Publications by authors named "Villegas J"

The Mexican rice borer, (Lepidoptera: Crambidae) is an economically important pest of sugarcane, rice, and corn in Louisiana, Texas, and Mexico. This pest is considered invasive in the US and is expanding its range northward. Due to its subtropical origin, 's northern distribution might be limited by cold tolerance.

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Akuammicine (), an alkaloid isolated from , is an agonist of the kappa opioid receptor (κOR). To establish structure-activity relationships (SARs) for this structurally unique κOR ligand, a collection of semisynthetic derivatives was synthesized. Evaluating these derivatives for their ability to activate the κOR and mu opioid receptor (μOR) revealed key SAR trends and identified derivatives with enhanced κOR potency.

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Opsoclonus-myoclonus-ataxia syndrome (OMAS) is a rare immunological central nervous system disorder that mostly affects children, and it is extremely uncommon in adults. It usually presents idiopathically, as a parainfectious condition, or as a paraneoplastic syndrome. We present a case of a patient who developed adult-onset opsoclonus-myoclonus-ataxia syndrome (OMAS) without any associated infectious or neoplastic disease, a condition that is considered very rare in Central America.

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Poor body image is a prominent issue affecting youth. In this nationally representative online survey, we explored parents' concerns about their child's appearance, as well as their perceptions of their child's body image concerns and related behaviors and interactions with others. Among the 1653 respondents, weight was parents' most cited body image concern, while more parents perceived that their child was self-conscious about their weight than there were parents concerned about their child's weight.

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Article Synopsis
  • * It evaluates the strength, effectiveness, structure, and clinical potential of about 350 identified phenolic compounds, with 44 showing very strong antibacterial activity, primarily against Gram-positive bacteria.
  • * Key compounds like 2-Methoxy-7-methyljuglone and [6]-gingerol are noted as promising candidates for antibiotic development, indicating the significance of these plants in addressing bacterial infections.
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  • - The text discusses a rare case of anti-GABAB receptor autoimmune encephalitis (AE) in a 21-year-old male in Central America, where he presented with new onset seizures and status epilepticus after ruling out other potential causes.
  • - Diagnostic tests indicated lymphocytic pleocytosis in cerebrospinal fluid and positive anti-GABAB1-B2 receptor antibodies, leading to a confirmed diagnosis of AE despite initial normal imaging results.
  • - Treatment included corticosteroids, plasmapheresis, and immunoglobulin therapy, resulting in significant improvement; the patient has been seizure-free for seven months but is undergoing cognitive rehabilitation for mild cognitive decline.
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  • Motivational interviewing (MI) is a patient-centered approach aimed at changing behaviors, particularly in managing pediatric obesity.
  • The focus is on facilitating conversations that help patients or parents articulate their reasons for and against making lifestyle changes rather than directly persuading them.
  • MI employs techniques like reflective listening to create a balance between supporting individuals and challenging them, ultimately fostering discussions that promote "change talk" towards healthier behaviors.
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Hematogenous metastasis involves cancer cell migration to different locations from the primary tumor through the blood circulation. Von Willebrand factor (VWF) has been shown to play an important role in tumor cell adhesion to and extravasation from the endothelial cell lining of blood vessel walls during cancer metastasis. VWF may contribute to this process by interacting with tumor cells, endothelial cells, and platelets through various cell membrane receptors, such as platelet glycoprotein (GP)Ibα, P-selectin, αβ and αβ integrins, and glycocalyx.

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  • Outpatient rehab therapists face significant documentation burdens that impact their clinical care and work-life balance, similar to other healthcare professionals.
  • A qualitative study involving focus groups identified key themes in their documentation experiences, such as the need for more efficient tools and support to enhance communication of clinical care.
  • Prioritized strategies for improvement include implementing time-saving templates, enhancing dictation capabilities, and simplifying the EHR interface to alleviate the documentation load.
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Swirling spin textures, including topologically nontrivial states, such as skyrmions, chiral domain walls, and magnetic vortices, have garnered significant attention within the scientific community due to their appeal from both fundamental and applied points of view. However, their creation, controlled manipulation, and stability are typically constrained to certain systems with specific crystallographic symmetries, bulk or interface interactions, and/or a precise stacking sequence of materials. Recently, a new approach has shown potential for the imprint of magnetic radial vortices in soft ferromagnetic compounds making use of the stray field of YBaCuO superconducting microstructures in ferromagnet/superconductor (FM/SC) hybrids at temperatures below the superconducting transition temperature ().

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Inorganic phosphate (Pi) concentration modulates polyphosphate (polyP) levels in diverse bacteria, affecting their physiology and survival. CRL 1905 is a lactic acid bacterium isolated from quinoa sourdough with biotechnological potential as starter, for initiating fermentation processes in food, and as antimicrobial-producing organism. The aim of this work was to evaluate the influence of the environmental Pi concentration on different physiological and molecular aspects of the CRL 1905 strain.

