Construction of antibacterial bone implants and their application in bone regeneration.

Bacterial infection represents a prevalent challenge during the bone repair process, often resulting in implant failure. However, the extensive use of antibiotics has limited local antibacterial effects at the infection site and is prone to side effects. In order to address the issue of bacterial infection during the transplantation of bone implants, four types of bone scaffold implants with long-term antimicrobial functionality have been constructed, including direct contact antimicrobial scaffold, dissolution-penetration antimicrobial scaffold, photocatalytic antimicrobial scaffold, and multimodal synergistic antimicrobial scaffold. The direct contact antimicrobial scaffold involves the physical penetration or disruption of bacterial cell membranes by the scaffold surface or hindrance of bacterial adhesion through surface charge, microstructure, and other factors. The dissolution-penetration antimicrobial scaffold releases antimicrobial substances from the scaffold's interior through degradation and other means to achieve local antimicrobial effects. The photocatalytic antimicrobial scaffold utilizes the absorption of light to generate reactive oxygen species (ROS) with enhanced chemical reactivity for antimicrobial activity. ROS can cause damage to bacterial cell membranes, deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), proteins, and other components. The multimodal synergistic antimicrobial scaffold involves the combined use of multiple antimicrobial methods to achieve synergistic effects and effectively overcome the limitations of individual antimicrobial approaches. Additionally, the biocompatibility issues of the antimicrobial bone scaffold are also discussed, including in vitro cell adhesion, proliferation, and osteogenic differentiation, as well as in vivo bone repair and vascularization. Finally, the challenges and prospects of antimicrobial bone implants are summarized. The development of antimicrobial bone implants can provide effective solutions to bacterial infection issues in bone defect repair in the foreseeable future.

Development and pilot testing of an online training program for better use of internet to learn about depression and anxiety (BUILDA).

BACKGROUND: Depression and anxiety are common issues among college students in the United States. Although college students routinely use the Internet for information regarding their mental health, they might lack the digital health literacy required to search, evaluate, and use Internet resources. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A web-based short training program with four modules aimed to improve mental health literacy and digital health literacy for Better Use of Internet to Learn about Depression and Anxiety (BUILDA). BUILDA was tested in a pilot study with 10 undergraduate students who completed the program and provided feedback via online surveys and exit interviews. Participants completed a pretest and a post-test, which included health literacy instruments and realistic case scenarios to assess student knowledge and ability to search and use Internet information on mental health topics. Descriptive analyses and paired t-tests were used. RESULTS: Increased knowledge about mental health topics was observed in pilot participants, with improvement in mean values of depression literacy (P =. 01) and anxiety literacy (P =. 019) from pretest to post-test. Better Internet search performance was also observed as the number of participants who scored >90% in case scenarios increased from two pretest to five post-test. Students used more valid and reliable Internet resources after training, citing more government health agency websites (20% in the pretest and 25% in the post-test) and scholarly resources (6% in the pretest and 30% in the post-test). The pilot participants reported the BUILDA program was useful and provided minor suggestions regarding program improvement. CONCLUSIONS: It was feasible to deliver a short training program via a simple website to help students develop mental health literacy and digital health skills.

Use of Consumer Wearables in Health Research: Issues and Considerations.

As wearable devices, which allow individuals to track and self-manage their health, become more ubiquitous, the opportunities are growing for researchers to use these sensors within interventions and for data collection. They offer access to data that are captured continuously, passively, and pragmatically with minimal user burden, providing huge advantages for health research. However, the growth in their use must be coupled with consideration of their potential limitations, in particular, digital inclusion, data availability, privacy, ethics of third-party involvement, data quality, and potential for adverse consequences. In this paper, we discuss these issues and strategies used to prevent or mitigate them and recommendations for researchers using wearables as part of interventions or for data collection.

Protective effect of heat-processed Gynostemma pentaphyllum on high fat diet-induced glucose metabolic disorders mice.

