Understanding temporal patterns and determinants of RNA shedding is important to comprehend SARS-CoV-2 transmission and improve biosafety/isolation guidelines. Nonhospitalized SARS-CoV-2-infected individuals and household members were enrolled between March 2020 and June 2021 and followed prospectively ≥ 3 weeks during acute disease and at 3-, 6-, 12-, and 18-months to obtain (para)clinical data and biospecimens. Flow cytometry-based surrogate assay (FlowSA) detected viable SARS-CoV-2.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFUnlabelled: This retrospective observational study using clinical data from two large hospitals in the Netherlands evaluated midterm outcomes of fenestrated endovascular aortic repair for juxtarenal abdominal aortic aneurysms (JAAAs), comparing supracoeliac with infracoeliac sealing. Supracoeliac sealing is considered advantageous due to a longer proximal sealing, but morbidity is usually higher. Supracoeliac proximal sealing was found to be safe and effective for treating JAAAs, with peri-operative and midterm outcomes comparable with infracoeliac proximal sealing.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSeveral studies reported alterations of the human gut microbiota (GM) during COVID-19. To evaluate the potential role of the GM as an early predictor of COVID-19 at disease onset, we analyzed gut microbial samples of 315 COVID-19 patients that differed in disease severity. We observed significant variations in microbial diversity and composition associated with increasing disease severity, as the reduction of short-chain fatty acid producers such as and , and the growth of pathobionts as and .
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn this paper, we explore the effects of biological (pathological) and mechanical damage on bone tissue within a benchmark model. Using the Finite Element Methodology, we analyze and numerically test the model's components, capabilities, and performance under physiologically and pathologically relevant conditions. Our findings demonstrate the model's effectiveness in simulating bone remodeling processes and self-repair mechanisms for micro-damage induced by biological internal conditions and mechanical external ones within bone tissue.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Patients with advanced-stage epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) receive treatment with a poly-ADP ribose-polymerase (PARP) inhibitor (PARPi) as maintenance therapy after surgery and chemotherapy. Unfortunately, many patients experience disease progression because of acquired therapy resistance. This study aims to characterize epigenetic and genomic changes in cell-free DNA (cfDNA) associated with PARPi resistance.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground And Purpose: Inhibitors of voltage-gated sodium channels (Nas) are important anti-epileptic drugs, but the contribution of specific channel isoforms is unknown since available inhibitors are non-selective. We aimed to create novel, isoform selective inhibitors of Na channels as a means of informing the development of improved antiseizure drugs.
Experimental Approach: We created a series of compounds with diverse selectivity profiles enabling block of Na1.
Extrapyramidal hyperkinetic movement disorders comprise a broad range of phenotypic phenomena, including chorea, dystonia, and tics. Treatment is generally challenging and individualized, given the overlapping phenomenology, limited evidence regarding efficacy, and concerns regarding the tolerability and safety of most treatments. Over the past decade, the treatment has become even more intricate due to advancements in the field of deep brain stimulation as well as optimized dopamine- depleting agents.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPresented here is the design and performance of a coalescing liquid-liquid filter, based on low-cost and readily available meltblown nonwoven substrates for separation of immiscible phases. The performance of the coalescer was determined across three broad classes of fluid mixtures: (i) immiscible organic/aqueous systems, (ii) a surfactant laden organic/aqueous system with modification of the type of emulsion and interfacial surface tension through the addition of sodium chloride, and (iii) a water-acetone/toluene system. The first two classes demonstrated good performance of the equipment in effecting separation, including the separation of a complex emulsion system for which a membrane separator, operating through transport of a preferentially wetting fluid through the membrane, failed entirely.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMed Princ Pract
March 2024
Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the most common cause of neurodegenerative impairment in elderly people. Clinical characteristics include short-term memory loss, confusion, hallucination, agitation, and behavioural disturbance. Owing to evolving research in biomarkers AD can be discovered at early onset, but the disease is currently considered a continuum, which suggests that pharmacotherapy is most efficacious in the preclinical phase, possibly 15 - 20 years before discernible onset.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: Fenestrated endovascular aneurysm repair (FEVAR) is a feasible option for aortic repair after endovascular aneurysm repair (EVAR), due to improved peri-operative outcomes compared with open conversion. However, little is known regarding the durability of FEVAR as a treatment for failed EVAR. Since aneurysm sac evolution is an important marker for success after aneurysm repair, the aim of the study was to examine midterm outcomes and aneurysm sac dynamics of FEVAR after prior EVAR.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAims: Current heart failure (HF) guidelines recommend to prescribe four drug classes in patients with HF with reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF). A clear challenge exists to adequately implement guideline-directed medical therapy (GDMT) regarding the sequencing of drugs and timely reaching target dose. It is largely unknown how the paradigm shift from a serial and sequential approach for drug therapy to early parallel application of the four drug classes will be executed in daily clinical practice, as well as the reason clinicians may not adhere to new guidelines.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjectives: Aortic diameters may differ significantly between patients with different gender and body size. The aim of this study was to relate absolute aortic diameters to age, sex, height, and weight of the patients and to correct for these factors by calculating the ratio between the infrarenal and the suprarenal aortic diameters.
