Do we still need a canary in the coal mine for laboratory animal facilities? A systematic review of environmental health monitoring versus soiled bedding sentinels.

Introduction: Despite increasing evidence that Environmental Health Monitoring (EHM) is an effective method to perform rodent colony health surveillance, promotes the 3Rs as a Replacement, is comparable or reduces cost, and demonstrates labor benefits, many research institutions continue to use live Soiled Bedding Sentinels (SBS). Some veterinarians and others responsible for rodent colony health monitoring remain cautious of the evidence supporting this new technology. Therefore, our objective was to perform a formal systematic review to identify, summarize, and evaluate the research on the efficacy of EHM as compared to SBS.

Viral RNA Interactome: The Ultimate Researcher's Guide to RNA-Protein Interactions.

RNA molecules in the cell are bound by a multitude of RNA-binding proteins (RBPs) with a variety of regulatory consequences. Often, interactions with these RNA-binding proteins are facilitated by the complex secondary and tertiary structures of RNA molecules. Viral RNAs especially are known to be heavily structured and interact with many RBPs, with roles including genome packaging, immune evasion, enhancing replication and transcription, and increasing translation efficiency.

Fishy business in Seattle: Salmon mislabeling fraud in sushi restaurants vs grocery stores.

Salmon is the most commonly consumed finfish in the United States of America (USA), and the mislabeling of salmon is a widespread problem. Washington State is a global supplier of wild-caught Pacific salmon and local salmon mislabeling results in substantial economic, ecological, and cultural impacts. Previous studies in Washington State identified high levels of mislabeled salmon in both markets and restaurants, resulting in local legislation being passed that requires proper labeling of salmon products, including identifying it as wild-caught or farm-raised.

Evaluating a Reduction in Treatment Duration of Ivermectin Diet for Fur Mite () Eradication in Mice.

Murine fur mites are commonly excluded in modern research animal programs, yet infestations continue to persist due to challenges in detection and control. Because all diagnostic methods and treatment options have limitations, programs must make many operational decisions when trying to eradicate these ectoparasites. The primary aim of this study was to assess various durations of treatment time with an ivermectin-compounded diet in eliminating in mice as determined by PCR testing and pelt examination.

Evaluating a Reduction in Treatment Duration of Ivermectin Diet for Fur Mite () Eradication in Mice.

Murine fur mites are commonly excluded in modern research animal programs, yet infestations continue to persist due to challenges in detection and control. Because all diagnostic methods and treatment options have limitations, programs must make many operational decisions when trying to eradicate these ectoparasites. The primary aim of this study was to assess various durations of treatment time with an ivermectin-compounded diet in eliminating in mice as determined by PCR testing and pelt examination.

Evaluation of a 3M (mistakes, mentoring, and mastery) training program for transfer of control situations in a level 2 automated driving system.

Drivers must actively supervise automation as it can only function in limited conditions. A failure to supervise the system has negative consequences in terms of missed requests to take over control and may cause crashes or jeopardize safety. The objective of this study is to determine the effect of a novel, 3M (Mistakes, Mentoring, and Mastery) training program on drivers' behavior while using level 2 driving automation systems.

Quantitative Detection of Thyroid-Stimulating Hormone in Patient Samples with a Nanomechanical Single-Antibody Spectro-Immunoassay.

Functional disorders of the thyroid remain a global challenge and have profound impacts on human health. Serving as the barometer for thyroid function, thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH) is considered the single most useful test of thyroid function. However, the prevailing TSH immunoassays rely on two types of antibodies in a sandwich format.

A Cross-sectional Survey on Rodent Environmental Health Monitoring Practices: Benchmarking, Associations, and Barriers.

Tens of thousands of rodents are used each year in Rodent Health Monitoring programs. However, Environment Health Monitoring (EHM) could replace sentinel rodent use while maintaining or even improving diagnostic quality. Despite its advantages, widespread implementation of EHM appears to be relatively low.

Leveraging Nanomechanical Perturbations in Raman Spectro-Immunoassays to Design a Versatile Serum Biomarker Detection Platform.

While immunoassays are pivotal to medical diagnosis and bioanalytical chemistry, the current landscape of public health has catalyzed an important shift in the requirements of immunoassays that demand innovative solutions. For example, rapid, label-free, and low-cost screening of a given analyte is required to inform the best countermeasures to combat infectious diseases in a timely manner. Yet, the current design of immunoassays cannot accommodate such requirements as constraint by accumulative challenges, such as repeated incubation and washing, and the need of two types of antibodies in the sandwich format.

A Dual-Modal Single-Antibody Plasmonic Spectro-Immunoassay for Detection of Small Molecules.

Small molecules play a pivotal role in regulating physiological processes and serve as biomarkers to uncover pathological conditions and the effects of therapeutic treatments. However, it remains a significant challenge to detect small molecules given the size as compared to macromolecules. Recently, the newly emerging plasmonic immunoassays based on surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) offer great promise to deliver extraordinary sensitivity.

Plexcitonic Quasi-Bound States in the Continuum.

Enhancing light-matter interactions is fundamental to the advancement of nanophotonics and optoelectronics. Yet, light diffraction on dielectric platforms and energy loss on plasmonic metallic systems present an undesirable trade-off between coherent energy exchange and incoherent energy damping. Through judicious structural design, both light confinement and energy loss issues could be potentially and simultaneously addressed by creating bound states in the continuum (BICs) where light is ideally decoupled from the radiative continuum.

Application of machine learning approaches to administrative claims data to predict clinical outcomes in medical and surgical patient populations.

Objective: This study aimed to develop and validate a claims-based, machine learning algorithm to predict clinical outcomes across both medical and surgical patient populations.

