Acupuncture reduces sedative and anaesthetic consumption and improves pain tolerance in patients undergoing colonoscopy: a Meta-analysis.

Objective: To evaluate the effects of acupuncture anesthesia on the consumption of sedatives and anesthetics, pain, and time consumption in patients undergoing colonoscopy, thus providing evidence that acupuncture anesthesia should be extended to endoscopists and anesthetists.

Methods: Four English and four Chinese databases were searched for randomised controlled trials of acupuncture anaesthesia in patients undergoing colonoscopy, published from database inception to 1 March 2023. Outcomes were consumption of sedatives and anaesthetics, pain tolerance, visual analog scale (VAS) score, the meantime consumption of examination, satisfaction, and adverse reactions.

Multiple "spaces": Using wildlife surveillance, climatic variables, and spatial statistics to identify and map a climatic niche for endemic plague in California, U.S.A.

Regional climatic features in endemic areas can help inform surveillance for plague, a bacterial disease typically transmitted by fleas and maintained in mammals. We use 7,954 coyotes (Canis latrans), a sentinel species for plague, screened for plague exposure by the California Department of Public Health - Vector-Borne Disease Section (CDPH-VBDS; 1983-2015) to identify and map plague-suitable local climates within California to empirically inform ongoing sampling and surveillance plans. Using spatial point processes, we compare the distributions of seropositive and seronegative coyotes within the "space" defined by the first two principal components of PRISM Climate Group 30-year average climate variables (primarily temperature and moisture).

Development of the Followership Evaluation Instrument for Nurses: A Prospective Longitudinal Survey.

Maintaining a healthy work environment in nursing practice depends not only on the leader's skill but also on the nursing staff's followership. The study purpose is to develop a followership instrument for nurses. We developed a followership evaluation instrument using data from two surveys conducted in 2013 and 2014 and assessed its validity using a questionnaire with nurses in Japan.

The role of AIM2 in inflammation and tumors.

Absent in melanoma 2 (AIM2) serves as an intracellular nucleic acid sensor that predominantly detects double-stranded DNA (dsDNA) within the cells. This detection initiates the assembly of inflammasome and activates the inflammasome signaling cascade, resulting in the production of inflammatory mediators and the cleavage of Gasdermins. Consequently, these processes culminate in inflammatory responses and pyroptotic cell death.

The Impact of Nutritional Components on Periodontal Health: A Literature Review.

Periodontitis is a chronic inflammatory disease driven by the accumulation of bacterial plaque and the host's immune response, leading to the destruction of periodontal tissues. Nutrition, particularly the intake of micronutrients with anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties, plays a crucial role in maintaining periodontal health. This review explores the impact of various micronutrients-vitamins (A, B, C, D, E), minerals (calcium, iron, zinc, potassium, copper, manganese, selenium), and omega-3 fatty acids-on periodontal disease prevention and management.

Fibrinogen-Induced Regeneration Sealing Technique (F.I.R.S.T.): A Retrospective Clinical Study on 105 Implants with a 3-7-Year Follow-Up.

The primary aim of this retrospective clinical study was to assess the success and bone gain achieved by using the Fibrinogen-Induced Regeneration Sealing Technique (F.I.R.

Natriuretic peptide levels and predicting risk of developing new diabetes mellitus and metabolic syndrome.

Aims: Define the relationship between N-terminal atrial natriuretic peptide (NT-ANP) levels and incident metabolic syndrome and type 2 diabetes mellitus ('metabolic disease') in healthy adults and develop a risk prediction score.

Materials And Methods: Retrospective cohort study of Olmsted County Heart Function Study participants, a random sampling of county residents aged 45 years and older (n = 2042). Clinical data were collected during enrolment between 1997 and 2000 and upon follow-up 4 years later.

Insights to aging prediction with AI based epigenetic clocks.

