Optimized Fabrication of Dendritic Mesoporous Silica Nanoparticles as Efficient Delivery System for Cancer Immunotherapy.

In the past decade, cancer immunotherapy has revolutionized the field of oncology. Major immunotherapy approaches such as immune checkpoint inhibitors, cancer vaccines, adoptive cell therapy, cytokines, and immunomodulators have shown great promise in preclinical and clinical settings. Among them, immunomodulatory agents including cancer vaccines are particularly appealing; however, they face limitations, notably the absence of efficient and precise targeted delivery of immune-modulatory agents to specific immune cells and the potential for off-target toxicity.

A Bayesian beta-binomial piecewise growth mixture model for longitudinal overdispersed binomial data.

In a recent 12-week smoking cessation trial, varenicline tartrate failed to show significant improvements in enhancing end-of-treatment abstinence when compared with placebo among adolescents and young adults. The original analysis aimed to assess the average effect across the entire population using timeline followback methods, which typically involve overdispersed binomial counts. We instead propose to investigate treatment effect heterogeneity among latent classes of participants using a Bayesian beta-binomial piecewise linear growth mixture model specifically designed to address longitudinal overdispersed binomial responses.

Strengthening nutrition policy and service delivery: Lessons learned from a six-country assessment of Alive and Thrive's technical assistance.

Alive & Thrive (A&T) provides strategic technical assistance (TA) to develop effective policies; improve maternal, infant, and young child nutrition (MIYCN) programme design and implementation and enhance system capacity to sustain quality MIYCN service delivery at scale. A qualitative assessment was conducted using document review and stakeholder interviews (n = 79) to describe a selection of A&T's TA in six countries and systematically assess the contextual and TA process-related factors that influenced the results achieved and document the lessons learned about MIYCN TA design and implementation. To facilitate the selection of different types of TA, we classified TA into two levels of stakeholder engagement and intensity.

Reliability of a workplace-based assessment for the United States general surgical trainees’ intraoperative performance using multivariate generalizability theory: a psychometric study.

Purpose: The System for Improving and Measuring Procedure Learning (SIMPL), a smartphone-based operative assessment application, was developed to assess the intraoperative performance of surgical residents. This study aims to examine the reliability of the SIMPL assessment and determine the optimal number of procedures for a reliable assessment.

Methods: In this retrospective observational study, we analyzed data collected between 2015 and 2023 from 4,616 residents across 94 General Surgery Residency programs in the United States that utilized the SIMPL smartphone application.

Baroreflex Function in Cardiovascular Disease.

The baroreflex system is involved in modulating several physiological functions of the cardiovascular system and can modulate cardiac output, blood pressure, and cardiac electrophysiology directly and indirectly. In addition, it is involved in regulating neurohormonal pathways involved in the cardiovascular function, such as the renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system and vasopressin release. Baroreflex dysfunction is characterized by sympathetic overactivation and parasympathetic withdrawal and is associated with several cardiovascular diseases, such as hypertension, heart failure, and coronary artery disease.

Are There Benefits to Breastfeeding for Long Durations That Continue after Breastfeeding Has Stopped? An Analysis of Acute Respiratory Illness in Nigerian Children.

While an abundance of evidence exists regarding infectious outcomes in children as they relate to the short-term benefits of breastfeeding, there is limited evidence related to similar impacts beyond one year and after breastfeeding has stopped. Specifically, little is known about the long-term benefits of breastfeeding for acute health outcomes after infancy, particularly in Nigeria. The Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey data was used in this study.

Biologically Randomized Comparison of Haploidentical Versus Human Leukocyte Antigen-Matched Related Donor Reduced-Intensity Conditioning Hematopoietic Cell Transplantation.

Using haploidentical donors for allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT) broadens transplant accessibility to a growing number of patients with hematologic disorders. Moreover, haploidentical HCT with post-transplant cyclophosphamide (PTCy) has become widespread practice due to accumulating evidence demonstrating favorable rates of survival and graft-versus-host disease (GvHD). Most studies comparing outcomes by donor sources have been confounded by variability in conditioning regimens, graft type (peripheral blood [PB] or bone marrow), and post-transplant GvHD prophylaxis (PTCy or non-PTCy), making it difficult to define the effect of donor source on outcomes.

