2,608 results match your criteria: "University of Maryland Baltimore County.[Affiliation]"

Thiophene and two derivatives (2-methylthiophene and 3-methylthiophene) have been detected on the surface of Mars with the Sample Analysis at Mars instrument suite onboard NASA's Curiosity rover. Thiophene could serve as a secondary chemical biosignature since the secondary biosynthesis of thiophene is considered an important production pathway. However, it is critical to understand the abiotic formation and destruction of thiophene and its derivatives since these pathways could affect the molecules' stabilities on planetary surfaces over geological timescales.

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  • - The spotted sea bass shows strong adaptability to temperature changes, making it a useful model for studying how fish respond to heat stress at the molecular level.
  • - A study analyzed the liver transcriptome of these fish after exposure to high temperatures, identifying thousands of differentially expressed genes over a 24-hour period, with notable changes at various time points.
  • - Key gene modules linked to heat stress were identified, revealing significant roles in protein processing and alternative splicing, providing insights that could aid in breeding heat-resistant strains of spotted sea bass.
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Objective: The resident population in nursing homes is increasingly racially diverse. The purpose of this study was to assess racial differences in the quality of care interactions among nursing home residents with dementia.

Design: The study utilized baseline data from the Testing the Evidence Integration Triangle for Behavioral and Psychological Symptoms of Dementia (EIT-4-BPSD), a randomized controlled pragmatic trial.

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Factors associated with COVID-19 vaccination or intent to be vaccinated across three U.S. states.

Vaccine

December 2024

Department of Emergency Management and Disaster Health Systems, University of Maryland Baltimore County, 900 Walker Ave, Baltimore, MD 21250, United States. Electronic address:

Objectives: Vaccine hesitancy represents an important challenge to the effective control of the COVID-19 pandemic. In prior research on seasonal influenza, childhood vaccination, and emergency vaccination programs, hesitancy has been associated with a wide range of demographic, psychological, and compliance factors.

Methods: In January 2021, an online survey was distributed using the Qualtrics (Provo, UT) platform to a proportional quota sample of individuals in three states: Louisiana, New York, and Washington.

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Uncovering mediational pathways behind racial and socioeconomic disparities in brain volumes: insights from the UK Biobank study.

Geroscience

October 2024

Laboratory of Epidemiology and Population Sciences, National Institute On Aging, NIA/NIH/IRP, 251 Bayview Blvd., Suite 100, Room #: 04B118, Baltimore, MD, 21224, USA.

Mediation pathways explaining racial/ethnic and socioeconomic (SES) disparities in structural MRI markers of brain health remain underexplored. We examined racial/ethnic and SES disparities in sMRI markers and tested total, direct, and indirect effects through lifestyle, health-related, and cognition factors using a structural equations modeling approach among 36,184 UK Biobank participants aged 40-70 years at baseline assessment (47% men). Race (non-White vs.

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Analyzing hope speech from psycholinguistic and emotional perspectives.

Sci Rep

October 2024

Centro de Investigación en Computación (CIC), Instituto Politécnico Nacional (IPN), Mexico City, Mexico.

Article Synopsis
  • The study investigates how hope acts as a coping mechanism and utilizes Natural Language Processing (NLP) tools to analyze social media posts about hope, focusing on psycholinguistic and emotional features.
  • It identifies various cognitive and emotional characteristics associated with different types of hope expressed online and explores the potential to classify these types using machine learning algorithms.
  • Models like LightGBM and CatBoost were found to outperform traditional methods, showing notable improvements in efficiency through hyperparameter tuning.
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Forty years ago, Werker and Tees (1984) published a seminal finding which launched a proliferation of new research on early language learning. Their startling discovery, that infants demonstrate high initial sensitivity to phonetic contrasts which then attenuates over the first year of life, has provided deep insights into the origins of language learning. It has since stimulated a significant body of research investigating this early developmental process.

