When a negative (charge) is not a positive: sialylation and its role in cancer mechanics and progression.

Sialic acids and sialoglycans are critical actors in cancer progression and metastasis. These terminal sugar residues on glycoproteins and glycolipids modulate key cellular processes such as immune evasion, cell adhesion, and migration. Aberrant sialylation is driven by overexpression of sialyltransferases, resulting in hypersialylation on cancer cell surfaces as well as enhancing tumor aggressiveness.

Inhibition of Mac-1 allows human macrophages to migrate against the direction of shear flow on ICAM-1.

All immune cells must transit from the blood to distal sites such as the lymph nodes, bone marrow, or sites of infection. Blood borne monocytes traffic to the site of inflammation by adhering to the endothelial surface and migrating along endothelial intracellular adhesion molecule 1 (ICAM-1) by their ligand's macrophage 1 antigen (Mac-1) and lymphocyte functional antigen 1 (LFA-1) to transmigrate through the endothelium. Poor patient prognoses in chronic inflammation and tumors have been attributed to the hyper recruitment of certain types of macrophages.

Let's Get Rolling: Precise Control of Microfluidic Assay Conditions to Recapitulate Selectin-Mediated Rolling Interactions of the Leukocyte Adhesion Cascade.

The leukocyte adhesion cascade governs the recruitment of circulating immune cells from the vasculature to distal sites. The initial adhesive interactions between cell surface ligands displaying sialyl-Lewis (sLe) and endothelial E- and P-selectins serve to slow the cells down enough to interact more closely with the surface, polarize, and exit into the tissues. Therefore, precise microfluidic assays are critical in modeling how well immune cells can interact and "roll" on selectins to slow down enough to complete further steps of the cascade.

Not all (cells) who wander are lost: Upstream migration as a pervasive mode of amoeboid cell motility.

Leukocytes possess the ability to migrate upstream-against the direction of flow-on surfaces of specific chemistry. Upstream migration was first characterized for T-cells on surfaces comprised of intracellular adhesion molecule-1 (ICAM-1). Upstream migration occurs when the integrin receptor αβ (also known as lymphocyte function-associated antigen-1, or LFA-1) binds to ICAM-1.

Characterizing empathy and compassion using computational linguistic analysis.

Many scholars have proposed that feeling what we believe others are feeling-often known as "empathy"-is essential for other-regarding sentiments and plays an important role in our moral lives. Caring for and about others (without necessarily sharing their feelings)-often known as "compassion"-is also frequently discussed as a relevant force for prosocial motivation and action. Here, we explore the relationship between empathy and compassion using the methods of computational linguistics.

Social comparison, parasocial relationships, and attachment style: how and when do celebrities improve self-liking?

The recent exponential increase in information available online has not only increased access to information about celebrities, but also decreased the degree to which that information is unambiguously positive. In the current work, we examined how positive celebrities (i.e.

Etanercept with IVIg for acute Kawasaki disease: a long-term follow-up on the EATAK trial.

Background: The Etanercept as Adjunctive Treatment for Acute Kawasaki Disease, a phase-3 clinical trial, showed that etanercept reduced the prevalence of IVIg resistance in acute Kawasaki disease. In patients who presented with coronary artery involvement, it reduced the maximal size and short-term progression of coronary artery dilation. Following up with this patient group, we evaluated the potential long-term benefit of etanercept for coronary disease.

Cognitive-behavioural therapy for children with irritable bowel syndrome.

Question: A child with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) presented to the clinic with a chief concern of ongoing gastrointestinal symptoms. The parents reported no improvement despite dietary modifications and are not interested in any medications. Is cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT) an effective treatment for IBS in children?

Answer: Traditional CBT and its subtypes, including Internet-based CBT and gut-directed hypnotherapy, are more effective in reducing pain and gastrointestinal symptoms in children and adolescents with IBS compared with standard treatment or no treatment.

Closed- and open-vocabulary approaches to text analysis: A review, quantitative comparison, and recommendations.

Technology now makes it possible to understand efficiently and at large scale how people use language to reveal their everyday thoughts, behaviors, and emotions. Written text has been analyzed through both theory-based, closed-vocabulary methods from the social sciences as well as data-driven, open-vocabulary methods from computer science, but these approaches have not been comprehensively compared. To provide guidance on best practices for automatically analyzing written text, this narrative review and quantitative synthesis compares five predominant closed- and open-vocabulary methods: Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC), the General Inquirer, DICTION, Latent Dirichlet Allocation, and Differential Language Analysis.

Surgical Skills and Technological Advancements to Avoid Complications in Lateral Neck Dissection for Differentiated Thyroid Cancer.

Neck dissection is a surgical procedure reserved for thyroid cancer cases with clinically evident lymphatic invasion. Although neck dissection is a reliable and safe procedure, it can determine a significant morbidity involving a variety of structures of nervous, vascular and endocrine typology. A careful pre-operative study is therefore essential to better plan surgery.

Proteoglycans as Mediators of Cancer Tissue Mechanics.

Proteoglycans are a diverse group of molecules which are characterized by a central protein backbone that is decorated with a variety of linear sulfated glycosaminoglycan side chains. Proteoglycans contribute significantly to the biochemical and mechanical properties of the interstitial extracellular matrix where they modulate cellular behavior by engaging transmembrane receptors. Proteoglycans also comprise a major component of the cellular glycocalyx to influence transmembrane receptor structure/function and mechanosignaling.

