A quenched fluorescence sensor array based on bis-lanthanide metal-organic framework for acetaldehyde detection and Baijiu discrimination.

Discrimination of segmented Baijiu contributes to stabilizing the quality of products, improving revenue-generating effects. A fluorescence sensor array is constructed based on four fluorescence characteristic peaks of terbium@lanthanum metal-organic framework (Tb@La-MOF). Its fluorescence signal is specifically quenched, when Tb@La-MOF encounters acetaldehyde. Acetaldehyde may inhibit the absorption of energy by the organic ligands in MOF, or/and hydrogen bonding with -COOH on the organic ligand, resulting in energy transfer to Tb(Ⅲ). According to this, the quantitative detection of acetaldehyde is completed with a range of 10-300 µM and the detection limit of 5.5 µM. At the same time, it has been successfully applied to the discrimination of segmented Baijiu. Fifteen segmented from three wine cellars are 100 % discriminated with the combined processing of sensor arrays and analytical methods. Accuracy, simplicity, and low-cost are highlights of this fluorescence sensor array, which has considerable potential for application in detection, production, and food field.

Pathogenesis and clinical features of severe hepatitis E virus infection.

The hepatitis E virus (HEV), a member of the Hepeviridae family, is a small, non-enveloped icosahedral virus divided into eight distinct genotypes (HEV-1 to HEV-8). Only genotypes 1 to 4 are known to cause diseases in humans. Genotypes 1 and 2 commonly spread via fecal-oral transmission, often through the consumption of contaminated water. Genotypes 3 and 4 are known to infect pigs, deer, and wild boars, often transferring to humans through inadequately cooked meat. Acute hepatitis caused by HEV in healthy individuals is mostly asymptomatic or associated with minor symptoms, such as jaundice. However, in immunosuppressed individuals, the disease can progress to chronic hepatitis and even escalate to cirrhosis. For pregnant women, an HEV infection can cause fulminant liver failure, with a potential mortality rate of 25%. Mortality rates also rise amongst cirrhotic patients when they contract an acute HEV infection, which can even trigger acute-on-chronic liver failure if layered onto pre-existing chronic liver disease. As the prevalence of HEV infection continues to rise worldwide, highlighting the particular risks associated with severe HEV infection is of major medical interest. This text offers a brief summary of the characteristics of hepatitis developed by patient groups at an elevated risk of severe HEV infection.

How best to support parents in the management of standing frame usage in home settings: A mixed methods study.

BACKGROUND: An improved understanding of the current practice of standing frame use may have implications for supporting parents in managing standing frames. We aimed to investigate how parents of children with cerebral palsy perceive and manage standing frame use in home settings. METHODS: We conducted a mixed methods study with an explanatory sequential design, first collecting and analysing quantitative questionnaire data and then using these results to inform a qualitative follow-up phase to explain them. The questionnaire was answered by 103 parents of children with cerebral palsy across five countries, Denmark, Norway, Great Britain, Canada and the United States, and 12 Danish families participated in the subsequent interviews. A descriptive analysis was conducted using the questionnaire data. The qualitative data were analysed using a directed content analysis, enabling integration of the quantitative and qualitative data. RESULTS: The quantitative analysis showed that 89% of the parents felt confident with their child's standing frame, and 82% felt they had sufficient knowledge about how their child's standing frame could/should be used. However, the qualitative analysis showed that even when feeling confident, the parents experienced insecurity regarding whether their child was positioned correctly, and being responsible for positioning was challenging. CONCLUSION: Our study implies a need for providing educational materials to assist the parents in ensuring optimal positioning of their child in the standing frame to decrease insecurity. Additionally, our study suggests a need to provide more thorough information about the benefits of using a standing frame and ensure alignment of expectations in relation to the child's prognosis of functional independence.

The Cryptic Bacterial Microproteome.