Methods: A total of 458 patients who underwent elective endovascular aneurysm repair (EVAR) between 2004 and 2018 were included.
Background: Lack of specific definitions of clinical characteristics, disease severity, and risk and preventive factors of post-COVID-19 syndrome (PCS) severely impacts research and discovery of new preventive and therapeutics drugs.
Methods: This prospective multicenter cohort study was conducted from February 2020 to June 2022 in 5 countries, enrolling SARS-CoV-2 out- and in-patients followed at 3-, 6-, and 12-month from diagnosis, with assessment of clinical and biochemical features, antibody (Ab) response, Variant of Concern (VoC), and physical and mental quality of life (QoL). Outcome of interest was identification of risk and protective factors of PCS by clinical phenotype, setting, severity of disease, treatment, and vaccination status.
In 2020, more than 9 million patients suffering from Parkinson's disease (PD) were reported worldwide, and studies predict that the burden of this disease will grow substantially in industrial countries. In the last decade, there has been a better understanding of this neurodegenerative disorder, clinically characterized by motor disturbances, impaired balance, coordination, memory difficulties, and behavioral changes. Various preclinical investigations and studies on human postmortem brains suggest that local oxidative stress and inflammation promote misfolding and aggregation of alpha-synuclein within Lewy bodies and cause nerve cell damage.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMitochondrial dysfunction is pivotal in drug-induced acute kidney injury (AKI), but the underlying mechanisms remain largely unknown. Transport proteins embedded in the mitochondrial inner membrane form a significant class of potential drug off-targets. So far, most transporter-drug interactions have been reported for the mitochondrial ADP/ATP carrier (AAC).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe problems of extracting products efficiently from reaction workups are often overlooked. Issues such as emulsions and rag layer formation can cause long separation times and slow production, thus resulting in manufacturing inefficiencies. To better understand science within this area and to support process development, an image processing methodology has been developed that can automatically track the interface between liquid-liquid phases and provide a quantitative measure of the separation rate of two immiscible liquids.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe utilization of stationary underwater cameras is a modern and well-adapted approach to provide a continuous and cost-effective long-term solution to monitor underwater habitats of particular interest. A common goal of such monitoring systems is to gain better insight into the dynamics and condition of populations of various marine organisms, such as migratory or commercially relevant fish taxa. This paper describes a complete processing pipeline to automatically determine the abundance, type and estimate the size of biological taxa from stereoscopic video data captured by the stereo camera of a stationary Underwater Fish Observatory (UFO).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFLateral tongue bracing is a lingual posture in which the sides of the tongue are held against the palate and upper molars, and has been observed cross-linguistically. However, it is unknown whether lateral bracing makes adjustments to external perturbation like other body postures. The present study aims to test the robustness of lateral tongue bracing with three experiments.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: This study evaluated our experience with dynamic computed tomography angiography (dCTA) as a diagnostic tool after endovascular aortic aneurysm repair (EVAR) with respect to the endoleak classification and the available literature.
Methods: We reviewed all patients who underwent dCTA because of suspected endoleaks after the EVAR and classified the endoleaks in these patients based on standard CTA (sCTA) and dCTA. We systematically reviewed all available publications that investigated the diagnostic accuracy of dCTA compared with other imaging techniques.
Profiles of eddy momentum flux divergence are calculated as the residual in the momentum budget constructed from airborne circular dropsonde arrays ( 220 km) for 13 days during the EUREC A/ATOMIC field campaign. The observed dynamical forcing averaged over all flights agrees broadly with European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) Integrated Forecasting System (IFS) forecasts. In the direction of the flow, a mean flux divergence (friction) exists over a 1.
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