We present STAR measurements of strange hadron ( K S0, Λ , Λ ¯, Ξ -, Ξ ¯+, Ω -, Ω ¯+ , and Φ ) production at midrapidity ( |y|<0.5 ) in Au+Au collisions at sNN = 7.7–39 GeV from the Beam Energy Scan ...Program at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC). Transverse-momentum spectra, averaged transverse mass, and the overall integrated yields of these strange hadrons are presented versus the centrality and collision energy. Antibaryon-to-baryon ratios ( Λ ¯/ Λ , Ξ ¯+/ Ξ -, Ω ¯+/ Ω - ) are presented as well and used to test a thermal statistical model and to extract the temperature normalized strangeness and baryon chemical potentials at hadronic freeze-out ( μB/Tch and μS/Tch ) in central collisions. Strange baryon-to-pion ratios are compared to various model predictions in central collisions for all energies. The nuclear modification factors ( RCP ) and antibaryon-to-meson ratios as a function of transverse momentum are presented for all collision energies. The K S0 RCP shows no suppression for pT up to 3.5 GeV/c at energies of 7.7 and 11.5 GeV. The Λ ¯/ K S0 ratio also shows baryon-to-meson enhancement at intermediate pT ( ≈2.5 GeV/c ) in central collisions at energies above 19.6 GeV. Lastly, both observations suggest that there is likely a change of the underlying strange quark dynamics at collision energies below 19.6 GeV.
Providing comprehensive tobacco addiction treatment to smokers admitted to acute care settings represents an opportunity to realise major health resource savings and population health improvements.
...The CURE project is a hospital-wide tobacco addiction treatment service piloted in Wythenshawe Hospital, Manchester, UK. The core components of the project are electronic screening of all patients to identify smokers; the provision of brief advice and pharmacotherapy by frontline staff; opt-out referral of smokers to a specialist team for inpatient behavioural interventions; and continued support after discharge.
From 01 October 2018 to 31 March 2019, 92% (13,515/14,690) of adult admissions were screened for smoking status, identifying 2,393 current smokers. Of these, 96% were given brief advice to quit by the admitting team. Through the automated ‘opt-out’ referral process, 61% patients completed inpatient behavioural interventions with a specialist cessation practitioner (69% within the first 48 hours of admission). Overall, 66% of smokers were prescribed pharmacotherapy. Over one in five of all smokers admitted during this pilot reported that they were abstinent from smoking 12 weeks after discharge (22%) at a cost £183 per quit.
National implementation of this cost-effective programme would be likely to generate substantial benefits to public health.
We present the measurements of elliptic flow ($v_2$) of non-photonic electrons (NPE) by the STAR experiment using 2- and 4-particle correlations, $v_2${2} and $v_2${4}, and the event plane method in ...Au+Au collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}} = 200$ GeV, and $v_2${2} at 62.4 and 39 GeV. $v_2${2} and $v_2${4} are non-zero at low and intermediate transverse momentum ($p_T$) at 200 GeV, and $v_2${2} is consistent with zero at low $p_T$ at other energies. For Au+Au collisions at $p_T<1$ GeV/c, there is a statistically significant difference between $v_2${2} at 200 GeV and $v_2${2} at the two lower beam energies.
Traumatic injury of the femur resulting in femoral fracture may result in significant postoperative pain. As with other causes of acute pain, regional anesthesia may offer a benefit over conventional ...therapy with intravenous opioids. This study prospectively assesses the effects of femoral nerve blockade with a lateral femoral cutaneous nerve block (FN-LFCN) on intraoperative anesthetic requirements, postoperative pain scores, and opioid requirements.
Seventeen pediatric patients (age 2-18 years) undergoing surgical repair of a traumatic femur fracture fulfilled the study criteria and were randomly assigned to general anesthesia with either an FN-LFCN block (n = 10) or intravenous opioids (n = 7). All patients received a general anesthetic with isoflurane for maintenance anesthesia during the surgical repair of the femur fracture. Patients randomized to the FN-LFCN block group received ultrasound-guided nerve blockade using ropivacaine (0.2%/0.5% based on patient weight). At the conclusion of surgery, the airway device was removed once tracheal extubation criteria were achieved, and patients were transported to the post-anesthesia care unit (PACU) for recovery and assessment of pain by a blinded study nurse.
