Capabilities and limits of surface roughness measurements with monochromatic speckles.

For coherent light illumination, surface roughness leads to speckles in the scattered light image. By evaluating the speckle contrast or image auto-correlation, a measurement of the roughness parameter is possible. While these measurement principles have been well known for decades, a fundamental understanding of the minimal achievable measurement uncertainty is missing.

Baseline levels of miR-223-3p correlate with the effectiveness of electroconvulsive therapy in patients with major depression.

There is a strong medical need to develop suitable biomarkers to improve the diagnosis and treatment of depression, particularly in predicting response to certain therapeutic approaches such as electroconvulsive therapy (ECT). MicroRNAs are small non-coding RNAs that have the ability to influence the transcriptome as well as proteostasis at the systems level. Here, we investigate the role of circulating microRNAs in depression and response prediction towards ECT.

Stimuli-Responsive Hydrogel Microcapsules Harnessing the COVID-19 Immune Response for Cancer Therapeutics.

The combination of gene therapy and immunotherapy concepts, along recent advances in DNA nanotechnology, have the potential to provide important tools for cancer therapies. We present the development of stimuli-responsive microcapsules, loaded with a viral immunogenetic agent, harnessing the immune response against the Coronavirus Disease 2019, COVID-19, to selectively attack liver cancer cells (hepatoma) or recognize breast cancer or hepatoma, by expression of green fluorescence protein, GFP. The pH-responsive microcapsules, modified with DNA-tetrahedra nanostructures, increased hepatoma permeation by 50 %.

Translocation of C-polystyrene nanoplastics into fish during a very-low concentration dietary exposure.

Assessing the dietary accumulation of nanoplastics in animals following very-low exposure concentrations is restricted due to analytical limitations. This study adapted a method for synthesising semi-stable C-PS NPs (through styrene polymerisation) in small volumes for deployment in environmental studies. The method was developed with non-labelled material where the final polystyrene product had a primary particle size of 35 ± 8 nm (as measured by transmission electron microscopy).

A questionnaire-based investigation of the swimming puppy syndrome: 115 dogs.

Swimming Puppy Syndrome (SPS) is a benign reversible condition of unknown etiology in multiple dog breeds. Affected dogs show laterally abducted limbs and are unable to stand and walk on their own. The current knowledge of this condition derives from few case reports or small case series.

The Long COVID experience from a patient's perspective: a clustering analysis of 27,216 Reddit posts.

Objective: This work aims to study the profiles of Long COVID from the perspective of the patients spontaneously sharing their experiences and symptoms on Reddit.

Methods: We collected 27,216 posts shared between July 2020 and July 2022 on Long COVID-related Reddit forums. Natural language processing, clustering techniques and a Long COVID symptoms lexicon were used to extract the different symptoms and categories of symptoms and to study the co-occurrences and correlation between them.

Social determinants of health in pediatric trauma: Associations with injury mechanisms and outcomes in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Background: Relationships between social determinants of health and pediatric trauma mechanisms and outcomes are unclear in context of COVID-19.

Methods: Children <16 years old injured between 2016 and 2021 from ten pediatric trauma centers in Florida were included. Patients were stratified by high vs.

Retroperitoneoscopic adrenalectomy may be superior to laparoscopic transperitoneal adrenalectomy in terms of costs and profit: a retrospective pair-matched cohort analysis.

Background: A direct comparison of the cost-benefit analysis of retroperitoneoscopic adrenalectomy (RPA) versus the minimally invasive transperitoneal access (LTA) approach is currently lacking. We hypothesized that RPA is more cost effective than LTA; promising significant savings for the healthcare system in an era of ever more limited resources.

Methods: We performed a monocentric retrospective observational cohort study based on data from our Endocrine Surgery Registry.

An inter-model comparison of parabolic equation methods for sound propagation from wind turbines.

The modeling of sound propagation for land-based wind turbines is a complex task that takes various parameters into account. Not only do the wind speed and wind direction affect the noise received at a certain position by changing the refraction of the sound, but also the terrain complexity, ground impedance, and receiver position relative to the source and ground all affect propagation. These effects are seen by the reflections of the sound at the ground surface causing interference of sound waves, or by the receiver being positioned in and out of noise shadow zones in the upwind far field position, or in steep terrain irregularities.

PI3K/AKT inhibitor BEZ-235 targets CCND2 and induces G1 arrest in breast implant-associated anaplastic large cell lymphoma.

Breast implant-associated anaplastic large cell lymphoma (BIA-ALCL) is a mature, CD30-positive T-cell lymphoma lacking expression of the anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK). In contrast to ALK-positive ALCL, BIA-ALCL cells express cyclin D2 (CCND2) which controls cyclin dependent kinases 4 and 6 (CDK4/6). DNA methylation and expression analyses performed with cell lines and primary cells suggest that the expression of CCND2 in BIA-ALCL cell lines conforms to the physiological status of differentiated T-cells, and that it is not the consequence of genomic alterations as observed in other hematopoietic tumors.

