Global, regional and national burden due to retinoblastoma in children aged younger than 10 years from 1990 to 2021.

Background: Retinoblastoma (RB), an aggressive intraocular malignancy, significantly adds to the global disease burden in early childhood. This study offers insights into the global burden of retinoblastoma (RB) in children aged 0-9 years, examining incidence, mortality, and DALYs from 1990 to 2021, across age, sex, location, and SDI levels. It aims to inform health policy, resource allocation, and RB combat strategies.

Cellulose nanofibril enhanced ionic conductive hydrogels with high stretchability, high toughness and self-adhesive ability for flexible strain sensors.

Preparation of ion-conductive hydrogels with excellent mechanics, good conductivity and adhesiveness is promising for flexible sensors, but remains a challenge. Here, we prepare a self-adhesive and ion-conductive hydrogel by introducing cellulose nanofibers (CNF) and ZnSO into a covalently-crosslinked poly (acrylamide-co-2-acrylamide-2-methyl propane sulfonic acid) (P(AM-co-AMPS)) network. Owing to the hydrogen bonding and metal coordination interactions among P(AM-co-AMPS) chains, CNF, and Zn, the resulting P(AM-co-AMPS)/CNF/ZnSO hydrogel exhibits high stretchability (1092 %), high toughness (244 kJ m), and skin-like elasticity (3.

Predicting an individual's functional connectivity from their structural connectome: Evaluation of evidence, recommendations, and future prospects.

Several recent studies have optimized deep neural networks to learn high-dimensional relationships linking structural and functional connectivity across the human connectome. However, the extent to which these models recapitulate individual-specific characteristics of resting-state functional brain networks remains unclear. A core concern relates to whether current individual predictions outperform simple benchmarks such as group averages and null conditions.

Leveraging anatomical constraints with uncertainty for pneumothorax segmentation.

Background: Pneumothorax is a medical emergency caused by the abnormal accumulation of air in the pleural space-the potential space between the lungs and chest wall. On 2D chest radiographs, pneumothorax occurs within the thoracic cavity and outside of the mediastinum, and we refer to this area as "lung + space." While deep learning (DL) has increasingly been utilized to segment pneumothorax lesions in chest radiographs, many existing DL models employ an end-to-end approach.

Cardiovascular risks of Asian patients on androgen-receptor-targeted agents for prostate cancer: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

Background: Prostate cancer is now one of the most prevalent cancers in men in Asia. As the average life expectancy of Asian males with prostate cancer increases with the availability of treatment options, the possible risk of cardiac-related adverse effects arising from androgen-receptor-targeted agents (ARTAs) may be increased due to the greater exposure. We aim to perform a meta-analysis on the incidence of cardiac-related adverse events in Asian patients with prostate cancer treated with ARTAs.

Proliferative potential and angiogenic characteristics of blood outgrowth endothelial cells derived from middle-aged and older adults.

Objectives: Autologous blood outgrowth endothelial cells (BOECs) have been proposed to induce therapeutic angiogenesis for treating cardiovascular diseases (CVDs). The aim of the present study was to investigate the proliferative potential and angiogenic characteristics of BOECs among middle-aged and older adults, the population particularly susceptible to CVDs.

Methods: BOECs were isolated from 48 peripheral blood samples of subjects aged 56 ± 4 years.

Associations of cord blood concentrations of perfluoroalkyl substances with autistic traits in Singaporean children: The growing up in Singapore towards healthy outcomes study.

Background: Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by social deficits and repetitive behaviors. Environmental pollutants may contribute to the etiology of ASD, but studies of perfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) have shown conflicting results.

Objectives: We assessed associations between cord blood concentrations of PFAS with autistic traits at age seven years in a Singaporean birth cohort.

Construction of amino functional metal-organic framework modified aramid composite separators with high Li transport channels for dendrite-free lithium-ion batteries.

