Robust and interpretable AI-guided marker for early dementia prediction in real-world clinical settings.

Background: Predicting dementia early has major implications for clinical management and patient outcomes. Yet, we still lack sensitive tools for stratifying patients early, resulting in patients being undiagnosed or wrongly diagnosed. Despite rapid expansion in machine learning models for dementia prediction, limited model interpretability and generalizability impede translation to the clinic.

MiRNA Chaining for Efficient Stable Overexpression to Improve Protein Quantity and Quality in CHO Cells.

MicroRNAs (miRNAs), small noncoding RNAs with a length of about 22 nucleotides, harbor the potential to be powerful tools for the genetic engineering of production cell lines like Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cells. Their ability to regulate multiple targets at once and their potential to fine-tune effect strengths contrast with classical engineering approaches. However, most studies of miRNAs rely on transiently flooding the cells with miRNA mimics.

Pronunciation of Vowel Digraphs in Nonwords: A Replication and Extension.

In English, the pronunciation of a vowel digraph can vary; for example, is pronounced /ɛ/ in but /i/ in and /eɪ/ in . We investigated participant-level effects on the pronunciation of ambiguous vowel digraphs in nonwords (e.g.

Stable overexpression of native and artificial miRNAs for the production of differentially fucosylated antibodies in CHO cells.

Cell engineering strategies typically rely on energy-consuming overexpression of genes or radical gene-knock out. Both strategies are not particularly convenient for the generation of slightly modulated phenotypes, as needed in biosimilar development of for example differentially fucosylated monoclonal antibodies (mAbs). Recently, transiently transfected small noncoding microRNAs (miRNAs), known to be regulators of entire gene networks, have emerged as potent fucosylation modulators in Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) production cells.

Unsupervised multimodal modeling of cognitive and brain health trajectories for early dementia prediction.

Predicting the course of neurodegenerative disorders early has potential to greatly improve clinical management and patient outcomes. A key challenge for early prediction in real-world clinical settings is the lack of labeled data (i.e.

Inefficient transcription is a production bottleneck for artificial therapeutic BiTE® proteins.

Antibodies are potent biopharmaceuticals used to treat severe diseases, including cancers. During the past decade, more complex modalities have been developed including bispecific T-cell engager (BiTE®) molecules, e.g.

Use of elexacaftor/tezacaftor/ivacaftor leads to changes in detection frequencies of Staphylococcus aureus and Pseudomonas aeruginosa dependent on age and lung function in people with cystic fibrosis.

Objectives: The impressive improvements of cystic fibrosis (CF) transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR) function by elexacaftor/tezacaftor/ivacaftor (ETI) result in changes in the detection frequencies of Staphylococcus aureus (SA) and Pseudomonas aeruginosa (PA). We assessed determinants of the response to ETI with regards to SA and PA detection frequencies as documented in the German CF registry for people with CF (pwCF) ≥12 years.

Methods: We evaluated changes in the detection frequencies of SA and PA for 21 months before and after initiation of ETI and used different statistical tests to identify determinants of detection changes.

Predicting incident dementia in cerebral small vessel disease: comparison of machine learning and traditional statistical models.

Background: Cerebral small vessel disease (SVD) contributes to 45% of dementia cases worldwide, yet we lack a reliable model for predicting dementia in SVD. Past attempts largely relied on traditional statistical approaches. Here, we investigated whether machine learning (ML) methods improved prediction of incident dementia in SVD from baseline SVD-related features over traditional statistical methods.

Artificial intelligence for diagnostic and prognostic neuroimaging in dementia: A systematic review.

Introduction: Artificial intelligence (AI) and neuroimaging offer new opportunities for diagnosis and prognosis of dementia.

Methods: We systematically reviewed studies reporting AI for neuroimaging in diagnosis and/or prognosis of cognitive neurodegenerative diseases.

Results: A total of 255 studies were identified.

Impact of elexacaftor/tezacaftor/ivacaftor on lung function, nutritional status, pulmonary exacerbation frequency and sweat chloride in people with cystic fibrosis: real-world evidence from the German CF Registry.

