Vitamin D administration increases serum alanine concentrations in thermally injured mice.

Thermal or burn injury results in profound metabolic changes in the body. This can contribute to muscle atrophy, bone loss, as well as suppression of the immune system. While the mechanisms that underlie this hypermetabolic response remain unclear, patients with burn injury often have low circulating levels of vitamin D.

"It Made Me Feel Like a Person Again": Benefits of Meals on Wheels-Based Social Connection Programs.

Social isolation and loneliness are associated with negative health outcomes, and these outcomes are exacerbated among older adults who are homebound. To address this issue, Meals on Wheels programs increasingly provide social connection services to clients in addition to home-delivered meals. This descriptive qualitative study examines the impact of three types of social connection programs on the well-being of homebound older adult clients, as well as on the volunteers and staff members who deliver the programs.

Mapping the Neural Substrates of Cocaine Craving: A Systematic Review.

Craving is one of the most important symptoms of cocaine use disorder (CUD) since it contributes to the relapse and persistence of such disorder. This systematic review aimed to investigate which brain regions are modulated during cocaine craving. The articles were obtained through searches in the Google Scholar, Regional BVS Portal, PubMed, and Scielo databases.

A single-molecule RNA electrical biosensor for COVID-19.

The COVID-19 pandemic shows a critical need for rapid, inexpensive, and ultrasensitive early detection methods based on biomarker analysis to reduce mortality rates by containing the spread of epidemics. This can be achieved through the electrical detection of nucleic acids at the single-molecule level. In particular, the scanning tunneling microscopic-assisted break junction (STM-BJ) method can be utilized to detect individual nucleic acid molecules with high specificity and sensitivity in liquid samples.

Electrical detection of RNA cancer biomarkers at the single-molecule level.

Cancer is a significant healthcare issue, and early screening methods based on biomarker analysis in liquid biopsies are promising avenues to reduce mortality rates. Electrical detection of nucleic acids at the single molecule level could enable these applications. We examine the electrical detection of RNA cancer biomarkers (KRAS mutants G12C and G12V) as a single-molecule proof-of-concept electrical biosensor for cancer screening applications.

Ibrutinib as a treatment of hematologic autoimmune disorders in patients with indolent B-cell lymphoma.

Background: Autoimmune conditions in B-cell lymphomas are frequent. Steroids are standard of care, but many patients require other immunosuppressive agents. Ibrutinib is a Bruton Tyrosine Kinase inhibitor that is approved for B-cell indolent lymphoma treatment.

Social Isolation and Safety Issues among Rural Older Adults Living Alone: Perspectives of Meals on Wheels Programs.

Ensuring the safety and social well-being of rural populations, especially rural older adults living alone with complex medical conditions, is challenging, given large, sparsely populated communities and limited resources. Using qualitative data from surveys with 42 rural Meals on Wheels programs from across the U.S.

Brain Correlates of the Alcohol Use Disorder Pharmacotherapy Response: A Systematic Review of Neuroimaging Studies.

Background: Although Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD) is highly prevalent worldwide, treating this condition remains challenging. Further, potential treatments for AUD do not fully address alcohol-induced neuroadaptive changes. Understanding the effects of pharmacotherapies for AUD on the human brain may lead to tailored, more effective treatments, and improved individual clinical outcomes.

Pleuro-pulmonary blastoma in a 45 year-old woman after Hodgkin's lymphoma: a case report.

Pleuro-pulmonary blastoma is a rare and aggressive intrathoracic mesenchymal tumor occurring in childhood. We report the exceptional case of a forty-five year-old woman, presenting with respiratory distress. She had previously been treated with chemotherapy and radiotherapy for Hodgkin lymphoma.

A Technology Training Program to Alleviate Social Isolation and Loneliness Among Homebound Older Adults: A Community Case Study.

Despite substantial evidence of the negative health consequences of social isolation and loneliness and the outsized impact on older adults, evidence on which interventions are most effective in alleviating social isolation and loneliness is inconclusive. Further complicating the translation of evidence into practice is the lack of studies assessing implementation and scalability considerations for socialization programs delivered by community-based organizations (CBOs). Our primary objective was to describe the implementation barriers, facilitators, and lessons learned from an information and communication technology (ICT) training program aimed at reducing social isolation and loneliness for homebound older adults in a home-delivered meals program.

Modulators of hERAP2 discovered by high-throughput screening.

Endoplasmic reticulum aminopeptidase 2, ERAP2, is an emerging pharmacological target in cancer immunotherapy and control of autoinflammatory diseases, as it is involved in antigen processing. It has been linked to the risk of development of spondyloarthritis, and it associates with the immune infiltration of tumours and strongly predicts the overall survival for patients receiving check-point inhibitor therapy. While some selective inhibitors of its homolog ERAP1 are available, no selective modulator of ERAP2 has been disclosed so far.

Developing and validating a clinical algorithm for the diagnosis of podoconiosis.

Background: Difficulties in reliably diagnosing podoconiosis have severely limited the scale-up and uptake of the World Health Organization-recommended morbidity management and disability prevention interventions for affected people. We aimed to identify a set of clinical features that, combined into an algorithm, allow for diagnosis of podoconiosis.