The final study cohort included 17 patients (n = 10 for FN-LFCN block group; n = 7 for the intravenous opioid group). Although the median of the maximum postoperative pain scores in the regional group was 0, this did not reach statistical significance when compared to the median pain score of 3 in the intravenous opioid group. Likewise, no difference between the two groups was noted when comparing intraoperative anesthetic requirements, opioid requirements (intraoperative, in the post-anesthesia recovery room, and in the inpatient ward), and the time to first opioid requirement postoperatively in the inpatient ward.
This prospective, randomized, double-blinded study failed to demonstrate a clear benefit of regional anesthesia over intravenous opioids intraoperatively and postoperatively during repair of femoral shaft fractures in the pediatric population.
Numerous pharmacogenetic clinical guidelines and recommendations have been published, but barriers have hindered the clinical implementation of pharmacogenetics. The Translational Pharmacogenetics ...Program (TPP) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Pharmacogenomics Research Network was established in 2011 to catalog and contribute to the development of pharmacogenetic implementations at eight US healthcare systems, with the goal to disseminate real‐world solutions for the barriers to clinical pharmacogenetic implementation. The TPP collected and normalized pharmacogenetic implementation metrics through June 2015, including gene–drug pairs implemented, interpretations of alleles and diplotypes, numbers of tests performed and actionable results, and workflow diagrams. TPP participant institutions developed diverse solutions to overcome many barriers, but the use of Clinical Pharmacogenetics Implementation Consortium (CPIC) guidelines provided some consistency among the institutions. The TPP also collected some pharmacogenetic implementation outcomes (scientific, educational, financial, and informatics), which may inform healthcare systems seeking to implement their own pharmacogenetic testing programs.
New satellite missions promise global reductions in the uncertainties in aerosol optical properties, but it is unclear how those reductions will propagate to uncertainties in the shortwave (SW) ...direct aerosol radiative effect (DARE) and direct aerosol radiative forcing (DARF), which are currently large, on the order of at least 20 %. In this work, we build a Monte Carlo framework to calculate the impact of uncertainties in aerosol optical depth (AOD), single scattering albedo (SSA), and the asymmetry parameter on the uncertainty in shortwave DARE and DARF. This framework uses the results of over 2.3 million radiative transfer simulations to calculate global clear-sky DARE and DARF based on a range of uncertainties in present-day and pre-industrial aerosol optical properties, representative of existing and future global observing systems. We find the 1σ uncertainty varies between ±0.23 and ±1.91 W m−2 (5 % and 42 %) for the top-of-atmosphere (TOA) clear-sky DARE and between ±0.08 and ±0.47 W m−2 (9 % and 52 %) for the TOA DARF. At the TOA, AOD uncertainty is the main contributor to overall uncertainty except over bright surfaces where SSA uncertainty contributes most. We apply regionally varying uncertainties to represent current measurement uncertainties and find that aerosol optical property uncertainties represent 24 % of TOA DARE and DARF. Reducing regionally varying optical property uncertainties by a factor of 2 would reduce their contributions to TOA DARE and DARF uncertainty proportionally. Applying a simple scaling to all-sky conditions, aerosol optical property uncertainty contributes to about 25 % total uncertainty in TOA, all-sky SW DARE, and DARF. Compared to previous studies which considered uncertainties in non-aerosol variables, our results suggest that the aerosol optical property uncertainty accounts for one-third to half of the total direct SW uncertainty. Recent and future progress in constraining aerosol optical properties using ground-based or satellite retrievals could be translated into DARE and DARF uncertainty using our freely available framework.
Community engagement (CE) interventions include a range of approaches to involve communities in the improvement of their health and wellbeing. Working with communities defined by location or some ...other shared interest, these interventions may be important in assisting equity and reach of communicable disease control (CDC) in low and lower-middle income countries (LLMIC). We conducted an umbrella review to identify approaches to CE in communicable disease control, effectiveness of these approaches, mechanisms and factors influencing success.