Microproteins encoded by small open reading frames (smORFs) comprise the "dark matter" of proteomes. Although functional microproteins were identified in diverse organisms from all three domains of life, bacterial smORFs remain poorly characterized. In this comprehensive study of intergenic smORFs (ismORFs, 15-70 codons) in 5,668 bacterial genomes of the family Enterobacteriaceae, we identified 67,297 clusters of ismORFs subject to purifying selection. The ismORFs mainly code for hydrophobic, potentially transmembrane, unstructured, or minimally structured microproteins. Using AlphaFold Multimer, we predicted interactions of some of the predicted microproteins encoded by transcribed ismORFs with proteins encoded by neighboring genes, revealing the potential of microproteins to regulate the activity of various proteins, particularly, under stress. We compiled a catalog of predicted microprotein families with different levels of evidence from synteny analysis, structure prediction, and transcription and translation data. This study offers a resource for investigation of biological functions of microproteins.

Severe complex neglected infantile Blount disease acute correction by Ilizarov frame: A case report.

INTRODUCTION: Blount disease is a disorder causing three proportions of deformity, including varus deformity, procurvatum deformity, and internal tibial rotational deformity. The standardized treatment remains controversial despite extensive reviews. The application of Ilizarov external fixators for circumspect corrections is established. The SCARE 2023 criteria have been followed in reporting the case report. CASE PRESENTATION: We present the case of a nine-year-old girl who's complaining about bowing on both of her knees. From the examination, we found that the metaphyseodiaphyseal angle of both knees was 50 degrees. On the right knee, there is 125 degrees of procurvatum deformity and 115 degrees of deformity on the left knee. After performing deformity correction with the Ilizarov application, there's clinical improvement in the patient. CLINICAL DISCUSSION: Some experts advise using physeal distraction to manage the deformity in order to achieve correction. The limited popularity of physeal distraction technique may be attributed to the risks of premature closure of the growth plate that we manage to avoid. The Ilizarov frame provides maximum adjustability for aligning all planes, making it suitable for treating severe deformities. Secure fixation, improved patient mobility, being able to assess patient alignment in a functional standing position, and precision. CONCLUSION: Acute correction and fixation using circular frames as a treatment option for Blount disease show positive outcomes without any significant complications.

Enzymatic Hydrolysis of Salmon Frame Proteins Using a Sequential Batch Operational Strategy: An Improvement in Water-Holding Capacity.

The meat industry uses phosphates to improve the water-holding capacity (WHC) of meat products, although excess phosphates can be harmful to human health. In this sense, protein hydrolysates offer an alternative with scientific evidence of improved WHCs. Salmon frames, a byproduct rich in protein, must be processed for recovery. Enzymatic technology allows these proteins to be extracted from muscle, and the sequential batch strategy significantly increases protein nitrogen extraction. This study focused on evaluating the WHC of protein hydrolysates from salmon frames obtained through double- and triple-sequential batches compared to conventional hydrolysis. Hydrolysis was carried out for 3 h at 55 °C with 13 mAU of subtilisin per gram of salmon frames. The WHC of each hydrolysate was measured as the cooking loss using concentrations that varied from 0 to 5% (w/w) in the meat matrix. Compared with those obtained through conventional hydrolysis, the hydrolysates obtained through the strategy of double- and triple-sequence batches demonstrated a 55% and 51% reduction in cooking loss, respectively, when they were applied from 1% by weight in the meat matrix. It is essential to highlight that all hydrolysates had a significantly lower cooking loss (p ≤ 0.05) than that of the positive control (sodium tripolyphosphate [STPP]) at its maximum allowable limit when applied at a concentration of 5% in the meat matrix. These results suggest that the sequential batch strategy represents a promising alternative for further improving the WHC of hydrolysates compared to conventional hydrolysis. It may serve as a viable substitute for polyphosphates.

Sustaining vocabulary knowledge growth through corpus-generated lists of lexical bundles and keywords in the law of contracts.

