Publications by authors named "Tucker Morgan"

Article Synopsis
  • E-cigarettes (ECs) could be a potential harm reduction method for individuals with chronic conditions like COPD, asthma, and heart diseases who currently smoke combustible cigarettes (CCs).
  • In a pilot study, patients were randomized to use either ECs or nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) combined with counseling, and outcomes such as cigarette use and symptom improvement were measured over six months.
  • Results showed both groups reduced their cigarette use significantly, with the EC group showing notable satisfaction and improvement in respiratory symptoms, indicating ECs may be a safer alternative to CCs for these patients.
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Understanding factors that influence those who are initially COVID-19 vaccine hesitant to accept vaccination is valuable for the development of vaccine promotion strategies. Using Ipsos KnowledgePanel®, we conducted a national survey of adults aged 18 and older in the United States. We created a questionnaire to examine factors associated with COVID-19 vaccine uptake over a longitudinal period ("Wave 1" in April 2021 and "Wave 2" in February 2022), and utilized weighted data provided by Ipsos to make the data nationally representative.

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Purpose: Vaginitis is caused by bacterial vaginosis (BV), Candida vaginitis (CV) and Trichomonas vaginalis (TV). This retrospective study evaluates the performance of the Aptima CV/TV, and BV assays on the automated Panther system.

Methods: Two hundred forty-two multitest swabs were tested on the CV/TV assay and 422 on the BV assay.

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Article Synopsis
  • * In a sample of 443 community members in southwestern Arizona, no significant link was found between the number/diversity of social contacts and S. aureus colonization rates, which stood at 64.8%.
  • * The findings suggest that social network diversity does not protect against S. aureus, indicating that more personal interactions may be more relevant for its transmission within the community.
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COVID-19 vaccination of U.S. children lags behind adult vaccination, but remains critical in mitigating the pandemic.

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Background: Disease control relies on pathogen identification and understanding reservoirs. Staphylococcus aureus infection prevention is based upon decades of research on colonization and infection, but diminishing returns from mitigation efforts suggest significant knowledge gaps. Existing knowledge and mitigation protocols are founded upon culture-based detection, with almost no information about pathogen quantities.

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Staphylococcus aureus exists as a pathogen and commensal. Individuals with asymptomatic carriage serve as a reservoir for transmission and are at increased risk of infecting themselves. In order to characterize the genomic diversity of S.

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Background: Health care-associated Staphylococcus aureus infections are declining but remain common. Conversely, rates of community-associated infections have not decreased because of the inadequacy of public health mechanisms to control transmission in a community setting. Our long-term goal is to use risk-based information from empirical socio-cultural-biological evidence of carriage and transmission to inform intervention strategies that reduce S aureus transmission in the community.

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Cell migration is a fundamental process occurring during embryonic development and tissue morphogenesis. In the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans, morphogenesis of the body-wall musculature involves short-range migrations of 81 embryonic muscle cells from the lateral surface of the embryo towards the dorsal and ventral midlines. This study shows that mutations in ina-1 (alpha-integrin), as well as vab-1 (Eph receptor), and vab-2 (ephrin), display defects in embryonic muscle cell migration.

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The homeobox-containing aristaless-related protein ARX has been directly linked to the development of a number of human disorders involving mental retardation and epilepsy and clearly plays a critical role in development of the vertebrate central nervous system. In this work, we investigate the role of ALR-1, the Caenorhabditis elegans aristaless orthologue, in amphid sensory function. Our studies indicate that ALR-1 is required for maintenance of the amphid organ structure throughout larval development.

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Background: Many animal tissues form via fusion of cells. Yet in all instances of developmental cell fusion, the mechanism underlying fusion of plasma membranes remains poorly understood. EFF-1 is required for most somatic cell fusions in C.

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The major pathways of mRNA turnover in eukaryotic cells are initiated by shortening of the poly(A) tail. Recent work has identified Ccr4p and Pop2p as components of the major cytoplasmic deadenylase in yeast. We now demonstrate that CCR4 encodes the catalytic subunit of the deadenylase and that Pop2p is dispensable for catalysis.

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