We included systematic reviews that: i) focussed on CE interventions; ii) involved adult community members; iii) included outcomes relevant to communicable diseases in LLMIC; iv) were written in English. Quantitative results were extracted and synthesised narratively. A qualitative synthesis process enabled identification of mechanisms of effect and influencing factors. We followed guidance from the Joanna Briggs Institute, assessed quality with the DARE tool and reported according to standard systematic review methodology.
Thirteen systematic reviews of medium-to-high quality were identified between June and July 2017. Reviews covered the following outcomes: HIV and STIs (6); malaria (2); TB (1); child and maternal health (3) and mixed (1). Approaches included: CE through peer education and community health workers, community empowerment interventions and more general community participation or mobilisation. Techniques included sensitisation with the community and involvement in the identification of resources, intervention development and delivery. Evidence of effectiveness of CE on health outcomes was mixed and quality of primary studies variable. We found: i) significantly reduced neonatal mortality following women's participatory learning and action groups; ii) significant reductions in HIV and other STIs with empowerment and mobilisation interventions with marginalised groups; iii) significant reductions in malaria incidence or prevalence in a small number of primary studies; iv) significant reductions in infant diarrhoea following community health worker interventions. Mechanisms of impact commonly occurred through social and behavioural processes, particularly: changing social norms, increasing social cohesion and social capacity. Factors influencing effectiveness of CE interventions included extent of population coverage, shared leadership and community control over outcomes.
Community engagement interventions may be effective in supporting CDC in LLMIC. Careful design of CE interventions appropriate to context, disease and community is vital.
Although impulsivity, anxiety, and risk-taking may relate to attentional processes, little research has directly investigated how each may be associated with specific facets of attentional processes ...and their underlying neural correlates. Nineteen adolescents performed a functional magnetic resonance imaging task involving simple, selective, and divided attention. Out-of-scanner-assessed impulsivity, anxiety, and risk-taking scores were not correlated with each other and showed task-phase-specific patterns of association. Results are discussed in light of research and theory suggesting a relationship between these domains and attention and may serve to focus future research aiming to understand these relationships.
A link between selenium deficiency and inflammatory skin diseases have been noted by many, but this link is still not well understood. We have previously studied the efficacy of ceramide analogs, ...based on the fire ant venom Solenopsin A, against our psoriasis animal model. Treatment of animals with solenopsin analogs resulted in significantly improved skin as well as in a coordinate downregulation of selenoproteins, namely Glutathione Peroxidase 4 (GPX4). We thus hypothesize that ferroptosis may be a physiologic process that may protect the skin from both inflammatory and neoplastic processes.
We analyze and compare gene expression profiles in the GEO database from clinical skin samples taken from healthy patients and psoriasis patients (both involved and noninvolved skin lesions). We validated the gene expression results against a second, independent, cohort from the GEO database.
Significant reduction in gene expression of GPX4, elevated expression of Nrf2 downstream targets, and expression profiles mirroring erastin-inhibition of Cystine/Glutamate Antiporter-System XC activity in psoriatic skin lesions, compared to both noninvolved skin and healthy patient samples, suggest an innately inducible mechanism of ferroptosis.
We present data that may indicate selenoproteins, particularly GPX4, in resolving inflammation and skin cancer, including the novel hypothesis that the human organism may downregulate GPX4 and reactive oxygen (REDOX) regulating proteins in the skin as a way of resolving psoriasis and nonmelanoma skin cancer through increased reactive oxygen species. Further studies are needed to investigate ferroptosis as a possible physiologic mechanism for eliminating inflammatory and malignant tissues.
This study provides a fresh framework for understanding the seemingly contradictory effects of selenium supplementation. In addition, it offers a novel explanation of how physiologic upregulation of ferroptosis and downregulation of selenoprotein synthesis may mediate resolution of inflammation and carcinogenesis. This is of therapeutic significance.
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