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Vietnamese Ukrainians are a largely unstudied identity group that has recently attracted attention due to the impacts of the Russo-Ukrainian War. Our study examines Vietnamese-Ukrainian bicultural identity as experienced by 10 university student refugees of the war in 2022–23. Researchers conducted semi-structured ethnographic interviews in which each participant examined identity formation experiences as second-generation Vietnamese Ukrainians. Participants also reflected upon the impacts to ethnic identity self-awareness that resulted from their unexpected return migration to Vietnam as student refugees of war. The cohort of study participants created a tight-knit Vietnamese-Ukrainian return diaspora in an environment conducive to self-reflection and exploration of their ongoing ethnic identity journeys. In our study, we argue that the ethnic identity formation of young Vietnamese Ukrainians relies on the active construction of intercultural personhood as an adaptation to transnational mobility and change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Internet of Things (IoT) can be defined as the network of physical objects, or “things,” embedded with sensors and software for processing and exchanging data with other devices and ecosystems using the Internet as a medium. With its rapid growth over the past decade, it has permeated several application domains, including intelligent vehicular systems. The Internet of Autonomous Vehicles (IoAV) is a subset of IoT that envisions dynamic autonomous driving without human intervention. The dynamic nature of the environment in which autonomous vehicles operate introduces significant challenges, such as real-time communication and security vulnerabilities. These challenges cannot be directly addressed by standard cybersecurity solutions designed primarily for static IoT environments. In this work, we outline the various vulnerabilities of the IoAV systems, and we delve into the critical importance of adopting lightweight security protocols. These protocols are crucial to ensure robust protection while at the same time not jeopardizing the performance of the IoAV system. We also highlight the fast lightweight security protocols implemented on heterogeneous embedded, low-power, high-performance computing platforms as a viable solution to address these challenges.

X-linked sideroblastic anemia (XLSA) in carrier females of ALAS2 mutations is not uncommon. We describe unique features and genotype/phenotype correlations in XLSA females and evaluate the contributions of X-chromosome skewing and clonal hematopoiesis, emphasizing the importance of distinguishing it from myelodysplastic syndromes with ring sideroblasts., (Copyright © 2025 American Society of Hematology.)

Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis is responsible for mass extinctions and extirpations of amphibians, mainly driven by the Global Panzootic Lineage (BdGPL). BdGPL isolate JEL423 is a commonly used reference strain in studies exploring the evolution, epidemiology, and pathogenicity of chytrid pathogens. These studies have been hampered by the fragmented, erroneous, and incomplete B. dendrobatidis JEL423 genome assembly, which includes long stretches of ambiguous positions and poorly resolved telomeric regions. Here, we present and describe a substantially improved, near telomere-to-telomere genome assembly and gene annotation for B. dendrobatidis JEL423. Our new assembly is 24.5 Mb in length, ∼800 kb longer than the previously published assembly for this organism, comprising 18 nuclear scaffolds and 2 mitochondrial scaffolds and including an extra 839 kb of repetitive sequence. We discovered that the patterns of aneuploidy in B. dendrobatidis JEL423 have remained stable over approximately 5 years. We found that our updated assembly encodes fewer than half the number of M36 metalloprotease genes predicted in the previous assembly. In contrast, members of the crinkling and necrosis gene family were found in similar numbers to the previous assembly. We also identified a more extensive carbohydrate binding module 18 gene family than previously observed. We anticipate our findings, and the updated genome assembly will be a useful tool for further investigation of the genome evolution of the pathogenic chytrids., Competing Interests: Conflicts of interest: The authors declare no conflicts of interest., (© The Author(s) 2024. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Genetics Society of America.)