Glucose metabolic disorders (GMD) can promote insulin resistance (IR) and diabetes, and damage liver and kidney. Gynostemma pentaphyllum is commonly used in the clinical treatment of diabetes, but the research on its main active constituents and GMD has not been reported yet. This study explores the therapeutic potential of gypenosides of heat-processed Gynostemma pentaphyllum (HGyp) on high-fat diet-induced GMD in mice. HGyp was administered at different doses for 12 weeks. The investigation encompassed an array of parameters, including body weight, blood lipids, blood glucose, and liver tissue components. Metabolomic and network analyses were conducted to uncover potential targets and pathways associated with HGyp treatment. The results revealed that HGyp alleviated GMD by reducing body weight, blood glucose, and improving blood lipids levels, while increasing liver glycogen and antioxidant enzyme levels. Additionally, HGyp exhibited protective effects on liver and kidney health by reducing tissue damage. Fourteen blood components were detected by LC-MS. Metabolomic and network analyses indicated the potential engagement of the AGE-RAGE signaling pathway in the therapeutic effects of HGyp.Furthermore, Western blot and ELISA assays confirmed that HGyp upregulated GLO1 and GLUT4 while down-regulating AGEs and RAGE expression in liver tissue. In light of these findings, HGyp demonstrates promise as a potential therapeutic candidate for combating GMD, warranting further exploration in the development of therapeutic strategies or functional products.

The Content and Principle of the Rare Ginsenosides Produced from Gynostemma pentaphyllum after Heat Treatment.

Ginsenoside Rg3, Rk1, and Rg5, rare ginsenosides from Panax ginseng, have many pharmacological effects, which have attracted extensive attention. They can be obtained through the heat treatment of Gynostemma pentaphyllum. In this study, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and thermal gravity-differential thermal gravity (TG-DTG) were employed to investigate this process and the content change in ginsenosides was analyzed using liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS). SEM and TG-DTG were used to compare the changes in the ginsenosides before and after treatment. In SEM, the presence of hydrogen bond rearrangement was indicated by the observed deformation of vascular bundles and ducts. The before-and-after changes in the peak patterns and peaks values in TG-DTG indicated that the content of different kinds of compounds produced changes, which all revealed that the formation of new saponins before and after the heat treatment was due to the breakage or rearrangement of chemical bonds. Additionally, the deformation of vascular bundles and vessels indicated the presence of hydrogen bond rearrangement. The glycosidic bond at the 20 positions could be cleaved by ginsenoside Rb3 to form ginsenoside Rd, which, in turn, gave rise to ginsenoside Rg3(S) and Rg3(R). They were further dehydrated to form ginsenoside Rk1 and Rg5. This transformation process occurs in a weak acidic environment provided by G. pentaphyllum itself, without the involvement of endogenous enzymes. In addition, the LC-MS analysis results showed that the content of ginsenoside Rb3 decreased from 2.25 mg/g to 1.80 mg/g, while the contents of ginsenoside Rk1 and Rg5 increased from 0.08 and 0.01 mg/g to 3.36 and 3.35 mg/g, respectively. Ginsenoside Rg3(S) and Rg3(R) were almost not detected in G. pentaphyllum, and the contents of them increased to 0.035 and 0.23 mg/g after heat treatment. Therefore, the rare ginsenosides Rg3(S), Rg3(R), Rk1, and Rg5 can be obtained from G. pentaphyllum via heat treatment.

Gypenosides suppress hepatocellular carcinoma cells by blocking cholesterol biosynthesis through inhibition of MVA pathway enzyme HMGCS1.

