Impact of COVID-19 on functional, cognitive, neuropsychiatric, and health-related outcomes in patients with dementia: A systematic review.

Background: This systematic review analyzes the impact of COVID-19 on dementia patients' functional, cognitive, neuropsychiatric, and health related outcomes. It hypothesizes that dementia patients infected with SARS-CoV-2experience more pronounced deterioration compared to those who are uninfected.

Methods: Research from 01/03/2020 to 07/10/2023 was conducted using Medline, Web of Science, and Embase databases, and adhering to PRISMA guidelines and the PICO framework.

Long-term associations between ambient air pollution and self-perceived health status: Results from the population-based KORA-Fit study.

Background: Little is known about the association between air pollution and self-perceived health (including both health-related quality of life [HRQoL] and self-rated health [SRH]). The aim of this study was therefore to explore whether long-term air pollution exposure is associated with worse self-perceived health, as measured by different tools.

Methods: We used a land-use regression model to determine the annual average levels of particulate matter with a diameter <10 μm (PM), coarse particles (PM), fine particles (PM), fine particle absorbances (PM), particle number concentration (PNC), ozone (O), nitrogen dioxide (NO), and nitrogen oxide (NO) for geocoded residential addresses (2014-2015).

Anatomy-centred deep learning improves generalisability and progression prediction in radiographic sacroiliitis detection.

Purpose: To examine whether incorporating anatomy-centred deep learning can improve generalisability and enable prediction of disease progression.

Methods: This retrospective multicentre study included conventional pelvic radiographs of four different patient cohorts focusing on axial spondyloarthritis collected at university and community hospitals. The first cohort, which consisted of 1483 radiographs, was split into training (n=1261) and validation (n=222) sets.

Engineering CO-Ultraselective Membranes: Molecularly Tailored Low-Crystallinity Polyvinylamine-PEGDGE Networks.

Facilitated transport membranes (FTMs) with an ultraselective layer prepared from amine-rich polyvinylamine (PVAm)/2-(1-piperazinyl)ethylamine salt of sarcosine (PZEA-Sar) (denoted by PM) and an amorphous dendritic cross-linked network of PVAm-functionalized poly(ethylene glycol)diglycidyl ether (PEGDGE) (named PP) were designed for CO separations. The developed membranes expedited CO transport over N through the synergistic effect from the induced CO-philic ethylene oxide groups and highly hydrophilic and polar hydroxyl groups together with the low-crystallinity PP networks, which offer a high diffusion rate for CO-amine complexes through the membrane and stabilize small molecular mobile carriers via hydrogen bonding. The best (PM/PP-10)/polysulfone (PSf) composite membranes achieved a superior CO/N selectivity of 230 (4.

Embedded Ethics in Practice: A Toolbox for Integrating the Analysis of Ethical and Social Issues into Healthcare AI Research.

Integrating artificial intelligence (AI) into critical domains such as healthcare holds immense promise. Nevertheless, significant challenges must be addressed to avoid harm, promote the well-being of individuals and societies, and ensure ethically sound and socially just technology development. Innovative approaches like Embedded Ethics, which refers to integrating ethics and social science into technology development based on interdisciplinary collaboration, are emerging to address issues of bias, transparency, misrepresentation, and more.

Benefit of the Omental Flap in Breast Reconstruction for Oncoplastic Treatment: A Systematic Review and Single-Arm Meta-Analysis.

Background: Oncoplastic surgery for breast cancer patients poses the challenge of achieving optimal aesthetic outcomes without increasing the risk of complications. Omental flap has emerged as n reconstructive option in breast surgery, yet the efficacy and safety of large omental flaps remain uncertain. This study aims to conduct a systematic review and single-arm meta-analysis to comprehensively evaluate the effectiveness, safety, and cosmetic outcomes of large omental flap breast reconstruction, providing updated evidence for clinical practice.

Amorphous nitride semiconductors with highly tunable optical and electronic properties: the benefits of disorder in Ca-Zn-N thin films.

