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Background: Sports injury surveillance systems aid injury prevention, but their development without considering end-users' perspectives has led to low adherence and honesty in self-reporting by players, compromising their effectiveness. Context-specific injury surveillance systems have been proposed to address these challenges, but there is a limited understanding of stakeholders' perceptions and experiences in using them. Objective: Following the implementation of a context-specific injury surveillance system with 100% player adherence over 60 weeks, the study aimed to investigate Under-21 Maltese national football team players', coaches' and clinicians' experiences of how and why they engaged with the system. Method: Seventeen semi-structured interviews with Under-21 Maltese male national football team players (n = 12), their coaches (n = 3) and clinicians (n = 2) were conducted. Data were analysed using reflexive thematic analysis. Results: Participants highlighted questionnaire-related factors that motivated engagement with the context-specific injury surveillance system (theme 1) and factors influencing further engagement with the system based on stakeholders' actions (theme 2). Perceived outcomes experienced as a result of engaging with the injury surveillance system (theme 3), in turn, motivated players to continue reporting and engaging with the system. Conclusion: To encourage players' sustained reporting, injury-related information collected from well-designed questionnaires should serve to stimulate communication and teamwork among stakeholders, to prevent injuries and enhance performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pentosidine (PEN), a surrogate marker of advanced glycation end-product formation, reflects increased non-enzymatic cross-linking in bone collagen, which is thought to be an important determinant of bone fragility in type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). We aimed to investigate serum concentrations of PEN in patients with T2DM and controls without T2DM and to examine its relationship with bone parameters and metabolic state such as glycaemic control, insulin resistance and body weight. In a cross-sectional study-design, data from postmenopausal women and men with T2DM (n = 110) and controls without T2DM (n = 111) were evaluated. Serum PEN was measured using an ELISA-based assay (CSB-E09415h, Cusabio). In addition, biochemical markers of glucose metabolism and bone turnover markers were measured. Bone mineral density (BMD) was assessed by dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry. After adjustment for age, gender and body mass index (BMI), serum PEN was significantly higher in patients with T2DM compared to controls (p = 0.02) and most prominently in women with T2DM (p = 0.09). We found a strong association of serum PEN concentrations with BMI in the entire study population (R = 0.43, p < 0.001) as well as in patients with T2DM (R = 0.28, p < 0.01). While bone turnover markers were significantly decreased, and BMD increased in patients with T2DM, only weak or no associations were observed between these skeletal surrogate markers and serum PEN. We conclude that serum PEN is strongly associated with BMI with highest levels in obese women with T2DM. Adjustment for patient’s weight is needed when evaluating serum PEN levels in patients with T2DM. Clinical Trial Information: NCT02551315. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: The long-term effects of surgery for subthalamic nucleus deep brain stimulation (STN-DBS) on cognitive aspects of motor control for people with Parkinson's disease (PD) are largely unknown. We compared saccade latency and reach reaction time (RT) pre- and post-surgery while participants with PD were off-treatment. Methods: In this preliminary study, we assessed people with PD approximately 1 month pre-surgery while OFF medication (OFF-MEDS) and about 8 months post-surgery while OFF medication and STN-DBS treatment (OFF-MEDS/OFF-DBS). We examined saccade latency and reach reaction time (RT) performance during a visually-guided reaching task requiring participants to look at and reach toward a visual target. Results: We found that both saccade latency and reach RT significantly increased post-surgery compared to pre-surgery. In addition, there was no significant change in Movement Disorder Society-Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale (MDS-UPDRS) Part III score. Discussion: We found detrimental post-surgical changes to saccade latency and reach RT. We discuss the potential contributions of long-term tissue changes and withdrawal from STN-DBS on this detrimental cognitive effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article comments on a study which show the critical role of drug market information for interpreting market size/prevalence, and the potential of indicating nature of drug use through the differences of patterns among subject drugs in 2025. Topics covered include the importance of evaluating trends in drug prices and purity levels, and the link of drug use to the level of urbanity. Also noted is the value of differentiating drug use per catchment.

The Drosophila PAX6 homolog twin of eyeless (toy) sits at the pinnacle of the genetic pathway controlling eye development, the retinal determination network. Expression of toy in the embryo is first detectable at cellular blastoderm stage 5 in an anterior–dorsal band in the presumptive procephalic neuroectoderm, which gives rise to the primordia of the visual system and brain. Although several maternal and gap transcription factors that generate positional information in the embryo have been implicated in controlling toy , the regulation of toy expression in the early embryo is currently not well characterized. In this study, we adopt an integrated experimental approach utilizing bioinformatics, molecular genetic testing of putative enhancers in transgenic reporter gene assays and quantitative analysis of expression patterns in the early embryo, to identify 2 novel coacting enhancers at the toy gene. In addition, we apply mathematical modeling to dissect the regulatory landscape for toy. We demonstrate that relatively simple thermodynamic-based models, incorporating only 5 TF binding sites, can accurately predict gene expression from the 2 coacting enhancers and that the HUNCHBACK TF plays a critical regulatory role through a dual-modality function as an activator and repressor. Our analysis also reveals that the molecular architecture of the 2 enhancers is very different, indicating that the underlying regulatory logic they employ is distinct. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]