Clinical Relevancies of Sarcopenic Obesity in Patients with Metabolic Dysfunction-Associated Fatty Liver Disease (MASLD).

Aim: Sarcopenic obesity (SO) is associated with adverse outcomes in diseased patients. This study aimed to examine the prevalence and risks associated with SO, with a focus on the impact of SO on cardiovascular risk in patients with MASLD.

Materials And Methods: In this cross-sectional study, patients with MASLD were prospectively enrolled.

Therapeutic effects of erythropoietin-alginate/chitosan hydrogel on impaired male rat fertility after spinal cord injury.

Background: Infertility is a significant issue in spinal cord injury (SCI) patients. Men with SCI often experience erectile and ejaculatory dysfunctions, and low sperm quality leading to impaired fertility. In this study, we investigated the effectiveness of Erythropoietin (EPO)alginate/chitosan (CH-AL) hydrogel on SCI-induced male rat infertility.

Targeting ultra-processed foods for prevention of type 2 diabetes: state of the evidence and future directions.

The incidence of type 2 diabetes has risen globally, in parallel with the obesity epidemic and environments promoting a sedentary lifestyle and low-quality diet. There has been scrutiny of ultra-processed foods (UPFs) as a driver of type 2 diabetes, underscored by their increasing availability and intake worldwide, across countries of all incomes. This narrative review addresses the accumulated evidence from investigations of the trends in UPF consumption and the relationship with type 2 diabetes incidence.

Associations between bone material strength index and FRAX scores.

Introduction: Impact microindentation (IMI) measures bone material strength index (BMSi) in vivo. However, its ability to predict fractures is still uncertain. This study aimed to determine the association between BMSi and 10 year fracture probability, as calculated by the FRAX algorithm.

Cultural Differences in Visual Attention Emerge in Infancy.

East Asians are more likely than North Americans to attend to visual scenes holistically, focusing on the relations between objects and their background rather than isolating components. This cultural difference in context sensitivity-greater attentional allocation to the background of an image or scene-has been attributed to socialization, yet it is unknown how early in development it appears, and whether it is moderated by social information. We employed eye-tracking to investigate context-sensitivity in 15-month-olds in Japan (n = 45) and the United States (n = 52).

Population Genomics Reveals Local Adaptation Related to Temperature Variation in Two Stream Frog Species: Implications for Vulnerability to Climate Warming.

Identifying populations at highest risk from climate change is a critical component of conservation efforts. However, vulnerability assessments are usually applied at the species level, even though intraspecific variation in exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity play a crucial role in determining vulnerability. Genomic data can inform intraspecific vulnerability by identifying signatures of local adaptation that reflect population-level variation in sensitivity and adaptive capacity.

Management Measures and Trends of Biological Invasions in Europe: A Survey-Based Assessment of Local Managers.

Biological invasions are a major threat to biodiversity, ecosystem functioning and nature's contributions to people worldwide. However, the effectiveness of invasive alien species (IAS) management measures and the progress toward achieving biodiversity targets remain uncertain due to limited and nonuniform data availability. Management success is usually assessed at a local level and documented in technical reports, often written in languages other than English, which makes such data notoriously difficult to collect at large geographic scales.

A parallel bioreactor strategy to rapidly determine growth-coupling relationships for bioproduction: a mevalonate case study.

Background: The climate crisis and depleting fossil fuel reserves have led to a drive for 'green' alternatives to the way we manufacture chemicals, and the formation of a bioeconomy that reduces our reliance on petrochemical-based feedstocks. Advances in Synthetic biology have provided the opportunity to engineer micro-organisms to produce compounds from renewable feedstocks, which could play a role in replacing traditional, petrochemical based, manufacturing routes. However, there are few examples of bio-manufactured products achieving commercialisation.

V-ATPase in glioma stem cells: a novel metabolic vulnerability.

Background: Glioblastoma (GBM) is a lethal brain tumor characterized by the glioma stem cell (GSC) niche. The V-ATPase proton pump has been described as a crucial factor in sustaining GSC viability and tumorigenicity. Here we studied how patients-derived GSCs rely on V-ATPase activity to sustain mitochondrial bioenergetics and cell growth.

