Publications by authors named "Whittaker T"

This article walks through steps to conduct a meta-analysis of Monte Carlo simulation studies. The selected Monte Carlo simulation studies focused on mixture modeling, which is becoming increasingly popular in the social and behavioral sciences. We provide details for the following steps in a meta-analysis: (a) formulating a research question; (b) identifying the relevant literature; (c) screening of the literature; (d) extracting data; (e) analyzing the data; and (f) interpreting and discussing the findings.

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The United States (US) is experiencing a maternal health crisis, with high rates of maternal morbidity and mortality. The US has the highest rates of pregnancy-related mortality among industrialized nations. Maternal mortality has more than quadrupled over the last decades.

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Recent advancements in the electrochemical urea oxidation reaction (UOR) present promising avenues for wastewater remediation and energy recovery. Despite progress toward optimized efficiency, hurdles persist in steering oxidation products away from environmentally unfriendly products, mostly due to a lack of understanding of structure-selectivity relationships. In this study, the UOR performance of Ni and Cu double hydroxides, which show marked differences in their reactivity and selectivity is evaluated.

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Electrochemical CO reduction (COR) to formate is an attractive carbon emissions mitigation strategy due to the existing market and attractive price for formic acid. Tin is an effective electrocatalyst for COR to formate, but the underlying reaction mechanism and whether the active phase of tin is metallic or oxidized during reduction is openly debated. In this report, we used grand-canonical density functional theory and attenuated total reflection surface-enhanced infrared absorption spectroscopy to identify differences in the vibrational signatures of surface species during COR on fully metallic and oxidized tin surfaces.

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Geometries that replicate the behavior of metal nanostructures at much lower frequencies via texturing surfaces so they will support a surface wave have been a central pillar of metamaterials research. However, previous work has focused largely on geometries that can be reduced to symmetries in one or two dimensions, such as strips, flat planes, and cylinders. Shapes with isotropic responses in three dimensions are important for applications, such as radar scattering and the replication of certain nanoscale behaviors.

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Background: X-linked agammaglobulinemia (XLA) is an inborn error of immunity that renders boys susceptible to life-threatening infections due to loss of mature B cells and circulating immunoglobulins. It is caused by defects in the gene encoding the Bruton tyrosine kinase (BTK) that mediates the maturation of B cells in the bone marrow and their activation in the periphery. This paper reports on a gene editing protocol to achieve "knock-in" of a therapeutic BTK cassette in hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells (HSPCs) as a treatment for XLA.

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Extracellular vesicles (EVs), including exosomes and microvesicles, mediate intercellular communication in cancer, from development to metastasis. EV-based liquid biopsy is a promising strategy for cancer diagnosis as EVs can be found in cancer patients' body fluids. In this study, the lipid composition of breast cancer-derived EVs was studied as well as the potential of blood plasma EVs for the identification of lipid biomarkers for breast cancer detection.

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Introduction: The United States is experiencing maternity care shortages. Family physicians can play a role in addressing these shortages. Family medicine obstetrics fellowships train family physicians in obstetrics care.

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Temperature sensors are one of the most fundamental sensors and are found in industrial, environmental, and biomedical applications. The traditional approach of reading the resistive response of Positive Temperature Coefficient thermistors at DC hindered their adoption as wide-range temperature sensors. Here, we present a large-area thermistor, based on a flexible and stretchable short carbon fibre incorporated Polydimethylsiloxane composite, enabled by a radio frequency sensing interface.

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Article Synopsis
  • - Recent advancements in gene editing, particularly using CRISPR/Cas9 and AAV, enable the replacement of faulty genes in hematopoietic stem cells, aiming to treat genetic blood disorders effectively.
  • - However, challenges like toxicity and loss of function in these stem cells make clinical applications difficult, necessitating a careful optimization of correction methods.
  • - A new Response Surface Methodology approach has been developed to efficiently balance gene correction with cell survival, leading to successful correction of p67-deficient chronic granulomatous disease in laboratory conditions.
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Introduction: The US is currently experiencing a maternal health crisis. Maternal morbidity and mortality in the US are higher than in other developed nations and continue to rise. Infant mortality, likewise, is higher in the US than in other developed nations.

