Optimizing design of genomics studies for clonal evolution analysis.

Motivation: Genomic biotechnology has rapidly advanced, allowing for the inference and modification of genetic and epigenetic information at the single-cell level. While these tools hold enormous potential for basic and clinical research, they also raise difficult issues of how to design studies to deploy them most effectively. In designing a genomic study, a modern researcher might combine many sequencing modalities and sampling protocols, each with different utility, costs, and other tradeoffs.

Risk factors for abusive head trauma in the pediatric population.

Objective: Abusive head trauma (AHT) is the leading cause of death from physical child abuse in children younger than 5 years of age in the United States. The mortality rate among patients with AHT is 25%, and the recurrence rate of child abuse rises to 35% when there is a lack of intervention. Thus, identifying child abuse is crucial yet especially challenging for infants and toddlers as they are preverbal.

Evaluation of a passive wearable arm ExoNET.

Wearable ExoNETs offer a novel, wearable solution to support and facilitate upper extremity gravity compensation in healthy, unimpaired individuals. In this study, we investigated the safety and feasibility of gravity compensating ExoNETs on 10 healthy, unimpaired individuals across a series of tasks, including activities of daily living and resistance exercises. The direct muscle activity and kinematic effects of gravity compensation were compared to a sham control and no device control.

Optimizing Design of Genomics Studies for Clonal Evolution Analysis.

Genomic biotechnologies have seen rapid development over the past two decades, allowing for both the inference and modification of genetic and epigenetic information at the single cell level. While these tools present enormous potential for basic research, diagnostics, and treatment, they also raise difficult issues of how to design research studies to deploy these tools most effectively. In designing a study at the population or individual level, a researcher might combine several different sequencing modalities and sampling protocols, each with different utility, costs, and other tradeoffs.

A Clonal Evolution Simulator for Planning Somatic Evolution Studies.

Somatic evolution plays a key role in development, cell differentiation, and normal aging, but also in diseases such as cancer. Understanding mechanisms of somatic mutability and how they can vary between cell lineages will likely play a crucial role in biological discovery and medical applications. This need has led to a proliferation of new technologies for profiling single-cell variation, each with distinctive capabilities and limitations that can be leveraged alone or in combination with other technologies.

Goji berry (Lycium barbarum) inhibits the proliferation, adhesion, and migration of oral cancer cells by inhibiting the ERK, AKT, and CyclinD cell signaling pathways: an in-vitro study.

: popularly referred to as Goji berry, is a promising herb known for its powerful anti-antioxidant, antibacterial, and anti-inflammatory properties. It is used in traditional Chinese medicine for treating inflammatory and infectious diseases. It has also shown good anti-cancer properties and has been tested against liver, colon, prostate, breast, and cervical cancers.

Reported rates of all-cause serious adverse events following immunization with BNT-162b in 5-17-year-old children in the United States.

Vaccine development against COVID-19 has mitigated severe disease. However, reports of rare but serious adverse events following immunization (sAEFI) in the young populations are fuelling parental anxiety and vaccine hesitancy. With a very early season of viral illnesses including COVID-19, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), influenza, metapneumovirus and several others, children are facing a winter with significant respiratory illness burdens.

Wearable Seismocardiography-Based Assessment of Stroke Volume in Congenital Heart Disease.

Background Patients with congenital heart disease (CHD) are at risk for the development of low cardiac output and other physiologic derangements, which could be detected early through continuous stroke volume (SV) measurement. Unfortunately, existing SV measurement methods are limited in the clinic because of their invasiveness (eg, thermodilution), location (eg, cardiac magnetic resonance imaging), or unreliability (eg, bioimpedance). Multimodal wearable sensing, leveraging the seismocardiogram, a sternal vibration signal associated with cardiomechanical activity, offers a means to monitoring SV conveniently, affordably, and continuously.

Towards Estimation of Tidal Volume and Respiratory Timings via Wearable-Patch-Based Impedance Pneumography in Ambulatory Settings.

Objective: Evaluating convenient, wearable multi-frequency impedance pneumography (IP)-based respiratory monitoring in ambulatory persons with novel electrode positioning.

Methods: A wearable multi-frequency IP system was utilized to estimate tidal volume (TV) and respiratory timings in 14 healthy subjects. A 5.

Enabling Wearable Pulse Transit Time-Based Blood Pressure Estimation for Medically Underserved Areas and Health Equity: Comprehensive Evaluation Study.

Background: Noninvasive and cuffless approaches to monitor blood pressure (BP), in light of their convenience and accuracy, have paved the way toward remote screening and management of hypertension. However, existing noninvasive methodologies, which operate on mechanical, electrical, and optical sensing modalities, have not been thoroughly evaluated in demographically and racially diverse populations. Thus, the potential accuracy of these technologies in populations where they could have the greatest impact has not been sufficiently addressed.

Using Kisspeptin to Predict Pubertal Outcomes for Youth With Pubertal Delay.

Context: The management of youth with delayed puberty is hampered by difficulty in predicting who will eventually progress through puberty and who will fail to attain adult reproductive endocrine function. The neuropeptide kisspeptin, which stimulates gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) release, can be used to probe the integrity of the reproductive endocrine axis.

