Opioid agonist therapy discontinuation in British Columbia: a cross-sectional study of people who access harm reduction services.

Objectives: This study evaluates the prevalence and correlates of opioid agonist therapy (OAT) discontinuation across British Columbia (BC), using a sample of individuals who used substances and accessed harm reduction sites.

Design: This study uses data from the 2019 cross-sectional Harm Reduction Client Survey (HRCS).

Setting: The 2019 survey was administered from October to December at 22 harm reduction supply distribution sites across the 5 Regional Health Authorities of BC.

'Entanglement of nursing care': A theoretical proposition to understand the complexity of nursing work and division of labour.

Ongoing challenges in the provision of care, driven by growing care complexity and nursing shortages, prompt us to reconsider the basis for efficient division of nursing labour. In organising nursing work, traditionally the focus has been on identifying nursing tasks that can be delegated to other less expensive and less highly educated staff, in order to make best use of scarce resources. We argue that nursing care activities are connected and intertwined.

Adjustable wind selectivity in shearwaters implies knowledge of the foraging landscape.

Understanding the movements of highly mobile animals is challenging because of the many factors they must consider in their decision-making. Many seabirds, for example, are adapted to use winds to travel long distances at low energetic cost but also potentially benefit from targeting specific foraging hotspots. To investigate how an animal makes foraging decisions, given the inevitable trade-off between these factors, we tracked over 600 foraging trips of breeding Manx shearwaters (Puffinus puffinus; N = 218 individuals) using GPS accelerometers.

Stress reactivity moderates the association between early experiences of unpredictability and emotional problems in adolescents.

Researchers have documented that exposure to different kinds of psychosocial stressors can lead to emotional difficulties and, further, that heightened reactivity to stress can moderate these associations. Recently, investigators have distinguished among threat, deprivation, and unpredictability as different dimensions of early life stress (ELS). It is not clear, however, whether reactivity in specific stress response systems functions as a diathesis to lead to emotional difficulties following exposure to these dimensions of ELS.

Late development of sensory thresholds for horizontal relative disparity in human visual cortex in the face of precocial development of thresholds for absolute disparity.

Immaturities exist at multiple levels of the developing human visual pathway, starting with immaturities in photon efficiency and spatial sampling in the retina and on through immaturities in early and later stages of cortical processing. Here we use Steady-State Visual Evoked Potentials (SSVEPs) and controlled visual stimuli to determine the degree to which sensitivity to horizontal retinal disparity is limited by the visibility of the monocular half-images, the ability to encode absolute disparity or the ability to encode relative disparity. Responses were recorded from male and female human participants at average ages of 5.

Generating Virtual Bone Scans for the Purpose of Investigating the Effects of Cortical Microstructure.

Evaluating the contribution of microstructure to overall bone strength is tricky since it is difficult to control changes to pore structure in human or animal samples. We developed an open-source program that can generate three-dimensional models of micron-scale cortical bone. These models can be highly customized with a wide array of variable input parameters to allow for generation of samples with high similarity to CT scans of cortical bone or with specific geometric features.

Prognostic Features and Potential for Immune Therapy in Metastatic Mismatch Repair-Deficient Colorectal Cancer: A Retrospective Analysis of a Large Consecutive Population-Based Patient Series.

Background: Immune checkpoint inhibition therapies have provided remarkable results in numerous metastatic cancers, including mismatch repair-deficient (dMMR) colorectal cancer (CRC). To evaluate the potential for PD-1 blockade therapy in a large population-based cohort, we analyzed the tumor microenvironment and reviewed the clinical data and actualized treatment of all dMMR CRCs in Central Finland province between 2000 and 2015.

Material And Methods: Of 1343 CRC patients, 171 dMMR tumors were identified through immunohistochemical screening.

Comparison of Associations of Food Security Instruments and Mediators With Premature All-Cause and Cardiovascular Disease Death in US Adults.

Background: Food insecurity is associated with high morbidity and mortality and is typically measured with the 10-item US Adult Food Security Survey Module. Shorter instruments may capture similar information, but this has not been validated against mortality in general populations.