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the most common malignant tumors with high morbidity and mortality. Targeting abnormal cholesterol metabolism is a potential therapeutic direction. Therefore, more natural drugs targeting cholesterol in HCC need to be developed. Gypenosides (Gyp), the major constituent of Gynostemma pentaphyllum, has been demonstrated to have pharmacological properties on anti-cancer, anti-obesity, and hepatoprotective. We investigated whether Gyp, isolated and purified by our lab, could inhibit HCC progression by inhibiting cholesterol synthesis. The present research showed that Gyp inhibited proliferation and migration, and induced apoptosis in Huh-7 and Hep3B cells. Metabolomics, transcriptomics, and target prediction all suggested that lipid metabolism and cholesterol biosynthesis were the mechanisms of Gyp. Gyp could limit the production of cholesterol and target HMGCS1, the cholesterol synthesis-related protein. Downregulation of HMGCS1 could suppress the progression and abnormal cholesterol metabolism of HCC. In terms of mechanism, Gyp suppressed mevalonate (MVA) pathway mediated cholesterol synthesis by inhibiting HMGCS1 transcription factor SREBP2. And the high expression of HMGCS1 in HCC human specimens was correlated with poor clinical prognosis. The data suggested that Gyp could be a promising cholesterol-lowering drug for the prevention and treatment of HCC. And targeting SREBP2-HMGCS1 axis in MVA pathway might be an effective HCC therapeutic strategy.

Quantitative Survey on Prevalence of Prescription Pain Medications and Stimulants Use in Young Adults.

Background: Prescription drug use including pain relievers and stimulants has been a growing problem in young adults and the issue has been a public health concern for years. Methods: This Quantitative Cross-sectional study aimed to collect preliminary data regarding prescription opioid use, prescription stimulant drug use and overdose treatment knowledge in young adults between 18 and 24 years old in a southern New Jersey university through administering an online survey. Results: Of the 1663 students who completed the survey, 33% reported using prescription pain relievers and 15% reported using prescription stimulant drugs. Stimulant drug users were found to be more likely to use prescription pain relievers (49%) as compared to non-stimulant users (30%). Furthermore, students with overdose treatment knowledge of opioids were more likely to report misuse of prescription drugs (15%) than students with less knowledge (8%). Conclusions: This study reiterates the increasing usage of prescription drugs and stimulant use among college students. There is a need for effective education strategies to inform students about the prescription medication uses and misuse to reduce nonmedical use of prescription medications.

Semi-supervised super-resolution of diffusion-weighted images based on multiple references.

Spatial resolution of diffusion tensor images is usually compromised to accelerate the acquisitions, and the state-of-the-art (SOTA) image super-resolution (SR) reconstruction methods are commonly based on supervised learning models. Considering that matched low-resolution (LR) and high-resolution (HR) diffusion-weighted (DW) image pairs are not readily available, we propose a semi-supervised DW image SR reconstruction method based on multiple references (MRSR) extracted from other subjects. In MRSR, the prior information of multiple HR reference images is migrated into a residual-like network to assist SR reconstruction of DW images, and a CycleGAN-based semi-supervised strategy is used to train the network with 30% matched and 70% unmatched LR-HR image pairs. We evaluate the performance of the MRSR by comparing against SOTA methods on an HCP dataset in terms of the quality of reconstructed DW images and diffusion metrics. MRSR achieves the best performance, with the mean PSNR/SSIM of DW images being improved by at least 14.3%/28.8% and 1%/1.4% respectively relative to SOTA unsupervised and supervised learning methods, and with the fiber orientations deviating from the ground truth by about 6.28° on average, the RMSEs of fractional anisotropy, mean diffusivity, axial diffusivity and radial diffusivity being 3.0%, 4.6%, 5.7% and 4.5% respectively relative to the ground truth. We validate the effectiveness of the proposed network structure, multiple-reference and CycleGAN-based semi-supervised learning strategies for SR reconstruction of diffusion tensor images through the ablation studies. The proposed method allows us to achieve SR reconstruction for diffusion tensor images with a limited number of matched image pairs.

University Students' Ability to Assess Misinformation About COVID-19.

