Air travel in patients suffering from pulmonary hypertension-A prospective, multicentre study.

The PEGASUS study is the first multicentric and prospective assessment of the safety of air travel flying in pulmonary hypertension (PH) (NCT03051763). Data of air travel from 60 patients with PH was available. No severe adverse events occurred.

Using benefit transfer to estimate housing value increases from improved water clarity: A case study of lakes in Kosciusko County, Indiana.

This study provides step-by-step guidance for practitioners and local stakeholders on how to use existing study results to conduct benefit transfer (BT), and ultimately make informed predictions of how improvements in lake water clarity may benefit surrounding communities. The procedures are demonstrated using a publicly available meta-dataset developed by the United States Environmental Protection Agency, and a subsequent meta-analysis that synthesizes the literature on how improvements in water clarity impact home values. The BT procedures are demonstrated using a case study of 14 large lakes in Kosciusko County, Indiana.

Implementing constructed wetlands for nutrient reduction at watershed scale: Opportunity to link models and real-world execution.

The negative effects of nutrient pollution in streams, rivers, and downstream waterbodies remain widespread global problems. Understanding the cost-effectiveness of different strategies for mitigating nutrient pollution is critical to making informed decisions and defining expectations that best utilize limited resources, which is a research priority for the US Environmental Protection Agency. To this end, we modeled nutrient management practices including residue management, cover crops, filter strips, grassed waterways, constructed wetlands, and reducing fertilizer in the upper East Fork of the Little Miami River, an 892 km watershed in southwestern Ohio, United States.

Hedonic property values and water quality: A meta-analysis of commodity, market, and methodological choices.

This study quantitatively reviews the hedonic literature examining surface water quality to assess how attributes of the commodity, housing market, and methodological choices lead to variation in the significance and expected sign of the estimated property value effects (i.e., elasticities).

Beta-2 adrenergic receptor agonism alters astrocyte phagocytic activity and has potential applications to psychiatric disease.

Schizophrenia is a debilitating condition necessitating more efficacious therapies. Previous studies suggested that schizophrenia development is associated with aberrant synaptic pruning by glial cells. We pursued an interdisciplinary approach to understand whether therapeutic reduction in glial cell-specifically astrocytic-phagocytosis might benefit neuropsychiatric patients.

[Pulmonary hypertension associated with lung disease].

Lung diseases and hypoventilation syndromes are often associated with pulmonary hypertension (PH). In most cases, PH is not severe. This is defined hemodynamically by a mean pulmonary arterial pressure (PAPm) > 20 mmHg, a pulmonary arterial wedge pressure (PAWP) ≤ 15 mmHg and a pulmonary vascular resistance of ≤ 5 Wood units (WU).

Decreasing trends in total suspended solids and cumulative effects of nonpoint source projects in the Cuyahoga River Watershed, OH.

Using the US EPA's Grants Reporting and Tracking System (GRTS), we test if completion of best management practices (BMPs) through the Clean Water Act Section (§)319 National Nonpoint Source Program was associated with a decreasing trend in total suspended solids (TSS) load (metric tons/year). The study area chosen had 21 completed projects in the Cuyahoga River watershed in northeastern Ohio from 2000 to 2018. The §319 projects ranged from dam removal, floodplain/wetland restoration to stormwater projects.

ADOPT: intrinsic protein disorder prediction through deep bidirectional transformers.

Intrinsically disordered proteins (IDPs) are important for a broad range of biological functions and are involved in many diseases. An understanding of intrinsic disorder is key to develop compounds that target IDPs. Experimental characterization of IDPs is hindered by the very fact that they are highly dynamic.

Property values, water quality, and benefit transfer: A nationwide meta-analysis.

We construct a comprehensive, publicly-available meta-dataset based on 36 hedonic studies that examine the effects of water quality on housing values in the United States. The meta-dataset includes 656 unique estimates and entails a cluster structure that accounts for price effects at different distances. Focusing on water clarity, we estimate reduced-form meta-regressions that account for within-market dependence, statistical precision, housing market and waterbody heterogeneity, publication bias, and methodological practices.

Linking Water Quality to Drinking Water Treatment Costs Using Time Series Analysis: Examining the Effect of a Treatment Plant Upgrade in Ohio.

We estimate a cost function for a water treatment plant in Ohio to assess the avoided-treatment costs resulting from improved source water quality. Regulations and source water concerns motivated the treatment plant to upgrade its treatment process by adding a granular activated carbon building in 2012. The cost function uses daily observations from 2013 to 2016; this allows us to compare the results to a cost function estimated for 2007-2011 for the same plant.

The Effects of Agricultural and Urban Land Use on Drinking Water Treatment Costs: An Analysis of United States Community Water Systems.

