Effect of Skin-to-Skin Care on the Day of Birth on Skin Colonization in Preterm Infants: A Pre- and Post-Implementation Study.

Background/objectives: Maternal skin-to-skin contact (MSSC) in neonates has been shown to reduce nosocomial infections. In preterm infants, exposure to maternal skin commensals within the first 24 h may prevent colonization by hospital-acquired pathogens. However, the impact of early MSSC on skin colonization in preterm infants is unknown.

Discordance of 3rd and 4th generation QuantiFERON-TB Gold assays by pregnancy stages in India.

Background: Pregnancy and HIV affect CD4+ T lymphocytes and impact performance of QuantiFERON-TB Gold (QFT). We compared the results of QFT with QuantiFERON-TB Gold Plus (QFT-Plus), which also measures CD8+ responses to TB antigens, during pregnancy and postpartum.

Methods: We screened 516 pregnant women for TB infection (TBI) with IGRA.

A rare cause of recurrent massive hemoptysis.

Pulmonary artery aneurysmal rupture is a rare cause of massive hemoptysis. When the suspected origin of bleeding is the pulmonary artery, comprehensive evaluation is necessary to determine aetiology and guide appropriate management. Behçet's disease and Hughes-Stovin Syndrome (HSS) are important differentials to consider after infections and malignancy have been ruled out.

Development and validation of an artificial intelligence system for surgical case length prediction.

Background: Accurate case length estimation is a vital part of optimizing operating room use; however, significant inaccuracies exist with current solutions. The purpose of this study was to develop and validate an artificial intelligence system for improved surgical case length prediction by applying natural language processing and machine-learning methods.

Methods: All inpatient elective surgical cases longer than 30 minutes completed between 2017 and 2023 at a single, quaternary care hospital were considered.

Synthesis and Evaluation of Antidiabetic Potential of Gliptin-based Hybrid Scaffolds.

Dipeptidyl peptidase-4 (DPP4) inhibitors are promising therapeutic targets for the treatment of a catastrophic disease, especially diabetes mellitus (DM), which contributed to a massive rate of mortality. This research work succinctly covers the significance and vital role of gliptins in diabetes management and in the potential areas of further antidiabetic research, making it a strong drug candidate for antidiabetic drug development. We illustrated herein molecular docking, synthesis, and biological evaluation of selected potent synthesized molecules.

Changing Bird Migration Patterns Have Potential to Enhance Dispersal of Alien Plants From Urban Centres.

There is increasing recognition that alien species may be 'sleepers', becoming invasive with favourable changes in conditions, yet these changes remain difficult to predict. As populations of frugivorous birds shift with urbanisation and climate change, they could provide dispersal services for introduced fruiting plants that have previously been considered benign. This is likely to be especially problematic at higher latitudes where bird migration phenologies are altering rapidly.

Chondroitin Sulfate-Coated Heteroduplex-Molecular Spherical Nucleic Acids.

Molecular Spherical Nucleic Acids (MSNAs) are atomically uniform dendritic nanostructures and potential delivery vehicles for oligonucleotides. The radial formulation combined with covalent conjugation may hide the oligonucleotide content and simultaneously enhance the role of appropriate conjugate groups on the outer sphere. The conjugate halo may be modulated to affect the delivery properties of the MSNAs.

A deep learning model for predicting blastocyst formation from cleavage-stage human embryos using time-lapse images.

Efficient prediction of blastocyst formation from early-stage human embryos is imperative for improving the success rates of assisted reproductive technology (ART). Clinics transfer embryos at the blastocyst stage on Day-5 but Day-3 embryo transfer offers the advantage of a shorter culture duration, which reduces exposure to laboratory conditions, potentially enhancing embryonic development within a more conducive uterine environment and improving the likelihood of successful pregnancies. In this paper, we present a novel ResNet-GRU deep-learning model to predict blastocyst formation at 72 HPI.

Expanding the Molecular and Clinical Phenotype of Patients With De Novo Variants in KIF5C: A Six Patient Case Series.

Heterozygous de novo loss of function variants in the motor domain of KIF5C are associated with a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by infantile-onset epilepsy, frontal cortical dysplasia, and developmental delays including motor and speech impairments. Previously, only three missense variants in KIF5C were known to be pathogenic. We identified an additional six patients with significant developmental delays with heterozygous de novo variants in the KIF5C gene (Glu237Val, Thr93Ile, Thr93Asn, Ser90del, Lys92Arg, and Glu237Lys), of which four variants have not been reported before.

Exploring the role of N-acetyltransferases in diseases: a focus on N-acetyltransferase 9 in neurodegeneration.

Acetyltransferases, required to transfer an acetyl group on protein are highly conserved proteins that play a crucial role in development and disease. Protein acetylation is a common post-translational modification pivotal to basic cellular processes. Close to 80%-90% of proteins are acetylated during translation, which is an irreversible process that affects protein structure, function, life, and localization.

Comparing the end-of-life circularity potential of commercial fishing gear deployed in Norway by applying multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA).

Abandoned, lost, or otherwise discarded fishing gear is one of the most harmful types of marine litter globally, causing irreversible damage to ocean life and ecosystems. Therefore, global and regional policies are currently being designed and implemented to limit the influx of fishing gear into the marine environment, emphasizing the importance of circular end-of-life management of fishing gear. This study compares the end-of-life circularity potential of the six most used commercial fishing gears in Norway to identify how the heterogeneity of gears impacts their management alternatives.

Prevalence of Intimate Partner Violence in Young to Middle Adulthood: Associations With Respondent Gender, Sexual Orientation, and Partner Gender.

