1,008 results match your criteria: "University of Oxford Oxford[Affiliation]"

Sickle cell disease (SCD) is a monogenic disease, resulting from a single-point mutation, that presents a complex pathophysiology and high clinical heterogeneity. Inflammation stands as a prominent characteristic of SCD. Over the past few decades, the role of different cells and molecules in the regulation of the inflammatory process has been elucidated.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Placebo hypoalgesia and nocebo hyperalgesia, which exemplify the impact of expectations on pain, have recently been conceptualised as Bayesian inferential processes, yet empirical evidence remains limited. Here, we explore whether these phenomena can be unified within the same Bayesian framework by testing the predictive role of expectations and their level of precision (ie, expectation confidence) on pain, with both predictors measured at the metacognitive level. Sixty healthy volunteers underwent a pain test (ie, 8 noxious electrical stimuli) before (Baseline) and after (T0, T1, T2) receiving a sham treatment associated with hypoalgesic (placebo), hyperalgesic (nocebo), or neutral (control) verbal suggestions, depending on group allocation.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The collapse of large impact craters requires a temporary reduction in the resistance to shear deformation of the target rocks. One explanation for such weakening is acoustic fluidization, where impact-generated pressure fluctuations temporarily and locally relieve overburden pressure facilitating slip. A model of acoustic fluidization widely used in numerical impact simulations is the Block model.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Assessment of fine-tuned large language models for real-world chemistry and material science applications.

Chem Sci

November 2024

Laboratory of Molecular Simulation (LSMO), Institut des Sciences et Ingénierie Chimiques, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) Rue de l'Industrie 17 CH-1951 Sion Switzerland

The current generation of large language models (LLMs) has limited chemical knowledge. Recently, it has been shown that these LLMs can learn and predict chemical properties through fine-tuning. Using natural language to train machine learning models opens doors to a wider chemical audience, as field-specific featurization techniques can be omitted.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Patients with decompensated cirrhosis have a higher risk of hospitalization, ICU admission, and death from COVID-19. The impact of demographics on these outcomes remains uncertain.

Methods: The SECURE-Liver and COVID-Hep databases were utilized to evaluate disparities in COVID-19 outcomes.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • The study analyzes the properties of convective cells and their effects on different types of rainfall during a 3.5-month evaluation period in central Argentina, using data from the RELAMPAGO-CACTI field campaign.
  • The simulation shows a significant discrepancy in rainfall predictions, particularly underestimating stratiform rainfall by 46% and overestimating convective rainfall by 43%, linked to an excessive number of generated precipitating convective cells.
  • Despite attempts to enhance simulation accuracy by changing model resolution, the results indicate that simply increasing resolution is not enough; other factors also play a crucial role in improving predictions of convective properties.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Ortho-plastic evidence-based clinical guidelines for open fractures have demonstrated to standardise care and improve outcomes for patients admitted following lower extremity trauma. Despite its benefits, very few countries have introduced such guidance. The aim of this study was to explore the attitudes, barriers and limitations to the development and implementation of guidelines for lower limb open fractures METHODS: Twelve renowned orthopaedic and plastic surgeons, based in countries with no guidelines at present, underwent semi-structured interviews.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Organic heterojunction nanoparticles (NP) have recently gained significant interest as photocatalysts for visible light-driven hydrogen production. Whilst promising photocatalytic efficiencies have been reported for aqueous NP dispersions, the underlying dynamics of photogenerated charges in such organic heterojunction photocatalysts and how these might differ from more widely studied dry heterojunction films remain relatively unexplored. In this study, we combine transient optical spectroscopies over twelve orders of magnitude in time, using pulsed and continuous light illumination, to elucidate the differences in the charge carrier dynamics of heterojunction NP dispersions, dried NP films, and bulk heterojunction films prepared by spin coating.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Understanding mechanisms and predicting natural population responses to climate is a key goal of Ecology. However, studies explicitly linking climate to population dynamics remain limited. Antecedent effect models are a set of statistical tools that capitalize on the evidence provided by climate and population data to select time windows correlated with a response (e.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Introduction: Apathy is a significant feature in Alzheimer's disease (AD) and subjective cognitive impairment (SCI), though its mechanisms are not well established.

