Cytotoxicity Comparison between Drinking Water Treated by Chlorination with Postchloramination versus Granular Activated Carbon (GAC) with Postchlorination.

Granular activated carbon treatment with postchlorination (GAC/Cl) and chlorination followed by chloramination (Cl/NHCl) represent two options for utilities to reduce DBP formation in drinking water. To compare the total cytotoxicity of waters treated by a pilot-scale GAC treatment system with postchlorination (and in some instances with prechlorination upstream of GAC (i.e.

Enhancing Efficacy of TCR-engineered CD4 + T Cells Via Coexpression of CD8α.

Adoptive cell therapy with T cells expressing affinity-enhanced T-cell receptors (TCRs) is a promising treatment for solid tumors. Efforts are ongoing to further engineer these T cells to increase the depth and durability of clinical responses and broaden efficacy toward additional indications. In the present study, we investigated one such approach: T cells were transduced with a lentiviral vector to coexpress an affinity-enhanced HLA class I-restricted TCR directed against MAGE-A4 alongside a CD8α coreceptor.

Clinical, methodology, and patient/carer expert advice in pediatric drug development by conect4children.

Many medicines are used "off-label" in children outside the terms of the license. Feasible pediatric clinical trials are a challenge to design. Conect4children (c4c) is an Innovative Medicines Initiative project to set up a pan-European pediatric clinical trial network aiming to facilitate the development of new medicines for children.

Supplementation With Carotenoids, Omega-3 Fatty Acids, and Vitamin E Has a Positive Effect on the Symptoms and Progression of Alzheimer's Disease.

Background: Preliminary work by our center has reported behavior and functional benefits in patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) following targeted micronutritional supplementation.

Objective: To build on the existing exploratory research and investigate the impact of these micronutrients on the natural progression of AD in a randomized controlled trial.

Methods: Patients with mild-moderate AD consumed daily 1 g fish oil (of which 500 mg DHA, 150 mg EPA), 22 mg carotenoids (10 mg lutein, 10 mg meso-zeaxanthin, 2 mg zeaxanthin), and 15 mg vitamin E or placebo for 12 months in a double-blind, placebo-controlled, randomized clinical trial.

Continuous Detection of Physiological Stress with Commodity Hardware.

Timely detection of an individual's stress level has the potential to improve stress management, thereby reducing the risk of adverse health consequences that may arise due to mismanagement of stress. Recent advances in wearable sensing have resulted in multiple approaches to detect and monitor stress with varying levels of accuracy. The most accurate methods, however, rely on clinical-grade sensors to measure physiological signals; they are often bulky, custom made, and expensive, hence limiting their adoption by researchers and the general public.

Incorporating Prescription Drugs Into Affordable Care Act Risk Adjustment.

Background: The 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act reformed the individual and small group health insurance markets and established a risk adjustment program to create a level playing field for competition. A new set of predictive models for measuring enrollee risk across plans was developed for the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act-reformed markets, referred to as the Department of Health and Human Services Hierarchical Condition Category (HHS-HCC) models. Beginning in 2018, selected prescription drug classes were added to the models as risk markers.

A Comparison of Health Risk and Costs Across Private Insurance Markets.

Background: The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) established new parameters for the individual and small group health insurance markets starting in 2014. We study these 2 reformed markets by comparing health risk and costs to the more mature large employer market.

Study Data: For 2017, claims data for all enrollees in PPACA-compliant individual and small group market plans as well as claims data from a sample of large employer market enrollees.

Compounded Cyclophosphamide and Piroxicam for the Treatment of a Canine Peripheral Nerve Sheath Tumor: A Case Report.

For many people, companion animals are family members and partners in life. The diagnosis of a life-threatening illness in a beloved pet can present challenges for the patient and cause stress and grief for its owner. A successful therapeutic outcome often requires the use of commercially manufactured medications that are not produced in the doses or dosage forms tolerated by veterinary patients or are unavailable to, unaffordable for, and/or inaccessible by owners.

Design and Implementation of an Ultra-Low Resource Electrodermal Activity Sensor for Wearable Applications .

While modern low-power microcontrollers are a cornerstone of wearable physiological sensors, their limited on-chip storage typically makes peripheral storage devices a requirement for long-term physiological sensing-significantly increasing both size and power consumption. Here, a wearable biosensor system capable of long-term recording of physiological signals using a single, 64 kB microcontroller to minimize sensor size and improve energy performance is described. Electrodermal (EDA) signals were sampled and compressed using a multiresolution wavelet transformation to achieve long-term storage within the limited memory of a 16-bit microcontroller.

Medicare Outpatient Physical Therapy Expenditures Vary by Diagnosis and Functional Mobility.

Background: Clinical characteristics driving variations in Medicare outpatient physical therapy expenditures are inadequately understood.

