Trends and disparities in violence-related injury morbidity among pregnant and postpartum individuals.

Purpose: Violence against pregnant and postpartum individuals is a major public health problem. Homicides during the perinatal period have recently increased, yet these deaths reflect only the most extreme manifestation of violence. Far less is known about trends and disparities in pregnancy-associated violence morbidity.

Targeting Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence Algorithms in Health Care to Reduce Bias and Improve Population Health.

Policy Points Artificial intelligence (AI) is disruptively innovating health care and surpassing our ability to define its boundaries and roles in health care and regulate its application in legal and ethical ways. Significant progress has been made in governance in the United States and the European Union. It is incumbent on developers, end users, the public, providers, health care systems, and policymakers to collaboratively ensure that we adopt a national AI health strategy that realizes the Quintuple Aim; minimizes race-based medicine; prioritizes transparency, equity, and algorithmic vigilance; and integrates the patient and community voices throughout all aspects of AI development and deployment.

Systemic cascades on inhomogeneous random financial networks.

This article presents a model of the financial system as an inhomogeneous random financial network (IRFN) with nodes that represent different types of institutions such as banks or funds and directed weighted edges that signify counterparty relationships between nodes. The onset of a systemic crisis is triggered by a large exogenous shock to banks' balance sheets. Their behavioural response is modelled by a cascade mechanism that tracks the propagation of damaging shocks and possible amplification of the crisis, and leads the system to a cascade equilibrium.

The role of programmed mitophagy in germline mitochondrial DNA quality control.

Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) is prone to the accumulation of mutations. To prevent harmful mtDNA mutations from being passed on to the next generation, the female germline, through which mtDNA is exclusively inherited, has evolved extensive mtDNA quality control. To dissect the molecular underpinnings of this process, we recently performed a large RNAi screen in Drosophila and uncovered a programmed germline mitophagy (PGM) that is essential for mtDNA quality control.

Mitochondrial remodelling is essential for female germ cell differentiation and survival.

Stem cells often possess immature mitochondria with few inner membrane invaginations, which increase as stem cells differentiate. Despite this being a conserved feature across many stem cell types in numerous organisms, how and why mitochondria undergo such remodelling during stem cell differentiation has remained unclear. Here, using Drosophila germline stem cells (GSCs), we show that Complex V drives mitochondrial remodelling during the early stages of GSC differentiation, prior to terminal differentiation.

Development and Validation of the Perceptions of Research Trustworthiness Scale to Measure Trust Among Minoritized Racial and Ethnic Groups in Biomedical Research in the US.

Importance: Historically, trust in biomedical research has been lower among minoritized racial and ethnic groups who are underrepresented in and excluded from research, with the same groups experiencing worse health outcomes. Unfortunately, instruments that measure trust may not capture components of trust relevant to minoritized racial and ethnic groups.

Objective: To develop and validate a scale to measure trust in biomedical research among minoritized racial and ethnic groups.

A novel case of cutaneous myxoid spindle cell neoplasm with FMR1-ALK gene fusion and CD34/S100 co-expression.

A novel class of superficial CD34 and S100 cutaneous spindle cell neoplasm harboring ALK rearrangements has recently been described. Morphologically, these neoplasms have been characterized by bland spindled cells organized in whorls and cords against myxoid stroma, eventuating in the designation "superficial ALK-rearranged myxoid spindle cell neoplasm." Here, we report a 78-year-old male with a 3-mm pink papule on the chest, clinically concerning for cutaneous carcinoma.

Mitochondrial DNA quality control in the female germline requires a unique programmed mitophagy.

Mitochondria have their own DNA (mtDNA), which is susceptible to the accumulation of disease-causing mutations. To prevent deleterious mutations from being inherited, the female germline has evolved a conserved quality control mechanism that remains poorly understood. Here, through a large-scale screen, we uncover a unique programmed germline mitophagy (PGM) that is essential for mtDNA quality control.

Macrophage mitochondrial bioenergetics and tissue invasion are boosted by an Atossa-Porthos axis in Drosophila.

Cellular metabolism must adapt to changing demands to enable homeostasis. During immune responses or cancer metastasis, cells leading migration into challenging environments require an energy boost, but what controls this capacity is unclear. Here, we study a previously uncharacterized nuclear protein, Atossa (encoded by CG9005), which supports macrophage invasion into the germband of Drosophila by controlling cellular metabolism.

Impact of asymptomatic COVID-19 carriers on pandemic policy outcomes.

This paper provides a mathematical model that makes it clearly visible why the underestimation of , the fraction of asymptomatic COVID-19 carriers in the general population, may lead to a catastrophic reliance on the standard policy intervention that attempts to isolate all confirmed infectious cases. The SE(A+O)R model with infectives separated into asymptomatic and ordinary carriers, supplemented by a model of the data generation process, is calibrated to standard early pandemic datasets for two countries. It is shown that certain fundamental parameters, critically , are unidentifiable with this data.

Deletion of TSPO Causes Dysregulation of Cholesterol Metabolism in Mouse Retina.

Cholesterol dysregulation has been implicated in age-related macular degeneration (AMD), the most common cause of visual impairment in the elderly. The 18 KDa translocator protein (TSPO) is a mitochondrial outer membrane protein responsible for transporting cholesterol from the mitochondrial outer membrane to the inner membrane. TSPO is highly expressed in retinal pigment epithelial (RPE) cells, and TSPO ligands have shown therapeutic potential for the treatment of AMD.

Avoiding Extinction: Recent Advances in Understanding Mechanisms of Mitochondrial DNA Purifying Selection in the Germline.