We estimate past-year physical and sexual intimate partner violence (IPV) prevalence from early to middle adulthood, examining associations with respondent gender, sexual orientation, and partner gender. We used three waves of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health. For each wave, we estimated IPV prevalence, stratified by gender, sexual orientation, and partner gender.

An in silico design method of a peptide bioreceptor for cortisol using molecular modelling techniques.

Cortisol is established as a reliable biomarker for stress prompting intensified research in developing wearable sensors to detect it via eccrine sweat. Since cortisol is present in sweat in trace quantities, typically 8-140 ng/mL, developing such biosensors necessitates the design of bioreceptors with appropriate sensitivity and selectivity. In this work, we present a systematic biomimetic methodology and a semi-automated high-throughput screening tool which enables rapid selection of bioreceptors as compared to ab initio design of peptides via computational peptidology.

Evolution of Physical, Thermal, and Mechanical Properties of Poly(methyl Methacrylate)-Based Elium Thermoplastic Polymer During Polymerization.

Elium-based thermoplastic composites are a key material for future use in the marine, wind energy, and automotive industries because of their recyclability and ease of manufacture. To optimize the processing of the Elium composites to yield optimal structural properties, computational process modeling can be used to relate processing parameters to residual stresses and material durability. The key ingredient for reliable and accurate process modeling is the evolution of physical, thermal, and mechanical properties during polymerization.

Impact of targeted neonatal echocardiography consultations for critically sick preterm neonates.

Rationale: Preterm neonates needing rescue treatments with inotropes and/or inhaled nitric oxide (iNO) (acute critical illnesses, ACIs) in neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) are at high risk of mortality. While targeted neonatal echocardiography consultations (TNE) are increasingly used to guide management, its clinical impact need evaluation.

Objectives: To investigate clinical outcomes in relation to TNE utilisation during episodes of ACIs among preterm neonates.

2023 Industry Perceptions Survey on AI Adoption and Return on Investment.

This SIIM-sponsored 2023 report highlights an industry view on artificial intelligence adoption barriers and success related to diagnostic imaging, life sciences, and contrasts. In general, our 2023 survey indicates that there has been progress in adopting AI across multiple uses, and there continues to be an optimistic forecast for the impact on workflow and clinical outcomes. This report, as in prior years, should be seen as a snapshot of the use of AI in imaging.

Color sorting and color term evolution.

When participants sort color samples into piles, Boster showed that their color groupings can resemble the "stages" of Kay & McDaniel's model of color term evolution. Boster concluded that both the unfolding of color piles in a sequential color sorting task and the unfolding of color terms according to Kay & McDaniel's model reveal how human beings understand color. If this is correct, then: (1) pile sorts should be reasonably robust across variations in the palette of colors to be sorted, as long as the palette contains good examples of Berlin & Kay's universal color categories, and (2) pile-sorting should be more related to lexical effects and less related to perceptual processes governed by similarity judgments alone.

Epistatic interaction between ERAP2 and HLA modulates HIV-1 adaptation and disease outcome in an Australian population.

A strong genetic predictor of outcome following untreated HIV-1 infection is the carriage of specific alleles of human leukocyte antigens (HLAs) that present viral epitopes to T cells. Residual variation in outcome measures may be attributed, in part, to viral adaptation to HLA-restricted T cell responses. Variants of the endoplasmic reticulum aminopeptidases (ERAPs) influence the repertoire of T cell epitopes presented by HLA alleles as they trim pathogen-derived peptide precursors to optimal lengths for antigen presentation, along with other functions unrelated to antigen presentation.

Texture-Based Classification to Overcome Uncertainty between COVID-19 and Viral Pneumonia Using Machine Learning and Deep Learning Techniques.

The SARS-CoV-2 virus, responsible for COVID-19, often manifests symptoms akin to viral pneumonia, complicating early detection and potentially leading to severe COVID pneumonia and long-term effects. Particularly affecting young individuals, the elderly, and those with weakened immune systems, the accurate classification of COVID-19 poses challenges, especially with highly dimensional image data. Past studies have faced limitations due to simplistic algorithms and small, biased datasets, yielding inaccurate results.

Critical Risk Assessment, Diagnosis, and Survival Analysis of Breast Cancer.

Breast cancer is the most prevalent type of cancer in women. Risk factor assessment can aid in directing counseling regarding risk reduction and breast cancer surveillance. This research aims to (1) investigate the relationship between various risk factors and breast cancer incidence using the BCSC (Breast Cancer Surveillance Consortium) Risk Factor Dataset and create a prediction model for assessing the risk of developing breast cancer; (2) diagnose breast cancer using the Breast Cancer Wisconsin diagnostic dataset; and (3) analyze breast cancer survivability using the SEER (Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results) Breast Cancer Dataset.

Speech Comprehension by Cochlear Implant Users Assessed with Evoked Potentials and Response Times.

Introduction: Cochlear implant (CI) users differ greatly in their rehabilitation outcomes, including speech understanding in noise. This variability may be related to brain changes associated with intact senses recruiting cortical areas from stimulation-deprived senses. Numerous studies have demonstrated such cross-modal reorganization in individuals with untreated hearing loss.

Epigenetic marks uniquely tune the material properties of HP1α condensates.

Biomolecular condensates have emerged as a powerful new paradigm in cell biology with broad implications to human health and disease, particularly in the nucleus where phase separation is thought to underly elements of chromatin organization and regulation. Specifically, it has been recently reported that phase separation of heterochromatin protein 1alpha (HP1α) with DNA contributes to the formation of condensed chromatin states. HP1α localization to heterochromatic regions is mediated by its binding to specific repressive marks on the tail of histone H3, such as trimethylated lysine 9 on histone H3 (H3K9me3).