Born with an advantage: early life and maternal effects on fitness in female ground squirrels.

Lifetime fitness and its determinants are an important topic in the study of behavioral ecology and life-history evolution. Early life conditions comprise some of these determinants, warranting further investigation into their impact. In some mammals, babies born lighter tend to have lower life expectancy than those born heavier, and some of these life-history traits are passed on to offspring, with lighter-born females giving birth to lighter offspring.

Angiogenesis in bone tissue engineering via ceramic scaffolds: A review of concepts and recent advancements.

Due to organ donor shortages, long transplant waitlists, and the complications/limitations associated with auto and allotransplantation, biomaterials and tissue-engineered models are gaining attention as feasible alternatives for replacing and reconstructing damaged organs and tissues. Among various tissue engineering applications, bone tissue engineering has become a promising strategy to replace or repair damaged bone. We aimed to provide an overview of bioactive ceramic scaffolds in bone tissue engineering, focusing on angiogenesis and the effect of different biofunctionalization strategies.

Leveraging Pyrazolium Ylide Reactivity to Access Indolizine and 1,2-Dihydropyrimidine Derivatives.

N-Heterocyclic ylides are important synthetic precursors to rapidly build molecular complexity. Pyrazolium ylides have largely been unexplored, and we demonstrate their diverse utility in this report. We show that these readily accessible building blocks can be used to construct different heterocyclic skeletons by varying the coupling partner.

Burn mass casualty incident planning in Alberta: A case study.

Burn mass casualty incident (BMCI) preparedness is lacking across Canada. A focused exploration of the current policies, protocols and practices in Alberta that address the response to a BMCI was conducted. In this case study, data were gathered from documents outlining the health system response to a mass casualty incident and health care professionals directly involved.

Pull me - push you? The disparate financing mechanisms of drug research in global health.

Background: There is an inconsistency in the way pharmaceutical research is financed. While pull mechanisms are predominantly used to incentivize later-stage pharmaceutical research for products with demand in the Global North, so-called neglected diseases are chiefly financed by push funding. This discrepancy has so far been ignored in the academic debate, and any compelling explanation for why we draw the line between push and pull at poor people is lacking.

Knowledge translation strategies used for sustainability of an evidence-based intervention in child health: a multimethod qualitative study.

Background: Sustainability of evidence-based interventions (EBIs) is suboptimal in healthcare. Evidence on how knowledge translation (KT) strategies are used for the sustainability of EBIs in practice is lacking. This study examined what and how KT strategies were used to facilitate the sustainability of Alberta Family Integrated Care (FICare)™, a psychoeducational model of care scaled and spread across 14 neonatal intensive care units, in Alberta, Canada.

Preoperative depression and anxiety associated with younger age and receipt of immediate breast reconstruction.

Background: As survivorship for breast cancer continues to improve, emphasis of care falls upon improving patients' quality of life. Understanding physical and mental health in the preoperative period is needed to aid surgical decision making and improve patient experience.

Methods: Consecutive patients awaiting total mastectomy (TM), TM with immediate breast reconstruction (IBR) and breast conserving surgery (BCS) were prospectively recruited.

Chromosome level genome assembly of the Etruscan shrew Suncus etruscus.

Suncus etruscus is one of the world's smallest mammals, with an average body mass of about 2 grams. The Etruscan shrew's small body is accompanied by a very high energy demand and numerous metabolic adaptations. Here we report a chromosome-level genome assembly using PacBio long read sequencing, 10X Genomics linked short reads, optical mapping, and Hi-C linked reads.

Understanding the impact of digital technology on the well-being of older immigrants and refugees: A scoping review.

Background: The fast-paced development of digital technologies in the areas of social media, pet robots, smart homes, and artificial intelligence, among others, profoundly influence the daily lives of older adults. Digital technology can improve the well-being and quality of life of older adults, older immigrants and refugees who suffer migration-associated stress, loneliness, health and psychosocial challenges.

Aims: The aim of this scoping review is to map out extant empirical literature that has examined the implication of digital technology among older refugees and immigrants.

Design and Development of Stable Nanocrystalline High-Entropy Alloy: Coupling Self-Stabilization and Solute Grain Boundary Segregation Effects.

Grain growth is prevalent in nanocrystalline (NC) materials at low homologous temperatures. Solute element addition is used to offset excess energy that drives coarsening at grain boundaries (GBs), albeit mostly for simple binary alloys. This thermodynamic approach is considered complicated in multi-component alloy systems due to complex pairwise interactions among alloying elements.

Association between social relationship of mentors and depressive symptoms in first-time mothers during the transition from pregnancy to 6-months postpartum.

Background: First-time motherhood is characterized by high psychosocial distress, which untreated, has serious consequences. Informal social support provided by specially trained mentors may be protective against postpartum depressive symptoms but may vary by women's social relationship with the mentor. The objective of this study was to evaluate the association of types of mentors on women's depressive symptoms between late pregnancy to 6-months postpartum and the characteristics of women associated with mentor type.

Integration of Swin UNETR and statistical shape modeling for a semi-automated segmentation of the knee and biomechanical modeling of articular cartilage.

Simulation studies, such as finite element (FE) modeling, provide insight into knee joint mechanics without patient involvement. Generic FE models mimic the biomechanical behavior of the tissue, but overlook variations in geometry, loading, and material properties of a population. Conversely, subject-specific models include these factors, resulting in enhanced predictive precision, but are laborious and time intensive.

