Racial and Educational Isolation are Associated with Worse Outcomes in Congenital Heart Disease.

Sociodemographic factors influence outcomes in children with congenital heart disease (CHD). We predict an association between measures of social isolation and outcomes in infants with complex CHD. These measures, racial (RI) and educational (EI) isolation range from 0 to 1, with 0 being no isolation and 1 being fully isolated within a specific population.

Ex-vivo lung perfusion: National trends and post-transplant outcomes.

Background: Ex-vivo lung perfusion (EVLP) has potential to expand donor lung utilization, evaluate allograft viability, and mitigate ischemia-reperfusion injury. However, trends in EVLP use and recipient outcomes are unknown on a national scale. We examined trends in EVLP use and recipient outcomes in the United States.

Application of Artificial Intelligence to Analyze Data from Randomized Controlled Trials: An Example from DECAAF-II.

Background: Causal machine learning (ML) provides an efficient way of identifying heterogeneous treatment effect groups from hundreds of possible combinations, especially for randomized trial data.

Objective: The aim of this paper is to illustrate the potential of applying causal ML on the DECAAF II trial data. We proposed a causal ML model to predict the treatment response heterogeneity.

Analysis of Method Performance for Quantitative Assessment of Listeria monocytogenes in Queso Fresco Cheese.

A Proficiency Test (PT) was conducted for Food Emergency Response Network (FERN) laboratories for quantitative assessment of Listeria monocytogenes (L. monocytogenes) in queso fresco cheese. The Moffett Proficiency Test Laboratory: MPTL (organizer) prepared test samples for each participating laboratory with 10 CFU/g of L.

Impact of patient age on morbidity and mortality in adults with acute traumatic cervical spinal cord injury: An ACS trauma quality programs database study.

Background: This study aimed to examine associations between age and outcomes in acute cervical SCI (cSCI) patients.

Methods: We conducted a retrospective cohort study using the American College of Surgeons Trauma Quality Programs database to compare outcomes for acute cSCI patients stratified by age: 18-44, 45-65, and > 65 years. Patient demographics, comorbidities, injury type, treatment modality, AEs, and length of stay (LOS) were assessed.

Gender inventorship equity in patent prosecution.

There are pervasive gender gaps throughout the patent process. Here, we add to the literature by providing an in-depth analysis of gendered outcomes across each stage of patent prosecution. We show that female inventors are more likely to face rejection, experience unsuccessful appeals, and exhibit lower responsiveness to rejections than male counterparts.

Warming-induced changes in seasonal priority effects drive shifts in community composition.

Shifting community assembly dynamics are an underappreciated mechanism by which warming will alter plant community composition. Germination timing (which can determine the order in which seedlings emerge within a community) will likely shift unevenly across species in response to warming. In seasonal environments where communities reassemble at the beginning of each growing season, changes in germination timing could lead to changes in seasonal priority effects, and ultimately community composition.

Physical function, functional capacity, cognition, and brain structure and function in older adults with chronic kidney disease (CKD).

Objective: To evaluate associations between brain structure/function with physical function and functional capacity in older adults with CKD and cognitive complaints.

Methods: We evaluated associations between neuroimaging and cognitive function with functional capacity and physical function in older adults (60-80years) with CKD and cognitive complaints (n = 39; age 67.6 years).

BiomedRAG: A retrieval augmented large language model for biomedicine.

Retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) involves a solution by retrieving knowledge from an established database to enhance the performance of large language models (LLM). , these models retrieve information at the sentence or paragraph level, potentially introducing noise and affecting the generation quality. To address these issues, we propose a novel BiomedRAG framework that directly feeds automatically retrieved chunk-based documents into the LLM.

Neurophysiological Markers of Regulation Success in Everyday Life in Depression.

Background: Self-regulation often is disrupted in depression and is characterized by negative affect and inflexible parasympathetic responses. Yet, our understanding of brain mechanisms of self-regulatory processes largely has been limited to laboratory contexts. Measuring individual differences in self-regulatory processes in everyday life - and their neural correlates - could inform our understanding of depression phenotypes and reveal novel intervention targets that impact everyday functioning.

Heterogeneous entity representation for medicinal synergy prediction.

