Publications by authors named "Harper S"

Background: The UK's National Health Service Test and Trace (NHSTT) program aimed to provide the most effective and accessible SARS-CoV-2 testing approach possible. Early user feedback indicated that there were accessibility issues associated with throat swabbing. We report the results of service evaluations performed by NHSTT to assess the effectiveness and user acceptance of swabbing approaches, as well as qualitative findings of user experiences from research reports, surveys, and incident reports.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The concept of self-care is a foundational construct of individual health and wellness. Facilitated self-care is the next logical step in society's uptake of technology for previously high-touch clinical activities, such as patient education and frequent biometric data tracking. This retrospective study aimed to assess whether participation in a digital interactive care plan correlated with an increase in participants' perceived self-efficacy as measured by a change in the Shortened Perceived Medical Condition Self-management Scale score from baseline to end-of-care plan.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Interstep variations in step riser height and tread depth within a stairway could negatively impact safe stair negotiation by decreasing step riser height predictability and, consequently, increasing stair users' fall risk. Unfortunately, interstep variations in riser height and depth are common, particularly in older stairways, but its impact may be lessened by highlighting steps' edges using a high-contrast stripe on the top front edge of each step.

Objective: This study aimed to determine (1) if fall-related events are associated with greater interstep riser height and depth variations and (2) if such fall-related events are reduced in the presence of contrast-enhanced step edges compared with a control stairway.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Timely recognition of acute ischemic stroke (AIS) is essential to identify patients who may be eligible for acute intervention. Protocols to streamline systems-based care, such as "stroke alerts" in the emergency department (ED) can safely reduce time-to-care while enhancing safety. However, clinician adherence to stroke alert criteria is poorly described.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • A team of over 180 researchers from more than 40 countries is addressing the issues related to "phantom agents," which are proposed pathogenic agents that are listed without concrete evidence of their existence.
  • These phantom agents, identified only through symptoms and lacking proper isolates or genetic data, create obstacles for trade and plant certification, making effective detection and risk assessment difficult.
  • The researchers recommend removing these agents from regulatory lists and updating standards in line with modern diagnostic methods to facilitate germplasm exchange and support global agriculture.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: The body composition of National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) athletes is well documented but no such data exist for university club sports athletes. Additionally, the majority of norms for NCAA athletes were created from individual methods requiring assumptions.

Objective: This study used a four-component (4C) model to measure the body composition of university club sports athletes.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Sexual assault victimization experience and alcohol consumption are well-documented HIV risk factors for women who have sex with men (WSM). Nonetheless, behavioral mechanisms of the synergistic effects of these factors on women's increased HIV risk are not well delineated. This study is the first to examine the interactive effects of sexual assault history and acute intoxication on women's condom negotiation behavior during a face-to-face role-play with a male actor.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Micro and nanoplastics (MNPs) are ubiquitous in the environment and have been detected in most ecosystems, including remote regions. The class of contaminants under the MNP umbrella is quite broad and encompasses variable polymer types, shapes, and sizes. Fibers are the most frequently detected in the environment, followed by fragments, but still represent only a small fraction of laboratory studies.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: PRAME (eferentially expressed ntigen in lanoma) is a cancer-testis antigen expressed in several tumor indications, representing an attractive anticancer target. However, its intracellular location limits targeting by traditional methods. PRAME peptides are presented on the surface of tumor cells by human leukocyte antigen (HLA) molecules, indicating that a T cell receptor (TCR)-based strategy that redirects T cells to kill PRAME tumors could be a novel immunotherapeutic option.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Objective: Reliable, circulating biomarkers for Duchenne, Becker and facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophies (DBMD and FSHD) remain unvalidated. Here, we investigated the plasma extracellular vesicle (EV) proteome to identify disease-specific biomarkers that could accelerate therapy approvals.

