SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variations reveal mechanisms controlling cell entry dynamics and antibody neutralization.

Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is adapting to continuous presence in humans. Transitions to endemic infection patterns are associated with changes in the spike (S) proteins that direct virus-cell entry. These changes generate antigenic drift and thereby allow virus maintenance in the face of prevalent human antiviral antibodies.

Single breath-hold volumetric lung imaging at 0.55T using stack-of-spiral (SoS) out-in balanced SSFP.

Purpose: To develop a robust single breath-hold approach for volumetric lung imaging at 0.55T.

Method: A balanced-SSFP (bSSFP) pulse sequence with 3D stack-of-spiral (SoS) out-in trajectory for volumetric lung imaging at 0.

Early-life menstrual characteristics and gestational diabetes in a large US cohort.

Background: Associations between early-life menstrual cycle characteristics (MCC) and gestational diabetes (GDM) remain unclear.

Objectives: To evaluate associations between early-life MCCs and GDM in first pregnancy, across pregnancies and its recurrence.

Methods: This analysis included participants from a US-based digital cohort enrolled between 11/2019 and 9/2023 who provided consent, completed relevant surveys, were without diabetes and aged ≥18 at first pregnancy (n = 30,473).

The California collaborative network to promote data driven care and improve outcomes in early psychosis (EPI-CAL) project: rationale, background, design and methodology.

Background: A prolonged first episode of psychosis (FEP) without adequate treatment is a predictor of poor clinical, functional, and health outcomes and significant economic burden. Team-based "coordinated specialty care" (CSC) for early psychosis (EP) has established effectiveness in promoting clinical and functional recovery. However, California's CSC program implementation has been unsystematic and could benefit from standardizing its processes and data collection infrastructure.

Fluence-Dependent Photoinduced Charge Transfer Dynamics in Polymer-Wrapped Semiconducting Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes.

Because an individual single-walled carbon nanotube (SWNT) can absorb multiple photons, the exciton density within a single tube depends upon excitation conditions. In SWNT-based energy conversion systems, interactions between excitons and charges make it possible for multiple types of charge transfer reactions. We exploit a SWNT-molecular donor-acceptor hybrid system (-PBN(b)-Ph-PDI-[(6,5) SWNT]) that fixes spatial organization and stoichiometry of perylene diimide (PDI) electron acceptors on the nanotube surface, to elucidate how excitation fluence affects ultrafast charge separation (CS) and the nature of charge recombination (CR) dynamics triggered upon SWNT near-infrared excitation.

Daily snuff use during pregnancy, gestational length and birth weight; register-based study.

Background: Snuff is a smokeless source of nicotine that is common in Scandinavia and increasingly used by women of fertile age. Persistent use of snuff during pregnancy has been associated with adverse pregnancy outcomes. Emerging data from the Medical Birth Registry of Norway distinguishes between occasional use and daily use.

Clinician attitudes toward referring patients to pharmacists for tobacco cessation services.

Background: The role of pharmacists in tobacco cessation has grown substantially in recent years, now including the ability to prescribe medications in many states. Although pharmacists can fill a gap in care by helping patients quit, other clinicians' perceptions regarding referring patients to pharmacists for these services have not been described.

Objective: To characterize clinicians' current referral patterns to pharmacists for tobacco cessation services, intention to refer in the future, and perceived barriers to and facilitators of referrals.

Cumulus: a federated electronic health record-based learning system powered by Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources and artificial intelligence.

Objective: To address challenges in large-scale electronic health record (EHR) data exchange, we sought to develop, deploy, and test an open source, cloud-hosted app "listener" that accesses standardized data across the SMART/HL7 Bulk FHIR Access application programming interface (API).

Methods: We advance a model for scalable, federated, data sharing and learning. Cumulus software is designed to address key technology and policy desiderata including local utility, control, and administrative simplicity as well as privacy preservation during robust data sharing, and artificial intelligence (AI) for processing unstructured text.

The Intoxication Equivalency of 11-Hydroxy-Δ-Tetrahydrocannabinol Relative to Δ-Tetrahydrocannabinol.

