Rapid and accurate determination of target proteins in cells provide essential diagnostic information for early detection of diseases, evaluation of drug responses, and the study of pathophysiological mechanisms. Traditional Western blotting method has been used for the determination, but it is complex, time-consuming, and semi-quantitative. Here, a tapered seven-core fiber (TSCF) biosensor was designed and fabricated.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSupervised machine learning (ML) is used extensively in biology and deserves closer scrutiny. The Data Optimization Model Evaluation (DOME) recommendations aim to enhance the validation and reproducibility of ML research by establishing standards for key aspects such as data handling and processing, optimization, evaluation, and model interpretability. The recommendations help to ensure that key details are reported transparently by providing a structured set of questions.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Manual therapy is routinely used in the management of upper back pain (UBP), a disabling condition. However, the approach to diagnosis and treatment techniques used by manipulative physiotherapists and osteopaths is largely unknown.
Objectives: To explore knowledge about UBP, including diagnosis and treatment, by New Zealand (NZ) osteopaths and manipulative physiotherapists and to investigate differences (if any) in the self-reported approaches to diagnosis and management of UBP between the professions.
In this Letter, we demonstrate a micro-displacement sensor based on a balloon-shaped fiber surface nanoscale axial photonic (SNAP) microresonator. The SNAP microresonator is fabricated by fiber bending to introduce nanoscale effective radius variations (ERVs) on the fiber surface. Displacement measurement based on the balloon-shaped SNAP microresonator is realized based on the ERV modulation resulting from the change in the bending radius of the balloon-shaped structure.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: The peripheral stress response, consisting of the autonomic nervous system (ANS) and hypothalamic pituitary adrenal-axis (HPA-axis), functions to maintain homeostasis in response to stressors. Cervical spine manual therapy has been shown to differentially modulate the stress response in healthy populations. No study has investigated whether cervical spine mobilizations can differentially modulate the stress response in individuals with persistent post-concussion symptoms (PPCS), a population characterized by a dysfunctional stress response.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNanomechanical measurements, especially the detection of weak contact forces, play a vital role in many fields, such as material science, micromanipulation, and mechanobiology. However, it remains a challenging task to realize the measurement of ultraweak force levels as low as nanonewtons with a simple sensing configuration. In this work, an ultrasensitive all-fiber nanonewton force sensor structure based on a single-mode-tapered U-shape multimode-single-mode fiber probe is proposed and experimentally demonstrated with a limit of detection of ~5.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection can now be cured with well-tolerated direct-acting antiviral (DAA) therapy. However, a potential barrier to HCV elimination is the emergence of resistance-associated substitutions (RASs) that reduce the efficacy of antiviral drugs, but real-world studies assessing the clinical impact of RASs are limited. Here, an analysis of the impact of RASs on retreatment outcomes for different salvage regimens in patients nationally who failed first-line DAA therapy is reported.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSports physiotherapists and coaches are tasked with evaluating the movement quality of athletes across the spectrum of ability and experience. However, the accuracy of visual observation is low and existing technology outside of expensive lab-based solutions has limited adoption, leading to an unmet need for an efficient and accurate means to measure static and dynamic joint angles during movement, converted to movement metrics useable by practitioners. This paper proposes a set of pose landmarks for computing frequently used joint angles as metrics of interest to sports physiotherapists and coaches in assessing common strength-building human exercise movements.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn this Letter, we demonstrate a sensitivity-enhanced strain sensor based on a shape-modulated multimode fiber (MMF). In contrast to conventional single-mode-multimode-single-mode (SMS) fiber structures, which typically contain a single cylindrical homogeneous MMF section, the shape of the MMF section in this investigation is modulated by lateral offset splicing of multiple MMF segments. Simulation results show that the designed shape-modulated MMF has a higher peak mechanical strain than that of a cylindrical MMF.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Evidence supporting type and dosage of joint mobilizations and rationale for selecting joint mobilization dosage for patients with rotator cuff-related shoulder pain are limited.
