Survival after surgery for acute type A aortic dissection in octogenarians.

Objective: To evaluate the benefits of surgical repair acute type A aortic dissection (ATAAD) on survival of octogenarians.

Methods: Patients who underwent surgery for acute ATAAD from the multicenter European Registry of Type A Aortic Dissection (ERTAAD) were the subjects of the present analysis.

Results: 326 (8.

Polygenic score distribution differences across European ancestry populations: implications for breast cancer risk prediction.

Background: The 313-variant polygenic risk score (PRS) provides a promising tool for clinical breast cancer risk prediction. However, evaluation of the PRS across different European populations which could influence risk estimation has not been performed.

Methods: We explored the distribution of PRS across European populations using genotype data from 94,072 females without breast cancer diagnosis, of European-ancestry from 21 countries participating in the Breast Cancer Association Consortium (BCAC) and 223,316 females without breast cancer diagnosis from the UK Biobank.

Possible scenarios for the spread of mpox outside the endemic focus in Africa.

The recent expansion of mpox in Africa is characterized by a dramatic increase in zoonotic transmission (clade Ia) and the emergence of a new clade Ib that is transmitted from human-to-human (H2H) by close contact. Clade Ia does not pose a threat in areas without zoonotic reservoir. But clade Ib may spread widely, as did the clade IIb that since 2022 has spread globally among MSM.

High-fiber content composites produced from mixed textile waste: Balancing cotton and polyester fibers for improved composite performance.

This study investigates the effect of fibers from cotton and polyester textiles on the properties of fiber-reinforced polypropylene (PP) composites aimed at durable and load-bearing materials. Herein we developed a process-centered strategy to introduce 52 wt% of fibers within the thermoplastic matrix, while ensuring proper interfacial coupling. We examined the mechanical, thermal, and rheological properties of composite materials that integrated cotton and polyester waste fibers into PP matrices with different coupling agents.

A forecasting tool for optimized emission control strategies to achieve short-term air quality attainment.

Optimizing an emergency air pollution control strategy for haze events presents a significant challenge due to the extensive computational demands required to quantify the complex nonlinearity associated with controls on diverse air pollutants and regional sources. In this study, we developed a forecasting tool for emergency air pollution control strategies based on a predictive response surface model that quantifies PM responses to emission changes from different pollutants and regions. This tool is equipped to assess the effectiveness of emergency control measures corresponding to various air pollution alerts and to formulate an optimized control strategy aimed at specific PM targets.

Accelerometer-based sedentary time and physical activity with incident and progressive tobacco smoking in 2503 children: A 13-year mediation and temporal longitudinal study.

Background: Long-term accelerometer-based studies examining whether engaging in physical activity (PA) reduces the risk of smoking in children are lacking, and whether directly measured adiposity increases smoking risk is uncertain.

Methods: From the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC), UK birth cohort, 2503 children aged 11 years with complete smoking and at least one valid time-point movement behaviour data were followed up until age 24 years. ActiGraph assessed sedentary time (ST), light PA (LPA), and moderate-to-vigorous PA (MVPA) at ages 11, 15, and 24-year clinic visits and smoking-based questionnaires were administered, whilst fat mass was measured with dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry scanner.

Natural indigo toxicity for aquatic and terrestrial organisms.

Indigo is a widely used colorant available from natural and synthetic origin. It is practically insoluble in water. Indigo can reach aquatic sediments through wastewater discharges from dyeing processes, terrestrial compartments from the treatment sludges used as biosolids and dyed textiles disposed in landfills.

Pseudo-3D HSQC, a method to create a true 2D HSQC-plane. Application to softwood extract analysis.

Pseudo-3D HSQC provides an alternative and easy way to record and analyze quantitative HSQC-data. In the original time-zero extrapolated H-C HSQC (HSQC), three separate 2D constant-time (CT) HSQC-experiments (HSQC, i = 1-3) are acquired, where either 1,2 or 3 consecutive CT-HSQC-propagators are repeated in each pulse sequence, and the 2D integral data from the three 2D experiments is analyzed via linear regression. In the presented pseudo-3D HSQC, HSQC is one of the dimensions and all data is contained within one dataset, which is recorded in interleaved manner by acquiring the same t-value for each HSQC-point before t-incrementation.