Δ-Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) is a psychoactive phytocannabinoid found in the plant. THC is primarily metabolized into 11-hydroxy-Δ-tetrahydrocannabinol (11-OH-THC) and 11-nor-9-carboxy-Δ-tetrahydrocannabinol (COOH-THC), which may themselves be psychoactive. There is very little research-based evidence concerning the pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of 11-OH-THC as an individual compound.

Large Language Models for Efficient Medical Information Extraction.

Extracting valuable insights from unstructured clinical narrative reports is a challenging yet crucial task in the healthcare domain as it allows healthcare workers to treat patients more efficiently and improves the overall standard of care. We employ ChatGPT, a Large language model (LLM), and compare its performance to manual reviewers. The review focuses on four key conditions: family history of heart disease, depression, heavy smoking, and cancer.

Integration of a clinical pharmacist practitioner-led pharmacogenomics service in a Veterans Affairs hematology/oncology clinic.

Purpose: This article describes the implementation and evaluation of pharmacogenomic testing within the hematology/oncology ambulatory care clinic at the William S. Middleton Memorial Veterans Hospital in Madison, WI.

Summary: The Pharmacogenomic Testing for Veterans (PHASER) program provides preemptive pharmacogenomic testing for veterans nationally.

Fruit and Vegetable Intake, Food Security, Barriers to Healthy Eating, and Empowerment among Dietetic Interns and Physician Assistant Interns: A Cross-Sectional Pilot Study.

Students are required to complete supervised practice hours prior to becoming Registered Dietitians and Physician Assistants. Research suggests that environmental and social factors affect dietetic interns' diets during their internship, although these factors have not been studied among physician assistant interns. This cross-sectional study utilized an online survey to compare dietetic interns' ( = 81) and physician assistant interns' ( = 79) fruit and vegetable intake, food security, barriers to healthy eating, and empowerment for making healthy dietary choices during an internship.

Application of standardized methods to evaluate the environmental safety of polyvinyl alcohol disposed of down the drain.

The purpose of this research was to use polyvinyl alcohol (PVOH) 18-88 as a case study to evaluate the environmental fate, ecotoxicity, and overall safety profile of water-soluble, nonmodified PVOH polymers used in detergent films. An OECD 303A Wastewater Treatment Plant Simulation Study was conducted with dissolved organic carbon as the analytical endpoint to evaluate the removal of PVOH 18-88 during wastewater treatment. During the plateau phase, high levels of removal due to biodegradation were observed (average 97.

Noninvasive Bolus Transit Detection in Cervical Esophagus Utilizing Ultrasound Characteristics.

This pilot study aims to identify characteristic A-mode ultrasound features relevant to noninvasive detection of esophageal bolus transit in the proximal esophagus. Ultrasound signals at a lateral neck site were obtained via a single-element ultrasonic transducer with synchronous videofluoroscopic swallowing studies images of swallows of differing viscosities in 21 adult dysphagia outpatients. Characteristic ultrasound features were extracted to differentiate a bolus-filled from a collapsed esophagus.

Identifying functional multi-host shuttle plasmids to advance synthetic biology applications in and .

Ammonia availability has a crucial role in agriculture as it ensures healthy plant growth and increased crop yields. Since diazotrophs are the only organisms capable of reducing dinitrogen to ammonia, they have great ecological importance and potential to mitigate the environmental and economic costs of synthetic fertilizer use. Rhizobia are especially valuable being that they can engage in nitrogen-fixing symbiotic relationships with legumes, and they demonstrate great diversity and plasticity in genomic and phenotypic traits.

Real world performance of the 21st Century Cures Act population-level application programming interface.

Objective: To evaluate the real-world performance of the SMART/HL7 Bulk Fast Health Interoperability Resources (FHIR) Access Application Programming Interface (API), developed to enable push button access to electronic health record data on large populations, and required under the 21st Century Cures Act Rule.

Materials And Methods: We used an open-source Bulk FHIR Testing Suite at 5 healthcare sites from April to September 2023, including 4 hospitals using electronic health records (EHRs) certified for interoperability, and 1 Health Information Exchange (HIE) using a custom, standards-compliant API build. We measured export speeds, data sizes, and completeness across 6 types of FHIR.