Methods: A nationally representative sample of individuals aged 20 to 74 years from the US National Health Interview Survey 2011 to 2018 was included, with deaths linked to the National Death Index through 2019.

Changes in Cannabis Use Patterns in Psychiatric Populations Pre- and Post-Legalization of Recreational Cannabis Use in Canada: A Repeated Cross-Sectional Survey.

Objective: Since the federal Canadian government legalized cannabis in 2018, cannabis use in the general population has slightly increased. However, little is known about the impact of cannabis legalization on pattens of cannabis use in psychiatric populations.

Method: We studied changes in daily/almost daily and average 30-day cannabis use amongst individuals currently using cannabis who reported past 12-month experiences of specific mental health disorders and among those without past 12-month experiences of any mental health disorder before and after Canadian legalization of recreational cannabis use ( = 13,527).

Deciphering the Evolution of Current Distribution in Hybrid Silver Vanadium Oxide / Carbon Monofluoride Cathodes within Lithium Primary Batteries.

For batteries to function effectively all active material must be accessible requiring both electron and ion transport to each particle. A common approach to generating the needed conductive network is the addition of carbon to create a composite electrode. An alternative approach is the electrochemically induced formation of conductive reaction products where the electrochemically generated materials are in intimate contact with the active material contributing to effective connection of each active particle.

Neuromodulation Strategies in Lennox-Gastaut Syndrome: Practical Clinical Guidance from the Pediatric Epilepsy Research Consortium.

Lennox-Gastaut syndrome (LGS) is a severe developmental and epileptic encephalopathy characterized by multiple drug-resistant seizure types, cognitive impairment, and distinctive electroencephalographic patterns. Neuromodulation techniques, including vagus nerve stimulation (VNS), deep brain stimulation (DBS), and responsive neurostimulation (RNS), have emerged as important treatment options for patients with LGS who do not respond adequately to antiseizure medications. This review, developed with input from the Pediatric Epilepsy Research Consortium (PERC) LGS Special Interest Group, provides practical guidance for clinicians on the use of these neuromodulation approaches in patients with LGS.

Effects of Extremely Low-Frequency Electromagnetic Field Treatment on ASD Symptoms in Children: A Pilot Study.

Background/objectives: Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) are neurodevelopmental disorders marked by challenges in social interaction, communication, and repetitive behaviors. People with ASD may exhibit repetitive behaviors, unique ways of learning, and different ways of interacting with the world. The term "spectrum" reflects the wide variability in how ASD manifests in individuals, including differences in abilities, symptoms, and support needs, and conditions characterized by difficulties in social interactions, communication, restricted interests, and repetitive behaviors.

rTMS Modulation of Behavioral and Biological Measures in 3xTg-AD Mice.

Background/objectives: The biological basis for behavioral manifestations of Alzheimer's disease remains unclear. Emotional and behavioral alterations of Alzheimer's disease can result in substantial caregiver burden and lack effective management. This study expands upon previous work investigating behavioral alterations in mice with Alzheimer's disease and a potential treatment of increasing brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) using repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS).

Gestational Duration and Postnatal Age-Related Changes in Aperiodic and Periodic Parameters in Neonatal and Toddler Electroencephalogram (EEG).

The brain develops most rapidly during pregnancy and early neonatal months. While prior electrophysiological studies have shown that aperiodic brain activity undergoes changes across infancy to adulthood, the role of gestational duration in aperiodic and periodic activity remains unknown. In this study, we aimed to bridge this gap by examining the associations between gestational duration and aperiodic and periodic activity in the EEG power spectrum in both neonates and toddlers.

Barriers and Facilitators to Quality Healthcare for African Americans with Incarceration Histories.

Background: Prior research has shown that African American men and women are more likely to receive lower quality healthcare compared to their white counterparts, which is exacerbated in jail and prison healthcare systems.

Objective: The purpose of this study is to explore barriers and facilitators to quality healthcare among African American men and women released from Illinois State Prisons or Cook County Jail by examining their opinions and experiences with overall healthcare and cancer screening during and after incarceration.

Design: Four focus groups (n = 25 "co-researchers") were conducted to understand how formerly incarcerated African American men and women perceive and describe their experience of accessing, understanding, and utilizing healthcare during and after incarceration.