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Background: Managing disseminated nontuberculous mycobacterial (NTM) infection in patients with neutralizing anti-interferon-γ autoantibodies (AIGAs) poses substantial challenges due to the lack of established treatment guidance and predictive tools for clinical outcomes. In this study, we investigated the utility of 18 F-fluorodeoxyglucose (2-[ 18 F]FDG) positron emission tomography (PET) in guiding treatment decisions, with a focus on its ability to predict rehospitalization outcomes., Methods: We conducted a post hoc analysis of the first available 2-[ 18 F]FDG PET scans of patients with AIGAs and disseminated NTM infection from a prospective observational multicenter cohort. Cox proportional hazards regression was used to determine predictors for disease-related rehospitalization within 1 year of the examination., Results: Of the patients with AIGAs evaluated, 41.9% required rehospitalization within 1 year following the initial 2-[ 18 F]FDG PET evaluation. Slowly growing mycobacteria were isolated in 64.5% of patients. Multivariable analysis identified splenic involvement (adjusted hazard ratio, 7.97; 95% CI, 2.34-27.16; P < .001) as a significant predictor of disease-related rehospitalization within 1 year following the examination. Moreover, mediastinal node involvement (adjusted odds ratio, 14.77; 95% CI, 1.01-216.76; P = .049) and axial skeleton involvement (adjusted odds ratio, 14.93; 95% CI, 1.11-201.43; P = .042) were significantly associated with the isolation of slowly growing mycobacteria., Conclusions: 2-[ 18 F]FDG PET appears useful in initial evaluation of disease extent and microbiology in patients with AIGAs and disseminated NTM infection. Identifying splenic involvement through this modality may help recognize patients at increased risk of disease-related rehospitalization within 1 year. These findings suggest that 2-[ 18 F]FDG PET could inform management decisions in this challenging population., Competing Interests: Potential conflicts of interest. All authors: No reported conflicts., (© The Author(s) 2024. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Infectious Diseases Society of America.)

Objective: We aimed to investigate whether 2-[ 18 F]fluoro-2-deoxy-D-glucose positron emission tomography/computed tomography (2-[ 18 F]FDG PET/CT) can aid in evaluating the risk of malignancy in ampullary tumors detected by endoscopy., Materials and Methods: This single-center retrospective cohort study analyzed 155 patients (79 male, 76 female; mean age, 65.7 ± 12.7 years) receiving 2-[ 18 F]FDG PET/CT for endoscopy-detected ampullary tumors 5-87 days (median, 7 days) after the diagnostic endoscopy between June 2007 and December 2020. The final diagnosis was made based on histopathological findings. The PET imaging parameters were compared with clinical data and endoscopic features. A model to predict the risk of malignancy, based on PET, endoscopy, and clinical findings, was generated and validated using multivariable logistic regression analysis and an additional bootstrapping method. The final model was compared with standard endoscopy for the diagnosis of ampullary cancer using the DeLong test., Results: The mean tumor size was 17.1 ± 7.7 mm. Sixty-four (41.3%) tumors were benign, and 91 (58.7%) were malignant. Univariable analysis found that ampullary neoplasms with a blood-pool corrected peak standardized uptake value in early-phase scan (SUVe) ≥ 1.7 were more likely to be malignant (odds ratio [OR], 16.06; 95% confidence interval [CI], 7.13-36.18; P < 0.001). Multivariable analysis identified the presence of jaundice (adjusted OR [aOR], 4.89; 95% CI, 1.80-13.33; P = 0.002), malignant traits in endoscopy (aOR, 6.80; 95% CI, 2.41-19.20; P < 0.001), SUVe ≥ 1.7 in PET (aOR, 5.43; 95% CI, 2.00-14.72; P < 0.001), and PET-detected nodal disease (aOR, 5.03; 95% CI, 1.16-21.86; P = 0.041) as independent predictors of malignancy. The model combining these four factors predicted ampullary cancers better than endoscopic diagnosis alone (area under the curve [AUC] and 95% CI: 0.925 [0.874-0.956] vs. 0.815 [0.732-0.873], P < 0.001). The model demonstrated an AUC of 0.921 (95% CI, 0.816-0.967) in candidates for endoscopic papillectomy., Conclusion: Adding 2-[ 18 F]FDG PET/CT to endoscopy can improve the diagnosis of ampullary cancer and may help refine therapeutic decision-making, particularly when contemplating endoscopic papillectomy., Competing Interests: The authors have no potential conflicts of interest to disclose., (Copyright © 2024 The Korean Society of Radiology.)

