A Comparison of Los Angeles County Health Survey Outcomes After Transitioning From Telephone to a Primarily Web-Based, Self-Administration Data Collection Mode.

Context: As response rates to health surveys conducted by telephone continue to fall while data collection costs rise, practitioners are increasingly transitioning to address-based sample (ABS) designs with a self-administered, mail contact data collection mode.

Objective: To compare differences in key health indicators produced from both the Adult Survey and Child Survey of the Los Angeles County Health Survey (LACHS), which transitioned from a telephone to primarily self-administered mode in the 2022-2023 administration.

Design: Weighted survey estimates from the 2015, 2018, and 2022-2023 LACHS administrations are compared to investigate differences that may be attributable to LACHS' recent mode transition.

Work-related factors of mental health among Chicago residents two years into the COVID-19 pandemic.

The COVID-19 pandemic led to widespread consequences for economic, social, and general wellbeing with rates of anxiety and depression increasing across the population and disproportionately for some workers. This study explored which factors were the most salient contributors to mental health through a cross-sectional 68-item questionnaire that addressed topics related to the pandemic. Data were collected through an address-based sampling frame over the two months from April 2022 to June 2022.

Sex-specific regulation of the cortical transcriptome in response to sleep deprivation.

Multiple studies have documented sex differences in sleep behaviour, however, the molecular determinants of such differences remain unknown. Furthermore, most studies addressing molecular mechanisms have been performed only in males, leaving the current state of knowledge biased towards the male sex. To address this, we studied the differences in the transcriptome of the cerebral cortex of male and female C57Bl/6 J mice after 6 h of sleep deprivation.

Deficiency of factor-inhibiting HIF creates a tumor-promoting immune microenvironment.

Hypoxia signaling influences tumor development through both cell-intrinsic and -extrinsic pathways. Inhibiting hypoxia-inducible factor (HIF) function has recently been approved as a cancer treatment strategy. Hence, it is important to understand how regulators of HIF may affect tumor growth under physiological conditions.

Somnotate: A probabilistic sleep stage classifier for studying vigilance state transitions.

Electrophysiological recordings from freely behaving animals are a widespread and powerful mode of investigation in sleep research. These recordings generate large amounts of data that require sleep stage annotation (polysomnography), in which the data is parcellated according to three vigilance states: awake, rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, and non-REM (NREM) sleep. Manual and current computational annotation methods ignore intermediate states because the classification features become ambiguous, even though intermediate states contain important information regarding vigilance state dynamics.

p-tau Ser356 is associated with Alzheimer's disease pathology and is lowered in brain slice cultures using the NUAK inhibitor WZ4003.

Tau hyperphosphorylation and aggregation is a common feature of many dementia-causing neurodegenerative diseases. Tau can be phosphorylated at up to 85 different sites, and there is increasing interest in whether tau phosphorylation at specific epitopes, by specific kinases, plays an important role in disease progression. The AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK)-related enzyme NUAK1 has been identified as a potential mediator of tau pathology, whereby NUAK1-mediated phosphorylation of tau at Ser356 prevents the degradation of tau by the proteasome, further exacerbating tau hyperphosphorylation and accumulation.

The Effects of Interpersonal Violence on Sleep Following the COVID-19 Stay-at-Home Order.

Purpose: Lack of sleep is a harm that can lead to chronic diseases ranging from diabetes to heart disease. We examined the exposure to interpersonal violence and its association with sleep, following the COVID-19 stay-at-home order.

Design: Cross-sectional.

Examining Participation Disparities in Cancer Clinical Trials.

Objectives: To examine factors that account for disparities in cancer clinical trial participation.

Sample & Setting: Pooled data from Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System surveys between 2010 and 2017.

Methods & Variables: Univariate and binary logistic regression analyses were used to examine the associations between participation in clinical trials and demographic and health characteristics, using SAS® procedures to account for complex sample features.

The genome displays differential chromatin accessibility.

