A positive association between postpartum electrohysterography parameters and blood loss after vaginal delivery: A prospective study.

Introduction: The postpartum period can be complicated by hemorrhage, frequently caused by uterine atony. Electrohysterography, allowing continuous monitoring of uterine activity, may be a promising alternative for early detection of uterine atony, and thereby contribute to the prevention of postpartum hemorrhage. Associations between electrohysterographic parameters postpartum and total blood loss were studied.

Deep-learning-based extraction of circle of Willis topology with anatomical priors.

The circle of Willis (CoW) is a circular arrangement of arteries in the human brain, exhibiting significant anatomical variability. The CoW is extensively studied in relation to neurovascular pathologies, with certain anatomical variants previously linked to ischemic stroke and intracranial aneurysms. In an individual CoW, arteries might be absent (aplasia) or underdeveloped (hypoplasia, diameter < 1 mm).

Deep learning on CT scans to predict checkpoint inhibitor treatment outcomes in advanced melanoma.

Immune checkpoint inhibitor (ICI) treatment has proven successful for advanced melanoma, but is associated with potentially severe toxicity and high costs. Accurate biomarkers for response are lacking. The present work is the first to investigate the value of deep learning on CT imaging of metastatic lesions for predicting ICI treatment outcomes in advanced melanoma.

- a large-scale dataset of 3D medical shapes for computer vision.

Objectives: The shape is commonly used to describe the objects. State-of-the-art algorithms in medical imaging are predominantly diverging from computer vision, where voxel grids, meshes, point clouds, and implicit surface models are used. This is seen from the growing popularity of ShapeNet (51,300 models) and Princeton ModelNet (127,915 models).

Tissue growth as a mechanism for collagen fiber alignment in articular cartilage.

Articular cartilage is distinguished by the unique alignment of type II collagen, a feature crucial for its mechanical properties and function. This characteristic organization is established during postnatal development of the tissue, yet the underlying mechanisms remain poorly understood. In this study, a potential mechanism for type II collagen alignment by cartilage-specific growth from within the tissue was investigated.

Assessing COVID-19 transmission through school and family networks using population-level registry data from the Netherlands.

Understanding the impact of different types of social interactions is key to improving epidemic models. Here, we use extensive registry data-including PCR test results and population-level networks-to investigate the impact of school, family, and other social contacts on SARS-CoV-2 transmission in the Netherlands (June 2020-October 2021). We isolate and compare different contexts of potential SARS-CoV-2 transmission by matching pairs of students based on their attendance at the same or different primary school (in 2020) and secondary school (in 2021) and their geographic proximity.

Multi-Night Home Assessment of Total Sleep Time Misperception in Obstructive Sleep Apnea with and Without Insomnia Symptoms.

Total sleep time (TST) misperception has been reported in obstructive sleep apnea (OSA). However, previous findings on predictors were inconsistent and predominantly relied on single-night polysomnography, which may alter patients' sleep perception. We leveraged advances in wearable sleep staging to investigate predictors of TST misperception in OSA over multiple nights in the home environment.

A hitchhiker's guide to deep chemical language processing for bioactivity prediction.

Deep learning has significantly accelerated drug discovery, with 'chemical language' processing (CLP) emerging as a prominent approach. CLP approaches learn from molecular string representations (, Simplified Molecular Input Line Entry Systems [SMILES] and Self-Referencing Embedded Strings [SELFIES]) with methods akin to natural language processing. Despite their growing importance, training predictive CLP models is far from trivial, as it involves many 'bells and whistles'.

How Highly Heterogeneous Sensors with Single-Molecule Resolution can Result in Robust Continuous Monitoring Over Long Time Spans.

Biomolecular sensors with single-molecule resolution are composed of multitudes of transducers that measure state changes related to single-molecular binding and unbinding events. Conventionally, signals are aggregated from many individual transducers in order to achieve sufficient statistics. However, by aggregating signals, transducer-to-transducer differences are lost and heterogeneities cannot be studied.

Steering perovskite precursor solutions for multijunction photovoltaics.