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Clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC) is the most prevalent form of renal cancer and its treatment is hindered by a resistance to targeted therapies, immunotherapies and combinations of both. We have reported that the knockdown of the antisense noncoding mitochondrial RNAs (ASncmtRNAs) with chemically modified antisense oligonucleotides induces proliferative arrest and apoptotic death in tumor cells from many human and mouse cancer types. These studies have been mostly performed in vitro and in vivo on commercially available cancer cell lines and have shown that in mouse models tumor growth is stunted by the treatment.

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The normal-state conductivity and superconducting critical temperature of oxygen-deficient YBa_{2}Cu_{3}O_{7-δ} can be persistently enhanced by illumination. Strongly debated for years, the origin of those effects-termed persistent photoconductivity and photosuperconductivity (PPS)-has remained an unsolved critical problem, whose comprehension may provide key insights to harness the origin of high-temperature superconductivity itself. Here, we make essential steps toward understanding PPS.

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This work presents the first catalog of the genus Choeromorpha Chevrolat, 1849 for the Philippines. A total of five species and one subspecies have been described from different faunal regions of the country. This paper proposes a new species, Choeromorpha (s.

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High-risk sexual behavior is the primary risk factor for the acquisition and persistence of human papillomavirus (HPV) infection and the development of HPV-associated diseases including cancer. Incidence of HPV infection is high among individuals in their late teens and early 20s. Thus, college students represent a historically high-risk group for HPV infection yet are also a group with the ability to independently access HPV vaccination for HPV prevention.

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Tropical montane forests (TMFs) are biodiversity hotspots and provide vital ecosystem services, but they are disproportionately vulnerable to climate warming. In the Andes, cold-affiliated species from high elevations are being displaced at the hot end of their thermal distributions by warm-affiliated species migrating upwards from lower elevations, leading to compositional shifts. Leaf functional traits are strong indicators of plant performance and at the community level have been shown to vary along elevation gradients, reflecting plant adaptations to different environmental niches.

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Optimizing pharmacokinetic properties remains challenging but is generally guided by a set of structural rules. However, no such rule set exists for intracellular distribution. Kilgore et al.

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Article Synopsis
  • Breast cancer is the most common cancer among women and a leading cause of cancer-related deaths globally.
  • The study investigates long non-coding mitochondrial RNAs (ncmtRNAs) and how knocking down antisense ncmtRNAs (ASncmtRNAs) selectively induces death in cancer cells without affecting normal cells.
  • Results show that knocking down ASncmtRNAs leads to changes in proteins involved in cell cycle regulation, highlighting a potential strategy for protecting normal cells during cancer treatments while targeting tumors.
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Due to the lack of new antimicrobial drug discovery in recent years and an ever-growing prevalence of multidrug-resistant "superbugs", there is a pressing need to explore alternative ways to combat pathogenic bacterial and fungal infections. Building upon our previous work in the field of medicinal phytochemistry, the present study is focused on designing, synthesizing, and testing the altered bioactivity of new variants of two original bioactive molecules found in the plant. Herein, we report upon 14 variants of berberine and four variants of chelerythrine that have been screened against a pool of 12 microorganisms (five Gram-positive and four Gram-negative bacteria, and three fungi).

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Steroid receptor coactivators (SRCs) comprise a family of three paralogous proteins commonly recruited by eukaryotic transcription factors. Each SRC harbors two tandem Per-ARNT-Sim (PAS) domains that are broadly distributed that bind small molecules and regulate interactions. Using computational docking, solution NMR, mass spectrometry, and molecular dynamics simulations, we show that the SRC1 PAS-B domain can bind to certain prostaglandins (PGs) either non-covalently to a surface that overlaps with the site used to engage transcription factors or covalently to a single, specific, conserved cysteine residue next to a solvent accessible hydrophobic pocket.

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Background: The emergency derived from coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has taught us important lessons in public and environmental health, particularly in the alarming numbers of existing noncommunicable diseases. However, one aspect to which little attention has been paid during the pandemic is mental health and its relationship with the gender perspective, in spite of gender being a determinant associated with health. In contrast, regarding health, few schemes and theories consider health from a positive and comprehensive perspective.

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An efficient, dual-polarization silicon waveguide array with low insertion losses and negligible crosstalks for both TE and TM polarizations has been reported using S-shaped adiabatically bent waveguides. Simulation results for a single S-shaped bend show an insertion loss (IL) of ≤ 0.03 dB and ≤ 0.

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The colony-stimulating factor-1 receptor (CSF1R) is a tyrosine-protein kinase that is a potential target for asthma therapeutics. We have applied a fragment-lead combination approach to identify small fragments that act synergistically with GW2580, a known inhibitor of CSF1R. Two fragment libraries were screened in combination with GW2580 by surface plasmon resonance (SPR).

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Memristors, a cornerstone for neuromorphic electronics, respond to the history of electrical stimuli by varying their electrical resistance across a continuum of states. Much effort has been recently devoted to developing an analogous response to optical excitation. Here we realize a novel tunnelling photo-memristor whose behaviour is bimodal: its resistance is determined by the dual electrical-optical history.

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