Environmental impacts of restructuring the EU's natural gas supply and consumption: Learnings from the 2022 energy crisis.

In 2022, the European Union put forward the REPowerEU plan in response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, aiming at enhancing short-term energy security by diversifying imports and reducing natural gas demand while accelerating the deployment of renewable alternatives in the long term. Here, we quantify the life cycle environmental impacts of both REPowerEU's short-term measures, including the controversial extended coal-fired power plant operations, and how the first year of the crisis was managed in practice. We find that the policy measures' impact on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions would be negligible, although they could have detrimental effects on other environmental categories.

Primitive to visceral endoderm maturation is essential for mouse epiblast survival beyond implantation.

The implantation of the mouse blastocyst initiates a complex sequence of tissue remodeling and cell differentiation events required for morphogenesis, during which the extraembryonic primitive endoderm transitions into the visceral endoderm. Through single-cell RNA sequencing of embryos at embryonic day 5.0, shortly after implantation, we reveal that this transition is driven by dynamic signaling activities, notably the upregulation of BMP signaling and a transient increase in Sox7 expression.

Devonian-Mississippian magmatism related to extensional collapse in Svalbard: implications for radiating dyke swarms.

Background: Despite extensive studies of the Mesozoic-Cenozoic magmatic history of Svalbard, little has been done on the Paleozoic magmatism due to fewer available outcrops.

Methods: 2D seismic reflection data were used to study magmatic intrusions in the subsurface of eastern Svalbard.

Results: This work presents seismic evidence for west-dipping, Middle Devonian-Mississippian sills in eastern Spitsbergen, Svalbard.

Assessing the Clinical and Functional Status of COPD Patients Using Speech Analysis During and After Exacerbation.

Background: Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) affects breathing, speech production, and coughing. We evaluated a machine learning analysis of speech for classifying the disease severity of COPD.

Methods: In this single centre study, non-consecutive COPD patients were prospectively recruited for comparing their speech characteristics during and after an acute COPD exacerbation.

Roads to remission: evolving treatment concepts in type 2 inflammatory diseases.

Unlabelled: Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) characterised by type 2 inflammation, including asthma, allergic rhinitis, chronic rhinosinusitis with nasal polyps, atopic dermatitis, food allergies and eosinophilic esophagitis, are increasing in prevalence worldwide. Currently, there is a major paradigm shift in the management of these diseases, towards the concept of disease modification and the treatment goal remission, regardless of severity and age. Remission as a treatment goal in chronic inflammatory NCDs was first introduced in rheumatoid arthritis, and then adopted in other non-type 2 inflammatory diseases.

Preoperative and intraoperative neuromonitoring and mapping techniques impact oncological and functional outcomes in supratentorial function-eloquent brain tumours: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

Background: Supratentorial function-eloquent brain tumour surgeries challenge the balance between maximal tumour resection and preservation of neurological function. This study aims to evaluate the efficacy of preoperative and intraoperative mapping techniques on resection outcomes and post-operative deficits.

Methods: This systematic review and meta-analysis examined literature up to March 2023, sourced from PubMed, Embase, and Medline.

Lanthanide-tetrazine probes for bio-imaging and click chemistry.

The blood-brain-barrier prevents many imaging agents and therapeutics from being delivered to the brain that could fight central nervous system diseases such as Alzheimer's disease and strokes. However, techniques such as the use of stapled peptides or peptide shuttles may allow payloads through, with bioconjugation achieved bio-orthogonal tetrazine/norbornene click chemistry. A series of lanthanide-tetrazine probes have been synthesised herein which could be utilised in bio-orthogonal click chemistry with peptide-based delivery systems to deliver MRI agents through the blood-brain-barrier.

Zirconium-mediated carbon-fluorine bond functionalisation through cyclohexyne "umpolung".

