Publications by authors named "Smith J"

Objective: To evaluate the influence of pelvic magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) findings on axial disease assessment in juvenile spondyloarthritis (JSpA).

Methods: This was a cross-sectional study of patients with JSpA with suspected axial disease. Three experts reviewed each case and rated their confidence (-3 to +3) in the presence of axial disease, first with clinical data and second with clinical and MRI data.

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X-ray crystallography remains the dominant method of determining the three-dimensional structure of proteins. Nevertheless, this resource-intensive process may be hindered by the unintended crystallization of contaminant proteins from the expression source. Here, the serendipitous discovery of two novel crystal forms and one new, high-resolution structure of carbonic anhydrase 2 (CA2) from Escherichia coli that arose during a crystallization campaign for an unrelated target is reported.

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Background: Accurate estimates of personal exposure to ambient air pollution are difficult to obtain and epidemiological studies generally rely on residence-based estimates, averaged spatially and temporally, derived from monitoring networks or models. Few epidemiological studies have compared the associated health effects of personal exposure and residence-based estimates.

Objective: To evaluate the association between exposure to air pollution and cognitive function using exposure estimates taking mobility and location into account.

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Mosaic loss of Y (mLOY) is the most common somatic chromosomal alteration detected in human blood. The presence of mLOY is associated with altered blood cell counts and increased risk of Alzheimer disease, solid tumors, and other age-related diseases. We sought to gain a better understanding of genetic drivers and associated phenotypes of mLOY through analyses of whole-genome sequencing (WGS) of a large set of genetically diverse males from the Trans-Omics for Precision Medicine (TOPMed) program.

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Background: The watch-and-wait strategy provides an opportunity to pursue nonoperative management in rectal cancer patients with clinical complete response after neoadjuvant therapy. The management of those with near-complete response remains controversial.

Objective: We assessed the oncologic outcomes of patients managed by watch-and-wait versus total mesorectal excision according to clinical response to neoadjuvant therapy.

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Objective: Patients with heart failure (HF) perform a variety of self-care activities to control symptoms and minimise the risk of HF decompensations. The objective of this study was to understand how patients build capacity and manage the work of living with HF.

Design: A qualitative study using semi-structured telephone interviews.

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Background Context: Lumbar interbody fusion (LIF) is a common surgical intervention for treating lumbar degenerative disorders. Increasing demand has contributed to ever-increasing healthcare expenditure and economic burden. To address this, cost-utility analyses (CUAs) compare value in the context of patient outcomes.

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Purpose Of Review: Over the last quarter century, the clinical evidence surrounding the use of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) has expanded. This review provides the most up-to-date findings on the usage of ECT in ASD and discusses these results within the historical context and direct patient care experience.

Recent Findings: ECT is typically implemented for psychotropic-refractory catatonic, affective, psychotic, and combined pathology for individuals across the lifespan.

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Background: Unhealthy alcohol use is a leading cause of preventable mortality and a risk factor for an array of social and health problems. The Intervention in Small primary care Practices to Implement Reduction in unhealthy alcohol use (INSPIRE) study is part of a nationwide campaign to improve the identification and treatment of patients engaging in unhealthy alcohol use.

Methods: We conducted a single arm, pragmatic study consisting of seventeen primary care practices in the Chicago metropolitan area, Wisconsin, and California across two waves with a 6-month latent period, a 12-month intervention period, followed by a 6-month sustainability period.

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Unlabelled: Dietary flexibility allows animals to respond adaptively to food pulses in the environment. Here we document the novel emergence of widespread hunting of California voles and carnivorous feeding behavior by California ground squirrels. Over two months in the twelfth year of a long-term study on the squirrel population, we document 74 events of juvenile and adult ground squirrels of both sexes depredating, consuming, and/or competing over vole prey.

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Humans may play a key role in providing small prey mammals spatial and temporal refuge from predators, but few studies have captured the heterogeneity of these effects across space and time. Global COVID-19 lockdown restrictions offered a unique opportunity to investigate how a sudden change in human presence in a semi-urban park impacted wildlife. Here, we quantify how changes in the spatial distributions of humans and natural predators influenced the landscape of fear for the California ground squirrel (Otospermophilus beecheyi) in a COVID-19 pandemic (2020) and non-COVID (2019) year.

