Investigating the presence of surgical learning in the Timing of Primary Surgery for cleft palate randomised trial.

Background/aims: When conducting a randomised controlled trial in surgery, it is important to consider surgical learning, where surgeons' familiarity with one, or both, of the interventions increases during the trial. If present, learning may compromise trial validity. We demonstrate a statistical investigation into surgical learning within a trial of cleft palate repair.

Strategies to Increase Response Rate and Reduce Nonresponse Bias in Population Health Research: Analysis of a Series of Randomized Controlled Experiments during a Large COVID-19 Study.

Background: High response rates are needed in population-based studies, as nonresponse reduces effective sample size and bias affects accuracy and decreases the generalizability of the study findings.

Objective: We tested different strategies to improve response rate and reduce nonresponse bias in a national population-based COVID-19 surveillance program in England, United Kingdom.

Methods: Over 19 rounds, a random sample of individuals aged 5 years and older from the general population in England were invited by mail to complete a web-based questionnaire and return a swab for SARS-CoV-2 testing.

Predicting cognitive decline from neuropsychiatric symptoms and Alzheimer's disease biomarkers: A machine learning approach to a population-based data.

Background: The aim of this study was to examine the potential added value of including neuropsychiatric symptoms (NPS) in machine learning (ML) models, along with demographic features and Alzheimer's disease (AD) biomarkers, to predict decline or non-decline in global and domain-specific cognitive scores among community-dwelling older adults.

Objective: To evaluate the impact of adding NPS to AD biomarkers on ML model accuracy in predicting cognitive decline among older adults.

Methods: The study was conducted in the setting of the Mayo Clinic Study of Aging, including participants aged ≥ 50 years with information on demographics (i.

Evaluation of efficiency and effectiveness of different recruitment strategies for the FINGER-NL multidomain lifestyle intervention trial via the Dutch Brain Research Registry.

Introduction: Recruitment of participants for intervention studies is challenging. We evaluated the effectiveness and efficiency of a participant recruitment campaign through an online registry for the FINGER-NL study, a multi-domain lifestyle intervention trial targeting cognitively healthy individuals aged 60-79 with dementia prevention potential. Additionally, we explored which recruitment strategy successfully reached individuals from underrepresented groups in research.

Seasonal Variation in Home Range Sizes and Daily Distance to Ephemeral Surface Water for African Savannah Elephant () in Eastern Okavango Panhandle, Northern Botswana.

African elephants () are megaherbivores of the African savannas requiring extensive ranges that can provide critical resources for their survival and reproduction at different spatiotemporal scales. We studied seasonal differences in home range sizes and daily distance to the nearest surface water sources by five male and 10 female African elephants in the eastern Okavango Panhandle in northern Botswana between 2014 and 2017. We hypothesized that (i) elephant home ranges would be larger in the wet than in the dry season (because critical resources tend to be less localized in the wet than in the dry season), (ii) the daily distance of the elephants to the nearest ephemeral surface water sources would be larger in the dry than in the wet season because many of the ephemeral water sources would be dry in the dry season and elephants would start moving towards permanent water sources such as rivers, and lastly (iii) that the differences in elephant home ranges and daily distance to water would differ between sexes.

Sieving the weeds from the grains: an R based package for classifying archaeobotanical samples of cereals and pulses according to crop processing stages.

Unlabelled: The R package CropPro is an open-access resource to classify archaeobotanical samples as products and by-products of different stages of the crop processing sequence for large-seeded cereal and pulse crops in south west Asia, Europe and other Mediterranean regions. It builds on ethnographic research and analysis conducted by Jones (Plants and ancient man: studies in palaeoethnobotany. Balkema, Rotterdam, pp 43-61, 1984), (J Archaeol Sci 14:311-323, 1987), (Circaea 6:91-96, 1990) and a modified method by Charles (Environ Archaeol 1:111-122, 1998).

Mortality and functional outcomes in elderly adults treated surgically by hemiarthroplasty for femoral neck fractures.

Background: Despite multiple studies, less recent literature and data regarding the mortality associated with hip fractures in the elderly population are available.

