Self-referential information is uniquely salient and preferentially processed even in children. The literature has used the Self-Referent Encoding Task (SRET) combined with ERPs to study the neural substrates of self-referential processing and its role in development. However, no work has implemented a data-driven, comprehensive examination of the ERP correlates of SRET in youths by comparing a self-referential condition with an other-referential condition. Ninety-two 10-to-14-year-old typically developing youths completed an ERP version of the SRET consisting of a self-referential and an other-referential condition, following which they were unexpectedly asked to complete a recognition task of the presented words. A data-driven Principal Components Analysis isolated five SRET-elicited ERPs: P1, P2, N400, and anterior and posterior late positive potential (aLPP, pLPP). Two-way ANOVAs (Referent × Valence) demonstrated a “self-positivity” bias in aLPP, recognition, and memory sensitivity: youths showed an enhanced aLPP, better recognition, and higher memory sensitivity for Self-Positive versus Self-Negative words, whereas no such differences were found between Other-Positive and Other-negative words. Further, a (marginal) “other-negativity” bias was found in pLPP, P2, and recognition: youths displayed an enhanced pLPP and P2 and higher memory sensitivity in the Other-Negative versus Other-Positive condition, whereas no such pattern was observed in the Self conditions. We provided novel evidence on a self-positivity bias that uniquely favored positive self-referential words as well as an other-negativity bias that uniquely favored negative other-referential words. These findings contribute to our mechanistic knowledge of self-referential processing in youths and inform future studies on the role of self-referential processing in socioemotional development.

Intro: psychotic disorders (PD) and eating disorders (ED) both are highly invalidating, costly and associated with premature death. Researchers call for early detection and intervention. Little is known about co-occurrence and associations between the at risk mental state for psychosis (ARMS) and ED. Objectives: to explore the prevalence of and associations between ARMS and ED-risk. To gain a first explorative insight into the similarities and differences of ARMS profiles in individuals with and without an ED risk score (EDr versus EDnr). Method: a cross sectional observational prevalence study (N=736) in secondary mental health care with a qualitative examination of ARMS profiles (N=47), using an ED screener (SCOFF), psychosis prodromal screener (PQ16) and CAARMS interview (detection of ARMS). We analyzed prevalences, associations (using Fisher’s exact test), and conditional probabilities of frequencies for CAARMS and SCOFF outcomes. We explored differences in ARMS profiles between EDr and EDnr by inspection of CAARMS reports. Results: ARMS and EDr are common across all psychiatric conditions. ED appear to remain largely undetected. Findings demonstrated no significant or conditional association of frequencies between CAARMS and EDr/nr outcome. ARMS items ‘guilt/punishment’ and ‘ideas of reference’ stood out in the EDr group. Conclusions: Be aware of ARMS and psychosis in ED. Pay more attention to possible ED. ARMS and psychosis are equally prevalent in EDr and EDnr, and vice versa. Researchers are encouraged to conduct studies on severity associations and profiles of psychosis spectrum symptoms in the various manifestations of ED.

Background and Purpose: Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a devastating neurodegenerative disease with limited treatment options. ALS pathogenesis involves intricate processes within motor neurons (MNs), characterized by dysregulated Ca2+ influx and buffering in early ALS-affected MNs. This study proposes the modulation of ryanodine receptors (RyRs), key mediators of intracellular Ca2+, as a therapeutic target. Experimental Approach: A novel class of novel FKBP12 ligands that show activity as cytosolic calcium modulators through stabilizing RyR channel activity, were tested in the SOD1G93A mouse model of ALS. Different outcomes were used to assess treatment efficacy including electrophysiology, histopathology, neuromuscular function, and survival. Key Results: Among the novel FKBP12 ligands, MP-010 was chosen for its central nervous system availability. Chronic administration of MP-010 to SOD1G93A mice produced a dose-dependent preservation of motor nerve conduction, with the 61 mg/kg dose significantly delaying the onset of motor impairment. This was accompanied by improved motor coordination, increased innervated endplates, and significant preservation of MNs in the spinal cord of treated mice. Notably, MP-010 treatment significantly extended lifespan by an average of 10 days compared to vehicle. Conclusions and Implications: FKBP12 ligands, particularly MP-010, exhibit promising neuroprotective effects in ALS, highlighting their potential as novel therapeutic agents. Further investigations into the molecular mechanisms and clinical translatability of these compounds are needed for their application in ALS treatment.