Semiconducting ternary nitrides are a promising class of materials that have received increasing attention in recent years, but often show high free electron concentrations due to the low defect formation energies of nitrogen vacancies and substitutional oxygen, leading to degenerate n-type doping. To achieve non-degenerate behavior, we now investigate a family of amorphous calcium-zinc nitride (Ca-Zn-N) thin films. By adjusting the metal cation ratios, we demonstrate band gap tunability between 1.

CD8 T cell exhaustion in the tumor microenvironment of breast cancer.

CD8+ T cells are crucial cytotoxic components of the tumor immune system. In chronic inflammation, they become low-responsive, a state known as T cell exhaustion (TEX). The aim of immune checkpoint blockade is to counteract TEX, yet its dynamics in breast cancer remain poorly understood.

From tradition to smart: A comprehensive review of the evolution and prospects of land use planning tools.

Land use planning tools are essential for effective land management. However, existing research has not thoroughly explored the evolution and future potential of these tools. This study addresses this gap through comprehensive literature review and data collection, mapping the progression of land use planning tools from their inception to their future trajectories.

Tunable Picoliter-Scale Dropicle Formation Using Amphiphilic Microparticles with Patterned Hydrophilic Patches.

Microparticle-templated droplets or dropicles have recently gained interest in the fields of diagnostic immunoassays, single-cell analysis, and digital molecular biology. Amphiphilic particles have been shown to spontaneously capture aqueous droplets within their cavities upon mixing with an immiscible oil phase, where each particle templates a single droplet. Here, an amphiphilic microparticle with four discrete hydrophilic patches embedded at the inner corners of a square-shaped hydrophobic outer ring of the particle (4C particle) is fabricated.

The immune checkpoint LAG-3 is expressed by melanoma cells and correlates with clinical progression of the melanoma.

Immune checkpoint blockers have substantially improved prognosis of melanoma patients, nevertheless, resistance remains a significant problem. Here, intrinsic and extrinsic factors in the tumor microenvironment are discussed, including the expression of alternative immune checkpoints such as lymphocyte activation gene 3 (LAG-3) and T-cell immunoglobulin and mucin domain-containing protein 3 (TIM-3). While most studies focus on immune cell expression of these proteins, we investigated their melanoma cell intrinsic expression by immunohistochemistry in melanoma metastases of 60 patients treated with anti-programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1) and/or anti-cytotoxic T-lymphocyte-associated protein 4 (CTLA-4) therapy, and correlated it with the expression of potential ligands, RNA sequencing data and clinical outcome.

HERV reactivation by adenovirus infection is associated with viral immune regulation.

Human endogenous retroviruses (HERVs), which are normally silenced by methylation or mutation, can be reactivated by a variety of environmental factors, including infection with exogenous viruses. In this work, we investigated the transcriptional activity of HERVs following infection of human liver cells (HepaRG) with human adenovirus C serotype 5 (HAdV-C5). HAdV-C5 infection results in reactivation of several HERV groups as well as differentially expressed genes.

Social interaction of people living with dementia in residential long-term care: an ecological momentary assessment study.

Background: The importance of social health is increasingly recognized in dementia research. For most people living with dementia, their social environment changes as the disease progresses, especially when they move into a long-term care facility. However, maintaining social interactions in the new living environment contributes significantly to health and quality of life.

Harnessing magnetism: evaluation of safety, tolerance and feasibility of magnetic kidney stone retrieval in vivo in porcine models.

The primary objective of urolithiasis therapy is complete stone removal and highest stone-clearance rates possible to minimize recurrence. A novel approach that employs a magnetic suspension and a magnetic probe for the passive collection and removal of small residual fragments was developed. This study assessed the feasibility of this system in porcine models.

An efficient multi-gram access in a two-step synthesis to soluble, nine-atomic, silylated silicon clusters.

Silicon is by far the most important semiconducting material. However, solution-based synthetic approaches for unsaturated silicon-rich molecules require less efficient multi-step syntheses. We report on a straightforward access to soluble, polyhedral Si clusters from the binary phase KSi, which contains both [Si] and [Si] clusters.

