Community-based hearing aid fitting model for adults in low-income communities facilitated by community health workers: a feasibility study.

Background: Hearing loss affects more than 1.5 billion people worldwide, yet fewer than 10% of those who could benefit from hearing aids are able to access them. Barriers such as high costs, limited availability, and a critical shortage of trained professionals in low- and middle-income countries contribute to this gap, while emerging models of care-such as task-shifting to community healthcare workers (CHWs) supported by mHealth technologies-show promise in improving access, affordability, and outcomes in underserved communities.

HIV knowledge and reported stigma among South Florida health fair participants.

Background: Florida had the third greatest number of new HIV diagnoses in the United States in 2020. This cross-sectional study aimed to assess HIV education and perceptions among diverse populations in South Florida to enhance public health community outreach efforts. Specifically, it investigated how HIV knowledge and perceptions vary based on race, primary language, and country of origin.

Long-term survival after multidisciplinary heart team-guided management of complex coronary artery disease.

Objective: Guidelines recommend a multidisciplinary heart team approach for managing complex coronary artery disease (CAD), yet its impact on clinical outcomes and adherence to recommendations is rarely reported.

Methods: Between June 2021 and August 2022, 210 high-risk patients with isolated, complex CAD were evaluated at our institution's weekly heart team conference for consideration of coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG), percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI), hybrid PCI/CABG, or optimal medical therapy (OMT). Adherence to recommendations and clinical outcomes, including 30-day, 1-year, and 2-year mortality, were assessed.

FXR adapts hepatic mitochondrial function to increased substrate oxidation in patients with obesity.

Metabolic pressure shifts signaling pathways of nuclear receptors, including the bile acid receptor FXR, which are sensitive to nutritional inputs. We performed an FXR ChIP-seq-centered multiomic analysis of liver biopsy samples from individuals with or without obesity, who were treated with either placebo or the FXR agonist obeticholic acid, to define metabolic adaptions of FXR signaling pathways. FXR occupied substantially more DNA binding sites in individuals with obesity, and FXR activation by OCA robustly changed the transcriptional output.

Gait speed and neurocognition among older people with and without HIV.

Objective: Examine the associations of gait speed with global and domain-specific neurocognition in older people with HIV (PWH) versus people without HIV (PWoH).

Methods: Participants included 285 PWH and 214 PWoH 50 years and older (Mage= 60.1, SD age=7.

Limited Regulation of Canopy Water Use Efficiency by Stomatal Behavior Under Drought Propagation.

Water use efficiency (WUE) is a critical ecosystem function and a key indicator of vegetation responses to drought, yet its temporal trajectories and underlying drivers during drought propagation remain insufficiently understood. Here, we examined the trajectories, interdependencies and drivers of multidimensional WUE metrics and their components (gross primary production (GPP), evapotranspiration, transpiration (T), and canopy conductance (Gc)) using a conceptual drought propagation framework. We found that even though the carbon assimilation efficiency per stomata increases during drought, the canopy-level WUE (represented by transpiration WUE (TWUE)) declines, indicating that stomatal regulation operates primarily at the leaf level and cannot offset the drought-induced reduction in WUE at the canopy scale.

Chronic Pain in a Modern Virally Suppressed HIV Cohort: Associations with Comorbidities Depression and Disability.

Chronic pain (CP) is common among people with HIV (PWH), yet its prevalence and associated factors in those receiving modern, virally suppressive antiretroviral therapy (ART) are not well understood. This prospective observational study compared CP frequency and associated outcomes between PWH and people without HIV (PWoH). Participants (40 PWH, 23 PWoH) completed a questionnaire assessing daily pain lasting more than three months.

AI-enhanced behavioral approach to measuring hearing in infants and toddlers: Proof-of-Concept Study.

Objective: Show that a basic unsupervised machine-learning algorithm can give information on whether a child reacted to a sound using facial, non-identifyable features recorded with a camera.

Design: Infants and toddlers were presented warble tones or single-syllable utterances 45 degrees to the left or to the right. A camera recorded their reactions, from which features like head turns or eye gaze were extracted with OpenFace.