Background: Treatment with elexacaftor/tezacaftor/ivacaftor (ETI) improves multiple clinical outcomes in people with cystic fibrosis (pwCF) with at least one F508del allele. This study evaluated the real-world impact of ETI on lung function, nutritional status, pulmonary exacerbation frequency, and sweat chloride concentrations in a large group of pwCF.

Methods: This observational cohort study used data from the German CF Registry for pwCF who received ETI therapy and were followed up for a period of 12 months.

Perception of Barriers to and Factors Associated with HPV Vaccination Among Parents of American Indian Adolescents in the Cherokee Nation.

The purpose of this study was to understand the perceptions of HPV vaccination barriers and factors among parents or guardians of American Indian adolescents in the Cherokee Nation. Fifty-four parents of American Indian adolescents in the Cherokee Nation participated in one of eleven focus group discussions from June to August 2019. Discussions were recorded, transcribed, coded, and analyzed for themes.

A novel system for glycosylation engineering by natural and artificial miRNAs.

N-linked glycosylation is a crucial post-translational modification of many biopharmaceuticals, including monoclonal antibodies (mAbs), capable of modifying their biological effect in patients and thus considered as a critical quality attribute (CQA). However, expression of desired and consistent glycosylation patterns remains a constant challenge for the biopharmaceutical industry and constitutes the need for tools to engineer glycosylation. Small non-coding microRNAs (miRNAs) are known regulators of entire gene networks and have therefore the potential of being used as tools for modulation of glycosylation pathways and for glycoengineering.

HPV vaccination coverage and factors among American Indians in Cherokee Nation.

Purpose: We estimated human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine initiation coverage among American Indian adolescents and identified factors associated with HPV vaccination among parents of these adolescents.

Methods: We developed, tested, and disseminated a survey to a random sample of 2,000 parents of American Indian adolescents aged 9-17 years who had accessed Cherokee Nation Health Services from January 2019 to August 2020. We used log-binomial regression to estimate the unadjusted and adjusted weighted prevalence proportion ratios (PPR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) for adolescent HPV vaccine initiation.

Development and Implementation of an HPV Vaccination Survey for American Indians in Cherokee Nation.

Improving human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination rates is a public health priority and a crucial cancer prevention goal. We designed a survey to estimate HPV vaccination coverage and understand factors associated with HPV vaccination among American Indian adolescents aged 9 to 17 years in Cherokee Nation, United States. The final survey contains 37 questions across 10 content areas, including HPV vaccination awareness, initiation, reasons, recommendations, and beliefs.

The Discriminative Kalman Filter for Bayesian Filtering with Nonlinear and Nongaussian Observation Models.

The Kalman filter provides a simple and efficient algorithm to compute the posterior distribution for state-space models where both the latent state and measurement models are linear and gaussian. Extensions to the Kalman filter, including the extended and unscented Kalman filters, incorporate linearizations for models where the observation model is nonlinear. We argue that in many cases, a model for proves both easier to learn and more accurate for latent state estimation.

Off-Site Flux Estimates of Volatile Organic Compounds from Oil and Gas Production Facilities Using Fast-Response Instrumentation.

Flux estimates of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from oil and gas (O&G) production facilities are fundamental in understanding hazardous air pollutant concentrations and ozone formation. Previous off-site emission estimates derive fluxes by ratioing VOCs measured in canisters to methane fluxes measured in the field. This study uses the Environmental Protection Agency's Other Test Method 33A (OTM 33A) and a fast-response proton transfer reaction mass spectrometer to make direct measurements of VOC emissions from O&G facilities in the Upper Green River Basin, Wyoming.

Implementation of Liver Cancer Education Among Health Care Providers and Community Coalitions in the Cherokee Nation.

The Cherokee Nation Comprehensive Cancer Control Program collaborated with the Cherokee Nation Hepatitis C Virus (HCV) Elimination Program within Cherokee Nation's Health Services to plan and implement activities to increase knowledge and awareness of liver cancer prevention among health care providers and the Cherokee Nation community. From August 2017 to April 2018, the 2 programs implemented liver cancer prevention interventions that focused on education of health care providers and community members. We used descriptive statistics to analyze data collected from a brief, retrospective pre-post survey for each intervention.

Robust Closed-Loop Control of a Cursor in a Person with Tetraplegia using Gaussian Process Regression.

Intracortical brain computer interfaces can enable individuals with paralysis to control external devices through voluntarily modulated brain activity. Decoding quality has been previously shown to degrade with signal nonstationarities-specifically, the changes in the statistics of the data between training and testing data sets. This includes changes to the neural tuning profiles and baseline shifts in firing rates of recorded neurons, as well as nonphysiological noise.

Rapid calibration of an intracortical brain-computer interface for people with tetraplegia.

Objective: Brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) can enable individuals with tetraplegia to communicate and control external devices. Though much progress has been made in improving the speed and robustness of neural control provided by intracortical BCIs, little research has been devoted to minimizing the amount of time spent on decoder calibration.

Approach: We investigated the amount of time users needed to calibrate decoders and achieve performance saturation using two markedly different decoding algorithms: the steady-state Kalman filter, and a novel technique using Gaussian process regression (GP-DKF).

Variation in Methane Emission Rates from Well Pads in Four Oil and Gas Basins with Contrasting Production Volumes and Compositions.

Atmospheric methane emissions from active natural gas production sites in normal operation were quantified using an inverse Gaussian method (EPA's OTM 33a) in four major U.S. basins/plays: Upper Green River (UGR, Wyoming), Denver-Julesburg (DJ, Colorado), Uintah (Utah), and Fayetteville (FV, Arkansas).

Children's and mothers' cardiovascular reactivity to a standardized laboratory stressor: Unique relations with maternal anxiety and overcontrol.

Research documents bidirectional associations between parental overcontrol (OC) and children's anxiety; OC may place children at risk for anxiety and also may occur in response to children's requests for help. However, to date no studies have examined children's or parents' in-the-moment emotional responses to OC. Using a community sample of mothers and school-age children, we examine the individual and interactive influences of maternal OC, maternal anxiety, children's help-seeking, and children's anxiety in predicting physiological reactivity in response to a stressor faced by children and observed by mothers, predicting that for children of higher anxiety mothers, higher OC will be associated with increases in reactivity (decreases in respiratory sinus arrhythmia [RSA]), whereas for higher anxiety mothers themselves, engaging in OC will be associated with reductions in physiological reactivity (decreases in heart rate).

SECURE BASE SCRIPT CONTENT EXPLAINS THE ASSOCIATION BETWEEN ATTACHMENT AVOIDANCE AND EMOTION-RELATED CONSTRUCTS IN PARENTS OF YOUNG CHILDREN.

The secure base script (SBS) framework is one method of assessing implicit internal working models of attachment; recently, researchers have applied this method to analyze narratives regarding relationship experiences. This study examines the associations between attachment avoidance and SBS content when parents recall a positive moment of connection between themselves and their children (relational savoring) as well as their association with parental emotion and reflective functioning (RF). Using a sample of parents (N = 155, 92% female) of young children (53% boys, M = 12.

Parental mentalizing as an indirect link between attachment anxiety and parenting satisfaction.

Attachment anxiety in parents is associated with lower quality parent-child relationships. An inhibited capacity to reflect on children's mental states, referred to as prementalizing, may reduce the pleasure parents derive from their relationships. In the current study, we explored the associations among attachment anxiety, prementalizing, and parenting satisfaction in two groups of participants randomly assigned either to reflect on a positive memory with their child (n = 150) or to reflect on a positive memory not involving their child (n = 150).

Airborne compact rotational Raman lidar for temperature measurement.

We developed an airborne compact rotational Raman lidar (CRL) for use on the University of Wyoming King Air (UWKA) aircraft to obtain two-dimensional (2D) temperature disman tributions. It obtained fine-scale 2D temperature distributions within 3 km below the aircraft for the first time during the PECAN (Plains Elevated Convection At Night) campaign in 2015. The CRL provided nighttime temperature measurements with a random error of <0.

Microdosimetric and Biological Effects of Photon Irradiation at Different Energies in Bone Marrow.

To ensure reliability and reproducibility of radiobiological data, it is necessary to standardize dosimetry practices across all research institutions. The photoelectric effect predominates over other interactions at low energy and in high atomic number materials such as bone, which can lead to increased dose deposition in soft tissue adjacent to mineral bone due to secondary radiation particles. This may produce radiation effects that deviate from higher energy photon irradiation that best model exposure from clinical radiotherapy or nuclear incidences.