Parental Attitudes and Hesitancy About COVID-19 Vaccination Versus Routine Childhood Vaccination in a Selected Hospital in the United Arab Emirates: A Cross-Sectional Study.

Background: A complex interplay of social and political influences, cultural and religious beliefs, the availability and interpretation of health and scientific information, individual and population experiences with health systems, and government policies contributes to the anxiety about vaccines and their programs that results in vaccine hesitancy. Vaccine hesitancy is becoming a serious threat to vaccination programs; in 2019, the World Health Organization (WHO) listed it as one of the top ten global health threats. The negative impacts of antivaccination movements are blamed for the major portion of the global resistance to vaccination.

Trends in surface plasmon resonance biosensing: materials, methods, and machine learning.

Surface plasmon resonance (SPR) proves to be one of the most effective methods of label-free detection and has been integral for the study of biomolecular interactions and the development of biosensors. This trend delves into the latest SPR research and progress built upon the Kretschmann configuration, a pivotal platform, and highlights three key developments that have enhanced the capabilities of the technique. We will first cover a range of explorations of novel plasmonic materials that have shaped SPR performance.

Harmonised culture procedures minimise but do not eliminate mesenchymal stromal cell donor and tissue variability in a decentralised multicentre manufacturing approach.

Background: Mesenchymal stromal cells (MSCs), commonly sourced from adipose tissue, bone marrow and umbilical cord, have been widely used in many medical conditions due to their therapeutic potential. Yet, the still limited understanding of the underlying mechanisms of action hampers clinical translation. Clinical potency can vary considerably depending on tissue source, donor attributes, but importantly, also culture conditions.

Hairy Cell Leukemia: Where Are We in 2023?

Purpose Of Review: This article summarizes the current state of knowledge of hairy cell leukemia (HCL) regarding presentation, diagnosis, therapy, and monitoring, including perspectives on emergent therapies.

Recent Findings: Over the past decade, there has been enormous progress in the understanding of the biology of HCL which has led to the development of novel therapeutic strategies. The maturation of data regarding existing management strategies has also lent considerable insight into therapeutic outcomes and prognosis of patients treated with chemo- or chemoimmunotherapy.

Rapid upskilling about COVID-19 vaccines: an evaluation of a novel interprofessional education workshop.

Background: An inter-professional education (IPE) workshop centred around newly approved COVID-19 vaccination was attended by 77 nursing and pharmacy students.

Aim: To embed and evaluate the implementation of a virtual IPE workshop, and to upskill undergraduate nursing and pharmacy students about the COVID-19 vaccination.

Methods: The workshop was evaluated using a questionnaire completed by participants from both disciplines.

Fate of intravenously administered umbilical cord mesenchymal stromal cells and interactions with the host's immune system.

Mesenchymal stromal cells (MSCs) are multipotent cells showing promise in pre-clinical studies and currently used in many clinical trials. The regenerative potential of MSCs is mediated, at least in part, by direct and indirect immunomodulatory processes. However, the mechanism of action is not fully understood yet, and there are still concerns about possible undesired negative effects associated with the administration of living cells.

A Digitally Capable Mobile Health Clinic to Improve Rural Health Care in America: A Pilot Quality Improvement Study.

Objective: To address the problem of limited health care access for patients in rural southern Minnesota, a digitally capable mobile health clinic (MHC) quality improvement initiative was launched in a rural community-based health system.

Methods: This project was designed and implemented according to our institutional strategic plan, guiding principles for virtual community care, and existing approved standards of care. A quality improvement development and pilot implementation framework was rapidly developed using Agile methodology.

DEAE-Dextran Enhances the Lentiviral Transduction of Primary Human Mesenchymal Stromal Cells from All Major Tissue Sources Without Affecting Their Proliferation and Phenotype.