Methods: We extracted EVs from the plasma of DBMD and FSHD patients and healthy controls using size-exclusion chromatography, conducted mass spectrometry on the extracted EV proteins, and performed comparative analysis to identify disease-specific biomarkers.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • The study focuses on detecting multijet signatures from proton-proton collisions at a high energy of 13 TeV, analyzing a dataset totaling 128 fb^{-1}.
  • A special data scouting method is utilized to pick out events with low combined momentum in jets.
  • This research is pioneering in its investigation of electroweak particle production in R-parity violating supersymmetric models, particularly examining hadronically decaying mass-degenerate higgsinos, and it broadens the limits on the existence of R-parity violating top squarks and gluinos.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Clostridioides difficile is a leading cause of healthcare infections. Gut dysbiosis promotes C. difficile infection (CDI) and CDIs promote gut dysbiosis, leading to frequent CDI recurrence.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The first search for soft unclustered energy patterns (SUEPs) is performed using an integrated luminosity of 138  fb^{-1} of proton-proton collision data at sqrt[s]=13  TeV, collected in 2016-2018 by the CMS detector at the LHC. Such SUEPs are predicted by hidden valley models with a new, confining force with a large 't Hooft coupling. In events with boosted topologies, selected by high-threshold hadronic triggers, the multiplicity and sphericity of clustered tracks are used to reject the background from standard model quantum chromodynamics.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Garlic is widely cultivated for both its culinary and medicinal properties. Bulb yield, organosulfur compounds, and plant mineral nutrition of 32 garlic varieties were characterized. Across genotypes, there was large variability in bulb weight and alliin and allicin concentrations.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: In 2015, the Chinese Government launched the coal to clean heating policy (CHP), designed to improve air quality and health in China. The CHP banned household coal burning and provided subsidies for clean electric or gas-powered heating for millions of peri-urban and rural households. We aimed to investigate whether the CHP affected the incidence of acute myocardial infarction in Beijing townships.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Women in India are often responsible for unpaid household work, family caregiving, and paid work, which can contribute to poorer mental health. The provision of childcare has the potential to improve women's mental health, but evidence on the effects of providing access to daycare is limited.

Methods: We designed a cluster-randomised trial and used data from a sample of 2858 mothers with age-eligible children from 160 village hamlets in rural Rajasthan, India, to evaluate the impact of providing access to a community-based daycare programme on social and emotional aspects of women's mental health.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Specificity of a T cell receptor (TCR) is determined by the combination of its interactions to the peptide and human leukocyte antigen (HLA). TCR-based therapeutic molecules have to date targeted a single peptide in the context of a single HLA allele. Some peptides are presented on multiple HLA alleles, and by engineering TCRs for specific recognition of more than one allele, there is potential to expand the targetable patient population.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The first search for the Z boson decay to ττμμ at the CERN LHC is presented, based on data collected by the CMS experiment at the LHC in proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 13 TeV and corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 138  fb^{-1}. The data are compatible with the predicted background. For the first time, an upper limit at the 95% confidence level of 6.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • Foodborne pathogens cause approximately 600 million illnesses and 420,000 deaths worldwide each year, highlighting the need for effective detection methods in food products like swine, poultry, and cattle.
  • Traditional screening methods include immunoassays, DNA techniques, and culture methods, but they can be time-consuming when used together.
  • This project tested the Oxford Nanopore Technologies' MinION sequencer for rapid DNA sequencing and found a strong correlation between DNA concentration and sequencing output, demonstrating its potential for quick food safety assessments in under 3 hours.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Inappropriate antibiotic use is a key driver of antibiotic resistance and one that can be mitigated through stewardship. A better understanding of current prescribing practices is needed to develop successful stewardship efforts. This study aims to identify factors that are associated with human cases of enteric illness receiving an antibiotic prescription.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • The standard treatment for GERD is proton pump inhibitors (PPIs), but new options like RefluxStop, a minimally invasive treatment, are emerging.
  • A cost-effectiveness analysis using a Markov model showed that RefluxStop is likely more cost-effective than both PPIs and Nissen fundoplication in Sweden, with high probabilities of being cost-effective.
  • RefluxStop may provide a better long-term treatment option for GERD patients compared to traditional therapies, as it has shown promising results in terms of cost-effectiveness.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Observation of the decay.

Eur Phys J C Part Fields

October 2024

Using proton-proton collision data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of collected by the CMS experiment at , the decay is observed for the first time, with a statistical significance exceeding 5 standard deviations. The relative branching fraction, with respect to the decay, is measured to be , where the first uncertainty is statistical, the second is systematic, and the third is related to the uncertainties in and .

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

A search for collective effects inside jets produced in proton-proton collisions is performed via correlation measurements of charged particles using the CMS detector at the CERN LHC. The analysis uses data collected at a center-of-mass energy of sqrt[s]=13  TeV, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 138  fb^{-1}. Jets are reconstructed with the anti-k_{T} algorithm with a distance parameter of 0.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • The National Nanotechnology Initiative held a Nanoinformatics Conference in 2023, discussing collaborations between the U.S. and EU on handling nanotechnology data.
  • They talked about creating databases, their pros and cons, and how to improve standards for sharing and storing information about nano Environmental Health and Safety (nanoEHS).
  • Important topics that were missed include evaluating data usage, including community input, and integrating new data types like micro and nano plastics for better future progress.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF