Long-Term Outcomes From a Randomized Controlled Trial of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) Compared to Standard Medical Care for Improving Quality of Life in Muscle Disorders.

Introduction/aims: A previous randomized controlled trial showed that guided self-help acceptance and commitment therapy plus standard medical care (ACT+SMC) was superior to standard medical care alone (SMC) for improving quality of life (QoL) and mood at 9-weeks post randomization in a sample of people with muscle disorders (MD). This follow-up study evaluated whether these effects were maintained in the longer term alongside individual patterns of response.

Methods: The original study was a two-arm parallel group randomized controlled trial, which compared ACT+SMC to SMC.

The IFPA youth group, the Adolescent Confidential Telephone Service and Sexual Health Activism in Ireland, . 1984-90.

In October 1984 the Irish Family Planning Association (IFPA) established a youth group of volunteers aged 16-20. One of the group's main initiatives was a sexual health phoneline for young people called the Adolescent Confidential Telephone Service (ACTS). Using oral history interviews and archival sources such as the ACTS logbook, this article explores the motivations of the young activists involved in the ACTS and what the operation of and responses to it reveal about the wider social climate in relation to sexual health.

FAST functional connectivity implicates P300 connectivity in working memory deficits in Alzheimer's disease.

Measuring transient functional connectivity is an important challenge in electroencephalogram (EEG) research. Here, the rich potential for insightful, discriminative information of brain activity offered by high-temporal resolution is confounded by the inherent noise of the medium and the spurious nature of correlations computed over short temporal windows. We propose a methodology to overcome these problems called filter average short-term (FAST) functional connectivity.

405 nm violet-blue light inactivates hepatitis C cell culture virus (HCVcc) in ex vivo human platelet concentrates and plasma.

Added safety measures coupled with the development and use of pathogen reduction technologies (PRT) significantly reduces the risk of transfusion-transmitted infections (TTIs) from blood products. Current approved PRTs utilize chemical and/or UV-light based inactivation methods. While the effectiveness of these PRTs in reducing pathogens are well documented, these can cause tolerable yet unintended consequences on the quality and efficacy of the transfusion products.

Perceived climate risk and stock prices: An empirical analysis of pricing effects.

Increasing awareness of climate change and its potential consequences on financial markets has led to interest in the impact of climate risk on stock returns and portfolio composition, but few studies have focused on perceived climate risk pricing. This study is the first to introduce perceived climate risk as an additional factor in asset pricing models. The perceived climate risk is measured based on the climate change sentiment of the Twitter dataset with 16 million unique tweets in the years 2010-2019.

Expanding the reaction toolbox for nanoscale direct-to-biology PROTAC synthesis and biological evaluation.

High-throughput chemistry (HTC) and direct-to-biology (D2B) platforms allow for plate-based compound synthesis and biological evaluation of crude mixtures in cellular assays. The rise of these workflows has rapidly accelerated drug-discovery programs in the field of targeted protein degradation (TPD) in recent years by removing a key bottleneck of compound purification. However, the number of chemical transformations amenable to this methodology remain minimal, leading to limitations in the exploration of chemical space using existing library-based approaches.

Molecular Dynamics Study of Chitosan Adsorption at a Silica Surface.

Chitosan is a nontoxic biopolymer with many potential biomedical and material applications due to its biodegradability, biocompatibility, and antimicrobial properties. Here, fully atomistic molecular dynamics simulations and enhanced sampling methods have been used to study the adsorption mechanism of chitosan oligomers on a silica surface from an aqueous solution. The free energy of adsorption of chitosan on a silica surface was calculated to be 0.

Obtaining super-resolved images at the mesoscale through super-resolution radial fluctuations.

Significance: Current super-resolution imaging techniques allow for a greater understanding of cellular structures; however, they are often complex or only have the ability to image a few cells at once. This small field of view (FOV) may not represent the behavior across the entire sample, and manual selection of regions of interest (ROIs) may introduce bias. It is possible to stitch and tile many small ROIs; however, this can result in artifacts across an image.

