"They talk about it like it's an overdose crisis when in fact it's basically genocide": The experiences of Indigenous peoples who use illicit drugs in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside neighbourhood.

Indigenous Peoples who use illicit drugs (IPWUID) are disproportionately represented among toxic drug poisoning deaths in Canada. These drug-related harms are framed by the historical and ongoing trauma related to settler colonialism and are acutely visible in Vancouver, Canada's Downtown Eastside - a low-income neighbourhood that is an epicenter of the drug poisoning crisis and characterized by entrenched poverty, substance use, violence, and homelessness. This study was undertaken to examine the experiences and perspectives of IPWUID in the Downtown Eastside regarding the drug poisoning crisis and the responsiveness of harm reduction programs within the context of settler colonialism.

Can we predict orthodontic extraction patterns by using machine learning?

Objective: To investigate the utility of machine learning (ML) in accurately predicting orthodontic extraction patterns in a heterogeneous population.

Materials And Methods: The material of this retrospective study consisted of records of 366 patients treated with orthodontic extractions. The dataset was randomly split into training (70%) and test sets (30%) and was stratified according to race/ethnicity and gender.

Roux-En-Y Gastric Bypass (RYGB) Surgery during High Liquid Sucrose Diet Leads to Gut Microbiota-Related Systematic Alterations.

Roux-en-Y gastric bypass (RYGB) surgery has been proven successful in weight loss and improvement of co-morbidities associated with obesity. Chronic complications such as malabsorption of micronutrients in up to 50% of patients underline the need for additional therapeutic approaches. We investigated systemic RYGB surgery effects in a liquid sucrose diet-induced rat obesity model.

Suppressed ion-scale turbulence in a hot high-β plasma.

An economic magnetic fusion reactor favours a high ratio of plasma kinetic pressure to magnetic pressure in a well-confined, hot plasma with low thermal losses across the confining magnetic field. Field-reversed configuration (FRC) plasmas are potentially attractive as a reactor concept, achieving high plasma pressure in a simple axisymmetric geometry. Here, we show that FRC plasmas have unique, beneficial microstability properties that differ from typical regimes in toroidal confinement devices.

Achieving a long-lived high-beta plasma state by energetic beam injection.

Developing a stable plasma state with high-beta (ratio of plasma to magnetic pressures) is of critical importance for an economic magnetic fusion reactor. At the forefront of this endeavour is the field-reversed configuration. Here we demonstrate the kinetic stabilizing effect of fast ions on a disruptive magneto-hydrodynamic instability, known as a tilt mode, which poses a central obstacle to further field-reversed configuration development, by energetic beam injection.

Biosynthesis of phytosterol esters: identification of a sterol o-acyltransferase in Arabidopsis.

Fatty acyl esters of phytosterols are a major form of sterol conjugates distributed in many parts of plants. In this study we report an Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) gene, AtSAT1 (At3g51970), which encodes for a novel sterol O-acyltransferase. When expressed in yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae), AtSAT1 mediated production of sterol esters enriched with lanosterol.

Evidence of relaxation and spontaneous transition to a high-confinement state in high-beta steady-state plasmas sustained by rotating magnetic fields.

Evidence of relaxation has appeared, for the first time, in the extremely high-beta, steady-state field-reversed configuration plasma states driven by rotating magnetic fields (RMF) in the translation, confinement, and sustainment experiment. The plasma self-organizes into a near-force-free state in the vicinity of the magnetic axis, with significant improvement in confinement. Associated with this change in magnetic topology is the appearance of an axial RMF component; this would, in turn, generate a current drive in the poloidal direction, thus sustaining the magnetic helicity.

The role played by a former federal government residential school in a First Nation community's alcohol abuse and impaired driving: results of a talking circle.

Objectives: The study's objective was to better understand alcohol abuse and impaired driving behaviors in a First Nations community as it reflects systemic issues linked to historical, family and community experiences.

Study Design And Methods: Fifteen 18- to 29-year-old drivers participated in an exploratory eight-hour Talking Circle held according to traditional cultural practice. Four First Nations researchers, trained in Talking Circle protocol, and a Band Elder facilitated the data collection, data analysis according to emerging themes, and data verification.

Inverse free electron lasers and laser wakefield acceleration driven by CO2 lasers.

The staged electron laser acceleration (STELLA) experiment demonstrated staging between two laser-driven devices, high trapping efficiency of microbunches within the accelerating field and narrow energy spread during laser acceleration. These are important for practical laser-driven accelerators. STELLA used inverse free electron lasers, which were chosen primarily for convenience.

Observations of improved stability and confinement in a high-beta self-organized spherical-torus-like field-reversed configuration.

An extremely high-beta (over 85%) self-organized field-reversed configuration (FRC) with a spherical-torus- (ST-)like core is produced in the translation, confinement, and sustainment experiment by highly super-Alfvénic translation of a spheromaklike plasmoid. Substantial flux conversion from toroidal into poloidal occurs during the capture process, resulting in the ST-like core. This plasma state exhibits a remarkable stabilizing property for the ubiquitous centrifugally driven interchange modes present in theta-pinch formed FRCs.

Flux conversion and evidence of relaxation in a high-beta plasma formed by high-speed injection into a mirror confinement structure.

High-beta plasmoids can survive the violent dynamics of supersonic reflection off mirror structures, producing a stable high-beta field-reversed configuration (FRC). This shows both the robustness of FRCs and their tendency to assume a preferred plasma state, possibly conforming to a relaxation principle. The key observations are (1) approximate preservation of the magnetic helicity, (2) substantial conversion from toroidal to poloidal magnetic flux, (3) substantial toroidal flow, and (4) a high-beta quiescent final state.