Objectives: To assess the mortality data and functional outcomes of patients who underwent cemented and uncemented hemiarthroplasty in femoral neck fractures. To evaluate if preoperative (minimum 2 months) calcium and vitamin D supplement intake in patients affects postoperative mobilization with or without walker support.

Evolving trends in novel sleep tracking and sleep testing technology publications between 2020-2022.

Study Objectives: To update sleep medicine providers regarding (1) published research on the uses and performance of novel sleep tracking and testing technologies (2) the use of artificial intelligence to acquire and process sleep data and (3) research trends and gaps regarding the development and/or evaluation of these technologies.

Methods: Medline and Embase electronic databases were searched for studies utilizing screening and diagnostic sleep technologies, published between 2020 and 2022 in journals focusing on human sleep. Studies' quality was determined based on the Study Design criteria of The Oxford Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine Levels of Evidence.

What Do Patients Seek Care for at a Health Facility in the Aftermath of an Earthquake? Experiences From an Emergency Medical Team in Türkoğlu, Türkiye 2023.

On February 6, 2023, a strong earthquake (7.8 Richter scale) shook southwestern Türkiye, and also affected areas in northwest Syria, resulting in over 50 000 fatalities and more than 100 000 injured in Türkiye, in addition to the displacement of approximately 3 million people. In response to an international request for assistance from the Turkish government, the United Kingdom (UK) government deployed an Emergency Medical Team (EMT) Type 1 to provide outpatient care.

First Report of Causing Leaf Spot on in a greenhouse in New York State, U.S.A.

, commonly known as the "Chinese hibiscus", is a widely cultivated shrub with ornamental and medicinal applications (Jadhav et al., 2009). However, it is known to be susceptible to a range of pathogens including bacteria (Chase, 1986).

Capacity and Capability for Nursing, Midwifery and Allied Health Professional Principal Investigator Roles in Healthcare Research: A National Survey.

Aims: To understand the current capacity and capability for nursing, midwifery and allied health professional (NMAHP) principal investigator roles in England.

Design: Quantitative online survey.

Methods: Online national quantitative survey across England analysed using descriptive statistics.

Clinical evaluation of long-read sequencing-based episignature detection in developmental disorders.

Background: A subset of developmental disorders (DD) is characterized by disease-specific genome-wide methylation changes. These episignatures inform on the underlying pathogenic mechanisms and can be used to assess the pathogenicity of genomic variants as well as confirm clinical diagnoses. Currently, the detection of these episignature requires the use of indirect methylation profiling methodologies.

Fedratinib combined with ropeginterferon alfa-2b in patients with myelofibrosis (FEDORA): study protocol for a multicentre, open-label, Bayesian phase II trial.

Background: Myelofibrosis (MF) is a clonal haematopoietic disease, with median overall survival for patients with primary MF only 6.5 years. The most frequent gene mutation found in patients is JAK2, causing constitutive activation of the kinase and activation of downstream signalling.

A scalable variational inference approach for increased mixed-model association power.

The rapid growth of modern biobanks is creating new opportunities for large-scale genome-wide association studies (GWASs) and the analysis of complex traits. However, performing GWASs on millions of samples often leads to trade-offs between computational efficiency and statistical power, reducing the benefits of large-scale data collection efforts. We developed Quickdraws, a method that increases association power in quantitative and binary traits without sacrificing computational efficiency, leveraging a spike-and-slab prior on variant effects, stochastic variational inference and graphics processing unit acceleration.

Excited state dynamics of azanaphthalenes reveal opportunities for the rational design of photoactive molecules.

Various photoactive molecules contain motifs built on aza-aromatic heterocycles, although a detailed understanding of the excited state photophysics and photochemistry in such systems is not fully developed. To help address this issue, the non-adiabatic dynamics operating in azanaphthalenes under hexane solvation was studied following 267 nm excitation using ultrafast transient absorption spectroscopy. Specifically, the species quinoline, isoquinoline, quinazoline, quinoxaline, 1,6-naphthyridine, and 1,8-naphthyridine were investigated, providing a systematic variation in the relative positioning of nitrogen heteroatom centres within a bicyclic aromatic structure.

MDM2 functions as a timer reporting the length of mitosis.