Methods: We identified 372 people with lymphoedema and administered a structured questionnaire on signs and symptoms associated with podoconiosis and other potential causes of lymphoedema in northern Ethiopia.

A Web-Based Intervention to Reduce Indoor Tanning Motivations in Adolescents: a Randomized Controlled Trial.

Youthful indoor tanning as few as ten sessions can increase the risk of melanoma by two to four times with each additional session adding another 2 % to the risk. Recent research estimates that indoor tanning can be linked to approximately 450,000 cases of skin cancer annually in the USA, Europe, and Australia. Despite these risks, indoor tanning remains popular with adolescents.

Theory-Driven Longitudinal Study Exploring Indoor Tanning Initiation in Teens Using a Person-Centered Approach.

Background: Younger indoor tanning initiation leads to greater melanoma risk due to more frequent and persistent behavior. Despite this, there are no published studies exploring the predictors of indoor tanning initiation in teen populations.

Purpose: This longitudinal study uses latent profile analysis to examine indoor tanning initiation in indoor tanning risk subgroups from a national sample of female adolescents.

Prevalence and Correlates of Indoor Tanning in Nonsalon Locations Among a National Sample of Young Women.

Indoor tanning is a public health threat, and the Surgeon General has called for its reduction in adolescents and young adults. Research on indoor tanning has not distinguished between tanning-only salons vs other businesses and private residences that provide tanning (ie, nonsalon tanning). For example, gyms often offer free tanning, which may lead to riskier tanning habits.

Method for collecting thermocouple data via secured shell over a wireless local area network in real time.

This manuscript addresses the design, hardware details, construction, and programming of an apparatus allowing an experimenter to monitor and record high-temperature thermocouple measurements of dynamic systems in real time. The apparatus uses wireless network technology to bridge the gap between a dynamic (moving) sample frame and the static laboratory frame. Our design is a custom solution applied to samples that rotate through large angular displacements where hard-wired and typical slip-ring solutions are not practical because of noise considerations.

Availability of tanning beds on US college campuses.

Importance: Indoor tanning is widespread among young adults in the United States despite evidence establishing it as a risk factor for skin cancer. The availability of tanning salons on or near college campuses has not been formally evaluated.

Objective: To evaluate the availability of indoor tanning facilities on US college and university campuses (colleges) and in off-campus housing surrounding but not owned by the college.

Collaboration improves outcomes: cross county, joint acute and primary care, working party to select a super absorbent dressing.

This abstract highlights the work undertaken by the Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire Tissue Viability Nurses Forum (BHTVNF) to select a super absorbent dressing for local formularies. A range of super absorbent dressings was selected to be included in the evaluation based on their accessibility via FP10 or NHS Supply chain. Dressings were evaluated in the hospital setting, community setting and leg ulcer clinics.

Determination of toxinotypes of environmental Clostridium perfringens by Polymerase Chain Reaction.

Toxinotype of Clostridium perfringens (CP) isolates collected from the Bernam River, Selangor River and Tengi Canal between April 2007 and January 2008 were determined by Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) using published primers. All the 147 isolates were toxinotype Type A, harbouring the alpha toxin gene. In addition, 5 of the isolates also had the enterotoxin (CPE) gene.

Infrared antenna measurement of the spatial coherence function.

The degree of coherence of a partially coherent monochromatic optical field is measured with a dual-dipole phased-array antenna coupled to a metal-oxide-metal tunnel diode detector. For a two-element phased-array, the degree of coherence is a measure of the correlation of electric fields received by the antennas as a function of the element separation. To extract the coherence function from the measured antenna response, a calibration method is developed to remove propagation loss and device nonuniformity.

Head-up tilt testing in children and young people: a retrospective observational study.

Aim: Head-up tilt testing (HUTT) is the gold standard investigation for adults with transient loss of consciousness (TLOC), but it is controversial in children and young people, because of a lack of systematic investigation and because the test can be uncomfortable. As it was introduced recently for children attending our hospital, we undertook a retrospective registered clinical audit of its usefulness.

Methods: The medical records of 100 consecutive patients aged less than 18 years undergoing HUTT from October 2001 to December 2008 were reviewed.

Academic careers and lifestyle characteristics of 171 transplant surgeons in the ASTS.

This manuscript reports the demographics, education and training, professional activities and lifestyle characteristics of 171 members of the American Society of Transplant Surgeons (ASTS). ASTS members were sent a comprehensive survey by electronic mail. There were 171 respondents who were 49 ± 8 years of age and predominantly Caucasian males.

Do not resuscitate orders: practice vs. medical record notes.

Objective: To evaluate the accuracy of pediatric patients' death records of a tertiary care center, comparing these records with data from a previous study.

Methods: Death records entered on the medical charts of non-resuscitated patients between 1999 and 2001 were compared with the medical procedure during cardiac arrest, which was described based on the Utstein-style guidelines. Our results were compared (using the chi-square test for equality of distributions) with the results of a previous study, which revealed a significant discrepancy between the medical procedure and the death record entered on the medical chart.