Notes

BET degrader suppresses tumor progression and also stem-like mobile development by means of Wnt/β-catenin signaling repression in glioma cells.
Goal Monitoring the genetic diversity and emerging mutations of SARS-CoV-2 is crucial for understanding the evolution of the virus and assuring the performance of diagnostic tests, vaccines, and therapies against COVID-19. SARS-CoV-2 is still adapting to humans and, as illustrated by B.1.1.7 (Alpha) and B.1.617.2 (Delta), lineage dynamics are fluid, and strain prevalence may change radically in a matter of months. The National Institutes of Health's Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostics (RADxSM) initiative created a Variant Task Force to assess the impact of emerging SARS-CoV-2 variants on in vitro diagnostic testing. Working in tandem with clinical laboratories, the FDA, and the CDC, the Variant Task Force uses both in silico modeling and in vitro testing to determine the effect of SARS-CoV-2 mutations on diagnostic molecular and antigen tests. Here, we offer an overview of the approach and activities of the RADx Variant Task Force to ensure test performance against emerging SARS-CoV-2 lineages.Goal Because a fast vaccination rollout against coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is critical to restore daily life and avoid virus mutations, it is tempting to have a relaxed vaccination-administration management system. However, a rigorous management system can support the enforcement of preventive measures, and in turn, reduce incidence and deaths. Here, we model a trustable and reliable management system based on blockchain for vaccine distribution by extending the Susceptible-Exposed-Infected-Recovery (SEIR) model. The model includes prevention measures such as mask-wearing, social distancing, vaccination rate, and vaccination efficiency. It also considers negative social behavior, such as violations of social distance and attempts of using illegitimate vaccination proofs. By evaluating the model, we show that the proposed system can reduce up to 2.5 million cases and half a million deaths in the most demanding scenarios.The effect of water and sucrose treatments on the sensory quality and content of health-promoting compounds in the lateral buds of baby mustard stored at 20 °C was investigated in this study. Although water treatment maintained the content of various nutrients, the decay of baby mustard was greater under water treatment. Sucrose treatment delayed the weight loss and the decline in sensory parameter scores, chlorophyll and sucrose content; slowed the decline in antioxidant capacity by maintaining the content of carotenoids and ascorbic acid; suppressed the increase in total phenolics; and maintained and even increased the content of several individual glucosinolates in the lateral buds of baby mustard. These findings indicate that sucrose application can maintain the sensory and nutritional qualities of the lateral buds of postharvest baby mustard.
The application of enhanced recovery after surgery (ERAS) has the potential to improve outcomes, hasten patient recovery, and reduce costs. ERAS has been applied to spine surgery for several years, but data are limited around the impact of ERAS on minimally invasive spine surgery, specifically. The authors report their experience implementing a multimodal ERAS protocol for patients receiving minimally invasive transforaminal lumbar interbody fusion.

The ERAS protocol was implemented at The Valley Hospital Hospital in Ridgewood, New Jersey in January 2020. Following implementation, all patients receiving minimally invasive transforaminal lumbar interbody fusion by a single surgeon were studied. The authors analyze the impact of the protocol on length of stay (LOS), disposition post discharge, and opioid consumption postoperatively in the inpatient and outpatient settings.

