Notes

A Hypothesis: Fructosamine-3-Kinase-Related-Protein (FN3KRP) Catalyzes Deglycation of Maillard Intermediates Directly Downstream coming from Fructosamines.
Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) belonging to the family Coronaviridae and genus Betacoronavirus is the causative agent of COVID-19 disease and was first identified in Wuhan, China. SARS-CoV-2 spread globally with >28 million cases and 911,000 deaths recorded worldwide as of September 12, 2020. The Philippines reported the first case of community transmission on March 5, 2020, and despite the government imposing one of the longest and strictest lockdowns in Southeast Asia, the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases still surged with >250,000 cases and 4,000 deaths reported as of September 12, 2020. It is important to estimate the burden and impact of SARS-CoV-2 on the military population since this can affect the military readiness.

Nasopharyngeal and oropharyngeal swabs were collected and SARS-CoV-2 real-time RT-PCR testing was performed on the samples. Phylogenetic analysis was performed using sequences from 23 SARS-CoV-2-positive specimens from this study and sequences retr June 25, 2020, contained the D614G mutation.

We describe here the results of SARS-CoV-2 testing for military and civilian patients and personnel. The 21- to 30- and 31- to 40-year-old age groups had the highest case counts of SARS-CoV-2-positive cases. Sequencing results showed the presence of the D614G mutation in the spike protein in a majority of specimens collected from the end of June to July 2020.
We describe here the results of SARS-CoV-2 testing for military and civilian patients and personnel. The 21- to 30- and 31- to 40-year-old age groups had the highest case counts of SARS-CoV-2-positive cases. Sequencing results showed the presence of the D614G mutation in the spike protein in a majority of specimens collected from the end of June to July 2020.
The incidence of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) diagnosed before adulthood is increasing worldwide. Transition from paediatric to adult healthcare requires certain skills. The aim of this study was to identify factors affecting these skills.

This review was registered on the PROSPERO database (CRD42019152272). Inclusion criteria 1) studies of factors affecting transition readiness skills in patients with IBD 2) written in English 3) published since 1999. MEDLINE, CINAHL and PsychINFO databases were searched between 1999-2019. Quality was assessed using the Joanna Briggs Institute critical appraisal tools.

Searches identified 822 papers. Sixteen papers were included. Age was positively associated with skills including disease knowledge and performing self-management behaviours (14 studies). Improvement often occurs at 18, however, skill deficiency may still remain. Increased self-efficacy (confidence) was associated with greater disease knowledge and performing self-management behaviours (3 studies). Scation of those with non-modifiable characteristics associated with poor readiness may aid targeted support.
Since May 2017, all cigarettes and roll-your-own (RYO) tobacco in the UK must be sold in standardised packs with pictorial warnings displaying, for the first time, a stop-smoking website.

Data comes from three waves of a longitudinal online survey with smokers and ex-smokers conducted pre- and post-standardised packaging, with Wave 1 (W1) in April-May 2016, Wave 2 (W2) in October-November 2017, and Wave 3 (W3) in May-June 2019. Only smokers are included in the analysis W1 (N=6233), W2 (N=3629) and W3 (N=2412). We explored any change in citing warnings on packs as a source of information about a stop-smoking website, and whether citing warnings as a source was associated with use of a stop-smoking website. As the warnings, and therefore the stop-smoking website, are larger on RYO packs than on cigarette packs due to the larger pack size, we explored differences in awareness of a stop-smoking website among exclusive cigarette smokers (W1=3142, W2=1884, W3=1247) and exclusive RYO smokers (W1=2046, W2=1119, Wf RYO packs, would have any impact on awareness of this information. IRAK-1-4 Inhibitor I That exclusive RYO smokers were more likely than exclusive cigarette smokers to notice a stop-smoking website on warnings suggests that this information should be more prominent.
The findings support the inclusion of a stop-smoking website on warnings as awareness among smokers increased and citing warnings as a source of information about a stop-smoking website was associated with having visited a stop-smoking website. We also explored whether the stop-smoking website on warnings on RYO packs, which is larger than on cigarette packs as a function of the larger size of RYO packs, would have any impact on awareness of this information. That exclusive RYO smokers were more likely than exclusive cigarette smokers to notice a stop-smoking website on warnings suggests that this information should be more prominent.The COVID-19 pandemic has altered preexisting patient treatment algorithms and referral patterns, which has affected neurosurgical care worldwide. Brain arteriovenous malformations are complex vascular lesions that frequently present with intracerebral hemorrhage. Care for these patients is best performed at large medical centers by specialists with high volumes. The authors describe the care of a patient who presented in extremis to a resource-limited, community-sized military treatment facility (MTF) in Southeast Asia. In the MTF, the patient underwent emergent neurosurgical therapy. However, given newly implemented restrictions enacted to mitigate COVID-19 spread, local transfer for definitive care to a tertiary care facility was not possible. In order to attain definitive care for the patient, a transpacific aeromedical evacuation augmented with a critical care air transport team was utilized for transfer to a tertiary care, teaching hospital. This case demonstrates the safe treatment of a patient with hemorrhagic arteriovenous malformations and postoperative management under limited conditions in an MTF outside the CONUS. Given the unique circumstances and challenges the pandemic presented, the authors feel that this patient's outcome was only possible by leveraging all the capability military medicine has to offer.The treatment of patients with a variety of solid tumors has benefitted from immune checkpoint inhibition targeting the anti-programmed cell death-1 (PD-1)/programmed cell death ligand-1 (PD-L1) axis. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted accelerated approval of PD-1 inhibitor pembrolizumab for the treatment of adult and pediatric patients with TMB-high (TMB-H), solid tumors that have progressed following prior treatment and who have no other treatment options, including the extension to tumors of the Central Nervous System (CNS). In general, pan-cancer approvals are viewed positively to empower patients and clinicians. There are subsets (eg, BRAF, NTRK) for which this pathway for approval is appropriate. However, the pan-cancer FDA approval of pembrolizumab raises several concerns regarding the generalizability of the evidence to other tumor types, including managing patients with gliomas and other CNS tumors. The cut off for TMB-H is not well defined. There are intrinsic immunological differences between gliomas and other cancers types, including the immunosuppressive glioma microenvironment, the tumor's effects on systemic immune function, and the transformation of the T cell populations to an exhausted phenotype in glioma. Here we address the caveats with pan-cancer approvals concerning gliomas, complexities of the unique CNS immune environment, and discuss potential predictive biomarkers, including TMB, and explain why the recent approval should be applied with caution in CNS tumors.
Little is known about long-term recovery from COVID-19 disease, especially in non-hospitalized individuals. In this longitudinal study we present symptoms registered during the acute phase as well as long COVID, i.e. long-lasting COVID-19 symptoms, in patients from the Faroe Islands.

