Comparative efficacy and safety of gabapentin, pregabalin, oxcarbazepine, and duloxetine in diabetic peripheral neuropathy: A network meta-analysis.

Purpose: To conduct a network meta-analysis comparing the safety and efficacy of gabapentin (GBP), pregabalin (PGB), oxcarbazepine (OXC), and duloxetine (DLX) in treating diabetic peripheral neuropathy (DPN).

Materials And Methods: The study's eligibility criteria includee randomized controlled trials (RCTs) with a focus on DPN patients receiving GBP, PGB, DLX, or OXC versus placebo. Noncompliant trials with incomplete information and observational studies were excluded.

"Academic Influence and Industry Funding in Nerve Allograft Research: A Co-Authorship Network Analysis".

Background: Clinical use of acellular nerve allografts is rapidly increasing despite limited high-quality, comparative evidence of superiority. Simultaneously, non-research payments to clinicians by the nerve allograft industry exceeds $14,000,000 over the last decade. In this study, the authors hypothesized that nerve allograft-related academic influence would correlate with industry funding.

Lambrinudi Triple Arthrodesis with Posterior Tibial Tendon Transfer in Adult Fixed Equinus Deformity: Case Report.

Introduction: Fixed Equinus deformity is characterized by limited dorsiflexion of ankle joint and restricted passive movement, along with medial and lateral tibiotalar instability, progressive hindfoot varus, and a supination deformity of the forefoot. Degree of equinus deformity is determined by the Tibio-Metatarsal (TM) angle, subtended between the longitudinal axes of Tibia and 1st Metatarsal, in lateral view of foot. Lambrinudi triple arthrodesis involves the surgical fusion of the talonavicular, talocalcaneal, and calcaneocuboid joints to correct fixed foot deformities, to relieve pain from joint, to provide stability to the imbalanced foot, and to create a plantigrade foot.

Ketone bodies supplementation restores the barrier function, induces a metabolic switch, and elicits beta-hydroxybutyrate diffusion across a monolayer of iPSC-derived brain microvascular endothelial cells.

Glucose constitutes the main source of energy for the central nervous system (CNS), its entry occurring at the blood-brain barrier (BBB) via the presence of glucose transporter 1 (GLUT1). However, under food intake restrictions, the CNS can utilize ketone bodies (KB) as an alternative source of energy. Notably, the relationship between the BBB and KBs and its effect on their glucose metabolism remains poorly understood.

Metal-Halide Perovskite Lasers: Cavity Formation and Emission Characteristics.

Hybrid metal-halide perovskites (MHPs) have shown remarkable optoelectronic properties as well as facile and cost-effective processability. With the success of MHP solar cells and light-emitting diodes, MHPs have also exhibited great potential as gain media for on-chip lasers. However, to date, stable operation of optically pumped MHP lasers and electrically driven MHP lasers-an essential requirement for MHP laser's insertion into chip-scale photonic integrated circuits-is not yet demonstrated.

Relationship Between Atopic Dermatitis and Food Allergy in Children.

Atopic dermatitis (AD) is a chronic inflammatory skin condition characterized by a compromised skin barrier due to a variety of reasons, such as hereditary predisposition, immunological overactivity, and skin microbiome disruption. There is strong evidence linking food allergies (FA) with AD in some children, and many children with AD develop asymptomatic food sensitivity. FA and AD are two frequent childhood illnesses that are closely related.

"ADPKD-omics": determinants of cyclic AMP levels in renal epithelial cells.

The regulation of cyclic adenosine monophosphate (cAMP) levels in kidney epithelial cells is important in at least 2 groups of disorders, namely water balance disorders and autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease. Focusing on the latter, we review genes that code for proteins that are determinants of cAMP levels in cells. We identify which of these determinants are expressed in the 14 kidney tubule segments using recently published RNA-sequencing and protein mass spectrometry data ("autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease-omics").

Systems Biology of the Vasopressin V2 Receptor: New Tools for Discovery of Molecular Actions of a GPCR.

