6,220 results match your criteria: "Aston University.[Affiliation]"

Article Synopsis
  • A significant number of people with diabetes develop chronic kidney disease (CKD), which often leads to end-stage kidney disease (ESKD) and is highly associated with cardiovascular disease (CVD) mortality.
  • Managing modifiable risk factors, such as hyperglycemia and hypertension, along with treating dyslipidemia is vital for patients with type 2 diabetes and CKD to reduce the risk of CVD.
  • Recent clinical trials demonstrate that medications like SGLT-2 inhibitors and GLP-1 receptor agonists can help protect kidney function in these patients, informing updated clinical practice guidelines for healthcare professionals.
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The contact lens-tear film interface: Investigating the tear envelope.

Cont Lens Anterior Eye

October 2024

Biomaterials Research Unit, School of Engineering and Applied Chemistry, Aston University, Birmingham B4 7ET, UK.

Purpose: To explore the complex interface between the tear film, a unique mucosal fluid which is fundamental to ocular homeostasis and optimal vision, and an in-situ contact lens. This study exploits the use of a unique tear envelope (TE) extraction technique, which harvests the material-influenced layer of tear film that is in intimate contact with the lens during wear, to specifically investigate the influence of contact lens wear on tear film protein dynamics.

Methods: TEs were collected from freshly removed worn lens using a novel microcentrifuge 'piggyback' technique.

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Introduction: Treatment non-adherence is common in young people with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), yet support is lacking. A self-led self-management intervention supporting teens with IBD (ASSIST-IBD) is a new theory-based digital treatment adherence intervention, co-developed by young people living with IBD. ASSIST-IBD includes 10 short modules supporting adolescents to feel confident to follow their treatment plan, develop skills to overcome adherence obstacles, feel confident when talking to others about IBD and feel positive about the future.

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Many autistic children have feeding problems, typically eating a limited range of foods. Feeding problems affect quality of life, health, and development. Research suggests that parents are often unsure when to or whether to seek help.

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Article Synopsis
  • Heart failure is increasingly challenging due to an ageing population, but mechanical circulatory support devices like ventricular assist devices and Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation (ECMO) are evolving to help manage this condition.
  • This review highlights how these devices function to relieve pressure on the heart and improve physiological measures such as stroke volume and intracardiac pressure, which begin to change immediately after device implantation.
  • While devices like Impella and TandemHeart have shown positive effects on heart function in patients with cardiogenic shock, more research is needed to evaluate their long-term clinical outcomes, and choosing the right device depends on individual patient circumstances.
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Background: The value of co-produced research in health and social care is increasingly recognised, but accounts into the processes and individual experiences of co-producing research are lacking. This paper describes the personal journeys of four researchers (two experts by foster caring experience and two experts by profession) throughout the life course of a co-produced research project exploring the barriers and facilitators to inclusive research in foster caring, the InCLUDE project.

Methods: Each researcher kept a diary throughout the InCLUDE project of their personal reflections, questions, and learning.

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Association of COVID-19 with acute and post-acute risk of multiple different complications and mortality in patients infected with omicron variant stratified by initial disease severity: a cohort study in Hong Kong.

BMC Med

October 2024

Centre for Safe Medication Practice and Research, Department of Pharmacology and Pharmacy, Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine, The University of Hong Kong, L02-57 2/F, Laboratory Block, 21 Sassoon Road, Pokfulam, Hong Kong, SAR, China.

Article Synopsis
  • This study analyzed COVID-19 patients from a Hong Kong health database to differentiate severe and non-severe cases, focusing on age-specific outcomes and clinical parameters.* -
  • Researchers categorized patients into age groups (≤ 40, 41-64, and ≥ 65 years) and further stratified them based on their COVID-19 exposure severity, which included critically, severely, mildly-moderately exposed, and unexposed groups.* -
  • The findings revealed that as COVID-19 severity increased, so did the risks for various health issues, particularly in older adults, highlighting the importance of age in disease outcome assessments.*
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Purpose This study aimed at studying the neurological manifestation of neonatal acute kidney injury, focusing on the clinico-radiological profile. Methodology In this cross-sectional study, newborns hospitalized in the neonatal intensive care unit of a tertiary care hospital were enrolled over a study period of one year. As per the Kidney Disease: Improving Global Outcome (KDIGO) criteria, 74 neonates were enrolled, and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) was performed on the same neonates.

