Institutional Experience with Investigation and Service for Acute and Post-Traumatic Stress in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit.

Acute stress, post-traumatic stress and burnout are all stress-related mental health problems common to patients, families, physicians, nurses, and allied health professionals across disciplines. They are particularly common in those who care for critically ill and injured children. Despite growing awareness of the pervasiveness of burnout and stress among healthcare workers and families in the pediatric intensive care unit, there remain important gaps in the knowledge of factors affecting the development of stress-related mental illnesses, how individual and institutional factors protect or exacerbate these problems, and effective measures to limit or mitigate them.

Water-Repellent Spray for Textiles Using Plant Waste from Conifer Trees.

A superhydrophobic textile coating, applied by using a home drying machine, was developed as an aqueous dispersion of waxes that were extracted from recycled Christmas trees. Because the bulk extraction of waxes yielded a mixture of hydrophobic and hydrophilic compounds, a purification process was tested to determine if removing noncrystallizing wax components would enhance the performance of the coating. The performances of coatings created from the crude and enriched extracts were compared, and no significant difference in hydrophobicity was found.

General Muscle Torque Generator Model for a Two Degree-of-Freedom Shoulder Joint.

Muscle torque generators (MTGs) have been developed as an alternative to muscle-force models, reducing the muscle-force model complexity to a single torque at the joint. Current MTGs can only be applied to single Degree-of-freedom (DoF) joints, leading to complications in modeling joints with multiple-DoFs such as the shoulder. This study aimed to develop an MTG model that accounts for the coupling between 2-DoF at the shoulder joint: shoulder plane of elevation (horizontal abduction/adduction) and shoulder elevation (flexion/extension).

Community advisory board members' perspectives on their contributions to a large multistate cluster RCT: a mixed methods study.

Background: Community advisory boards (CABs) are an established approach to ensuring research reflects community priorities. This paper examines two CABs that are part of the HEALing Communities Study which aims to reduce overdose mortality. This analysis aimed to understand CAB members' expectations, experiences, and perspectives on CAB structure, communication, facilitation, and effectiveness during the first year of an almost fully remote CAB implementation.

The prodomain of Arabidopsis metacaspase 2 positively regulates immune signaling mediated by pattern-recognition receptors.

Metacaspases (MCs) are structural homologs of mammalian caspases found in plants, fungi, and protozoa. Type-I MCs carry an N-terminal prodomain, the function of which is unclear. Through genetic analysis of Arabidopsis mc2-1, a T-DNA insertion mutant of MC2, we demonstrated that the prodomain of metacaspase 2 (MC2) promotes immune signaling mediated by pattern-recognition receptors (PRRs).

Plant-based, aqueous, water-repellent sprays for coating textiles.

Novel superhydrophobic coatings, that are both biodegradable and biosourced, have the potential to revolutionize the water-repellent coating industry. Here, water-repellent coatings were prepared from commercially unavailable plant waxes, isolated using solvent extraction and characterized using DSC, GC-MS and DLS. In the first stage, a plant survey was conducted to identify an ideal plant source for the final spray, in which Whatman filter paper was submerged in a wax-solvent solution with recrystallization occurring upon air-drying.

Community coalition and key stakeholder perceptions of the community opioid epidemic before an intensive community-level intervention.

Introduction: Opioid overdoses are a major public health emergency in the United States. Despite effective treatments that can save lives, access to and utilization of such treatments are limited. Community context plays an important role in addressing treatment barriers and increasing access.

InverseMuscleNET: Alternative Machine Learning Solution to Static Optimization and Inverse Muscle Modeling.

InverseMuscleNET, a machine learning model, is proposed as an alternative to static optimization for resolving the redundancy issue in inverse muscle models. A recurrent neural network (RNN) was optimally configured, trained, and tested to estimate the pattern of muscle activation signals. Five biomechanical variables (joint angle, joint velocity, joint acceleration, joint torque, and activation torque) were used as inputs to the RNN.

MuscleNET: mapping electromyography to kinematic and dynamic biomechanical variables by machine learning.

