Publications by authors named "DeFelice J"

Article Synopsis
  • Incidental durotomy (ID) is a common issue in spine surgeries that can lead to longer hospital stays and complications like pseudomeningocele formation, prompting a study comparing traditional open vs. minimally invasive (MIS) microdiscectomy techniques.
  • The study included 192 MIS patients and 2902 open surgery patients, ultimately analyzing 156 matched patients from both groups for ID occurrences and complications.
  • Results showed a similar incidence rate of ID in both methods (3.1% total), with one re-operation in the open cohort for pseudomeningocele, but no significant difference in re-operation rates between the two groups, highlighting the need for more extensive future research.
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As use of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) integrase strand transfer inhibitors (INSTI) increases and formulations are being developed for maintenance therapies and chemoprophylaxis, assessing virus suppression under INSTI-based regimens in prevention-relevant biologic compartments, such as the male genital tract, is timely. We used cell-source marker virion immunocapture to examine amplification of particle RNA then assessed the phylogenetic relatedness of seminal and blood viral sequences from men with HIV who were prescribed INSTI-based regimens. Seminal plasma immunocaptures yielded amplifiable virion RNA from 13 of 24 (54%) men, and the sequences were primarily associated with markers indicative of macrophage and resident dendritic cell sources.

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Amyloid-β pathology and neurofibrillary tangles lead to glial activation and neurodegeneration in Alzheimer's disease. In this study, we investigated the relationships between the levels of amyloid-β oligomers, amyloid-β plaques, glial activation and markers related to neurodegeneration in the triple mutation mouse line and in a knock-in line homozygous for the common human amyloid precursor protein ( mouse). The relationships between neuropathological features were characterized with immunohistochemistry and imaging mass cytometry.

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Glioblastoma (GBM) cells require high levels of nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD) to fuel metabolic reactions, regulate their cell cycle and support DNA repair in response to chemotherapy and radiation. Inhibition of a key enzyme in NAD biosynthesis, NAMPT, has demonstrated significant anti-neoplastic activity. Here, we sought to characterise NAD biosynthetic pathways in GBM to determine resistance mechanisms to NAD inhibitors.

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Background: Apathy is prevalent among people with HIV (PWH) and is associated with poor clinical outcomes. Cannabis use and Cannabis Use Disorder (CUD) are also disproportionately prevalent among PWH. CUD and younger onset of cannabis use may be linked to apathy in the general population; however, patterns of use most strongly associated with apathy have not been firmly established, and it is unclear whether cannabis use is linked to apathy in PWH.

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Purpose Of Review: Excessive alcohol use is a major public health concern. With increasing access to mobile technology, novel mHealth approaches for alcohol misuse, such as ecological momentary intervention (EMI), can be implemented widely to deliver treatment content in real time to diverse populations. This review summarizes the state of research in this area with an emphasis on the potential role of wearable alcohol biosensors in future EMI/just-in-time adaptive interventions (JITAI) for alcohol use.

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Mood disorders are highly prevalent in people living with HIV (PLWH) and represent a potential contributor to functional impairment in activities of daily living. We aimed to determine if (1) Anxiety and depression symptoms were independently associated with impairments in basic self-care, role functioning, and social functioning and (2) PLWH differentially experienced impairments due to mood symptoms compared to those without HIV. Data for this study were obtained from 150 individuals (87 PLWH, 61% male, mean age= 44) via a cross-sectional study on alcohol and HIV-associated brain dysfunction.

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Background: Heavy alcohol use in people living with HIV (PLWH) has widespread negative effects on neural functioning. It remains unclear whether experimentally-induced reduction in alcohol use could reverse these effects. We sought to determine the effects of 30-days drinking cessation/reduction on resting state functional connectivity in people with and without HIV.

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Correction for 'The influence of additives on polymer matrix mobility and the glass transition' by Jeffrey DeFelice , , 2021, , 376-387. DOI: 10.1039/D0SM01634A.

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In the region near an interface, the microscopic properties of a glass forming liquid may be perturbed from their equilibrium bulk values. In this work, we probe how the interfacial effects of additive particles dispersed in a matrix can influence the local mobility of the material and its glass transition temperature, Tg. Experimental measurements and simulation results indicate that additives, such as nanoparticles, gas molecules, and oligomers, can shift the mobility and Tg of a surrounding polymer matrix (even for relatively small concentrations of additive; e.

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Data continue to accrue indicating that experimental techniques may differ in their sensitivity to mobility and glassiness. In this work the Limited Mobility (LM) kinetic model is used to show that two metrics for tracking sample mobility yield quantitatively different results for the glass transition and mobile layer thickness in systems where free surfaces are present. Both LM metrics track the fraction of material that embodies mobile free volume; in one it is relative to that portion of the sample containing any kind (mobile and dormant) of free volume, and in the other it is relative to the overall sample.

