Capturing the emotional and social experiences of COVID-19 through journal entries: A qualitative study of COVID-19 experiences over six weeks following infection.

COVID-19's wide-ranging effects on patients' physical health are well-documented, but comparatively less research has explored the impact on patients' emotional and social experiences. We examined how patients across a multi-state health system experience the emotional and social aspects of COVID-19 during the first six weeks of recovery from infection. We leveraged the larger My COVID Diary project to capture open-ended journal data from an app-based platform available to patients who test positive for COVID-19 within the health system.

Exploring power building capacity at the ecosystem level: A case study of a justice-oriented organizational network.

Community organizing and base building groups operate as part of a larger ecosystem of organizations, each with complementary capacities necessary to build power and achieve social change. Analytic approaches to assessing power in organizational networks can generate data to inform strategy, identify gaps, and help nurture organizational ecosystems that support communities in building and exercising power. This article uses a network of 43 justice-focused organizations in the Bay Area, California and their 267 reported connections as a case study to assess the feasibility of measuring power building capacities using social network analyses.

Integrating patient-reported physical, mental, and social impacts to classify long COVID experiences.

Long COVID was originally identified through patient-reported experiences of prolonged symptoms. Many studies have begun to describe long COVID; however, this work typically focuses on medical records, instead of patient experiences, and lacks a comprehensive view of physical, mental, and social impacts. As part of our larger My COVID Diary (MCD) study, we captured patient experiences using a prospective and longitudinal patient-reported outcomes survey (PROMIS-10) and free-text narrative submissions.

Patient-Reported Outcomes for Fully Vaccinated COVID-19 Patients Over 6 Weeks: The Experiences of Clinical Breakthrough Cases.

Background: While coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccines have high rates of efficacy, fully vaccinated individuals can become infected with COVID-19. Among this population, symptoms tend to be less severe and shorter lasting. Less is known about how vaccinated individuals who contract COVID-19 experience the disease through patient-reported outcomes (PROs) and how this changes over time.

Readmission After Ileostomy Creation: Retrospective Review of a Common and Significant Event.

Objective: To evaluate causes and predictors of readmission after new ileostomy creation.

Background: New ileostomates have been reported to have higher readmission rates compared with other surgical patients, but data on predictors are limited.

Methods: A total of 1114 records at 2 associated hospitals were reviewed to identify adults undergoing their first ileostomy.

Patient-reported outcomes in randomised controlled trials of colorectal cancer: an analysis determining the availability of robust data to inform clinical decision-making.

Purpose: Randomised controlled trials (RCTs) are the most robust study design measuring outcomes of colorectal cancer (CRC) treatments, but to influence clinical practice trial design and reporting of patient-reported outcomes (PROs) must be of high quality. Objectives of this study were as follows: to examine the quality of PRO reporting in RCTs of CRC treatment; to assess the availability of robust data to inform clinical decision-making; and to investigate whether quality of reporting improved over time.

Methods: A systematic review from January 2004-February 2012 identified RCTs of CRC treatment describing PROs.

Functional consequences of colorectal cancer management.

Functional outcomes of colorectal cancer treatment are an increasingly prominent interest of patients, clinicians, and researchers. The current literature on function after colorectal cancer treatment is difficult to assimilate, with many small, retrospective studies that use a wide variety of nonvalidated measurement tools. Post-treatment dysfunction after rectal cancer therapy is common and often severe.

Incidence of and risk factors for iliocaval venous obstruction in patients with active or healed venous leg ulcers.

Background: Iliocaval venous obstruction (ICVO) can be a significant contributor to venous hypertension in patients with advanced disease. The incidence of ICVO in patients with CEAP clinical class 5 and 6 disease has not been reported. In this study, we reviewed a series of patients with healed or active venous leg ulcers to determine the incidence of ICVO and the risk factors related to its occurrence.

Statistical analysis of plasma thermograms measured by differential scanning calorimetry.

Melting curves of human plasma measured by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), known as thermograms, have the potential to markedly impact diagnosis of human diseases. A general statistical methodology is developed to analyze and classify DSC thermograms to analyze and classify thermograms. Analysis of an acquired thermogram involves comparison with a database of empirical reference thermograms from clinically characterized diseases.

The paradox of multiplex DNA melting on a surface.

Under equilibrium conditions, there are two regimes of target capture on a surface--target limited and probe limited. In the probe limited regime, the melting curve from multiplex target dissociation from the surface exhibits a single transition due to a reverse displacement mechanism of the low affinity species. The melting curve cannot be used in analytical methods to resolve heteroduplexes; only with the simplex system can proper thermodynamics be obtained.

Influence of buffer species on the thermodynamics of short DNA duplex melting: sodium phosphate versus sodium cacodylate.

Thermodynamic parameters of the melting transitions of 53 short duplex DNAs were experimentally evaluated by differential scanning calorimetry melting curve analysis. Solvents for the DNA solutions contained approximately 1 M Na+ and either 10 mM cacodylate or phosphate buffer. Thermodynamic parameters obtained in the two solvent environments were compared and quantitatively assessed.

Origins of the "nucleation" free energy in the hybridization thermodynamics of short duplex DNA.

Thermodynamic parameters deltaH(cal), deltaS(cal), and deltaG(cal) of the melting transitions for 19 short DNA/DNA duplexes ranging in length from 6 to 35 base pairs were systematically evaluated by differential scanning calorimetry melting experiments carried out at four salt concentrations from 85 mM to 1.0 M [Na+]. As expected, thermodynamic stabilities of the DNA duplexes increased with length and increasing [Na+].

Electrical detection of the temperature induced melting transition of a DNA hairpin covalently attached to gold interdigitated microelectrodes.

The temperature induced melting transition of a self-complementary DNA strand covalently attached at the 5' end to the surface of a gold interdigitated microelectrode (GIME) was monitored in a novel, label-free, manner. The structural state of the hairpin was assessed by measuring four different electronic properties of the GIME (capacitance, impedance, dissipation factor and phase angle) as a function of temperature from 25 degrees C to 80 degrees C. Consistent changes in all four electronic properties of the GIME were observed over this temperature range, and attributed to the transition of the attached single-stranded DNA (ssDNA) from an intramolecular, folded hairpin structure to a melted ssDNA.

DNA multiplex hybridization on microarrays and thermodynamic stability in solution: a direct comparison.

Hybridization intensities of 30 distinct short duplex DNAs measured on spotted microarrays, were directly compared with thermodynamic stabilities measured in solution. DNA sequences were designed to promote formation of perfect match, or hybrid duplexes containing tandem mismatches. Thermodynamic parameters DeltaH degrees , DeltaS degrees and DeltaG degrees of melting transitions in solution were evaluated directly using differential scanning calorimetry.

Multiplex SNP discrimination.

Multiplex hybridization reactions of perfectly matched duplexes and duplexes containing a single basepair mismatch (SNPs) were investigated on DNA microarrays. Effects of duplex length, G-C percentage, and relative position of the SNP on duplex hybridization and SNP resolution were determined. Our theoretical model of multiplex hybridization accurately predicts observed results and implicates target concentration as a critical variable in multiplex SNP detection.

Diversity of ganglion cells in the mouse retina: unsupervised morphological classification and its limits.

The dendritic structures of retinal ganglion cells in the mouse retina were visualized by particle-mediated transfer of DiI, microinjection of Lucifer yellow, or visualization of green fluorescent protein expressed in a transgenic strain. The cells were imaged in three dimensions and the morphologies of a series of 219 cells were analyzed quantitatively. A total of 26 parameters were studied and automated cluster analysis was carried out using the k-means methods.