Whole Blood Cardiac Troponin "Triaging" to Improve Early Detection of Myocardial Injury at a Pediatric Hospital.

Background: The importance of offering on-site cardiac troponin (cTn) testing at pediatric hospitals may be underappreciated. We developed a rapid rule-in process for myocardial injury at a pediatric hospital experiencing delays in off-site high-sensitivity cardiac troponin T (hs-cTnT) testing.

Methods: Collect-to-verify turnaround times (TATs) for off-site testing were reviewed.

System-Specific Parameter Optimization for Nonpolarizable and Polarizable Force Fields.

The accuracy of classical force fields (FFs) has been shown to be limited for the simulation of cation-protein systems despite their importance in understanding the processes of life. Improvements can result from optimizing the parameters of classical FFs or by extending the FF formulation by terms describing charge transfer (CT) and polarization (POL) effects. In this work, we introduce our implementation of the CTPOL model in OpenMM, which extends the classical additive FF formula by adding CT and POL.

Food marketing on digital platforms: what do teens see?

Objective: Given the aggressive marketing of foods and beverages to teenagers on digital platforms, and the paucity of research documenting teen engagement with food marketing and its persuasive content, the objective of this study is to examine what teenagers see as teen-targeted food marketing on four popular digital platforms and to provide insight into the persuasive power of that marketing.

Design: This is an exploratory, participatory research study, in which teenagers used a special mobile app to capture all teen-targeted food and beverage marketing they saw on digital media for 7 d. For each ad, participants identified the brand, product and specific appeals that made it teen-targeted, as well as the platform on which it was found.

Pd 4d Orbital Overlapping Modulation on Au@Pd Nanowires for Efficient HO Production.

Isolating Pd atoms has been shown to be crucial for the design of a Pd-based electrocatalyst toward 2e oxygen reduction reaction (ORR). However, there are limited studies focusing on the systematic compositional design that leads to an optimal balance between activity and selectivity. Herein, we design a series of Au@Pd core@shell structures to investigate the influence of the Pd 4d orbital overlapping degree on 2e ORR performance.

Photocatalytic degradation of 2,4-dichlorophenol using nanomaterials silver halide catalysts.

In this study, the photocatalytic activity of nanomaterials Ag/AgX (X = Cl, Br, I) is reported. Highly efficient silver halide (Ag/AgX where X = Cl, Br, I) photocatalysts were synthesized through a hydrothermal method. The samples were characterized using a range of techniques such as X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) to check their structural, morphology, textural and optical properties.

Mercury binding to proteins disclosed by ESI MS experiments: The case of three organomercurials.

Solution interactions of three organomercury compounds, i.e., methylmercury chloride, thimerosal and phenylmercury acetate, with a group of biochemically relevant proteins, namely cytochrome c (Cyt c), ribonuclease A (RNase A), carbonic anhydrase I (hCA I), superoxide dismutase (SOD), and serum albumin (HSA), were investigated using an established ESI MS approach.

Epoxide-Mediated Trans-Thioglycosylation and Application to the Synthesis of Oligosaccharides Related to the Capsular Polysaccharides of C. jejuni HS:4.

The enzyme-resistant thioglycosides are highly valuable immunogens because of their enhanced metabolic stability. We report the first synthesis of a family of thiooligosaccharides related to the capsular polysaccharides (CPS) of Campylobacter jejuni HS:4 for potential use in conjugate vaccines. The native CPS structures of the pathogen consist of a challenging repeating disaccharide formed with β(1→4)-linked 6-deoxy-β-D-ido-heptopyranoside and N-acetyl-D-glucosamine; the rare 6-deoxy-ido-heptopyranosyl backbone and β-anomeric configuration of the former monosaccharide makes the synthesis of this family of antigens very challenging.

Evaluation of Interfacial Structure of Self-Assembled Nanoparticle Layers: Use of Standard Deviation between Calculated and Experimental Drop Profiles as a Novel Method.

The self-assembly of nanoparticles (NPs) at interfaces is currently a topic of increasing interest due to numerous applications in food technology, pharmaceuticals, cosmetology, and oil recovery. It is possible to create tunable interfacial structures with desired characteristics using tailored nanoparticles that can be precisely controlled with respect to shape, size, and surface chemistry. To address these functionalities, it is essential to develop techniques to study the properties of the underlying structure.

Structural characterization of the antimicrobial peptides myxinidin and WMR in bacterial membrane mimetic micelles and bicelles.

Antimicrobial peptides are a promising class of potential antibiotics that interact selectively with negatively charged lipid bilayers. This paper presents the structural characterization of the antimicrobial peptides myxinidin and WMR associated with bacterial membrane mimetic micelles and bicelles by NMR, CD spectroscopy, and molecular dynamics simulations. Both peptides adopt a different conformation in the lipidic environment than in aqueous solution.

Asymmetric Synthesis with Organoselenium Compounds - The Past Twelve Years.

The discovery and synthetic applications of novel organoselenium compounds and their reactions proceeded rapidly during the past fifty years and such processes are now carried out routinely in many laboratories. At the same time, the growing demand for new enantioselective processes provided new challenges. The convergence of selenium chemistry and asymmetric synthesis led to key developments in the 1970s, although the majority of early work was based on stoichiometric processes.