High-density surface electromyography allows to identify risk conditions and people with and without low back pain during fatiguing frequency-dependent lifting activities.

Low back pain (LBP) is a leading cause of disability in the workplace, often caused by manually lifting of heavy loads. Instrumental-based assessment tools are used to quantitatively assess the biomechanical risk of lifting activities. This study aims to verify that, during the execution of fatiguing frequency-dependent lifting, high-density surface electromyography (HDsEMG) allows the discrimination of healthy controls (HC) versus people with LBP and biomechanical risk levels.

Making chemistry accessible for learners with vision impairment.

Pupils with vision impairment face significant challenges in learning science. Here, the authors discuss the impact of an inaccessible curriculum and new ideas that can improve accessibility.

Anogenital injury following sexual assault and consensual sexual intercourse: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

Background: Sexual violence is a grave human rights violation and a serious global public health challenge. Rates of reporting of sexual violence and subsequent passage of cases through the criminal justice system are poor all over the world. The presence or absence of anogenital injury following sexual assault may influence survivors in their willingness to report a crime, and law enforcement officers and jurors in their decision making regarding the laying of charges and/or conviction of offenders.

Muscular Adaptations to Concurrent Resistance Training and High-Intensity Interval Training in Adults with Type 2 Diabetes: A Pilot Study.

This pilot study aimed to compare the effects of eight weeks of concurrent resistance training (RT) and high-intensity interval training (HIIT) vs. RT alone on muscle performance, mass and quality in adults with type 2 diabetes (T2DM). Twelve T2DM adults were randomly allocated to the RT + HIIT (n = 5) or RT (n = 7) group.

Gene regulatory network analysis predicts cooperating transcription factor regulons required for FLT3-ITD+ AML growth.

AML is a heterogenous disease caused by different mutations. We have previously shown that each mutational sub-type develops its specific gene regulatory network (GRN) with transcription factors interacting with multiple gene modules, many of which are transcription factor genes themselves. Here we hypothesized that highly connected nodes within such networks comprise crucial regulators of AML maintenance.

Is there a role for higher cognitive processes in the development of obesity in humans?

Cognition underpins the flexibility of human eating and disruption to higher cognitive processes, such as inhibitory control and memory, and can result in increased food intake, which in the long term could result in weight gain. The aim of this review is to provide an overview of the current evidence on cognition as a causal factor in the development of obesity in humans. Evidence from meta-analyses supports the suggestion that cognitive function is cross-sectionally associated with obesity even when controlling for a range of confounding variables.

A Novel Treatment to Selectively Harden Ti6Al4V Surfaces.

Various surface treatments have been developed on titanium and its alloy to improve their tribological properties. However, for some components, only specific surfaces need to be hardened rather than the whole surfaces. This study develops a duplex heat treatment including selective surface hardening by prepainting TiO powders and thermal oxidation.

Hybrid Finite Element-Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics Modelling for Optimizing Cutting Parameters in CFRP Composites.

Carbon-fibre-reinforced plastic (CFRP) is increasingly being used in various applications including aerospace, automotive, wind energy, sports, and robotics, which makes the precision modelling of its machining operations a critical research area. However, the classic finite element modelling (FEM) approach has limitations in capturing the complexity of machining, particularly with regard to the interaction between the fibre-matrix interface and the cutting edge. To overcome this limitation, a hybrid approach that integrates smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPHs) with FEM was developed and tested in this study.

The risk of all-cause mortality associated with anxiety: a retrospective cohort study using 'The Health Improvement Network' database.

Background: Anxiety is a prevalent condition with a substantial associated burden of morbidity. Previous literature investigating effects of anxiety on mortality rates has found conflicting results. This is in part due to inadequate consideration of comorbid depression as a confounder and analysing sub-types of anxiety together.

System Derived Spatial-Temporal CNN for High-Density fNIRS BCI.

An intuitive and generalisable approach to spatial-temporal feature extraction for high-density (HD) functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS) brain-computer interface (BCI) is proposed, demonstrated here using Frequency-Domain (FD) fNIRS for motor-task classification. Enabled by the HD probe design, layered topographical maps of Oxy/deOxy Haemoglobin changes are used to train a 3D convolutional neural network (CNN), enabling simultaneous extraction of spatial and temporal features. The proposed spatial-temporal CNN is shown to effectively exploit the spatial relationships in HD fNIRS measurements to improve the classification of the functional haemodynamic response, achieving an average F1 score of 0.

Reconciling art and science in the era of personalised medicine: the legacy of George Canguilhem.

Background: Biomedicine, i.e. the application of basic sciences to medicine, has become the cornerstone for the study of etiopathogenesis and treatment of diseases.

Virtual reality and surgical oncology.

More than 80% of people diagnosed with cancer will require surgery. However, less than 5% have access to safe, affordable and timely surgery in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) settings mostly due to the lack of trained workforce. Since its creation, virtual reality (VR) has been heralded as a viable adjunct to surgical training, but its adoption in surgical oncology to date is poorly understood.

Loss of Ezh2 function remodels the DNA replication initiation landscape.