Polarity reversal, or "umpolung", is a widely acknowledged strategy to allow organic functional groups amenable to react in alternative ways to the usual preference set by their electronic features. In this article, we demonstrate that cyclohexyne umpolung, realized through complexation to zirconocene, makes the small strained cycloalkyne amenable to C-F bond functionalisation. Such strong bond activation chemistry is unprecedented in "free" aryne and strained alkyne chemistry.

Desensitization With Imlifidase for HLA-Incompatible Deceased Donor Kidney Transplantation: A Delphi International Expert Consensus.

Highly sensitized (HS) patients in need of kidney transplantation (KTx) typically spend a longer time waiting for compatible kidneys, are unlikely to receive an organ offer, and are at increased risk of antibody-mediated rejection (AMR). Desensitization using imlifidase, which is more rapid and removes total body immunoglobulin G (IgG) to a greater extent than other methods, enables transplantation to occur between HLA-incompatible (HLAi) donor-recipient pairs and allows patients to have greater access to KTx. However, when the project was launched there was limited data and clinical experience with desensitization in general and with imlifidase specifically.

Associations between degree of food processing and all-cause and cause-specific mortality: a multicentre prospective cohort analysis in 9 European countries.

Background: Ultra-processed food (UPF) consumption has been linked with higher risk of mortality. This multi-centre study investigated associations between food intake by degree of processing, using the Nova classification, and all-cause and cause-specific mortality.

Methods: This study analyzed data from the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition.

The morphology of a smartphonopathic hand - smartphone use and the median nerve cross-sectional area.

Objective: To investigate and compare the median nerve-cross sectional area at the wrist region of the dominant and non-dominant hands of high- and low- smartphone users.

Method: This descriptive cross-sectional study was based on 128 human subjects conducted at Bahria University Health Sciences Karachi Campus from January to June 2022. The sample size was calculated using the method of sample size for frequency in a population www.

Association between Emotional Intelligence and Professionalism in Medical Students: The Compassion-Competence Nexus.

Background And Objective: In medical education, the challenging constructs of emotional intelligence and professionalism are increasingly being addressed worldwide and seem to share common characteristic components. The objective of this study was to determine the association between emotional intelligence and professionalism as perceived and self-reported by medical students and to explore the gender difference in these two variables.

Methods: It is a cross-sectional study of eight months duration, from February-September 2019, that included final year medical students at Dow Medical College through convenience sampling.

Harm reduction associated with heated tobacco products: A systematic review and meta-analysis.

Objective: We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomised studies in humans comparing the outcomes of switching to heated tobacco products (HTPs) versus continuing conventional tobacco smoking by burning.

Methods: We searched the electronic databases which included PubMed, Web of Science, Cochrane Controlled Trials Register, and Google Scholar from inception to May 2023. Randomised Controlled Trials (RCTs) in humans comparing HTPs with conventional burnt tobacco products were selected.

Prevalence of Diarrhea Disease and Associated Factors Among Children Under 5 Years in Geshiyaro Project Implementation Sites in Ethiopia: A Cross-Sectional Study.

Background: Globally, infectious diseases such as pneumonia, diarrhea, and malaria are the leading causes of death for children under 5. Diarrheal disease is a significant public health concern and causes the death of approximately 525,000 children under the age of 5 every year. In Ethiopia, studies revealed that the prevalence of diarrhea among children under 5 years is alarming.

Assessing the Value of Further Investment in R&D Using Mixed Methods: A Case Study of Biosensor-Integrated Arteriovenous Grafts.

This study illustrates the utility of a mixed-methods approach in assessing the value of an example novel technology-biosensor-integrated self-reporting arteriovenous grafts (smart AVGs). Currently in preclinical development, the device will detect arteriovenous graft stenosis (surveillance-only use case) and treat stenosis (interventional use case). The approach to value assessment adopted in this study was multifaceted, with one stage informing the next and comprised a stakeholder engagement with clinical experts to explore the device's clinical value, a cost-utility analysis (CUA) from a US Medicare perspective to estimate pricing headroom, and an investment model estimating risk-adjusted net present value analysis (rNPVs) to determine commercial viability.