Voriconazole-associated hepatotoxicity is a common condition that generally manifests as elevated liver enzymes and can lead to drug discontinuation. Careful monitoring of voriconazole-associated hepatotoxicity is needed but there are no specific plasma biomarkers for this condition. Metabolomics has emerged as a promising technique for investigating biomarkers associated with drug-induced toxicity. The aim of this study was to use targeted metabolomics to evaluate seven endogenous metabolites as potential biomarkers of voriconazole-associated hepatotoxicity. Patients undergoing therapeutic drug monitoring of voriconazole were classified into a hepatotoxicity group (18 patients) or a control group (153 patients). Plasma samples were analysed using ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry. Metabolite concentrations in the two groups were compared. Areas under the receiver operating characteristic (AUROC) curves generated from logistic regressions were used to correlate the concentrations of these seven metabolites with voriconazole trough concentrations and conventional liver biochemistry tests. Glycocholate and α-ketoglutarate levels were significantly higher in the hepatotoxicity group compared with the control group (false discovery rate-corrected P < 0.001 and P = 0.024, respectively). The metabolites glycocholate (AUROC = 0.795) and α-ketoglutarate (AUROC = 0.696) outperformed voriconazole trough concentrations (AUROC = 0.555) and approached the performance of alkaline phosphatase (AUROC = 0.876) and total bilirubin (AUROC = 0.815). A panel of glycocholate combined with voriconazole trough concentrations (AUROC = 0.827) substantially improved the performance of voriconazole trough concentrations alone in predicting hepatotoxicity. In conclusion, the panel integrating glycocholate with voriconazole trough concentrations has great potential for identifying voriconazole-associated hepatotoxicity., (Copyright © 2023 Elsevier Ltd and International Society of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy. All rights reserved.)

Since the first food database was released over one hundred years ago, food databases have become more diversified, including food composition databases, food flavor databases, and food chemical compound databases. These databases provide detailed information about the nutritional compositions, flavor molecules, and chemical properties of various food compounds. As artificial intelligence (AI) is becoming popular in every field, AI methods can also be applied to food industry research and molecular chemistry. Machine learning and deep learning are valuable tools for analyzing big data sources such as food databases. Studies investigating food compositions, flavors, and chemical compounds with AI concepts and learning methods have emerged in the past few years. This review illustrates several well-known food databases, focusing on their primary contents, interfaces, and other essential features. We also introduce some of the most common machine learning and deep learning methods. Furthermore, a few studies related to food databases are given as examples, demonstrating their applications in food pairing, food-drug interactions, and molecular modeling. Based on the results of these applications, it is expected that the combination of food databases and AI will play an essential role in food science and food chemistry., Competing Interests: The authors declare no competing financial interest., (© 2023 The Authors. Published by American Chemical Society.)

New psychoactive substances (NPS) are substances of abuse that easily evade existing controlled drug regulations. This study conducted a systematic review on controlled drug regulations and analyzed the numbers of new psychoactive substances (NPS) reported in six East and Southeast Asian countries in comparison to US and UK from 2009 to 2020. Generally, more NPS were reported in the US (551) and UK (400), compared to Japan (379), China (221), Singapore (142), South Korea (99), Malaysia (41), and Taiwan (35). Legislative mechanisms including the specific listing of individual substances, generic control of a family of substances, analogue control of similar substances, temporary bans of new substances were evaluated. In this review, countries that have adopted a combination of legislative mechanisms were able to identify higher numbers of NPS for regulatory control, such as the US, UK, Japan, Singapore, and South Korea. These findings can provide references to countries like Malaysia and Taiwan, to strengthen NPS-related regulations nationally. Countries in the East and Southeast Asian region should be encouraged to collaborate more closely and to implement additional legislative approaches most relevant to the regional NPS trends to bridge the regulatory gap and to prevent the spread of emerging NPS., 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 © 2023 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

