Factors associated with male recruitment in a multi-site randomized behavioral clinical trial targeting the metabolic syndrome: analysis of screening and recruitment data from the ELM trial.

Background: Males are underrepresented in behavioral clinical trials of lifestyle. The aim of this exploratory study was to investigate factors associated with trial interest in males at different stages of recruitment and overall, into a multi-site behavioral trial targeting lifestyle change and remission of the metabolic syndrome. Similar analyses were performed for female participation to investigate the uniqueness or consistency with the findings for males.

The Presence of Added Sugars and Other Sweeteners in Food and Beverage Products Advertised on Television in the United States, 2022.

Background/objectives: The Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommend consuming less than 10% of total calories from added sugars. Low-calorie sweeteners, sugar alcohols, and natural low-calorie sweeteners are used to reduce added sugar intake, but there are concerns about their long-term health impacts, especially for children. This paper describes the food and beverage television advertising landscape as it pertains to sweeteners.

Infants' Expectations for Helping in Imitators.

Human infants seem to make positive social inferences about individuals who imitate others. In three preregistered experiments we test if these inferences include an expectation that imitators will be helpful, and also ask if the inferences infants make are about imitators' dispositions or primarily about their relationships. In each experiment 8- to 9-month-old infants saw one individual imitate, and another individual not imitate, the same target social partner.

Tabletop Simulation as an Innovative Tool for Clinical Workflow Testing.

Tabletop simulation can be used to support and test system processes for clinical workflows. This paper will describe an innovative approach to testing change in clinical workflows for direct admissions to the operating room and interventional radiology departments in a 700-bed urban hospital in the Pacific Northwest and will highlight the specific benefits to nurse leaders. The simulation exercise involved key stakeholders and subject matter experts from various departments and aimed to evaluate the process workflow, provoke discussion on gaps, uncover improvement opportunities, and formulate recommendations.

Infants' Social Evaluation of Helpers and Hinderers: A Large-Scale, Multi-Lab, Coordinated Replication Study.

Evaluating whether someone's behavior is praiseworthy or blameworthy is a fundamental human trait. A seminal study by Hamlin and colleagues in 2007 suggested that the ability to form social evaluations based on third-party interactions emerges within the first year of life: infants preferred a character who helped, over hindered, another who tried but failed to climb a hill. This sparked a new line of inquiry into the origins of social evaluations; however, replication attempts have yielded mixed results.

Effects of a dog activity tracker on owners' walking: a community-based randomised controlled trial.

Objective: A promising strategy to increase population physical activity is through promotion of dog walking. Informed by multi-process action control and nascent dog-walking theory, we examined the effectiveness of a 3-month technology-based (dog tracker) 2-arm randomised controlled dog-walking intervention to increase dog-owner daily physical activity in the general community in Sydney, Australia.

Results: 37 participants were allocated to the intervention group (mean age = 43.

Update on outpatient antibiotic prescribing during the COVID-19 pandemic: United States, 2020-2022.

We updated a descriptive analysis of national outpatient antibiotic prescribing during the COVID-19 pandemic. Prescribing volume was lower during 2020 and January-June in 2021 and 2022 compared to corresponding baseline months in 2019. Prescribing approached or exceeded baseline during July-December of 2021 and 2022 for all antibiotics, especially for azithromycin.

Neutronics design of shutdown and control systems for a Zero Power Experiments of chloride-based molten salt fast reactor.

Nuclear power's role as a reliable, baseload, low-carbon source and its importance in achieving clean energy goals are being increasingly recognized with growing urgency around decarbonization of the global energy systems. However, to deliver a long-term sustainable solution, it is essential to develop innovative nuclear technologies for improving the fuel utilization and reducing the nuclear waste disposal challenge. Zero Power Reactors (ZPR) are an essential initial step for developing new nuclear technologies because they allow for testing and refinement in a safe environment before large-scale deployment.

Gender, Racial, and Ethnic Diversity in Plastic Surgery: Evaluating Effective Initiatives and Identifying Areas for Improvement.

