Strategies

BACKGROUND: The first dengue outbreak in Sao Tome and Principe was reported in 2022. Entomological investigations were undertaken to establish the typology of Aedes larval habitats, the distribution of Ae. aegypti and Ae. albopictus, the related entomological risk and the susceptibility profile of Ae. aegypti to insecticides, to provide evidence to inform the outbreak response. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Entomological surveys were performed in all seven health districts of Sao Tome and Principe during the dry and rainy seasons in 2022...

Striking progress has been made in understanding cognition by analyzing how the brain is engaged in different modes of information processing. For instance, so-called synergistic information (information encoded by a set of neurons but not by any subset) plays a key role in areas of the human brain linked with complex cognition. However, two questions remain unanswered: (a) how and why a cognitive system can become highly synergistic; and (b) how informational states map onto artificial neural networks in various learning modes...

PURPOSE: The overall aim of this scoping review was to identify, explore and map the existing literature pertaining to healthcare access for transgender and non-binary individuals. DESIGN: The scoping review followed Arksey and O'Malley's methodological framework, and the reporting adhered to the guidelines provided by the PRISMA Extension for Scoping Reviews. METHODS: To gather relevant articles, a comprehensive search strategy was employed across four electronic databases, with the assistance of a university librarian...

BACKGROUND: Diabetes control is poor globally and leads to burdensome microvascular and macrovascular complications. We aimed to assess post hoc between-group differences in sustained risk factor control and macrovascular and microvascular endpoints at 6.5 years in the Center for cArdiovascular Risk Reduction in South Asia (CARRS) randomized trial. METHODS AND FINDINGS: This parallel group individual randomized clinical trial was performed at 10 outpatient diabetes clinics in India and Pakistan from January 2011 through September 2019...

UNLABELLED: Controlled Human Infection Models (CHIS) involve administering human pathogens to healthy participants in controlled medical settings, which can elicit complex bioethical issues. Understanding how the community perceives such studies can significantly increase the participant's sense of cooperation and increases the researcher's and the participant's transparency. The current study describes the development of an educational intervention to achieve these ends as it aims to (1) analyze perceptions of the Controlled Human Infection Studies (CHIS), and (2) evaluate the participants' comprehension of the CHIS...

The demands of professional tennis, including physical and psychological aspects, contribute to the frequency of retirements at elite levels of the sport. The aim of this study was to analyze epidemiological patterns and risk factors associated with retirements in previous ATP and WTA Tour tournaments. A retrospective cohort study was conducted. This study focused on previous ATP and WTA Tour tournaments. The ATP database encompassed 584,806 matches, while the WTA database included 267,380 matches. To assess retirements, potential risk factors such as playing surface, tournament category, match round, and player age were analyzed...

This article examines the role of uric acid (UA) in cognitive changes and neurodegeneration, focusing on its functions as an antioxidant and prooxidant. Research suggests that changes in serum UA levels may be associated with the development or delay of cognitive impairment, especially in the context of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's disease. It was revealed that there is a relationship between the level of UA and the dynamics of cognitive functions, indicating the potential neuroprotective properties of UA...

The computational search for the maximum-likelihood phylogenetic tree is an NP-hard problem. As such, current tree-search algorithms might result in a tree that is the local optima, not the global one. Here we introduce a paradigm shift for predicting the maximum-likelihood tree, by approximating long-term gains of likelihood rather than maximizing likelihood gain at each step of the search. Our proposed approach harnesses the power of reinforcement learning to learn an optimal search strategy, aiming at the global optimum of the search space...

Midinfrared nonlinear optical (NLO) rare earth chalcogenides have attracted extensive research interest in recent several decades. Employing charge-transfer engineering strategy in the early stage, rigid tetrahedral [GeS4 ] was introduced into rare-earth sulfides to synthesize KYGeS4 , which had an enlarged band gap while maintaining a strong second harmonic generation (SHG) effect. Based on KYGeS4 , La was equivalently substituted to successfully synthesize KLaGeS4 with a stronger SHG effect ( d ij = 1.2 × AgGaS2 ) and lower cost...

Currently, the repair of large bone defects still faces numerous challenges, with the most crucial being the lack of large bone grafts with good osteogenic properties. In this study, a novel bone repair implant (degradable porous zinc scaffold/BF Exo composite implant) was developed by utilizing laser melting rapid prototyping 3D printing technology to fabricate a porous zinc scaffold, combining it under vacuum conditions with highly bioactive serum exosomes (BF EXO) and Poloxamer 407 thermosensitive hydrogel...

Generative text-to-image models, which allow users to create appealing images through a text prompt, have seen a dramatic increase in popularity in recent years. However, most users have a limited understanding of how such models work and often rely on trial and error strategies to achieve satisfactory results. The prompt history contains a wealth of information that could provide users with insights into what has been explored and how the prompt changes impact the output image, yet little research attention has been paid to the visual analysis of such process to support users...