This paper proposes machine learning models for mapping surface electromyography (sEMG) signals to regression of joint angle, joint velocity, joint acceleration, joint torque, and activation torque.The regression models, collectively known as MuscleNET, take one of four forms: ANN (forward artificial neural network), RNN (recurrent neural network), CNN (convolutional neural network), and RCNN (recurrent convolutional neural network). Inspired by conventional biomechanical muscle models, delayed kinematic signals were used along with sEMG signals as the machine learning model's input; specifically, the CNN and RCNN were modeled with novel configurations for these input conditions.

A Systematic Review of Surveys for Measuring Patient-centered Care in the Hospital Setting.

Background: Patient-centered care (PCC) is a core component of quality care and its measurement is fundamental for research and improvement efforts. However, an inventory of surveys for measuring PCC in hospitals, a core care setting, is not available.

Objective: To identify surveys for assessing PCC in hospitals, assess PCC dimensions that they capture, report their psychometric properties, and evaluate applicability to individual and/or dyadic (eg, mother-infant pairs in pregnancy) patients.

High-Throughput Synthesis, Analysis, and Optimization of Injectable Hydrogels for Protein Delivery.

The development of in situ-gelling hydrogels that can enable prolonged protein release is increasingly important due to the emergence of a growing number of protein-based therapeutics. Herein, we describe a high-throughput strategy to fabricate, characterize, and subsequently optimize hydrazone-cross-linked in situ-gelling hydrogels for protein delivery. Hydrogels are fabricated using an automated high-throughput robot to mix a variety of thermoresponsive, nonthermoresponsive, charged, neutral, naturally sourced, and synthetic polymers functionalized with hydrazide or aldehyde groups, generating in situ-gelling hydrogels with well-defined compositions within a 96-well plate.

Prospects, challenges and current status of RNAi through insect feeding.

RNA interference is a phenomenon in which the introduction of double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) into cells triggers the degradation of the complementary messenger RNA in a sequence-specific manner. Suppressing expression of vital genes could lead to insect death, therefore this technology has been considered as a potential strategy for insect pest control. There are three main routes of dsRNA administration into insects: (i) injections to the hemolymph, (ii) topical, and (iii) feeding.

AKT1, LKB1, and YAP1 Revealed as MYC Interactors with NanoLuc-Based Protein-Fragment Complementation Assay.

The c-Myc (MYC) transcription factor is a major cancer driver and a well-validated therapeutic target. However, directly targeting MYC has been challenging. Thus, identifying proteins that interact with and regulate MYC may provide alternative strategies to inhibit its oncogenic activity.

Development of an internal amplification control system for a real-time PCR assay for detection of Neisseria meningitidis in CSF and EDTA blood.

The aim of this study was to assemble and assess a non-competitive internal amplification control (IAC) system targeting the Escherichia coli alanine racemase (alr) gene to include in a real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) assay for Neisseria meningitidis. Primers and hybridisation probes specific for the IAC were designed and assessed for specificity. Amplification efficiency and limit of detection for the assembled assay was extrapolated using standard curves constructed with serial dilutions of N.

Antibiotic susceptibility patterns of Staphylococcus aureus isolates from Australian children.

Aim: Staphylococcus aureus is an important cause of serious illness in children. Antibiotic resistance is an international problem and affects initial antibiotic choice. We aimed to describe susceptibility patterns of S.

Surgical site marking does not affect sterility.

Background: In 2005, surgical site marking became mandatory in Australia, with the introduction of the first Australian guidelines to prevent wrong site surgery. It has been our experience that most surgical site marking occurs with the use of a non-sterile marking pen, which has been used on multiple patients and there is little information in the published work about the effects of surgical site marking carried out in this fashion. Our aim was to determine whether the sterility of a surgical site was affected by surgical site marking with a non-sterile surgical marking pen.

Bacteria commonly isolated from keratitis specimens retain antibiotic susceptibility to fluoroquinolones and gentamicin plus cephalothin.

Purpose: Patients presenting with presumed infective keratitis were studied to determine predisposing factors, the current susceptibilities of the bacterial isolates to a range of relevant antibiotics, the success rate of topical antibiotic treatment of keratitis and predictors of failure of topical therapy.

Methods: Corneal scrapings taken from patients who presented between January 2002 and December 2003 to the Sydney Eye Hospital Emergency Department with keratitis were cultured. The minimum inhibitory concentration of selected antibiotics was determined for each bacterial isolate using an agar dilution technique.