Cascade ring expansion reactions for the synthesis of medium-sized rings and macrocycles.

This Feature Article discusses recent advances in the development of cascade ring expansion reactions for the synthesis of medium-sized rings and macrocycles. Cascade ring expansion reactions have much potential for use in the synthesis of biologically important medium-sized rings and macrocycles, most notably as they don't require high dilution conditions, which are commonly used in established end-to-end macrocyclisation methods. Operation by cascade ring expansion method can allow large ring products to be accessed rearrangements that proceed exclusively by normal-sized ring cyclisation steps.

A Modular Strategy for the Synthesis of Macrocycles and Medium-Sized Rings via Cyclization/Ring Expansion Cascade Reactions.

Macrocycles and medium-sized rings are important in many scientific fields and technologies but are hard to make using current methods, especially on a large scale. Outlined herein is a strategy by which functionalized macrocycles and medium-sized rings can be prepared using cyclization/ring expansion (CRE) cascade reactions, without resorting to high dilution conditions. CRE cascade reactions are designed to operate exclusively via kinetically favorable 5-7-membered ring cyclization steps; this means that the problems typically associated with classical end-to-end macrocyclization reactions are avoided.

Encoding a magic state with beyond break-even fidelity.

To run large-scale algorithms on a quantum computer, error-correcting codes must be able to perform a fundamental set of operations, called logic gates, while isolating the encoded information from noise. We can complete a universal set of logic gates by producing special resources called magic states. It is therefore important to produce high-fidelity magic states to conduct algorithms while introducing a minimal amount of noise to the computation.

Ring expansion reactions of PO-containing molecules.

A series of ring expansion reactions of PO-containing molecules have been developed for the synthesis of medium-sized ring cyclic phosphonate esters and phosphonamidates. The reactivity trends initially appear to be counter-intuitive, compared with more well established ring expansion reactions of lactam derivatives, but are explained by considering the differences in heteroatom bonding to P and C respectively.

Research priorities in children and adults with congenital heart disease: a James Lind Alliance Priority Setting Partnership.

Objective: To bring together patients, parents, charities and clinicians in a Priority Setting Partnership to establish national clinical priorities for research in children and adults with congenital heart disease.

Methods: The established James Lind Alliance methodology was used to identify and prioritise research on the management of congenital heart disease, focusing on diagnosis, treatment and outcomes. An initial open survey was used to gather potential uncertainties which were filtered, categorised, converted into summary questions and checked against current evidence.

Conventional vs ultrasonic irrigation - which leads to less post-operative pain?

Data sources Medline, Scopus, Web of Science, Embase, Cochrane Library, ClinicalTrials.gov and OpenGrey databases were systematically searched to find studies comparing post-operative pain experienced following root canal treatment with ultrasonic and conventional irrigation (up to May 2021). Hand searching of selected journals was also performed.

Fabrication and characterisation of a silicon-borosilicate glass microfluidic device for synchrotron-based hard X-ray spectroscopy studies.

Some of the most fundamental chemical building blocks of life on Earth are the metal elements. X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) is an element-specific technique that can analyse the local atomic and electronic structure of, for example, the active sites in catalysts and energy materials and allow the metal sites in biological samples to be identified and understood. A microfluidic device capable of withstanding the intense hard X-ray beams of a 4th generation synchrotron and harsh chemical sample conditions is presented in this work.

Chromatin and Nuclear Dynamics in the Maintenance of Replication Fork Integrity.

Replication of the eukaryotic genome is a highly regulated process and stringent control is required to maintain genome integrity. In this review, we will discuss the many aspects of the chromatin and nuclear environment that play key roles in the regulation of both unperturbed and stressed replication. Firstly, the higher order organisation of the genome into A and B compartments, topologically associated domains (TADs) and sub-nuclear compartments has major implications in the control of replication timing.

Slower environmental cycles maintain greater life-history variation within populations.

Populations in nature are comprised of individual life histories, whose variation underpins ecological and evolutionary processes. Yet the forces of environmental selection that shape intrapopulation life-history variation are still not well-understood, and efforts have largely focused on random (stochastic) fluctuations of the environment. However, a ubiquitous mode of environmental fluctuation in nature is cyclical, whose periodicities can change independently of stochasticity.

The Pediatric Obesity Microbiome and Metabolism Study (POMMS): Methods, Baseline Data, and Early Insights.

Objective: The purpose of this study was to establish a biorepository of clinical, metabolomic, and microbiome samples from adolescents with obesity as they undergo lifestyle modification.

Methods: A total of 223 adolescents aged 10 to 18 years with BMI ≥95th percentile were enrolled, along with 71 healthy weight participants. Clinical data, fasting serum, and fecal samples were collected at repeated intervals over 6 months.

Evaluating the efficacy of three carrier screening workflows designed to identify at-risk carrier couples.

