A randomized controlled trial to assess whether a telehealth-based contingency management intervention reduces alcohol use for individuals with alcohol use disorder.

Background: Contingency management (CM) is an intervention for alcohol use disorder (AUD) that reinforces abstinence, as confirmed by alcohol biomarkers. CM is usually brief (12-16 weeks) despite evidence that longer interventions have better long-term outcomes. Most CM models are in-person which can also be a barrier for treatment.

A population based study of bariatric surgery in Illinois.

Background: Utilization of metabolic and bariatric surgery has increased significantly over the last 2decades, yet barriers to access remain.

Objectives: This study aimed to 1) define rates of metabolic and bariatric surgery utilization for qualifying adults in Illinois and 2) describe patient characteristics associated with undergoing surgery at Illinois hospitals with low metabolic and bariatric surgery volume.

Setting: Metabolic and bariatric surgery at all nonfederal Illinois hospitals was included.

Surpassing protein specificity in biomimetics of bacterial amyloids.

In nature, nontoxic protein amyloids serve as dynamic, protein-specific depots, exemplified by both bacterial inclusion bodies and secretory granules from the endocrine system. Inspired by these systems, chemically defined and regulatory-compliant artificial protein microgranules have been developed for clinical applications as endocrine-like protein repositories. This has been achieved by exploiting the reversible coordination between histidine residues and divalent cations such as Zn, that promotes protein-protein interactions.

Initial Carbonation of Ni(111) Surfaces.

Understanding the carbon formation on Ni surfaces is critical for the controlled Ni-based nanofabrication and heterogeneous catalysis. Due to the high solubility of carbon in nickel and the complicated migrations of carbon in the near-surface area, achieving a fundamental understanding of the initial carbonation of a Ni surface at an atomic level is experimentally challenging. Herein, the initial formation of surface carbon adsorbates on Ni(111) from the Boudouard reaction (2CO ↔ CO + C) is studied by scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) in combination with density functional theory (DFT) calculations.

The Design of a Controlled-Release Polymer of a Phytopharmaceutical Agent: A Study on the Release in Different PH Environments Using the Ultrafiltration Technique.

A series of hydrophilic copolymers were prepared using 2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate (HEMA) and itaconic acid (IA) from free radical polymerization at different feed monomer ratios using ammonium persulfate (APS) initiators in water at 70 °C. The herbicide 2,4-dichlorophenoxy acetic acid (2,4-D) was grafted to Poly(HEMA--IA) by a condensation reaction. The hydrolysis of the polymeric release system, Poly(HEMA--IA)-2,4-D, demonstrated that the release of the herbicide in an aqueous phase depends on the polymeric system's pH value and hydrophilic character.