Single Particle Dynamics at the Free Surface of Imidazolium-Based Ionic Liquids.

In this work, we carry out a systematic computer simulation investigation of the single particle dynamics at the free surface of imidazolium-based room temperature ionic liquids by applying intrinsic surface analysis. Besides assessing the effect of the potential model and temperature, we focus in particular on the effect of changing the anion type, and, hence, their shape and size. Further, we also address the role of the length of the cation alkyl chains, known to protrude into the vapor phase, on the surface dynamics of the ions.

Quantum retrodiction.

Quantum retrodiction, in which the state of a quantum system prior to a measurement is assigned based on the results of that measurement, has had a long history and has been used in quantum optics research for decades. Here we summarize the theory and point out some of the more interesting results, before applying the theory to state identification from multiple shots of an experiment. One surprising result is that we show that a photodetector with low quantum efficiency can discriminate between photonic states better than a detector with a higher efficiency.

The quantum theory of light.

We present a brief introduction to the quantum theory of light as it is understood in the field of quantum optics. Our aim is not to review the topic, which would require a very extensive article (or even a book of several volumes) but rather to provide sufficient background to set the ideas in the following papers in their correct context.This article is part of the theme issue 'The quantum theory of light'.

Theory and application of cavity solitons in photonic devices.

Driven optical cavities containing a nonlinear medium support stable dissipative solitons, cavity solitons, in the form of bright or dark spots of light on a uniformly-lit background. Broadening effects due to diffraction or group velocity dispersion are balanced by the nonlinear interaction with the medium while cavity losses balance the input energy. The history, properties, physical interpretation and wide application of cavity solitons are reviewed.

Generalizing multipartite concentratable entanglement for practical applications: mixed, qudit and optical states.

The controlled SWAP test for detecting and quantifying entanglement applied to pure qubit states is robust to small errors in the states and efficient for large multi-qubit states (Foulds . 2021 . , 035002 (doi:10.

Surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy: a half-century historical perspective.

Surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) has evolved significantly over fifty years into a powerful analytical technique. This review aims to achieve five main goals. (1) Providing a comprehensive history of SERS's discovery, its experimental and theoretical foundations, its connections to advances in nanoscience and plasmonics, and highlighting collective contributions of key pioneers.

Geocultural differences in pre-schooler sleep profiles and family practices: an analysis of pooled data from 37 countries.

Study Objectives: To examine 1) multidimensional sleep profiles in pre-schoolers (3-6 years) across geocultural regions and 2) differences in sleep characteristics and family practices between Majority World regions (Pacific Islands, Sub-Saharan Africa, Eastern Europe, Northeast Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, the Middle East and North Africa, Latin America) and the Minority World (the Western world).

Methods: Participants were 3507 pre-schoolers from 37 countries. Nighttime sleep characteristics and nap duration (accelerometer: n=1950) and family practices (parental questionnaire) were measured.

In-silico and In-vitro Evaluation of Novel Carboxamide Analogue on the Metastasis of Triple Negative Breast Cancer Cells Utilizing Novel PCPTC-loaded PEGylated-PLGA Nanocarriers.

This study aimed to determine the effects of novel N-{3-[(pyridin-4-yl)carbamoyl] phenyl} thiophene-2-carboxamide or PCPTC chemical moiety loaded Poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid)-Poly (Ethylene glycol) or (PLGA-PEGylated) NP as an anti-metastatic Ran GTPase therapeutic agent on MDA-MB231 triple-negative human breast cancer cells. Molecular docking and MD simulation was done to determine the binding potential of novel carboxamide PCPTC with Ran GTPase. PLGA and PLGA-PEG based NP encapsulating PCPTC were fabricated using the Modified Double Emulsion Solvent Evaporation Technique and characterized for size, zeta potential, polydispersity and morphology.

IL-1β stimulates a novel axis within the NFκB pathway in endothelial cells regulated by IKKα and TAK-1.

