Development of a biological at-risk volume using apparent diffusion coefficient for parotid-sparing radiation therapy planning.

Objectives: Xerostomia toxicity continues to contribute towards a decrease in quality of life in head and neck cancer patients. Diffusion weighted MRI and the associated apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) may identify the radiosensitive region within the parotid gland (PG). This study retrospectively assesses the feasibility of using percentile threshold values from the ADC map to generate a biological at-risk volume (BRV).

Microcosting implementation facilitation for emergency department-initiated buprenorphine for untreated opioid use disorder.

Background: Adoption of ED-initiated buprenorphine for opioid use disorder has been slow despite evidence of its effectiveness. Implementation facilitation (IF) is an evidence-based implementation strategy to promote adoption of new practices within clinical settings. The Clinical Trials Network (CTN)-0069 Project ED Health" study evaluated whether provision of ED-initiated buprenorphine with referral for community-based medication for opioid use disorder (MOUD) increased after IF.

Zoonotic pathogen-driven antibiotic resistance emerges in urban soils: A large-scale study in 13 cities across China.

Land-use changes drive the microbial community and associated soil resistome. Enrichment of risk antibiotic resistance genes (risk ARGs) is related to 4.95 million deaths across the globe each year, rendering them an urgent threat to human health.

Common cell lysis procedures distort ribosome profiling analyses of gene expression.

Ribosome profiling is a powerful technique used to study gene expression on a transcriptome-wide scale. It involves sequencing of mRNA fragments protected by ribosomes from ribonuclease digestion. The initial steps commonly involve cell lysis followed by centrifugation and ribonuclease digestion.

COX-2 in Fracture Callus Chondro-Osseous Junction Osteoclasts Regulates Chondrocyte Hypertrophy and Callus Vasculogenesis.

Cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) activity is necessary for bone fracture healing to proceed normally. COX-2 is encoded by Ptgs2 and is expressed by several cell types during fracture healing, suggesting that COX-2 regulates multiple processes to affect fracture healing. Here, the role of COX-2 expression in osteoclasts during mouse femur fracture healing was examined.

Clinical and Demographic Characteristics Associated With Diabetes Remission in Six Integrated Health Care Systems: A Retrospective Cohort Study.

Objective: To assess the real-world frequency and characteristics associated with type 2 diabetes remission in a large and diverse cohort of U.S. adults.

World health Organization's guidance for tracking non-communicable diseases towards sustainable development goals 3.4: an initiative for facility-based monitoring.

Background: Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) account for over 60% of annual global deaths, disproportionately affecting low- and middle-income countries. This trend undermines progress toward Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 3.4, which seeks to reduce premature mortality from NCDs by one-third by 2030.

Clinical Decision Support System for Primary Care of Opioid Use Disorder: A Randomized Clinical Trial.

Importance: Nearly 727 000 individuals in the US died of opioid overdoses between 1999 and 2022. The current workforce of addiction medicine specialists is inadequate to address the scale of this crisis, and primary care clinicians (PCCs) do not feel sufficiently supported to treat opioid use disorder (OUD).

Objective: To evaluate whether an electronic health record-integrated clinical decision support system (CDSS) increases OUD diagnosis and treatment in primary care.

Converting pig manure into biochar mitigates the antibiotic resistance of vegetable endophytes.

Manure applications can facilitate the transmission of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) from the soil to the plant microbiome, with detrimental effects on human health through the food chain. Interventions to mitigate the spread of ARGs from animal waste to plants are essential for food safety. We previously demonstrated that converting composted manure into biochar can effectively mitigate the spread of ARGs into soil.

Mitigation of image distortion during mechanical testing within a dynamic stereo x-ray system.

Background: Dynamic stereo x-ray (DSX) permits skin strain quantification with high accuracy. Validation of image-derived strain can be performed via mechanical testing inside a DSX capture volume while simultaneously comparing strain measurements. However, electromagnetic mechanical testing systems (eMTSs) emit magnetic fields that affect DSX image formation components and cause image distortion.

Attitudes towards different weight loss approaches among adults with type 2 diabetes and obesity.

Objectives: This study aimed to understand how patients with type 2 diabetes (T2D) and obesity view weight loss treatments (lifestyle changes, metabolic bariatric surgery [MBS], and anti-obesity medications [AOM]) in the context of shared decision-making conversations.

Methods: Patients (N = 30) with T2D and obesity participated in semi-structured qualitative interviews focused on attitudes and informational needs related to MBS, AOM, and lifestyle approaches, as well as comfort in discussing weight loss with primary care clinicians (PCCs). Themes were generated using inductive content analysis.

Estimated Current and Future Congenital Rubella Syndrome Incidence with and Without Rubella Vaccine Introduction - 19 Countries, 2019-2055.

Rubella is a leading cause of vaccine-preventable birth defects. Rubella virus infection during early pregnancy can result in miscarriage, fetal death, stillbirth, or a constellation of birth defects known as congenital rubella syndrome (CRS). This report describes current and future estimated CRS incidence in countries that have not yet introduced rubella-containing vaccine (RCV) into their national childhood immunization schedules and the estimated effect of implementing a recent recommendation to introduce RCV into these programs even if population coverage with measles-containing vaccine is <80%.

Why men are the minority: The perceptions of young men in UK post-primary education about studying psychology at university.

Psychology is categorised as a science by most higher education authorities internationally. As with many science, mathematics and engineering fields, women are underrepresented in psychology at senior levels (the 'leaky pipeline'). However, it is men who are underrepresented within the discipline overall, meaning that the psychology workforce does not reflect the population it aims to serve.

16 weeks of moderate intensity resistance exercise improves strength but is insufficient to alter brain structure in Gulf War Veterans with chronic musculoskeletal pain: a randomized controlled trial.