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Targeted K-Edge Nanoprobes From Praseodymium and Hafnium for Ratiometric Tracking of Dual Biomarkers using Spectral Photon Counting CT.

Adv Sci (Weinh)

December 2024

Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences, Department(s) of Biomedical Engineering, Nuclear Engineering, Materials Science and Engineering, The Pennsylvania State University, 101 Huck Life Sciences Building, University Park PA, 16802, USA.

Article Synopsis
  • Scientists created tiny metal probes called nanoprobes to help see and study important parts of cartilage tissue in our bodies.
  • These nanoprobes are made from two different metals, praseodymium and hafnium, which can be identified separately using special imaging technology.
  • This new method can help track diseases like osteoarthritis by showing two important markers at the same time.
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Background: Smoking cessation is linked to improved mental health that encompasses the overall well-being and psychological functioning of an individual.

Objective: Examine relationships between smoking, mental health, and social connectedness among adults in Maryland, US in 2020.

Methodology: This cross-sectional study used data from the Maryland 2020 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System Survey of adults during the onset of COVID-19.

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  • The STEM workforce and advanced degree holders still show low representation of traditionally underrepresented groups (URGs), hindering diversity in academic faculty and student engagement.
  • This lack of diverse faculty can negatively impact STEM student retention since students have fewer role models to connect with.
  • The UMBC STEM BUILD program created a career-focused mentoring initiative that includes various STEM professions, aiming to enhance career development for two-year STEM students from URGs.
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Nanoparticles have been developed as imaging contrast agents, heat absorbers to confine energy into targeted tumors, and drug carriers in advanced cancer treatment. It is crucial to achieve a minimal concentration of drug-carrying nanostructures or to induce an optimized nanoparticle distribution in tumors. This review is focused on understanding how local or whole-body heating alters transport properties in tumors, therefore leading to enhanced nanoparticle delivery or optimized nanoparticle distributions in tumors.

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Repeat hospitalizations adversely impact the well-being of adults dually eligible for Medicare and Medicaid in the United States. This study aimed to identify behavioral, cognitive, and functional characteristics associated with the risk of a repeat hospital episode (HE) among the statewide population of dually eligible adults in Maryland receiving long-term services and supports prior to an HE between July 2018 and May 2020. The odds of experiencing a repeat HE within 30 days after an initial HE were positively associated with reporting difficulty with hearing (adjusted odds ratio, AOR: 1.

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Co-infecting parasites modify infection outcomes in the wild. However, it is unclear how multiple environmental factors influence co-infection. The Chesapeake Bay metapopulation of the eastern oyster, Crassostrea virginica, provides an opportunity to test the importance of co-infection across heterogeneous environments because multiple parasites infect oysters across a broad salinity gradient.

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Background: Paroxysmal Sympathetic Hyperactivity (PSH) occurs with high prevalence among critically ill Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) patients and is associated with worse outcomes. The PSH-Assessment Measure (PSH-AM) consists of a Clinical Features Scale (CFS) and a Diagnosis Likelihood Tool (DLT), intended to quantify the severity of sympathetically-mediated symptoms and likelihood that they are due to PSH, respectively, on a daily basis. Here, we aim to identify and explore the value of dynamic trends in the evolution of sympathetic hyperactivity following acute TBI using elements of the PSH-AM.

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Bacteria are major drivers of organic matter decomposition and play crucial roles in global nutrient cycling. Although the degradation of dead fungal biomass (necromass) is increasingly recognized as an important contributor to soil carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) cycling, the genes and metabolic pathways involved in necromass degradation are less characterized. In particular, how bacteria degrade necromass containing different quantities of melanin, which largely control rates of necromass decomposition , is largely unknown.

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The cardiovascular system interacts continuously with the respiratory system to maintain the vital balance of oxygen and carbon dioxide in our body. The interplay between the sympathetic and parasympathetic branches of the autonomic nervous system regulates the aforesaid involuntary functions. This study analyzes the dynamics of the cardio-respiratory (CR) interactions using RR Intervals (RRI), Systolic Blood Pressure (SBP), and Respiration signals after first-order differencing to make them stationary.