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In the original version of this Article, the concentration of boric acid buffer for the SDS clearing solution was given incorrectly as '1 M sodium borate' and should have read '0.2 M boric acid'. Also, the composition of PBST incorrectly read '1% Triton X-100 (vol/vol) and 0.

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Modern clearing techniques for the three-dimensional (3D) visualisation of neural tissue microstructure have been very effective when used on rodent brain but very few studies have utilised them on human brain material, mainly due to the inherent difficulties in processing post-mortem tissue. Here we develop a tissue clearing solution, OPTIClear, optimised for fresh and archival human brain tissue, including formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded material. In light of practical challenges with immunostaining in tissue clearing, we adapt the use of cresyl violet for visualisation of neurons in cleared tissue, with the potential for 3D quantification in regions of interest.

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Three-dimensional visualization of intact tissues is now being achieved by turning tissues transparent. CLARITY is a unique tissue clearing technique, which features the use of detergents to remove lipids from fixed tissues to achieve optical transparency. To preserve tissue integrity, an acrylamide-based hydrogel has been proposed to embed the tissue.

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Aims: CLARITY is a novel technique which enables three-dimensional visualization of immunostained tissue for the study of circuitry and spatial interactions between cells and molecules in the brain. In this study, we aimed to compare methodological differences in the application of CLARITY between rodent and large human post mortem brain samples. In addition, we aimed to investigate if this technique could be used to visualize Lewy pathology in a post mortem Parkinson's brain.

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Around 150 million people are at risk from arsenic-contaminated groundwater in India and Bangladesh. Multiple metal analysis in Bangladesh has found other toxic elements above the World Health Organization (WHO) health-based drinking water guidelines which significantly increases the number of people at risk due to drinking groundwater. In this study, drinking water samples from the Bongaon area (North 24 Parganas district, West Bengal, India) were analyzed for multiple metal contamination in order to evaluate groundwater quality on the neighbourhood scale.

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Background: Tools are lacking to assess the individual risk of severe toxicity from chemotherapy. Such tools would be especially useful for older patients, who vary considerably in terms of health status and functional reserve.

Methods: The authors conducted a prospective, multicentric study of patients aged ≥70 years who were starting chemotherapy.

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A simple method for control of lactate accumulation in suspension cultures of Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cells based on the culture's pH was developed. When glucose levels in culture reach a low level (generally below 1 mM) cells begin to take up lactic acid from the culture medium resulting in a rise in pH. A nutrient feeding method has been optimized which delivers a concentrated glucose solution triggered by rising pH.

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Background: Responses to monotherapy corticosteroid or thalidomide have been described in prostate cancer, in chemotherapy naïve subjects.

Methods: A total of 39 men with hormone refractory, metastatic prostate cancer who had progression during or after at least 1 conventional cytotoxic drug were treated on a single-arm Phase II trial with dexamethasone, 0.75 mg twice a day plus thalidomide, 100-400 mg/day.

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Silk fibroin is emerging as an important biomaterial for tissue engineering applications. The ability to monitor non-invasively the structural conformation of silk matrices prior to and following cell seeding could provide important insights with regards to matrix remodeling and cell-matrix interactions that are critical for the functional development of silk-based engineered tissues. Thus, we examined the potential of intrinsic fluorescence as a tool for assessing the structural conformation of silk proteins.

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A significant problem in the management of pediculosis is the removal of nits from the hair after pediculicide treatment. This study describes use of a nit removal system incorporating a cream rinse containing formic acid that loosens the bond between the nit and hair. Twenty-four children with pediculosis capitis, age 4 to 12 years, were evaluated.

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A detailed comparison of the polar-lipid composition of chloroplast thylakoid membranes isolated from triazine-susceptible and triazine-resistant biotypes of Chenopodium album, Senecio vulgaris, Poa annua and Amaranthus retroflexus has been carried out. No major differences in the composition of the bulk lipid matrix were found except for a slightly higher monogalactosyldiacylglycerol to digalactosyldiacylglycerol ratio in resistant compared with susceptible biotypes. There was, however, in the case of resistant plants a higher level of phosphatidylglycerol-containing transhexadecenoic acid in membrane fractions enriched in photosystem two.

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The lipid composition and level of unsaturation of fatty acids has been determined for chloroplast thylakoid membranes isolated from Pisum sativum grown under cold (4 degrees /7 degrees C) or warm (14 degrees /17 degrees C) conditions. Both the relative amounts of lipid classes and degree of saturation were not greatly changed for the two growth conditions. In cold-grown plants, there was a slightly higher linolenic and lower linoleic acid content for the glycolipids monogalactosyldiacylglycerol (MGDG), digalactosyldiacylglycerol (DGDG), and sulfoquinovosyldiacylglycerol.

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