Cocaine, Amphetamine, or Titin: Unraveling the Genetic Underpinnings of Dilated CardiomyopathyNikita Changlani MS31, Binay Kumar Panjiyar MBBS GCSRT2, Clarisa Medina, BS3, Lisa R. Trevino Ph.D.3MS3, Paul L. Foster School of MedicineGCSRT PGME, Harvard Medical SchoolDHR Health Institute for Research and DevelopmentCorresponding Author: Binay Kumar Panjiyar2GCSRT, PGME, Harvard Medical Schoolbinaypanjiyar1282@hotmail.comAuthors’ Contribution Statement:Dr Lisa conceptualized and designed the study, Nikita Changlani collected and analyzed the data, Dr. Binay Panjiyar wrote the initial draft, and Dr. Lisa reviewed and edited the manuscript. Clarisa Medina provided supervision and project administration.Consent Statement:Written informed consent was obtained from the patient for their anonymized information to be published in this article. Ethical Clearance and Approval was also obtained from DHR IRB.Ethics Statement:This study was conducted in accordance with the ethical standards of our institution and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

In this paper, we present one Robust control Problem where \mathcal{P}=\{P(s,l,m)=U(s,l)/V(s,m):l\in L,m\in M \}  is a family of interval plants. Considering a multilinear function with two uncertain parameters l and m, we have shown the strictly positive real (SPR) constructing four Kharitonov Polynomials for that problem. For this case, the aim of the paper is twofold. First, we approach to show the robust stability of {P}(s,l,m). Second we show that   \displaystyle{\min_{l\in L,m\in M}}~~{Re U\left(j\omega,l ight)V^\ast\left(j\omega,m ight)>0} where V^\ast\left(j\omega,m ight) is conjugate of V(j\omega,m) and s=j\omega where omega is frequency assuming some domain. Then we have illustrated one example.

We report real world use over time in immunocompromised subjects receiving tixagevimab/cilgavimab (T/C) pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP). Observational study on participants receiving T/C PrEP stratified: never had COVID-19 (NoC), hybrids (H) and breakthrough infections (BTIs) if COVID-19 before or after PrEP, respectively. Anti-RBD IgG and BA.5 neutralizing antibodies (nAbs), mucosal IgG, T-cell immunity at the administration of T/C (T0), 3 (T1), 6 (T2), and 9 (T3) months after, were measured. Comparison of markers in each group across timepoints, Poisson regression model for BTIs incidence rate ratios were performed. N=231 participants: median age 63 years (IQR 54.0-73.0), 84% hematological disease, median vaccine dose of three. N=72 NoC, 103 H and 56 (24%) BTIs, mostly mild/moderate, IR 4.2 (95%CI 3.2-5.4) BTIs/100 patients-months, no factors associated with. A significant increase of anti-RBD IgG at T1 was observed in all the groups, with a decline at T2. GMTs of anti-BA.5 nAbs were low at T1 for all the groups and around/below the cut off. No changes of IFN-γ. Overall, a mucosal response was observed at T1. An incidence of 24% of mild/moderate BTIs was observed. Anti-RBD IgG levels persistence was ensured, BA.5 nAbs were low/undetectable, cellular T immunity remained stable.

Studying the trophic ecology of animals is crucial for comprehending their life history. Migratory shorebirds, characterized as opportunistic species, traverse diverse distances in pursuit of food. A comprehensive systematic review was conducted by the researchers using Scopus, Web of Science, SciELO, and Google Academic databases to scrutinize the diets of 41 migratory shorebirds in the Americas. The analysis encompassed 94 documents, including 85 papers and 8 theses published from 1919 to July 2023. Over 90% of the results originate from studies concentrating on feces and intestinal tract analysis, with only two documents employing molecular analysis and DNA. Long-distance migratory species, particularly those in the Atlantic flyway, underwent frequent scrutiny, with substantial contributions from research conducted in Argentina, Brazil, and the USA. Among these species, Limnodromus griseus and Tringa flavipes were noteworthy for having the highest reported prey items. At the order level Diptera, Coleoptera, Littorinimorpha, Decapoda, and Hymenoptera were the most common prey items in the shorebird diet, with diverse representatives identified across the five regions analyzed. Stopover sites utilized by these birds offer diverse food resources influenced by intrinsic environmental conditions. Although coastal areas exhibited similarities in prey items such as Mollusca, Annelida, and Decapoda, dissimilarities were observed between shorebird diets. This variation is attributed to migratory shorebirds’ remarkable ability to explore various prey items during their migration. Despite advancements, information gaps persist in crucial conservation areas, particularly in tropical regions along the midcontinental and Pacific flyway. Migratory shorebird populations are declining, encountering challenges in stopover and non-breeding areas. Understanding the variability of their diets is paramount for making informed decisions in conservation efforts. Addressing these gaps will contribute to the effective conservation of migratory shorebirds and their habitats.