Women and racial and ethnic minorities have historically been underrepresented in medicine, making up a minority of all physicians and a smaller subset of plastic surgeons. Furthermore, these groups represent an even smaller fraction of plastic surgeons in research and leadership roles. Parallel to the general recognition of the importance of increasing diversity in the medical field, there has been a surge in the literature detailing current issues and highlighting potential areas for intervention within plastic surgery.

Competencies for Training Juvenile Services on Justice-Involved Youth with Traumatic Brain Injury.

Research indicates young individuals with traumatic brain injuries (TBI) in juvenile justice settings lack essential support, mainly due to staff members' insufficient knowledge and skills in TBI-related areas stemming from a lack of relevant professional development. This study aimed to improve services for justice-involved youths with TBI in juvenile correction facilities by establishing empirically validated core competencies tailored to their needs. Through a Delphi study involving experts in juvenile services, juvenile corrections, TBI, transition services, and professional development, we identified and refined a set of 44 competencies distributed across six domains: knowledge (12 competencies), screening (6 competencies), eligibility (3 competencies), assessment (4 competencies), intervention (10 competencies), and community reentry (9 competencies).

The role of landscape context in shaping bat assemblages in African cacao plantations.

Cacao production is mostly concentrated in Africa, with this continent exporting an impressive 68.4 % of the world's cacao. The increasing demand for cacao from the Global North has already led to massive deforestation in Ghana and Ivory Coast and cacao-driven deforestation is likely to continue changing landscapes in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Development of a General Composite Scale (GENCOMS) for Progressive Neurodegenerative Diseases and Implications for the Assessment of Disease-Modifying Therapies.

Introduction: The reliable assessment of treatment outcomes for disease-modifying therapies (DMT) in neurodegenerative disease is challenging. The objective of this paper is to describe a generalized framework for developing composite scales that can be applied in diverse, degenerative conditions, termed "GENCOMS." Composite scales optimize the sensitivity for detecting clinically meaningful effects that slow disease progression.

The Association Between Hypothyroidism and Cognitive Function Change in Women across the Menopause Transition: The Study of Women's Health Across the Nation.

Patients treated for hypothyroidism with levothyroxine (LT4) monotherapy may present with persistent hypothyroidism symptoms, including cognitive symptoms, despite having a normal thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH) level. It remains unclear whether LT4 monotherapy is sufficient to normalize cognitive function outcomes over time. This is a multisite longitudinal study of a diverse group of women during midlife representing 5 ethnic/racial groups from 7 enrollment sites across the United States in the Study of Women's Health Across the Nation.

Feasibility and Educational Value of Clinical Cases Generated Using Large Language Models.

In medical education, case-based learning (CBL) is a fundamental method for training healthcare professionals across different levels of expertise. This approach hinges on using authentic or fabricated clinical cases to bridge the gap between theoretical knowledge and its practical application. It fosters active engagement and knowledge application among learners in healthcare domains.

Trends in Children's Exposure to Food and Beverage Advertising on Television.

Importance: Reducing children's exposure to advertisements promoting unhealthy foods and beverages has been recognized by the World Health Organization as a key strategy to improve children's diets and reduce childhood obesity.

Objective: To examine changes in children's exposure to food-related (food, beverage, and restaurant) television advertising, including for products high in nutrients to limit (NTL; ie, saturated fat, trans fat, total sugars, and sodium) based on federal Interagency Working Group guidelines, following changes in the voluntary industry self-regulatory Children's Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative (CFBAI).

Design, Setting, And Participants: This repeated cross-sectional study used US television ratings data on advertising exposure from The Nielsen Company for 2013, 2014, 2015, 2018, and 2022.

Children and young people's preferences and needs when using health technology to self-manage a long-term condition: a scoping review.

Background: The use of patient-facing health technologies to manage long-term conditions (LTCs) is increasing; however, children and young people (CYP) may have preferences about health technologies which they interact or engage with, that influence their decision to use these technologies.

