A pilot study of virtual reality for inpatients with opioid use disorder.

Background And Objectives: While inpatient withdrawal management/acute stabilization can improve outcomes for individuals with opioid use disorder (OUD), patients often leave treatment early due to mood, tension, and cravings associated with opioid withdrawal. The aim of this study was to evaluate the feasibility and preliminary effectiveness of a novel virtual reality (VR) based intervention; 3D Therapy Thrive (3DTT).

Methods: Subjects with OUD (N = 32) were recruited from a community acute stabilization program and received up to two sessions of 3DTT.

Microbial Water Quality through a Full-Scale Advanced Wastewater Treatment Demonstration Facility.

The fates of viruses, bacteria, and antibiotic resistance genes during advanced wastewater treatment are important to assess for implementation of potable reuse systems. Here, a full-scale advanced wastewater treatment demonstration facility (ozone, biological activated carbon filtration, micro/ultrafiltration, reverse osmosis, and advanced oxidation) was sampled over three months. Atypically, no disinfectant residual was applied before the microfiltration step.

A systematic review of virtual reality therapies for substance use disorders: Impact on secondary treatment outcomes.

Background And Objectives: Virtual reality (VR) therapy may be an effective tool in treating urges and cravings in substance use disorder (SUD). Given the high co-occurrence of difficulties with mood, anxiety, and emotional dysregulation with SUD, this review sought to examine the extant literature on the efficacy of VR for SUD in improving these secondary treatment outcomes.

Methods: A systematic literature review was conducted following PRISMA guidelines in PubMed, PsychInfo, and Embase.

Farmers' Market Incentives for Low-Income Families: Who Uses, How Much, and Why.

Introduction: Focusing on participation and utilization, this research helps to assess the potential impact and contributions of farmers' market incentive programs, often seen as means for improving nutrition and preventing disease among low-income families.

Methods: Evaluating the largest farmers' market incentive program in the U.S.

Is the Medium Still the Message? Culture-Independent Diagnosis of Gastrointestinal Infections.

Infectious diarrhea is caused by a variety of pathogens, including viruses, bacteria, and parasitic organisms. Though the causative agent of diarrhea has historically been evaluated via stool cultures, recently, culture-independent diagnostic tests (CIDT) have been developed and utilized with increasing frequency. Current practice guidelines recommend their use as adjuncts to stool cultures for diagnosing acute and chronic diarrhea.

Treatment of a Gastrointestinal Sarcoidosis Flare: A Multidisciplinary Approach for a Multisystem Disease.

BACKGROUND Sarcoidosis is a multisystem granulomatous disease with predominant pulmonary involvement and rare gastrointestinal (GI) involvement. The stomach is the most common site when there is GI involvement. Symptomatic gastric sarcoidosis with biopsy-proven disease has rarely been reported and much of the knowledge is from case reports involving white patients.

Intestinal Tuberculosis Presenting as an Ileocecal Mass in a Renal Transplant Patient.

Abdominal tuberculosis accounts for approximately 5% of tuberculosis cases. However, recognition of this entity can be challenging in the absence of concomitant pulmonary involvement. Immunocompromised and immunosuppressed patients are at elevated risk for this infection and are confronted with increased side effects, drug interactions, and disease complications.

Challenges in Measuring the Recovery of SARS-CoV-2 from Wastewater.

Wastewater-based epidemiology is an emerging tool for tracking the spread of SARS-CoV-2 through populations. However, many factors influence recovery and quantification of SARS-CoV-2 from wastewater, complicating data interpretation. Specifically, these factors may differentially affect the measured virus concentration, depending on the laboratory methods used to perform the test.

Predictors of Acute Liver Failure in Patients With Acute Hepatitis A: An Analysis of the 2016-2018 San Diego County Hepatitis A Outbreak.

Background: Between 2016 and 2018, San Diego County experienced a hepatitis A outbreak with a historically high mortality rate (3.4%) that highlighted the need for early recognition of those at risk of developing acute liver failure (ALF).

Methods: A retrospective case series of adult hospitalized patients with acute hepatitis A.

Management challenges in British Columbia's healthcare system.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to identify the operational and management challenges in a globally budgeted, regionalized healthcare system and their implications for public service. Design/methodology/approach Concentrating on British Columbia's regional health authorities (RHAs) and hospitals, this study utilized data from interviews of key informants, documents (histories, legislation, agreements between RHAs and provincial government, and RHA organizational charts), news reports, and participant observation at board meetings. Findings Challenges encountered by the managers include accommodating powerful stakeholders (elected officials, providers, and organized publics), adhering to fixed budgets, obtaining capital from public sources, and adjusting to government turnover.

Gaussian Process Regression for Predictive But Interpretable Machine Learning Models: An Example of Predicting Mental Workload across Tasks.