In a university student survey on COVID-19 information assessment, 66% participants identified the falsehood of all misinformation statements and 66% provided web page URLs that are adequate in supporting statement accuracy assessment. The most cited web resources were government websites (43%) and media reports (30%). Those who identified misinformation falsehood were more likely to have higher GPA and liberal-leaning political views, and to implement evidence-based COVID prevention measures including mask-wearing and not self-medicating on (hydroxy-)chloroquine.

Effective use of online COVID-19 information and eHealth information literacy among US university students.

Objective: This study aimed to understand students' ability to search the Internet for COVID-19 information and apply it to evaluate the veracity of specific statements. Participants: Undergraduate students (N = 239) at a US university completed a Web-based questionnaire in September-October 2020. Methods: The questionnaire included self-reported measures of online health information literacy, COVID-19 knowledge, and anxiety along with exercises on searching and evaluating COVID information online. Results: Students reported moderate levels of information literacy (76%, 3.8 out of 5), but did not perform as well while searching the Internet for COVID-19 information (average accuracy: 65%, 10.5 out of 16 points). Students with higher Internet exercise scores reported higher GPA, higher household income, and liberal political views, and were more likely to follow public health measures [ie, social distancing, mask wearing, and not self-medicating with (hydroxy)chloroquine]. Conclusions: University students may overestimate their information literacy while struggling with searching the Internet for accurate COVID-19 information.

Engineering oxygen vacancies in CoO@Co3O4/C nanocomposites for enhanced electrochemical performances.

Efficient electrocatalyst materials for several applications, including energy storage and conversion, have become vital for achieving technological progress. In this work, a CoO@Co3O4/C composite with abundant oxygen vacancies was successfully synthesized. The concentration of the oxygen vacancies was well controlled by changing the degree of vacuum during the heat treatment and was characterized by XPS and EPR. The existence of the porous structure arising from the cobalt oxide particles embedded in the carbon matrix provided an efficient charge and gas transmission path, significantly improving the performance of electrocatalytic oxygen evolution. Sufficient reactive sites were provided from both the oxygen vacancies and the heterogeneous interface. The mechanism of enhanced OER originating from the built-in electric field derived from oxygen vacancies was investigated. Consequently, the CoO@Co3O4/C composites offered an OER overpotential of 287 mV at a current density of 10 mA cm-2 with good stability in 1 mol L-1 KOH. In addition, combined with surface photovoltage (SPV), transient photovoltage (TPV), DFT, and in situ Raman spectroscopy, the effect of oxygen defects on the electron migration ability and transformation of the intermediate products were investigated to further understand the nature of catalytic activity in OER.

Uncovering the anti-NSCLC effects and mechanisms of gypenosides by metabolomics and network pharmacology analysis.

ETHNOPHARMACOLOGICAL RELEVANCE: Lung cancer is the chief reason of cancer death worldwide, and non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) make up the majority of lung cancers. Gypenosides are the main active constituents from Gynostemma pentaphyllum. Previous studies showed that they were used to remedy many cancers. The effect of gypenosides on NSCLC has never been studied from the perspective of network pharmacology and metabolomics. The mechanism is still not clear and remains to be explored. AIM OF THE STUDY: To explore the anti-NSCLC activity and mechanism of gypenosides in A549 cells. MATERIAL/METHODS: Gypenosides of G. pentaphyllum were detected by HPLC-MS. The cytotoxicity was detected by MTT assay. The migration, cell cycle and apoptosis of gypenosides were studied by wound healing assay, JC-1 assay and flow cytometry. The mechanism of gypenosides on NSCLC was studied by metabolomics and network pharmacology. Some key proteins and pathways were further confirmed by Western blot. RESULTS: Eleven gypenosides were detected by HPLC-MS. Gypenosides could suppress the proliferation of A549 cells, inhibit the migration of A549 cells, induce apoptosis and arrest cell cycle in G0/G1 phase. Metabolomics and network pharmacology approach revealed that gypenosides might affect 17 metabolite related proteins by acting on 9 candidate targets (STAT3, VEGFA, EGFR, MMP9, IL2, TYMS, FGF2, HPSE, LGALS3), thus resulting in the changes of two metabolites (uridine 5'-monophosphate, D-4'-Phosphopantothenate) and two metabolic pathways (pyrimidine metabolism; pantothenate and CoA biosynthesis). Western blotting indicated that gypenosides might inhibit A549 cells through MMP9, STAT3 and TYMS to indirectly affect the pathways of pyrimidine metabolism, pantothenate and CoA biosynthesis. CONCLUSIONS: This study revealed that metabolomics combined with network pharmacology was conducive to understand the anti-NSCLC mechanism of gypenosides.

