From Mandate to Choice: How Voluntary Mask Wearing Shapes Interpersonal Distance Among University Students After COVID-19.

As COVID-19 policies shift from government mandates to individual responsibility, understanding how voluntary protective behaviors shape social interactions remains a public health priority. This study examines the association between voluntary mask wearing and interpersonal distance (IPD) preferences in a post-mandate context, focusing on Taiwan, where mask wearing continues to be culturally prevalent. One hundred university students (50 males, 50 females) in Taiwan completed an online IPD simulation task.

Acute impairments in glucose tolerance following one night of partial sleep restriction are not rescued by moderate-intensity walking in young men.

Background: High-intensity interval exercise ameliorates the impairment of postprandial metabolic health (e.g., glucose control) that is observed after a night of inadequate sleep.

A Digital Mental Health Intervention for Paranoia (the STOP App): Qualitative Study on User Acceptability.

Background: Cognitive bias modification for interpretation (CBM-I) is a technique to modify interpretation and is used to reduce unhelpful negative biases. CBM-I has been extensively studied in anxiety disorders where interpretation bias has been shown to play a causal role in maintaining the condition. Successful Treatment of Paranoia (STOP) is a CBM-I smartphone app targeting interpretation bias in paranoia.

Chondroprotective Effects of Chitosan-Coated Poly(Lactic-co-Glycolic Acid) Nanocapsulized Curcumin on Human Articular Chondrocytes.

Dysregulation of pro-inflammatory cytokines participates in the initiation and development of knee osteoarthritis (OA). Consequently, interventions to boost the anti-inflammatory capacity of articular chondrocytes have been proposed to treat early-stage OA and prevent OA progression. Applying nanoencapsulation can enhance bioavailability and bioactivity and sustain the anti-inflammatory activity of phytochemicals.

Reporting guideline for the use of Generative Artificial intelligence tools in MEdical Research: the GAMER Statement.

Objectives: Generative artificial intelligence (GAI) tools can enhance the quality and efficiency of medical research, but their improper use may result in plagiarism, academic fraud and unreliable findings. Transparent reporting of GAI use is essential, yet existing guidelines from journals and institutions are inconsistent, with no standardised principles.

Design And Setting: International online Delphi study.

Single-cell transcriptomics reveal how root tissues adapt to soil stress.

Land plants thrive in soils showing vastly different properties and environmental stresses. Root systems can adapt to contrasting soil conditions and stresses, yet how their responses are programmed at the individual cell scale remains unclear. Using single-cell RNA sequencing and spatial transcriptomic approaches, we showed major expression changes in outer root cell types when comparing the single-cell transcriptomes of rice roots grown in gel versus soil conditions.

BSMatch: Boundary Segmentation and Matching for Lipid Droplet Quantification in Diagnosis of Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease.

Hepatic steatosis is one of the most obvious indicators of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease. However, the presence of many regions with a similar color and shape as lipid droplets in the histopathological image complicates the task of detecting genuine lipid droplets using automated methods. Accordingly, the present study proposes a boundary segmentation and matching (BSMatch) algorithm for the segmentation of lipid droplets based on their unique boundary characteristics.

Polarity-guided uneven mitotic divisions control brassinosteroid activity in proliferating plant root cells.

Brassinosteroid hormones are positive regulators of plant organ growth, yet their function in proliferating tissues remains unclear. Here, through integrating single-cell RNA sequencing with long-term live-cell imaging of the Arabidopsis root, we reveal that brassinosteroid activity fluctuates throughout the cell cycle, decreasing during mitotic divisions and increasing during the G1 phase. The post-mitotic recovery of brassinosteroid activity is driven by the intrinsic polarity of the mother cell, resulting in one daughter cell with enhanced brassinosteroid signaling, while the other supports brassinosteroid biosynthesis.

Assessing the efficacy and safety of STOP (successful treatment for paranoia)-an app-based cognitive bias modification therapy for paranoia: a randomised clinical trial protocol.

Background: Paranoia, the belief that you are at risk of significant physical or emotional harm from others, is a common difficulty, which causes significant distress and impairment to daily functioning, including in psychosis-spectrum disorders. According to cognitive models of psychosis, paranoia may be partly maintained by cognitive processes, including interpretation biases. Cognitive bias modification for paranoia (CBM-pa) is an intervention targeting the bias towards interpreting ambiguous social scenarios in a way that is personally threatening.

The brassinosteroid receptor gene safeguards cell-autonomous brassinosteroid signaling across tissues.

Brassinosteroid signaling is essential for plant growth as exemplified by the dwarf phenotype of loss-of-function mutants in (), a ubiquitously expressed Arabidopsis brassinosteroid receptor gene. Complementation of brassinosteroid-blind receptor mutants by expression with various tissue-specific promoters implied that local brassinosteroid signaling may instruct growth non-cell autonomously. Here, we performed such rescues with a panel of receptor variants and promoters, in combination with tissue-specific transgene knockouts.

