Association between change in alcohol use reported during routine healthcare screening and change in subsequent hospitalization: A retrospective cohort study.

Background And Aims: Primary care systems often screen for unhealthy alcohol use with brief self-report tools such as the 3-item Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test for consumption (AUDIT-C). There is little research examining whether change in alcohol use measured on the AUDIT-C captures meaningful change in outcomes affected by alcohol use. This study aimed to measure the association between change in AUDIT-C and change in all-cause hospitalization risk, measured in the year after each AUDIT-C.

Medication Use Quality and Safety in Older Adults: 2023 Update.

Improving the quality of medication use and medication safety are important priorities for healthcare providers who care for older adults. The objective of this article was to identify four exemplary articles with this focus in 2023. We selected high-quality studies that advanced this field of research.

Association of rapid eye movement sleep latency with multimodal biomarkers of Alzheimer's disease.

Introduction: Sleep disturbances are associated with Alzheimer's disease (AD) and Alzheimer's disease and related dementias (ADRD), but the relationship between sleep architecture, particularly rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, and AD/ADRD biomarkers remains unclear.

Methods: We enrolled 128 adults (64 with Alzheimer's disease, 41 with mild cognitive impairment [MCI], and 23 with normal cognition [NC]), mean age 70.8 ± 9.

An Evaluation of Self-Assessed Caregiver Readiness to Foster and Adopt After Participating in the National Training and Development Curriculum.

Purpose: The self-assessment is a component of the National Training and Development Curriculum (NTDC) used by resource (i.e. foster, adoptive, and kinship) parents to understand strengths and areas of potential growth associated with successful parenting.

Intestinal Bacteroides drives glioma progression by regulating CD8+ T cell tumor infiltration.

Background: The intestinal microbiota regulates normal brain physiology and the pathogenesis of several neurological disorders. While prior studies suggested that this regulation operates through immune cells, the underlying mechanisms remain unclear. Leveraging two well characterized murine models of low-grade glioma (LGG) occurring in the setting of the neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1) cancer predisposition syndrome, we sought to determine the impact of the gut microbiome on optic glioma progression.

Frontline Voice: AO Spine Member Survey Regarding Spine Oncology Knowledge Generation and Translation Needs.

Study Design: cross-sectional survey.

Objectives: To evaluate AO Spine members' practices and comfort in managing metastatic and primary spine tumors, explore the use of decision-support and patient assessment tools, and identify knowledge gaps and future needs in spine oncology.

Methods: An online survey was distributed to AO Spine members to query comfort levels with key decisions in spinal oncology management, utilization of decision frameworks and spine oncology-specific instruments, and educational material preferences.

methylGrapher: genome-graph-based processing of DNA methylation data from whole genome bisulfite sequencing.

Genome graphs, including the recently released draft human pangenome graph, can represent the breadth of genetic diversity and thus transcend the limits of traditional linear reference genomes. However, there are no genome-graph-compatible tools for analyzing whole genome bisulfite sequencing (WGBS) data. To close this gap, we introduce methylGrapher, a tool tailored for accurate DNA methylation analysis by mapping WGBS data to a genome graph.

Assessment of Four Essential Features of the Alive & Thrive Initiative to Improve Maternal, Infant, Young Child, and Adolescent Nutrition.

Alive & Thrive has been a major global nutrition initiative that aimed to learn how to improve maternal, infant, young child, and adolescent nutrition and health on a large scale. During 2009-2014, Alive & Thrive developed and implemented interventions to improve infant and young child feeding at scale in three countries. Subsequently, Alive & Thrive expanded its work to more than 15 geographies, including six country-specific and two regional programs, to additionally address maternal and adolescent nutrition while adding agriculture and social protection programs to improve maternal, infant, and young child nutrition.

Pathogenicity and phylogeny of Labyrinthula spp. isolated in Washington and Oregon, USA.

The class Labyrinthulomycetes constitutes a multitude of species found ubiquitously in the environment, and includes pathogens of corals, hard clams, turfgrasses, and seagrasses. Labyrinthula zosterae, the causative agent of seagrass wasting disease, has been associated with declines in seagrass coverage since the 1930s. However, pathogenic and nonpathogenic Labyrinthula spp.

Extensive length and homology dependent chimerism in pool-packaged AAV libraries.

Adeno-associated viruses (AAVs) have emerged as the foremost gene therapy delivery vehicles due to their versatility, durability, and safety profile. Here we demonstrate extensive chimerism, manifesting as pervasive barcode swapping, among complex AAV libraries that are packaged as a pool. The observed chimerism is length- and homology-dependent but capsid-independent, in some cases affecting the majority of packaged AAV genomes.

Modification of Non-photochemical Quenching Pathways in the C Model Plant Revealed Shared and Unique Photoprotection Mechanisms as Compared to C Plants.

Light is essential for photosynthesis; however, excess light can increase the accumulation of photoinhibitory reactive oxygen species that reduce photosynthetic efficiency. Plants have evolved photoprotective non-photochemical quenching (NPQ) pathways to dissipate excess light energy. In tobacco and soybean (C plants), overexpression of three NPQ genes, e (VDE), (PsbS), and (ZEP), hereafter VPZ, resulted in faster NPQ induction and relaxation kinetics, and increased crop yields in field conditions.

