays and natural radioisotopes. Biological experiments in underground laboratories have recently demonstrated that the contemporary terrestrial radiation background impacts the physiology of living organisms, yet the evolutionary consequences of this biological stress have not been investigated. Explaining the mechanisms that give rise to the results of underground biological experiments remains difficult, and it has been speculated that hereditary mechanisms may be involved.

Using Demographic Factors and Comorbidities to Develop a Predictive Model for ICU Mortality in Patients with Acute Exacerbation COPD.

Recognizing factors associated with mortality in patients admitted to the ICU with acute exacerbation of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease could reduce healthcare costs and improve end-of-life care. Previous studies have identified possible predictive variables, but analysis is lacking on the combined effect of demographic factors and comorbidities. Using the MIMIC-III database, this study examined factors associated with mortality in a model incorporating comorbidities, comorbidity indices, and demographic factors.

Hygroregulation, a key ability for eusocial insects: Native Western European honeybees as a case study.

Sociality has brought many advantages to various hymenoptera species, including their ability of regulating physical factors in their nest (e.g., temperature).

Predicting Mortality in Diabetic ICU Patients Using Machine Learning and Severity Indices.

Diabetes constitutes a significant health problem that leads to many long term health issues including renal, cardiovascular, and neuropathic complications. Many of these problems can result in increased health care costs, as well risk of ICU stay and mortality. To date, no published study has used predictive modeling to examine the relative influence of diabetes, diabetic health maintenance, and comorbidities on outcomes in ICU patients.

Normal sleep bouts are not essential for C. elegans survival and FoxO is important for compensatory changes in sleep.

Background: Sleep deprivation impairs learning, causes stress, and can lead to death. Notch and JNK-1 pathways impact C. elegans sleep in complex ways; these have been hypothesized to involve compensatory sleep.

Glia Modulate a Neuronal Circuit for Locomotion Suppression during Sleep in C. elegans.

Glia have been suggested to regulate sleep-like states in vertebrates and invertebrates alike. In the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans, sleep is associated with molting between larval stages. To understand if glia modulate neural circuits driving sleep in C.

Distinct unfolded protein responses mitigate or mediate effects of nonlethal deprivation of C. elegans sleep in different tissues.

Background: Disrupting sleep during development leads to lasting deficits in chordates and arthropods. To address lasting impacts of sleep deprivation in Caenorhabditis elegans, we established a nonlethal deprivation protocol.

Results: Deprivation triggered protective insulin-like signaling and two unfolded protein responses (UPRs): the mitochondrial (UPR) and the endoplasmic reticulum (UPR) responses.

Nosema ceranae, Fipronil and their combination compromise honey bee reproduction via changes in male physiology.

The honey bee is threatened by biological agents and pesticides that can act in combination to induce synergistic effects on its physiology and lifespan. The synergistic effects of a parasite/pesticide combination have been demonstrated on workers and queens, but no studies have been performed on drones despite their essential contribution to colony sustainability by providing semen diversity and quality. The effects of the Nosema ceranae/fipronil combination on the life traits and physiology of mature drones were examined following exposure under semi-field conditions.

Stochastic feeding dynamics arise from the need for information and energy.

Animals regulate their food intake in response to the available level of food. Recent observations of feeding dynamics in small animals showed feeding patterns of bursts and pauses, but their function is unknown. Here, we present a data-driven decision-theoretical model of feeding in Our central assumption is that food intake serves a dual purpose: to gather information about the external food level and to ingest food when the conditions are good.

Understanding low radiation background biology through controlled evolution experiments.

Biological experiments conducted in underground laboratories over the last decade have shown that life can respond to relatively small changes in the radiation background in unconventional ways. Rapid changes in cell growth, indicative of hormetic behaviour and long-term inheritable changes in antioxidant regulation have been observed in response to changes in the radiation background that should be almost undetectable to cells. Here, we summarize the recent body of underground experiments conducted to date, and outline potential mechanisms (such as cell signalling, DNA repair and antioxidant regulation) that could mediate the response of cells to low radiation backgrounds.

Serotonin-dependent kinetics of feeding bursts underlie a graded response to food availability in C. elegans.

Animals integrate physiological and environmental signals to modulate their food uptake. The nematode C. elegans, whose food uptake consists of pumping bacteria from the environment into the gut, provides excellent opportunities for discovering principles of conserved regulatory mechanisms.

Simulating the Impact of the Natural Radiation Background on Bacterial Systems: Implications for Very Low Radiation Biological Experiments.

At very low radiation dose rates, the effects of energy depositions in cells by ionizing radiation is best understood stochastically, as ionizing particles deposit energy along tracks separated by distances often much larger than the size of cells. We present a thorough analysis of the stochastic impact of the natural radiative background on cells, focusing our attention on E. coli grown as part of a long term evolution experiment in both underground and surface laboratories.

A scalable method for automatically measuring pharyngeal pumping in C. elegans.

Background: The nematode Caenorhabditis elegans is widely used for studying small neural circuits underlying behavior. In particular, the rhythmic feeding motions collectively termed pharyngeal pumping are regulated by a nearly autonomous network of 20 neurons of 14 types. Despite much progress achieved through laser ablation, genetics, electrophysiology, and optogenetics, key questions regarding the regulation of pumping remain open.

Transmission of trisomy decreases with maternal age in mouse models of Down syndrome, mirroring a phenomenon in human Down syndrome mothers.

Background: Down syndrome incidence in humans increases dramatically with maternal age. This is mainly the result of increased meiotic errors, but factors such as differences in abortion rate may play a role as well. Since the meiotic error rate increases almost exponentially after a certain age, its contribution to the overall incidence aneuploidy may mask the contribution of other processes.

Sleep and Development in Genetically Tractable Model Organisms.

Sleep is widely recognized as essential, but without a clear singular function. Inadequate sleep impairs cognition, metabolism, immune function, and many other processes. Work in genetic model systems has greatly expanded our understanding of basic sleep neurobiology as well as introduced new concepts for why we sleep.

Serotonin promotes exploitation in complex environments by accelerating decision-making.

Background: Fast responses can provide a competitive advantage when resources are inhomogeneously distributed. The nematode Caenorhabditis elegans was shown to modulate locomotion on a lawn of bacterial food in serotonin (5-HT)-dependent manners. However, potential roles for serotonergic signaling in responding to food discovery are poorly understood.