Age-related changes in polycomb gene regulation disrupt lineage fidelity in intestinal stem cells.

Tissue homeostasis requires long-term lineage fidelity of somatic stem cells. Whether and how age-related changes in somatic stem cells impact the faithful execution of lineage decisions remains largely unknown. Here, we address this question using genome-wide chromatin accessibility and transcriptome analysis as well as single-cell RNA-seq to explore stem-cell-intrinsic changes in the aging intestine.

Relationship of socio-economic inequality and overweight with non-communicable diseases risk factors: A study on underprivileged population.

Background: Out of every five deaths in India three are due to Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs). Two major modifiable risk factors for NCDs are overweight and socioeconomic inequality. This study assesses the burden of various NCDs risk factors and their relationship with socioeconomic inequality and overweight among the underprivileged population.

On secondary atomization and blockage of surrogate cough droplets in single- and multilayer face masks.

Face masks prevent transmission of infectious respiratory diseases by blocking large droplets and aerosols during exhalation or inhalation. While three-layer masks are generally advised, many commonly available or makeshift masks contain single or double layers. Using carefully designed experiments involving high-speed imaging along with physics-based analysis, we show that high-momentum, large-sized (>250 micrometer) surrogate cough droplets can penetrate single- or double-layer mask material to a significant extent.

Lives of Gender Incongruent Community: An Indian Subset Chants "All is Well".

Context: Gender incongruent individuals are exposed to unique stressors as a result of their minority social position. Poor social support has a further adverse impact on the lives and wellbeing of gender incongruent individuals. There is a paucity of scientific data from India on the socioeconomic status (SES) of gender incongruent community.

Chronic Disease in the Community (CDCom) Program: Hypertension and non-communicable disease care by village health workers in rural Uganda.

Background: Although hypertension, the largest modifiable risk factor in the global burden of disease, is prevalent in sub-Saharan Africa, rates of awareness and control are low. Since 2011 village health workers (VHWs) in Kisoro district, Uganda have been providing non-communicable disease (NCD) care as part of the Chronic Disease in the Community (CDCom) Program. The VHWs screen for hypertension and other NCDs as part of a door-to-door biannual health census, and, under the supervision of health professionals from the local district hospital, also serve as the primary providers at monthly village-based NCD clinics.

Strengthening the Use of Partograph in High Caseload Public Health Facilities in India through an Integrated Quality Improvement Approach.

Background: The effective implementation of evidence-based practices including the use of partograph to improve maternal and newborn outcomes is critical on account of increased institutional delivery. However, despite clear guidelines, partograph use in India is not widely practiced.

Materials And Methods: Quality improvement (QI) efforts along with training and mentoring were operationalized in a total of 141 facilities across 26 high priority districts of India.

Immunotherapy in breast cancer: A clinician's perspective.

Globally over 2 million women are diagnosed with breast cancer each year despite major advances in detection and treatment of the disease. Breast cancer is comprised of several distinct subtypes and understanding the heterogeneity of the disease has become crucial for treatment planning. Therapeutic strategies span from a hormone therapy-based focus for women with estrogen receptor positive breast cancer to targeting human epidermal growth factor (HER2) by small molecules, antibody-drug-conjugates (ADC) and monoclonal antibodies in those with HER2 overexpression.

Weathering the Storm: Psychological Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on Clinical and Nonclinical Healthcare Workers in India.

Background: Coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has exposed healthcare workers (HCWs) to a unique set of challenges and stressors. Our frontline workers are under tremendous psychological pressure because of the ever-rising crisis. This study was done to assess the magnitude of the psychological impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on clinical and nonclinical HCWs in India.

Sexual health communication between sex worker mothers and their children in India.

In India, relatively little is known about sex worker mothers' beliefs regarding sexual health communication with their children. Using qualitative data collected in Kolkata, India, this study used the Parent Expansion of the Theory of Planned Behaviour to examine sex worker mothers' beliefs about sexual health communication and factors shaping these beliefs. Sex worker mothers' beliefs about sexual health communication were shaped by societal norms and collectivising processes often driven by Durbar Mahila Samanwaya Committee (DMSC), a sex workers' collective in Kolkata, India.

Water quality, sanitation, and hygiene among the tribal community residing in Jawadhi hills, Tamilnadu: An observational study from Southern India.

Objectives: To assess the water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) practice among the tribal population of Tamil Nadu, India and to determine the physiochemical and bacteriological quality of drinking water at the principal source and at the households along with the household-level determinants of WASH practices.

Methods: A door-to-door survey was conducted in 150 households, distributed across six villages of hills, a tribal area in the state of Tamil Nadu, India. Water samples were collected from the principal sources and a subset of households for assessing water quality.

Parkinson's Patients' Tolerance for Risk and Willingness to Wait for Potential Benefits of Novel Neurostimulation Devices: A Patient-Centered Threshold Technique Study.

Parkinson's disease (PD) is neurodegenerative, causing motor, cognitive, psychological, somatic, and autonomic symptoms. Understanding PD patients' preferences for novel neurostimulation devices may help ensure that devices are delivered in a timely manner with the appropriate level of evidence. Our objective was to elicit preferences and willingness-to-wait for novel neurostimulation devices among PD patients to inform a model of optimal trial design.

Evaporation-induced alterations in oscillation and flow characteristics of a sessile droplet on a rose-mimetic surface.