Visual multiple cross displacement amplification for the rapid identification of S. agalactiae immediately from vaginal and rectal swabs.

Streptococcus agalactiae (S. agalactiae) is an important pathogen that can lead to neonatus and mother infection. The current existing techniques for the identification of S. agalactiae are limited by accuracy, speed and high-cost. Therefore, a new multiple cross displacement amplification (MCDA) assay was developed for test of the target pathogen immediately from vaginal and rectal swabs. MCDA primers screening were conducted targeting S. agalactiae pcsB gene, and one set of MCDA primers with better rapidity and efficiency was selected for establishing the S. agalactiae-MCDA assay. As a result, the MCDA method could be completed at a constant temperature of 61 °C, without the requirement of special equipment. The detection limit is 250 fg (31.5 copies) per reaction, all S. agalactiae strains displayed positive results, but not for non-S. agalactiae strains. The visual MCDA assay detected 16 positive samples from 200 clinical specimen, which were also detected positive by enrichment/qPCR. While the CHROMagar culture detected 6 positive samples. Thus, the MCDA assay is prefer to enrichment/qPCR and culture for detecting S. agalactiae from clinical specimen. Particularly, the whole test of MCDA takes about 63.1 min, including sample collection (3 min), DNA preparation (15 min), MCDA reaction (45 min) and result reporting (6 s). In addition, the cost was very economic, with only US$ 4.9. These results indicated that our S. agalaciae-MCDA assay is a rapid, sensitive and cost-efficient technique for target pathogen detection, and is more suitable than conventional assays for an urgent detection, especially for 'on-site' laboratories and resource-constrained settings.

Dammarane-type saponins from Gynostemma pentaphyllum and their cytotoxicities.

Heat-processed Gynostemma pentaphyllum has shown strong activity against human lung carcinoma A549 cells. In this study, two dammarane-type saponins together with two known compounds were isolated from the ethanol extract of the heat-processed leaves of G. pentaphyllum. They were identified as 2α,3ß,12ß-trihydroxydammar-20(22),24-diene-3-O-ß-D-glucopyranoside (1, namely damulin E), 2α,3ß,12ß-trihydroxydammar-20,24-diene-3-O-ß-D-glucopyranoside (2, namely damulin F), damulin A (3) and damulin B (4), respectively, using NMR and mass spectra. Damulin E and damulin F showed moderate activity against A549, H1299, T24, SH-SY5Y and K562 cell lines in vitro using CCK-8 assay.

Effective use of online depression information and associated literacies among US college students.

Mental health issues, such as depression, are rising among young people, who may benefit from online depression-related information. However, the competencies required to search for health information on the Internet and evaluate it before use may be poor among this population. This research aimed to investigate how college students use the Internet for solving problems in realistic case scenarios relevant to depression and to understand whether various literature-indicated literacies and factors may predict effective utilization of relevant online resources. We designed a web-based questionnaire survey including four depression-related case scenarios. A total of 218 undergraduate students who were enrolled in a Northeastern public US university were invited to participate in the survey in 2016, with 192 completed responses being included in this analysis (response rate = 88%; the participants' median age = 20; 79% female). Approximately half of the participants (47%) answered the depression-related questions in the case scenarios with 90% or higher accuracy. In a multiple linear regression model, prior depression knowledge and eHealth information literacy significantly predicted the effective use of online depression information. However, medical literacy and critical health literacy were not significant predictors. A few additional demographic and experience related factors were positively associated with the effective Internet use (e.g. female, non-Hispanic, psychology or health science major and prior experience with depression). These findings identify a need for college students to develop domain-specific knowledge and literacies in order to facilitate effective use of online information about depression.

