Withdrawal Signs and Symptoms Among Patients Positive for Fentanyl With and Without Xylazine.

Background: Xylazine is not approved for human use, yet it has emerged as a common adulterant of illicit fentanyl. It is currently unclear whether there is a withdrawal syndrome associated with xylazine and the potential impact of fentanyl coexposure.

Methods: A retrospective cohort study of patients with opioid use disorder admitted to an inpatient medically monitored withdrawal facility was performed.

Scaling and merging time-resolved pink-beam diffraction with variational inference.

Time-resolved x-ray crystallography (TR-X) at synchrotrons and free electron lasers is a promising technique for recording dynamics of molecules at atomic resolution. While experimental methods for TR-X have proliferated and matured, data analysis is often difficult. Extracting small, time-dependent changes in signal is frequently a bottleneck for practitioners.

Reducing Uncertainty of Groundwater Redox Condition Predictions at National Scale, for Decision Making and Policy.

Understanding hydrogeochemical heterogeneity, associated with natural nitrate attenuation, is an integral part of implementing integrated land and water management on a regional or national scale. Redox conditions are a key indicator of naturally occurring denitrification in the groundwater environment, and often used to inform spatial planning and targeted regulation. This work describes the development of a statistical redox condition model for the groundwater environment at a national scale, using spatially variable physiochemical descriptors as predictors.

Smac/DIABLO protein acts as an independent prognostic factor in oral squamous cell carcinoma.

Oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) poses significant health risks with increasing incidence and mortality rates. In this context, there is an urgent need to explore novel biomarkers to enhance therapeutic strategies and improve survival. Understanding apoptotic evasion in cancer pathogenesis, this pioneering study aims to investigate the correlation between a pro-apoptotic protein Smac/DIABLO and patient prognosis within the OSCC cohort.

Establishing a comprehensive web-based analysis platform for Nicotiana benthamiana genome and transcriptome.

Nicotiana benthamiana has long served as a crucial plant material extensively used in plant physiology research, particularly in the field of plant pathology, because of its high susceptibility to plant viruses. Additionally, it serves as a production platform to test vaccines and other valuable substances. Among its approximately 3.

Heart Rate Variability, Hypnosis, and Psychotherapy.

Hypnotherapy is increasingly recognized as an effective treatment option for a wide range of psychological conditions and the psychological elements of physiologic health concerns. Despite its growing use, the mechanisms underlying hypnotherapy's therapeutic benefits remain unknown. Heart rate variability (HRV), a non-invasive biomarker of autonomic nervous system (ANS) activity and other processes relevant to the psychophysiological stress response, has been used to study the physiological effects of hypnosis.

Permafrost instability negates the positive impact of warming temperatures on boreal radial growth.

Climate warming can alleviate temperature and nutrient constraints on tree growth in boreal regions, potentially enhancing boreal productivity. However, in permafrost environments, warming also disrupts the physical foundation on which trees grow, leading to leaning trees or "drunken" forests. Tree leaning might reduce radial growth, undermining potential benefits of warming.

Phase transition in a kinetic mean-field game model of inertial self-propelled agents.

The framework of mean-field games (MFGs) is used for modeling the collective dynamics of large populations of non-cooperative decision-making agents. We formulate and analyze a kinetic MFG model for an interacting system of non-cooperative motile agents with inertial dynamics and finite-range interactions, where each agent is minimizing a biologically inspired cost function. By analyzing the associated coupled forward-backward in a time system of nonlinear Fokker-Planck and Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman equations, we obtain conditions for closed-loop linear stability of the spatially homogeneous MFG equilibrium that corresponds to an ordered state with non-zero mean speed.

Serum protein risk stratification score for diagnostic evaluation of metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis.

Background: Reliable, noninvasive tools to diagnose at-risk metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis (MASH) are urgently needed to improve management. We developed a risk stratification score incorporating proteomics-derived serum markers with clinical variables to identify high-risk patients with MASH (NAFLD activity score >4 and fibrosis score >2).

Methods: In this 3-phase proteomic study of biopsy-proven metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic fatty liver disease, we first developed a multi-protein predictor for discriminating NAFLD activity score >4 based on SOMAscan proteomics quantifying 1305 serum proteins from 57 US patients.

Optimising Control Device Luring Strategies for Invasive Predator Control: A Modelling Approach.

Invasive predators pose a serious threat to native biodiversity, with trapping being one of several methods developed to manage and monitor their populations. Many individuals in these predator populations have been found to display trap-shyness, which hinders eradication and results in inaccurate estimates of population size. Lures are used to help overcome trap-shyness by increasing the probability of interaction with the device, but the extent of trap-shyness in wild populations, and the best timing for the introduction of a new lure or combination of lures, are uncertain.

New-Onset Multiple Sclerosis in Pregnancy: Diagnostic Approaches and Treatment Dilemmas.

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is an autoimmune disease of the CNS affecting the brain, spinal cord, and optic nerves. Research consistently shows that relapse rates in MS decrease during pregnancy, particularly in the third trimester. However, these rates increase postpartum, especially within the first three months after delivery, returning to prepregnancy levels.

Mpox as an emerging health threat for survivors of sex trafficking.

The resurgence of mpox, declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern by the World Health Organization in 2024, highlights gaps in global preparedness, particularly for marginalised populations. While much of the focus has been on men who have sex with men, survivors of sex trafficking remain overlooked, despite being highly vulnerable to mpox transmission. These individuals face significant health disparities, including limited access to healthcare, exposure to violence and forced sexual encounters in unsafe conditions, which amplify their risk of infection.

African swine fever viral proteins that inhibit cGAS-STING pathway and type-I interferon production.

African swine fever virus (ASFV) is the causative agent of a lethal disease in pigs. Highly virulent strains of ASFV are known to suppress the induction of type I interferons (IFNs), while naturally attenuated strains do not exhibit this capability. Thus, the ability to suppress IFN is assumed to be associated with viral virulence.

Analyzing the relationships among psychosocial variables associated with resilience.

Potentially Traumatic Events (PTEs) are common in current society, including college life. When exposed to PTE, stress reactions are greatly heterogeneous, and what contributes to psychological resilience is not well known. The purpose of the present study is to investigate the relationships among the antecedents, defining attributes, and consequences of resilience in a sample of 450 college students.

Direct mathematical method for real-time ischemic episodes detection from electrocardiograms using the discrete Hermite transform.

A real-time automated identification technique is developed for the detection of ischemic episodes in long-term electrocardiographic (ECG) signals using mathematical expansions involving the Discrete Dilated Hermite Transform. The Discrete Hermite functions could be viewed as a set of orthogonal vectors that resemble a finite Fourier series. They are generated easily as eigenvectors of a symmetric tridiagonal matrix that commutes with the centered Fourier matrix.