In metazoan cells, DNA replication initiates from thousands of genomic loci scattered throughout the genome called DNA replication origins. Origins are strongly associated with euchromatin, particularly open genomic regions such as promoters and enhancers. However, over a third of transcriptionally silent genes are associated with DNA replication initiation.

Illicit drug use in university students in the UK and Ireland: a PRISMA-guided scoping review.

Background: Interest in the health and well-being of university students has increased in the UK and Ireland in the past two decades as their numbers have grown. Recent high-profile deaths of students after using illicit drugs have highlighted the importance of the topic for policy makers. This scoping review maps the state of the existing literature evaluating use of illicit drugs in university students in the UK and Ireland.

Being better than well at the University of Birmingham.

Ongoing recovery from addiction often happens outside of formal "treatment" settings. Collegiate recovery programs (CRPs) have existed in higher education institutions in the United States since the 1980s as part of vital "recovery ready ecosystems" (Ashford et al., 2020) for those with educational aspirations.

British Gynaecological Cancer Society Recommendations for Evidence Based, Population Data Derived Quality Performance Indicators for Ovarian Cancer.

Ovarian cancer survival in the UK lags behind comparable countries. Results from the ongoing National Ovarian Cancer Audit feasibility pilot (OCAFP) show that approximately 1 in 4 women with advanced ovarian cancer (Stage 2, 3, 4 and unstaged cancer) do not receive any anticancer treatment and only 51% in England receive international standard of care treatment, i.e.

A genome-wide relay of signalling-responsive enhancers drives hematopoietic specification.

Developmental control of gene expression critically depends on distal cis-regulatory elements including enhancers which interact with promoters to activate gene expression. To date no global experiments have been conducted that identify their cell type and cell stage-specific activity within one developmental pathway and in a chromatin context. Here, we describe a high-throughput method that identifies thousands of differentially active cis-elements able to stimulate a minimal promoter at five stages of hematopoietic progenitor development from embryonic stem (ES) cells, which can be adapted to any ES cell derived cell type.

Medicine Adherence and Associated Factors in Immigrants and Refugees: A Systematic Review.

Medicine nonadherence is a major contributing factor to morbidity and mortality. Almost half of the chronically ill patients are nonadherent to their medication. Vulnerable groups like immigrants and refugees are at a higher risk of poor medication adherence.

Surface oxidation protection strategy of CoS by VO for electrocatalytic hydrogen evolution reaction.

Transition metal sulfides (TMSs) are promising electrocatalysts for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER), while TMSs usually suffer from inevitable surface oxidation in air, and the impact of the surface oxidation on their HER catalytic activity remains unclear. Herein, we demonstrate an effective strategy for reducing the surface oxidation degree of easily oxidized CoS by introducing glued vanadium pentoxide (VO) nanoclusters, taking advantage of the preferential adsorption and strong interaction between high-valence V and O. Combining oxidation protection and elaborate oxidation control experiments reveal that reduced surface oxidation degree of CoS is conducive to affording promising HER catalytic performance, as the oxidized surface of CoS can hinder the dissociation of water and thus is harmful to the HER process.

Exposure to domestic abuse and the subsequent risk of developing periodontal disease.

Aims: Periodontal disease and domestic abuse (DA) are significant public health problems. Previous cross-sectional evidence indicates an association between DA exposure and development of periodontal disease. There have been no large-scale cohort studies exploring this relationship in a UK-setting.

Association between childhood maltreatment and atopy in the UK: A population based retrospective cohort study.

Background: Childhood maltreatment affects over one in three children worldwide and is associated with a substantial disease burden. This study explores the association between childhood maltreatment and the development of atopic disease.

Methods: We did a population-based retrospective matched open cohort study using participating general practices between 1st January 1995 and 30th September 2019.

Identification and interrogation of the gene regulatory network of CEBPA-double mutant acute myeloid leukemia.

Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is a heterogeneous hematological malignancy caused by mutations in genes encoding transcriptional and epigenetic regulators together with signaling genes. It is characterized by a disturbance of differentiation and abnormal proliferation of hematopoietic progenitors. We have previously shown that each AML subtype establishes its own core gene regulatory network (GRN), consisting of transcription factors binding to their target genes and imposing a specific gene expression pattern that is required for AML maintenance.

A short communication of Nipah virus outbreak in India: An urgent rising concern.

In the past two decades, countries like Malaysia, Singapore, Bangladesh, and India have recorded several cases of Nipah virus (NiV) infection. Following the 2018 NiV outbreak in the Kozhikode district of Kerala, India that claimed 17 lives, there has been a recent re-emergence of the virus in the same district, causing the recently reported death of a 12-year-old boy. Accordingly, population panic has heightened as inhabitants of these areas try to together combat the existing COVID-19 pandemic alongside the emerging NiV infection.

Yellow fever outbreak in Kenya: A review.

Yellow fever (YF) is a viral acute hemorrhagic illness caused by infected mosquitoes of the flavivirus family. The first yellow fever outbreak in Kenya was in 1992. Similar outbreaks were recorded in the western part of the country in 1993, 1995, and 2011, particularly in the Rift Valley province of Kenya.