Simultaneous determination of calycosin, prim-O-glucosylcimifugin, and paeoniflorin in rat plasma by HPLC-MS/MS: application in the pharmacokinetic analysis of HQCF.

OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to develop and validate a high-performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry method to simultaneously determine three bioactive components of the Huangqi Chifeng decoction (HQCF) in rat plasma. METHODS: Taxol was used as an internal standard in the developed method. Chromatographic separation was performed on a C18 column using a gradient elution with 0.1% formic acid in acetonitrile (v/v) and 0.1% formic acid in water (v/v) as the mobile phases at a flow rate of 0.4 mL·minute-1. All compounds were monitored via selected reaction monitoring with an electrospray ionization source. RESULTS: The lower limits of quantification of paeoniflorin, calycosin, and prim-O-glucosylcimifugin were 15.0, 0.75, and 0.75 ng·mL-1, respectively. The calibration curves indicated optimal linearity (r > 0.99) across the concentration ranges. The specificity, precision, accuracy, recovery, matrix effect, and stability of the method were validated. This method was successfully applied in a pharmacokinetics study of the three compounds in rat plasma. CONCLUSION: The pharmacokinetics results provide insights into the mechanisms of HQCF in vivo and its future clinical application.

Highly Sensitive and Rapid Identification of Streptococcus agalactiae Based on Multiple Cross Displacement Amplification Coupled With Lateral Flow Biosensor Assay.

Streptococccus agalactiae (S. agalactiae) is an important neonatal pathogen that is associated with mortality and morbidity. Therefore, we developed a rapid, accurate, and sensitive method based on multiple cross displacement amplification (MCDA) for the detection of the target pathogen. Four sets of MCDA primers were designed for targeting the S. agalactiae-specific groEL gene, and one set of MCDA primers with the optimum amplification efficiency was screened for establishing the S. agalactiae-MCDA assay. As a result, the newly-developed assay could be conducted at a fixed temperature (61°C) for only 30 min, eliminating the use of complex instruments. A portable and user-friendly nanoparticle-based lateral flow biosensor (LFB) assay was employed for reporting MCDA results within 2 min. Our results suggested that the detection limit of the S. agalactiae-MCDA-LFB assay is 300 fg per reaction, and no cross-reaction occurred with non-S. agalactiae strains. For 260 vaginal and rectal swabs, the detection rate of the MCDA-LFB assay was 7.7%, which was in accordance with the reference method of enrichment/qPCR, and higher by 4.6% than the CHROMagar culture. Moreover, the total procedure time of the MCDA-LFB assay was around 50 min, including sample collection, template preparation, MCDA reaction, and result reporting. Therefore, the MCDA-LFB assay is superior to enrichment/qPCR and CHROMagar culture and has great promise for point-of-care testing of S. agalactiae from vaginal and rectal swabs of pregnant women in resource-limited settings.

Mobile phone text messaging and app-based interventions for smoking cessation.