Tumour DNA methylation markers associated with breast cancer survival: a replication study.

Background: Tumour DNA methylation has been investigated as a potential marker for breast cancer survival, but findings often lack replication across studies.

Methods: This study sought to replicate previously reported associations for individual CpG sites and multi-CpG signatures using an Australian sample of 425 women with breast cancer from the Melbourne Collaborative Cohort Study (MCCS). Candidate methylation sites (N = 22) and signatures (N = 3) potentially associated with breast cancer survival were identified from five prior studies that used The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) methylation dataset, which shares key characteristics with the MCCS: comparable sample size, tissue type (formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded; FFPE), technology (Illumina HumanMethylation450 array), and participant characteristics (age, ancestry, and disease subtype and severity).

Palliative care needs and quality of life among adults with advanced chronic illnesses in low-income communities of Bangladesh.

Objectives: Palliative care (PC) is an interdisciplinary approach aimed at improving the physical, psychological, and spiritual well-being of patients and families affected by life-threatening diseases. This study aimed to investigate the need for PC among critically ill patients and their quality of life (QOL) in low-income groups in Bangladesh.

Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted at four healthcare facilities from March to April 2023, involving 553 registered patients with advanced chronic conditions.

Resilience, coping strategies, and disaster experience: a path analysis of preparedness and avoidance in Taiwan.

Background: This study investigates the relationships between resilience dimensions, coping strategies, and prior disaster experience, focusing on disaster preparedness and avoidance behaviors in Taiwan.

Methods: A total of 550 participants were surveyed, with 57.82% being female and the majority aged between 21 and 40 years.

Treatment of gouty lumbar spinal stenosis: a case report and bioinformatics analysis.

The case of Lumbar spinal stenosis (LSS) combined with tophi due to gout is rarely reported. In the course of our clinic work, we encountered a young male patient who was diagnosed with a history of gout for 5 years and was targeted as LSS combined with gouty tophi, and we would like to share this case. In addition, in order to further investigate the deep mechanism of LSS associated with gout, we obtained the intersecting genes of the two diseases based on a machine learning approach by obtaining the dataset GSE113212 related to LSS from the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database, and the genes related to gout from the human gene database.

A contentious intervention to support the medical workforce: a case study of the policy of introducing physician associates in the United Kingdom.

Background: Health systems across Europe are facing a workforce crisis, with some experiencing severe shortages of doctors. In response, many are exploring greater task-sharing, across established professions, such as doctors, nurses, and pharmacists, with patients and carers, and with new occupational groups, in particular ones that can assist doctors and relieve their workload.

Case Presentation: In the early 2000s the United Kingdom created a new occupational role, that of physician assistant.

China's national continuing medical education program for general practitioners: a cross-sectional survey (2016-2023).

Background: Pursuing excellence in healthcare delivery systems is an ongoing process. In this process, continuing medical education (CME) is essential for medical professionals to maintain high standards of patient care. In China, where the healthcare sector is undergoing considerable reforms and faces challenges owing to socioeconomic development and demographic shifts, an effective CME system is vital for general practitioners (GPs).

The incidence of radiologically verified community-acquired pneumonia requiring hospitalisation in adults living in southern Sweden, 2016-2018: a population-based study.

Background: Community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) was one of the most common causes of death in the European Union in 2017. Severity and mortality of CAP increase with age and an aging European population will require increased planning for prevention, control, and management of CAP. The purpose of this study was to provide an updated population-based estimate of the incidence of CAP requiring hospitalization in Northern Europe.

Genomic reanalysis of a pan-European rare-disease resource yields new diagnoses.

Genetic diagnosis of rare diseases requires accurate identification and interpretation of genomic variants. Clinical and molecular scientists from 37 expert centers across Europe created the Solve-Rare Diseases Consortium (Solve-RD) resource, encompassing clinical, pedigree and genomic rare-disease data (94.5% exomes, 5.

Tucatinib and trastuzumab in HER2-mutated metastatic breast cancer: a phase 2 basket trial.

Human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2, also known as ERBB2) signaling promotes cell growth and differentiation, and is overexpressed in several tumor types, including breast, gastric and colorectal cancer. HER2-targeted therapies have shown clinical activity against these tumor types, resulting in regulatory approvals. However, the efficacy of HER2 therapies in tumors with HER2 mutations has not been widely investigated.