The present paper reports two experiments (N = 232, 254) addressing the question: How do reasoners reconcile the desire to have useable (i.e., invariant) causal knowledge - knowledge that holds true when applied in new circumstances/contexts - with the reality that causes often interact with other causes present in the context? The experiments test two views of how reasoners learn and generalize potentially complex causal knowledge. Previous work has focused on reasoners' ability to learn rules (functions) describing how pre-defined candidate causes combine, potentially interactively, to produce an outcome in a domain. This empirical-function-learning view predicts that participants would generalize an acquired combination rule based on similarity to stimuli they experienced in the domain. An alternative causal-invariance view goes beyond empirical learning: it allows for the possibility that one's current representation may not yield useable causal knowledge. This view posits that the human causal-induction process incorporates invariant knowledge as an aspiration, entailing that observed deviation from causal invariance when the knowledge is applied serves as a signal for a need to revise causal knowledge: Only invariance across contexts with potentially new causal factors justifies generalization across them. The invariance view therefore predicts that reasoners would revise their representation so that they have whole causes - potentially consisting of interacting components - that do not interact with each other, even when in their relevant experience all (pre-defined) causes interact. Across both experiments, our results favor the causal-invariance view: Participants generalize their empirically learned function (which may involve interactions) to new stimuli, but switch to the analytic causal-invariance function for both old and new stimuli at the level of the whole cause, indicating that how humans want causes to combine their effects shapes the knowledge they induce., (Copyright © 2022 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Objectives: We sought to investigate whether preoperative dual-phase 2-[ 18 F]FDG PET-CT identify predictors for poor survival in patients with ampullary carcinoma receiving pancreaticoduodenectomy., Methods: The preoperative PET-CT images of patients with resected ampullary carcinoma from June 2007 to July 2017 were analyzed. Survival curves were analyzed using the Kaplan-Meier method and compared with the log-rank test. Cox proportional hazard model was used to identify potential prognostic factors associated with disease-free survival (DFS) and overall survival (OS)., Results: Fifty-four subjects (26 men, 28 women) were enrolled with a median tumor size of 20 mm. All patients were followed for a median period of 36.9 months with 3- and 5-year DFS of 50.3% and 44.2%, and OS of 77.0% and 68.2%, respectively. Parameters associated with DFS in multivariate analysis were lymphovascular invasion (hazard ratio [HR]: 9.45, p < 0.001), involved margin in pathology (HR: 7.67, p < 0.001), and tumor retention index (RI) from the dual-phase PET (HR: 2.41, p = 0.03), whereas involved margin (HR: 13.14, p < 0.001), post-recurrence chemotherapy (HR: 0.10, p < 0.001), and metabolic tumor volume (MTV) (HR: 4.62, p = 0.009) emerged as independent prognostic factors for OS., Conclusions: Preoperative 2-[ 18 F]FDG PET-CT offered independent prognostic biomarkers in patients with ampullary carcinoma receiving standard surgical resection., Key Points: • 2-[ 18 F]FDG PET-CT offers good survival prediction before operation in primary malignant neoplasms at ampulla of Vater. • Dual-phase PET scan with bowel distention can better delineate Ampulla of Vater and characterize tumor physiology. • Preoperative risk stratification might aid in better treatment planning., (© 2021. European Society of Radiology.)

A within-person diary research design with 39 full-time workers was used to examine the effects of daily cross-domain usage of information and communication technologies (ICTs) on job-related performance and stress in both workplace and home domains. Segmentation preference effects on links between cross-domain ICT usage and both job performance and job stress were also analyzed. A positive association was found for the first relationship in mixed home-workplace contexts, and a negative association for the second in home contexts only. A stronger segmentation preference effect on the negative relationship between cross-domain ICT usage and job stress was found for integrators (employees who integrate work and home domains) compared to separators (employees who separate work/non-work activities). Our findings suggest that daily cross-domain ICT usage can enhance job performance and reduce job stress, with a moderating effect of segmentation preference on the link between cross-domain ICT usage and job stress.

Minimal studies exist investigating biofilm-induced corrosion of orthopaedic implants. This study investigates potential contributions of Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Staphylococcus aureus biofilms on corrosion resistance of CoCrMo under static and fretting conditions. Biofilms were cultured on CoCrMo coupons for either 4 weeks (static culture) or 6 days (fretting culture; pin-on-disk with a Ti6Al4V hemispherical tip pin). Morphology of biofilms and corrosion of coupon surfaces were analyzed via SEM. Open circuit potential and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy measurements were collected for corrosion performance evaluation. Results showed no visible corrosion on coupon surfaces in static culture, which suggests these biofilms alone do not induce severe corrosion under the conditions of this study. However, electrochemical data showed biofilm presence lowered coupon electrochemical impedance in static and fretting cultures, suggesting resistive and capacitive characteristics of the metal oxide-biofilm-media interface were altered. Under fretting, the P. aeruginosa group exhibited a distinct damage morphology and Co:Cr:Mo ratio within the wear scar when compared with S. aureus and the bacteria-free control. These differences suggest the presence of P. aeruginosa biofilms may negatively impact corrosion resistance at the fretting interface. Taken together these results demonstrate biofilms can contribute to implant corrosion by influencing the electrochemical impedance of implant metal surfaces., (© 2019 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.)