Methods: An effort-based decision-making (EBDM) framework was applied to investigate apathy in 30 AD patients, 41 SCI participants, and 55 healthy controls (HC). Data were analyzed using a drift-diffusion model (DDM) to uncover latent psychological processes.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

We are still largely reliant on pesticides for the suppression of arthropod pests which threaten human health and food production, but the recent rise of evolved resistance among important pest species has reduced pesticide efficacy. Despite this, our understanding of strategies that effectively limit the evolution of resistance remains weak. Male-killing sex ratio distorting microbes (SRDMs), such as and , are common among arthropod species.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The increased private provision of publicly funded health and social care over the last 75 years has been one of the most contentious topics in UK public policy. In the last decades, health and social care policies in England have consistently promoted the outsourcing of public services to private for-profit and non-profit companies with the assumption that private sector involvement will reduce costs and improve service quality and access. However, it is not clear why outsourcing often fails to improve quality of care, and which of the underlying assumptions behind marketising care are not supported by research.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

This work reports the thermal and electron beam stabilities of a series of isostructural metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) of type MFM-300(M) (M = Al, Ga, In, Cr). MFM-300(Cr) was most stable under the electron beam, having an unusually high critical electron fluence of 1111 e Å while the Group 13 element MOFs were found to be less stable. Within Group 13, MFM-300(Al) had the highest critical electron fluence of 330 e Å, compared to 189 e Å and 147 e Å for the Ga and In MOFs, respectively.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Insectivorous bat activity dataset across different land-use types in the Islands of São Tomé and Príncipe, Central West Africa.

Biodivers Data J

September 2024

CIBIO, Centro de Investigação em Biodiversidade e Recursos Genéticos, InBIO Laboratório Associado, Campus de Vairão, Universidade do Porto, Vairão, Portugal CIBIO, Centro de Investigação em Biodiversidade e Recursos Genéticos, InBIO Laboratório Associado, Campus de Vairão, Universidade do Porto Vairão Portugal.

Background: São Tomé and Príncipe oceanic islands, in Central West Africa, are characterised by exceptional levels of endemism. Since human colonisation in the mid-15 century, São Tomé and Príncipe have lost 74% and 67% of their native habitat, respectively. Today, these islands are mainly covered by remaining old-growth forests, secondary regrowth forests, shaded plantations (mostly of cocoa), oil palm plantations (in the case of São Tomé), small-scale agricultural areas and urban areas.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Tuberculosis (TB) may cause significant long-term cardiorespiratory complications, of which pulmonary vascular disease is most under-recognized. TB is rarely listed as a cause of pulmonary hypertension (PH) in most PH guidelines, yet PH may develop at various stages in the time course of TB, from active infection through to the post-TB period. Predisposing risk factors for the development of PH are likely multifactorial, involving active TB disease and post-TB lung disease (PTLD), host-related and environment-related factors.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • Gliosarcoma is a rare brain tumor in cats that has not been previously associated with changes in the hippocampus, but a case was reported involving a cat with complex partial seizures and orofacial symptoms.
  • A 16-year-old cat showed symptoms like disorientation and ataxia, and MRI revealed a tumor in the right piriform lobe along with abnormalities in the hippocampus.
  • Due to insufficient biomaterial, additional testing for associated conditions was not conducted, but the presence of gliosarcoma suggests that similar cases warrant MRI and antibody testing for proper diagnosis.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

While adoptive cell therapy has shown success in hematological malignancies, its potential against solid tumors is hindered by an immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment (TME). In recent years, members of the hypoxia-inducible factor (HIF) family have gained recognition as important regulators of T-cell metabolism and function. The role of HIF signalling in activated CD8 T cell function in the context of adoptive cell transfer, however, has not been explored in full depth.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Coffee, chocolate, pillows and pints of blood: Debunking the mantras and myths of microsurgery.

J Plast Reconstr Aesthet Surg

November 2024

Division of Plastic Surgery, Department of Surgery, University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. San Antonio, TX, USA; Kellogg College, University of Oxford. Oxford, United Kingdom.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Unknown effects of nicotine pouches (snus) in Plastic Surgery: Lessons from a systematic review.

J Plast Reconstr Aesthet Surg

November 2024

Kellogg College, University of Oxford. Oxford, United Kingdom; Division of Plastic Surgery, Department of Surgery, University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, San Antonio, TX, United States of America.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Key Clinical Message: Cardiophrenic metastasis is typically a late stage manifestation of ovarian high grade serous carcinoma. Here we present a case where this was the sole presentation of this disease. This case challenges our current understanding of the natural course of ovarian high grade serous carcinoma.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF