Analytical methods for Ir-192 determination and their comparison.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Radiation Laboratory's primary mission is to provide laboratory support for an effective and efficient response to public health radiological emergencies. The laboratory has developed methods for several radiological threat agents, including Iridium-192 (Ir-192). Ir-192 can be analyzed via its gamma energy through analytical methods such as High Purity Germanium (HPGe) and its beta energy through Liquid Scintillation Counting (LSC).

Barriers to and facilitators for creating, disseminating, implementing, monitoring and evaluating oral health policies in the WHO African region: A scoping review.

Objective: To advance oral health policies (OHPs) in the World Health Organization (WHO) African region, barriers to and facilitators for creating, disseminating, implementing, monitoring and evaluating OHPs in the region were examined.

Methods: Global Health, Embase, PubMed, Public Affairs Information Service Index, ABI/Inform, Web of Science, Academic Search Complete, Scopus, Dissertations Global, Google Scholar, WHO's Institutional Repository for Information Sharing (IRIS), the WHO Noncommunicable Diseases Document Repository and the Regional African Index Medicus and African Journals Online were searched. Technical officers at the WHO Regional Office for Africa were contacted.

Investigation of select radionuclides stability in urine under various conditions for liquid scintillation counting (LSC).

Liquid Scintillation Counting (LSC) gross alpha/beta screening is a valuable tool for providing rapid laboratory response for the analysis of human clinical urine samples during a large-scale radiation incident event. Verification of method performance, as required for clinical laboratory testing, is accomplished by the evaluation of routine, periodic measurements of radioactive spiked samples for quality control, performance testing, and accuracy checks. Radionuclide stability of alpha and beta emitters in urine for LSC analysis is an important consideration.

Oral Health Policy and Research Capacity: Perspectives From Dental Schools in Africa.

Introduction And Aims: The prioritisation of oral health in all health policies in the WHO African region is gaining momentum. Dental schools in this region are key stakeholders in informing the development and subsequent downstream implementation and monitoring of these policies. The objectives of our study are to determine how dental schools contribute to oral health policies (OHPs) in this region, to identify the barriers to and facilitators for engaging with other local stakeholders, and to understand their capacity to respond to population and public health needs.

Tunable control of abundance and gut metabolites by co-administration of human milk oligosaccharides.

Precision engineering of the gut microbiome holds promise as an effective therapeutic approach for diseases associated with a disruption in this microbial community. Engrafting a live biotherapeutic product (LBP) in a predictable, controllable manner is key to the consistent success of this approach and has remained a challenge for most LBPs under development. We recently demonstrated high-level engraftment of subsp.

Alpha and beta spillover in liquid scintillation counting analysis of urine samples.

Rapid detection and quantification of gross alpha/beta-emitting radionuclides by liquid scintillation counting (LSC) is vital in guiding response to a nuclear or radiological incidents. Liquid scintillation counters use signal pulse shape to discriminate alpha and beta events in samples but require precise optimization to minimize the spillover, or misclassification, of those events. In this study, samples at varying activity levels were analyzed by LSC to determine the effect of activity level, emitter type, and sample matrix on spillover.

Precision modulation of dysbiotic adult microbiomes with a human-milk-derived synbiotic reshapes gut microbial composition and metabolites.

Manipulation of the gut microbiome using live biotherapeutic products shows promise for clinical applications but remains challenging to achieve. Here, we induced dysbiosis in 56 healthy volunteers using antibiotics to test a synbiotic comprising the infant gut microbe, Bifidobacterium longum subspecies infantis (B. infantis), and human milk oligosaccharides (HMOs).

Parents' judgments of children's gender-typed play indicate qualities of the early-life caregiving environment.

Play is critical for children's development but is the target of significant gender stereotyping. Early in life, parents must navigate these stereotypes on behalf of their children. This study examined typologies of caregivers' judgments toward their infants' future engagement with toys and activities considered typical of same- and different-gender peers, and whether these judgments indicated qualities of the child-rearing environment.

Rapid Determination of U/U in Urine Using Q-ICP-MS by a Simple Dilute-and-Shoot Approach.

The measurement of uranium (U) isotope ratios in urine provides valuable information about the source of U exposure in humans and can be vitally important in a radiological emergency. This method provides rapid and accurate results for U/U at U concentrations as low as 0.42 ng/L, which is equivalent to ~200 ng/L of total U for a depleted U (DU) at a U/U ratio of ~0.

Trans-Synaptic Degeneration Following Acute Optic Neuritis in Multiple Sclerosis.

Objective: To explore longitudinal changes in brain volumetric measures and retinal layer thicknesses following acute optic neuritis (AON) in people with multiple sclerosis (PwMS), to investigate the process of trans-synaptic degeneration, and determine its clinical relevance.

Methods: PwMS were recruited within 40 days of AON onset (n = 49), and underwent baseline retinal optical coherence tomography and brain magnetic resonance imaging followed by longitudinal tracking for up to 5 years. A comparator cohort of PwMS without a recent episode of AON were similarly tracked (n = 73).

Dosing a synbiotic of human milk oligosaccharides and B. infantis leads to reversible engraftment in healthy adult microbiomes without antibiotics.

Predictable and sustainable engraftment of live biotherapeutic products into the human gut microbiome is being explored as a promising way to modulate the human gut microbiome. We utilize a synbiotic approach pairing the infant gut microbe Bifidobacterium longum subspecies infantis (B. infantis) and human milk oligosaccharides (HMO).