Multijunction photovoltaics (PVs) are gaining prominence owing to their superior capability of achieving power conversion efficiencies (PCEs) beyond the radiative limit of single-junction cells, where improving narrow bandgap tin-lead perovskites is critical for thin-film devices. With a focus on understanding the chemistry of tin-lead perovskite precursor solutions, we herein find that Sn(II) species dominate interactions with precursors and additives and uncover the exclusive role of carboxylic acid in regulating solution colloidal properties and film crystallisation, and ammonium in improving film optoelectronic properties. Materials that combine these two function groups, amino acid salts, considerably improve the semiconducting quality and homogeneity of perovskite films, surpassing the effect of the individual functional groups when introduced as part of separate molecules.

Harnessing Imine Chemistry for the Debonding-on-Demand of Polyurethane Adhesives.

Traditional adhesives often result in irreversible bonds, hindering disassembly and recycling processes. In response to the growing demand for sustainable practices, researchers have explored alternative bonding solutions. Debonding-on-demand adhesives represent a breakthrough, enabling selective weakening or breaking of adhesive bonds when desired and facilitating efficient disassembly, repair, and recycling of bonded materials.

Mechanism and Kinetics of Hydration of CuSO·HO in the Presence of an Intermediate Step.

The hydration of salt hydrates is often described as a solution mediated nucleation and growth mechanism, occurring between a reagent and a product in thermodynamic equilibrium with each other. If a system possesses more than one hydrate phase, the kinetic pathway may involve additional mechanisms due to the formation of intermediate hydrate species. We elected CuSO as our model system and analyzed the pathway leading from CuSO·HO (C1H) to CuSO·5HO (C5H), while CuSO·3HO (C3H) being a possible intermediate.

Bothersome Back Exchange in MALDI Plume and Its Impact on Hydrogen/Deuterium Exchange Mass Spectrometry Analysis.

One critical issue in hydrogen/deuterium exchange mass spectrometry (HDX MS) analysis is the deleterious back exchange. Herein, we report that when matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization (MALDI) is used, the MALDI process itself can also cause significant back exchange. The back exchange occurred inside the reactive MALDI plume was investigated by depositing a fully deuterated sample prepared in DO on top of a preloaded dried layer of matrix.

Immunoaffinity Intact Top-Down Mass Spectrometry for Quantification of Neuron-Specific Enolase Gamma, a Low-Abundance Protein Biomarker.

Quantification of intact proteins in serum by liquid chromatography high-resolution mass spectrometry (HRMS) may be a useful alternative to bottom-up LC-MS or conventional ligand binding assays, due to reduced assay complexity and by providing additional information, such as isoform differentiation or detection of post-translational modifications. The 47.2 kDa lung cancer tumor marker neuron-specific enolase γ (NSEγ) was quantified in a clinically relevant concentration range of 6.

Predicting preterm birth using electronic medical records from multiple prenatal visits.

This study aimed to predict preterm birth in nulliparous women using machine learning and easily accessible variables from prenatal visits. Elastic net regularized logistic regression models were developed and evaluated using 5-fold cross-validation on data from 8,830 women in the Nulliparous Pregnancy Outcomes Study: New Mothers-to-Be (nuMoM2b) dataset at three prenatal visits: - , - , and - weeks of gestational age (GA). The models' performance, assessed using Area Under the Curve (AUC), sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy, consistently improved with the incorporation of data from later prenatal visits.

Pneumatic coding blocks enable programmability of electronics-free fluidic soft robots.

Decision-making based on environmental cues is a crucial feature of autonomous systems. Embodying this feature in soft robots poses nontrivial challenges on both hardware and software that can undermine the simplicity and autonomy of such devices. Existing pneumatic electronics-free soft robots have so far mostly been approached by using system fluidic circuit architectures analogous to digital electronics.

Ortho-functionalized pyridinyl-tetrazines break the inverse correlation between click reactivity and cleavage yields in click-to-release chemistry.