Objectives: This scoping review aimed to systematically map the type and dosage of joint mobilizations used in previous trials for managing patients with rotator cuff-related shoulder pain; and summarize the rationale for adopting a specific joint mobilization dosage.
Methods: We searched six databases.
We aimed to determine whether the anatomical location (intramuscular tendon or T-Junction) of hamstring muscle injuries in professional men's rugby union associates with a prolonged time to return to full training and a higher rate of re-injury/subsequent injury. We reviewed the medical records of an Irish professional rugby union club to identify hamstring muscle injuries incurred across five seasons. Clinicians and players were not blinded to MRI results at the time of rehabilitation.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Spinal manipulation (SM) has been hypothesized to influence the autonomic nervous system (ANS). Further, it has been proposed that the effects may vary depending on the segment manipulated. The aim of this systematic review was to synthesize the current level of evidence for SM in influencing the ANS in healthy and/or symptomatic population.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBMJ Open Sport Exerc Med
November 2023
Neuropathic pain can be caused by a lesion or disease of the somatosensory system characterised by pathological neuro-immune alterations. At a molecular level, microRNAs (miRNAs) act as regulators of gene expression orchestrating both immune and neuronal processes. Thus, miRNAs may act as essential modulators of processes for the establishment and maintenance of neuropathic pain.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCharacterising the small intestine absorptive membrane is essential to enable prediction of the systemic exposure of oral formulations. In particular, the ontogeny of key intestinal Drug Metabolising Enzymes and Transporter (DMET) proteins involved in drug disposition needs to be elucidated to allow for accurate prediction of the PK profile of drugs in the paediatric cohort. Using pinch biopsies from the paediatric duodenum (n = 36; aged 11 months to 15 years), the abundance of 21 DMET proteins and two enterocyte markers were quantified via LC-MS/MS.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFHamstring strain injuries (HSI) are one of the most common sport-related injuries. They have a high injury burden and a high recurrence rate. The development of novel muscle injury grading systems has provided new insights into the possible impact of injury location on the time to return to play (TTRTP) and re-injury following HSI.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFUnlabelled: Research on pandemic domestic abuse trends has produced inconsistent findings reflecting differences in definitions, data and method. This study analyses 43,488 domestic abuse crimes recorded by a UK police force. Metrics and analytic approaches are tailored to address key methodological issues in three key ways.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: eConsult is a model of asynchronous communication connecting primary care providers to specialists to discuss patient care. This study aims to analyze the scaling-up process and identify strategies used to support scaling-up efforts in four provinces in Canada.
Methods: We conducted a multiple case study with four cases (ON, QC, MB, NL).
Powerful 1.2-µm laser operation was produced in Ho-doped single-cladding, in-house fabricated ZrF-BaF-YF-AlF (ZBYA) glass fibers. The fibers were fabricated based on ZBYA glass with a composition of ZrF-BaF-YF-AlF.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: It is widely accepted that both autologous and alloplastic reconstruction are safe. A recent publication reported a significant association between textured implants and metastatic recurrence of breast cancer. This study aims to assess if the published results are reproducible in our cohort and to review the safety of breast reconstruction.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe rapid detection of low concentrations of Salmonella Typhimurium (S. Typhimurium) is an essential preventive measure for food safety and prevention of foodborne illness. The study presented in this paper addresses this critical issue by proposing a single mode-tapered seven core-single mode (STSS) fiber ring laser (FRL) biosensor for S.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn this Letter, we report an Ho-doped fluorotellurite glass all-fiber laser at 2075 nm. The gain fiber is pumped in-band with a 1976-nm fiber laser and connected by fusion splicing. A high-quality fusion splicing point with a loss of < 0.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn this Letter, we demonstrate a high-sensitivity vector bend sensor based on a fiber directional coupler. The fiber directional coupler is composed of two parallel waveguides inscribed within a no-core fiber (NCF) by a femtosecond laser. Since the two written waveguides have closely matched refractive indices and geometries, the transmission spectrum of the fiber directional coupler possesses periodic resonant dips.
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