Non-native English-speaking law students and international legal practitioners who speak English as an additional language face significant challenges while pursuing legal studies at English-only institutions, participating in professional training or catering to the legal needs of an increasingly diverse clientele. One of the most difficult challenges is sustaining adequate lexical knowledge to initiate and maintain communication regarding legal subject matter. This study aims to address this issue by presenting two short lists of lexical bundles and keywords (KWs) of the Law of Contracts. Through a combination of corpus analysis and linguistics methodology, these lists are designed to provide a pedagogically useful and subject-focused source for learning academic vocabulary. Bundles are functionally classified into referentials, discourse organisers and stance markers, and their structural forms are filtered into distinct nominal, prepositional and verbal categories. KWs are POS-tagged to allow for direct instructional intervention. This research discusses the pedagogical implications of the research for teaching English for legal purposes.

Framing Unions and Nurses.

Union communication and framing are important for how union members, as well as how unions as organizations, are represented. In the context of declining union density and therefore fewer direct union members, unions' daily communication material on social media may be one of the most common interactions people have with unions. This case study focuses on United Nurses of Alberta, the union for most registered nurses in Alberta, Canada, where unionization rates are among the lowest in Canada. This case study shows how United Nurses of Alberta uses two collective action frames, nurses-as-distinct and nurses-as-advocates, in their daily communication to members and the public. In creating and promoting these frames, United Nurses of Alberta draws from and pushes against the industrial relations framework under which they operate and the historical narrative of nurses as caring and self-sacrificing, which may reinforce common understandings of nursing and also limit United Nurses of Alberta's ability to represent their members.

Nurse-Led Approaches to Lowering Alcohol Use among Adolescents: Study Findings.

This study delves into how motivational sessions and brief interventions impact students' alcohol consumption, highlighting the vital role of nurses in fostering positive behavioural changes. The study aims to discern the effects of these interventions, starting with a pre-and post-intervention setup involving 62 students from a private school in northern Portugal. The intervention comprised a session delivered by school and mental health nurses, utilizing the motivational intervention and FRAMES method and a poster offering feedback on alcohol consumption scores. The results indicated that females tended to drink for fewer days and engage in less binge drinking than males. Furthermore, the intervention hinted at a reduction in the number of heavy drinking days. This study underscores the importance of including healthcare professionals, particularly nurses, in delivering brief interventions within school settings. The findings carry weight for crafting evidence-based interventions to cultivate healthier adolescent behaviours and enhance overall well-being.

Applying machine-learning models to differentiate benign and malignant thyroid nodules classified as C-TIRADS 4 based on 2D-ultrasound combined with five contrast-enhanced ultrasound key frames.

Objectives: To apply machine learning to extract radiomics features from thyroid two-dimensional ultrasound (2D-US) combined with contrast-enhanced ultrasound (CEUS) images to classify and predict benign and malignant thyroid nodules, classified according to the Chinese version of the thyroid imaging reporting and data system (C-TIRADS) as category 4. Materials and methods: This retrospective study included 313 pathologically diagnosed thyroid nodules (203 malignant and 110 benign). Two 2D-US images and five CEUS key frames ("2nd second after the arrival time" frame, "time to peak" frame, "2nd second after peak" frame, "first-flash" frame, and "second-flash" frame) were selected to manually label the region of interest using the "Labelme" tool. A total of 7 images of each nodule and their annotates were imported into the Darwin Research Platform for radiomics analysis. The datasets were randomly split into training and test cohorts in a 9:1 ratio. Six classifiers, namely, support vector machine, logistic regression, decision tree, random forest (RF), gradient boosting decision tree and extreme gradient boosting, were used to construct and test the models. Performance was evaluated using a receiver operating characteristic curve analysis. The area under the curve (AUC), sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value (PPV), negative predictive value (NPV), accuracy (ACC), and F1-score were calculated. One junior radiologist and one senior radiologist reviewed the 2D-US image and CEUS videos of each nodule and made a diagnosis. We then compared their AUC and ACC with those of our best model. Results: The AUC of the diagnosis of US, CEUS and US combined CEUS by junior radiologist and senior radiologist were 0.755, 0.750, 0.784, 0.800, 0.873, 0.890, respectively. The RF classifier performed better than the other five, with an AUC of 1 for the training cohort and 0.94 (95% confidence interval 0.88-1) for the test cohort. The sensitivity, specificity, accuracy, PPV, NPV, and F1-score of the RF model in the test cohort were 0.82, 0.93, 0.90, 0.85, 0.92, and 0.84, respectively. The RF model with 2D-US combined with CEUS key frames achieved equivalent performance as the senior radiologist (AUC: 0.94 vs. 0.92, P = 0.798; ACC: 0.90 vs. 0.92) and outperformed the junior radiologist (AUC: 0.94 vs. 0.80, P = 0.039, ACC: 0.90 vs. 0.81) in the test cohort. Conclusions: Our model, based on 2D-US and CEUS key frames radiomics features, had good diagnostic efficacy for thyroid nodules, which are classified as C-TIRADS 4. It shows promising potential in assisting less experienced junior radiologists.