Magnetic nanoparticles have recently attracted attention for biochemical and medical applications like drug delivery and hyperthermia for a variety of reasons with most important being their stability, chemical compatibility, and suitable magnetic properties like moderate specific mass magnetization. Cobalt ferrites are a well-studied family of materials and the partial substitution of Fe 3+ cations by rare earth (RE) ones may be used to tune the magnetic properties. In the present work pure and substituted Co ferrite nanoparticles with nominal stoichiometry CoFe 2-xR xO 4 (R = Yb, Gd; x = 0.05, 0.1, 0.3) synthesized by the co-precipitation method are studied with 57Fe Mössbauer spectroscopy in order to determine the incorporation of RE ions in the spinel lattice. The fitting procedure was based on the standard spinel model using two sextets for the octahedral and the tetrahedral coordinated positions of Fe atoms. All isomer shift values were found within the typical range of high spin ferric ions while quadrupole splitting values strongly suggest that there is a substitution preference; RE ions replace iron ones in octahedral sites. The inversion parameter was found to decrease with RE content (lowest value about 0.534 for CoFe 1.90Yb 0.10O 4) and thermal treatment always results in changing the material towards normal spinel, while pure CoFe 2O 4 was inverse. Thermal treatment of substituted materials in ambient air at temperature range 1500-1700 K for 12 hours increase crystallite size and changes the degree of inversion.

Quality of 3D point cloud maps is essential for navigation and localization in Autonomous Mobile Robots, yet creating these maps for large-scale areas presents challenges, stemming from the processing of numerous points. In such situations, constructing a 3D map can be accomplished by dividing it into smaller regions and then merging them to generate a complete map by performing a 3D map stitching algorithm. Currently, these overlapping areas are manually selected, which leads to potential errors. In response, a novel method to automatically identify overlapping areas is proposed to perform map stitching based on the overlapping areas only instead of the entire maps. Utilizing the proposed method results in a significant reduction in time consumption. The proposed automatic method incorporates the DBSCAN algorithm for area clustering, template matching for correspondence cluster identification, and a binary-search algorithm for determining the best parameter. For the performance evaluation, the proposed method was compared with manual selection and with the use of the entire maps in the map-merge-3D algorithm. The method achieves a significant reduction in the time required for the 3D map stitching process, amounting to a 38.64% decrease compared to using the entire maps. In terms of accuracy, the proposed method reduces translation error to 0.1723m and rotation error to 0.1763 ◦, representing decreases of 5.28% and 16.16%, respectively, while manual selection results in a translation error of 0.4278m and rotation error of 0.7123 ◦, increases of 135.25% and 238.75% respectively, compared to the entire maps 0.1819m and 0.2103 ◦.

Chironomidae, so-called non-biting midges, are considered key bioindicators of aquatic ecosystem variability. Data derived from morphologically identifying their chitinous remains in sediments documents chironomid larvae assemblages, which are studied to reconstruct ecosystem changes over time. Recent developments in sedimentary DNA (sedDNA) research have demonstrated that molecular techniques are suitable for determining past and present occurrences of organisms. Nevertheless, sedDNA records documenting alterations in chironomid assemblages remain largely unexplored. To close this gap, we examined the applicability of sedDNA metabarcoding to identify Chironomidae assemblages in lake sediments by sampling and processing three 21 – 35 cm long sediment cores from Lake Sempach in Switzerland. With a focus on developing analytical approaches, we compared an invertebrate-universal (FWH) and a newly designed Chironomidae-specific metabarcoding primer set (CH) to assess their performance in detecting Chironomidae DNA. We isolated and identified chitinous larval remains and compared the morphotype assemblages with the data derived from sedDNA metabarcoding. Results showed a good overall agreement of the morphotype assemblage-specific clustering among the chitinous remains and the metabarcoding datasets. Both methods indicated higher chironomid assemblage similarity between the two littoral cores in contrast to the deep lake core. Moreover, we experienced a pronounced primer bias effect resulting in more Chironomidae detections with the CH primer combination compared to the FWH combination. Overall, we conclude that sedDNA metabarcoding can supplement traditional remain identifications and potentially provide independent reconstructions of past chironomid assemblage changes. Furthermore, it has the potential of more efficient workflows, better sample standardisation and species-level resolution datasets.