In this study we examined the activation of the non-canonical NFκB signalling pathway in endothelial cells. In HUVECs, LIGHT stimulated a delayed induction of serine 866/870 p100 phosphorylation linked to p52 NFκB formation. Surprisingly, the canonical ligand, IL-1β, stimulated a rapid phosphorylation or p100 which was not associated with p52 formation.

An expert consensus statement on biomarkers of ageing for use in intervention studies.

Biomarkers of ageing serve as important outcome measures in longevity-promoting interventions. However, there is limited consensus on which specific biomarkers are most appropriate for human intervention studies. This work aimed to address this need by establishing an expert consensus on biomarkers of ageing for use in intervention studies via the Delphi method.

Methodological Challenges in Randomized Controlled Trials of mHealth Interventions: Cross-Sectional Survey Study and Consensus-Based Recommendations.

Background: Mobile health (mHealth) refers to using mobile communication devices such as smartphones to support health, health care, and public health. mHealth interventions have their own nature and characteristics that distinguish them from traditional health care interventions, including drug interventions. Thus, randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of mHealth interventions present specific methodological challenges.

Impact of parity and salivary hormonal levels on motivation toward infant emotions.

Infant faces have been shown to be particularly motivating stimuli for women. No studies, however, have compared mothers and nonmothers in whether parity modulates approach motivation toward emotional infant faces. We studied 54 Finnish first-time mothers and 42 nonmothers in a pay-per-view key-press task where the participants were shown 20 infant faces with smiling and crying expressions.

Combined impact of fear and Allee effect in predator-prey interaction models on their growth.

We considered predator-prey models which incorporated both an Allee effect and a new fear factor effect together, and where the predator predated the prey with a Holling type I functional response. We started off with a two-dimensional model where we found possible equilibria and examined their stabilities. By using the predator mortality rate as the bifurcation parameter, the model exhibited Hopf-bifurcation for the coexistence equilibrium.

Community pharmacists' knowledge, beliefs, and perceived barriers toward vaccination services at community pharmacies: A cross-sectional study from Saudi Arabia.

Community pharmacists were recently authorized to provide vaccination services in Saudi Arabia. However, the implementation is still limited. Consequently, this study aimed to assess the knowledge, beliefs, and views of community pharmacists in the Qassim region regarding vaccines and vaccination services and to identify the barriers to providing such services.

Characterization and Optimization of Vesicle Properties in bioPISA: from Size Distribution to Post-Assembly Loading.

This study investigates the formation and properties of vesicles produced via biocatalytic Polymerization-Induced Self-Assembly (bioPISA) as artificial cells. Methods for achieving size uniformity, including gentle centrifugation and sucrose gradient centrifugation, are explored, and the effects of stirring speed on vesicle morphology is investigated. The internal structure of the vesicles, characterized by a polymer-rich matrix, is analyzed using fluorescence correlation spectroscopy (FCS).

Optimization of Potent and Selective Cyclohexyl Acid ERAP1 Inhibitors Using Structure- and Property-Based Drug Design.

Endoplasmic reticulum aminopeptidase 1 (ERAP1) cleaves the -terminal amino acids of peptides, which can then bind onto major histocompatibility class I (MHC-I) molecules for presentation onto the cell surface, driving the activation of adaptive immune responses. In cancer, overtrimming of mature antigenic peptides can reduce cytotoxic T-cell responses, and ERAP1 can generate self-antigenic peptides which contribute to autoimmune cellular responses. Therefore, modulation of ERAP1 activity has potential therapeutic indications for cancer immunotherapy and in autoimmune disease.

Biocatalytic synthesis of ribonucleoside analogues using nucleoside transglycosylase-2.

Ribonucleosides are essential building blocks used extensively in antiviral and oligonucleotide therapeutics. A major challenge in the further development of nucleoside analogues for therapeutic applications is access to scalable and environmentally sustainable synthetic strategies. This study uses the type II nucleoside 2'-deoxyribosyltransferase from (NDT-2) to prepare a suite of ribonucleoside analogues using naturally-occurring uridine and cytidine sugar donors.