BACKGROUND: Mobile phone-based smoking cessation support (mCessation) offers the opportunity to provide behavioural support to those who cannot or do not want face-to-face support. In addition, mCessation can be automated and therefore provided affordably even in resource-poor settings. This is an update of a Cochrane Review first published in 2006, and previously updated in 2009 and 2012. OBJECTIVES: To determine whether mobile phone-based smoking cessation interventions increase smoking cessation rates in people who smoke. SEARCH METHODS: For this update, we searched the Cochrane Tobacco Addiction Group's Specialised Register, along with clinicaltrials.gov and the ICTRP. The date of the most recent searches was 29 October 2018. SELECTION CRITERIA: Participants were smokers of any age. Eligible interventions were those testing any type of predominantly mobile phone-based programme (such as text messages (or smartphone app) for smoking cessation. We included randomised controlled trials with smoking cessation outcomes reported at at least six-month follow-up. DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS: We used standard methodological procedures described in the Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions. We performed both study eligibility checks and data extraction in duplicate. We performed meta-analyses of the most stringent measures of abstinence at six months' follow-up or longer, using a Mantel-Haenszel random-effects method, pooling studies with similar interventions and similar comparators to calculate risk ratios (RR) and their corresponding 95% confidence intervals (CI). We conducted analyses including all randomised (with dropouts counted as still smoking) and complete cases only. MAIN RESULTS: This review includes 26 studies (33,849 participants). Overall, we judged 13 studies to be at low risk of bias, three at high risk, and the remainder at unclear risk. Settings and recruitment procedures varied across studies, but most studies were conducted in high-income countries. There was moderate-certainty evidence, limited by inconsistency, that automated text messaging interventions were more effective than minimal smoking cessation support (RR 1.54, 95% CI 1.19 to 2.00; I2 = 71%; 13 studies, 14,133 participants). There was also moderate-certainty evidence, limited by imprecision, that text messaging added to other smoking cessation interventions was more effective than the other smoking cessation interventions alone (RR 1.59, 95% CI 1.09 to 2.33; I2 = 0%, 4 studies, 997 participants). Two studies comparing text messaging with other smoking cessation interventions, and three studies comparing high- and low-intensity messaging, did not show significant differences between groups (RR 0.92 95% CI 0.61 to 1.40; I2 = 27%; 2 studies, 2238 participants; and RR 1.00, 95% CI 0.95 to 1.06; I2 = 0%, 3 studies, 12,985 participants, respectively) but confidence intervals were wide in the former comparison. Five studies compared a smoking cessation smartphone app with lower-intensity smoking cessation support (either a lower-intensity app or non-app minimal support). We pooled the evidence and deemed it to be of very low certainty due to inconsistency and serious imprecision. It provided no evidence that smartphone apps improved the likelihood of smoking cessation (RR 1.00, 95% CI 0.66 to 1.52; I2 = 59%; 5 studies, 3079 participants). Other smartphone apps tested differed from the apps included in the analysis, as two used contingency management and one combined text messaging with an app, and so we did not pool them. Using complete case data as opposed to using data from all participants randomised did not substantially alter the findings. AUTHORS' CONCLUSIONS: There is moderate-certainty evidence that automated text message-based smoking cessation interventions result in greater quit rates than minimal smoking cessation support. There is moderate-certainty evidence of the benefit of text messaging interventions in addition to other smoking cessation support in comparison with that smoking cessation support alone. The evidence comparing smartphone apps with less intensive support was of very low certainty, and more randomised controlled trials are needed to test these interventions.

Ethnic Difference in Skin Infection Rates: An Analysis of Electronic Health Records.

Diagnosis and prescription data in the electronic health records (EHR) of a New Zealand primary care clinic are analyzed to identify skin infection occurrences in support of a public health initiative. High prevalence of this disease and substantial differences in the prevalence and occurrence rates among ethnic groups are identified. The findings indicate application potential of the analysis algorithm in public health for identifying the population groups with high needs and assessing intervention impact.

Alkylation of isobutane and isobutene catalyzed by trifluoromethanesulfonic acid-taurine deep eutectic solvents in polyethylene glycol.

Conventional acidic catalysts for isobutane and isobutene alkylation exhibit low alkylate selectivity. Herein, we employed an acidic deep eutectic solvent, consisting of trifluoromethanesulfonic acid and taurine, in polyethylene glycol as the catalyst. Its high conversion rate and selectivity, as well as recyclability, make it suitable for alkylate gasoline preparation.