Female dental students' perceptions on barriers and motivators in pursuing oral and maxillofacial surgery.

Purpose: Although females represent more than half of US dental students, less than 10% are practicing oral surgeons. This study sought to identify barriers and motivators perceived by female dental students in their D1 and D4 years concerning a career in oral and maxillofacial surgery (OMS).

Methods: This cross-sectional study used a single survey in 2023 sent to all US dental schools for female D1 and D4 students.

Atypical Hemolytic Uremic Syndrome Following Influenza B: A Case Report.

Background: Atypical hemolytic uremic syndrome (aHUS) is a thrombotic microangiopathy that presents with a triad of hemolytic anemia, thrombocytopenia, and acute kidney impairment. It can be attributed to mutations in an array of different complement proteins leading to the overactivation of the complement system, the most impacted being the alternative pathway. Though rare, influenza B has been documented as a potential trigger to the development of aHUS.

Structural risks and family adjustment in midwestern Latine immigrant families: Extending the family stress model.

Objectives: We tested an extended family stress model of economic hardship (FSM; Conger et al., 2010) incorporating structural risks (discrimination, immigration, and COVID-19 experiences) and qualitative data, to better understand the impact of culturally relevant experiences on family stress processes in rural, immigrant Latine families in the U.S.

A diabetes registrar assisted workflow intervention in general practice for systematic initiation of cardiorenal medications for patients with type 2 diabetes and albuminuria in Aotearoa New Zealand.

Aims: To evaluate whether a weekly diabetes registrar clinic and case discussions conducted over 12 weeks in primary care improves guideline management of type 2 diabetes (T2D).

Methods: A registrar-led diabetes clinic was incorporated into two primary care practices in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland for 3 months. Patients with T2D and albuminuria appearing on practice dashboards as not prescribed angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor/angiotensin receptor blocker (ACEi/ARB), or sodium-glucose cotransporter-2 inhibitor/glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonist (SGLT2i/GLP1RA) were booked into these clinics.

Recruiting women faculty through inclusive, family-friendly practices.

Recruitment of STEM faculty is biased against parents and caregivers. Specifically, women experience discrimination associated with childrearing and marriage. Underestimating the value of these candidates leads to a tremendous loss of talent.

Stratified glucose-lowering response to vildagliptin and pioglitazone by obesity and hypertriglyceridemia in a randomized crossover trial.

Background: Understanding which group of patients with type 2 diabetes will have the most glucose lowering response to certain medications (which target different aspects of glucose metabolism) is the first step in precision medicine.

Aims: We hypothesized that people with type 2 diabetes who generally have high insulin resistance, such as people of Māori/Pacific ethnicity, and those with obesity and/or hypertriglyceridemia (OHTG), would have greater glucose-lowering by pioglitazone (an insulin sensitizer) versus vildagliptin (an insulin secretagogue).

Methods: A randomised, open-label, two-period crossover trial was conducted in New Zealand.

Creating accessibility in academic negotiations.

The process of evaluating and negotiating a tenure-track job offer is unstructured and highly variable, making it susceptible to bias and inequitable outcomes. We outline common aspects of and recommendations for negotiating an academic job offer in the life sciences to support equitable recruitment of diverse faculty.

Accurate measurement of microsatellite length by disrupting its tandem repeat structure.

Tandem repeats of simple sequence motifs, also known as microsatellites, are abundant in the genome. Because their repeat structure makes replication error-prone, variant microsatellite lengths are often generated during germline and other somatic expansions. As such, microsatellite length variations can serve as markers for cancer.

Isoniazid-associated pellagra during mass scale-up of tuberculosis preventive therapy: a case-control study.

Background: Pellagra is caused by niacin (vitamin B3) deficiency and patients with pellagra present with a characteristic rash. Isoniazid disrupts intracellular niacin synthesis and might induce niacin deficiency. In 2017, Malawi scaled up continuous isoniazid preventive treatment (IPT) for tuberculosis prevention among people living with HIV.

Coffee Leaf Rust () from the Recent Invasion into Hawaii Shares a Genotypic Relationship with Latin American Populations.

Hawaii has long been one of the last coffee-producing regions of the world free of coffee leaf rust (CLR) disease, which is caused by the biotrophic fungus . However, CLR was detected in coffee farms and feral coffee on the island of Maui in February 2020 and subsequently on other islands of the Hawaiian archipelago. The source of the outbreak in Hawaii is not known, and CLR could have entered Hawaii from more than 50 coffee-producing nations that harbor the pathogen.

Randomised cross-over trial of vildagliptin and pioglitazone as add-on therapy in patients with type 2 diabetes: predicting Which One is Right Here (WORTH) study protocol.