Category-biased patches encircle core domain-general regions in the human lateral prefrontal cortex.

The fine-grained functional organization of the human lateral prefrontal cortex (PFC) remains poorly understood. Previous fMRI studies delineated focal domain-general, or multiple-demand (MD), PFC areas that co-activate during diverse cognitively demanding tasks. While there is some evidence for category-selective (face and scene) patches, in human and non-human primate PFC, these have not been systematically assessed.

ATG-3 limits Orsay virus infection in through regulation of collagen pathways.

Autophagy is an essential cellular process which functions to maintain homeostasis in response to stressors such as starvation or infection. Here, we report that a subset of autophagy factors including ATG-3 play an antiviral role in Orsay virus infection of . Orsay virus infection does not modulate autophagic flux, and re-feeding after starvation limits Orsay virus infection and blocks autophagic flux, suggesting that the role of ATG-3 in Orsay virus susceptibility is independent of its role in maintaining autophagic flux.

Intrinsic Opening of BK Channels Derives from Inherent Leakage in Hydrophobic Gating.

The big potassium (BK) channels remain open with a small limiting probability of ~ 10 at minimal Ca and negative voltages < -100 mV. The molecular origin and functional significance of such "intrinsic opening" are not understood. Here we combine atomistic simulations and electrophysiological experiments to show that the intrinsic opening of BK channels is an inherent property of the vapor barrier, generated by hydrophobic dewetting of the BK inner pore in the deactivated state.

Combinatorial phenotypic landscape enables bacterial resistance to phage infection.

Success of phage therapies is limited by bacterial defenses against phages. While a large variety of anti-phage defense mechanisms has been characterized, how expression of these systems is distributed across individual cells and how their combined activities translate into protection from phages has not been studied. Using bacterial single-cell RNA sequencing, we profiled the transcriptomes of ~50,000 cells from cultures of a human pathobiont, , infected with a lytic bacteriophage.

Fully Synthetic Data for Complex Surveys.

When seeking to release public use files for confidential data, statistical agencies can generate fully synthetic data. We propose an approach for making fully synthetic data from surveys collected with complex sampling designs. Our approach adheres to the general strategy proposed by Rubin (1993).

Alcohol use and HIV suppression after completion of financial incentives for alcohol abstinence and isoniazid adherence: a randomized controlled trial.

Background: In a recent randomized trial, six months of financial incentives contingent for recent alcohol abstinence led to lower levels of hazardous drinking, while incentives for recent isoniazid (INH) ingestion had no impact on INH adherence, during TB preventive therapy among persons with HIV (PWH). Whether the short-term incentives influence long-term alcohol use and HIV viral suppression post-intervention is unknown.

Methods: We analyzed twelve-month HIV viral suppression and alcohol use in the Drinkers' Intervention to Prevent Tuberculosis study, a randomized controlled trial among PWH with latent TB and unhealthy alcohol use in south-western Uganda.

Evaluation of Neutrophil Elastase Inhibitors as Potential Therapies for Associated Neutropenia.

Neutrophil elastase () mutations are the most common cause of cyclic (CyN) and congenital neutropenia (SCN), two autosomal dominant disorders causing recurrent infections due to impaired neutrophil production. Granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (G-CSF) corrects neutropenia but has adverse effects, including bone pain and in some cases, an increased risk of myelodysplasia (MDS) and acute myeloid leukemia (AML). Hematopoietic stem cell transplantation is an alternative but is limited by its complications and donor availability.

Measuring salivary cortisol in biobehavioral research: A systematic review and methodological considerations.

The assessment of salivary cortisol in community settings has gained popularity in biobehavioral research due to its noninvasive sampling, ease of handling and storage, and suitability for repeated sampling in short intervals. Ensuring consistent methodological practices for salivary cortisol is essential. This systematic review critically examines salivary cortisol collection procedures, data cleaning, and analysis to better understand its role in biobehavioral research within community populations.

A mirror-image experiment: Sorting carbon nanotubes by L-DNA.

DNA has found increasing applications in molecular engineering, yet its chiral property has rarely been utilized. Here, we report a mirror-image experiment using naturally occurring D-DNA and its enantiomer L-DNA to sort a chiral mixture of single-wall carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs). We find that parity conservation leads to a robust experimental outcome: changing DNA chirality results in handedness inversion of the purified nanotube.

Peripheral DNA Methylation of Cortisol- and Serotonin-Related Genes Predicts Hippocampal Volume in a Pediatric Population.

Background: Hippocampal volume increases throughout early development and is an important indicator of cognitive abilities and mental health. However, hippocampal development is highly vulnerable to exposures during development, as seen by smaller hippocampal volume and differential epigenetic programming in genes implicated in mental health. However, few studies have investigated hippocampal volume in relation to the peripheral epigenome across development, and even less is known about potential genetic moderators.

Intimate partner sexual violence is associated with unhealthy alcohol use among Kenyan women engaged in sex work.

Aim: Unhealthy alcohol use is often correlated with experiences of intimate partner violence (IPV). We investigated how different types of IPV (sexual, physical, emotional, and financial) were associated with unhealthy alcohol use among women engaged in sex work in Mombasa, Kenya.

Methods: This cross-sectional study included 283 HIV-negative women who engaged in sex work recruited from an ongoing cohort study.