Revealing Long-Range Order in Brush-like Graft Copolymers Through In Situ Measurements of X-Ray Scattering During Deformation.

Brush-like graft copolymers (A-g-B), in which linear A-blocks are randomly grafted onto the backbone of a brush-like B-block, exhibit intense strain-stiffening and high mechanical strength on par with load-bearing biological tissues such as skin and blood vessels. To elucidate molecular mechanisms underlying this tissue-mimetic behavior, in situ synchrotron X-ray scattering was measured during uniaxial stretching of bottlebrush- and comb-like graft copolymers with varying densities of poly(dimethyl siloxane) and poly(isobutylene) side chains. In an undeformed state, these copolymers revealed a single interference peak corresponding to the average spacing between the domains of linear A-blocks arranged in a disordered, liquid-like configuration.

Carnitine supplementation in progressive supranuclear palsy.

Mitochondrial dysfunction has been implicated in the pathogenesis of several neurodegenerative disorders, including progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP). PSP is a Parkinsonian syndrome characterized by a rapidly progressive state that manifests itself as tremors, bradykinesia, and supranuclear gaze palsy. Carnitine plays an essential role in mitochondrial function by transporting fatty acids across the mitochondrial membrane to be used in energy production.

US Trends In Anticancer Medicine Pricing And The Impact Of Competition, 2014-20.

Prices of anticancer medicines (including chemically synthesized medicines and biologics manufactured from living organisms) are a subject of concern, as they contribute to spending by health plans and patients. We describe prices and evaluate the impact of competition among 185 anticancer medicines, using IQVIA data from the period October 2014-February 2020. We calculated the price of each medicine, defined as volume-weighted wholesale costs net of prompt-pay discounts and gross of rebates, without and with inflation adjustment, and summarized them by patent status, formulation, and therapeutic class.

Dental Coverage and Care When Transitioning From Medicaid to Medicare.

Importance: Millions of adults with low incomes lose Medicaid eligibility when transitioning to Medicare at age 65 years. However, it remains unclear how this transition is associated with dental care.

Objective: To examine the consequences of transitions from Medicaid to Medicare on coverage and use of dental services.

Addressing Dietary-Related Health Disparities in Underserved Communities: Outcomes From a 24-Month Pilot, Subsidized Food Prescription Program in the Mississippi Delta.

This study examines the outcomes of the 24-months Charleston FoodRx food prescription program implemented in rural Mississippi to address dietary-related health disparities. Examine changes in participant produce consumption, food seccurity, and anthropometrics over a 24-month period. A one-group, repeated measures design, was utilized to assess changes in produce consumption, food security, and anthropometric data from baseline.

Protocol for an ambidirectional cohort study on long COVID and the healthcare needs, use and barriers to access health services in a large city in Southeast Brazil.

Introduction: Post-COVID-19 condition, or syndrome, also known as long COVID, is an infection-associated chronic condition that can develop after a SARS-CoV-2 infection and last at least 3 months to years. Despite representing a high burden for the Unified Health System (SUS), which has affected millions of Brazilians, it has received limited attention in Brazil. Prevalence studies to date have failed to include a broad representation of the population, and there has been insufficient exploration of the impact on people's lives and the burden of and barriers to accessing health services.

Availability Of Adult Dental Plans In The Affordable Care Act Marketplaces, 2016-23.

The Affordable Care Act Marketplaces may improve access to dental insurance, but little is known about the availability of such coverage. We used data from state and federal Marketplace sources to describe the availability of adult dental plans, including Stand-alone Dental Plans and those embedded in medical plans. We also examined the characteristics of counties with limited dental insurer participation and those that experienced a net loss of Stand-alone Dental Plan insurers between 2016 and 2023.

Enhanced cell stress response and protein degradation capacity underlie artemisinin resistance in .

Malaria remains a global health burden, killing over half a million people each year. Decreased therapeutic efficacy to artemisinin, the most efficacious antimalarial, has been detected in sub-Saharan Africa, a worrying fact given that over 90% of deaths occur on this continent. Mutations in Kelch13 are the most well-established molecular marker for artemisinin resistance, but these do not explain all artemisinin-resistant isolates.

Enhancing the Biomimetic Mechanics of Bottlebrush Graft-Copolymers through Selective Solvent Annealing.

Self-assembled networks of bottlebrush copolymers are promising materials for biomedical applications due to a unique combination of ultra-softness and strain-adaptive stiffening, characteristic of soft biological tissues. Transitioning from ABA linear-brush-linear triblock copolymers to A-g-B bottlebrush graft copolymer architectures allows significant increasing the mechanical strength of thermoplastic elastomers. Using real-time synchrotron small-angle X-ray scattering, it is shown that annealing of A-g-B elastomers in a selective solvent for the linear A blocks allows for substantial network reconfiguration, resulting in an increase of both the A domain size and the distance between the domains.