Reduced Neural Speech Tracking in Adolescents with Listening Difficulty.

Objective: To investigate neural mechanisms underlying speech-in-speech listening in adolescents with listening difficulties (LiD).

Methods: Neural speech tracking (NST) was assessed using magnetoencephalography (MEG) in 21 adolescents with LiD and 25 typically developing (TD) peers, all with audiometrically normal hearing. Participants performed a cocktail party task involving target speech presented alone or alongside competitor speech streams differing in talker identity and spatial location.

Constitutive Androstane Receptor induces Ribonucleotide Reductase-M2 expression and maintains hepatocyte ploidy in mice.

The nuclear receptor Constitutive Androstane Receptor (CAR/NR1i3) is known for regulating various liver functions, including detoxification, nutrient metabolism, and hepatocyte proliferation. While CAR activation has been previously linked to higher ploidy, the underlying mechanisms are not fully known. Here, we uncover a basal role for CAR in maintaining hepatocyte ploidy, such that CAR deletion increases the number of diploid (2c) hepatocytes with a concomitant reduction in tetraploid (4c) hepatocytes.

Global Comparison and Future Trends of Major Food Proteins: Can Shellfish Contribute to Sustainable Food Security?

Food security and environmental quality related to food production are global issues that need urgent solutions. Proteins are crucial for diets, and demand is growing for innovative and more environmentally sustainable sources of protein, like vegetables, microorganisms, and insects, and lab-grown food that can meet nutritional and environmental goals. This study analyzes a time series to assess the sustainability of different protein sources by evaluating their effects on emissions of greenhouse gases and the use of agricultural land while accounting for the carbon sink potential across the supply chain.

Beyond total depressive symptoms: Differential associations between depressive domains, HIV status and disease characteristics.

Background: People with HIV (PWH) are at two times greater risk for major depressive disorder (MDD) than people without HIV (PWoH), which manifests in symptoms across cognitive, somatic, affective, apathy, and anhedonia domains that may differentially impact clinical outcomes. However, few studies have examined whether HIV and its characteristics relate to depressive symptom domains.

Methods: This secondary, cross-sectional analysis included 3456 participants enrolled in studies at the UCSD HIV Neurobehavioral Research Program and CHARTER sites between 2000 and 2023 (79 % PWH, 78 % male, Age: M = 47.

Seasonal stabilization effects slowed the greening of the Northern Hemisphere over the last two decades.

Rising atmospheric CO₂ and warming spring temperatures increase vegetation growth and the terrestrial carbon sink. However, drought, heat stress, phenology, and resource limitations may stabilize or limit theses projected increases. We investigate the balance between these amplifying and stabilizing ecological factors by asking whether enhanced early-season growth leads to continued late-season growth.

Structural and pragmatic language skills in school-age children relate to resting state functional connectivity.

Language difficulties are common in school-age children but their etiology is often unknown. Although neural underpinnings of language have been well-studied in neurotypical individuals, functional connectivity differences between children with language difficulties and their typically-developing peers have not. There is little evidence regarding patterns of neural connectivity for children with language difficulties.

Prevalence trends and risk factors for allergic rhinoconjunctivitis, asthma and eczema in the UK.

Background: Allergic rhinoconjunctivitis (ARC), asthma and eczema carry a substantial morbidity. These conditions often co-exist within the same individual and their prevalence can differ based on age, ethnicity and gender.

Objectives: Using a UK primary care database, we estimated the trends in prevalence over the last decade for ARC, asthma and eczema and associated risk factors.

Low-energy pathways lead to self-healing defects in CsPbBr.

Self-regulation of free charge carriers in perovskites Schottky defect formation has been posited as the origin of the well-known defect-tolerance of metal halide perovskite materials. Understanding the mechanisms of self-regulation promises to lead to the fabrication of better performing solar cell materials with higher efficiencies. We investigate many such mechanisms here for CsPbBr, a popular representative of a more commercially viable all-inorganic metal halide perovskite.

