Organ-specific metastatic landscape dissects PD-(L)1 blockade efficacy in advanced non-small cell lung cancer: applicability from clinical trials to real-world practice.

Background: Organ-specific metastatic context has not been incorporated into the clinical practice of guiding programmed death-(ligand) 1 [PD-(L)1] blockade, due to a lack of understanding of its predictive versus prognostic value. We aim at delineating and then incorporating both the predictive and prognostic effects of the metastatic-organ landscape to dissect PD-(L)1 blockade efficacy in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

Methods: A total of 2062 NSCLC patients from a double-arm randomized trial (OAK), two immunotherapy trials (FIR, BIRCH), and a real-world cohort (NFyy) were included.

Adverse childhood experiences and obesity over time.

Objective: The effects of adverse childhood experiences (ACE) on children and adolescents' health status such as obesity are understudied. The current study addressed the effect of ACE on obesity status during childhood utilising multiple waves of national panel data.

Design: Longitudinal survey.

Cardiovascular informatics: building a bridge to data harmony.

The search for new strategies for better understanding cardiovascular (CV) disease is a constant one, spanning multitudinous types of observations and studies. A comprehensive characterization of each disease state and its biomolecular underpinnings relies upon insights gleaned from extensive information collection of various types of data. Researchers and clinicians in CV biomedicine repeatedly face questions regarding which types of data may best answer their questions, how to integrate information from multiple datasets of various types, and how to adapt emerging advances in machine learning and/or artificial intelligence to their needs in data processing.

A Second Look at FAIR in Proteomic Investigations.

Proteomics is, by definition, comprehensive and large-scale, seeking to unravel ome-level protein features with phenotypic information on an entire system, an organ, cells, or organisms. This scope consistently involves and extends beyond single experiments. Multitudinous resources now exist to assist in making the results of proteomics experiments more findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable (FAIR), yet many tools are awaiting to be adopted by our community.

Prevalence and Severity of Child Impairment in a US Sample of Child Maltreatment Investigations.

Objectives: Although there is agreement that childhood disability is both a risk and result of maltreatment, the extent of disability in the child welfare system remains unclear. Our objective is to determine the prevalence and severity of child impairment in a national sample of child abuse and neglect investigations in the United States.

Methods: We used data from the National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being II, a study of 2644 children older than 3 years who were subjects of child abuse and neglect investigations.

Resting Heart Rate and Psychopathy Revisited: Findings From the Add Health Survey.

Despite the prior linkages of low resting heart rate to antisocial behavior broadly defined, less work has been done examining possible associations between heart rate to psychopathic traits. The small body of research on the topic that has been conducted so far seems to suggest an inverse relationship between the two constructs. A smaller number of studies has found the opposite result, however, and some of the previous studies have been limited by small sample sizes and unrepresentative samples.

Effective piezoelectric response of substrate-integrated ZnO nanowire array devices on galvanized steel.

Harvesting waste energy through electromechanical coupling in practical devices requires combining device design with the development of synthetic strategies for large-area controlled fabrication of active piezoelectric materials. Here, we show a facile route to the large-area fabrication of ZnO nanostructured arrays using commodity galvanized steel as the Zn precursor as well as the substrate. The ZnO nanowires are further integrated within a device construct and the effective piezoelectric response is deduced based on a novel experimental approach involving induction of stress in the nanowires through pressure wave propagation along with phase-selective lock-in detection of the induced current.

Gender disparity in utilization rates of substance abuse services among female ex-offenders: a population-based analysis.

Background: The use and abuse of substances is common among offender populations. Although the female former offender population has risen substantially in recent decades, relatively little is known about their substance abuse treatment experiences.

Objective: This study examines disparities in substance abuse treatment utilization among the US population with special focus upon formerly incarcerated female offenders.

Breastfeeding as a modifier of the respiratory effects of air pollution in children.

Background: Breastfeeding and air pollution are both important factors for respiratory symptoms and asthma in children. Few studies have examined possible interaction between them on respiratory outcomes.

Methods: We studied 31,049 Chinese children, ages 2-14 years old, from 25 elementary schools and 50 kindergartens in the Seven Northeastern Cities during 2008-2009.

On the Landau theory of phase transitions: a hierarchical dynamic model.

The Landau theory of phase transitions has been re-examined under the framework of a modified mean field theory in ferroelectrics. By doing so, one can see that there are two atomic movements involved in the ferroelectric phase transition; the first corresponds to the vibration of the crystalline lattice, which will render phonon mode softening at the critical point, and the second represents the slow evolution of a partially ordered nematic phase formed by the cooperative behavior of high-temperature structure precursors. In this hierarchical dynamic structure, the former fast dynamics could be significantly modulated by the latter slow dynamics in the vicinity of the Curie temperature; it then turns out that it is the behavior of the nematic phase on approaching the critical point that makes the Landau theory deviate from experimental observations.

Rate of kidney function decline associates with mortality.

The effect of rate of decline of kidney function on risk for death is not well understood. Using the Department of Veterans Affairs national databases, we retrospectively studied a cohort of 4171 patients who had rheumatoid arthritis and early stage 3 chronic kidney disease (CKD; estimated GFR 45 to 60 ml/min) and followed them longitudinally to characterize predictors of disease progression and the effect of rate of kidney function decline on mortality. After a median of 2.