Motivation: Forecasting the synergistic effects of drug combinations facilitates drug discovery and development, especially regarding cancer therapeutics. While numerous computational methods have emerged, most of them fall short in fully modeling the relationships among clinical entities including drugs, cell lines, and diseases, which hampers their ability to generalize to drug combinations involving unseen drugs. These relationships are complex and multidimensional, requiring sophisticated modeling to capture nuanced interplay that can significantly influence therapeutic efficacy.

Patient-Centered mHealth Intervention to Improve Self-Care in Patients With Chronic Heart Failure: Phase 1 Randomized Controlled Trial.

Background: Heart failure (HF) is one of the most common causes of hospital readmission in the United States. These hospitalizations are often driven by insufficient self-care. Commercial mobile health (mHealth) technologies, such as consumer-grade apps and wearable devices, offer opportunities for improving HF self-care, but their efficacy remains largely underexplored.

Review of Outcomes After Peripheral Nerve Transfers for Motor Nerve Injury in the Upper Extremity.

Background: Modern nerve-to-nerve transfers are a significant advancement in peripheral nerve surgery. Nerve transfers involve transferring donor nerves or branches to recipient nerves close to the motor end unit, leading to earlier reinnervation and preservation of the musculotendinous units in proximal nerve injuries. After nerve reinnervation, function may be superior to traditional tendon transfer techniques in terms of strength and independent motion.

Orthodontic retainers: are they all the same?

Introduction: It is known that the stability of the results obtained with orthodontic treatment depends, in addition to the functional and aesthetic aspects, also on the adequate planning of the retention devices, the patient's compliance with this new phase, and the physiological changes that the human body experiences over the years, throughout the craniofacial aging process.

Objective: This article discusses the importance of the orthodontic retention phase and the influence of diagnosis, planning and execution of corrective treatment of malocclusions, in order to achieve the expected success.

Methods: Throughout the text, different types of retainers and approaches during this phase will be presented, with the aim of ensuring the stability of the results obtained after correcting problems in the vertical, transverse and anteroposterior directions.

Two Decades Since the Unequal Treatment Report: The State of Racial, Ethnic, and Socioeconomic Disparities in Elective Total Hip and Knee Replacement Use.

Published in 2003 by the Institute of Medicine, Unequal Treatment: Confronting Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Health Care placed an unprecedented spotlight on disparities in the U.S. health-care system.

Elevating Orthopaedic Excellence Through Professional Coaching.

» Increased professional, personal, and emotional stress can have compounding negative effects on physicians, which can be detrimental to teamwork dynamics, workplace environment, productivity, and personal well-being. Orthopaedic surgery, in particular, is a medical specialty that demonstrates high workplace demands, elevated rates of burnout, and low workplace diversity.» Professional coaching can help combat these challenges and facilitate professional success by providing an outlet for discussion and planning toward one's career development and goals.

Increased Systemic Immune-Inflammatory Index and Association with Occult Nodal Disease in Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer.

Background: It has been proposed that more aggressive tumors trigger a stronger inflammatory response than less aggressive types. We hypothesize that systemic immune inflammatory index (SII) is associated with occult nodal disease (OND) in clinically node negative (cN0) patients undergoing lung resection for non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

Study Design: The study included patients who underwent lung resection with nodal dissection, according to current guidelines, at a single center between 2010-2021 for NSCLC.

How can modeling responsibly inform decision-making in malaria?

When models are used to inform decision-making, both their strengths and limitations must be considered. Using malaria as an example, we explain how and why models are limited and offer guidance for ensuring a model is well-suited for its intended purpose.

Artificial Intelligence-Guided Lung Ultrasound by Nonexperts.

Importance: Lung ultrasound (LUS) aids in the diagnosis of patients with dyspnea, including those with cardiogenic pulmonary edema, but requires technical proficiency for image acquisition. Previous research has demonstrated the effectiveness of artificial intelligence (AI) in guiding novice users to acquire high-quality cardiac ultrasound images, suggesting its potential for broader use in LUS.

Objective: To evaluate the ability of AI to guide acquisition of diagnostic-quality LUS images by trained health care professionals (THCPs).

Self-affirmation intervention for patients newly diagnosed with advanced cancer: a preliminary efficacy trial.

Objective: Cancer diagnosis represents a life crisis. It remains unclear whether/what psychosocial intervention may enhance cancer patients' quality of life (QoL) during existential plight. This study aimed to examine preliminary efficacy of a brief writing intervention for patients newly diagnosed with advanced cancer with a focus on affirming personally important values and beliefs.