Introduction: Chronic widespread musculoskeletal pain (CMP) is a primary condition of Veterans who were deployed to the Persian Gulf War. The mechanisms that underlie CMP in these Veterans are unknown and few efficacious treatment options exist. This study tested the effects of 16 weeks of resistance exercise training (RET) on gray matter (GM) volume and white matter (WM) microstructure in Gulf War Veterans (GWVs) with CMP compared to GWV waitlist controls (WLC).

Discounting past experience and the utility of memory: an empirical study.

It has been argued that adult humans are absolutely time biased towards the future, at least as far as purely hedonic experiences (pain/pleasure) are concerned. What this means is that they assign zero value to them once they are in the past. Recent empirical studies have cast doubt on this claim, suggesting that while adults hold asymmetrical hedonic preferences - preferring painful experiences to be in the past and pleasurable experiences to lie in the future - these preferences are not absolute and are often abandoned when the quantity of pain or pleasure under consideration is greater in the past than in the future.

Effect of high-intensity interval training exercise on sleep quality in women with probable post-traumatic stress disorder: A pilot randomized controlled trial.

Poor sleep quality is a major problem for women with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Potential causes of poor sleep quality include elevated symptoms of anxiety, hyperarousal, and decreased high frequency-heart rate variability (HF-HRV). Exercise training both decreases anxiety symptoms and increases HF-HRV among samples without PTSD.

The influence of soft tissue volume on estimates of skeletal pneumaticity: implications for fossil archosaurs.

Air space proportion (ASP), the volume fraction in bone that is occupied by air, is frequently applied as a measure for quantifying the extent of skeletal pneumaticity in extant and fossil archosaurs. Nonetheless, ASP estimates rely on a key assumption: that the soft tissue mass within pneumatic bones is negligible, an assumption that has rarely been explicitly acknowledged or tested. Here, we provide the first comparisons between estimated air space proportion (where the internal cavity of a pneumatic bone is assumed to be completely air-filled) and true air space proportion (ASPt, where soft tissues present within the internal cavities of fresh specimens are considered).

Development of postcranial pneumaticity in the turkey (): insight from the forelimb skeleton.

Postcranial skeletal pneumaticity is a phenomenon in birds in which epithelial extensions of the lung-air sac system aerate bones. Detailed development of this phenotype remains largely unknown. Here, we investigate changes in bone, soft tissue and air space volume in the developing humerus of turkeys using computed tomography and micro-computed tomography.

Impaired fracture healing is associated with callus chondro-osseous junction abnormalities in periostin-null and osteopontin-null mice.

Periostin and osteopontin are matricellular proteins abundantly expressed in bone fracture callus. Null mutation of either the periostin () gene or the osteopontin () gene can impair bone fracture healing. However, the cell and molecular pathways affected by loss of POSTN or SPP1 which lead to impaired fracture healing are not well understood.

Cretaceous Antarctic bird skull elucidates early avian ecological diversity.

Fossils representing Cretaceous lineages of crown clade birds (Aves) are exceptionally rare but are crucial to elucidating major ecological shifts across early avian divergences. Among the earliest known putative crown birds is Vegavis iaai, a foot-propelled diver from the latest Cretaceous (69.2-68.

Osteohistology of the unusually fast-growing theropod dinosaur Ceratosaurus.

Ceratosaurus is a large-bodied non-avian theropod dinosaur known from the Upper Jurassic Morrison Formation of North America and is remarkable both for its exceptionally fast annual growth rate and its status as the only theropod currently known with postcranial osteoderms. We describe the osteohistology of three hind limb bones, two dorsal ribs, and one osteoderm representing four individuals of Ceratosaurus. In addition to describing the tissues of these bones, we compared the annual growth rates from three individuals in our sample to those of five other ceratosaurians.

Neuromodulation of heart rate and heart rate variability in a randomized controlled trial of tDCS-augmented in vivo exposure for specific fears.

This study evaluated the prediction that tDCS-augmented in vivo exposure (IVE) for specific fears would result in durable changes in heart rate (BPM) and heart-rate variability (HRV) during and just after exposure to feared targets. In a double-blind, placebo-controlled trial, participants with contamination- and animal phobia (N = 49) were randomized to active tDCS (1.7 mA, 20 min; n = 27), or sham tDCS (1.

Clinical decision support to improve primary care obesity management in adults with diabetes: Clinic-randomized study design.

Background: To promote use of lifestyle, pharmacologic, and surgical weight management options for adults with body mass index (BMI) ≥35 kg/m and type 2 diabetes (T2D), this project implements and evaluates a weight loss clinical decision support (WL-CDS) intervention that provides patient-specific estimates of the risks and benefits of evidence-based obesity management options to primary care clinicians (PCCs) and patients at primary care clinical encounters.

Methods: We randomize 38 primary care clinics to either (a) usual care (UC), or (b) the WL- CDS intervention that provides patients and PCCs recommendations for lifestyle changes and patient-specific obesity management options and estimates of benefits and risks of weight loss medications, or metabolic bariatric surgery (MBS) when indicated.

Primary Endpoints: Outcomes assessed at 18-months after a patient-specific index date are (a) referral of eligible patients for MBS evaluation; (b) initiation or active management of FDA-approved medications for weight loss; and (c) weight trajectory.

Clinical Decision Support and Cardiometabolic Medication Adherence: A Randomized Clinical Trial.

Importance: Medication adherence is important for managing blood pressure (BP), low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C), and hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c). Interventions to improve medication adherence are needed.

Objective: To examine the effectiveness of an intervention using algorithmic identification of low medication adherence, clinical decision support to physicians, and pharmacist outreach to patients to improve cardiometabolic medication adherence and BP, LDL-C, and HbA1c control.