Host-microbe multi-omics and succinotype profiling have prognostic value for future relapse in patients with inflammatory bowel disease.

Crohn's disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC) are chronic relapsing inflammatory bowel disorders (IBD), the pathogenesis of which is uncertain but includes genetic susceptibility factors, immune-mediated tissue injury and environmental influences, most of which appear to act via the gut microbiome. We hypothesized that host-microbe alterations could be used to prognostically stratify patients experiencing relapses up to four years after endoscopy. We therefore examined multiple omics data, including published and new datasets, generated from paired inflamed and non-inflamed mucosal biopsies from 142 patients with IBD (54 CD; 88 UC) and from 34 control (non-diseased) biopsies.

Development and validation of an ultrasensitive qPCR method to identify and quantify EGFR T790M in cell-free DNA.

Background: Circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) is a promising biomarker for cancer prognosis and drug development. A major challenge in the ctDNA determination method is discriminating ctDNA from highly similar but significantly more abundant wild-type DNA sensitively and accurately.

Method: An ultrasensitive qPCR method termed Triple Enrichment Amplification of Mutation PCR (TEAM-PCR) was developed to detect EGFR T790M mutation.

Predicting Alzheimer's disease subtypes and understanding their molecular characteristics in living patients with transcriptomic trajectory profiling.

Introduction: Deciphering the diverse molecular mechanisms in living Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients is a big challenge but is pivotal for disease prognosis and precision medicine development.

Methods: Utilizing an optimal transport approach, we conducted graph-based mapping of transcriptomic profiles to transfer AD subtype labels from ROSMAP monocyte samples to ADNI and ANMerge peripheral blood mononuclear cells. Subsequently, differential expression followed by comparative pathway and diffusion pseudotime analysis were applied to each cohort to infer the progression trajectories.

Primary Effusion Lymphoma Prognostic Score (PEL-PS): A Validated International Prognostic Score in HIV-Associated Primary Effusion Lymphoma.

Primary effusion lymphoma (PEL) is an HIV-associated B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) caused by Kaposi sarcoma herpesvirus (KSHV). There is no validated prognostic model in PEL, and prognosis is thought to be poor compared to other HIV-associated NHL. We derived the PEL-Prognostic score (PEL-PS) from an international real-world training set of 59 patients with HIV-associated PEL who received first-line anthracycline-containing chemotherapy from the HIV and AIDS Malignancy Branch at the National Cancer Institute (NCI) in the United States and the National Center for HIV Malignancy at the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital (CWH) in England from 2000 to 2022.

Radioactive contamination of southeast Abai oblast, Kazakhstan, from the Chinese nuclear weapons testing program at Lop Nor: an analytical review.

Between 1949 and 1962 the Soviet Union performed atmospheric tests of nuclear weapons at the Semipalatinsk nuclear test site (SNTS) in Kazakhstan, resulting in widespread contamination of the surrounding region with radioactive fallout. Settlements in the southeast Abai oblast of Kazakhstan, close to the border with China, are not thought to have received significant fallout from the SNTS. There is, however, evidence that the study area, including Makanchi, Urdzhar and Taskesken villages, was contaminated by atmospheric nuclear tests performed by China at the Lop Nor NTS between 1964 and 1980.

Double-vestibular incision subperiosteal tunnel access (double-VISTA) with connective tissue graft for treating multiple gingival recessions: 2-year follow-up.

Background: Gingival recession has a multifactorial etiology, involving various predisposing and precipitating factors. Non-carious cervical lesions (NCCLs) are often associated with gingival recession and pose challenges due to their complex pathodynamics. There is limited evidence regarding tunnel-based procedures combined with connective tissue grafts (CTGs) for treating recession-associated NCCLs.

Computationally efficient machine-learned model for GST phase change materials via direct and indirect learning.

Phase change materials such as Ge2Sb2Te5 (GST) are ideal candidates for next-generation, non-volatile, solid-state memory due to the ability to retain binary data in the amorphous and crystal phases and rapidly transition between these phases to write/erase information. Thus, there is wide interest in using molecular modeling to study GST. Recently, a Gaussian Approximation Potential (GAP) was trained for GST to reproduce Density Functional Theory (DFT) energies and forces at a fraction of the computational cost [Zhou et al.

