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Post COVID-19 condition is an important public health problem as we emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic. In this prospective cohort study, we aimed to determine the prevalence of this condition and assess its associated factors and impact on health-related quality of life in a population setting in Malaysia. Study was conducted from April to June 2022 when the Omicron variant predominated. All individuals testing positive for SARS-CoV-2 infection (RT-PCR, RTK-Ag) were invited for participation. Study questionnaires were delivered via the MySejahtera platform (mobile application). From the total of 44,386 participants who provided responses up to 3-months interval, 1,510 participants (3.4%) fulfilled the post COVID-19 condition criteria. Majority of the affected participants (83.8%, n = 1,265) experienced either cough, fatigue or forgetfulness-the three most common symptoms. Being females, having existing comorbidities, presence of symptoms and requiring hospital admission during the acute illness were associated with higher likelihoods of developing the post COVID-19 condition at 3-months interval. Amongst the 1,510 individuals, one in five had limitations in performing their usual daily activities while at least one in three expressed that their work was affected. Understanding this condition better is essential to guide strategic and responsive plans of action, which may require coordinated multidisciplinary interventions., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2024 Tok et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

As individuals age, they may experience a decline in gait automaticity, which requires increased attentional resources for the control of gait. This age-related decline in gait automaticity has been shown to contribute to higher prefrontal cortex (PFC) activation and lower dual-task performance during dual-task walking in older adults. This study is to investigate the effect of treadmill walking on PFC activation and dual-task performance in older adults. A total of 20 older adults (mean age, 64.35 ± 2.74 years) and 20 younger adults (mean age, 30.00 ± 3.15 years) performed single- and dual-task walking in overground and treadmill conditions. A wearable functional near-infrared spectroscopy and gait analyzer were used to analyze PFC activation and dual-task performance, respectively. To determine the dual-task (gait and cognitive) performance, the dual-task cost (DTC) was calculated using the following formula: (single-task - dual-task)/single-task × 100. In both groups, dual-task treadmill walking led to reduced PFC activation and reduced DTC compared to dual-task overground walking. Furthermore, despite a higher DTC in gait variability, correct response, total response, response index and a higher error score in older adults than in younger adults during overground walking, there was no difference in treadmill walking. The difference in PFC activation between single- and dual-tasks was also observed only in overground walking. Performing dual-task walking on a treadmill compared to overground walking results in different levels of dual-task performance and PFC activity. Specifically, older adults are able to maintain similar levels of dual-task performance as younger adults while walking on a treadmill, with reduced PFC activation due to the automaticity induced by the treadmill. Therefore, older adults who exhibit low dual-task performance during overground walking may be able to improve their performance while walking on a treadmill with fewer attentional resources., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2023 Baek et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

Introduction: Plantar fasciitis is one of the common foot complaints that is chronic and can induce dysfunction. Total contact insole (TCI) is simple but effective in treating plantar fasciitis. Despite its effect, the cost and long duration for production have been the major flaws. Therefore, we developed a newly designed three-spike insole (TSI) that can be commercially productive and compared its clinical outcomes to TCI., Methods: Patients with plantar fasciitis refractory to conservative treatment for more than 6 weeks were candidates. We produced insoles with hardness of 58 ± 5 Shore-A. Twenty-eight patients were randomized with equal allocation to either TSI or TCI. The following assessment tools were used: visual analog scale (VAS), American Orthopaedic Foot and Ankle score, Foot and Ankle Outcome Score, Karlsson-Peterson (KP) score, Short Form-36 for quality of life, and Foot Function Index. Non-inferiority was declared if VAS was within the statistical variability of minimal important difference. A blinded assessor evaluated the groups at baseline and after 6, 12, and 24 weeks., Results: The groups were homogenous for majority of variables at baseline. Overall patient-reported satisfaction showed improvement from mean 5.2 (range, 1-12) weeks of wearing and all clinical outcome scores showed significant improvements in both groups over time on Friedman test (p ≤.032). TSI showed non-inferiority to TCI at each time point. Post hoc analysis revealed that many scales showed significant superiority of TSI at 3 month (p ≤.008) and KP score at 6 month (p < .001)., Conclusion: We reaffirmed that semi-rigid insole is effective in refractory plantar fasciitis and showed TSI restores pedal function more rapidly than TCI. TSI can be not only effective in deriving better clinical outcomes but also be manufactured for popularization to lower the price and producing time of orthosis., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Acknowledgements have been examined as important elements in measuring the contributions to and intellectual debts of a scientific publication. Unlike previous studies that were limited in the scope of analysis and manual examination. The present study aimed to conduct the automatic classification of acknowledgements on a large scale of data. To this end, we first created a training dataset for acknowledgements classification by sampling the acknowledgements sections from the entire PubMed Central database. Second, we adopted various supervised learning algorithms to examine which algorithm performed best in what condition. In addition, we observed the factors affecting classification performance. We investigated the effects of the following three main aspects: classification algorithms, categories, and text representations. The CNN+Doc2Vec algorithm achieved the highest performance of 93.58% accuracy in the original dataset and 87.93% in the converted dataset. The experimental results indicated that the characteristics of categories and sentence patterns influenced the performance of classification. Most of the classifiers performed better on the categories of financial, peer interactive communication, and technical support compared to other classes., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