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Objectives: The purpose of this narrative review is to summarize the literature on well-being and burnout among community pharmacists in the U.S. and provide recommendations for future research.

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Chaos and turbulence are complex physical phenomena, yet a precise definition of the complexity measure that quantifies them is still lacking. In this work, we consider the relative complexity of chaos and turbulence from the perspective of deep neural networks. We analyze a set of classification problems, where the network has to distinguish images of fluid profiles in the turbulent regime from other classes of images such as fluid profiles in the chaotic regime, various constructions of noise and real-world images.

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Unlabelled: Access to dual-enrollment courses, which allow high school students to earn college credit, is stratified by race/ethnicity, class, and geography. States and colleges have begun using of readiness, including measures of student preparedness, in lieu of strict reliance on test scores in an attempt to expand and equalize access. This practice was accelerated by COVID-19 due to disruptions in standardized testing.

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Article Synopsis
  • Over 1,000 unexplained pediatric hepatitis cases have been identified globally, with a study focusing on 38 cases and various control groups to understand potential viral causes.
  • High levels of adeno-associated virus 2 (AAV2) DNA were found in most cases, while low levels of adenovirus and human herpesvirus 6B were also detected; however, AAV2 appeared infrequently in healthy controls even when they were immunocompromised.
  • The study suggests that abnormal replication of AAV2, potentially influenced by other viruses like HAdV and HHV-6B, may be responsible for immune-related liver disease in susceptible children.
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Chronic wounds are a major healthcare problem, but their healing may be improved by developing biomaterials which can stimulate angiogenesis, e.g. by activating the Hypoxia Inducible Factor (HIF) pathway.

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Objectives: A range of professions experience high demands on their voices and are potentially at risk of developing voice disorders. Teachers have been studied extensively in this respect, while voiceover artists are a growing professional group with unknown levels of voice training, voice problems and voice care attitudes. To better understand profession-specific voice care requirements, we compared voice training, voice care habits and self-reported voice problems of these two professional groups and measured attitudes to voice care, informed by the Health Belief Model (HBM).

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Increasing use of intelligent tutoring systems in education calls for analytic methods that can unravel students' learning behaviors. In this study, we explore a latent variable modeling approach for tracking learning flow during computer-interactive artificial tutoring. The study considers three models that give discrete profiles of a latent process: the (i) latent class model, (ii) latent transition model, and (iii) hidden Markov model.

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Article Synopsis
  • X-linked lymphoproliferative disease (XLP) is a rare genetic immune disorder linked to mutations in the SAP gene, leading to severe immune dysregulation and affecting T cells.
  • Patients face serious health challenges, including hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis (HLH) and limited treatment options, with allogeneic stem cell transplants being risky and often ineffective.
  • Recent research explored gene editing techniques (TALEN, CRISPR-Cas9, CRISPR-Cas12a) using an AAV6 vector to restore SAP function in T cells from XLP patients, showing promise for improved therapeutic outcomes.
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Background: Pediatric MetS prevalence varies due to lack of consensus on evaluative criteria and associated thresholds, with most not recommending a diagnosis <10 years. However, MetS risk components are becoming evident earlier in life and affect races and ethnicities disproportionately.

Objectives: To compare the prevalence of MetS based on existing definitions and elucidate racial- and ethnic-specific characteristics associated with MetS prevalence.

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We describe the outcome of a large international interlaboratory study of the measurement of particle number concentration of colloidal nanoparticles, project 10 of the technical working area 34, "Nanoparticle Populations" of the Versailles Project on Advanced Materials and Standards (VAMAS). A total of 50 laboratories delivered results for the number concentration of 30 nm gold colloidal nanoparticles measured using particle tracking analysis (PTA), single particle inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (spICP-MS), ultraviolet-visible (UV-Vis) light spectroscopy, centrifugal liquid sedimentation (CLS) and small angle X-ray scattering (SAXS). The study provides quantitative data to evaluate the repeatability of these methods and their reproducibility in the measurement of number concentration of model nanoparticle systems following a common measurement protocol.

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This scoping review mapped the pertinent extant published and grey literature and policy to assess factors that promote positive community living outcomes among people of color with disabilities and concomitant opioid use disorder (OUD) in the United States (U.S.).

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