Systematic assessment of COVID-19 host genetics using whole genome sequencing data.

Courses of SARS-CoV-2 infections are highly variable, ranging from asymptomatic to lethal COVID-19. Though research has shown that host genetic factors contribute to this variability, cohort-based joint analyses of variants from the entire allelic spectrum in individuals with confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infections are still lacking. Here, we present the results of whole genome sequencing in 1,220 mainly vaccine-naïve individuals with confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection, including 827 hospitalized COVID-19 cases.

Evaluating Bard Gemini Pro and GPT-4 Vision Against Student Performance in Medical Visual Question Answering: Comparative Case Study.

Background: The rapid development of large language models (LLMs) such as OpenAI's ChatGPT has significantly impacted medical research and education. These models have shown potential in fields ranging from radiological imaging interpretation to medical licensing examination assistance. Recently, LLMs have been enhanced with image recognition capabilities.

In Situ Monitoring of Mechanofluorescence in Polymeric Nanofibers.

Mechanofluorescent polymers represent a promising class of materials exhibiting fluorescence changes in response to mechanical stimuli. One approach to fabricating these polymers involves incorporating aggregachromic dyes, whose emission properties are governed by the intermolecular distance, which can, in turn, be readily altered by microstructural changes in the surrounding polymer matrix during mechanical deformation. In this study, a mechanofluorescent additive featuring excimer-forming oligo(p-phenylene vinylene) dyes (tOPV) is incorporated into electrospun polyurethane fibers, producing mats of fibers with diameters ranging from 300 to 700 nm.

A conceptual classification scheme of invasion science.

In the era of big data and global biodiversity decline, there is a pressing need to transform data and information into findable and actionable knowledge. We propose a conceptual classification scheme for invasion science that goes beyond hypothesis networks and allows to organize publications and data sets, guide research directions, and identify knowledge gaps. Combining expert knowledge with literature analysis, we identified five major research themes in this field: introduction pathways, invasion success and invasibility, impacts of invasion, managing biological invasions, and meta-invasion science.

Strengthening autonomy in mental health care through a relational approach.

Respect for autonomy is foundational to all types of clinical care, and receiving mental health care places people in a vulnerable situation that has a direct impact on their ability to live as they choose, making concerns about autonomy central. The classical understanding of personal autonomy, which still influences medical guidelines, is based on an individualistic framework and is inadequate for ethical mental health care. The goal of this Comment is to articulate why the relational autonomy model, developed in feminist bioethics, is a necessary approach for the mental health field.

Right ventricular coupling predicts cardiopulmonary fitness in cardiac transthyretin amyloidosis.

Background: Wild-type transthyretin cardiac amyloidosis (ATTRwt) is an infiltrative disease leading to restrictive cardiomyopathy. We aimed to characterise exercise capacity in ATTRwt and to identify predictors of cardiopulmonary fitness, focusing on echocardiographic and clinical parameters.

Methods: We studied 110 ATTRwt patients from a prospective single-centre registry (2020-2024) by cardiopulmonary exercise testing (CPET).

Embracing native diversity to enhance the maximum quantum efficiency of photosystem II in maize.

The sustainability of maize cultivation would benefit tremendously from early sowing, but is hampered by low temperatures during early development in temperate climates. We show that allelic variation within the gene encoding subunit M of the NADH-dehydrogenase-like (NDH) complex (ndhm1) in a European maize landrace affects several quantitative traits that are relevant during early development in cold climates through NDH-mediated cyclic electron transport around photosystem I, a process crucial for photosynthesis and photoprotection. Beginning with a genome-wide association study for maximum potential quantum yield of photosystem II in dark-adapted leaves (Fv/Fm), we capitalized on the large phenotypic effects of a hAT transposon insertion in ndhm1 on multiple quantitative traits (early plant height [EPH], Fv/Fm, chlorophyll content, and cold tolerance) caused by the reduced protein levels of NDHM and associated NDH components.