Objective: Medical laboratory data together with prescribing and hospitalisation records are three of the most used electronic health records (EHRs) for data-driven health research. In Scotland, hospitalisation, prescribing and the death register data are available nationally whereas laboratory data is captured, stored and reported from local health board systems with significant heterogeneity. For researchers or other users of this regionally curated data, working on laboratory datasets across regional cohorts requires effort and time. As part of this study, the Scottish Safe Haven Network have developed an open-source software pipeline to generate a harmonised laboratory dataset., Methods: We obtained sample laboratory data from the four regional Safe Havens in Scotland covering people within the SHARE consented cohort. We compared the variables collected by each regional Safe Haven and mapped these to 11 FHIR and 2 Scottish-specific standardised terms (i.e., one to indicate the regional health board and a second to describe the source clinical code description)., Results: We compared the laboratory data and found that 180 test codes covered 98.7 % of test records performed across Scotland. Focusing on the 180 test codes, we developed a set of transformations to convert test results captured in different units to the same unit. We included both Read Codes and SNOMED CT to encode the tests within the pipeline., Conclusion: We validated our harmonisation pipeline by comparing the results across the different regional datasets. The pipeline can be reused by researchers and/or Safe Havens to generate clean, harmonised laboratory data at a national level with minimal effort., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024. Published by Elsevier Inc.)

Background: Mood influences smoking behavior, with sex and sex hormones potentially complicating these relationships. We explored associations between Profile of Mood States (POMS) and Questionnaire on Smoking Urges (QSU) - Brief with sex hormones in men and women who smoke., Methods: This is a secondary analysis of treatment non-responders from a smoking cessation randomized trial investigating exogenous progesterone's efficacy. We considered the sex-specific associations between absolute serum progesterone (PRO) level and progesterone-to-estradiol ratio (P/E2), as well as the relative change in serum PRO and P/E2 with POMS and QSU subscale scores. Poisson generalized estimating equations models were used to estimate the associations., Results: The analysis included 127 participants (62 women: median age of 38, 61% white; 65 men: median age of 36, 54% white). There were sex-specific associations between POMS negative mood factors and relative PRO levels (e.g., fatigue-inertia: women: 19% increase for a 10-fold increase in relative PRO, p=0.03 versus men: 10% decrease, p=0.19) and relative P/E2 (e.g., lonely: women: 7% increase for a 10-fold increase in relative P/E2, p=0.63 versus men: 27% decrease, p=0.01). Generally, larger relative PRO and P/E2 were associated with increased POMS negative mood factors in women, while larger relative PRO and P/E2 in men were associated with decreased POMS negative mood factors. Similar trends between POMS negative mood factors and the absolute PRO and P/E2 were observed. No significant associations were observed with POMS positive mood factors or QSU subscales., Conclusion: These findings suggest that the change in PRO and P/E2 may influence negative mood factors differently in men and women who smoke. Additional research is needed to understand how these sex-specific associations may contribute to smoking cessation., Implications: Progesterone and estrogen were linked to increased negative mood factors in women, whereas in men they were linked to a decrease in negative mood factors. These observations shed light on potential sex-specific intervention targets for mood management in adults who smoke., (© The Author(s) 2025. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco. All rights reserved. For commercial re-use, please contact reprints@oup.com for reprints and translation rights for reprints. All other permissions can be obtained through our RightsLink service via the Permissions link on the article page on our site—for further information please contact journals.permissions@oup.com.)

Tailored technical assistance enhances patient and provider engagement and hypertension control in community health centers. Addressing each center's particular needs, the approach described here focused on self-measured blood pressure monitoring, training, and skills-building, and strengthening community-clinic linkages. Systematic approaches to stakeholder engagement can enhance health care delivery and improve hypertension control rates.