Somatic CAG repeat expansion in blood associates with biomarkers of neurodegeneration in Huntington's disease decades before clinical motor diagnosis.

Huntington's disease (HD) is an autosomal dominant neurodegenerative disease with the age at which characteristic symptoms manifest strongly influenced by inherited HTT CAG length. Somatic CAG expansion occurs throughout life and understanding the impact of somatic expansion on neurodegeneration is key to developing therapeutic targets. In 57 HD gene expanded (HDGE) individuals, ~23 years before their predicted clinical motor diagnosis, no significant decline in clinical, cognitive or neuropsychiatric function was observed over 4.

The role of MEGF10 in myoblast fusion and hypertrophic response to overload of skeletal muscle.

Biallelic mutations in multiple EGF domain protein 10 (MEGF10) gene cause EMARDD (early myopathy, areflexia, respiratory distress and dysphagia) in humans, a severe recessive myopathy, associated with reduced numbers of PAX7 positive satellite cells. To better understand the role of MEGF10 in satellite cells, we overexpressed human MEGF10 in mouse H-2k-tsA58 myoblasts and found that it inhibited fusion. Addition of purified extracellular domains of human MEGF10, with (ECD) or without (EGF) the N-terminal EMI domain to H-2k-tsA58 myoblasts, showed that the ECD was more effective at reducing myoblast adhesion and fusion by day 7 of differentiation, yet promoted adhesion of myoblasts to non-adhesive surfaces, highlighting the importance of the EMI domain in these behaviours.

YOLOSeg with applications to wafer die particle defect segmentation.

This study develops the you only look once segmentation (YOLOSeg), an end-to-end instance segmentation model, with applications to segment small particle defects embedded on a wafer die. YOLOSeg uses YOLOv5s as the basis and extends a UNet-like structure to form the segmentation head. YOLOSeg can predict not only bounding boxes of particle defects but also the corresponding bounding polygons.

Changes in the potato rhizosphere microbiota richness and diversity occur in a growth stage-dependent manner.

Plant root and soil-associated microbiomes are influenced by niches, including bulk and rhizosphere soil. In this work, we collected bulk and rhizosphere soil samples at four potato developmental stages (leaf growth, flowering, tuber elongation and harvest) to identify whether rhizosphere microbiota are structured in a growth stage-dependent manner. The bacterial and fungal microbiota showed significant temporal differences in the rhizosphere and bulk soil.

Stretch-induced endogenous electric fields drive directed collective cell migration in vivo.

Directed collective cell migration is essential for morphogenesis, and chemical, electrical, mechanical and topological features have been shown to guide cell migration in vitro. Here we provide in vivo evidence showing that endogenous electric fields drive the directed collective cell migration of an embryonic stem cell population-the cephalic neural crest of Xenopus laevis. We demonstrate that the voltage-sensitive phosphatase 1 is a key component of the molecular mechanism, enabling neural crest cells to specifically transduce electric fields into a directional cue in vivo.

Use of approved cefazolin based intramammary dry goat treatment and its effects on the milk microbiota.

Intramammary dry-off treatment is widely considered an effective method for preventing and curing intramammary infection (IMI) in lactating cows; however, it is not commonly used in small ruminants like goats. Therefore, this study was designed to evaluate the effect of an approved cefazolin-based intramammary treatment on the milk microbiota of Alpine dairy goats during the dry and early lactation periods. Sixty goats were randomly selected based on bacteriological results and randomly allocated into the control group (CG) or the treatment group (TG).

Anti-correlation of LacI association and dissociation rates observed in living cells.

The rate at which transcription factors (TFs) bind their cognate sites has long been assumed to be limited by diffusion, and thus independent of binding site sequence. Here, we systematically test this assumption using cell-to-cell variability in gene expression as a window into the in vivo association and dissociation kinetics of the model transcription factor LacI. Using a stochastic model of the relationship between gene expression variability and binding kinetics, we performed single-cell gene expression measurements to infer association and dissociation rates for a set of 35 different LacI binding sites.