Introduction: There is emerging evidence for stratified glucose-lowering responses to certain oral medications for type 2 diabetes (T2D) by individual characteristics. The objective of this study was to test whether glycaemic response to representative treatments of dipeptidyl peptidase-4 inhibitors (vildagliptin) and thiazolidinediones (pioglitazone) varies according to ethnicity, gender, baseline obesity, triglyceride level or genetic variation.

Methods: This is a multicentre, two-period, two-treatment, open-label, randomised cross-over trial of vildagliptin and pioglitazone as second-line or third-line therapy in patients with T2D who have suboptimal glycaemic control on metformin and/or sulfonylurea therapy.

A National Strategy to Diagnose Coronavirus Disease 2019-Associated Invasive Fungal Disease in the Intensive Care Unit.

Background: Fungal coinfection is a recognized complication of respiratory virus infections, increasing morbidity and mortality, but can be readily treated if diagnosed early. An increasing number of small studies describing aspergillosis in coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) patients with severe respiratory distress are being reported, but comprehensive data are lacking. The aim of this study was to determine the incidence, risk factors, and impact of invasive fungal disease in adult COVID-19 patients with severe respiratory distress.

Multiplex accurate sensitive quantitation (MASQ) with application to minimal residual disease in acute myeloid leukemia.

Measuring minimal residual disease in cancer has applications for prognosis, monitoring treatment and detection of recurrence. Simple sequence-based methods to detect nucleotide substitution variants have error rates (about 10-3) that limit sensitive detection. We developed and characterized the performance of MASQ (multiplex accurate sensitive quantitation), a method with an error rate below 10-6.

Cuff-Less Blood Pressure Monitoring with a 3-Axis Accelerometer.

Objective: The aim was to propose a cuff-less, cost-efficient, and ultra-convenient blood pressure monitoring technique with a 3-axis accelerometer.

Methods: The efficacy of the proposed approach was examined in 8 young healthy volunteers undergoing different activities with a 3-axis accelerometer leveled on their upper chest. The 3-dimensional accelerations were exploited to select features for the calculation of systolic pressure (SP) and diastolic pressure (DP); the whole process involved signal processing, feature extraction, linear multivariate regression, and leave-one-out cross validations (LOOCV).

Autism risk in offspring can be assessed through quantification of male sperm mosaicism.

De novo mutations arising on the paternal chromosome make the largest known contribution to autism risk, and correlate with paternal age at the time of conception. The recurrence risk for autism spectrum disorders is substantial, leading many families to decline future pregnancies, but the potential impact of assessing parental gonadal mosaicism has not been considered. We measured sperm mosaicism using deep-whole-genome sequencing, for variants both present in an offspring and evident only in father's sperm, and identified single-nucleotide, structural and short tandem-repeat variants.

Copolymerization of single-cell nucleic acids into balls of acrylamide gel.

We show the use of 5'-Acrydite oligonucleotides to copolymerize single-cell DNA or RNA into balls of acrylamide el (BAGs). Combining this step with split-and-pool techniques for creating barcodes yields a method with advantages in cost and scalability, depth of coverage, ease of operation, minimal cross-contamination, and efficient use of samples. We perform DNA copy number profiling on mixtures of cell lines, nuclei from frozen prostate tumors, and biopsy washes.

A unified national cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk generator is required to address equity in the management of CVD risk in clinical practice in New Zealand.

There is a strong body of evidence that supports identifying and managing people according to their risk of a future cardiovascular (CVD) event. Since 2012 the New Zealand public health sector has achieved 90% CVD risk assessment (CVDRA) for each eligible person across New Zealand using a modified version of an overseas risk equation, through incentivising Primary Health Organisation (PHO) performance. In 2018 the New Zealand Ministry of Health endorsed the use of a suite of four new CVDRA equations which were developed using the large NZ Predict cohort (500,000 people).

Sterility and Stability of Diluted Meloxicam in Compounded Multi-dose Vial after 365 Days.

Meloxicam is a common analgesic for rodents. Because meloxicam is only formulated commercially for companion animals, it requires dilution to achieve doses appropriate for small, laboratory species. Compounded multidose vial (cMDV) are often created to dilute and store a diluted drug.

The Role of Emotional Contagion in the Distress Exhibited by Grouped Mice Exposed to CO₂.

The 2013 recommends a chamber volume displacement rate of 10% to 30% per minute (v/min) when euthanizing small laboratory rodents with CO₂. Group euthanasia of mice is a common practice, and grouping strangers is often avoided to minimize distress; however, emotional contagion, which occurs between familiar animals but not strangers, has not been studied in the context of group CO₂ euthanasia. This study examined cagemate- and stranger-grouped mice exposed to 10%, 30%, or 50% v/min CO₂ to determine whether emotional contagion plays a role in this context and whether that role is influenced by CO₂ flow rate.