Linguistic analysis of empathy in medical school admission essays.

Objectives: This study aimed to determine whether words used in medical school admissions essays can predict physician empathy.

Methods: A computational form of linguistic analysis was used for the content analysis of medical school admissions essays. Words in medical school admissions essays were computationally grouped into 20 'topics' which were then correlated with scores on the Jefferson Scale of Empathy.

LFA-1 signals to promote actin polymerization and upstream migration in T cells.

T cell entry into inflamed tissue requires firm adhesion, cell spreading, and migration along and through the endothelial wall. These events require the T cell integrins LFA-1 and VLA-4 and their endothelial ligands ICAM-1 and VCAM-1, respectively. T cells migrate against the direction of shear flow on ICAM-1 and with the direction of shear flow on VCAM-1, suggesting that these two ligands trigger distinct cellular responses.

Cultural Differences in Tweeting about Drinking Across the US.

Excessive alcohol use in the US contributes to over 88,000 deaths per year and costs over $250 billion annually. While previous studies have shown that excessive alcohol use can be detected from general patterns of social media engagement, we characterized how drinking-specific language varies across regions and cultures in the US. From a database of 38 billion public tweets, we selected those mentioning "drunk", found the words and phrases distinctive of drinking posts, and then clustered these into topics and sets of semantically related words.

Don't sugarcoat it: How glycocalyx composition influences cancer progression.

Mechanical interactions between tumors and the extracellular matrix (ECM) of the surrounding tissues have profound effects on a wide variety of cellular functions. An underappreciated mediator of tumor-ECM interactions is the glycocalyx, the sugar-decorated proteins and lipids that act as a buffer between the tumor and the ECM, which in turn mediates all cell-tissue mechanics. Importantly, tumors have an increase in the density of the glycocalyx, which in turn increases the tension of the cell membrane, alters tissue mechanics, and drives a more cancerous phenotype.

Human Neutrophils Will Crawl Upstream on ICAM-1 If Mac-1 Is Blocked.

The recruitment of neutrophils to sites of inflammatory insult is a hallmark of the innate immune response. Neutrophil recruitment is regulated by a multistep process that includes cell rolling, activation, adhesion, and transmigration through the endothelium commonly referred to as the leukocyte adhesion cascade. After selectin-mediated braking, neutrophils migrate along the activated vascular endothelium on which ligands, including intercellular adhesion molecule-1 (ICAM-1) and vascular cell adhesion molecule-1 (VCAM-1), are expressed.

The language of character strengths: Predicting morally valued traits on social media.

Objective: Social media is increasingly being used to study psychological constructs. This study is the first to use Twitter language to investigate the 24 Values in Action Inventory of Character Strengths, which have been shown to predict important life domains such as well-being.

Method: We use both a top-down closed-vocabulary (Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count) and a data-driven open-vocabulary (Differential Language Analysis) approach to analyze 3,937,768 tweets from 4,423 participants (64.

Role of Emerging Environmental Risk Factors in Thyroid Cancer: A Brief Review.

Environmental factors are recognized as risk factors of thyroid cancer in humans. Exposure to radiation, both from nuclear weapon or fallout or medical radiation, and to some organic and inorganic chemical toxicants represent a worldwide public health issue for their proven carcinogenicity. Halogenated compounds, such as organochlorines and pesticides, are able to disrupt thyroid function.

T lymphocytes migrate upstream after completing the leukocyte adhesion cascade.

The leukocyte adhesion cascade is of critical importance for both the maintenance of immune homeostasis and the ability of immune cells to perform effector functions. Here, we present data showing CD4 T cells migrate upstream (against the direction of flow) after completing the leukocyte adhesion cascade on surfaces displaying either ICAM-1 or ICAM-1 and VCAM-1, but migrate downstream on surfaces displaying only VCAM-1. Cells completing the cascade on HUVECs initially migrate upstream before reverting to more random migration, partly caused by transmigration of cells migrating against the flow.

Hypocalcemia after thyroidectomy: iPTH levels and iPTH decline are predictive? Retrospective cohort study.

Background: Hypocalcemia is the most common complication of thyroid surgery. The aim of this study was to determine the early predictive factors of postoperative hypocalcemia and to analyze their efficiency.

Methods: We performed a retrospective study of 345 consecutive patients who underwent total thyroidectomy at the Endocrine Surgery Department (Policlinico G.

Can Twitter be used to predict county excessive alcohol consumption rates?

Objectives: The current study analyzes a large set of Twitter data from 1,384 US counties to determine whether excessive alcohol consumption rates can be predicted by the words being posted from each county.

Methods: Data from over 138 million county-level tweets were analyzed using predictive modeling, differential language analysis, and mediating language analysis.

Results: Twitter language data captures cross-sectional patterns of excessive alcohol consumption beyond that of sociodemographic factors (e.

Diagnostic accuracy of biparametric vs multiparametric MRI in clinically significant prostate cancer: Comparison between readers with different experience.

Background: MRI plays a crucial role to identify men with a high likelihood of clinically significant prostate cancer who require immediate biopsy. The added value of DCE MRI in combination with T2-weighted imaging and DWI is controversial (risks related to gadolinium administration, duration of MR exam, financial burden, effects on diagnostic performance). A comparison of a biparametric and a standard multiparametric MR imaging protocol, taking into account the different experience of the readers, may help to choose the best MR approach regarding diagnostic performance.