One-year hemodynamic and clinical outcomes in self-expanding valves: Comparison of ACURATE neo2 versus ACURATE neo.

Background/purpose: Transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) with ACURATE neo2 showed better hemodynamic outcomes by mitigating paravalvular leakage (PVL) compared with ACURATE neo, and revealed promising one-year outcomes in single-arm studies. However, studies comparing the hemodynamic and clinical outcomes of the two valves are still scarce. Therefore, this study aimed to compare the one-year hemodynamic and clinical outcomes between the neo2 and neo.

Malnutrition Diagnosed via Global Leadership Initiative on Malnutrition (GLIM) Criteria - Association with Clinical Outcomes and Predictive Value: A Systematic Review of Systematic Reviews.

Objectives: Malnutrition is very common in people with cancer. The Global Leadership Initiative on Malnutrition (GLIM) recommendation on criteria has been proposed as a gold standard for diagnosing malnutrition. The diagnosis of malnutrition includes phenotypic criteria such as unintentional weight loss and etiologic criteria such as reduced food intake.

Genome-wide association study of anterior uveitis.

Background/aims: The purpose of this study is to define genetic factors associated with anterior uveitis through genome-wide association study (GWAS).

Methods: In this GWAS meta-analysis, we combined data from the FinnGen, Estonian Biobank and UK Biobank with a total of 12 205 anterior uveitis cases and 917 145 controls. We performed a phenome-wide association study (PheWAS) to investigate associations across phenotypes and traits.

High-sensitivity cardiac troponin T and N-terminal b-type natriuretic propeptide are associated with cardiac and all-cause mortality in older adults - A population-based ten-year follow-up study.

Background: Cardiac troponin T (cTnT) and N-terminal B-type natriuretic propeptide (proBNP) are mainly used as biomarkers to diagnose specific conditions of the heart, but they also have predictive ability. Our aim was to study their associations with cardiovascular and all-cause mortality in an older population in non-acute conditions.

Methods: A population-based study with a ten-year follow-up.

Acrylamide/Alyssum campestre seed gum hydrogels enhanced with titanium carbide: Rheological insights for cardiac tissue engineering.

This study investigates the use of acrylamide and Alyssum campestre seed gum (ACSG) to create hydrogel composites with enhanced electrical and mechanical properties by incorporating titanium carbide (TiC). The composites were analyzed through techniques such as FTIR, SEM, TEM, TGA, swelling, rheology, tensile, electrical conductivity, antibacterial, and MTT assays. XRD analysis showed that 0.

Physiological Characteristics of Freestyle Snowboard and Freeski Athletes.

Purpose: To investigate the physiological characteristics of freestyle snowboard and freeski athletes and explore potential differences between males and females.

Methods: National-team athletes, snowboard (9 males, 21 [2.3] y; 8 females, 20 [4.

Suboptimal dietary patterns are associated with accelerated biological aging in young adulthood: A study with twins.

Background & Aims: Suboptimal diets increase morbidity and mortality risk. Epigenetic clocks are algorithms that can assess health and lifespan, even at a young age, before clinical manifestations of diseases. We investigated the association between dietary patterns and biological aging in young adult twins.

Living with acuteness in chronic illness: The temporal underpinnings of endometriosis.

This article explores how acuteness is experienced by people with endometriosis in Finland. Drawing on in-depth interviews as well as anonymous written endometriosis stories, we trace instances when the sense of chronicity and cyclicality of endometriosis is disrupted by a possibility of risk to life. These instances include when endometriosis tissue grows in unanticipated and aggressive ways, when medical interventions lead to unexpected complications or medications raise concerns about a gradually developing risk, and when endometriosis diagnosis becomes a catch-all category that could mask the onset of a life-threatening condition.

Intervention description of pharmacist-facilitated medication reviews in Nordic primary care settings: a scoping review.

Background: Multicomponent interventions are increasingly utilized to tackle the complexity of aging and co-morbid patients. However, descriptions of interventions are generally poor, making it difficult for healthcare providers to implement successful programs.