Evaluating the Quality of Endometriosis Operative Reports among High Volume Endometriosis Surgeons.

Objective: To evaluate the quality of operative reports for endometriosis surgeries performed by fellowship-trained, high-volume endometriosis surgeons.

Methods: In this retrospective review, 5 consecutive deidentified surgical reports per surgeon were evaluated by two reviewers. Each dictation was assigned a quality score (between 0 and 28), based on the number of components from the American Association of Gynecologic Laparoscopists (AAGL) classification system that were documented.

Two-Step Wetting of Nanoporous Carbons: Small-Angle Scattering Analysis of Capillary Rise.

Numerous applications of nanoporous materials require their pores to be filled with liquids. In spite of its huge technological importance, the conditions for the wetting of nanometer-sized pores and its phenomenology are still poorly understood. We report on capillary rise experiments with water in carbon xerogels, with synchrotron small-angle scattering used to follow the process in situ at the nanometer scale.

Nuclear receptor corepressor 1 levels differentially impact the intracellular dynamics of mutant thyroid hormone receptors associated with resistance to thyroid hormone syndrome.

Thyroid hormone receptor α1 (TRα1) undergoes nucleocytoplasmic shuttling and mediates gene expression in response to thyroid hormone (T3). In Resistance to Thyroid Hormone Syndrome α (RTHα), certain TRα1 mutants have higher affinity for nuclear corepressor 1 (NCoR1) and may form stable complexes that are not released in the presence of T3. Here, we examined whether NCoR1 modulates intranuclear mobility and nuclear retention of TRα1 or RTHα-associated mutants in transfected human cells, as a way of analyzing critical structural components of TRα1 and to further explore the correlation between mutations in TRα1 and aberrant intracellular trafficking.

How new pharmacists handled COVID-19 misinformation: A qualitative study.

Background: New pharmacists, PharmD graduates of 2020 and 2021, faced the unique challenge of entering the workforce during the volatile and divisive COVID-19 pandemic. They had to navigate patient-driven misinformation while adapting to evolving roles, including the distribution and administration of COVID-19 vaccines. Understanding the experiences of new pharmacists during this period is crucial for professional development and patient care.

Access to Care and Outcomes With the Affordable Care Act for Persons With Criminal Legal Involvement: A Scoping Review.

Importance: By expanding health insurance to millions of people in the US, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) may have important health, economic, and social welfare implications for people with criminal legal involvement-a population with disproportionately high morbidity and mortality rates.

Objective: To scope the literature for studies assessing the association of any provision of the ACA with 5 types of outcomes, including insurance coverage rates, access to care, health outcomes, costs of care, and social welfare outcomes among people with criminal legal involvement.

Evidence Review: The literature search included results from PubMed, CINAHL Complete, APA Psycinfo, Embase, Social Science Database, and Web of Science and was conducted to include articles from January 1, 2014, through December 31, 2023.

A perioperative study of Safusidenib in patients with -mutated glioma.

This is a single arm, open label perioperative trial to assess the feasibility, pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of treatment with safusidenib following biopsy, and prior to surgical resection in patients with mutated glioma who have not received radiation therapy or chemotherapy. Fifteen participants will receive treatment in two parts. First, biopsy followed by one cycle (28 days) of safusidenib, an orally available, small molecular inhibitor of mutated IDH1, then maximal safe resection of the tumor (Part A).

Silence of the lungs: comparing measures of slow and noncommunicating lung units from pulmonary function tests with computed tomography.

Multiple breath washout (MBW) has successfully assessed the silent lung zone particularly in cystic fibrosis lung disease, however, it is limited to the communicating lung only. There are a number of different pulmonary function methods that can assess what is commonly referred to as trapped air, with varying approaches and sensitivity. Twenty-five people with cystic fibrosis (pwCF) underwent MBW, spirometry, body plethysmography, and spirometry-controlled computed tomography (spiro-CT) on the same day.

Quality-of-Care Outcomes in Vertical Relationships Between Physicians and Health Systems.

Importance: Vertical relationships (ownership, affiliations, joint contracting) between physicians and health systems are increasing in the US. Many proponents of vertical relationships argue that increased spending associated with consolidation is accompanied by improvements in quality of care.

Objective: To assess the association of vertical relationships between primary care physicians (PCPs) and large health systems and quality of care.

Protocolized Gastrointestinal Fistula Management is Superior to Historic Data and National Averages: A Retrospective Review of an Enterocutaneous Fistula Registry.

Enterocutaneous fistula (ECF) management remains a complex clinical problem. Prehabilitation (prehab) protocols are becoming more popular. The prehabilitation protocol used in this paper was adopted in 2017 at the University of Florida.