Demonstration of high-trapping efficiency and narrow energy spread in a laser-driven accelerator.

Laser-driven electron accelerators (laser linacs) offer the potential for enabling much more economical and compact devices. However, the development of practical and efficient laser linacs requires accelerating a large ensemble of electrons together ("trapping") while keeping their energy spread small. This has never been realized before for any laser acceleration system.

Decision support systems for chemical structure representation, reaction modeling, and spectra simulation.

The choice of an appropriate structure coding scheme is the secret to success in QSAR studies. Depending on the problem at hand, 2D or 3D descriptors have to be chosen; the consideration of electronic effects might be crucial, conformational flexibility has to be of special concern. Artificial neural networks, both with unsupervised and with supervised learning schemes, are powerful tools for establishing relationships between structure and physical, chemical, or biological properties.

First staging of two laser accelerators.

Staging of two laser-driven, relativistic electron accelerators has been demonstrated for the first time in a proof-of-principle experiment, whereby two distinct and serial laser accelerators acted on an electron beam in a coherently cumulative manner. Output from a CO2 laser was split into two beams to drive two inverse free electron lasers (IFEL) separated by 2.3 m.

Simulation of organic reactions: from the degradation of chemicals to combinatorial synthesis.

Organic reactions can be run under a variety of conditions, from laboratory experiments, through technical processes, to combinatorial chemistry. The scope is further extended when the metabolism of compounds and the reactions in the mass spectrometer are included. We present here several concepts: reactors, phases, and modes, which, together with a kinetic modeling, allow the treatment of such a broad scope of organic reactions.

The plastidic phosphoglucomutase from Arabidopsis. A reversible enzyme reaction with an important role in metabolic control.

An Arabidopsis cDNA (AtPGMp) encoding the plastidic phosphoglucomutase (PGM) predicted a 623-amino acid protein with an N-terminal sequence typical of a plastid signal peptide. Expression of a recombinant protein in Escherichia coli confirmed its enzyme activity. The recombinant enzyme had an apparent K(m) value of 98.

The effect of different promoter-sequences on transient expression of gus reporter gene in cultured barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) cells.

The cauliflower mosaic virus 35S (35S) and the enhanced 35S (E35S) promoters fused with maize alcohol dehydrogenase (Adh1) intron1 or maize shrunken locus (sh1) intronl along with maize Adh1 and rice actin (Act1) promoters fused to their respective first introns were tested for transient expression of the E.coli β-glucuronidase (gus) reporter gene in cultured barley (Hordeum vulgare L) cells. The plasmids, carrying the respective promoterintron combinations to drive the gus fused to nopaline synthase (nos) terminator, were introduced into cultured barley cells using a particle gun.

Inhibition of carbon tetrachloride induced hepatotoxicity by dantrolene sodium.

A 50 mg/kg dose of dantrolene sodium decreased the hepatotoxicity of carbon tetrachloride in fed and fasted rats, as indicated by lower levels of SGPT following a toxic dose of carbon tetrachloride; however, the dantrolene sodium pretreatment did not inhibit the induction of lipid peroxidation by carbon tetrachloride. The dantrolene sodium did inhibit superoxide production by the hepatic endoplasmic reticulum in fasted rats. Also, the dantrolene sodium inhibited covalent binding of [14C] carbon tetrachloride to the hepatic endoplasmic reticulum in fasted rats, but not in fed rats.

Alteration of chemically induced hepatotoxicity by copper (II) (3,5-diisopropylsalicylate)2.

The effects of copper (II) (3,5-diisopropylsalicylate)2 (CuDIPS), which is a synthetic superoxide dismutase, on the hepatotoxicity of carbon tetrachloride and acetaminophen in fed and fasted animals were investigated. CuDIPS did not alter the covalent binding of metabolites of either of these chemicals to the hepatic endoplasmic reticulum. However, CuDIPS did inhibit the hepatotoxicity of carbon tetrachloride by inhibiting the induction of lipid peroxidation by carbon tetrachloride.

Radiorespirometry of Candida utilis in phased culture under nitrogen-, carbon-, and phosphorus-limited growth.

The release of 14CO2 from specifically labelled glucose ([G-1-14C],[G-2-14C],[G-3,4-14C], and [G-6-14C]) by phased cells of C. utilis was examined at intervals during 6-h cycles under conditions of N-,P-, and C-limited growth. On the basis that the release of 14CO2 from [G-1-C14] could serve as a measure of hexose monophosphate pathway (HMP) activity, of 14CO2 from [G-3,4-14C] as a measure of Embden-Meyerhof-Parnas (EMP) activity, and 14CO2 from [G-6-14C] as indicative of tricarboxylic acid (TCA) cycle activity, it was concluded that a relatively uniform operation of EMP occurred throughout the cycle in N-, P-, and C-limited cells, and of HMP and TCA in C-limited cells, but considerable variations took place in HMP and TCA cycle activities in N- and P-limited cells.

Some comparative observations on the relative contributions of alternate pathways in the metabolism of glucose by Candida utilis.

Candida utilis was grown in batch, chemostat, and continuously synchronised (phased) culture on a nitrogen-limited glucose mineral salts medium: phosphorus- and carbon-limited phased cultures were also used. The 14CO2 evolved from [G-1-14c]and [G-6-14c] was used, as a simple C1/C6 ratio, to observe the relative changes in EMP and HMP contributions during growth of the cultures. The ratio varied during the cell cycle, and changed with growth rate, and with nutrient limitation.