Patient-Reported Outcome Measures and Biomechanical Variables That May Be Related to Knee Functions Following Total Knee Arthroplasty.

Total knee arthroplasty (TKA) is a commonly performed surgery aimed at alleviating pain and improving functionality. However, patients often face uncertainties in selecting the timing, location, and type of TKA implant that best meets their needs. This study aims to comprehensively compare various variables, explore trends, and identify factors potentially influencing TKA outcomes.

Improving graduate education in legal psychology: Early career psychologists' recommendations on diversity, debt, and applying legal psychology in the real world.

Objective: This article reviews how training programs and professional organizations can work together to better prepare legal psychology graduate students and early career professionals (ECPs) for their first postgraduate careers.

Method: In 2019, the American Psychology-Law Society released a report exploring the unique needs of ECPs in the field of legal psychology. The surveyed ECPs overwhelmingly highlighted the importance of grappling with rising student debt, the critical need to diversify our field and better prepare students for jobs outside academia, and a desire for more policy and real-world experience.

Does what others can(not) see really matter? The relationship between leadership Arena-Reputation-Identity (LARI) model and leader effectiveness.

Leadership scholars recognize that there is value in capturing how leaders view themselves and how they are viewed by others. Recently, the leadership Arena-Reputation-Identity (LARI) model has been advanced as a means of more precisely capturing the shared and unique perspectives that underlie multisource ratings of leadership. Despite its strengths, several critical questions pertaining to this model remain unanswered: (1) Does the wealth of information provided by the LARI model have any bearing on the effectiveness of a leader? (2) Does the amount of variance explained by a particular source within the LARI model depend on the observability of the leadership dimension being rated? (3) Does the LARI model generalize to the upper echelon of the firms (i.

Novel 3D printed bioactive SiC orthopedic screw promotes bone growth associated activities by macrophages, neurons, and osteoblasts.

Ceramic additive manufacturing currently relies on binders or high-energy lasers, each with limitations affecting final product quality and suitability for medical applications. To address these challenges, our laboratory has devised a surface activation technique for ceramic particles that eliminates the necessity for polymer binders or high-energy lasers in ceramic additive manufacturing. We utilized this method to 3D print bioactive SiC orthopedic screws and evaluated their properties.

Affordable Care Act Medicaid expansion, access to health care, and financial behavior of the United States adults.

The access to care benefits of Affordable Care Act (ACA) Medicaid expansions are important for 45-64-year-old adults who are living below 100% of the Federal Poverty Level, a particularly vulnerable group in the United States (US). Gaining coverage from Medicaid expansions should improve access to healthcare and affect social determinants of health, including financial behavior. We analyzed data from 2009 to 2018 from the National Financial Capability Survey (NFCS) and utilize a difference-in-differences model to compare outcomes changes in states with and without expansion before and after the ACA Medicaid expansions.

An Examination of Hate-Motivated Behavior Among Adults in Scotland and Associations with Risk Factors for Self-Directed Violence.

Hate-motivated behavior (HMB) ranges from microaggressions to criminal acts and is a public health concern with consequences for the physical and mental well-being of individuals, families, and communities. The Hate-Motivated Behavior Checklist (HMBC) was developed with the goal of advancing the measurement of HMB perpetration. To provide insights into perpetration and victimization across the HMB continuum in Scotland, the present study sought to examine the factor structure of both the original HMBC and our adapted victimization version in a sample of adults currently living in Scotland.

Investigating Older Adults' Use of a Socially Assistive Robot via Time Series Clustering and User Profiling: Descriptive Analysis Study.

Background: The aging population and the shortage of geriatric care workers are major global concerns. Socially assistive robots (SARs) have the potential to address these issues, but developing SARs for various types of users is still in its infancy.

Objective: This study aims to examine the characteristics and use patterns of SARs.