Long-term retention of the pedicled thymic flap after bronchial stump coverage.

This study aimed to assess the feasibility and retention rates of pedicled thymic flaps to enhance understanding of bronchial stump coverage. A retrospective analysis of 22 consecutive patients who underwent anatomical lung resection followed by bronchial stump coverage with pedicled thymic flaps between January 2017 and December 2022 was conducted. The procedure was performed using a minimally invasive 3-port video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery technique for all patients with no complications related to graft harvest or fixation.

SSL-VQ: Vector-quantized variational autoencoders for semi-supervised prediction of therapeutic targets across diverse diseases.

Motivation: Identifying effective therapeutic targets poses a challenge in drug discovery, especially for uncharacterized diseases without known therapeutic targets (e.g. rare diseases, intractable diseases).

Carbon monoxide alleviates endotoxin-induced acute lung injury via NADPH oxidase inhibition in macrophages and neutrophils.

Sepsis is a life-threatening condition caused by severe infection and often complicates acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) and acute lung injury (ALI) due to the collapse of the oxidative and inflammatory balance induced by microbial pathogens, including lipopolysaccharides (LPS). In sepsis-related ARDS/ALI, NADPH oxidase (NOX) and toll-like receptors (TLR) in neutrophils and macrophages are key players in initiating oxidative and inflammatory imbalances. Although NOX and TLR activation has been linked to carbon monoxide (CO), the mechanism by which CO affects sepsis-related ARDS/ALI through NOX and TLR remains unknown.

Spinal ADAM17 contributes to the pathogenesis of painful diabetic neuropathy in leptin receptor-deficient mice.

The pathogenesis of painful diabetic neuropathy (PDN) is complicated and remains not fully understood. A disintegrin and metalloprotease 17 (ADAM17) is an enzyme that is responsible for the degradation of membrane proteins. ADAM17 is known to be activated under diabetes, but its involvement in PDN is ill defined.

Anaphylaxis definition, overview, and clinical support tool: 2024 consensus report.

Background: The 2006 National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease/Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Network (NIAID/FAAN) anaphylaxis criteria are widely used in clinical care and research. In 2020, the World Allergy Organization (WAO) published modified criteria that have not been uniformly adopted. Different criteria contribute to inconsistent care and research outcomes.

Molecular characterization of feline caliciviruses isolated from several adult cats with atypical infection showing severe flu-like symptoms on a remote island in Ehime, Japan.

In November 2020, a volunteer group reported an outbreak of an infectious disease with a high fatality rate and flu-like symptoms among stray cats in Aoshima, a remote island in Ehime, Japan. Nine adult cats with severe symptoms were hospitalized. Feline calicivirus (FCV) was isolated from pharyngeal swabs of six hospitalized cats.

Age bias in changes in finger dexterity based on brain activation and spinal motor nerve excitability induced by motor imagery practice.

Elderly adults may have poorer recall ability than young adults and may not fully enjoy the effects of motor imagery. To understand the age bias of the effect of motor imagery on hand dexterity, we evaluated brain activation and spinal motor nerve excitability. Brain activation was evaluated from changes in oxygenated hemoglobin concentration, while spinal motor nerve excitability was evaluated from F-waves in eight young (mean age 21.

Prevalence, incidence, and clinical features of cardiac involvement in patients with pulmonary sarcoidosis.

Background: The epidemiology and characteristics of cardiac involvement in patients with pulmonary sarcoidosis remain unclear. We aimed to determine the prevalence, incidence, and clinical features of cardiac sarcoidosis in patients with pulmonary sarcoidosis.

Methods: The characteristics of patients with biopsy-proven pulmonary sarcoidosis were retrospectively evaluated.

Rare Disease Policy in High-Income Countries: An Overview of Achievements, Challenges, and Solutions.

Objectives: To provide an overview of policy initiatives in high-income countries aimed at supporting the development and accessibility of treatments for rare diseases.

Methods: We examine how legislative, research, and pricing policies in high-income countries address barriers that have historically hindered innovation and access to rare disease treatments. By analysing examples from the EU, UK, US, Canada, Japan, and Australia, the article identifies ongoing initiatives, outlines current challenges, and explores proposed solutions to foster a sustainable, innovative, and accessible rare disease treatment ecosystem.

