Stiff joints formed after trauma, surgery or immobilization are frustrating for surgeons, therapists and patients alike. Unfortunately, the study of contracture is limited by available animal model systems, which focus on the utilization of larger mammals and joint trauma. Here we describe a novel mouse-based model system for the generation of joint contracture using 3D-printed clamshell casts. With this model system we are able to generate both reversible and irreversible contractures of the knee and ankle. Four- or 8-month-old female mice were casted for either 2 or 3 weeks before liberation. All groups formed measurable contractures of the knee and ankle. Younger mice immobilized for less time formed reversible contractures of the knee and ankle. We were able to generate irreversible contracture with either longer immobilization time or the utilization of older mice. The contracture formation translated into differences in gait, which were detectable using the DigiGait® analysis system. This novel model system provides a higher throughput, lower cost and more powerful tool in studying the molecular and cellular mechanisms considering the large existing pool of transgenic/knockout murine strains.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/jor.25313 | DOI Listing |
Biomed Phys Eng Express
January 2025
Department of Ophthalmology, Hospital Universitario de Canarias, Carretera Ofra S/N, La Laguna, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, 38320, SPAIN.
This paper systematically evaluates saliency methods as explainability tools for convolutional neural networks trained to diagnose glaucoma using simplified eye fundus images that contain only disc and cup outlines. These simplified images, a methodological novelty, were used to relate features highlighted in the saliency maps to the geometrical clues that experts consider in glaucoma diagnosis. Despite their simplicity, these images retained sufficient information for accurate classification, with balanced accuracies ranging from 0.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFProc Natl Acad Sci U S A
January 2025
Environmental Sciences Department, Wageningen University & Research, Wageningen 6708 PB, The Netherlands.
The boreal forest biome is warming four times faster than the global average. Changes so far are moderate, but time lags in responses may transiently maintain forest states which are no longer supported by current environmental conditions. Here, we explore whether tree cover dynamics hint at the state to which the biome may be shifting.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Nurs Adm
December 2024
Author Affiliations: Research Nurse Scientist (Dr Partridge), Roper St Francis Healthcare; Associate Professor (Dr Jorgenson), College of Nursing, Charleston Southern University; Associate Professor (Dr Johnson), College of Nursing, Medical University of South Carolina; and Director of Nursing Excellence (Dr Lott), Roper St Francis Healthcare, Charleston, South Carolina.
Objective: The purpose of this cross-sectional descriptive study was to examine the relationship of professional governance, resilience, and empowerment among RNs in clinical practice in 1 healthcare system.
Background: Given the emotional and physical demands of nursing, especially in recent years, exploring ways that hope-inducing and resilience-building models can support professional practice is vital to the current and future nursing workforce.
Methods: An anonymous survey consisting of demographic questions, the Adult Hope Scale, Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale, and the Conditions for Work Effectiveness Questionnaire II was offered to 1450 RNs in a nonprofit community-based healthcare system for volunteer participation.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A
January 2025
Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139.
Protein language models (PLMs) have demonstrated impressive success in modeling proteins. However, general-purpose "foundational" PLMs have limited performance in modeling antibodies due to the latter's hypervariable regions, which do not conform to the evolutionary conservation principles that such models rely on. In this study, we propose a transfer learning framework called Antibody Mutagenesis-Augmented Processing (AbMAP), which fine-tunes foundational models for antibody-sequence inputs by supervising on antibody structure and binding specificity examples.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFProc Natl Acad Sci U S A
January 2025
Applied Mathematics Laboratory, Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, Department of Mathematics, New York University, New York, NY 10012.
Mechanical systems with moving points of contact-including rolling, sliding, and impacts-are common in engineering applications and everyday experiences. The challenges in analyzing such systems are compounded when an object dynamically explores the complex surface shape of a moving structure, as arises in familiar but poorly understood contexts such as hula hooping. We study this activity as a unique form of mechanical levitation against gravity and identify the conditions required for the stable suspension of an object rolling around a gyrating body.
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