Over the past century, human lifespan has increased remarkably, yet the inevitability of aging persists. The disparity between biological age, which reflects pathological deterioration and disease, and chronological age, indicative of normal aging, has driven prior research focused on identifying mechanisms that could inform interventions to reverse excessive age-related deterioration and reduce morbidity and mortality. DNA methylation has emerged as an important predictor of age, leading to the development of epigenetic clocks that quantify the extent of pathological deterioration beyond what is typically expected for a given age.

Explorations of using a convolutional neural network to understand brain activations during movie watching.

Background: Naturalistic stimuli, such as videos, can elicit complex brain activations. However, the intricate nature of these stimuli makes it challenging to attribute specific brain functions to the resulting activations, particularly for higher-level processes such as social interactions.

Objective: We hypothesized that activations in different layers of a convolutional neural network (VGG-16) would correspond to varying levels of brain activation, reflecting the brain's visual processing hierarchy.

Sex differences in COVID-19 vaccine confidence in people living with HIV in Canada.

Background: Understanding the roots of vaccine confidence in vulnerable populations, such as persons living with HIV (PLWH), is important to facilitate vaccine uptake, thus mitigating infection and spread of vaccine-preventable infectious diseases. In an online survey of PLWH conducted in Canada during winter 2022 (), we reported that the overall COVID-19 vaccination uptake rate in PLWH was similar by sex. Here, we examined attitudes and beliefs towards vaccination against COVID-19 based on sex.

The diagnostic value of MRI segmentation technique for shoulder joint injuries based on deep learning.

This work is to investigate the diagnostic value of a deep learning-based magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) image segmentation (IS) technique for shoulder joint injuries (SJIs) in swimmers. A novel multi-scale feature fusion network (MSFFN) is developed by optimizing and integrating the AlexNet and U-Net algorithms for the segmentation of MRI images of the shoulder joint. The model is evaluated using metrics such as the Dice similarity coefficient (DSC), positive predictive value (PPV), and sensitivity (SE).

Development of a radiomic model for cervical cancer staging based on pathologically verified, retrospective metastatic lymph node data.

Background: Cervical cancer is a major cause of morbidity and mortality among gynecological malignancies. Diagnostic imaging of lymph node (LN) metastasis for prognosis and staging is used; however, the accuracy in classifying the stage needs to improve.

Purpose: To examine the accuracy of AI-based radiomics in diagnosis, prognosis assessment and predicting the diagnostic value of radiomics for pelvic LN metastasis in cervical cancer patients.

Highly accurate and precise determination of mouse mass using computer vision.

Changes in body mass are key indicators of health in humans and animals and are routinely monitored in animal husbandry and preclinical studies. In rodent studies, the current method of manually weighing the animal on a balance causes at least two issues. First, directly handling the animal induces stress, possibly confounding studies.

Biomechanical comparison of different surgical suture techniques for four-stranded all-inside cruciate ligament grafts.

Background: All-inside cruciate ligament reconstruction is an emerging technique for treating anterior cruciate ligament and posterior cruciate ligament injuries. The all-inside technique uses a 4-stranded graft made of a single tendon that wraps around itself. Four strands of the graft must be immobilized to form a closed loop, and the free ends of the graft must be attached using a suture technique.

Differential Effector Function of Tissue-Specific Natural Killer Cells against Lung Tumors.

Introduction: Natural killer (NK) cells are innate lymphoid cells capable of directly killing target cells while modulating immune effector responses. Despite their multifunctional capacities, a limited understanding of their plasticity and heterogeneity has impeded progress in developing effective NK cell-based cancer therapies. In this study, we investigated NK cell tissue heterogeneity in relation to their phenotype and effector functions against lung tumors.

The role of microalgal extracts and their combination with tamoxifen in the modulation of breast cancer immunotherapy (Review).

Cancer is one of the deadliest health menaces humans have ever witnessed. It is a leading cause of human mortality. Today, it remains a main leading cause of death globally primarily due to lifestyle changes and population ageing.