The bioorthogonal tetrazine-triggered cleavage of trans-cyclooctene(TCO)-linked payloads has strong potential for widespread use in drug delivery and in particular in click-cleavable antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs). However, clinical translation is hampered by an inverse correlation between click reactivity and payload release yield, requiring high doses of less reactive tetrazines to drive in vivo TCO reactions and payload release to completion. Herein we report that the cause for the low release when using the highly reactive bis-(2-pyridinyl)-tetrazine is the stability of the initially formed 4,5-dihydropyridazine product, precluding tautomerization to the releasing 1,4-dihydropyridazine tautomer.

Thin liquid films stabilized by plant proteins: Implications for foam stability.

Hypothesis: Plant-based proteins offer a sustainable solution for stabilizing multiphase food materials like edible foams and emulsions. However, challenges in understanding and engineering plant protein-stabilized interfaces persist, mostly because of the commonly poorer functionality and complex composition of the respective protein isolates. We hypothesize that part of the limited understanding is related to the lack of experimental data on the length-scale of the thin liquid film that separates two neighboring bubbles.

Brain-Computer Interfaces Using Flexible Electronics: An a-IGZO Front-End for Active ECoG Electrodes.

Brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) are evolving toward higher electrode count and fully implantable solutions, which require extremely low power densities (<15mW cm). To achieve this target, and allow for a large and scalable number of channels, flexible electronics can be used as a multiplexing interface. This work introduces an active analog front-end fabricated with amorphous Indium-Gallium-Zinx-Oxide (a-IGZO) Thin-Film Transistors (TFTs) on foil capable of active matrix multiplexing.

Continuous Biosensing to Monitor Acute Systemic Inflammation, a Diagnostic Need for Therapeutic Guidance.

Continuous monitoring of acute inflammation can become a very important next step for guiding therapeutic interventions in severely ill patients. This Perspective discusses the current medical need for patients with acute inflammatory diseases and the potential of continuous biosensing technologies. First, we discuss biomarkers that could help to monitor the state of a patient with acute systemic inflammation based on theoretical studies and empirical data.

Gold Nanoparticles Decorated with HPLC6-Derived Peptides as a Platform for Ice Recrystallization Inhibition.

In nature, organisms living in extreme environmental conditions produce antifreeze proteins (AFPs) that prevent the growth of ice crystals and depress the freezing point of body fluids. In this study, three different peptides derived from the N-terminal sequence of the helical type I AFP HPLC6, along with a stapled derivative produced via on-resin microwave-assisted copper(I)-catalyzed azide-alkyne cycloaddition, were conjugated to gold nanoparticles. The aim of decorating the surface of the nanoparticles with multiple copies of the peptides was to combine the ice-binding capability of the peptides with the size of a nanoparticle, thus, mimicking the protein bulkiness to enhance the peptide antifreeze activity.

Single-Molecule Multivalent Interactions Revealed by Plasmon-Enhanced Fluorescence.

Multivalency as an interaction principle is widely utilized in nature. It enables specific and strong binding by multiple weak interactions through enhanced avidity and is a core process in immune recognition and cellular signaling, which is also a current concept in drug design. Here, we use the high signals from plasmon-enhanced fluorescence of nanoparticles to extract binding kinetics and dynamics of multivalent interactions on the single-molecule level and in real time.

Cu-Ag interactions in bimetallic Cu-Ag catalysts enhance C product formation during electrochemical CO reduction.

The electroreduction of CO (CORR) is a promising alternative to the direct CO electroreduction reaction (CO2RR) to produce C products. Cu-based electrocatalysts enable the formation of C-C bonds, leading to various C hydrocarbon and oxygenate products. Herein, we investigated how the composition of bimetallic Cu-Ag catalysts impacted the nature of the Cu-Ag interactions and the product distribution of the CORR, aiming to improve the selectivity to C products.

Rheology of paste-like food inks for 3D printing: Effects of nutrient and water content.

This research delves into understanding the effects of composition on the rheological response of multi-component food inks for 3D food printing. Accordingly, the motivation is to decouple the nutrient and water content effects on the rheology. We formulated inks by combining pea fractions with water and employing a water-holding-capacity based hydration method.