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Lin28 is a key regulator of cancer stem cell gene network that promotes therapy-resistant tumor progression in various tumors. However, no Lin28 inhibitor has been approved to treat cancer patients, urging exploration of novel compounds as candidates to be tested for clinical trials. In this contribution, we applied computer-aided drug design (CADD) in combination with quantitative biochemical and biological assays.

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Background: Since older adults spend significant time in their neighborhood environment, environmental factors such as neighborhood socioeconomic disadvantage, high racial segregation, low healthy food availability, low access to recreation, and minimal social engagement may have adverse effects on cognitive function and increase susceptibility to dementia. DNA methylation, which is associated with neighborhood characteristics as well as cognitive function and white matter hyperintensity (WMH), may act as a mediator between neighborhood characteristics and neurocognitive outcomes.

Methods: In this study, we examined whether DNA methylation in peripheral blood leukocytes mediates the relationship between neighborhood characteristics and cognitive function (N = 542) or WMH (N = 466) in older African American (AA) participants without preliminary evidence of dementia from the Genetic Epidemiology Network of Arteriopathy (GENOA).

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Background Context: Correcting sagittal malalignment in adult spinal deformity (ASD) is a challenging task, often requiring complex surgical interventions like pedicle subtraction osteotomies (PSOs). Different types of three-column osteotomies (3COs), including Schwab 3, Schwab 4, Schwab 4 with interbody cages, and the "sandwich" technique, aim to optimize alignment and fusion outcomes. The role of interbody cages in enhancing fusion and segmental correction remains unclear.

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Objective: Meat intake is suggested to affect gut microbiome composition and the risk of chronic diseases. We aimed to identify meat-associated gut microbiome features and their association with host factors.

Design: Gut microbiota species were profiled by deep shotgun metagenomics sequencing in 9669 individuals.

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Conventional pelvic exenteration (PE) comprises the removal of all or most central pelvic organs and is established in clinical practise. Previously, tumours involving bone or lateral sidewall structures were deemed inoperable due to associated morbidity, mortality, and poor oncological outcomes. Recently however high-complexity PE is increasingly described and is defined as encompassing conventional PE with the additional resection of bone or pelvic sidewall structures.

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Objective(s): This study was designed to assess the relative association between adjunctive fresh frozen plasma (FFP) or adjunctive cryoprecipitate and morbidity and mortality in cardiac surgery patients receiving platelets for perioperative bleeding.

Design: Retrospective cohort study using inverse probability of treatment weighting with entropy balancing.

Setting: Multi-institutional study of 58 centers using the Australian and New Zealand Society of Cardiac and Thoracic Surgeons National Cardiac Surgery Database from January 1, 2005, to December 31, 2021.

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Background: Childhood adversity is robustly associated with mental ill-health. Yet questions remain about how different ways of conceptualising adversity relate to psychiatric diagnoses and service activity. This research aims to examine associations between typological and cumulative conceptualisations of adversity, and psychiatric diagnosis and service activity.

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Autistic individuals have described facing unfair or discriminatory treatment across settings, such as in school and at work. However, there have been few studies examining how widespread or prevalent discrimination is against autistic individuals. We aimed to fill that gap by examining how prevalent or common it is for autistic youth to experience discrimination based on race or ethnicity, sexual orientation or gender identity, and health condition or disability.

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Background: Identifying robust integrated pest management (IPM) strategies requires the testing of multiple factors at the same time and assessing their combined effects e.g., on disease control.

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Dicationic ionic liquids (DILs) are emerging as a powerful, next-generation approach to designing applied ILs because of their superior physicochemical properties as well as their diverse complexity and tunability for task specific applications. DILs are scarce in the literature compared to monocationic ILs (MILs), and one of their main issues is their expected tendency to possess higher melting temperatures. A series of 1,4-bis[2-(4-pyridyl)ethenyl] benzene and 1,4-bis[2-(2-pyridyl)ethenyl]benzene quaternary salts (Q-BPEBs) with different counterions (bromide, tosylate, and triflimide) and carbon chain lengths (C, C, and C) have been synthesized for their potential as DILs with strong photoluminescent properties in the solid state.

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Objective: The purpose of this review was to evaluate the effectiveness of dry needling (DN) to improve function, proprioception, and balance and to reduce pain in individuals with chronic ankle instability (CAI).

Methods: We followed the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines for this review. We searched PubMed, ISI Web of Knowledge, Scopus, Science Direct, Google Scholar, and ProQuest databases from inception until July 2022 using the PICO (population, intervention, comparison, outcome) method.

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