Risk characterization of organic micropollutants in public wastewater treatment plant effluents in Flanders, Belgium.

This study investigates the ecological risks posed by organic micropollutants (OMPs) in wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) effluents in Flanders, Belgium based on single-compound risk characterization. Utilizing a five-year monitoring dataset from the Flemish Environment Agency (VMM) and employing seven ecological threshold values (ETV) types, this research characterizes the risk of 207 OMPs, including pharmaceuticals, pesticides, industrial chemicals, and other pollutants. Several OMPs persist in effluents at concentrations that pose significant ecological risks after secondary and tertiary treatment processes in the region of Flanders (Belgium).

Pulmonary vascular complications of cirrhosis: hepatopulmonary syndrome and portopulmonary hypertension.

Hepatopulmonary syndrome (HPS) and portopulmonary hypertension (POPH) are two distinct pulmonary vascular complications seen in patients with liver disease and/or portal hypertension. HPS is characterized by disturbed gas exchange and hypoxemia because of intrapulmonary vascular dilatations. POPH is defined by pulmonary arterial hypertension, which might lead to right heart failure.

Evaluation of AUTION EYE AI-4510 flow cell morphology analyzer for counting particles in urine.

Objectives: We evaluated the performance of a novel flow cell morphology analyzer AUTION EYE AI-4510 for counting particles in urine.

Methods: Analytical performance was assessed according to the EFLM European Urinalysis Guideline 2023. Trueness was compared by analyzing 1.

Measurement of multidifferential cross sections for dijet production in proton-proton collisions at .

A measurement of the dijet production cross section is reported based on proton-proton collision data collected in 2016 at by the CMS experiment at the CERN LHC, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of up to 36.3 . Jets are reconstructed with the anti- algorithm for distance parameters of and 0.

Steam sterilisation of disposable surgical gowns does not compromise resistance to wet microbial penetration.

Background: Reuse of disposable medical products is common practice in veterinary medicine; however, studies on the safety of such reuse are often lacking. This study aimed to determine whether steam sterilisation of disposable surgical gowns compromises their resistance to wet microbial penetration.

Methods: Twenty surgical gowns were removed from their sterile packaging, manipulated, wetted, dried and subsequently repacked and steam sterilised.

Nebulized aminoglycosides for ventilator-associated pneumonia: Methodological considerations and lessons from experimental studies.

Aminoglycosides are concentration-dependent antibiotics exerting a bactericidal effect when concentrations at the site of infection are equal to or greater than 5 times the minimum inhibitory concentrations (MIC). When administered intravenously, they exhibit poor lung penetration and high systemic renal and ototoxicity, imposing to restrict their administration to 5 days. Experimental studies conducted in anesthetized and mechanically ventilated sheep and pigs provide evidence that high doses of nebulized aminoglycosides induce a rapid and potent bacterial killing in the infected lung parenchyma.

The crucial role of 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography/computed tomography in diagnosing pulmonary valve endocarditis in patients after transcatheter pulmonary valve implantation: a case report.

Background: Patients after transcatheter pulmonary valve implantation (TPVI) are at increased risk for infective prosthetic valve endocarditis. Diagnosis of infective endocarditis (IE) following TPVI is particularly difficult due to impaired visualization of the transcatheter pulmonary valve (TPV) with echocardiography [Delgado V, Ajmone Marsan N, de Waha S, Bonaros N, Brida M, Burri H, et al. 2023 ESC guidelines for the management of endocarditis.

Embedding-based pair generation for contrastive representation learning in audio-visual surveillance data.

Smart cities deploy various sensors such as microphones and RGB cameras to collect data to improve the safety and comfort of the citizens. As data annotation is expensive, self-supervised methods such as contrastive learning are used to learn audio-visual representations for downstream tasks. Focusing on surveillance data, we investigate two common limitations of audio-visual contrastive learning: false negatives and the minimal sufficient information bottleneck.

CytoNorm 2.0: A flexible normalization framework for cytometry data without requiring dedicated controls.

Cytometry is a single cell, high-dimensional, high-throughput technique that is being applied across a range of disciplines. However, many elements alongside the data acquisition process might give rise to technical variation in the dataset, called batch effects. CytoNorm is a normalization algorithm for batch effect removal in cytometry data that was originally published in 2020 and has been applied on a variety of datasets since then.

Multiple Sclerosis Nursing to Improve Care and Education (MSNICE): an observational study.

Objective: To explore differences in patient reported outcomes, health care resources and expenditures in persons with multiple sclerosis (pwMS) with or without access to an MS-nurse.

Methodology: An observational, multicenter and cross-sectional study was conducted. Seven centers with, and twelve centers without an MS-nurse participated.

RNA-sequencing unveils FLT4 splice site variants in variable congenital heart disease.

The etiology of congenital heart disease (CHD) is complex, comprising both genetic and environmental factors. Despite documented familial occurrences, the genetic etiology remains largely elusive. Trio exome sequencing identified a heterozygous FLT4 splice site variant in two families with respectively tetralogy of Fallot (TOF), and variable CHD comprising both the TOF spectrum and aortic coarctation.

Machine learning meta-analysis identifies individual characteristics moderating cognitive intervention efficacy for anxiety and depression symptoms.

Cognitive training is a promising intervention for psychological distress; however, its effectiveness has yielded inconsistent outcomes across studies. This research is a pre-registered individual-level meta-analysis to identify factors contributing to cognitive training efficacy for anxiety and depression symptoms. Machine learning methods, alongside traditional statistical approaches, were employed to analyze 22 datasets with 1544 participants who underwent working memory training, attention bias modification, interpretation bias modification, or inhibitory control training.

