Advancing Cancer Research with Synthetic Data Generation in Low-Data Scenarios.

The scarcity of medical data, particularly in Survival Analysis (SA) for cancer-related diseases, challenges data-driven healthcare research. While Synthetic Tabular Data Generation (STDG) models have been proposed to address this issue, most rely on datasets with abundant samples, not reflecting real-world limitations. We suggest using an STDG approach that leverages transfer learning and meta-learning techniques to create an artificial inductive bias, guiding generative models trained on limited samples.

Plasma calprotectin as a severity biomarker in pediatric invasive Streptococcus pyogenes infections: insights from a multicenter immune profiling study during an outbreak.

Purpose: To characterize the immune signature of pediatric invasive Streptococcus pyogenes infections (iGAS) and identify host biomarkers associated with disease severity.

Methods: Plasma samples (n = 32) were collected during an iGAS outbreak from a multicentric Spanish pediatric cohort, including patients with iGAS (n = 19), S. pyogenes acute tonsillitis (n = 3), and healthy children/controls (n = 10).

The Multilayer Flowable Injection Technique for Highly Esthetic Restorations.

Objective: This article introduces an alternative to the classic flowable injection technique to enhance esthetic outcomes and describes its application for the restoration of six maxillary anterior teeth in a young patient.

Clinical Considerations: An esthetically enhanced flowable injection technique was applied to six maxillary anterior teeth after a fully digital treatment plan. A virtually guided dentin cutback model was created from the digital full wax up.

Mental disorders and sexual orientation in college students across 13 countries of differing levels of LGBTQ+ acceptance.

Mental health disparities have been reported among sexual minority individuals; minority stress theory posits that such disparities are a result of stigma and discrimination. We estimated the prevalence of mental disorders across sexual orientation groups among first-year college students and whether differences across sexual orientation groups varied by gender and country-level LGBTQ+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer) social acceptance. Using data (N = 53,175; 13 countries) from the World Mental Health Surveys International College Surveys, we performed multilevel logistic regressions to estimate the associations between sexual orientation (i.

New role for thioredoxins in plants: Implication of TRXo1 in protein depersulfidation.

Persulfidation, a posttranslational modification of cysteines to persulfides, is the best characterized molecular mechanism of HS signaling. This study is focused on new functions for thioredoxins (TRXs) in plants beyond those of thiol disulfide (S-S) exchange, including the regulation of protein persulfidation as it has been described in animal systems. To elucidate the impact of TRXo1 deficiency on the protein persulfidation pattern in plants of Arabidopsis thaliana L.

Is There Hybrid Vigor in Dogs? Oxidative Stress and Cytokine Concentrations in Low- To Mid-Content Wolf-Dog Hybrids.

AbstractChanges of deleterious traits in mitochondria within hybrids of two different species are likely to be reflected across whole-animal phenotypes. Two processes linked to mitochondrial fitness are oxidative stress and inflammation. Here, plasma oxidative stress (lipid oxidative damage, total antioxidant capacity, and activities of catalase, glutathione peroxidase, and superoxide dismutase concentration) and cytokine concentrations (IL-1β, IL-6, and TNF-α) from wolf-dog hybrids of low to mid wolf content are presented and then compared with previously published values for similar-sized dogs and gray wolves.

Decreased gene expression of interleukin 2 receptor subunit γ (CD132) in tissues of patients with Crohn's disease.

Background: A deficiency of γδ T cells has been described in Crohn's disease (CD).

Aim: To analyze the gene expression of interleukin 7 (IL-7) and its receptors in the tissues of patients with CD.

Methods: We studied the peripheral blood of 80 patients with CD, comparing them with a group of 80 healthy subjects.

Oxidative post-translational modifications of plant antioxidant systems under environmental stress.

Plants are often subject to environmental challenges posed by abiotic and biotic stresses, which are increasing under the current climate change conditions, provoking a loss in crop yield worldwide. Plants must cope with adverse situations such as increasing temperatures, air pollution or loss of agricultural land due to salinity, drought, contamination, and pathogen attacks, among others. Plants under stress conditions increase the production of reactive oxygen-, nitrogen-, and sulphur species (ROS/RNS/RSS), whose concentrations must be tightly regulated.

Body Temperature Regulation in Domestic Dogs After Agility Trials: The Effects of Season, Training, Body Characteristics, Age, and Genetics.

An animal's body mass is said to be indirectly related to its rate of heat loss; that is, smaller animals with higher surface area to volume tend to lose heat faster than larger animals. Thus, thermoregulation should be related to body size, however, generalizable patterns are still unclear. Domestic dogs are a diverse species of endothermic mammals, including a 44-fold difference in body size.

Invasive infections by group A Streptococcus infections in Brazil: a pediatric case series.

Objective: Group A Streptococcus (GAS) are Gram-positive cocci that colonize the nasopharynx and/or skin and in rare cases may cause severe invasive infections. Although these infections decreased during the COVID-19 pandemic, some countries have observed an increased number of invasive GAS (iGAS) diseases in recent years. The objective of this study was to describe a series of iGAS diseases in a referral hospital for the treatment of pediatric infectious disease in Minas Gerais State, Brazil, between September 2022 and August 2023.

Demographic, morphological and coat factors in dogs after exercise at a fast course ability test (FCAT) trial.

Domestic dogs are a widely diverse species of endothermic mammals that show a positive correlation between body mass and whole-animal metabolic rate, but a negative correlation between body mass and lifespan, making them an interesting system for determining thermoregulatory patterns in relation to body mass, body morphology, and age within a single mammalian species. Though previous work has found differences in thermoregulation across seasons and with training in dogs of different sizes, we now seek to determine (1) whether sampling event-related temperature differences remained when dogs exercised intensely and acutely outdoors and (2) whether thermal differences were also expressed in short-term burst exercise in athletic dogs compared to long-term exercise in non-athletic dogs, as previously found. Here, we measured tympanic membrane temperature (T) as a correlate of core or internal body temperature (T).