Purpose: We qualitatively explored the financial experiences of adolescents and emerging adults with cancer and their caregivers to inform future screening efforts and intervention development. Methods: We recruited English or Spanish speaking adolescents and emerging young adults (younger AYAs: 15 – 25 years) who were treated for cancer within the past two years and their caregivers to participate in semi-structured interviews. Interviews explored how the financial costs of cancer care were experienced by younger AYAs and caregivers. Data was inductively coded using conventional content analysis. Codes were reviewed with the study team and interviews continued until saturation was reached. Results: We interviewed 17 participants; 9 were younger AYAs, and 7 preferred Spanish. We identified three cross-cutting themes: burden, support, and routine, consistent, and clear. Burden came in the form of unexpected costs such as transportation to appointments, as well as emotional burdens such as AYAs worrying about how much their family sacrificed for their care or caregivers worrying for the AYA’s physical and financial future. Support, in the form of familial, community, healthcare institution, and insurance, was critical to mitigating the effects of financial toxicity in this population. Participants emphasized the importance of meeting individual financial needs by routinely and consistently asking about financial factors and providing clear guidance to navigate these needs. Conclusion: Younger AYAs and their caregivers experience significant financial challenges during cancer treatment and often rely on key supports to alleviate these stressors. When developing or implementing financial screening or navigation interventions to mitigate financial toxicity, clinicians and health systems should develop clear, consistent procedures to meet the needs and preferences of younger AYA cancer survivors and their families.

Objective: Cancer treatment in children leads to failure to complete the childhood vaccination program and weakening or loss of vaccine-acquired immunity. Post-treatment vaccine responses of children receiving cancer treatment vary. In this study, we aimed to investigate serum antibody status, and vaccine responses in children after cancer treatment. Methods: Pediatric patients who were admitted to Hacettepe University Hospitals between January 1, 2015, and December 31, 2020, who received chemotherapy for lymphoma and solid organ tumors, and whose diseases were in remission were included in the study. Vaccines administered after cancer treatment, hepatitis A (HAV), hepatitis B (HBV), varicella zoster (VZV), measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) serum antibody levels, and changes in vaccine responses after treatment were retrospectively investigated. Results: The study included 533 patients. After treatment, measles, HAV, rubella, HBV, VZV, and mumps, seronegativity were found in 83.5%, 64%, 60.1%48,5%, 43.3%, and 28%of the patients, respectively. Post-treatment rates of antibody loss in descending order were measles (47.1%), HAV (31.9%), HBV (31.4%), mumps (28.6%), VZV (21.7%), and rubella (11.4%). Seroconversion rates to one dose of vaccines in descending order, were (83.6%), rubella (82.9%), HBV (81.4%), VZV (63.5%), mumps (45.4%), and measles (33.3%). Seroconversion rates to two doses of the same vaccines, in descending order, were: HAV (98.8%), VZV (84.6%), rubella (80%), HBV (80%), measles (32.2%), and mumps (36.2%) Conclusion: Serologic vaccine responses of patients after treatment were lower than expected even with repeated doses. As these patients may require intermittent serologic evaluations and repeated vaccinations according to their risk status, we have planned longer-term follow-ups of them.