Investigating cognitive-physical task interaction during self-paced cycling: a Granger Causality study.

Self-pacing physical exercise is thought to rely on high-order cognitive processing (e.g., attentional control to monitor afferent cardiovascular feedback for exercise goals).

Effect evaluation of a participatory developed school-based healthy sleep intervention for adolescents.

Objective: Sleep deprivation and reduced sleep quality are common in adolescents and negatively impact their physical and mental wellbeing. This study evaluates the effect of a participatory-developed school-based healthy sleep intervention for adolescents.

Method: A 16-week long intervention, cocreated with adolescents, was conducted with two schools with four schools serving as measurement-only controls.

PRRSV-2 nsp2 Ignites NLRP3 inflammasome through IKKβ-dependent dispersed trans-Golgi network translocation.

The NLRP3 inflammasome is a fundamental component of the innate immune system, yet its excessive activation is intricately associated with viral pathogenesis. Porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus type 2 (PRRSV-2), belonging to the family Arteriviridae, triggers dysregulated cytokine release and interstitial pneumonia, which can quickly escalate to acute respiratory distress and death. However, a mechanistic understanding of PRRSV-2 progression remains unclear.

Therapeutic drug monitoring versus Bayesian AUC-based dosing for vancomycin in routine practice: a cost-benefit analysis.

Background: AUC-based dosing with validated Bayesian software is recommended as a good approach to guide bedside vancomycin dosing.

Objectives: To compare treatment and vancomycin-associated acute kidney injury (AKI) costs between Bayesian AUC-based dosing and conventional therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM) using steady-state plasma concentrations of vancomycin administered as continuous infusion in hospitalized non-critically ill patients with severe Gram-positive infection.

Methods: A cost-benefit analysis presented as a return on investment (ROI) analysis from a hospital perspective was conducted using a decision tree model (TDM versus AUC-based dosing) to simulate treatment cost (personnel, serum sampling and drug cost), vancomycin-associated AKI risk and cost up to 14 days.

Realizing zero-threshold population inversion plasmonic doping.

Lowering the population inversion threshold is key to leveraging quantum dots (QDs) for nanoscale lasing and laser miniaturization. However, optical realization of population inversion in QDs has an inherent limitation: the number of excited electrons per QD is bound by the absorbed photons. Here we show that one can break this population limit and realize near-zero threshold inversion plasmonic doping.

The role of N-methyladenosine (mA) mRNA modifications in herpesvirus infections.

Herpesviruses, a family of large enveloped DNA viruses, establish persistent infections in a wide range of hosts. This characteristic requires an intricate network of interactions with their hosts and host cells. In recent years, the interplay between herpesviruses and the epitranscriptome-chemical modifications in transcripts that may affect mRNA biology and fate-has emerged as a novel aspect of herpesvirus-host interactions.

Verruciform Acanthotic Vulvar Intraepithelial Neoplasia Harbors Recurrent Genomic Alterations Found in HPV-independent Squamous Cell Carcinoma.

The term verruciform acanthotic vulvar intraepithelial neoplasia (vaVIN) was coined to describe HPV-independent p53-wildtype lesions with characteristic clinicopathologic characteristics and association with vulvar squamous cell carcinoma (vSCC). We aimed to expand on the molecular landscape of vaVIN using comprehensive sequencing and copy number variation profiling. vaVIN diagnosis in institutional cases was confirmed by a second review, plus negative p16 and wildtype p53 by immunohistochemistry.

Deciphering the biosynthetic pathway of triterpene saponins in Prunella vulgaris.

The traditional Chinese medicinal plant Prunella vulgaris contains numerous triterpene saponin metabolites, notably ursolic and oleanolic acid saponins, which have significant pharmacological values. Despite their importance, the genes responsible for synthesizing these triterpene saponins in P. vulgaris remain unidentified.

Roads to remission: evolving treatment concepts in type 2 inflammatory diseases.

Unlabelled: Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) characterised by type 2 inflammation, including asthma, allergic rhinitis, chronic rhinosinusitis with nasal polyps, atopic dermatitis, food allergies and eosinophilic esophagitis, are increasing in prevalence worldwide. Currently, there is a major paradigm shift in the management of these diseases, towards the concept of disease modification and the treatment goal remission, regardless of severity and age. Remission as a treatment goal in chronic inflammatory NCDs was first introduced in rheumatoid arthritis, and then adopted in other non-type 2 inflammatory diseases.

Who is WithMe? EEG features for attention in a visual task, with auditory and rhythmic support.

Introduction: The study of attention has been pivotal in advancing our comprehension of cognition. The goal of this study is to investigate which EEG data representations or features are most closely linked to attention, and to what extent they can handle the cross-subject variability.

Methods: We explore the features obtained from the univariate time series from a single EEG channel, such as time domain features and recurrence plots, as well as representations obtained directly from the multivariate time series, such as global field power or functional brain networks.

Ethical considerations on surrogacy†.

Surrogacy is the assisted reproductive technology (ART) practice in which a person becomes pregnant, carries, and delivers a child on behalf of another couple/person, who are the intended parent(s). Surrogacy is an especially complex practice as the interests of the intended parents, the gestational carrier, and the future child may differ. This paper considers ethical questions related to different forms of surrogacy.