: Recent evidence supports the protective role of metformin on kidney function in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus. However, its potential to prevent new-onset chronic kidney disease (CKD) in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus with normal renal function remains unclear. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate whether metformin could prevent the development of new-onset CKD in such patients.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSaprobic fungi are known for their critical role in decomposition and nutrient cycling. The study of saprobic fungi is equally important, as it helps in understanding their ecological roles and identifying their hidden diversity. This study focused on saprobic fungi on , which is poorly studied compared to economically important hosts like coffee, tea, and rubber.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn line with global population aging, the number of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT+) older adults is expected to continue to increase. Compared to their heterosexual peers, LGBT+ older adults have poorer physical and psychological health status, experience less social support, and face more barriers when accessing healthcare services, which may lead to higher health disparities and a lower quality of life within LGBT+ older populations. Healthcare providers have been shown to be inadequately prepared to address the unique healthcare needs and challenges of LGBT+ older adults, often leaving these individuals forced to receive care that does not meet their health needs and expectations.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWe describe an agent-based model purposed for social learning, which was developed by stakeholders, with the technical assistance of professional modelers, to facilitate stakeholder involvement in modeling issues related to the development of an adaptive environmental management plan for the Texas Gulf Coast (USA) estuaries. Stakeholders developed the model during six workshops that spanned a three-year period, and used the model to simulate the population dynamics (recruitment, growth, movement, and mortality) of blue crabs () in the Aransas and Copano Bays in response to various freshwater inflow and harvest scenarios. Results of scenarios representing normal, low, and high harvest levels indicated little effect on blue crab abundances, but harvests increased ≈75 % when harvest level was doubled and decreased ≈50 % harvest level was halved.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAim: This cross-sectional study aimed to examine the associations of a healthy lifestyle index (HLI) with several anthropometric indices and obesity among Hong Kong Chinese women.
Subjects/methods: A total of 3174 women (56.16 ± 8.
With a focus on content-area reading, this study aimed to (a) understand the sources and prevalence of concurrent and specific difficulties in word-level skills, vocabulary, and knowledge among adolescent struggling readers (ASRs) and (b) explore the relations among reading skills, profiles, and reading comprehension. A dual-measure screening approach was used to classify a sample of 492 seventh- and eighth-graders. Among the subgroup of 225 ASRs, five distinct profiles were identified by latent profile analysis.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTaiwan J Obstet Gynecol
January 2025
Objective: To describe a rare case of a retroperitoneal Müllerian cyst in a teenage girl with a protruding uterus and associated urogenital anomalies, and to discuss the challenges faced in differential diagnosis and management of such cases.
Case Report: We present the case of a 14-year-old girl presented with a protruding uterus for several weeks, with a history of twin-twin transfusion syndrome at birth. Initial ultrasonography identified a large pelvic cystic tumor.
The outbreak of novel infectious diseases presents major public health challenges, highlighting the urgency of accelerating vaccination efforts to reduce morbidity and mortality. Vaccine allocation has become a crucial societal concern. This paper introduces a dynamic vaccine allocation model that considers demand uncertainty and vaccination willingness, focusing on the trade-off between fairness and efficiency.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: The 2018 Scottish GP contract established GP Clusters and multidisciplinary team (MDT) expansion. Qualitative studies have suggested sub-optimal progress.
