Percutaneous Endoscopic Gastrostomy in the 21st Century-An Overview of 1415 Consecutive Dysphagic Adult Patients.

Percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy (PEG) is recommended for long-term enteral nutrition in dysphagic patients. This study aims to characterize conditions motivating PEG, assess nutritional status on the gastrostomy day, evaluate survival and search for survival predictors. Retrospective study of adult patients who underwent PEG in a tertiary hospital from 2001 to 2023.

Pregnancy-related issues in rare and low-prevalence diseases: results of ERN transversal working group on pregnancy and family planning survey.

Background: Rare and complex diseases can have a significant impact on family life, and managing the reproductive aspects of patients of childbearing age with rare diseases is often difficult and complex. A European Reference Network (ERN) Transversal Working Group (WG) on Pregnancy and Family Planning was created to join forces to promote and address issues on these topics in rare and low-prevalence diseases.

Objective: To outline the challenges and the good practices related to pregnancy and family planning in rare and complex diseases for healthcare professionals (HCPs).

Engineering Robust Strain Transmission in van der Waals Heterostructure Devices.

Atomically thin van der Waals materials provide a highly tunable platform for exploring emergent quantum phenomena in solid state systems. Due to their remarkable mechanical strength, one enticing tuning knob is strain. However, the weak strain transfer of graphite and hBN, which are standard components of high-quality vdW devices, poses fundamental challenges for high-strain experiments.

Effects of hCG administered 5 or 7 days after the onset of induced estrus on luteal morphology and function in seasonally anovular dairy goats.

The objective was to evaluate the effects of intramuscular (i.m.) human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) administered on day 5 (D5) or day 7 (D7) after estrus (D0) on luteal structures (number, area, vascularization, and progesterone secretion) and pregnancy rates in estrus-induced dairy goats during the non-breeding season.

Tunable Exciton-Driven Photoelasticity in 2D Material Acoustic Cavities.

While coupling between optical, electronic, and mechanical domains is paramount for high-frequency acoustic devices, materials that offer tunability in the degree of such coupling can be crucially enabling in expanding device functionality. Here, we show that the interaction of photons with coherent acoustic phonons confined in 2D layered semiconducting cavities can be controlled through either modifying the material state via a thermally induced electronic bandgap shift (EBS) or altering the polarization state of the incoming photons when optical birefringence is present in the cavity. We demonstrate temperature-driven EBS as an effective tool to engineer the WSe cavity readout as it allows one to sweep the excitonic energy relative to a chosen probe wavelength.