Effective repulsive interaction between Janus polymer-grafted nanoparticles adhering to lipid vesicles.

The adhesion of nanoparticles to lipid vesicles causes curvature deformations to the membrane to an extent determined by the competition between the adhesive interaction and the membrane's elasticity. These deformations can extend over length scales larger than the size of a nanoparticle, leading to an effective membrane-curvature-mediated interaction between nanoparticles. Nanoparticles with uniform surfaces tend to aggregate into unidimensionally close-packed clusters at moderate adhesion strengths and endocytose at high adhesion strengths.

Universality in diffusion-controlled nucleation and growth.

Nucleation and growth are studied in a system that undergoes diffusion-controlled condensation under gradual changes in parameters, such as cooling. It is demonstrated that when the Gibbs-Thompson effect becomes negligible, the system falls into a universal regime. i.

Enhanced sampling of robust molecular datasets with uncertainty-based collective variables.

Generating a dataset that is representative of the accessible configuration space of a molecular system is crucial for the robustness of machine-learned interatomic potentials. However, the complexity of molecular systems, characterized by intricate potential energy surfaces, with numerous local minima and energy barriers, presents a significant challenge. Traditional methods of data generation, such as random sampling or exhaustive exploration, are either intractable or may not capture rare, but highly informative configurations.

Enhancing the accuracy of XPS calculations: Exploring hybrid basis set schemes for CVS-EOMIP-CCSD calculations.

Reliable computational methodologies and basis sets for modeling x-ray spectra are essential for extracting and interpreting electronic and structural information from experimental x-ray spectra. In particular, the trade-off between numerical accuracy and computational cost due to the size of the basis set is a major challenge, since molecular orbitals undergo extreme relaxation in the core-hole state. To gain clarity on the changes in electronic structure induced by the formation of a core-hole, the use of sufficiently flexible basis for expanding the orbitals, particularly for the core region, has been shown to be essential.

Uncovering dissipation from coarse observables: A case study of a random walk with unobserved internal states.

Inferring underlying microscopic dynamics from low-dimensional experimental signals is a central problem in physics, chemistry, and biology. As a trade-off between molecular complexity and the low-dimensional nature of experimental data, mesoscopic descriptions such as the Markovian master equation are commonly used. The states in such descriptions usually include multiple microscopic states, and the ensuing coarse-grained dynamics are generally non-Markovian.

H2O trimer: Rigorous 12D quantum calculations of intermolecular vibrational states, tunneling splittings, and low-frequency spectrum.

The water trimer, as the smallest water cluster in which the three-body interactions can manifest, is arguably the most important hydrogen-bonded trimer. Accurate, fully coupled quantum treatment of its excited intermolecular vibrations has long been an elusive goal. Here, we present the methodology that for the first time allows rigorous twelve-dimensional (12D) quantum calculation of the intermolecular vibration-tunneling eigenstates of the water trimer, with the monomers treated as rigid.

Collision integrals within the Chapman-Enskog theory for a generalized Lennard-Jones potential.

We report the values of the collision integrals, needed for the calculation of the macroscopic transport properties such as viscosity (η) and diffusion coefficient (D) of gases within the Chapman-Enskog kinetic gas theory, for a generalized Lennard-Jones potential (gLJ), a more general potential with an adjustable long range 1/r dependence that can describe a wide range of intermolecular interactions.

Exploring itch in hidradenitis suppurativa with lessons from atopic dermatitis and psoriasis.

Itch is a prominent symptom in many cutaneous disorders, including atopic dermatitis (AD), prurigo nodularis, and psoriasis. Itch is also a common but overlooked concern in patients with hidradenitis suppurativa (HS). Currently, the mechanisms underlying itch in HS remain unclear.

Using patient preference to inform ritlecitinib dose selection for alopecia areata treatment.

Ritlecitinib is an oral Janus kinase 3/tyrosine kinase expressed in hepatocellular carcinoma (JAK3/TEC) family kinase inhibitor approved for the treatment of severe alopecia areata (AA). Benefit-risk profiles of two doses of ritlecitinib (50 mg vs 30 mg once daily) were evaluated by integrating patient preferences and clinical efficacy and safety estimates for ritlecitinib. A discrete-choice experiment (DCE) was utilized to elicit preferences for benefit and safety attributes of systemic AA treatments.