The formation and growth of lithium dendrites is an ever-present and urgent problem in lithium-ion batteries (LIBs). At the same time, the low melting point of commercial polyolefin separators may lead to safety issues during application. On this basis, in this work, poly (m-phenylene isophthalamide) (PMIA)/Zr-based metal-organic framework (NH-UiO-66) composite separator was prepared by non-solvent induced phase separation (NIPS).

iPSC-derived human sensory neurons reveal a subset of TRPV1 antagonists as anti-pruritic compounds.

Signaling interplay between the histamine 1 receptor (H1R) and transient receptor potential cation channel subfamily V member 1 (TRPV1) in mediating histaminergic itch has been well-established in mammalian models, but whether this is conserved in humans remains to be confirmed due to the difficulties in obtaining human sensory neurons (SNs) for experimentation. Additionally, previously reported species-specific differences in TRPV1 function indicate that use of human SNs is vital for drug candidate screening to have a higher chance of identifying clinically effective TRPV1 antagonists. In this study, we built a histamine-dependent itch model using peripheral SNs derived from human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSC-SNs), which provides an accessible source of human SNs for pre-clinical drug screening.

Association of sleep quality and its change with the risk of depression in middle-aged and elderly people: A 10-year cohort study from England.

Background: Persistently poor sleep quality in young adults is linked to a higher risk of depression. However, the impact of changes in sleep quality on depression risk in middle-aged and older adults remain unclear. This study investigates the association between sleep quality, its changes, and the risk of depression in middle-aged and elderly people.

Long-term multi-systemic complications following SARS-CoV-2 Omicron and Delta infection in children: a retrospective cohort study.

Objectives: Most studies on long-term sequelae of SARS-CoV-2-infection in children were conducted pre-Omicron and pre-dated vaccination rollout. We examined long-term risk of new-incident multi-systemic sequelae after SARS-CoV-2 Delta/Omicron infection in a multi-ethnic Asian pediatric population.

Methods: Retrospective cohort study of Singaporean children aged 1- 17 years infected during Delta/Omicron BA.

Promises and perils of using Transformer-based models for SE research.

Many Transformer-based pre-trained models for code have been developed and applied to code-related tasks. In this paper, we analyze 519 papers published on this topic during 2017-2023, examine the suitability of model architectures for different tasks, summarize their resource consumption, and look at the generalization ability of models on different datasets. We examine three representative pre-trained models for code: CodeBERT, CodeGPT, and CodeT5, and conduct experiments on the four topmost targeted software engineering tasks from the literature: Bug Fixing, Bug Detection, Code Summarization, and Code Search.

Cultivated meat microbiological safety considerations and practices.

Cultivated meat, produced using cell culture technology, is an alternative to conventional meat production that avoids the risks from enteric pathogens associated with animal slaughter and processing. Cultivated meat therefore has significant theoretical microbiological safety advantages, though limited information is available to validate this. This review discusses sources and vectors of microbial contamination throughout cultivated meat production, introduces industry survey data to evaluate current industry practices for monitoring and mitigating these hazards, and highlights future research needs.

One-Pot Synthesis of Oxygen Vacancy-Rich Amorphous/Crystalline Heterophase CaWO Nanoparticles for Enhanced Radiodynamic-Immunotherapy.

Radiodynamic therapy that employs X-rays to trigger localized reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation can tackle the tissue penetration issue of phototherapy. Although calcium tungstate (CaWO) shows great potential as a radiodynamic agent benefiting from its strong X-ray absorption and the ability to generate electron-hole (e-h) pairs, slow charge carrier transfer and fast e-h recombination greatly limit its ROS-generating performance. Herein, via a one-pot wet-chemical method, oxygen vacancy-rich amorphous/crystalline heterophase CaWO nanoparticles (Ov-a/c-CaWO NPs) with enhanced radiodynamic effect are synthesized for radiodynamic-immunotherapy of cancer.

SAM-dPCR: Accurate and Generalist Nuclei Acid Quantification Leveraging the Zero-Shot Segment Anything Model.