The EU as a Political Determinant of Global Health: The Case of Research and Development Incentives for Orphan Medicines and Biotechnology.

CONTEXT: The European Union (EU) governs global health through its constituent laws, institutions, actors and policies. However, it is unclear whether or how these political factors interact to position the Union as a political determinant of global health. METHODS: A case study of the political factors (Rushton and Williams, 2012) influencing the adoption of the EU's Biotechnology Directive 98/44/EC and Orphan Medicines Regulation 141/2000. FINDINGS: The European Commission (EC) generally framed both of its proposals around economical and biomedical paradigms aligned with the needs of the EU's industry and patients, whereas the European Parliament (EP) contested some of these frames and proposed amendments supporting global access to medical products. The political factors influencing the adoption (in the Directive) or rejection (in the Regulation) of the EP's amendments include: the complementarity between the EP and EC proposals; the EP's power in the intra- and inter-institutional negotiating process; the existence and support of civil society; and the alignment with Member State(s)' priorities in the Council. CONCLUSIONS: In the late 1990s, the EU was an internally fragmented and politicised player concerning global health matters. These political factors should be considered for a coherent post-2022 EU strategy on global health.

Deep learning to decode sites of RNA translation in normal and cancerous tissues.

The biological process of RNA translation is fundamental to cellular life and has wide-ranging implications for human disease. Yet, accurately delineating the variation in RNA translation represents a significant challenge. Here, we develop RiboTIE, a transformer model-based approach to map global RNA translation. We find that RiboTIE offers unparalleled precision and sensitivity for ribosome profiling data. Application of RiboTIE to normal brain and medulloblastoma cancer samples enables high-resolution insights into disease regulation of RNA translation.

(Re)Construction of Quantum Space-Time: Transcribing Hilbert into Configuration Space.

Space-time in quantum mechanics is about bridging Hilbert and configuration space. Thereby, an entirely new perspective is obtained by replacing the Newtonian space-time theater with the image of a presumably high-dimensional Hilbert space, through which space-time becomes an epiphenomenon construed by internal observers.

The potential role of occupational therapy in the treatment of avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder.