Whilst the regulation of chromatin accessibility and its effect on gene expression have been well studied in eukaryotic species, the role of chromatin dynamics and 3D organisation in genome reduced bacteria remains poorly understood [1,2]. In this study we profiled the accessibility of the genome, these data were collected fortuitously as part of an experiment where ATAC-Seq was conducted on contaminated mammalian cells. We found a differential and highly reproducible chromatin accessibility landscape, with regions of increased accessibility corresponding to genes important for the bacteria's life cycle and infectivity.

The multiple roles of salt-inducible kinases in regulating physiology.

Salt-inducible kinases (SIKs), which comprise a family of three homologous serine-threonine kinases, were first described for their role in sodium sensing but have since been shown to regulate multiple aspects of physiology. These kinases are activated or deactivated in response to extracellular signals that are cell surface receptor mediated and go on to phosphorylate multiple targets including the transcription cofactors CRTC1-3 and the class IIa histone deacetylases (HDACs). Thus, the SIK family conveys signals about the cellular environment to reprogram transcriptional and posttranscriptional processes in response.

The regulation of circadian entrainment in mice by the adenosine the receptor antagonist CT1500.

Circadian entrainment in mice relies primarily on photic cues that trigger the transcription of the core clock genes in the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN), thus aligning the phase of the clock with the dawn/dusk cycle. It has been shown previously that this pathway is directly regulated by adenosine signalling and that adenosine A/A receptor antagonists can both enhance photic entrainment and phase shift circadian rhythms of wheel-running behaviour in mice. In this study, we tested the ability of CT1500, a clinically safe adenosine A/A receptor antagonist to effect circadian entrainment.

Sleep and circadian rhythm disruption alters the lung transcriptome to predispose to viral infection.

Sleep and circadian rhythm disruption (SCRD), as encountered during shift work, increases the risk of respiratory viral infection including SARS-CoV-2. However, the mechanism(s) underpinning higher rates of respiratory viral infection following SCRD remain poorly characterized. To address this, we investigated the effects of acute sleep deprivation on the mouse lung transcriptome.

Blunt Traumatic Innominate Artery Pseudoaneurysm Endografting without Heparin Due to Severe Brain Injury.

Blunt traumatic innominate artery injuries occur in polytrauma victims who have suffered high-speed motor vehicle collisions. Their associated injuries may preclude the use of heparin and affect surgical management and perioperative neurological risk. The uniqueness of this case is combining the arterial injury repair with a severe progressive neurological injury that prohibited standard perioperative antiplatelet or anticoagulent use.

Transitioning the Healthy Chicago Survey From a Telephone Mode to Self-administered by Mail Mode.

Context: As response rates to health surveys conducted by telephone continue to decline and costs continue to increase, practitioners are increasingly considering a transition to self-administered mail contact modes.

Objective: To compare empirical differences observed across adjacent administrations of the Healthy Chicago Survey (HCS) conducted by telephone versus self-administered via mail contact.

Design: Data from the 2016, 2018, and 2020 administrations of the HCS are contrasted, and demographic distributions are benchmarked against the American Community Survey to investigate differences that may be linked to the HCS' transition from a telephone to self-administered mail mode between 2018 and 2020.

HIV testing frequency and associated factors among five key populations in ten cities of China: a cross-sectional study.

Background: Regular HIV testing is the best way to detect people living with HIV promptly, yet not much is known about the characteristics of frequent, voluntary testers. This study explores factors related to HIV testing frequency among five key populations in China including men who have sex with men (MSM), female sex workers (FSWs), people who use drugs (PWUD), men who have casual sex with women (MCSW) and sero-negative partners among sero-discordant couples (SNPs).

Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional study in ten cities of China from November 2018 to September 2019 using convenience sampling to recruit participants.

Chemical Tuning of Exciton versus Charge-Transfer Excited States in Conformationally Restricted Arylene Cages.