Mitochondria are unusual organelles in that they contain their own genomes, which are kept apart from the rest of the DNA in the cell. While mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) is essential for respiration and most multicellular life, maintaining a genome outside the nucleus brings with it a number of challenges. Chief among these is preserving mtDNA genomic integrity from one generation to the next.

A retrospective review of the use of a nanocrystalline silver dressing in the management of open chronic wounds in the community.

As part of an infection management protocol, antimicrobial dressings offer an appropriate, cost-effective choice for the management of localised bioburden in chronic wounds. The choice of antimicrobial can impact significantly not only on the treatment outcomes and cost but also on the safety and well-being of the patient. This retrospective study investigates these outcomes comparing health care records of 2572 patients with open chronic wounds, who were treated either with an Integrated Care Wound Bundle (ICB) including nanocrystalline silver (NCS) dressings (n = 330) or without NCS dressings and not on a ICB (n = 2242) in the community from March 2016 to March 2018.

International Consensus Panel Recommendations for the Optimization of Traditional and Single-Use Negative Pressure Wound Therapy in the Treatment of Acute and Chronic Wounds.

Introduction: Currently, there are no international standardized guidelines or recommendations to guide the clinical decision-making process on when to initiate various negative pressure wound therapy (NPWT) systems for acute and chronic wounds. Specifically, no established recommendations or guidance exists regarding the type of NPWT system to use, traditional (tNPWT) or single-use (sNPWT), and how to transition between the 2 systems.

Methods: An expert panel was convened to (1) provide recommendations to clinicians on when to consider NPWT use in acute and chronic wound management and (2) develop a practical decision-making tool to guide on the appropriateness of the different NPWT modalities (tNPWT or sNPWT) and when they should be utilized.

Epigenetic regulation of arginine vasopressin receptor 2 expression by PAX2 and Pax transcription interacting protein.

Renal arginine vasopressin receptor 2 (AVPR2) plays a crucial role in osmoregulation. Engagement of ligand with AVPR2 results in aquaporin 2 movement to the apical membrane and water reabsorption from the urinary filtrate. Despite this essential role, little is known about transcriptional regulation of .

Assessing the Need for Negative Pressure Wound Therapy Utilization Guidelines: An Overview of the Challenges With Providing Optimal Care.

Negative pressure wound therapy (NPWT) has evolved beyond its original design as a stationary, reusable system (traditional NPWT [tNPWT]) and is now also available as a single-use, portable device (sNPWT). No established guidance exists for selecting the appropriate system to treat specific wound types in various settings. This article reviews the current practice and challenges associated with NPWT.

A sensitive and affordable multiplex RT-qPCR assay for SARS-CoV-2 detection.

With the ongoing COVID-19 (Coronavirus Disease 2019) pandemic, caused by the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2), there is a need for sensitive, specific, and affordable diagnostic tests to identify infected individuals, not all of whom are symptomatic. The most sensitive test involves the detection of viral RNA using RT-qPCR (quantitative reverse transcription PCR), with many commercial kits now available for this purpose. However, these are expensive, and supply of such kits in sufficient numbers cannot always be guaranteed.

COVID-19: Analytics of contagion on inhomogeneous random social networks.

Motivated by the need for robust models of the Covid-19 epidemic that adequately reflect the extreme heterogeneity of humans and society, this paper presents a novel framework that treats a population of individuals as an inhomogeneous random social network (IRSN). The nodes of the network represent individuals of different types and the edges represent significant social relationships. An epidemic is pictured as a contagion process that develops day by day, triggered by a seed infection introduced into the population on day 0.

The Molecular Network of YAP/Yorkie at the Cell Cortex and their Role in Ocular Morphogenesis.

During development, the precise control of tissue morphogenesis requires changes in the cell number, size, shape, position, and gene expression, which are driven by both chemical and mechanical cues from the surrounding microenvironment. Such physical and architectural features inform cells about their proliferative and migratory capacity, enabling the formation and maintenance of complex tissue architecture. In polarised epithelia, the apical cell cortex, a thin actomyosin network that lies directly underneath the apical plasma membrane, functions as a platform to facilitate signal transmission between the external environment and downstream signalling pathways.

Chemical entrapment and killing of insects by bacteria.

Actinobacteria produce antibacterial and antifungal specialized metabolites. Many insects harbour actinobacteria on their bodies or in their nests and use these metabolites for protection. However, some actinobacteria produce metabolites that are toxic to insects and the evolutionary relevance of this toxicity is unknown.

The nanophthalmos protein TMEM98 inhibits MYRF self-cleavage and is required for eye size specification.

The precise control of eye size is essential for normal vision. TMEM98 is a highly conserved and widely expressed gene which appears to be involved in eye size regulation. Mutations in human TMEM98 are found in patients with nanophthalmos (very small eyes) and variants near the gene are associated in population studies with myopia and increased eye size.

Novel roles of PRK1 and PRK2 in cilia and cancer biology.

PRK1 and PRK2 are two closely related AGC-family serine/threonine protein kinases. Here we demonstrate novel roles for them at cilia and in cancer biology. In both instances serum withdrawal leads to increased activating PRK1 and PRK2 phosphorylation (pPRK1/pPRK2) and their depletion results in reduced spheroid growth.

Collaboration and Context in the Design of Community-Engaged Research Training.

Collaboration between academic researchers and community members, clinicians, and organizations is valued at all levels of the program development process in community-engaged health research (CEnR). This descriptive study examined a convenience sample of 30 projects addressing training in CEnR methods and strategies within the Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSA) consortium. Projects were selected from among posters presented at an annual community engagement conference over a 3-year period.