Fibrotic and Emphysematous Murine Lung Mechanics Under Negative-Pressure Ventilation.

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is the third leading cause of death worldwide and the progressive nature heightens the calamity of the disease. Despite countless existing COPD studies, lung mechanics are often reported under positive-pressure ventilation (PPV) and implications and extrapolations made from these studies pose serious restrictions as recent works have divulged disparate elastic and energetic results between PPV and more physiological negative-pressure counterparts (NPV). This non-equivalence of PPV and NPV needs to be investigated under diseased states to augment our understanding of disease mechanics.

Thermotropic reentrant isotropy and induced smectic antiferroelectricity in the ferroelectric nematic realm: comparing RM734 and DIO.

The current intense study of ferroelectric nematic liquid crystals was initiated by the observation of the same ferroelectric nematic phase in two independently discovered organic, rod-shaped, mesogenic compounds, RM734 and DIO. We recently reported that the compound RM734 also exhibits a monotropic, low-temperature, apolar phase having reentrant isotropic symmetry (the I phase), the formation of which is facilitated to a remarkable degree by doping with small (below 1%) amounts of the ionic liquid BMIM-PF. Here we report similar phenomenology in DIO, showing that this reentrant isotropic behavior is not only a property of RM734 but is rather a more general, material-independent feature of ferroelectric nematic mesogens.

Managing Expectations: Understanding Parents' Perceptions of Their Child's Serious Illness.

Parenting a seriously ill child is complex and emotionally intense. To further develop Hinds and colleagues' Good Parent themes: "Keeping a Positive Outlook" and "Keeping a Realistic Outlook," we reviewed grounded theories published in English language journals from January 2006 to April 2021 identifying 18 studies with relevant results. Parents' efforts to keep a positive outlook included cognitive (e.

Intracellular tenofovir-diphosphate concentrations in HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis users who underwent bariatric surgery.

Objective: To measure concentrations of tenofovir diphosphate (TFV-DP) in dried blood spots (DBS) among individuals taking tenofovir disoproxil fumarate plus emtricitabine (TDF/FTC) or tenofovir alafenamide plus emtricitabine (TAF/FTC) who were scheduled to undergo or had already undergone bariatric surgery.

Methods: We enrolled pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) users attending clinics in Toronto or Ottawa who were undergoing or had undergone bariatric surgery. After participants completed a minimum of 7 days of consecutive PrEP dosing, we collected DBS samples immediately before they administered their next daily dose of PrEP.

Health Care Resource Utilization With Dronedarone Versus Sotalol Following Catheter Ablation in Adults With Atrial Fibrillation.

Background: Clinical trials support dronedarone use for atrial fibrillation (AF) following catheter ablation (CA); however, comparative data on health care resource utilization (HCRU) with other antiarrhythmic drugs are lacking.

Methods: Retrospective analysis of Merative MarketScan databases (January 01, 2012-March 31, 2020) comparatively assessed HCRU in US adults with AF who received dronedarone or sotalol post-CA. Patients with ≥ 12-months' pre-CA data were followed from post-CA index treatment to disenrollment, death, or study end.

Prevalence of pathogenic variants of inborn errors of immunity in critically ill children admitted to the pediatric intensive care unit for sepsis: A Moroccan cohort study.

Introduction: Pediatric sepsis remains a leading cause of morbidity and mortality in Africa. Nearly half of pediatric sepsis deaths occur in previously healthy children. The role of inborn errors of immunity (IEI) in susceptibility to sepsis is yet to be identified and their prevalence amongst previously healthy children admitted to the pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) is unclear.

Language Predictors of Word-Problem Performance Among Third-Grade Students With Mathematics Difficulty.

We examined how generalized and mathematics-specific language skills predicted the word-problem performance of students with mathematics difficulty. Participants included 325 third-grade students in the southwestern United States who performed at or below the 25th percentile on a word-problem measure. We assessed generalized language skills in word reading, passage comprehension, and vocabulary knowledge.