Sixteen patients were enrolled in the protocol and compared with 17 historical controls. LOS was significantly shorter in the ERAS coh applying a multimodal ERAS protocol to accelerate recovery and reduce narcotic use.Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) are chronic autoimmune diseases that result from the combined influence of genetic and environmental factors that promotes the loss of tolerance to cellular components. The complexity of these diseases converts them into a major challenge at the diagnostic and treatment level. Therefore, it is convenient to implement the use of tools for a better understanding of the physiopathology of these diseases to propose reliable biomarkers. The "omics" disciplines like metabolomics and lipidomics allow to study RA and SLE in a higher degree of detail since they evaluate the metabolites and metabolic pathways involved in disease pathogenesis. This review has compiled the information of metabolomics and lipidomics studies where samples obtained from RA and SLE patients were evaluated to find the metabolites and pathways differences between patients and healthy controls. In both diseases, there is a decrease in several amino acids and oxidative stress-related metabolites like glutathione. These findings may be useful for functional metabolomics studies aiming to reprogram the metabolism in a disease setting to recover normal immune cell homeostasis and function.Many forensic scientists consider that identification (individualisation) - in the sense of statements of the kind "the questioned item and the known item come from the same source" - is a concept that is central to their discipline. This is so despite decade-long, fundamental critiques levelled by both practitioners and academics against the conceptual and practical feasibility of forensic identification. Oddly, there is a constant stream of publications in (peer-reviewed) forensic science journals that treat forensic identification axiomatically as a valid object of study, sidestepping the fundamental critiques. This paper reviews and discusses three exemplary strands of publications that exemplify this persistent trend. These strands are called descriptivism, diagnosticism and machinism. The latter term refers to methods borrowed from the now increasingly popular approaches used in the field of machine learning. In turn, descriptivism and diagnosticism refer to general design aspects of mainstream research methods, illustrated here through a critical review of two recent papers on, respectively, forensic odontology and a framework for interpreting fingerprint evidence. The critique of the use of 'identification' in these strands of publication includes, but goes beyond, semantic details and the reiteration of long-known shortcomings of obsolete technical language such as 'match' and 'matching'. Specifically, this paper exposes deeper problems such as the subtle and argumentatively unfounded carrying-over of source conclusions to ultimate issues and the use probability concepts for questions that require more than the mere quantification of uncertainty. This paper submits that in order to foster trust in an era of continually expanding publishing activities, it should be a vital interest to forensic science journals to better examine what identification-related research can and cannot legitimately purport to achieve.The COVID-19 pandemic has imposed serious challenges in multiple perspectives of human life. To diagnose COVID-19, oropharyngeal swab (OP SWAB) sampling is generally applied for viral nucleic acid (VNA) specimen collection. However, manual sampling exposes medical staff to a high risk of infection. Robotic sampling is promising to mitigate this risk to the minimum level, but traditional robot suffers from safety, cost, and control complexity issues for wide-scale deployment. In this work, we present soft robotic technology is promising to achieve robotic OP swab sampling with excellent swab manipulability in a confined oral space and works as dexterous as existing manual approach. This is enabled by a novel Tstone soft (TSS) hand, consisting of a soft wrist and a soft gripper, designed from human sampling observation and bio-inspiration. TSS hand is in a compact size, exerts larger workspace, and achieves comparable dexterity compared to human hand. The soft wrist is capable of agile omnidirectional bending with adjustable stiffness. The terminal soft gripper is effective for disposable swab pinch and replacement. The OP sampling force is easy to be maintained in a safe and comfortable range (throat sampling comfortable region) under a hybrid motion and stiffness virtual fixture-based controller. A dedicated 3 DOFs RCM platform is used for TSS hand global positioning. Design, modeling, and control of the TSS hand are discussed in detail with dedicated experimental validations. A sampling test based on human tele-operation is processed on the oral cavity model with excellent success rate. The proposed TOOS robot demonstrates a highly promising solution for tele-operated, safe, cost-effective, and quick deployable COVID-19 OP swab sampling.
Older adults were perceived as a vulnerable group during the COVID-19 pandemic due to the health and mental health challenges they faced. The pandemic was accompanied by an "infodemic" of overabundant and questionable information that has affected older adults' mental health. As the infodemic and ageist narratives were prevalent online, more anxiety symptoms have been induced among older adults who used social media. Age-friendly communication, advocated by the World Health Organization's Age-friendly City (AFC) guide, could be an antidote by providing tailored information via appropriate channels for older adults.

This study investigated the role of community capacity for age-friendly communication in mitigating anxiety during the pandemic. We hypothesized that age-friendly communication would moderate the effects of infection risks and social media use on anxiety. A double-moderating effect was hypothesized in the context of diminished trust in traditional media.

Data were collected from a cross-secti mitigating anxiety related to the infodemic. Although using social media may have exacerbated the impact of the infodemic on older adults, it has the potential to deliver timely information for an adequate health response. Although the amplifying effects of low media trust was associated with social media use, age-friendly communication determined its strength. Instead of discouraging the use of digital technologies for COVID-19 information, efforts should be made in tailoring information and communication technologies in local communities for older adults.[This retracts the article DOI 10.1016/j.ekir.2021.01.035.].[This retracts the article DOI 10.1016/j.ekir.2020.12.018.].[This corrects the article DOI 10.1016/j.ekir.2021.06.013.].
There have been few studies investigating acute kidney injury (AKI) in patients with yellow fever (YF). The objective of this study was to identify the risk factors for AKI and death in such patients.

We evaluated 95 consecutive critically ill adult patients with the sylvatic form of YF, as confirmed by reverse-transcriptase polymerase chain reaction, in Brazil. The outcome measures were AKI (as defined by Kidney Disease Improving Global Outcomes [KDIGO] criteria) and in-hospital death.

Of the 95 patients, 73 (76.8%) had AKI and 59 (62.1%) died from it. A total of 70 patients (73.7%) required dialysis because of AKI. After adjusting for age, sex, and the Simplified Acute Physiology Score 3 (SAPS 3), we found that elevated fractional excretion of sodium and requiring dialysis were independent risk factors for in-hospital mortality and that proteinuria correlated with AKI-associated mortality.

Our findings indicate that, in patients with sylvatic YF, AKI is common and is associated with significant mortality.
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