Digital PCR (dPCR) has transformed nucleic acid diagnostics by enabling the absolute quantification of rare mutations and target sequences. However, traditional dPCR detection methods, such as those involving flow cytometry and fluorescence imaging, may face challenges due to high costs, complexity, limited accuracy, and slow processing speeds. In this study, SAM-dPCR is introduced, a training-free open-source bioanalysis paradigm that offers swift and precise absolute quantification of biological samples.

Spatially Selective Imaging in Color: What You See is What You Want.

Spatially selective imaging (SSI) involves sampling a group of pixels from different positions on an encoded object to display a decoded image. Here, SSI is achieved by using off-axis cylindrical Fresnel lens arrays to decode multiple images from an encoded print of structural color pixels. Each image is optically retrieved by separately placing different "keys" (arrays of lenses in different pseudorandom configurations) over the same encoded print, and then each image is digitally reconstructed for visualization.

Insomnia during the COVID-19 pandemic: prevalence and correlates in a multi-ethnic population Singapore.

Background: Globally, the Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic had a significant impact on mental health. Sudden lifestyle changes, threatening information received through various sources, fear of infection and other stressors led to sleep disturbances such as insomnia. The current study aimed to assess the prevalence of insomnia and its associated risk factors during the first wave of COVID-19 pandemic among Singapore residents.

Clinical, Ethical, and Legal Considerations Raised by Self-Reported Genital Mutilation Following Voluntary Cosmetic Labiaplasty.

An increasing number of women are undergoing female genital cosmetic surgery (FGCS). Labiaplasty, the most commonly performed FGCS, consists of a surgical procedure to decrease the inner labia size so that no or less tissue protrudes beyond the outer labia. Anatomically, it is similar to female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C) Type 2a.

A global analysis of adaptation to societal aging across low-, middle- and high-income countries using the Global Aging Society Index.

We have previously presented a multidimensional Aging Society Index, a weighted summation of five domains central to successful adaptation to societal aging: well-being, productivity and engagement, equity, cohesion and security, as a tool to assess countries' adaptation to demographic transformation. As the index was based on data from developed countries and some of the individual metrics or weightings may not be well suited for application to low- and middle-income countries, we here present the scores on a modified index (Global Aging Society Index) on 143 countries distributed across the span of economic development. Only 5 out of 143 (3.

Considering the interconnected nature of social identities in neuroimaging research.

Considerable heterogeneity exists in the expression of complex human behaviors across the cognitive, personality and mental health domains. It is increasingly evident that individual variability in behavioral expression is substantially affected by sociodemographic factors that often interact with life experiences. Here, we formally address the urgent need to incorporate intersectional identities in neuroimaging studies of behavior, with a focus on research in mental health.

Establishing an end-to-end workflow for SNSPD fabrication and characterization.

The outstanding performance of superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors (SNSPDs) has expanded their application areas from quantum technologies to astronomy, space communication, imaging, and LiDAR. As a result, there has been a surge in demand for these devices, that commercial products cannot readily meet. Consequently, more research and development efforts are being directed towards establishing in-house SNSPD manufacturing, leveraging existing nano-fabrication capabilities that can be customized and fine-tuned for specific needs.

A multiparametric screen uncovers FDA-approved small molecules that potentiate the nuclear mechano-dysfunctions in ATR-defective cells.

Targeting nuclear mechanics is emerging as a promising therapeutic strategy for sensitizing cancer cells to immunotherapy. Inhibition of the mechano-sensory kinase ATR leads to mechanical vulnerability of cancer cells, causing nuclear envelope softness and collapse and activation of the cGAS-STING-mediated innate immune response. Finding novel compounds that interfere with the non-canonical role of ATR in controlling nuclear mechanics presents an intriguing therapeutic opportunity.

SLAMF7 defines subsets of human effector CD8 T cells.

Long-term control of viral replication relies on the efficient differentiation of memory T cells into effector T cells during secondary immune responses. Recent findings have identified T cell precursors for both memory and exhausted T cells, suggesting the existence of progenitor-like effector T cells. These cells can persist without antigenic challenge but expand and acquire effector functions upon recall immune responses.