Objective: The objectives of this study were to examine variations in annual outpatient physical therapy expenditures of Medicare fee-for-service beneficiaries by primary diagnosis and baseline functional mobility, and to assess whether case mix groups based on primary diagnosis and functional mobility scores would be useful for expenditure differentiation.

Design: This was an observational, longitudinal study.

Tuning T-Cell Receptor Affinity to Optimize Clinical Risk-Benefit When Targeting Alpha-Fetoprotein-Positive Liver Cancer.

Patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) have a poor prognosis and limited therapeutic options. Alpha-fetoprotein (AFP) is often expressed at high levels in HCC and is an established clinical biomarker of the disease. Expression of AFP in nonmalignant liver can occur, particularly in a subset of progenitor cells and during chronic inflammation, at levels typically lower than in HCC.

Exploiting C/N solid-state NMR distance measurements to assign dihedral angles and locate neighboring molecules.

The RESPDOR NMR method rapidly provides multiple 13C/14N distance measurements in natural abundance solids. In this study, 13C/14N RESPDOR information is shown, for the first time, to provide accurate molecular conformation and to locate non-bonded neighboring molecules.

Framework vs. side-chain amphidynamic behaviour in oligo-(ethylene oxide) functionalised covalent-organic frameworks.

We present a family of covalent organic frameworks that have been functionalized with oligo-(ethylene oxide) chains of varying lengths. Because of the open structure of the COFs, the side chains do not interfere with their crystallization obtaining materials with predictable crystal structure. The difference in length of the side-chains allowed for the determination of amphidynamic behaviour with the use of 13C solid-state NMR relaxation methods.

Spontaneous and Flow-Driven Interfacial Phase Change: Dynamics of Microemulsion Formation at the Pore Scale.

The dynamic behavior of microemulsion-forming water-oil-amphiphiles mixtures is investigated in a 2.5D micromodel. The equilibrium phase behavior of such mixtures is well-understood in terms of macroscopic phase transitions.

Determinants of the Intention to Pump Breast Milk on a University Campus.

Introduction: The number of young mothers in the workforce and in schools of higher education has steadily increased. In order to maintain a breastfeeding relationship with their children, these mothers need to pump or express breast milk multiple times a day while at work or school. This study examines the factors associated with the intention to pump breast milk at one university campus.

Agonist-induced internalization and desensitization of the apelin receptor.

Apelin acts via the G protein-coupled apelin receptor (APJ) to mediate effects on cardiovascular and fluid homeostasis. G protein-coupled receptor (GPCR) trafficking has an important role in the regulation of receptor signalling pathways and cellular functions, however in the case of APJ the mechanisms and proteins involved in apelin-induced trafficking are not well understood. We generated a stable HEK-293 cell line expressing N-terminus HA-tagged mouse (m) APJ, and used a semi-automated imaging protocol to quantitate APJ trafficking and ERK1/2 activation following stimulation with [Pyr]apelin-13.

Episode-Based Payment for the Medicare Outpatient Therapy Benefit.

Objective: To conduct an analysis of Medicare outpatient therapy episodes of care and associated payment implications.

Design: Retrospective observational design using Medicare claims data. To descriptively analyze the composition of outpatient therapy episodes, both variable- and fixed-length episodes are explored.

Vascular risk assessment in older adults without a history of cardiovascular disease.

Modern cardiovascular risk prediction tools, which have their genesis in the Framingham Heart Study, have allowed more accurate risk stratification and targeting of treatments worldwide over the last seven decades. Better cardiovascular risk factor control during this time has led to a reduction in cardiovascular mortality and, at least in part, to improved life expectancy. As a result, western societies as a whole have seen a steady increase in the proportion of older persons in their populations.

Information Transfer in Gonadotropin-releasing Hormone (GnRH) Signaling: EXTRACELLULAR SIGNAL-REGULATED KINASE (ERK)-MEDIATED FEEDBACK LOOPS CONTROL HORMONE SENSING.

Cell signaling pathways are noisy communication channels, and statistical measures derived from information theory can be used to quantify the information they transfer. Here we use single cell signaling measures to calculate mutual information as a measure of information transfer via gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) receptors (GnRHR) to extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK) or nuclear factor of activated T-cells (NFAT). This revealed mutual information values <1 bit, implying that individual GnRH-responsive cells cannot unambiguously differentiate even two equally probable input concentrations.

Refinements of the Medicare Outpatient Therapy Annual Expenditure Limit Policy.

Background: A Medicare beneficiary's annual outpatient therapy expenditures that exceed congressionally established caps are subject to extra documentation and review requirements. In 2011, these caps were $1,870 for physical therapy and speech-language pathology combined and $1,870 for occupational therapy separately.

Objective: This article considers the distributional effects of replacing current cap policy with equal caps by therapy discipline (physical therapy, occupational therapy, and speech-language pathology) or a single combined cap, and risk adjusting the physical therapy cap using beneficiary characteristics and functional status.