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Article Synopsis
  • The study examined the relationship between seasons and variations in serum testosterone levels in a group of 144 men, analyzing various seasonal environmental factors.
  • Results showed no significant differences in testosterone levels or associations with seasonal changes, although a slight inverse correlation was found between temperature, daylight, and testosterone in non-fasting men.
  • The findings suggest that seasonal factors may not significantly impact serum testosterone levels, which could help clarify variables affecting clinical practices and laboratory results.
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Article Synopsis
  • This study examined the effectiveness and reliability of study preregistration in psychology by analyzing 300 research studies to see how closely they followed their preregistered plans.
  • The findings revealed that many preregistrations lacked essential methodological details and frequently deviated from their original plans, which suggests that research biases are still possible.
  • To enhance the accuracy and utility of preregistration, the authors recommend improved training for researchers, more detailed registration templates, and better transparency in reporting deviations.
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Plastics are an indispensable part of modern life. Due to the harmful environmental consequences of petroleum-based plastic usage, there is an urgent need to replace them with biodegradable bioplastics that meet the sustainability standards required for a low environmental footprint. Here, we use plant-derived proteins to produce bioplastics.

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Factors associated with favourable pathological tumour response after neoadjuvant chemotherapy in patients with pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma.

HPB (Oxford)

December 2024

Hepatobiliary and Pancreatic Surgery Unit, Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham, University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust, Birmingham, West Midlands, United Kingdom; College of Medical and Dental Sciences, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, West Midlands, United Kingdom.

Introduction: Pathological response of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) to neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NAT) has been associated with oncological outcome. The aim of the study was to investigate factors associated with favourable tumour regression in patients undergoing pancreatic resection for PDAC.

Methods: Patients who received NAT before undergoing PDAC resection at two institutions were reviewed.

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Aims: To evaluate the myopia control efficacy of Diffusion Optics Technology (DOT) spectacle lenses in children over a 4-year treatment period.

Methods: CYPRESS Part 1 (NCT03623074) was a 3-year multicentre, randomised, controlled, double-masked trial comparing two investigational spectacle lens DOT designs (Test 1, Test 2) and standard single vision Control lenses in 256 North American children aged 6-10 years. Children completing Part 1 (n=200) were invited to enrol in CYPRESS Part 2 (NCT04947735) for an additional 1-year period.

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Article Synopsis
  • The study explores the growing use of deep learning algorithms in radiology for diagnostic support, emphasizing the need for Explainable AI (XAI) to enhance transparency and trust among healthcare professionals.
  • A user study evaluated two visual XAI techniques (Grad-CAM and LIME) in diagnosing pneumonia and COVID-19 from chest images, achieving high accuracy rates of 90% and 98%, respectively.
  • Despite generally positive perceptions of XAI systems, participants showed limited awareness of their practical benefits, with Grad-CAM being favored for coherency and trust, though concerns about its usability in clinical settings were noted.
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Sudden cardiac death after myocardial infarction: individual participant data from pooled cohorts.

Eur Heart J

November 2024

Department of Cardiology, Angiology and Intensive Care Medicine, Deutsches Herzzentrum der Charité, Campus Charité Mitte, Charitéplatz 1, 10117 Berlin, Germany.

Article Synopsis
  • This study looks at how well doctors can predict sudden cardiac death after someone has a heart attack using a measurement called left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF).
  • They combined information from over 140,000 heart attack patients to see if LVEF alone is good enough for deciding who should get a heart device called a defibrillator.
  • The results showed that LVEF didn't do a great job at predicting sudden cardiac death, which means doctors need better ways to tell who is at risk.
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Article Synopsis
  • The study explores the use of polarisation-modulated patterns to effectively detect and monitor macular damage and foveolar involvement.
  • A large sample of 520 eyes was analyzed using optical coherence tomography and machine learning methods, focusing on radially structured polarisation patterns as significant predictors of damage.
  • Results demonstrate that Naïve Bayes models utilizing selected features can accurately predict macular issues, showing a good correlation and suggesting that traditional visual acuity measures may be redundant in this context.
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Objective: To explore the process of paediatric cochlear implant assessment, from referral to implantation, from the perspective of parents, cochlear implant professionals, and through observations of clinics.