Management of Major Injuries to the Bile Duct at a Hepatobiliary Specialty Referral Center.

Introduction: Aim is to evaluate geographical and demographic factors influencing management of bile duct injuries occurring during cholecystectomy in a tertiary hepato-pancreato-biliary center in Southeast US.

Methods: All referrals for biliary injuries during cholecystectomy, between Jan 2017 and December 2020 were included.

Results: 19 patients were identified with a median age of 59 (47-65), average BMI of 30.

Bacterial neurotoxic metabolites in multiple sclerosis cerebrospinal fluid and plasma.

The identification of intestinal dysbiosis in patients with neurological and psychiatric disorders has highlighted the importance of gut-brain communication, and yet the question regarding the identity of the components responsible for this cross-talk remains open. We previously reported that relapsing remitting multiple sclerosis patients treated with dimethyl fumarate have a prominent depletion of the gut microbiota, thereby suggesting that studying the composition of plasma and CSF samples from these patients may help to identify microbially derived metabolites. We used a functional xenogeneic assay consisting of cultured rat neurons exposed to CSF samples collected from multiple sclerosis patients before and after dimethyl fumarate treatment to assess neurotoxicity and then conducted a metabolomic analysis of plasma and CSF samples to identify metabolites with differential abundance.

Parent and Peer Norms are Unique Correlates of COVID-19 Vaccine Intentions in a Diverse Sample of U.S. Adolescents.

Purpose: Recent studies have documented worrisome levels of hesitancy and resistance to the COVID-19 vaccine, including within the adolescent population. In this study, we examined attitudinal (perceived severity of COVID-19, vaccine-related concerns) and interpersonal (parent and peer norms) antecedents of adolescents' intentions to receive the COVID-19 vaccine.

Methods: Participants were 916 adolescents (aged 12-17 years) from across the United States (47.

Capsid-E2 Interactions Rescue Core Assembly in Viruses That Cannot Form Cytoplasmic Nucleocapsid Cores.

Alphavirus capsid proteins (CPs) have two domains: the N-terminal domain (NTD), which interacts with the viral RNA, and the C-terminal domain (CTD), which forms CP-CP interactions and interacts with the cytoplasmic domain of the E2 spike protein (cdE2). In this study, we examine how mutations in the CP NTD affect CP CTD interactions with cdE2. We changed the length and/or charge of the NTD of Ross River virus CP and found that changing the charge of the NTD has a greater impact on core and virion assembly than changing the length of the NTD.

Surgical Axillary Staging Before Neoadjuvant Chemotherapy: Who Gets It and Why We Should Avoid It.

Background: Surgical axillary staging demonstrating positive nodal disease before neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NAC) necessitates axillary lymph node dissection (ALND) post-NAC. Despite evidence supporting post-NAC surgical staging, we hypothesized that there is persistent use of pre-NAC staging and that it is associated with aggressive clinicopathologic features and a higher rate of subsequent ALND.

Patients And Methods: Stage I-III breast cancer patients who underwent lymph node staging surgery and received NAC between 2013 and 2017 in the National Cancer Database were included.

Rapid HPGe well detector gamma bioassay of Cs, Co, and Ir method.

CDC designed a rapid HPGe Bioassay Method for Cs, Co, and Ir that is suitable for a public health response to a radiological incident where people may ingest or inhale radionuclides. The method uses a short count time, small sample volume, and a large volume detector and well size. It measures a patient's urine sample collected post-incident.

Chronic Fatigue After Thyroidectomy: A Patient-Centered Survey.

Background: Fatigue after thyroidectomy is common, but there is a paucity of data regarding its prevalence and duration. We hypothesized that total thyroidectomy (TT) patients would have more long-term fatigue than thyroid lobectomy (TL) patients.

Methods: Statewide survey of thyroidectomy patients (2004-2017) was carried out.

Removing the Polyanionic Cargo Requirement for Assembly of Alphavirus Core-Like Particles to Make an Empty Alphavirus Core.

The assembly of alphavirus nucleocapsid cores requires electrostatic interactions between the positively charged N-terminus of the capsid protein (CP) and the encapsidated polyanionic cargo. This system differs from many other viruses that can self-assemble particles in the absence of cargo, or form "empty" particles. We hypothesized that the introduction of a mutant, anionic CP could replace the need for charged cargo during assembly.

Revisiting an old friend: new findings in alphavirus structure and assembly.

Alphaviruses are transmitted by an arthropod vector to a vertebrate host. The disease pathologies, cellular environments, immune responses, and host factors are very different in these organisms. Yet, the virus is able to infect, replicate, and assemble into new particles in these two animals using one set of genetic instructions.

Protective effects of 4-aminopyridine in experimental optic neuritis and multiple sclerosis.

Chronic disability in multiple sclerosis is linked to neuroaxonal degeneration. 4-aminopyridine (4-AP) is used and licensed as a symptomatic treatment to ameliorate ambulatory disability in multiple sclerosis. The presumed mode of action is via blockade of axonal voltage gated potassium channels, thereby enhancing conduction in demyelinated axons.

An in vivo platform to select and evolve aggregation-resistant proteins.

Protein biopharmaceuticals are highly successful, but their utility is compromised by their propensity to aggregate during manufacture and storage. As aggregation can be triggered by non-native states, whose population is not necessarily related to thermodynamic stability, prediction of poorly-behaving biologics is difficult, and searching for sequences with desired properties is labour-intensive and time-consuming. Here we show that an assay in the periplasm of E.