Strategic control of evaporation dynamics can help control oscillation modes and internal flow field in an oscillating sessile droplet. This article presents the study of an oscillating droplet on a bio-inspired "sticky" surface to better understand the nexus between the modes of evaporation and oscillation. Oscillation in droplets can be characterized by the number of nodes forming on the surface and is referred to as the mode of oscillation.

Impact of porous nanomaterials on inhibiting protein aggregation behaviour.

Aggregation of intrinsically disordered as well as the ordered proteins under certain premises or physiological conditions leads to pathological disorder. Here we have presented a detailed investigation on the effect of a porous metallic (Au) and a non-metallic (Si) nanomaterial on the formation of ordered (fiber-like/amyloid) and disordered (amorphous) aggregates of proteins. Porous nanogold (PNG) was found to reduce the amyloid aggregation of insulin but does not have much impact on the lag phase in the aggregation kinetics, whereas porous nano-silica (PNS) was found both to decrease the amount of aggregation as well as prolong the lag phase of amyloid fiber formation from insulin.

Legions of Presentations of Myxedema Coma: A Case Series from a Tertiary Hospital in India.

Myxedema coma is associated with decreased mental status and hyponatremia among patients with diagnosed or undiagnosed hypothyroidism. The diagnosis is challenging in the absence of universally accepted diagnostic criteria, but should be considered as a differential even in cases with competing established diagnoses. All patients should receive intensive care level treatment.

Half metallicity in Cr substituted FeTiSn.

Band structure tailoring has been a great avenue to achieve the half-metallic electronic ground state in materials. Applying this approach to the full Heusler alloy FeTiSn, Cr is introduced systematically at Ti site that conforms to the chemical formula [Formula: see text]Sn. Compositions so obtained have been investigated for its electronic, magnetic, and electrical transport properties with an aim to observe the half-metallic ferromagnetic ground state, anticipated theoretically for FeCrSn.

Machine Learning for Prediction of Patients on Hemodialysis with an Undetected SARS-CoV-2 Infection.

Background: We developed a machine learning (ML) model that predicts the risk of a patient on hemodialysis (HD) having an undetected SARS-CoV-2 infection that is identified after the following ≥3 days.

Methods: As part of a healthcare operations effort, we used patient data from a national network of dialysis clinics (February-September 2020) to develop an ML model (XGBoost) that uses 81 variables to predict the likelihood of an adult patient on HD having an undetected SARS-CoV-2 infection that is identified in the subsequent ≥3 days. We used a 60%:20%:20% randomized split of COVID-19-positive samples for the training, validation, and testing datasets.

Suppression of poised oncogenes by ZMYND8 promotes chemo-sensitization.

The major challenge in chemotherapy lies in the gain of therapeutic resistance properties of cancer cells. The relatively small fraction of chemo-resistant cancer cells outgrows and are responsible for tumor relapse, with acquired invasiveness and stemness. We demonstrate that zinc-finger MYND type-8 (ZMYND8), a putative chromatin reader, suppresses stemness, drug resistance, and tumor-promoting genes, which are hallmarks of cancer.

Analyzing the dominant SARS-CoV-2 transmission routes toward an disease spread model.

Identifying the relative importance of the different transmission routes of the SARS-CoV-2 virus is an urgent research priority. To that end, the different transmission routes and their role in determining the evolution of the Covid-19 pandemic are analyzed in this work. The probability of infection caused by inhaling virus-laden droplets (initial ejection diameters between 0.

Association between the New COVID-19 Cases and Air Pollution with Meteorological Elements in Nine Counties of New York State.

The principal objective of this article is to assess the possible association between the number of COVID-19 infected cases and the concentrations of fine particulate matter (PM) and ozone (O), atmospheric pollutants related to people's mobility in urban areas, taking also into account the effect of meteorological conditions. We fit a generalized linear mixed model which includes spatial and temporal terms in order to detect the effect of the meteorological elements and COVID-19 infected cases on the pollutant concentrations. We consider nine counties of the state of New York which registered the highest number of COVID-19 infected cases.

A Multicenter Questionnaire-based Study to Know the Awareness and Medical Treatment Plan of Physicians Involved in the Management of COVID-19 Patients.

Introduction: The pandemic coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is on the rise in our country and there is no specific treatment modality available presently. The treatment of the disease largely remains symptomatic but repurposed drugs used to treat other disease conditions are being used to treat moderate to severe form of the disease. As the clinical trials for these drugs are ongoing, we conducted this survey to know the physicians' medical treatment plan for COVID-19 patients.

Embryonic lethality and defective mammary gland development of activator-function impaired conditional knock-in mice.

ERBB3 is a pseudokinase domain-containing member of the ERBB family of receptor tyrosine kinases (RTKs). Following ligand binding, ERBB receptors homo- or hetero-dimerize, leading to a head-to-tail arrangement of the intracellular kinase domains, where the "receiver" kinase domain of one ERBB is activated by the "activator" domain of the other ERBB in the dimer. In ERBB3, a conserved valine at codon 943 (V943) in the kinase C-terminal domain has been shown to be important for its function as an "activator" kinase .

Tetanus After Trivial Trauma: A Case Series and Review of Pharamocotherapeutic Management.

Tetanus is a vaccine-preventable disease that is still endemic in developing countries. We discuss two cases of tetanus in unvaccinated individuals. The first case was a young goat herder who was initially started on benzodiazepine and muscle relaxants.