Most individuals with avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder (ARFID) never receive treatment, and treatment needs far exceed the current capacity of mental health services. Occupational therapy (OT) focuses on enhancing function in daily activities, including eating and feeding. Given OT's rich history in mental health and pediatric feeding disorder treatment, we spotlight the potential role of OT in ARFID treatment, current knowledge, and opportunities for future research. Through a preliminary exploratory inquiry involving a review of current literature and clinical practice, we investigated OT's current involvement, knowledge, and interprofessional collaborative practice gaps in ARFID treatment. While many occupational therapy practitioners (OTPs) engage in ARFID treatment, interventions lack rigorous evaluation, and there is limited evidence defining OT's distinct role in interprofessional ARFID treatment. OTPs are uniquely positioned to provide interventions for individuals with ARFID across the lifespan, though research is needed to evaluate the efficacy of OT interventions. Future research suggestions include standardizing OT approaches to ARFID treatment and conducting single-case experiments and randomized controlled trials to compare OT approaches with alternative methods. Recommendations to address practice gaps include enhancing ARFID education for OT students and practitioners and fostering a greater understanding of OT's role on the interprofessional team. PUBLIC SIGNIFICANCE: Individuals with ARFID face barriers to eating that impact their health and function. On a multidisciplinary team, OTPs can treat diverse client populations by identifying and addressing barriers to daily participation, such as physical impairments, trauma history, and environmental barriers. More research is needed to evaluate the efficacy of OT practices in ARFID treatment.

Host-like RNA Elements Regulate Virus Translation.

Viruses are obligate, intracellular parasites that co-opt host cell machineries for propagation. Critical among these machineries are those that translate RNA into protein and their mechanisms of control. Most regulatory mechanisms effectuate their activity by targeting sequence or structural features at the RNA termini, i.e., at the 5' or 3' ends, including the untranslated regions (UTRs). Translation of most eukaryotic mRNAs is initiated by 5' cap-dependent scanning. In contrast, many viruses initiate translation at internal RNA regions at internal ribosome entry sites (IRESs). Eukaryotic mRNAs often contain upstream open reading frames (uORFs) that permit condition-dependent control of downstream major ORFs. To offset genome compression and increase coding capacity, some viruses take advantage of out-of-frame overlapping uORFs (oORFs). Lacking the essential machinery of protein synthesis, for example, ribosomes and other translation factors, all viruses utilize the host apparatus to generate virus protein. In addition, some viruses exhibit RNA elements that bind host regulatory factors that are not essential components of the translation machinery. SARS-CoV-2 is a paradigm example of a virus taking advantage of multiple features of eukaryotic host translation control: the virus mimics the established human GAIT regulatory element and co-opts four host aminoacyl tRNA synthetases to form a stimulatory binding complex. Utilizing discontinuous transcription, the elements are present and identical in all SARS-CoV-2 subgenomic RNAs (and the genomic RNA). Thus, the virus exhibits a post-transcriptional regulon that improves upon analogous eukaryotic regulons, in which a family of functionally related mRNA targets contain elements that are structurally similar but lacking sequence identity. This "thrifty" virus strategy can be exploited against the virus since targeting the element can suppress the expression of all subgenomic RNAs as well as the genomic RNA. Other 3' end viral elements include 3'-cap-independent translation elements (3'-CITEs) and 3'-tRNA-like structures. Elucidation of virus translation control elements, their binding proteins, and their mechanisms can lead to novel therapeutic approaches to reduce virus replication and pathogenicity.

Emergence of two distinct spatial folds in a pair of plant virus proteins encoded by nested genes.

Virus genomes may encode overlapping or nested open reading frames that increase their coding capacity. It is not known whether the constraints on spatial structures of the two encoded proteins limit the evolvability of nested genes. We examine the evolution of a pair of proteins, p22 and p19, encoded by nested genes in plant viruses from the genus Tombusvirus. The known structure of p19, a suppressor of RNA silencing, belongs to the RAGNYA fold from the alpha+beta class. The structure of p22, the cell-to-cell movement protein from the 30K family widespread in plant viruses, is predicted with the AlphaFold approach, suggesting a single jelly-roll fold core from the all-beta class, structurally similar to capsid proteins from plant and animal viruses. The nucleotide and codon preferences impose modest constraints on the types of secondary structures encoded in the alternative reading frames, nonetheless allowing for compact, well-ordered folds from different structural classes in two similarly-sized nested proteins. Tombusvirus p22 emerged through radiation of the widespread 30K family, which evolved by duplication of a virus capsid protein early in the evolution of plant viruses, whereas lineage-specific p19 may have emerged by a stepwise increase in the length of the overprinted gene and incremental acquisition of functionally active secondary structure elements by the protein product. This evolution of p19 toward the RAGNYA fold represents one of the first documented examples of protein structure convergence in naturally occurring proteins.