With an aging population, detecting cognitive dysfunction at an early stage is important. However, no current neurophysiological assessments examine brain activity status in community-dwelling older adults. Therefore, this study aimed to determine the relationship between event-related potential (ERP) and neuropsychological scores during go/no-go tasks among community-dwelling older adults. The participants were 34 young adults and 46 older adults. They underwent a go/no-go task to measure ERP, and older adults also underwent neuropsychological testing. Older adults were divided into two groups for analysis based on the results of the Japanese version of the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA-J): cognitively normal and cognitively impaired. N2 latency was significantly delayed in the cognitively impaired group compared to the cognitively normal and younger groups. In addition, the younger group exhibited a significant increase in P3 amplitude and faster latency compared to both older adults groups, with no notable difference between the two older adult groups. Results of a correlation analysis between ERP and neuropsychological test scores showed that the N2 latency was correlated with neuropsychological test scores, which suggested that receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis could discriminate cognitive function. These results indicated that the N2 latency reflected potential cognitive dysfunction in community-dwelling older adults. Furthermore, P3 amplitude may be useful in detecting age-related decline in inhibitory function.

Introduction: Cochlear implantation (CI) has revolutionized patient care, however speech and audibility outcomes vary between recipients. This study evaluates post-operative CI performance in recipients with an intact electrode array compared to a smaller subset with one or more basal electrodes deactivated to ascertain any significant differences in speech perception. Methods: A retrospective review of a single CI centre database (from 2011-2021) in [BLINDED], using a Mid-Scala electrode, with focus on recipients identified with one or more deactivated basal electrodes was performed. Comparisons between conventional users and the deactivated cohort included aided pure tone testing in sound field and open-set sentence recognition scores (AzBio) at one-year post activation. Subjective measures were collected to assess overall satisfaction with devices. Results: 48 individuals out of 167 adult recipients had selected for deactivation of basal electrodes. Reasons for deactivation included sound quality and lack of sound percept. There were no significant differences in pre-operative status or demographics between the two cohorts. T-Test analysis found significant differences in aided thresholds between the “intact” and “deactivated” electrode cohorts at 4KHz and 6KHz (p <0.01). Mean post-operative speech perception was also significantly worse in the “deactivated” cohort (48.5% compared to 59.0%) at 1-year post activation (p<0.01). There were no significant differences found between groups in overall satisfaction with their CI. Conclusion: Patient request for basal electrode deactivation owing to subjective sound quality illustrates decreased audibility and speech perception, however CI satisfaction is preserved.

When searching for an item with specific visual features, salient nontargets (distractors) sometimes capture attention. The repetition of search features, such as target and distractor colors, affects both successful search and effective distractor handling. Nevertheless, the specific consequences of trial-to-trial feature repetition and search context on behavior and EEG components are poorly understood. Here, we investigated how search feature repetition shapes the electrophysiological and behavioral correlates of target processing and distractor handling, testing theoretically-informed predictions of these signals with a mixed-effects model comparison approach. In two experiments, the colors of a singleton distractor and fixed-shape target either repeated or changed unpredictably across trials. A color singleton target and distractor appeared in Experiment 1, allowing efficient search among pop-out items, while targets in Experiment 2 were not uniquely colored, forcing participants to rely on slower shape-feature search. Capture by the color singleton distractor occurred only in pop-out search (Experiment 1), but repetition reduced distractor interference. This pattern was paralleled by the contralateral N2pc-PD complex: following a search color switch, the target-related N2pc was greatly delayed, and salient distractors elicited an N2pc followed by a reactive PD. This biphasic response was absent in Experiment 2, where color was of limited usefulness to search. Early and late contralateral positivities were not sensitive to search relevance or feature repetition, suggesting that the PD is unrelated to preparatory suppression. Attention- and capture-related lateralization components are not universally elicited by target or distractor features, but are driven specifically by expected features important to the search task.

For bilingual individuals, a notable aspect of their language control lies in its adaptive generalization to domain-general conflict control, known as ‘cross-task adaptation’. However, previous studies have primarily focused on examining adaptation in cue-driven top-down switching, overlooking the existence of three distinct forms of language control: top-down switching, lexical-accessibility-driven bottom-up switching, and voluntary switching that integrates both approaches. This study delved into the adaptation effects of these language control forms in a cohort of 30 unbalanced Chinese-English bilinguals, who engaged in the flanker task paired with picture-naming across three distinct switching contexts. Surprisingly, participants exhibited heightened executive control capacity in resolving interference when confronted with the bottom-up switching compared to the top-down and mixed-switching contexts. Notably, Granger causality analysis consistently emphasized that bottom-up switching demonstrated a more robust interaction with conflict control, particularly in the low gamma band (25~35Hz). These findings underscore the remarkable upregulation of the bottom-up switching strategy in contributing to domain-general conflict control. Our study highlights that the effective adoption of switching strategy, rather than the switching itself, yields more significant benefits in cross-task adaptation.