Differential game is an effective technique to describe the negotiation between the humans and robots, which is widely used to realize the trajectory tracking tasks in the human-robot interaction (HRI). However, most existing works consider the control-affine HRI systems and assume the desired trajectory is available to both the human and the robot, which limit the scope of applications. To overcome these difficulties, this work focuses on the nonaffine HRI system and supposes that the desired trajectory is not available to the robot...

Clinical studies have proved that both structural magnetic resonance imaging (sMRI) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) are implicitly associated with neuropsychiatric disorders (NDs), and integrating multi-modal to the binary classification of NDs has been thoroughly explored. However, accurately classifying multiple classes of NDs remains a challenge due to the complexity of disease subclass. In our study, we develop a heterogeneous neural network (H-Net) that integrates sMRI and fMRI modes for classifying multi-class NDs...

Steady-state visual evoked potential (SSVEP) is one of the most used brain-computer interface (BCI) paradigms. Conventional methods analyze SSVEPs at a fixed window length. Compared with these methods, dynamic window methods can achieve a higher information transfer rate (ITR) by selecting an appropriate window length. These methods dynamically evaluate the credibility of the result by linear discriminant analysis (LDA) or Bayesian estimation and extend the window length until credible results are obtained...

Derived from industrial processing waste, peanut skins contain polyphenols that delay oxidative food spoilage. However, these compounds are susceptible to light, heat, and oxygen exposure. Microencapsulation provides a solution by offering protection from these factors. The aim of this study was to evaluate the protective effect of peanut skin extract microcapsules on the chemical, microbiological, and sensory property and shelf life of sunflower seeds during storage. Five roasted sunflower seed samples were prepared: control (S-C); added with butylhydroxytoluene (S-BHT); coated with carboxymethyl cellulose (S-CMC); coated with CMC and the addition of peanut skin crude extract (S-CMC-CE); coated with CMC and the addition of microcapsules (S-CMC-M20)...

Dendritic cell (DC) progenitors adapt their transcriptional program during development, generating different subsets. How chromatin modifications modulate these processes is unclear. Here, we investigate the impact of histone deacetylation on DCs by genetically deleting histone deacetylase 1 (HDAC1) or HDAC2 in hematopoietic progenitors and CD11c-expressing cells. While HDAC2 is not critical for DC development, HDAC1 deletion impairs pro-pDC and mature pDC generation and affects ESAM+ cDC2 differentiation from tDCs and pre-cDC2s, whereas cDC1s are unchanged...

Phase heterogeneity of bromine-iodine (Br-I) mixed wide-bandgap (WBG) perovskites has detrimental effects on solar cell performance and stability. Here, we report a heterointerface anchoring strategy to homogenize the Br-I distribution and mitigate the segregation of Br-rich WBG-perovskite phases. We find that methoxy-substituted phenyl ethylammonium ( x -MeOPEA+ ) ligands not only contribute to the crystal growth with vertical orientation but also promote halide homogenization and defect passivation near the buried perovskite/hole transport layer (HTL) interface as well as reduce trap-mediated recombination...

Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is a highly aggressive malignancy that lacks effective targeted therapies. Inducing immunogenic cell death (ICD) in tumor cells represents a promising strategy to enhance therapeutic efficacy by promoting antitumor immunity. Paclitaxel (PTX), a commonly used chemotherapy drug for TNBC, can induce ICD; however, the resulting immunogenicity is limited. Thus, there is an urgent need to explore strategies that improve the effectiveness of ICD in TNBC by incorporating immunoregulatory agents...

Currently, postoperative infection is a significant challenge in bone and dental surgical procedures, demanding the exploration of innovative approaches due to the prevalence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. This study aims to develop a strategy for controlled and smart antibiotic release while accelerating osteogenesis to expedite bone healing. In this regard, temperature-responsive doxycycline (DOX) imprinted bioglass microspheres (BGMs) were synthesized. Following the formation of chitosan-modified BGMs, poly N -isopropylacrylamide (pNIPAm) was used for surface imprinting of DOX...

Precision gene editing in primary hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells (HSPCs) would facilitate both curative treatments for monogenic disorders as well as disease modelling. Precise efficiencies even with the CRISPR/Cas system, however, remain limited. Through an optimization of guide RNA delivery, donor design, and additives, we have now obtained mean precise editing efficiencies >90% on primary cord blood HSCPs with minimal toxicity and without observed off-target editing. The main protocol modifications needed to achieve such high efficiencies were the addition of the DNA-PK inhibitor AZD7648, and the inclusion of spacer-breaking silent mutations in the donor in addition to mutations disrupting the PAM sequence...