Aim: To quantify progress since the introduction of the new contract.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A
January 2025
A central paradigm of nonequilibrium physics concerns the dynamics of heterogeneity and disorder, impacting processes ranging from the behavior of glasses to the emergent functionality of active matter. Understanding these complex mesoscopic systems requires probing the microscopic trajectories associated with irreversible processes, the role of fluctuations and entropy growth, and the timescales on which nonequilibrium responses are ultimately maintained. Approaches that illuminate these processes in model systems may enable a more general understanding of other heterogeneous nonequilibrium phenomena, and potentially define ultimate speed and energy cost limits for information processing technologies.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFType 1 Diabetes Mellitus (T1D) is an autoimmune disease caused by unremitting immune attack on pancreas insulin-producing beta cells. Persistence of the autoimmune response is mediated by TCF1+ Ly108+ progenitor CD8+ T (T) cells, a stem-like population that gives rise to exhausted effectors with limited cytolytic function in chronic virus infection and cancer. What paradoxically drives T conversion to highly cytolytic effectors in T1D, however, remains unclear.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe literature on nursing leadership tends to be mainly based on Western perspectives and models, which could be viewed as an imperialistic and colonialist aspect of nursing knowledge development. Furthermore, leadership competencies and skills could differ across countries due to variations in cultural backgrounds. The purpose of this discussion paper is to identify essential competencies of leaders from Asian nurse leaders' perspectives and provide suggestions for future nursing leadership.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThis was an original article, and the objective of this study was to clarify the short-term effects of analgesic delivery on the pelvic floor function of primiparous women. Three hundred primiparas who delivered vaginally in The Affiliated Hospital of Kangda College of Nanjing Medical University from January 2022 to July 2022 were enrolled, and were divided into control and intervention groups. The control accepted traditional delivery without special analgesic intervention, while the intervention group accepted intraspinal block analgesia at the time of delivery.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Mitochondrial damage is significant in autoimmune diseases, with mitochondrial N-formyl methionine peptide (fMet) being released from damaged mitochondria. However, its potential as a marker for assessing the severity of two kinds of encephalitis - anti-N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor (anti-NMDAR) and anti-leucine-rich glioma-inactivated 1 (LGI1) - remains uncertain. We measured CSF fMet levels in anti-NMDAR encephalitis and anti-LG1 encephalitis patients, assessing its diagnostic and therapeutic potential.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEffects of varying levels of arginine (Arg) and aspartic acid (Asp) on the water-holding capacity (WHC) and eating quality of marinated pork meat were investigated. The addition of Arg significantly enhanced the WHC of marinated pork meat (P < 0.05) due to the increased pH levels of the meat.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFGlobal changes can profoundly affect the sex determination and reproductive output of marine organisms, disrupting the population structure and ecosystems. High COdriven low pH in the context of ocean acidification (OA) has been shown to severely affect various calcifiers, but less is known about the extent to which low pH influences sex determination and reproduction of marine organisms, particularly mollusks. This study is the first to report a biased sex ratio over multiple generations toward females, driven by exposure to high CO-induced low pH environments, using the ecologically and economically important Portuguese oyster () as a model.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFRapid and precise cancer subtype discrimination is essential for personalized oncology. Conventional diagnostic methods often lack sufficient accuracy and speed. Here, we introduce a multichannel fluorescence-encoded nanosystem based on erythrocyte-coated polydopamine nanoparticles (PDA@EM), functionalized with multiple resurfaced fluorescent proteins.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFRecent advances in high-throughput approaches for estimating co-localization of microbes, such as SAMPL-seq, allow characterization of the biogeography of the gut microbiome longitudinally and at unprecedented scale. However, these high-dimensional data are complex and have unique noise properties. To address these challenges, we developed MCSPACE, a probabilistic AI method that infers from microbiome co-localization data spatially coherent assemblages of taxa, their dynamics over time, and their responses to perturbations.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFracture-related infections are burdensome conditions that affect both a patient's health and financial well-being. Preventing an infection and stabilizing the fracture are critical aspects in a care plan that rely on antibiotics and orthopedic implants, both which need to be improved. Bacteriophage or phage are viruses that specifically kill bacteria and are a promising alternative/companion to antibiotics while enhanced orthopedic implants that are osteoinductive and biodegradable are needed for bone healing.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThis study is based on three terrestrial saprobic fungi associated with in Guangdong and Yunnan provinces in China. All isolated species matched with generic concepts of . Detailed morphological characteristics and combined multigene phylogeny of LSU, SSU, and TEF revealed that the new isolates represent two new species ( and ), and one new host and geographical record ().
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjectives: This study aimed to evaluate the real-world effectiveness of tofacitinib for treating moderate-to-severe ulcerative colitis (UC).
Design: Systematic review and meta-analysis.
Data Sources: PubMed, EMBASE and Cochrane CENTRAL databases were searched from inception up to 18 July 2023.