Network reliability analysis is vital for ensuring efficient and error-free communication within networking and communication applications. Binary Decision Diagrams (BDDs) have emerged as a powerful tool for analyzing and optimizing complex network infrastructures. The objective of this research paper is to conduct a comparative analysis of edge-ordering algorithms for network reliability using BDDs the study aims to evaluate and compare existing algorithms, providing valuable insights for selecting suitable edge-ordering algorithms that enhance network reliability. The paper concludes that snooker is outperforming among selected algorithms.

Inductive wireless power transfer (IPT) and capacitive wireless power transfer (CPT) are currently the two main wireless power transfer technologies. Combining the coils of the IPT with the plates of the CPT creates a hybrid wireless power transfer (HPT) system, which can improve the transmission performance but introduces higher parameter sensitivity. Therefore, achieving stable output power and constant transfer efficiency over a wide range of coupling coefficient variations is still a major challenge for HPT. In this work, the parity-time (PT) symmetry theory is applied to an SS-type HPT system, and a circuit model of the PT-based HPT system is developed by using coupling capacitance and coupling inductance. The effect of connecting the plates to the homonymous end or heteronymous end of the coupling coils on the PT-symmetry range of the HPT system is discussed. It is found that the heteronymous end connection of the coils can effectively increase the range of constant output power and stable transfer efficiency. Finally, a prototype is built to verify the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed PT-based HPT system. The transfer efficiency remains constant in the PT-symmetric range, and the inductive and capacitive coupling coefficients are smaller compared to IPT and CPT systems with the same parameters.

This paper presents a comprehensive stochastic optimization model that seamlessly integrates aggregate electric vehicle (EV) charging demand response with power grid system operations, leveraging the inherent flexibility of EV charging. Our main novel contribution is tackling the problem of uncertainty in the demand characteristics. In our stochastic model, we capture not only unknown user charging patterns but also the effect of a pseudo-randomized mechanism applied to provide differential privacy (DP) guarantees to users whose charging patterns are not disclosed. From a control perspective, the intrinsic randomness of the users charging needs, compounded with randomness introduced by the DP mechanism can easily result in infeasible solutions. To overcome this challenge, we adopt a robust optimal control strategy that encompasses the intersection of potential sampling scenario-based constraints. In addition, to manage the high-dimension of the control action space, we approximate the intersections of the feasible regions with a reduced set of polyhedron constraints. In conclusion, our case studies based on IEEE standard systems demonstrate that the proposed algorithm effectively addresses robustness, scalability, and differential privacy for EV users by dynamically adapting to control the demand response for renewable energy integration while consistently ensuring the privacy of EV drivers.

Transposable elements (TEs), acting as symbiotic entities within host genomes, their landscapes represent a pivotal subject in evolutionary discourse. Previous investigations on the impact of ecological niches on the shaping of TE landscapes have yielded inconsistent conclusions. This study assessed the effect of ecological niches on the dynamics of TEs, employing pollinating fig wasps and non-pollinating fig wasps (NPFWs) residing in the syconia of figs as models. Our findings reveal a significantly positive correlation between TE content and genome size, exhibiting conspicuous phylogenetic signal. Significant differences emerge in the quantity, total length, and family types of TEs between pollinators and NPFWs. Notably, pollinators exhibit ‘dormant’ TE landscapes characterized by inactivity along with rapid decay attributable to smaller effective population sizes. This results in only a few remnants persisting over nearly a million years. Despite the relaxed selection pressure on pollinators in an effort to prolonging TE retention, their abundance remains limited. In contrast, NPFWs exhibit ‘aggressive’ TE landscapes, marked by the continual generation of new insertions. The larger effective population sizes contribute to decelerating the decay of TEs, as demonstrated by the substantial TE accumulation in the last one million years. These observed dynamics are intrinsically linked to the distinctive ecological niche provided by figs. TE remains suggest a functional role in facilitating pollinators’ adaptation to stress induced by their niche. Numerous cis-regulatory modules that originate from TEs and locate near genes involved in processing environmental information, which emphasizes their potential functional significances.