Fetal fibroblast heterogeneity defines dermal architecture during human embryonic skin development.

To investigate heterogeneity of fibroblasts in human fetal skin, we analysed published single-cell RNA sequencing data (8 and 16 post conception weeks (PCW)) and performed single-molecule fluorescence in situ hybridisation to map their spatial distribution and predicted dynamic interactions. Clustering revealed 8 fibroblast populations with developmental stage-specific abundance changes. Proliferative cells (MKI67+) were present at all stages.

A 96-week real-world outcome of upadacitinib treatment for atopic dermatitis: systemic therapy-naive versus -experienced patients.

Background: Long-term (2-year) effectiveness of upadacitinib for atopic dermatitis (AD) is unknown in real-world practice.

Objective: To evaluate 96-week real-world effectiveness of upadacitinib in Japanese patients with moderate-to-severe AD, stratified by the presence or absence of prior systemic therapies.

Methods: This prospective study included 327 Japanese patients treated with upadacitinib 15 mg (n = 248) or 30 mg (n = 79).

Enhancing single-stage partial nitritation-anammox process with airlift inner-circulation and oxygen partition: a novel strategy for treating high-strength ammonium wastewater.

In the single-stage partial nitritation-anammox process for high-ammonium wastewater treatment, the presence of sufficient biomass with high activity is essential. This study developed an innovative airlift inner-circulation partition bioreactor (AIPBR) with a dual-cylinder structure. During the 362 days' operation, the AIPBR exhibited robust and stable nitrogen removal performance under diverse influent ammonium spanning from 300 to 1800 mg N/L.

Swarm systems as a platform for open-ended evolutionary dynamics.

Artificial swarm systems have been extensively studied and used in computer science, robotics, engineering and other technological fields, primarily as a platform for implementing robust distributed systems to achieve pre-defined objectives. However, such swarm systems, especially heterogeneous ones, can also be utilized as an ideal platform for creating open-ended evolutionary dynamics that do not converge toward pre-defined goals but keep exploring diverse possibilities and generating novel outputs indefinitely. In this article, we review Swarm Chemistry and its variants as concrete sample cases to illustrate beneficial characteristics of heterogeneous swarm systems, including the cardinality leap of design spaces, multi-scale structures/behaviours and their diversity, and robust self-organization, self-repair and ecological interactions of emergent patterns, all of which serve as the driving forces for open-ended evolutionary processes.

Swarm shepherding using bearing-only measurements.

Drawing inspiration from natural herding behaviours, shepherding provides a method for swarm guidance that utilizes steering agents and can be applied in biological and robotics systems at various scales. However, while most shepherding research has relied on the precise sensing capabilities of steering agents, these assumptions do not necessarily hold in real-world tasks. To fill in the gap between practice and literature, in this study, we demonstrate that swarm shepherding can be achieved via bearing-only measurements, and explore the minimum amount of information required.

Signalling and social learning in swarms of robots.

This paper investigates the role of communication in improving coordination within robot swarms, focusing on a paradigm where learning and execution occur simultaneously in a decentralized manner. We highlight the role communication can play in addressing the credit assignment problem (individual contribution to the overall performance), and how it can be influenced by it. We propose a taxonomy of existing and future works on communication, focusing on information selection and physical abstraction as principal axes for classification: from low-level lossless compression with raw signal extraction and processing to high-level lossy compression with structured communication models.

Xanomeline-Trospium for Adults with Schizophrenia Experiencing Acute Psychosis: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis of Safety and Tolerability Outcomes.