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Recent evidence demonstrates genomic and morphological continuity in the Arctic ancestral lineage of dogs. Here, we use the Siberian Husky to investigate the genomic legacy of the northeast Eurasian Arctic lineage and model the deep population history using genome-wide single nucleotide polymorphisms. Utilizing ancient dog-calibrated molecular clocks, we found that at least two distinct lineages of Arctic dogs existed in ancient Eurasia at the end of the Pleistocene.

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Optimal Large Language Model Characteristics to Balance Accuracy and Energy Use for Sustainable Medical Applications.

Radiology

August 2024

From the University of Maryland Medical Intelligent Imaging (UM2ii) Center, Department of Radiology and Nuclear Medicine, University of Maryland School of Medicine, 22 S Greene St, Baltimore, MD 21201 (F.X.D., D.S., A.K., P.H.Y., V.S.P.); Department of Radiology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Mich (R.C.C.); and Department of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering, University of Maryland Baltimore County, Baltimore, Md (A.J.).

Article Synopsis
  • Research on large language models (LLMs) for medical applications highlights their unknown energy consumption, which impacts healthcare's carbon footprint.
  • The study compared two types of LLMs (Meta's Llama 2 and LMSYS Org's Vicuna 1.5) in terms of accuracy and energy efficiency using chest radiograph reports, evaluating five model sizes.
  • Results showed Vicuna 1.5 models, particularly the 7B size, outperformed Llama 2 models in both efficiency ratios and accuracy for diagnosing conditions from chest X-rays.
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To identify and confirm patterns of relationships connecting sense of community (SOC) and individual resilience with psychological well-being, via the mediation of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) impacts on life domains. An online survey was conducted with a sample of adults (n = 650) 1 year after the COVID-19 outbreak in Italy and the United States (April-December 2021). Utilizing a Structural Equation Model, we tested a mediation model (n = 563) to identify the associations between SOC and individual resilience and the perceived impacts of the emergency situation and psychological well-being.

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The Health Status of Undocumented Immigrants from Asian Countries in the United States: A Scoping Review and Recommendations for Future Directions.

J Immigr Minor Health

December 2024

Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Public Health, University of Maryland Baltimore County, 1000 Hilltop Circle, Public Policy Building, Baltimore, MD, 21250, USA.

Immigrants from Asian countries are the fastest-growing undocumented population in the United States (U.S.), yet not much is known about their health.

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  • - Bacteriophage GiJojo is a type of myovirus that was discovered in soil and specifically targets the bacteria NRRL B-2400.
  • - It has a genome that is 115,161 base pairs long, comprising 180 genes and 29 transfer RNA (tRNA) molecules.
  • - Out of the 180 genes, 59 have been categorized with specific functions, and GiJojo belongs to the BS cluster of actinobacteriophages.
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UV-activated calcium peroxide system enables simultaneous organophosphorus degradation, phosphate recovery, and carbon fixation.

J Hazard Mater

October 2024

Department of Chemical, Biochemical, and Environmental Engineering, University of Maryland Baltimore County, Baltimore, MD 21250, United States. Electronic address:

Advanced oxidation processes are a desirable technology for treatment of contaminants of emerging concern. Nevertheless, conventional advanced oxidation of organophosphorus compounds releases inorganic phosphate, posing downstream concerns related to eutrophication. For this reason, we evaluated the ultraviolet light-activated calcium peroxide (UV/CaO) system for effective treatment of organophosphorus compounds and concurrent capture of the mineralization products, phosphate.

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  • GoblinVoyage and Doxi13 are newly identified siphoviruses belonging to the BI2 cluster, isolated on RL-34.* -
  • Both bacteriophages have high GC content in their genomes, at 60.9%.* -
  • The genome lengths for GoblinVoyage and Doxi13 are slightly different, measuring 43,540 bp and 43,696 bp, respectively.*
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