BACKGROUND: A growing concern among nurses is that they have become extremely stressed and anxious, for many reasons. Intestinal flora has become a widely research topic. Stool samples were sequenced to explore the relationship between intestinal flora and the stressors of nurses. METHODS: Paediatric nurses in the Third Xiangya Hospital were the research group, and internal medicine nurses were the control group. The “Chinese Nurse Stressor Scale” (CNSS) was used for general investigation and stress-related assessment. Six patients in the internal medicine group and 7 in the paediatric group underwent DNA sequencing of their intestinal flora. The gut microbiome was profiled by 16S rRNA sequencing. RESULTS: The work stressors of internal medicine and paediatric nurses included nursing specialty and work (10.94±3.17 vs 12.25±2.78), work environment and resources (4.91±1.63 vs 5.66±2.03), patient care (15.86±4.30 vs 18.95±5.12) and management and interpersonal relationships (8.83±4.94 vs 10.86±5.01). The abundance of Clostridia in the internal medicine group was higher, while the abundance of Bacteroidia in the paediatric group was higher. The abundances of γ-Proteobacteria and β-Proteobacteria also showed obvious differences between the two groups. CONCLUSIONS: The changes in the intestinal flora of nurses were correlated with their stress levels, which were especially notable for Bacteroidia, Clostridia, γ-Proteobacteria and β-Proteobacteria.

A document by Marius G. Floriancic. Click on the document to view its contents.

Background: Immediate IgE-mediated hypersensitivity reactions to polyethylene glycol (PEG) are rare. Our understanding of PEG hypersensitivity reactions is limited. We evaluate the clinical characteristics and investigation outcomes of the largest cohort of PEG allergic patients reported so far. Method: 44 patients investigated for suspected PEG allergy across four UK tertiary allergy centres between October 2013 and December 2020 were studied. Clinical characteristics, details of index reaction, and approaches to and outcomes of allergy investigations were analysed. Results: PEG hypersensitivity was confirmed in 42 of 44 cases. Macrogol laxatives were the most common index drugs reported (23%), followed by depo-medroxyprogesterone (19%), oral penicillin V (10%), and depo-methylprednisolone (10%). 61% experienced grade III anaphylaxis. Intradermal testing (IDT) increased the diagnostic sensitivity from 51% to 85%. Five patients experienced systemic reactions during IDT. Of the five patients, two were skin prick test (SPT)-positive to a high molecular weight (MW) PEG. Seven PEG-allergic patients reported tolerance to H1 antihistamines containing PEG. Administration of mRNA COVID-19 (n=5) or AZ COVID-19 vaccines (n=14) was tolerated in 16 patients. Conclusion: PEG hypersensitivity is an uncommon cause of drug-induced anaphylaxis. Four index drugs accounted for two-thirds of cases and reactions to these drugs should prompt PEG hypersensitivity investigations. PEG IDT increases diagnostic yield. The role of SPT with higher MW PEGs requires further attention. We observed no correlation in PEG dose and concentration between the implicated and tolerated PEG-containing drugs. Further studies are required to understand PEG thresholds and PEG equivalent doses of various administration routes. COVID-19 vaccines were tolerated by all exposed.

Coral populations across the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) could rapidly adapt to the warming climate if they have standing genetic variation for thermal adaptation. Here, we describe a locus likely involved in acclimatization and adaptation of Acropora millepora to cooler temperatures at higher latitudes. This locus shows a strong signal of selection in the A. millepora genome, with a steep latitudinal gradient of derived allele frequency, and harbors a cluster of eight tandemly repeated Δ9-desaturase genes adjacent to a region where a hard sweep likely occurred. In colonies reciprocally transplanted across 4.5 degrees of latitude, the expression of Δ9-desaturase was upregulated at the cooler high-latitude reef. Furthermore, corals from the warmer low-latitude reef with one or two copies of the “cold-adapted” Δ9-desaturase allele expressed the gene more and grew faster than their peers when transplanted to the cooler reef. In other organisms ranging from bacteria to fish, Δ9-desaturase is upregulated under cold conditions to adjust membrane fluidity by introducing double bonds into fatty acid chains of membrane lipids. While all these lines of evidence are suggestive rather than conclusive, they collectively make Δ9-desaturase a strong candidate marker gene for coral thermal acclimatization and adaptation.