The United States Food and Drug Administration approved the xanomeline-trospium combination in September 2024 for treating schizophrenia, based in part on three double-blind, randomized placebo-controlled trials in adults with schizophrenia experiencing acute psychosis. This random-effects model pairwise meta-analysis of those three trials found that xanomeline-trospium was comparable to placebo in terms of all-cause discontinuation, discontinuation rate due to adverse events, Simpson-Angus Scale score change, Barnes Akathisia Rating Scale score change, body weight change, body mass index change, blood pressure change, serum total cholesterol change, blood glucose change, QTc interval changes, and the incidence of headache, somnolence, insomnia, dizziness, akathisia, agitation, tachycardia, gastroesophageal reflux disease, diarrhea, increased weight, and decreased appetite. However, xanomeline-trospium was associated with a higher incidence of at least one adverse event, dry mouth, hypertension, nausea, vomiting, dyspepsia, and constipation, and increased serum triglyceride compared with placebo.

Shifting surface plasmon resonance wavelength to the far-ultraviolet region with aluminum-based sensors.

A novel aluminum (Al)-based surface plasmon resonance (SPR) sensor operating in the far-ultraviolet (FUV, <200 nm) region has been developed. By utilizing a thinner Al film compared to previously reported deep-ultraviolet (DUV, <300 nm) SPR sensors, the SPR wavelength was effectively maintained within the FUV region across various liquids. In the presence of resonant molecules, the SPR wavelength shift was notably enhanced.

Kinetic evaluation for Cs desorption from riverine particles in seawater, and exploration of sorbent agents for fixation of the desorbed fraction.

In this study, we evaluated 1) the potential ability of sorbents to adsorb Cs desorbed from contaminated riverine particles that had been introduced into seawater, and 2) the rates of desorption of Cs from weak and strong sorption sites. We performed particle-seawater desorption experiments to simulate the mixing of riverine particles with seawater and used a kinetic model to simulate results. We tested two sorbent agents: beach sand collected from less contaminated coast and zeolite.

Prolonged high Myl9 levels are associated with the pathogenesis and respiratory symptom of post-acute COVID-19 syndrome: A 6-month follow-up study.

Background: Post-acute COVID-19 Syndrome (PACS) occurs in some COVID-19 patients long after acute infection and significantly affects patients' health. However, the mechanism by which PACS develops is unknown. Myosin light chain 9 (Myl9), produced by activated platelets, plays a role in immune dysregulation and microthrombi formation during acute COVID-19.

Sister chromatid cohesion through the lens of biochemical experiments.

Faithful chromosome segregation in eukaryotes relies on physical cohesion between newly duplicated sister chromatids. Cohesin is a ring-shaped ATPase assembly that mediates sister chromatid cohesion through its ability to topologically entrap DNA. Cohesin, assisted by several regulatory proteins, binds to DNA prior to DNA replication and then holds two sister DNAs together when it encounters the replication machinery.

Safety comparison between Pfizer BNT162b2, Moderna mRNA-1273, and AstraZeneca AZD1222 in a Nationwide prospective cohort survey at the beginning of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 vaccination in Japan.

This study was conducted at 112 government and Juntendo University hospitals in February 2021 for the primary series of SARS-CoV-2 vaccinations. We compared the timing of solicited adverse event (AE) onset and prevalence of unsolicited AEs for Pfizer, Moderna, and AstraZeneca vaccines in a nationwide, large-scale prospective cohort study. The Pfizer and Moderna mRNA vaccines were associated with a higher frequency of fever after the second dose than after the first dose.

Clinical implications of disappearing pancreatic cancer liver metastases: Lessons from colorectal liver metastases.

Background: The efficacy of local control for pancreatic cancer liver metastases (PCLM), including surgical treatment, remains controversial, with no consensus on the management and clinical significance of disappearing liver metastases (DLMs). This study aimed to evaluate the clinical implications of DLMs in treating PCLM after multi-agent chemotherapy, utilizing contrast-enhanced imaging modalities.

Methods: A retrospective analysis was conducted on patients who underwent curative resection for pancreatic cancer with synchronous or metachronous liver metastases between 2014 and 2023.

Background factors for postoperative eyebrow descent in blepharoptosis: A retrospective case-control study of 93 patients.

Upper blepharoplasty for ptosis aims to achieve functional and aesthetic outcomes. However, postoperative eyebrow descent is a potential complication that can affect surgical outcomes. This descent reflects the return of the brow to its normal position due to the release of compensatory frontalis muscle activity for ptosis.