Systems biology can be defined as the study of a biological process in which all of the relevant components are investigated together in parallel to discover the mechanism. Although the approach is not new, it has come to the forefront as a result of genome sequencing projects completed in the first few years of the current century. It has elements of large-scale data acquisition (chiefly next-generation sequencing-based methods and protein mass spectrometry) and large-scale data analysis (big data integration and Bayesian modeling).

Directional Polarized Light Emission from Thin-Film Light-Emitting Diodes.

Light-emitting diodes (LEDs) with directional and polarized light emission have many photonic applications, and beam shaping of these devices is fundamentally challenging because they are Lambertian light sources. In this work, using organic and perovskite LEDs (PeLEDs) for demonstrations, by selectively diffracting the transverse electric (TE) waveguide mode while suppressing other optical modes in a nanostructured LED, the authors first demonstrate highly directional light emission from a full-area organic LED with a small divergence angle less than 3° and a TE to transverse magnetic (TM) polarization extinction ratio of 13. The highly selective diffraction of only the TE waveguide mode is possible due to the planarization of the device stack by thermal evaporation and solution processing.

Recovering cavity effects in corrugated organic light emitting diodes.

Cavity effects play an important role in determining the out-coupling efficiency of an OLED. By fabricating OLEDs on corrugated substrates, the waveguide and SPP modes can be extracted by diffraction. However, corrugation does not always lead to an enhancement in out-coupling efficiency due to the reduction of the electrode reflectance and hence the cavity effects.

Supercurrent Flow in Multiterminal Graphene Josephson Junctions.

We investigate the electronic properties of ballistic planar Josephson junctions with multiple superconducting terminals. Our devices consist of monolayer graphene encapsulated in boron nitride with molybdenum-rhenium contacts. Resistance measurements yield multiple resonant features, which are attributed to supercurrent flow among adjacent and nonadjacent Josephson junctions.

Economic analysis and life cycle impact assessment of municipal solid waste (MSW) disposal: A case study of Mumbai, India.

Municipal solid waste (MSW) management is a major concern in Indian cities. This work rigorously assesses the relative costs and the environmental and health benefits of alternative MSW management methods. Management of MSW over the next 20 years for the city of Greater Mumbai was considered.

Effective Remediation of Groundwater Fluoride with Inexpensively Processed Indian Bauxite.

India represents one-third of the world's fluorosis burden and is the fifth global producer of bauxite ore, which has previously been identified as a potential resource for remediating fluoride-contaminated groundwater in impoverished communities. Here, we use thermal activation and/or groundwater acidification to enhance fluoride adsorption by Indian bauxite obtained from Visakhapatnam, an area proximate to endemic fluorosis regions. We compare combinatorial water treatment and bauxite-processing scenarios through batch adsorption experiments, material characterization, and detailed cost analyses.

Microwave-Assisted, Asymmetric Synthesis of 3-Amino-2,3-Dihydrobenzofuran Flavonoid Derivatives from Chalcones.

A route to access 3-amino-2,3-dihydrobenzofurans that utilizes microwave-assisted organic synthesis to rapidly generate analogues has been developed. The route begins with an acid-catalyzed, microwave-assisted aldol condensation to generate chalcone intermediates, followed by a Corey-Bakshi-Shibata reduction and subsequent Sharpless asymmetric epoxidation to access stereoisomeric epoxyalcohols. The final step is a one-pot, microwave-assisted, regioselective, acid-catalyzed epoxide opening with various amines followed by an intramolecular nucleophilic aromatic substitution reaction to generate the 3-amino-2,3-dihydrobenzofurans.

Experimental, Systems, and Computational Approaches to Understanding the MicroRNA-Mediated Reparative Potential of Cardiac Progenitor Cell-Derived Exosomes From Pediatric Patients.

Rationale: Studies have demonstrated that exosomes can repair cardiac tissue post-myocardial infarction and recapitulate the benefits of cellular therapy.

Objective: We evaluated the role of donor age and hypoxia of human pediatric cardiac progenitor cell (CPC)-derived exosomes in a rat model of ischemia-reperfusion injury.

Methods And Results: Human CPCs from the right atrial appendages from children of different ages undergoing cardiac surgery for congenital heart defects were isolated and cultured under hypoxic or normoxic conditions.