Intragastric botulinum toxin injection directly regulates ghrelin expression via reactive oxygen species and NF-κB signaling.

Aims: One effective clinical strategy to combat obesity is intragastric botulinum toxin (BTX) injection, which increases gastric emptying time and regulates appetite. However, it remains unknown if and how BTX affects ghrelin levels.

Materials And Methods: An obese animal model was established by feeding male mice with high-fat diet (HFD).

Developing a process for assessing the safety of a digital mental health intervention and gaining regulatory approval: a case study and academic's guide.

Background: The field of digital mental health has followed an exponential growth trajectory in recent years. While the evidence base has increased significantly, its adoption within health and care services has been slowed by several challenges, including a lack of knowledge from researchers regarding how to navigate the pathway for mandatory regulatory approval. This paper details the steps that a team must take to achieve the required approvals to carry out a research study using a novel digital mental health intervention.

Effects of Breaking Up Sitting on Gut Hormone Responses and Subsequent Compensatory Behaviors in Physically Inactive Adults.

Introduction: The effects of breaking up sitting on gut hormone responses and free-living energy compensatory behaviors are still unclear in people of Asian ethnicity.

Methods: Twenty-six Asians including 13 lean individuals (Lean) and 13 individuals with centrally overweight/obesity (OW), aged between 20 and 45 yr, completed a randomized crossover study with either 5.5-h uninterrupted sitting (SIT) or 5.

Lymphocyte-Infiltrated Periportal Region Detection With Structurally-Refined Deep Portal Segmentation and Heterogeneous Infiltration Features.

: The early diagnosis and treatment of hepatitis is essential to reduce hepatitis-related liver function deterioration and mortality. One component of the widely-used Ishak grading system for the grading of periportal interface hepatitis is based on the percentage of portal borders infiltrated by lymphocytes. Thus, the accurate detection of lymphocyte-infiltrated periportal regions is critical in the diagnosis of hepatitis.

Effectiveness of Electroencephalography Neurofeedback for Improving Working Memory and Episodic Memory in the Elderly: A Meta-Analysis.

: Existing evidence indicates the potential benefits of electroencephalography neurofeedback (NFB) training for cognitive function. This study aims to comprehensively review all available evidence investigating the effectiveness of NFB on working memory (WM) and episodic memory (EM) in the elderly population. : A systematic search was conducted across five databases to identify clinical trials examining the impact of NFB on memory function in healthy elderly individuals or those with mild cognitive impairment (MCI).

Perceived interpersonal distance changes in young Taiwanese pre and post SARS-CoV-2 pandemic.

The persistent SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, spanning over three years, has profoundly impacted daily life worldwide. Crucial measures like interpersonal distance (IPD) and mask-wearing have become paramount in preventing infection. With SARS-CoV-2 now resembling an endemic condition similar to influenza, it is vital to assess the changes in IPD influenced by relevant factors during and after the pandemic.

User-Centered Development of STOP (Successful Treatment for Paranoia): Material Development and Usability Testing for a Digital Therapeutic for Paranoia.

Background: Paranoia is a highly debilitating mental health condition. One novel intervention for paranoia is cognitive bias modification for paranoia (CBM-pa). CBM-pa comes from a class of interventions that focus on manipulating interpretation bias.

2023 TAMIS/TSOC/TACVPR Consensus Statement for Patients with Acute Myocardial Infarction Rehabilitation.

Cardiac rehabilitation is a comprehensive intervention recommended in international and Taiwanese guidelines for patients with acute myocardial infarction. Evidence supports that cardiac rehabilitation improves the health-related quality of life, enhances exercise capacity, reduces readmission rates, and promotes survival in patients with cardiovascular disease. The cardiac rehabilitation team is comprehensive and multidisciplinary.

Phagocytosis-initiated tumor hybrid cells acquire a c-Myc-mediated quasi-polarization state for immunoevasion and distant dissemination.

While macrophage phagocytosis is an immune defense mechanism against invading cellular organisms, cancer cells expressing the CD47 ligand send forward signals to repel this engulfment. Here we report that the reverse signaling using CD47 as a receptor additionally enhances a pro-survival function of prostate cancer cells under phagocytic attack. Although low CD47-expressing cancer cells still allow phagocytosis, the reverse signaling delays the process, leading to incomplete digestion of the entrapped cells and subsequent tumor hybrid cell (THC) formation.

The Safety of Digital Mental Health Interventions: Systematic Review and Recommendations.

Background: Evidence suggests that digital mental health interventions (DMHIs) for common mental health conditions are effective. However, digital interventions, such as face-to-face therapies, pose risks to patients. A safe intervention is considered one in which the measured benefits outweigh the identified and mitigated risks.