For community water providers, safeguarding source waters from contamination offers an additional barrier of protection and a potential means of avoiding in-plant treatment costs. Whether source water protection efforts are cost-effective relative to in-plant treatment requires hydrologic, geologic, and climatologic knowledge of source watersheds, as well as an understanding of how changes in source water quality affect treatment costs. Quantitative evidence on the latter relationship is limited.

An Integrated Genomic, Proteomic, and Immunopeptidomic Approach to Discover Treatment-Induced Neoantigens.

All nucleated mammalian cells express major histocompatibility complex (MHC) proteins that present peptides on cell surfaces for immune surveillance. These MHC-presented peptides (pMHC) are necessary for directing T-cell responses against cells harboring non-self antigens derived from pathogens or from somatic mutations. Alterations in tumor-specific antigen repertoires - particularly novel MHC presentation of mutation-bearing peptides (neoantigens) - can be potent targets of anti-tumor immune responses.

Automated Ligand Purification Platform Accelerates Immunopeptidome Analysis by Mass Spectrometry.

Major histocompatibility complex (MHC)-presented peptides (pMHC) give insight into T cell immune responses, a critical step toward developing a new generation of targeted immunotherapies. Recent instrumentation advances have propelled mass spectrometry to being arguably the most robust technology for discovering and quantifying naturally presented pMHC from cells and tissues. However, sample preparation has remained a major limitation due to time-consuming and labor-intensive workflows.

Patient perspectives of pharmacists prescribing HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis: A survey of patients receiving antiretroviral therapy.

Background: Groundbreaking new laws granting community pharmacists the authority to prescribe human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) medications have the potential to substantially expand PrEP access in high-risk communities. However, whether patients will be accepting of pharmacists as PrEP providers is underexplored within the literature.

Objectives: To assess patient perspectives of pharmacist PrEP prescribing and identify potential barriers to acceptance of pharmacist-prescribed PrEP.

[Complications after Indwelling Pleural Catheter Implant for Symptomatic Recurrent Benign and Malignant Pleural Effusions].

Background:  Implant of indwelling pleural catheters (IPC) represents an established therapy method in addition to pleurodesis for symptomatic recurrent benign and malignant pleural effusions (BPE and MPE).There are only few studies on IPC safety during follow-up, especially with regard to infection and pneumothorax rates.The aim of our investigation was to determine the complication frequency after IPC implant and its predictive factors in patients with BPE vs.

Bid maintains mitochondrial cristae structure and function and protects against cardiac disease in an integrative genomics study.

Bcl-2 family proteins reorganize mitochondrial membranes during apoptosis, to form pores and rearrange cristae. In vitro and in vivo analysis integrated with human genetics reveals a novel homeostatic mitochondrial function for Bcl-2 family protein Bid. Loss of full-length Bid results in apoptosis-independent, irregular cristae with decreased respiration.

The Effects of Source Water Quality on Drinking Water Treatment Costs: A Review and Synthesis of Empirical Literature.

Watershed protection, and associated water quality improvements, has received considerable attention as a means for mitigating health risks and avoiding expenditures at drinking water treatment plants (DWTPs). This study reviews the literature linking source water quality to DWTP expenditures. For each study, we report information on the modeling approach, data structure, definition of treatment costs and water quality, and statistical methods.

Factors Influencing Farmers' Adoption of Best Management Practices: A Review and Synthesis.

Best management practices (BMPs) for reducing agricultural non-point source pollution are widely available. However, agriculture remains a major global contributor to degradation of waters because farmers often do not adopt BMPs. To improve water quality, it is necessary to understand the factors that influence BMP adoption by farmers.

EXPLORING NON-TRADITIONAL PARTICIPATION AS AN APPROACH TO MAKE WATER QUALITY TRADING MARKETS MORE EFFECTIVE.

Water quality trading (WQT) has potential to be a low-cost means for achieving water quality goals. WQT allows regulated wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) facing discharge limits the flexibility to either reduce their own discharge or purchase pollution control from other WWTPs or nonpoint sources (NPSs) such as agricultural producers. Under this limited scope, programs with NPSs have been largely unsuccessful at meeting water quality goals.

DARPin-Based Crystallization Chaperones Exploit Molecular Geometry as a Screening Dimension in Protein Crystallography.

DARPin libraries, based on a Designed Ankyrin Repeat Protein consensus framework, are a rich source of binding partners for a wide variety of proteins. Their modular structure, stability, ease of in vitro selection and high production yields make DARPins an ideal starting point for further engineering. The X-ray structures of around 30 different DARPin complexes demonstrate their ability to facilitate crystallization of their target proteins by restricting flexibility and preventing undesired interactions of the target molecule.