Methods: This retrospective, observational cohort study, used a random 5% sample of 770,777 fee-for-service Medicare beneficiaries with an inpatient hospitalization between 2009-2011. The machine learning algorithms tested included: support vector machine, random forest, multilayer perceptron, extreme gradient boosted tree, and logistic regression.

PCR Testing of Media Placed in Soiled Bedding as a Method for Mouse Colony Health Surveillance.

Rodent colony health surveillance has traditionally been accomplished by testing sentinel animals that have been exposed to soiled bedding from colony animals. Collecting samples from exhaust plenums on ventilated caging systems, followed by PCR analysis, has emerged as another promising method for health surveillance. However, environmental testing at the rack level is not effective for all ventilated rack designs.

Mercury concentrations in bald eagles across an impacted watershed in Maine, USA.

Mercury (Hg) exposure was evaluated in bald eagles (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) in the lower Penobscot River watershed (PRW) in Maine to assess whether Hg discharges from a chlor-alkali plant (HoltraChem) influenced Hg concentrations in nestling tissues. Mean Hg concentrations in nestling blood and breast feathers sampled in marine and estuarine areas potentially contaminated with Hg from HoltraChem (the potential Hg impact zone) were significantly greater than those from reference sites spanning the Maine coast. To place Hg exposure in the potential Hg impact zone into a broader context, Hg exposure in bald eagle nestlings from four habitat types in the PRW was assessed.

Recombinant promotes tumor rejection by CD8 T cell-dependent remodeling of the tumor microenvironment.

Agents that remodel the tumor microenvironment (TME), prime functional tumor-specific T cells, and block inhibitory signaling pathways are essential components of effective immunotherapy. We are evaluating live-attenuated, double-deleted expressing tumor antigens (LADD-Ag) in the clinic. Here we show in numerous mouse models that while treatment with nonrecombinant LADD induced some changes in the TME, no antitumor efficacy was observed, even when combined with immune checkpoint blockade.

Prosthetic Jamming Terminal Device: A Case Study of Untethered Soft Robotics.

This article illuminates the major and often overlooked challenge of untethering soft robotic systems through the context of recent work, in which soft robotic gripper technology enabled by jamming of granular media was applied to a prosthetic jamming terminal device (PJTD). The PJTD's technical and market feasibility was evaluated in a pilot study with two upper-limb amputees. A PJTD prototype was tested against a commercial device (Motion Control electric terminal service with a one degree-of-freedom pinching mechanism) using two existing hand function tests: the first quantified the device's speed in picking and placing small blocks and the second evaluated a person's ability to perform activities of daily living (ADLs).

Reversible Oligonucleotide Chain Blocking Enables Bead Capture and Amplification of T-Cell Receptor α and β Chain mRNAs.

Next-generation sequencing (NGS) has proven to be an exceptionally powerful tool for studying genetic variation and differences in gene expression profiles between cell populations. However, these population-wide studies are limited by their inability to detect variation between individual cells within a population, inspiring the development of single-cell techniques such as Drop-seq, which add a unique barcode to the mRNA from each cell prior to sequencing. Current Drop-seq technology enables capture, amplification, and barcoding of the entire mRNA transcriptome of individual cells.

Triclosan and thyroid-mediated metamorphosis in anurans: differentiating growth effects from thyroid-driven metamorphosis in Xenopus laevis.

In a previously reported study, we used a standard metamorphosis anuran model to assess potential effect of the antibacterial agent triclosan (TCS) on normal prometamorphic Xenopus laevis. Results indicated that environmentally relevant TCS concentrations did not alter the normal course of thyroid-mediated metamorphosis in this standard anuran model. However, to examine potential effects of TCS exposure during premetamorphosis and to distinguish between effects on metamorphosis and effects on growth, a longer term TCS exposure study was conducted.

Monitoring of thermal dose during ablation therapy using quantum dot-mediated fluorescence thermometry.

Purpose: The objective of this study was to demonstrate the feasibility of quantum dot (QD)-mediated fluorescence thermometry to monitor thermal dose in an in-vitro thermal ablation zone generated by laser-heated gold nanoshells (LGNS).

Materials And Methods: Hyperthermic cell death of human prostate cancer cell line (PC-3) was determined after various heating settings and correlated to the thermal conditions using an Arrhenius model prior to LGNS ablation. PC-3 cells with gold nanoshells (GNS) and QDs were exposed to a near-infrared laser and QD excitation light.

Evaluation of a new circuit configuration for the VDR-4 high-frequency percussive ventilator.

High-frequency percussive ventilation (HFPV) by the VDR-4(R) has been a successful mode of ventilation in the management of inhalation injuries for nearly 20 years. A limitation of the standard VDR-4 ventilator circuit is that the sliding venturi manifold is heavy in weight and is normally connected directly to the patient's endotracheal tube (ETT), resulting in potentially hazardous torque on the ETT. In this study, we evaluate the mechanics of a new circuit for the VDR-4 that relocates the sliding venturi manifold portion of the circuit away from the ETT into the ventilator proper.

National survey of psychologists' test feedback training, supervision, and practice: a mixed methods study.

In this empirical, mixed methods study, we explored test feedback training, supervision, and practice among psychologists, focusing specifically on how feedback is provided to clients and whether feedback skills are taught in graduate programs. Based on a 48.5% return rate, this national survey of clinical, counseling, and school psychologists' suggests psychologists provide test feedback to clients but inconsistently.

Meta-analysis of psychological assessment as a therapeutic intervention.

This study entails the use of meta-analytic techniques to calculate and analyze 18 independent and 52 nonindependent effect sizes across 17 published studies of psychological assessment as a therapeutic intervention. In this sample of studies, which involves 1,496 participants, a significant overall Cohen's d effect size of 0.423 (95% CI [0.