There is increasing interest in real-time brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) for the passive monitoring of human cognitive state, including cognitive workload. Too often, however, effective BCIs based on machine learning techniques may function as "black boxes" that are difficult to analyze or interpret. In an effort toward more interpretable BCIs, we studied a family of N-back working memory tasks using a machine learning model, Gaussian Process Regression (GPR), which was both powerful and amenable to analysis.

A Community-Based Outreach Navigator Approach to Establishing Partnerships for a Safety Net Mammography Screening Center.

Washington, DC, has one of the highest incidence and mortality rates for breast cancer in the USA. Patient navigation coupled with informational and community resources are important strategies that assist patients' access and help them understand the complex world of cancer care. The Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center's Capital Breast Care Center (CBCC) is a safety net mammography screening center that utilizes a community-based navigation program.

Food Insecurity and Food Resource Utilization in an Urban Immigrant Community.

Risk and prevalence of food insecurity and use of food security resources are important but incompletely understood factors in immigrant health. Key informant interviews and a survey (N = 809) of housing units were conducted in a San Diego, California neighborhood with a high proportion of immigrant and low income families. The difference in food insecurity between immigrant and non-immigrant households was non-significant (20.

Quality of life and disparities among long-term cervical cancer survivors.

Purpose: Little population-based research has been done on social, economic, and environmental factors affecting quality of life (QOL) among long-term cancer survivors. This research assesses the impact of disease and nondisease factors on QOL among long-term survivors of cervical cancer.

Methods: In a collaborative, observational study, data were obtained from cancer registries, interviews, and self-administered questionnaires.

MicroRNA and cutaneous melanoma: from discovery to prognosis and therapy.

Melanoma incidence and associated mortality continue to increase worldwide. The lack of treatments with durable responses for stage IV melanoma may be due, at least in part, to an incomplete understanding of the molecular mechanisms that regulate tumor initiation and/or progression to metastasis. Recent evidence supports miRNA dysregulation in melanoma impacting several well-known pathways such as the PI3K/AKT or RAS/MAPK pathways, but also underexplored cellular processes like protein glycosylation and immune modulation.

Superficial spreading and nodular melanoma are distinct biological entities: a challenge to the linear progression model.

The classification of melanoma subtypes into prognostically relevant and therapeutically insightful categories has been a challenge since the first description of melanoma in the 1800s. One limitation has been the assumption that the two most common histological subtypes of melanoma, superficial spreading and nodular, evolve according to a linear model of progression, as malignant melanocytes spread radially and then invade vertically. However, recent clinical, pathological, and molecular data indicate that these two histological subtypes might evolve as distinct entities.

Impact of race on survival in patients with clinically nonmetastatic prostate cancer who deferred primary treatment.

Background: Prostate cancer (PCa) racial disparity studies typically focus on survival differences after curative treatment. The authors of this report hypothesized that comparing mortality rates between African American (AA) and Caucasian American (CA) patients who deferred primary treatment for clinically nonmetastatic PCa may provide a better assessment of the impact of race on the natural course of PCa.

Methods: The pathology database of the New York Veterans Administration Medical Center (VAMC), an equal access-of-care facility, was searched for patients with biopsy-proven PCa.

Hippocampal leptin signaling reduces food intake and modulates food-related memory processing.

The increase in obesity prevalence highlights the need for a more comprehensive understanding of the neural systems controlling food intake; one that extends beyond food intake driven by metabolic need and considers that driven by higher-order cognitive factors. The hippocampus, a brain structure involved in learning and memory function, has recently been linked with food intake control. Here we examine whether administration of the adiposity hormone leptin to the dorsal and ventral sub-regions of the hippocampus influences food intake and memory for food.

Orientation disparity: a cue for 3D orientation?

Orientation disparity, the difference in orientation that results when a texture element on a slanted surface is projected to the two eyes, has been proposed as a binocular cue for 3D orientation. Since orientation disparity is confounded with position disparity, neither behavioral nor neurophysiological experiments have successfully isolated its contribution to slant estimates or established whether the visual system uses it. Using a modified disparity energy model, we simulated a population of binocular visual cortical neurons tuned to orientation disparity and measured the amount of Fisher information contained in the activity patterns.

Cue integration outside central fixation: a study of grasping in depth.

We assessed the usefulness of stereopsis across the visual field by quantifying how retinal eccentricity and distance from the horopter affect humans' relative dependence on monocular and binocular cues about 3D orientation. The reliabilities of monocular and binocular cues both decline with eccentricity, but the reliability of binocular information decreases more rapidly. Binocular cue reliability also declines with increasing distance from the horopter, whereas the reliability of monocular cues is virtually unaffected.