Objectives: This study aimed to explore the completeness of intervention description of pharmacist-facilitated medication reviews (MRs) in Nordic primary care settings.

Metagenome-validated combined amplicon sequencing and text mining-based annotations for simultaneous profiling of bacteria and fungi: vaginal microbiota and mycobiota in healthy women.

Background: Amplicon sequencing of kingdom-specific tags such as 16S rRNA gene for bacteria and internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region for fungi are widely used for investigating microbial communities. So far most human studies have focused on bacteria while studies on host-associated fungi in health and disease have only recently started to accumulate. To enable cost-effective parallel analysis of bacterial and fungal communities in human and environmental samples, we developed a method where 16S rRNA gene and ITS1 amplicons were pooled together for a single Illumina MiSeq or HiSeq run and analysed after primer-based segregation.

Identification of confounders and estimating the causal effect of place of birth on age-specific childhood vaccination.

Background: In causal analyses, some third factor may distort the relationship between the exposure and the outcome variables under study, which gives spurious results. In this case, treatment groups and control groups that receive and do not receive the exposure are different from one another in some other essential variables, called confounders.

Method: Place of birth was used as exposure variable and age-specific childhood vaccination status was used as outcome variables.

Specialized palliative outpatient clinic care involvement associated with decreased end-of-life hospital costs in cancer patients, a single center study.

Background: Studies show that hospital deaths bring significant health care costs, and the involvement of specialized palliative care can help to reduce these costs. The aim of this retrospective registry-based study was to evaluate end-of-life hospital costs in patients dying in a university hospital oncology ward, with or without specialized palliative outpatient clinic contact at any timepoint.

Methods: The study population consists of all patients who died in the Kuopio University Hospital oncology ward in the years 2012-2018 (n = 457).

Spinally targeted paired associated stimulation with high-frequency peripheral component induces spinal level plasticity in healthy subjects.

A novel variant of paired-associative stimulation (PAS) consisting of high-frequency peripheral nerve stimulation (PNS) and high-intensity transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) above the motor cortex, called high-PAS, can lead to improved motor function in patients with incomplete spinal cord injury. In PAS, the interstimulus interval (ISI) between the PNS and TMS pulses plays a significant role in the location of the intended effect of the induced plastic changes. While conventional PAS protocols (single TMS pulse often applied with intensity close to resting motor threshold, and single PNS pulse) usually require precisely defined ISIs, high-PAS can induce plasticity at a wide range of ISIs and also in spite of small ISI errors, which is helpful in clinical settings where precise ISI determination can be challenging.

Naturalistic reading of multi-page texts elicits spatially extended modulation of oscillatory activity in the right hemisphere.

The study of the cortical basis of reading has greatly benefited from the use of naturalistic paradigms that permit eye movements. However, due to the short stimulus lengths used in most naturalistic reading studies, it remains unclear how reading of texts comprising more than isolated sentences modulates cortical processing. To address this question, we used magnetoencephalography to study the spatiospectral distribution of oscillatory activity during naturalistic reading of multi-page texts.

Assessing Wound Healing in Vivo Using a Dual-Function Phosphorescent Probe Sensitive to Tissue Oxygenation and Regenerating Collagen.

Levels of tissue oxygenation and collagen regeneration are critical indicators in the early evaluation of wound healing. Traditionally, these factors have been assessed using separate instruments and different methodologies. Here, we adopt the spatially averaged phosphorescence lifetime approach using Re-diimine complexes (Re-probe) to enable simultaneous quantification of these two critical factors in healing wounds.

Multifunctional nanocellulose hybrid films: From packaging to photovoltaics.

This study aimed to develop eco-friendly multifunctional nanocellulose (NC) hybrid films with tailored properties for versatile applications including packaging and photovoltaics. Hybrid films composed by cellulose nanocrystals (CNC) and carboxymethylated cellulose nanofibrils (CNF) were produced at various mass ratio (CNC - 100:0 to 0:100). Montmorillonite clay (MTM) was incorporated (50 % by mass) into the CNC:CNF films.