Covalent assemblies of conjugated organic chromophores provide the opportunity to engineer new excited states with novel properties. In this work, a newly developed triple-stranded cage architecture, in which meta-substituted aromatic caps serve as covalent linking groups that attach to both top and bottom of the conjugated molecule walls, is used to tune the properties of thiophene oligomer assemblies. Benzene-capped and triazine-capped 5,5'-(2,2-bithiophene)-containing arylene cages are synthesized and characterized using steady-state and time-resolved spectroscopic methods.

An updated genome-scale metabolic network reconstruction of Pseudomonas aeruginosa PA14 to characterize mucin-driven shifts in bacterial metabolism.

Mucins are present in mucosal membranes throughout the body and play a key role in the microbe clearance and infection prevention. Understanding the metabolic responses of pathogens to mucins will further enable the development of protective approaches against infections. We update the genome-scale metabolic network reconstruction (GENRE) of one such pathogen, Pseudomonas aeruginosa PA14, through metabolic coverage expansion, format update, extensive annotation addition, and literature-based curation to produce iPau21.

Optimizing pulsed-laser ablation production of AlCl molecules for laser cooling.

Aluminum monochloride (AlCl) has been proposed as a promising candidate for laser cooling to ultracold temperatures, and recent spectroscopy results support this prediction. It is challenging to produce large numbers of AlCl molecules because it is a highly reactive open-shell molecule and must be generated . Here we show that pulsed-laser ablation of stable, non-toxic mixtures of Al with alkali or alkaline earth chlorides, denoted XCl, can provide a robust and reliable source of cold AlCl molecules.

HIV non-occupational post-exposure prophylaxis (nPEP) awareness and promotion among five key populations in China: A cross-sectional study.

Background: This study investigated HIV non-occupational post-exposure prophylaxis (nPEP) awareness and promotion, and related sociodemographic and behavioural factors among five key populations in China.

Methods: From November 2018 to September 2019, we adopted convenience sampling to recruit participants who were age ≥ 18, self-reported HIV status as either negative or unknown and provided informed consent from five key populations cross-sectionally in 10 Chinese cities. Univariable and multivariable logistic regressions were adopted.

Adenosine integrates light and sleep signalling for the regulation of circadian timing in mice.

The accumulation of adenosine is strongly correlated with the need for sleep and the detection of sleep pressure is antagonised by caffeine. Caffeine also affects the circadian timing system directly and independently of sleep physiology, but how caffeine mediates these effects upon the circadian clock is unclear. Here we identify an adenosine-based regulatory mechanism that allows sleep and circadian processes to interact for the optimisation of sleep/wake timing in mice.

Synthesis and Photophysical Properties of Soluble N-Doped Rubicenes via Ruthenium-Catalyzed Transfer Hydrogenative Benzannulation.

Ruthenium-catalyzed butadiene-mediated benzannulation enabled the first synthesis of 3,10-(di-tert-butyl)rubicene and its N-doped derivatives as well as preliminary studies on their photophysical properties. Unlike the parent rubicene and 3,10-(di-tert-butyl)rubicene, which adopt classical herringbone-type packing motifs in the solid state, the N-doped congener 7 b displayed columnar packing with an alternating co-facial arrangement of aromatic and heteroaromatic substructures.

HIV non-occupational postexposure prophylaxis (nPEP) usage among five key populations in China.

Objectives: To examine the feasibility of non-occupational postexposure prophylaxis (nPEP) as a national strategy for HIV prevention in China, we investigated nPEP usage and related sociodemographic and behavioural factors among five key populations at high risk of contracting HIV.

Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional study among five key populations from November 2018 to September 2019 in China using convenience sampling to recruit participants aged ≥18 years, self-reporting HIV status as either negative or unknown and providing written informed consent. Univariable and multivariable logistic regression models were fitted.

Seamless post-operative removal of JJ stents in the paediatric population: Securing the JJ stent to the tip of the urethral balloon catheter avoids a further operation.

In children, removal of a post-procedural JJ stent requires a further cystoscopy under general anaesthetic. We describe securing the distal end of the ureteric stent to the tip of a balloon catheter at the end of the primary procedure. Once post-operative oedema has subsided, the stent is removed seamlessly in tandem with the balloon catheter.