Primordial black holes and their gravitational-wave signatures.

In the recent years, primordial black holes (PBHs) have emerged as one of the most interesting and hotly debated topics in cosmology. Among other possibilities, PBHs could explain both some of the signals from binary black hole mergers observed in gravitational-wave detectors and an important component of the dark matter in the Universe. Significant progress has been achieved both on the theory side and from the point of view of observations, including new models and more accurate calculations of PBH formation, evolution, clustering, merger rates, as well as new astrophysical and cosmological probes.

Healthcare provision for displaced people in transit: Analyses of routinely collected data from INTERSOS clinics at the Ukrainian border with Moldova and Poland.

Background: The Russian military invasion of Ukraine has sparked Europe's largest forced displacement since World War II, bringing about significant health vulnerabilities for migrants and refugees. European health information systems lack comprehensive data coverage, especially in underrepresented migration stages like transit. This study aims to address this gap by analyzing data from INTERSOS clinics at the Moldovan and Polish borders with Ukraine to identify the common health conditions prompting people to seek healthcare services during transit.

Application of thermally assisted high hydrostatic pressure to modify sorghum starch: multi-scale structure, techno-functional properties and digestibility.

Unlabelled: The effects of high hydrostatic pressure (HHP) (400-650 MPa) and holding temperature (25-50 °C) in thermally assisted HHP processing on multi-scale structure of starch (granule, crystalline and molecular), techno-functional properties, and digestibility of sorghum starch (SS) were evaluated. Response surface methodology has verified that the process impact on the modification of SS was dependent primarily on the pressure level. As HHP increased, processed SS progressively lost their granular structure and Maltese cross, indicating gradual structural disorder within the granules.

Landscapes-a lens for assessing sustainability.

Context: There are urgent calls to transition society to more sustainable trajectories, at scales ranging from local to global. Landscape sustainability (LS), or the capacity for landscapes to provide equitable access to ecosystem services essential for human wellbeing for both current and future generations, provides an operational approach to monitor these transitions. However, the complexity of landscapes complicates how and what to consider when assessing LS.

An evolutionary perspective for the exposome.

The exposome was proposed following the realization that most human diseases have an environmental rather than a genetic (hereditary) origin. Non-communicable diseases are, in fact, the consequence of multiple exposures that activate a sequence of stages in a multistage process that already starts in early life. This attracted attention to both the multiplicity (in fact, potentially the totality) of exposures humans are exposed to since conception and to the life-long perspective of disease causation.

Novel trial designs: Master protocol trials.

Conventional trial designs are resource and time-intensive. To accelerate the process of testing new interventions, we now have several novel research trial designs. This article focuses on master protocol trials, which allow several therapies to be tested within a single larger trial.

The short-, medium-, and long-term prevalence of physical health comorbidities in first-episode psychosis: a systematic review and meta-analysis protocol.

Background: Individuals with first-episode psychosis (FEP) face an increased risk of physical comorbidities, notably cardiovascular diseases, metabolic disorders, respiratory disorders, and certain types of cancer. Previous reviews report pooled physical health prevalence from chronic psychosis and FEP groups. By contrast, this review will focus on antipsychotic-naïve FEP cohorts and incorporate data from observational longitudinal studies and antipsychotic intervention studies to understand the progression of physical health comorbidities from the onset to later stages of psychosis.

Revealing Elasmobranch Distributions in Turbid Coastal Waters: Insights From Environmental DNA and Particle Tracking.

Many sharks, rays and skates are highly threatened and vulnerable to overexploitation, as such reliable monitoring of elasmobranchs is key to effective management and conservation. The mobile and elusive nature of these species makes monitoring challenging, particularly in temperate waters with low visibility. Environmental DNA (eDNA) methods present an opportunity to study these species in the absence of visual identification or invasive techniques.