Genetic engineering of mesenchymal stromal cells (MSCs) is a tool widely used to explore MSC properties in vitro and in vivo. Lentiviral infection with the use of polycations as an adjuvant is a method that is commonly used to generate stably transduced cells. However, it is known that some polycations can negatively affect primary MSCs and to date, no study has explored the effect of different polycations on the transduction efficiency and properties of all main types of MSCs, namely those derived from umbilical cord, bone marrow and adipose tissue.

Thyroid storm secondary to acute pharyngitis.

Thyroid storm is an endocrine emergency associated with high mortality rates, especially in hospitalized populations. Infection serves as an exceedingly common trigger for the development of thyrotoxicosis. We present a rare case of a 24-year-old woman who developed acute thyrotoxicosis secondary to group A throat infection.

Work-related Stress Management Behaviors of Nurses During COVID-19 Pandemic in the United Arab Emirates.

Introduction: Intense psychological and emotional stress experienced by nurses during the COVID-19 pandemic interferes with their wellbeing and work efficiency. Stress-management behaviors are required to enhance coping and ameliorate stress effects. Therefore, it is necessary to examine the management behavior of nurses during the pandemic to suggest ways to improve their wellbeing.

Evaluating Technology-Mediated Collaborative Workflows for Telehealth.

Goals: This paper discusses the need for a predictable method to evaluate gains and gaps of collaborative technology-mediated workflows and introduces an evaluation framework to address this need.

Methods: The Collaborative Space - Analysis Framework (CS-AF), introduced in this research, is a cross-disciplinary evaluation method designed to evaluate technology-mediated collaborative workflows. The 5-step CS-AF meta-process includes: (1) current-state workflow definition, (2) current-state (baseline) workflow assessment, (3) technology-mediated workflow development and deployment, (4) technology-mediated workflow assessment, (5) analysis and conclusions.

Firefly luciferase offers superior performance to AkaLuc for tracking the fate of administered cell therapies.

Introduction: A novel, red-shifted bioluminescence imaging (BLI) system called AkaBLI has been recently developed for cell tracking in preclinical models and to date, limited data is available on how it performs in relation to existing systems.

Purpose: To systematically compare the performance of AkaBLI and the standard Firefly luciferase (FLuc) systems to monitor the biodistribution and fate of cell therapies in rodents.

Methods: Umbilical cord mesenchymal stromal cells (MSCs) were transduced to produce two genetically engineered populations, expressing either AkaLuc or the engineered FLuc luc2.

From cancer screening to treatment: service delivery and referral in the National Breast and Cervical Cancer Early Detection Program.

The National Breast and Cervical Cancer Early Detection Program (NBCCEDP) provides breast and cervical cancer screening and diagnostic services to low-income and underserved women through a network of providers and health care organizations. Although the program serves women 40-64 years old for breast cancer screening and 21-64 years old for cervical cancer screening, the priority populations are women 50-64 years old for breast cancer and women who have never or rarely been screened for cervical cancer. From 1991 through 2011, the NBCCEDP provided screening and diagnostic services to more than 4.

Differential role of Th1 and Th2 cytokines in autotoxicity driven by CD19-specific second-generation chimeric antigen receptor T cells in a mouse model.

T cells engrafted with chimeric AgRs (CAR) are showing exciting potential for targeting B cell malignancies in early-phase clinical trials. To determine whether the second-generation CAR was essential for optimal antitumor activity, two CD28-based CAR constructs targeting CD19 were tested for their ability to redirect mouse T cell function against established B cell lymphoma in a BALB/c syngeneic model system. T cells armed with either CAR eliminated A20 B cell lymphoma in vivo; however, one construct induced a T cell dose-dependent acute toxicity associated with a raised serum Th1 type cytokine profile on transfer into preconditioned mice.

Assessment of the purity of isolated cell populations for lineage-specific chimerism monitoring post haematopoietic stem cell transplantation.

Following haematopoietic stem cell transplantation, monitoring the proportion of donor and recipient haematopoiesis in the patient (chimerism) is an influential tool in directing further treatment choices. Short tandem repeat (STR) analysis is a method of chimerism monitoring using DNA isolated from peripheral blood, bone marrow or specific isolated cell lineages such as CD3+ T cells. For lineage-specific STR analysis on cell populations isolated from peripheral blood, a qualitative estimation of the purity of each isolated population is essential for the correct interpretation of the test data.

CAR T cells: driving the road from the laboratory to the clinic.

Blockbuster antibody therapies have catapulted immune-based approaches to treat cancer into the consciousness of mainstay clinical research. On the back of this, other emerging immune-based therapies are providing great promise. T-cell therapy is one such area where recent trials using T cells genetically modified to express an antibody-based chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) targeted against the CD19 antigen have demonstrated impressive responses when adoptively transferred to patients with advanced chronic lymphocytic leukemia.

Real-time embedded implementation of the binary mask algorithm for hearing prosthetics.

In this paper, we present a real-time embedded implementation of the binary masking algorithm, which has been shown to significantly improve speech-in-noise intelligibility. Our real-time implementation relies on a balance of parallel processing and hardware pipelining. We have tested and evaluated our implementation on a Spartan 3A FPGA.

The Mentoring Competency Assessment: validation of a new instrument to evaluate skills of research mentors.

Purpose: To determine the psychometric properties of the Mentoring Competency Assessment (MCA), a 26-item skills inventory that enables research mentors and mentees to evaluate six competencies of mentors: maintaining effective communication, aligning expectations, assessing understanding, addressing diversity, fostering independence, and promoting professional development.

Method: In 2010, investigators administered the MCA to 283 mentor-mentee pairs from 16 universities participating in a trial of a mentoring curriculum for clinical and translational research mentors. The authors analyzed baseline MCA data to describe the instrument's psychometric properties.

Real-time source separation on a field programmable gate array platform.

In this paper, we present a real-time implementation of the ideal binary-mask algorithm, which is a promising approach for enhancing speech intelligibility. Our implementation is hardware efficient, making it suitable for embedded biomedical devices such as hearing aids and cochlear implants. We tested our algorithm implementation on an FPGA platform, and produced results that verify that it effectively performs source separation with 25 µs latency.

The relationship of endometriosis and ovarian malignancy: a review.

Objective: To review the malignant potential of endometriosis based on epidemiologic, histopathologic, and molecular data.

Design: Literature review.

Result(s): The pathogenesis of endometriosis remains unclear.

Phanerozoic trends in the global diversity of marine invertebrates.

It has previously been thought that there was a steep Cretaceous and Cenozoic radiation of marine invertebrates. This pattern can be replicated with a new data set of fossil occurrences representing 3.5 million specimens, but only when older analytical protocols are used.

ASCCP Patient Management Guidelines: Pap Test Specimen Adequacy and Quality Indicators.

Objectives: To provide management guidelines according to Pap test specimen adequacy based on literature review and expert opinion.

Methods: A task force named by the American Society for Colposcopy and Cervical Pathology conducted a literature review and discussed appropriate management. The steering committee of the American Society for Colposcopy and Cervical Pathology and other experts reviewed the guidelines.

Number of cervical biopsies and sensitivity of colposcopy.

Objective: To examine the influence that type of medical training and number of biopsies have on sensitivity of colposcopically guided biopsies.

Methods: Among 408 women with an adequate enrollment colposcopy and a diagnosis of cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN) 3 or cancer (CIN 3+) over 2 years in the Atypical Squamous Cells of Undetermined Significance/Low-Grade Squamous Intraepithelial Lesions (ASCUS-LSIL) Triage Study, we evaluated factors influencing the sensitivity of the enrollment colposcopic procedure. We used contingency table analysis to examine confounding variables and chi(2) tests to ascertain statistical significance.

ASCCP patient management guidelines: Pap test specimen adequacy and quality indicators.

Our objective was to provide management guidelines according to Papanicolaou (Pap) test specimen adequacy based on literature review and expert opinion. A task force named by the American Society for Colposcopy and Cervical Pathology (ASCCP) conducted a literature review and discussed appropriate management. The Steering Committee of the ASCCP and other experts reviewed the guidelines.