Objective: We sought to determine whether responses to kisspeptin can predict outcomes for individuals with pubertal delay.

Frequency and Influence of Exercise-Induced Artifact in Electrocardiograms During Exercise Treadmill Testing for Detection of Myocardial Ischemia.

Background: Exercise treadmill testing (ETT) is frequently utilized for noninvasive detection of myocardial ischemia and coronary artery disease. The frequency of electrocardiogram (ECG) artifacts (ECGA) during ETT and their influence on the identification of exercise-induced ischemia are not known.

Methods: We reviewed all ETTs with ST segment depression in the University of California, Davis, Medical Center treadmill database during each of the years 2012 and 2016 to identify tests with exercise-induced ST segment depression in the inferior and inferolateral leads.

Dysbiosis, inflammation, and response to treatment: a longitudinal study of pediatric subjects with newly diagnosed inflammatory bowel disease.

Background: Gut microbiome dysbiosis has been demonstrated in subjects with newly diagnosed and chronic inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). In this study we sought to explore longitudinal changes in dysbiosis and ascertain associations between dysbiosis and markers of disease activity and treatment outcome.

Methods: We performed a prospective cohort study of 19 treatment-naïve pediatric IBD subjects and 10 healthy controls, measuring fecal calprotectin and assessing the gut microbiome via repeated stool samples.

Post-infectious glomerulonephritis with crescents in adults: a retrospective study.

Background: Crescent formation generally reflects severe glomerular injury. There is sparse literature on post-infectious glomerulonephritis (PIGN) with crescents in adults. This retrospective study looked at nine such cases to see if there is a correlation between the severity of presentation, steroid treatment, histological severity and outcome.

Mynx vascular closure device achieves reliable closure and hemostasis of percutaneous transfemoral venous access in a porcine vascular model.

Aims: Vascular closure device (VCD)-based venous closure has been anecdotally reported, but systematic evaluation of the reparative response of the vessel wall to venous closure is lacking. The need to control groin complications, and minimize risks associated with postponed sheath removal under conditions of persistent anticoagulation, has generated interest in the role of VCDs for venous access closure. We sought to characterize the vessel wall response to venous closure, both acutely and in delayed fashion at 30 days using angiography, ultrasound, and histology.

Delayed diagnosis and false relapse due to paternal testosterone use in adrenocortical carcinoma.

The prognosis of pediatric adrenocortical carcinoma often depends on prompt diagnosis to begin treatment before metastatic progression. We discuss a girl who presented at 8 months of age with virilization, which was thought to be due to exposure to a topical testosterone preparation being used by her father. Her testosterone level did not decrease promptly after her father discontinued the medication, however, and when she followed up with signs of Cushing syndrome 5 months later, metastatic adrenocortical carcinoma was diagnosed.

Black licorice ingestion: Yet another confounding agent in patients with melena.

We describe an 80-year-old woman with atrial fibrillation, anti-coagulated with warfarin, who on two separate occasions developed black tarry stools and an elevated international normalized ratio (INR) after eating a pound of Black Licorice. During her most recent episode, her hematocrit was 14 (baseline 34) and her INR was 5.5 (baseline 2.

Diabetes insipidus: clinical and basic aspects.

Water homeostasis in the body is finely balanced by the release of the antidiuretic hormone vasopressin and the stimulation of thirst. Vasopressin acts in the kidneys to concentrate urine and reduce plasma osmolality. Diabetes insipidus is a disorder of water balance characterized by a failure to concentrate urine.

Assessment of adrenal endocrine function in Asian thalassemics.

Adrenal endocrine function was assessed in a cohort of 20 patients, between 10 and 20 years of age, with transfusion dependent beta thalassemia. Cortisol levels were assayed before and after ACTH stimulation with 1 micrograms and 250 micrograms. Adrenal dysfunction was defined as a basal cortisol of greater than 400 nmol/L and/or peak cortisol levels of greater than 500 nmol/L.

Natural history and prognostic factors of diabetic nephropathy in type 2 diabetes.

Background: The causes and mechanisms of increased mortality of patients with diabetic nephropathy are unclear, and its natural history is poorly understood.

Aim: To evaluate risk factors for mortality in type 2 diabetic patients with nephropathy.

Design: Retrospective study of clinical and biochemical parameters in diabetic nephropathic patients and controls sampled from a secondary care register.

Lysine requirements of healthy adult Indian subjects, measured by an indicator amino acid balance technique.

Background: In an earlier study, using a modification of the indicator amino acid oxidation approach, we concluded that the 1985 FAO/WHO/UNU-proposed lysine requirement of 12 mg x kg(-1) x d(-1) is likely inadequate to maintain body amino acid homeostasis in apparently healthy south Asian subjects and that our proposed requirement of 30 mg x kg(-1) x d(-1) is more appropriate.

Objective: We assessed the lysine requirement in a similar population by using 4 test lysine intakes (12, 20, 28, and 36 mg x kg(-1) x d(-1)) with an indicator amino acid balance approach.

Design: Sixteen healthy male Indians were studied during each of 2 randomly assigned 8-d L-amino acid diets that supplied either 12 and 28 or 20 and 36 mg lysine.