More Nutritional Support on the Wards after a Previous Intensive Care Unit Stay: A nutritionDay Analysis in 136,667 Patients.

ICU (intensive care unit) patients are exposed to nutritional risks such as swallowing problems and delayed gastric emptying. A previous ICU stay may affect nutritional support upon transfer to the ward. The aim was to study the use of enteral (EN), parenteral nutrition (PN), and oral nutritional supplements (ONS) in ward patients with and without a previous ICU stay, also referred to as post- and non-ICU patients.

Analysis of the Mercury Content in Fish for Human Consumption in Poland.

Mercury (Hg) is a metal with toxic effects on the environment, including living organisms. Organic Hg derivatives readily penetrate biological membranes and pose a particular health risk. Food of aquatic origin is the main source of human exposure to methylmercury (MeHg).

Aging impairs the neurovascular interface in the heart.

Aging is a major risk factor for impaired cardiovascular health. Because the aging myocardium is characterized by microcirculatory dysfunction, and because nerves align with vessels, we assessed the impact of aging on the cardiac neurovascular interface. We report that aging reduces nerve density in the ventricle and dysregulates vascular-derived neuroregulatory genes.

Corrigendum: The evolution of HIV self-testing and the introduction of digital interventions to improve HIV self-testing.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.3389/frph.2023.

Longterm course of neuropsychological symptoms and ME/CFS after SARS-CoV-2-infection: a prospective registry study.

A significant proportion of patients after SARS-CoV-2 infection suffer from long-lasting symptoms. Although many different symptoms are described, the majority of patients complains about neuropsychological symptoms. Additionally, a subgroup of patients fulfills diagnostic criteria for ME/CFS.

Impaired systemic nucleocapsid antigen clearance in severe COVID-19.

The circulating nucleocapsid (NCP) antigen of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is detectable in coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) patients. To better understand the biology of disease severity, we investigated NCP clearance kinetics in hospitalized COVID-19 patients. Serum NCP was quantified using a commercial NCP-specific enzyme-linked immunoassay in hospitalized COVID-19 patients (n = 63) during their hospital stay.

Short-term dietary changes can result in mucosal and systemic immune depression.

Omnivorous animals, including mice and humans, tend to prefer energy-dense nutrients rich in fat over plant-based diets, especially for short periods of time, but the health consequences of this short-term consumption of energy-dense nutrients are unclear. Here, we show that short-term reiterative switching to 'feast diets', mimicking our social eating behavior, breaches the potential buffering effect of the intestinal microbiota and reorganizes the immunological architecture of mucosa-associated lymphoid tissues. The first dietary switch was sufficient to induce transient mucosal immune depression and suppress systemic immunity, leading to higher susceptibility to Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium and Listeria monocytogenes infections.

Assessing real-time positive subjective effects of alcohol using high-resolution ecological momentary assessment in risky versus light drinkers.

Background: High-resolution ecological momentary assessment (HR-EMA) can assess acute alcohol responses during naturalistic heavy drinking episodes. The goal of this study was to use HR-EMA to examine drinking behavior and subjective responses to alcohol in risky drinkers (moderate-severe alcohol use disorder [MS-AUD], heavy social drinkers [HD]) and light drinkers (LD). We expected that risky drinkers would endorse greater alcohol stimulation and reward, with lower sedation, than LD, even when controlling for amount of alcohol consumed.

Patient and Public Acceptance of Digital Technologies in Health Care: Protocol for a Discrete Choice Experiment.

Background: Strokes pose a particular challenge to the health care system. Although stroke-related mortality has declined in recent decades, the absolute number of new strokes (incidence), stroke deaths, and survivors of stroke has increased. With the increasing need of neurorehabilitation and the decreasing number of professionals, innovations are needed to ensure adequate care.

In vivo fluorescent labeling and tracking of extracellular matrix.

Connective tissues are essential building blocks for organ development, repair and regeneration. However, we are at the early stages of understanding connective tissue dynamics. Here, we detail a method that enables in vivo fate mapping of organ extracellular matrix (ECM) by taking advantage of a crosslinking chemical reaction between amine groups and N-hydroxysuccinimide esters.

DNA methylation-associated allelic inactivation regulates Keratin 19 gene expression during pancreatic development and carcinogenesis.

Within the pancreas, Keratin 19 (KRT19) labels the ductal lineage and is a determinant of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC). To investigate KRT19 expression dynamics, we developed a human pluripotent stem cell (PSC)-based KRT19-mCherry reporter system in different genetic backgrounds to monitor KRT19 expression from its endogenous gene locus. A differentiation protocol to generate mature pancreatic duct-like organoids was applied.