Introduction: Guidelines recommend prospective ECG-triggered mid-diastolic coronary computed tomographic angiography (CCTA) acquisition after achieving optimal heart rate (HR) control in order to optimize scan image quality. With dual-source CCTA, prospective end-systolic acquisition has been shown to be less prone to motion artifacts at higher heart rates and may improve scan and CT laboratory efficiency by allowing CCTA without routine pre-scan beta-blocker (BB) administration., Methods: We implemented an institutional process change in CCTA performance effective January 2023, comprising a transition from prospective ECG-triggered mid-diastolic acquisitions individually supervised by a physician at the scanner to an algorithmic approach predominately utilizing prospective end-systolic acquisition (200-400 ​ms after R peak), employing an automated dose selection algorithm, without BB administration. All scans were performed on a third-generation 192-slice dual-source scanner. We reviewed 300 consecutive CCTAs done pre- and post-process change in Jan 2022 (phase 0), Jan 2023 (phase 1), and in May 2023 (phase 2) after implementation of a process improvement involving more selective utilization of automated tube potential/current algorithms (CARE kV) to optimize image quality. Coronary segmental image quality was assessed by two experienced CCTA readers by consensus using an 18-segment SCCT model on a 5-point Likert scale (1 ​= ​non-interpretable; 2 ​= ​poor; 3 ​= ​acceptable; 4 ​= ​good; 5 ​= ​excellent). Measures of radiation dose, medication administration, and time required for patient scanning were compared. Logistic regression was used to determine factors associated with patient-level reduction in image quality (IQ) and with repeat scans., Results: Post-process change, there was a significant reduction in the median overall patient appointment [phase 0: 95 (75-125) min vs. phase 1: 68 (52-88) min and phase 2: 72 (59-90) min; P ​< ​0.001] and scan times [phase 0: 13 (10-16) min vs. phase 1: 8 (6-13) min and phase 2: 9 (7-13) min; P ​< ​0.001]. Median IQ score in both post-process change phases was 4 (4-5) compared to a median score of 5 (4-5) pre-process change (P for comparison <0.001). The majority of segments post-process change had "good" IQ (Phase 1 segmental IQ scores: 5 ​= ​36.7 ​%, 4 ​= ​46.8 ​%, 3 ​= ​13 ​%, 2 ​= ​2.6 ​%, 1 ​= ​0.9 ​%; Phase 2 segmental IQ scores: 5 ​= ​26 ​%, 4 ​= ​49.7 ​%, 3 ​= ​16.3 ​%, 2 ​= ​6.1 ​%, 1 ​= ​1.9 ​%), whereas pre-process change, the majority of segments had "excellent" IQ (Phase 0 segmental IQ scores: 5 ​= ​56 ​%, 4 ​= ​34.3 ​%, 3 ​= ​7.5 ​%, 2 ​= ​1.8 ​%, 1 ​= ​0.4 ​%) There was no significant increase in non-interpretable scans at the patient level. The 22 ​% re-scan rate in phase 1 (vs. 6 ​% in phase 0, P ​= ​.002) improved to 15 ​% in phase 2. While patient related factors of body mass index [adjusted OR obese 2.64, 95 ​% CI 1.12-6.51, P ​= ​0.03; aOR morbidly obese 6.94, 95 ​% CI 2.21-23.52, P ​= ​0.001] and average HR [aOR (per 10 bpm increase) 1.51, 95 ​% CI 1.21-1.9, P ​< ​0.001] were associated with the scoring of any segment as ​≤ ​3 ​at the patient level in a fully adjusted model, the improved phase 2 of the process change was not [aOR 1.61, 95 ​% CI 0.78-3.32]., Conclusion: Implementation of an institutional process change utilizing prospective ECG-triggered dual-source end-systolic acquisition avoided the use of beta-blockers, significantly reduced patient appointment and scan times with acceptable diagnostic performance., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest Dr Patel has received research support from G.E. Healthcare, Siemens Healthineers, CircleCVI, and Neosoft. Dr. Kramer and Dr. Villines have has received royalties from Walters Kluwer for authorship of educational content (UpToDate.com) related to cardiac CT topics. All other authors have reported that they have no relationships relevant to the contents of this paper to disclose., (Copyright © 2024 Society of Cardiovascular Computed Tomography. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)