Aims: To identify CYP's reported preferences about health technologies to self-manage LTCs.

Methods: We undertook a scoping review, searching MEDLINE, PsycINFO and CINAHL in July 2021.

Food Environment After Implementation of a Healthy Checkout Policy.

Importance: In March 2021, Berkeley, California, became the world's first jurisdiction to implement a healthy checkout policy, which sets nutrition standards for foods and beverages in store checkouts. This healthy checkout ordinance (HCO) has the potential to improve customers' dietary intake if stores comply by increasing the healthfulness of foods and beverages at checkouts.

Objectives: To compare the percentage of checkout products that were HCO compliant and that fell into healthy and unhealthy food and beverage categories before and 1 year after HCO implementation in Berkeley relative to comparison cities.

Caregiving During COVID and Beyond: The Experience of Workplace Stress and Chaplain Care Among Healthcare Workers.

Healthcare workers (HCWs) experience occupational stressors that negatively impact emotional well-being and exacerbate turnover intentions. In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the resultant acute care turnover rates have reached an all-time high. In addition, occupational stressors lead to psychological stress, including moral distress, defined as the dissonance between perceiving what the right course of action is and encountering an obstacle to acting accordingly.

Public perceptions of free-roaming dogs and cats in India and the United States.

In this cross-sectional study, we aimed to describe differences between India and the United States in public perceptions of free-roaming dogs and cats, concerns related to free-roaming animals, and preferred strategies for veterinary medical interventions and population management. Between August 2021 and February 2022, 498 individuals completed an online survey including 210 Indian respondents and 288 American respondents. Free-roaming dogs and cats were largely perceived as community animals among Indian respondents, with significantly more respondents indicating they should be allowed to roam freely compared with American respondents.

Control of proton transport and hydrogenation in double-gated graphene.

The basal plane of graphene can function as a selective barrier that is permeable to protons but impermeable to all ions and gases, stimulating its use in applications such as membranes, catalysis and isotope separation. Protons can chemically adsorb on graphene and hydrogenate it, inducing a conductor-insulator transition that has been explored intensively in graphene electronic devices. However, both processes face energy barriers and various strategies have been proposed to accelerate proton transport, for example by introducing vacancies, incorporating catalytic metals or chemically functionalizing the lattice.

Characterizing mortality in patients with AQP4-Ab+ neuromyelitis optica spectrum disorder.

Neuromyelitis optica spectrum disorder is an autoimmune disease, causing severe disability due to relapses, but recent mortality data are limited. Among 396 patients seropositive for anti-aquaporin-4 antibody from 2014 to 2020 in the United Kingdom, 39 deaths occurred: 19 (48.7%) were unrelated to disease; 14 (35.

Psychometric Validation of the Modified Functional Scale for the Assessment and Rating of Ataxia (f-SARA) in Patients With Spinocerebellar Ataxia.

This study aimed to generate evidence to support psychometric validity of the modified functional Scale for the Assessment and Rating of Ataxia (f-SARA) among patients with spinocerebellar ataxia (SCA). Psychometric measurement properties and minimal change thresholds of the f-SARA were evaluated using data from a cohort of SCA subjects (recruited at Massachusetts General Hospital [MGH]; n = 33) and data from a phase 3 trial of troriluzole in adults with SCA (NCT03701399 [Study 206]; n = 217), including a subset of patients with the SCA3 genotype (n = 89). f-SARA item ceiling effects were absent within the MGH cohort, while floor effects were present.

Testing psychosocial interventions in context: Commentary on Beidas et al. (2023).

In their recent Viewpoint article, Beidas et al. (2023) argue that researchers should test psychosocial interventions in the contexts in which they are meant to be delivered and that they can accelerate the deployment of these interventions by advancing directly from pilot trials to effectiveness and implementation studies without conducting efficacy trials. In this commentary, we argue that this is a well-intended but problematic approach and that there is a more productive strategy for translational behavioral intervention research.