Nitrogen compounds at Mexican and USA coasts on the Gulf of Mexico.

In recent decades, anthropogenic emissions in the Gulf of Mexico have caused a deterioration in air quality in surrounding areas, mainly due to particulate matter, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide. Over this period, interest in reactive nitrogen compounds has increased due to their relationships to air quality and ecosystem impacts associated with atmospheric deposition. In this study we summarize air concentrations of nitrogen dioxide in ambient air and wet atmospheric deposition of nitrate and ammonium along the southern coast of the United States of America and eastern Mexico over the period 2017 to 2020.

Effects of Adverse Life History on Oxidative Stress and Cytokine Concentration in Domestic Dogs.

Early-life stress has been well studied in humans and laboratory animals; however, the impacts of similar adversity on the welfare of domestic dogs has recently begun to be addressed. For example, associations between processes linked to mitochondrial function, such as oxidative stress (OS) and proinflammatory immune systems, have been under-researched. Yet, mitochondria are targets and mediators of stress pathologies.

The resistance of domestic canine skin-derived fibroblasts to oxidative and non-oxidative chemical injury: implications of breed and body size.

Small-breed dogs live significantly longer lives than large-breed dogs, while having higher mass-specific metabolic rates and faster growth rates. Underlying this observed physiological difference across domestic dogs, there must also be differences at other levels of organization that could lead to elucidating what accounts for the disparity in aging rates and life span within this species. At the cellular level, a clear mechanism underlying whole animal traits has not been fully elucidated.

Preparing for the next respiratory pathogen pandemic: using tabletop simulation exercises to strengthen national planning in Cook Islands, Costa Rica, Lebanon and Mongolia.

The Preparedness and Resilience for Emerging Threats (PRET) initiative takes an innovative mode-of-transmission approach to pandemic planning by advocating for integrated preparedness and response systems and capacities for groups of pathogens with common transmission pathways. The World Health Organization (WHO) launched this initiative in 2023 with the publication of PRET Module 1 addressing respiratory pathogens. Exercise PanPRET-1 is a customizable tabletop simulation exercise (TTX) package developed to complement PRET Module 1.

Explainable drug repurposing via path based knowledge graph completion.

Drug repurposing aims to find new therapeutic applications for existing drugs in the pharmaceutical market, leading to significant savings in time and cost. The use of artificial intelligence and knowledge graphs to propose repurposing candidates facilitates the process, as large amounts of data can be processed. However, it is important to pay attention to the explainability needed to validate the predictions.

Oxidative stress across multiple tissues in house sparrows (Passer domesticus) acclimated to warm, stable cold, and unpredictable cold thermal treatments.

With climate change increasing not just mean temperatures but the frequency of cold snaps and heat waves, animals occupying thermally variable areas may be faced with thermal conditions for which they are not prepared. Studies of physiological adaptations of temperate resident birds to such thermal variability are largely lacking in the literature. To address this gap, we acclimated winter-phenotype house sparrows (Passer domesticus) to stable warm, stable cold, and fluctuating cold temperatures.

Anti-Anisakis antibodies in colon cancer patients and their relationship with γδ T-cells.

Many pathogens are related to carcinogenesis. Chronic inflammation, as a result of persistent infection, leads to DNA damage, higher expression of oncogenes, decreased apoptosis and immunosuppression, which are some of the reasons for cancer induction. Among parasites, Schistosoma, Opistorchis and Clonorchis are recognised as infectious agents which contribute to cancer.

Metallothionein-3 is a multifunctional driver that modulates the development of sorafenib-resistant phenotype in hepatocellular carcinoma cells.

Background & Aims: Metallothionein-3 (hMT3) is a structurally unique member of the metallothioneins family of low-mass cysteine-rich proteins. hMT3 has poorly characterized functions, and its importance for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) cells has not yet been elucidated. Therefore, we investigated the molecular mechanisms driven by hMT3 with a special emphasis on susceptibility to sorafenib.

Identification of Superoxide Dismutase (SOD) Isozymes in Plant Tissues.

Superoxide and hydrogen peroxide are reactive oxygen species (ROS) involved in the oxidation of multiple biological molecules and the signaling processes during plant growth and stress response. Thus, control of ROS is fundamental for cell survival and development, with superoxide dismutase (EC 1.15.

Thermal relations in sled dogs before and after exercise.

Regulation of internal body temperature (T), or thermoregulation, is an evolutionarily conserved trait that places demand on basal metabolic rate of endothermic animals. Across species, athletes generate increased quantities of heat in comparison to their nonathletic counterparts and, therefore, must mediate physiological unbalance by upregulating the effectiveness of their heat dissipation abilities. Canine athletes are no exception to this phenomenon, however, with literature denoting body temperatures lower than nonathletic canines, it is clear they must possess adaptations to mitigate this demand.

White Dot Syndromes: Report of Three Cases.

Introduction: The term white dot syndromes has been used to refer conditions that differ in their morphology and prognosis. We report three cases of different pathologies encompassed within the white dot syndromes.

Case Presentations: Case 1: A 26-year-old female presented with scotoma in her right eye.

Missed opportunities in the prevention and diagnosis of pediatric tuberculosis: a scoping review.

Objectives: Identify potential barriers, delays, and missed opportunities in the prevention and diagnosis of childhood TB.

Methods: Scoping review according to the PRISMA extension. The definitions considered for the selection followed the acronym PCC where the population (P) is children under 18 years of age with TB disease, the concept (C) refers to missed opportunities for prevention and diagnosis, and context (C) is defined as a diagnosis of TB disease.