Objective: To evaluate the efficacy of three different carrier screening workflows designed to identify couples at risk for having offspring with autosomal recessive conditions.

Methods: Partner testing compliance, unnecessary testing, turnaround time, and ability to identify at-risk couples (ARCs) were measured across all three screening strategies (sequential, tandem, or tandem reflex).

Results: A total of 314,100 individuals who underwent carrier screening were analyzed.

The Origin, Succession, and Predicted Metabolism of Bacterial Communities Associated with Leaf Decomposition.

Intraspecific variation in plant nutrient and defensive traits can regulate ecosystem-level processes, such as decomposition and transformation of plant carbon and nutrients. Understanding the regulatory mechanisms of ecosystem functions at local scales may facilitate predictions of the resistance and resilience of these functions to change. We evaluated how riverine bacterial community assembly and predicted gene content corresponded to decomposition rates of green leaf inputs from red alder trees into rivers of Washington State, USA.

Reconciling empirical interactions and species coexistence.

Coexistence in ecological communities is governed largely by the nature and intensity of species interactions. Countless studies have proposed methods to infer these interactions from empirical data, yet models parameterised using such data often fail to recover observed coexistence patterns. Here, we propose a method to reconcile empirical parameterisations of community dynamics with species-abundance data, ensuring that the predicted equilibrium is consistent with the observed abundance distribution.

Impact of sequential implementation of multimodal perioperative care pathways on colorectal surgical outcomes.

Background: Standardized care protocols offer the potential to reduce postoperative complication rates. The purpose of this study was to determine whether there was an additive benefit associated with the sequential implementation of the evidence-based surgical site infection bundle (SSIB) and enhanced recovery after surgery (ERAS) protocols for patients undergoing colorectal surgery in a community hospital.

Methods: Patients at a single institution who underwent elective colorectal surgery between Apr.

Ecological Network Inference From Long-Term Presence-Absence Data.

Ecological communities are characterized by complex networks of trophic and nontrophic interactions, which shape the dy-namics of the community. Machine learning and correlational methods are increasingly popular for inferring networks from co-occurrence and time series data, particularly in microbial systems. In this study, we test the suitability of these methods for inferring ecological interactions by constructing networks using Dynamic Bayesian Networks, Lasso regression, and Pear-son's correlation coefficient, then comparing the model networks to empirical trophic and nontrophic webs in two ecological systems.

Muscle Strength and Functional Ability in Recreational Female Golfers and Less Active Non-Golfers over the Age of 80 Years.

Muscle strength and functional ability decline with age. Physical activity can slow the decline but whether recreational golf is associated with slower decline is unknown. This cross-sectional, observational study aimed to examine the feasibility of testing muscle strength and functional ability in older female golfers and non-golfers in community settings.

Intraspecific leaf chemistry drives locally accelerated ecosystem function in aquatic and terrestrial communities.

Resource patchiness influences consumer foraging, movement, and physiology. Fluxes across ecosystem boundaries can extend these effects to otherwise distinct food webs. Intraspecific diversity of these cross-ecosystem subsidies can have large consequences for recipient systems.

Integration of oral health into primary care: a scoping review protocol.

Introduction: Integrated care has been introduced as a means of improving health outcomes and access to care, and reducing the cost of healthcare. Despite its importance, the integration of oral health into primary care is still an emerging healthcare pathway. This scoping review protocol has been developed and funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research to provide an evidence-based synthesis on a primary oral healthcare approach and its effectiveness in improving oral health outcomes.

Functional Traits for Carbon Access in Macrophytes.

Understanding functional trait distributions among organisms can inform impacts on and responses to environmental change. In marine systems, only 1% of dissolved inorganic carbon in seawater exists as CO2. Thus the majority of marine macrophytes not only passively access CO2 for photosynthesis, but also actively transport CO2 and the more common bicarbonate (HCO3-, 92% of seawater dissolved inorganic carbon) into their cells.

Historical baselines and the future of shell calcification for a foundation species in a changing ocean.

Seawater pH and the availability of carbonate ions are decreasing due to anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions, posing challenges for calcifying marine species. Marine mussels are of particular concern given their role as foundation species worldwide. Here, we document shell growth and calcification patterns in Mytilus californianus, the California mussel, over millennial and decadal scales.

A comparison between the direct anterior and posterior approaches for total hip arthroplasty: the role of an 'Enhanced Recovery' pathway.

Aims: We assessed the difference in hospital based and early clinical outcomes between the direct anterior approach and the posterior approach in patients who undergo total hip arthroplasty (THA).

Patients And Methods: The outcome was assessed in 448 (203 males, 245 females) consecutive patients undergoing unilateral primary THA after the implementation of an 'Enhanced Recovery' pathway. In all, 265 patients (mean age: 71 years (49 to 89); 117 males and 148 females) had surgery using the direct anterior approach (DAA) and 183 patients (mean age: 70 years (26 to 100); 86 males and 97 females) using a posterior approach.