Aims: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the biological fixation of a 3D printed porous implant, with and without different hydroxyapatite (HA) coatings, in a canine model., Materials and Methods: A canine transcortical model was used to evaluate the characteristics of bone ingrowth of Ti6Al4V cylindrical implants fabricated using laser rapid manufacturing (LRM). At four and 12 weeks post-implantation, we performed histological analysis and mechanical push-out testing on three groups of implants: a HA-free control (LRM), LRM with precipitated HA (LRM-PA), and LRM with plasma-sprayed HA (LRM-PSHA)., Results: Substantial bone ingrowth was observed in all LRM implants, with and without HA, at both time periods. Bone ingrowth increased from 42% to 52% at four weeks, to 60% to 65% at 12 weeks. Mechanical tests indicated a minimum shear fixation strength of 20 MPa to 24 MPa at four weeks, and 34 MPa to 40 MPa at 12 weeks. There was no significant difference in the amount of bone ingrowth or in the shear strength between the three implant types at either time period., Conclusion: At four and 12 weeks, the 3D printed porous implants exhibited consistent bone ingrowth and high mechanical shear strength. Based on the results of this study, we confirmed the suitability of this novel new additive manufacturing porous material for biological fixation by bone ingrowth. Cite this article: Bone Joint J 2019;101-B(6 Supple B):62-67.

There remains a lack of understanding of the structural changes that occur across the complex, multitissue anterior cruciate ligament (ACL)-to-bone insertion as a function of aging. The objective of this study is to provide a multiscale comparison of matrix properties across the skeletally immature and mature ACL-to-bone insertion. Using complementary imaging methods, micro- and ultrastructural analysis of the insertion revealed that collagen fiber orientation at the interface changes with age, though the degree of collagen organization is maintained over time. These changes are accompanied by a decrease in collagen fibril density and are likely driven by physiological loading. Mineral crystal structure and crystallinity are conserved over time, despite regional differences in crystallinity between the interface and bone. This suggests that mineral chemistry is established early in development and underscores its important functional role. Collectively, these findings provide new insights into interface development and set critical design benchmarks for integrative soft tissue repair.

In this study, the integrated in situ extraction-gas stripping process was coupled with continuous ABE fermentation using immobilized Clostridium acetobutylicum. At the same time, oleyl alcohol was cocurrently flowed into the packed bed reactor with the fresh medium and then recycled back to the packed bed reactor after removing butanol in the stripper. A high glucose consumption of 52 g/L and a high butanol productivity of 11 g/L/h were achieved, resulting in a high butanol yield of 0.21 g-butanol/g-glucose. This can be attributed to both the high bacterial activity for solvent production as well as a threefold increase in the bacterial density inside the packed bed reactor. Also reported is that 64 % of the butanol produced can be recovered by the integrated in situ extraction-gas stripping process. A high butanol productivity and a high glucose consumption were simultaneously achieved.

The human Leucine-rich Repeats and WD repeat Domain containing 1 (LRWD1) gene was originally identified by cDNA microarray as one of the genes down-regulated in the testicular tissues of patients with severe spermatogenic defects. Human LRWD1 is a testicular-enriched protein that is present predominantly in the cytoplasm of spermatocytes and spermatids and colocalizes with the centrosome at the base of sperm tail. Reporter assay, Chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP) analysis, and gel electrophoretic mobility shift assay (EMSA) were used to identify the core promoter region of LRWD1. A 198 bp segment upstream of the LRWD1 transcription initiation site exhibited promoter activity. The LRWD1 core promoter lacked a TATA box but contained a NF-κB binding site. Chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP) analysis and gel electrophoretic mobility shift assay (EMSA) showed basal binding of the NF-κB subunit to the LRWD1 promoter. LRWD1 promoter activity was positively regulated by NF-κB, and this regulation was dependent on the presence of the conserved κB site in the LRWD1 promoter region. Our data suggest that NF-κB is an important regulator for the expression of LRWD1. This is the first study showing that the expression of the testis-enriched LRWD1 gene is regulated by NF-κB.

Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in the United States. Acute myocardial infarction (MI) is defined as necrosis of myocardial cells. Several studies have shown that cardiac markers are elevated after successful cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) due to physical as well as electrical trauma. Correlation has never been established between an elevation in cardiac markers and patient age, the amount of trauma induced during resuscitation, or the duration of chest compression. Previous studies have determined that cardiac troponin (cTnl) is the most sensitive marker in cardiac injury. In this study, we hypothesized that the duration of CPR and the patient's age had a direct correlation with cardiac injury demonstrated as an elevation of cTnl. We analyzed retrospectively 81 patients that underwent successful CPR in an in-hospital setting. 13 patients were excluded from the analysis due to positive cTnl prior to cardiac arrest. Duration of CPR, as well as cTnl levels before and after cardiac arrest were recorded and analyzed in the remaining 68 patients. Patients with a negative cTnl after successful CPR (n=30) were stratified into Group A. The remaining patients (Group B) had a positive cTnl ranging from 2.2-31 ng/ml. The mean age and the mean duration of CPR in minutes were calculated and compared using t-Test analysis. There was no statistical difference in age between Group A and Group B. Patients in Group A had a mean CPR duration of 12.2 minutes, while patients in Group B had a mean CPR duration of 19.8 minutes (p < 0.02). We found that the duration of cardiopulmonary resuscitation was positively associated with the elevation of cardiac markers.