The skin is a very suitable organ for the induction of immune responses to vaccine antigens. Antigen delivery systems to the skin by needle and syringe directly deposit the antigen into the epidermal-dermal compartment, one of the most immunocompetent sites due to the presence of professional antigen-presenting cells aimed at the induction of antigen-specific T cells. In this study, we analyzed the amount of ovalbumin as an antigen delivered to the skin by a microneedle. When ovalbumin protein as an antigen was delivered to the skin of mice using a dissolving microneedle, it induced an immune response through the enhanced proliferation and cytokines production by the splenocytes and lymph nodes. Also, it effectively increased the ovalbumin-specific CD8+ T cell and CD4+ T cell population and induced an ovalbumin-specific CTL response against the graft of ovalbumin-expressing EG7 tumor cells in the immunized mice. Also, we identified the inhibition of tumor growth and prevention of tumor formation in the context of the therapeutic and prophylactic vaccine, respectively through EG-7 tumor mouse model. Finally, these data show the potential of patches as attractive antigen delivery vehicles., Competing Interests: Raphas Co., Ltd. provided support in the form of salaries for authors [SJK, HKK, JDK, DHJ]. This does not alter our adherence to PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.

Rice blast disease caused by Magnaporthe oryzae is one of the most devastating fungal diseases of rice and results in a huge loss of rice productivity worldwide. During the infection process, M. oryzae secretes a large number of glycosyl hydrolase proteins into the host apoplast to digest the cell wall and facilitate fungal ingression into host tissues. In this study, we identified a novel arabinofuranosidase-B (MoAbfB) protein that is secreted by M. oryzae during fungal infection. Deletion of MoAbfB from M. oryzae resulted in reduced disease severity in rice. Biochemical assays revealed that the MoAbfB protein exhibited arabinofuranosidase activity and caused degradation of rice cell wall components. Interestingly, pre-treatment of rice with the MoAbfB protein inhibited fungal infection by priming defence gene expression. Our findings suggest that MoAbfB secretion affects M. oryzae pathogenicity by breaking down the host cell wall, releasing oligosaccharides that may be recognized by the host to trigger innate immune responses., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Objective: To study the relationship between inflammatory and structural lesions in the sacroiliac joints (SIJs) on MRI and spinal progression observed on conventional radiographs in patients with axial spondyloarthritis (axSpA)., Methods: One hundred and ten patients who fulfilled the ASAS axSpA criteria were enrolled. All underwent SIJ MRI at baseline and lumbar spine radiographs at baseline and after 2 years. Inflammatory and structural lesions on SIJ MRI were scored using the SPondyloArthritis Research Consortium of Canada (SPARCC) method. Spinal radiographs were scored using the Stoke AS Spinal Score (SASSS). Multivariate logistic regression analysis was performed to identify predictors of spinal progression., Results: Among the 110 patients, 25 (23%) showed significant radiographic progression (change of SASSS≥2) over 2 years. There was no change in the SASSS over 2 years according to the type of inflammatory lesion. Patients with fat metaplasia or ankyloses on baseline MRI showed a significantly higher SASSS at 2 years than those without (p<0.001). According to univariate logistic regression analysis, age at diagnosis, HLA-B27 positivity, the presence of fat metaplasia, erosion, and ankyloses on SIJ MRI, increased baseline CRP levels, and the presence of syndesmophytes at baseline were associated with spinal progression over 2 years. Multivariate analysis identified syndesmophytes and severe fat metaplasia on baseline SIJ MRI as predictive of spinal radiographic progression (OR, 14.74 and 5.66, respectively)., Conclusion: Inflammatory lesions in the SIJs on baseline MRI were not associated with spinal radiographic progression. However, fat metaplasia at baseline was significantly associated with spinal progression after 2 years.

Objective: The relationship between mechanical stress and radiographic progression in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is unclear. The assumption is that mechanical stress is greater in the dominant hand. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to compare the presence and progression of erosions and joint space narrowing (JSN) in the dominant and non-dominant hand., Methods: Data from 194 patients recently diagnosed with seropositive RA, and with hand radiographs taken at the time of diagnosis and at 2-year follow-up, were analyzed retrospectively. Radiographs were scored using the van der Heijde-modified Sharp Score (HSS) method. Each joint group within each hand was rated separately by two independent examiners in a double-blinded manner., Results: One hundred and ninety-four patients were enrolled (80% female, 88% positive rheumatoid factor, 92% positive anti-citrullinated protein antibody, and 95.4% right-handed). The baseline, follow-up erosion and JSN HSS were significantly higher in the dominant hand than in the non-dominant hand. The annual rate of radiographic progression was also higher in the dominant hand. The erosive progression in the wrist joints varied significantly according to handedness, but the erosion in the proximal interphalangeal joints and metacarpophalangeal joints was similar in both hands. The radiographic progression was associated with the dominant hand, an abnormal baseline C-reactive protein level, and joint damage at baseline. There was no significant difference in bone mineral density between the right and left hands., Conclusion: Radiological damage was worse and progressed faster in the dominant hand, suggesting that mechanical stress is associated with radiographic joint damage in early and active RA.