Self-reported everyday functioning among adults with human immunodeficiency virus: Longitudinal associations with global neurocognitive functioning and depressive symptoms.

Objective: Diagnosing HIV-Associated Neurocognitive Disorders (HAND) requires attributing neurocognitive impairment and functional decline at least partly to HIV-related brain effects. Depressive symptom severity, whether attributable to HIV or not, may influence self-reported functioning. We examined longitudinal relationships among objective global cognition, depressive symptom severity, and self-reported everyday functioning in people with HIV (PWH).

Routine post-operative full blood count assessment is not necessary in elective hip and knee arthroplasty: A prospective cohort study.

Background: Hip and knee arthroplasty are among the commonest orthopaedic procedures performed worldwide and can be associated with significant blood loss. Routine haemoglobin sampling increases transfusion rates without an overall reduction in morbidity and mortality, yet providers commonly adopt an absolute numerical value as warranting transfusion post-operatively. Our aim was to establish what proportion of patients had a significant reduction in haemoglobin requiring transfusion thus assessing the necessity of routine post-operative haemoglobin assessment in an inpatient and outpatient patient cohort undergoing total joint replacement.

Subclonal immune evasion in non-small cell lung cancer.

Cancers rarely respond completely to immunotherapy. While tumors consist of multiple genetically distinct clones, whether this affects the potential for immune escape remains unclear due to an inability to isolate and propagate individual subclones from human cancers. Here, we leverage the multi-region TRACERx lung cancer evolution study to generate a patient-derived organoid - T cell co-culture platform that allows the functional analysis of subclonal immune escape at single clone resolution.

Detection of a new heterozygous pathogenic variant in metopic craniosynostosis with preaxial polysyndactyly: A case report.

Craniosynostosis is a congenital condition caused by the early fusion of one or more skull vault sutures during embryological development, resulting in an abnormal head shape. This condition has been linked to many gene variants. The authors report a case of a novel heterozygous pathogenic variant, in a young boy presenting with metopic craniosynostosis with preaxial polysyndactyly.

A systematic review and network meta-analysis of interventions to preserve insulin-secreting beta cell function in people newly diagnosed with type 1 diabetes: results from randomised controlled trials of immunomodulatory therapies.

Background: Type 1 diabetes is characterised by the immune-mediated destruction of pancreatic beta cells. We aimed to determine the effectiveness of immunotherapies for preserving residual beta cell function in newly diagnosed (stage 3) type 1 diabetes.

Methods: Searches were carried out in MEDLINE, Embase, Cochrane CENTRAL and trial registries until 31st Jul 2024.

The mitochondrial methylation potential gates mitoribosome assembly.

S-adenosylmethionine (SAM) is the principal methyl donor in cells and is essential for mitochondrial gene expression, influencing RNA modifications, translation, and ribosome biogenesis. Using direct long-read RNA sequencing in mouse tissues and embryonic fibroblasts, we show that processing of the mitochondrial ribosomal gene cluster fails in the absence of mitochondrial SAM, leading to an accumulation of unprocessed precursors. Proteomic analysis of ribosome fractions revealed these precursors associated with processing and assembly factors, indicating stalled biogenesis.

An old spice with new tricks: Curcumin targets adenoma and colorectal cancer stem-like cells associated with poor survival outcomes.

The cost of cancer care globally is unsustainable and strategies to reduce the mounting burden of cancer are urgently needed. One approach is the use of preventive therapies to reduce cancer risk; dietary-derived compounds with good safety profiles represent a promising source of potential candidates but translating encouraging preclinical data to successful trials presents significant challenges. Development of curcumin, from the spice turmeric, as a preventive therapy for colorectal cancer (CRC) is hindered by poor understanding of its mechanism of action.

Development and characterisation of improved unifocal primary mouse lung cancer models with metastatic potential.

Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer-related death globally. To better understand the biology of lung cancer, mouse models have been developed using either tail vein-injected tumour cell lines or genetically modified mice. The current gold-standard models typically present with multiple lung foci.