Delays in mitosis trigger p53-dependent arrest in G1 of the next cell cycle, thus preventing repeated cycles of chromosome instability and aneuploidy. Here we show that MDM2, the p53 ubiquitin ligase, is a key component of the timer mechanism triggering G1 arrest in response to prolonged mitosis. This timer function arises due to the attenuation of protein synthesis in mitosis.

A reform of value-added taxes on foods can have health, environmental and economic benefits in Europe.

Fiscal policies can provide important incentives for encouraging the dietary changes needed to achieve global policy targets. Across Europe, the foods relevant to health and the environment often incur reduced but non-zero value-added tax (VAT) rates at about half the maximum rates, which allows for providing both incentives and disincentives. Integrating economic, health and environmental modelling, we show that reforming VAT rates on foods, including increasing rates on meat and dairy, and reducing VAT rates on fruits and vegetables can improve diets and result in health, environmental and economic benefits in most European countries.

Vertex model with internal dissipation enables sustained flows.

Complex tissue flows in epithelia are driven by intra- and inter-cellular processes that generate, maintain, and coordinate mechanical forces. There has been growing evidence that cell shape anisotropy, manifested as nematic order, plays an important role in this process. Here we extend an active nematic vertex model by replacing substrate friction with internal viscous dissipation, dominant in epithelia not supported by a substrate or the extracellular matrix, which are found in many early-stage embryos.

A Parametric study on the effects of winglet cant angle on wing aerodynamics and aeroacoustics.

The use of winglet devices is an efficient technique for enhancing aerodynamic performance. This study investigates the effects of winglet cant angles on both the aerodynamics and aeroacoustics of a commercial wing, comparing them to other significant parameters using a parametric analysis. A Full Factorial Design method is employed to generate a matrix of experiments, facilitating a detailed exploration of flow physics, with lift-to-drag ratio (L/D) and the integral of Acoustic Power Level (APL) as the primary representatives of aerodynamic and acoustic performance, respectively.

A scaling law to model the effectiveness of identification techniques.

AI techniques are increasingly being used to identify individuals both offline and online. However, quantifying their effectiveness at scale and, by extension, the risks they pose remains a significant challenge. Here, we propose a two-parameter Bayesian model for exact matching techniques and derive an analytical expression for correctness (κ), the fraction of people accurately identified in a population.

Factors influencing COVID-19 vaccine acceptability among household heads in northern Nigeria: a community-based cross-sectional study.

Objectives: COVID-19 vaccine was rolled out for the public in August 2021 in Zamfara state, Northen Nigeria. We determined the factors influencing COVID-19 vaccine acceptance.

Settings: We executed a community-based analytical cross-sectional study during the first 4 months of the second phase of the COVID-19 (Oxford/AstraZeneca) mass vaccination campaign in Zamfara state.

Using routine primary care data in research: (in)efficient case studies and perspectives from the Asthma UK Centre for Applied Research.

Aim: We aimed to identify enablers and barriers of using primary care routine data for healthcare research, to formulate recommendations for improving efficiency in knowledge discovery.

Background: Data recorded routinely in primary care can be used for estimating the impact of interventions provided within routine care for all people who are clinically eligible. Despite official promotion of 'efficient trial designs', anecdotally researchers in the Asthma UK Centre for Applied Research (AUKCAR) have encountered multiple barriers to accessing and using routine data.

Policy complexity suppresses dopamine responses.

Limits on information processing capacity impose limits on task performance. We show that male and female mice achieve performance on a perceptual decision task that is near-optimal given their capacity limits, as measured by policy complexity (the mutual information between states and actions). This behavioral profile could be achieved by reinforcement learning with a penalty on high complexity policies, realized through modulation of dopaminergic learning signals.

Induction of macrophage efferocytosis in pancreatic cancer via PI3Kγ inhibition and radiotherapy promotes tumour control.

Background: The immune suppression mechanisms in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) remain unknown, but preclinical studies have implicated macrophage-mediated immune tolerance. Hence, pathways that regulate macrophage phenotype are of strategic interest, with reprogramming strategies focusing on inhibitors of phosphoinositide 3-kinase-gamma (PI3Kγ) due to restricted immune cell expression. Inhibition of PI3Kγ alone is ineffective in PDAC, despite increased infiltration of CD8+ T cells.