All consecutive patients with confirmed RT-PCR testing from April to June 2020 were invited to participate in this study for the assessment of long COVID. Demographic and clinical characteristics and self-reported acute and persistent symptoms were assessed using a standardized detailed questionnaire administered at enrollment and at repeated phone interviews in the period 22 th April to Aug 16 th.

Of the 180 participants (96.3% of the 187 eligible COVID-19 patients), 53.1% reported persistence of at least one symptom after a mean of 125 days after symptoms onset, 33.3% reported one or two symptoms and 19.4% three or more symptoms. At the last follow-up, 46.7% were asymptomatic compared with 4.4 % during the acute phase. The most prevalent persistent symptoms were fatigue, loss of smell and taste, and arthralgias.

Our results show that it might take months for symptoms to resolve, even among non-hospitalized persons with mild illness course in the acute phase. Continued monitoring for long COVID is needed.
Our results show that it might take months for symptoms to resolve, even among non-hospitalized persons with mild illness course in the acute phase. Continued monitoring for long COVID is needed.A growing number of leaf traits can be estimated from hyperspectral reflectance data. These include structural and compositional traits, such as leaf mass per area (LMA) and nitrogen and chlorophyll content, but also physiological traits such a Rubisco carboxylation activity, electron transport rate, and respiration rate. Since physiological traits vary with leaf temperature, how does this impact on predictions made from reflectance measurements? We investigated this with two wheat varieties, by repeatedly measuring each leaf through a sequence of temperatures imposed by varying the air temperature in a growth room. Leaf temperatures ranging from 20 °C to 35 °C did not alter the estimated Rubisco capacity normalized to 25 °C (Vcmax25), or chlorophyll or nitrogen contents per unit leaf area. Models estimating LMA and Vcmax25/N were both slightly influenced by leaf temperature estimated LMA increased by 0.27% °C-1 and Vcmax25/N increased by 0.46% °C-1. A model estimating Rubisco activity closely followed variation associated with leaf temperature. Reflectance spectra change with leaf temperature and therefore contain a temperature signal.
The estimation of large multiple sequence alignments (MSAs) is a basic bioinformatics challenge. Divide-and-conquer is a useful approach that has been shown to improve the scalability and accuracy of MSA estimation in established methods such as SATé and PASTA. In these divide-and-conquer strategies, a sequence dataset is divided into disjoint subsets, alignments are computed on the subsets using base MSA methods (e.g., MAFFT), and then merged together into an alignment on the full dataset.

We present MAGUS, Multiple sequence Alignment using Graph clUStering, a new technique for computing large-scale alignments. MAGUS is similar to PASTA in that it uses nearly the same initial steps (starting tree, similar decomposition strategy, and MAFFT to compute subset alignments), but then merges the subset alignments using the Graph Clustering Merger (GCM), a new method for combining disjoint alignments that we present in this study. Our study, on a heterogeneous collection of biological and simulated datasets, shows that MAGUS produces improved accuracy and is faster than PASTA on large datasets, and matches it on smaller datasets.
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