Spatial representations of objects used away and towards the body: The effect of near and far space.

An action with an object can be accomplished only if we encode the position of the object with respect to our body (i.e., egocentrically) and/or to another element in the environment (i.e., allocentrically). However, some actions with the objects are directed towards our body, such as brushing our teeth, and others away from the body, such as writing. Objects can be near the body, that is within arm reaching, or far from the body, that is outside arm reaching. The aim of this study was to verify if the direction of use of the objects influences the way we represent their position in both near and far space. Objects typically used towards (TB) or away from the body (AB) were presented in near or far space and participants had to judge whether an object was closer to them (i.e., egocentric judgement) or closer to another object (i.e., allocentric judgement). Results showed that egocentric judgements on TB objects were more accurate in near than in far space. Moreover, allocentric judgements on AB objects were less accurate than egocentric judgements in near space but not in far space. These results are discussed with respect to the different roles that visuo-motor and visuo-spatial mechanisms play in near space and far space, respectively.

Parvovirus B19 and Human Parvovirus 4 Encode Similar Proteins in a Reading Frame Overlapping the VP1 Capsid Gene.

Viruses frequently contain overlapping genes, which encode functionally unrelated proteins from the same DNA or RNA region but in different reading frames. Yet, overlapping genes are often overlooked during genome annotation, in particular in DNA viruses. Here we looked for the presence of overlapping genes likely to encode a functional protein in human parvovirus B19 (genus Erythroparvovirus), using an experimentally validated software, Synplot2. Synplot2 detected an open reading frame, X, conserved in all erythroparvoviruses, which overlaps the VP1 capsid gene and is under highly significant selection pressure. In a related virus, human parvovirus 4 (genus Tetraparvovirus), Synplot2 also detected an open reading frame under highly significant selection pressure, ARF1, which overlaps the VP1 gene and is conserved in all tetraparvoviruses. These findings provide compelling evidence that the X and ARF1 proteins must be expressed and functional. X and ARF1 have the exact same location (they overlap the region of the VP1 gene encoding the phospholipase A2 domain), are both in the same frame (+1) with respect to the VP1 frame, and encode proteins with similar predicted properties, including a central transmembrane region. Further studies will be needed to determine whether they have a common origin and similar function. X and ARF1 are probably translated either from a polycistronic mRNA by a non-canonical mechanism, or from an unmapped monocistronic mRNA. Finally, we also discovered proteins predicted to be expressed from a frame overlapping VP1 in other species related to parvovirus B19: porcine parvovirus 2 (Z protein) and bovine parvovirus 3 (X-like protein).

Human arm redundancy: a new approach for the inverse kinematics problem.

The inverse kinematics (IK) problem addresses how both humans and robotic systems coordinate movement to resolve redundancy, as in the case of arm reaching where more degrees of freedom are available at the joint versus hand level. This work focuses on which coordinate frames best represent human movements, enabling the motor system to solve the IK problem in the presence of kinematic redundancies. We used a multi-dimensional sparse source separation method to derive sets of basis (or source) functions for both the task and joint spaces, with joint space represented by either absolute or anatomical joint angles. We assessed the similarities between joint and task sources in each of these joint representations, finding that the time-dependent profiles of the absolute reference frame's sources show greater similarity to corresponding sources in the task space. This result was found to be statistically significant. Our analysis suggests that the nervous system represents multi-joint arm movements using a limited number of basis functions, allowing for simple transformations between task and joint spaces. Additionally, joint space seems to be represented in an absolute reference frame to simplify the IK transformations, given redundancies. Further studies will assess this finding's generalizability and implications for neural control of movement.