Treatment preferences of patients with muscle invasive bladder cancer: A discrete choice experiment.

Background: When faced with treatment options, patients are asked to participate in decision-making. We sought to determine which treatment aspects matter most for individuals treated for muscle invasive bladder cancer (MIBC), with an aim to improve understanding of patient preferences and what trade-offs patients are willing to accept. Our study consisted of a discrete choice experiment (DCE): a type of questionnaire used to elicit preferences in the absence of real-world choice.

Surgical options in thoracic disc herniation: Evaluating long-term outcomes of 21 cases based on a single-center 10-year experience.

Background: Symptomatic thoracic disc herniation (TDH) is a rare pathology that is addressed with relatively challenging surgical approaches, the choice and technical execution of which have been well described in the literature. Interestingly, long-term outcomes, including surgical site pain-related disability, the need for instrumentation, and commonly occurring complications such as cerebrospinal fluid (CSF)-pleural fistula have not been widely addressed. Here, we address the complication profiles and long-term outcomes of different surgical approaches for TDH.

Polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) Augmentation Enhances the Mechanical Characteristics of Midfoot Beam Constructs in Charcot Neuroarthropathy Cadaver Model.

Background: Even with the best conservative care, patients with Charcot neuroarthropathy (CN) of the foot and ankle often ulcerate, increasing their risk of infection, amputation, and death. Surgical fixation has been associated with risk of recurrent ulceration, potentially due to poor bone quality prone to recurrent deformity and ulceration. We propose midfoot beam reconstruction with PMMA augmentation as a novel means of improving fixation.

Measurement of the Induced Magnetic Polarisation of Rotated-Domain Graphene Grown on Co Film with Polarised Neutron Reflectivity.

In this paper, we determine the magnetic moment induced in graphene when grown on a cobalt film using polarised neutron reflectivity (PNR). A magnetic signal in the graphene was detected by X-ray magnetic circular dichroism (XMCD) spectra at the C -edge. From the XMCD sum rules an estimated magnetic moment of 0.

Malaysian and Chinese King Cobra Venom Cytotoxicity in Melanoma and Neonatal Foreskin Fibroblasts Is Mediated by Age and Geography.

Snake venoms constitute a complex, rapidly evolving trait, whose composition varies between and within populations depending on geographical location, age and preys (diets). These factors have determined the adaptive evolution for predatory success and link venom heterogeneity with prey specificity. Moreover, understanding the evolutionary drivers of animal venoms has streamlined the biodiscovery of venom-derived compounds as drug candidates in biomedicine and biotechnology.

Brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) has direct anti-inflammatory effects on microglia.

Microglia are the primary immunocompetent cells that protect the brain from environmental stressors, but can also be driven to release pro-inflammatory cytokines and induce a cytotoxic environment. Brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) is important for the regulation of plasticity, synapse formation, and general neuronal health. Yet, little is known about how BDNF impacts microglial activity.

Determining the Proximity Effect-Induced Magnetic Moment in Graphene by Polarized Neutron Reflectivity and X-ray Magnetic Circular Dichroism.

We report the magnitude of the induced magnetic moment in CVD-grown epitaxial and rotated-domain graphene in proximity with a ferromagnetic Ni film, using polarized neutron reflectivity (PNR) and X-ray magnetic circular dichroism (XMCD). The XMCD spectra at the C -edge confirm the presence of a magnetic signal in the graphene layer, and the sum rules give a magnetic moment of up to ∼0.47 μ/C atom induced in the graphene layer.

Cinematic reflectometry using QIKR, the quite intense kinetics reflectometer.

The Quite Intense Kinetics Reflectometer (QIKR) will be a general-purpose, horizontal-sample-surface neutron reflectometer. Reflectometers measure the proportion of an incident probe beam reflected from a surface as a function of wavevector (momentum) transfer to infer the distribution and composition of matter near an interface. The unique scattering properties of neutrons make this technique especially useful in the study of soft matter, biomaterials, and materials used in energy storage.

Biophysical studies of lipid nanodomains using different physical characterization techniques.

For the past 50 years, evidence for the existence of functional lipid domains has been steadily accumulating. Although the notion of functional lipid domains, also known as "lipid rafts," is now widely accepted, this was not always the case. This ambiguity surrounding lipid domains could be partly attributed to the fact that they are highly dynamic, nanoscopic structures.

Additively Manufactured NdFeB Polyphenylene Sulfide Halbach Magnets to Generate Variable Magnetic Fields for Neutron Reflectometry.

Halbach arrays are the most efficient closed structures for generating directed magnetic fields and gradients, and are widely used in various electric machines. We utilized fused deposition modeling-based Big Area Additive Manufacturing technology to print customized, compensated concentric Halbach array rings, using polyphenylene sulfide-bonded NdFeB permanent magnets for polarized neutron reflectometry. The Halbach rings could generate a 0 ≤  0.

Accuracy of Pain Tolerance Self-assessment Versus Objective Pressure Sensitivity.

Introduction: Effective treatment of postoperative pain after elective surgery remains elusive, and the experience of pain can be variable for patients. The patient's intrinsic pain tolerance may contribute to this variability. We sought to identify whether there was a correlation between subjective report of intrinsic pain tolerance and objective measurement of pressure dolorimetry (PD).

Room-temperature valence transition in a strain-tuned perovskite oxide.

Cobalt oxides have long been understood to display intriguing phenomena known as spin-state crossovers, where the cobalt ion spin changes vs. temperature, pressure, etc. A very different situation was recently uncovered in praseodymium-containing cobalt oxides, where a first-order coupled spin-state/structural/metal-insulator transition occurs, driven by a remarkable praseodymium valence transition.

Atomically engineered cobaltite layers for robust ferromagnetism.

Emergent phenomena at heterointerfaces are directly associated with the bonding geometry of adjacent layers. Effective control of accessible parameters, such as the bond length and bonding angles, offers an elegant method to tailor competing energies of the electronic and magnetic ground states. In this study, we construct unit-thick syntactic layers of cobaltites within a strongly tilted octahedral matrix via atomically precise synthesis.

Emergent Magnetic States and Tunable Exchange Bias at 3d Nitride Heterointerfaces.

Interfacial magnetism stimulates the discovery of giant magnetoresistance (MR) and spin-orbital coupling across the heterointerfaces, facilitating the intimate correlation between spin transport and complex magnetic structures. Over decades, functional heterointerfaces composed of nitrides have seldom been explored due to the difficulty in synthesizing high-quality nitride films with correct compositions. Here, the fabrication of single-crystalline ferromagnetic Fe N thin films with precisely controlled thicknesses is reported.

Induced Ferromagnetism in Epitaxial Uranium Dioxide Thin Films.

Actinide materials have various applications that range from nuclear energy to quantum computing. Most current efforts have focused on bulk actinide materials. Tuning functional properties by using strain engineering in epitaxial thin films is largely lacking.

Designing Magnetism in High Entropy Oxides.

In magnetic systems, spin and exchange disorder can provide access to quantum criticality, frustration, and spin dynamics, but broad tunability of these responses and a deeper understanding of strong limit disorder are lacking. Here, it is demonstrated that high entropy oxides present a previously unexplored route to designing materials in which the presence of strong local compositional disorder may be exploited to generate tunable magnetic behaviors-from macroscopically ordered states to frustration-driven dynamic spin interactions. Single-crystal La(Cr Mn Fe Co Ni )O films are used as a model system hosting a magnetic sublattice with a high degree of microstate disorder in the form of site-to-site spin and exchange type inhomogeneity.