Design: Qualitative approach, using grounded theory methodology.

Study Sample: Twelve families with children under 5 years with permanent hearing loss referred for a cochlear implant or received an implant in the past year, and six professionals who refer or assess children for cochlear implants.

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Background: The adolescent borderline personality disorder (BPD) diagnosis has been widely debated for many years. Strikingly, young people's experiences of both receiving a diagnosis of BPD, and of living with BPD, are largely under-explored. The current study seeks to address these gaps in the literature in a multi-perspectival design utilising young people-parent dyads.

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Meibomian gland tortuosity, truncation, and dilation in paediatric dry eye disease: A multi-centre, investigator-masked, cross-sectional study.

Ocul Surf

October 2024

Department of Ophthalmology, Aotearoa New Zealand National Eye Centre, The University of Auckland, New Zealand; School of Optometry, College of Health and Life Sciences, Aston University, Birmingham, United Kingdom. Electronic address:

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Background: Research suggests that a two-factor model of impulsivity predicts Substance Use Disorder and Gambling Disorder. We aimed to determine whether a similar factor structure was present for Gaming Disorder (GD) and Internet Gaming Disorder (IGD).

Methods: Secondary data analysis was conducted on survey responses from 372 participants who had completed a series of questions on facets of impulsivity and their involvement in gaming.

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Objective: Fasting hyperglycemia and hypertriglyceridemia are characteristic of insulin resistance (IR) and rodent work has suggested this may be due to selective hepatic IR, defined by increased hepatic gluconeogenesis and de novo lipogenesis (DNL), but this has not been shown in humans.

Design: Cross-sectional study in men and women across a range of adiposity.

Methods: Medication-free participants (n = 177) were classified as normoinsulinemic (NI) or hyperinsulinemic (HI) and as having low (LF) or high (HF) liver fat content measured by magnetic resonance spectroscopy.

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Elemental analysis is a fundamental method for determining the carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, sulphur, and oxygen (CHNSO) contents in organic materials. Automated conventional elemental analysers are commonly used for CHNSO determinations, but they face challenges when analysing volatile organic liquids due to sample losses. This present study explores the combination of gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC/MS) and gas chromatography-flame ionisation detection (GC/FID) as a more accurate alternative method for elemental analysis of such liquids.

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Aggravating mechanisms from COVID-19.

Virol J

September 2024

College of Health and Life Sciences, Aston University, Birmingham, B4 7ET, UK.

Article Synopsis
  • - Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) triggers immune-related diseases through mechanisms like inflammasome activation, cGAS-STING signaling, and SAMHD1 tetramerization, all of which lead to the production of type I interferon (IFN-I).
  • - The virus employs certain proteins (ORF3a, NSP6, NSP7, and NSP8) to inhibit immune responses, helping it replicate and evade detection, affecting various signaling pathways in the host's immune system.
  • - The combined effects of these mechanisms contribute to severe health issues in multiple organs, including kidneys, liver, heart, brain, and gastrointestinal systems, highlighting the need for effective treatments to manage the disease
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From clinical development to real-world outcomes with inclisiran.

Curr Opin Lipidol

December 2024

Imperial Centre for Cardiovascular Disease Prevention, Department of Primary Care and Public Health, Imperial College, London, UK.

Article Synopsis
  • Inclisiran is a small interfering RNA that lowers LDL cholesterol by targeting PCSK9 mRNA in the liver, leading to a 50% reduction in LDL levels when used alongside other lipid-lowering therapies.
  • Over 500,000 doses have been administered globally with no significant adverse effects reported, and its biannual injections make it an easy treatment option.
  • Major clinical trials, such as ORION 9, 10, and 11, show inclisiran is effective in further reducing LDL cholesterol in patients on statins, with mild side effects primarily at the injection site.
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