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Background: Hypnotherapy has been shown to be a safe, nonhormonal intervention effective for treating menopausal hot flashes. However, women experiencing hot flashes may face accessibility barriers to in-person hypnotherapy. To solve this issue, a smartphone app has been created to deliver hypnotherapy. The Evia app delivers audio-recorded hypnotherapy and has the potential to help individuals experiencing hot flashes., Objective: This study aims to determine user outcomes in hot flash frequency and severity for users of the Evia app., Methods: This study is a retrospective analysis of a dataset of Evia app users. Participants were divided into 2 groups for analysis. The first group reported daytime hot flashes and night sweats, while the second group was asked to report only daytime hot flashes. The participants in the first group (daytime hot flashes and night sweats) were 139 women with ≥3 daily hot flashes who downloaded the Evia app between November 6, 2021, and June 9, 2022, with a baseline mean of 8.330 (SD 3.977) daily hot flashes. The participants in the second group (daytime hot flashes) were 271 women with ≥3 daily hot flashes who downloaded the Evia app between June 10, 2022, and February 5, 2024, with a baseline mean of 6.040 (SD 3.282) daily hot flashes. The Evia program included a 5-week program for all participants with daily tasks such as educational readings, hypnotic inductions, and daily hot-flash tracking. The app uses audio-recorded hypnosis and mental imagery for coolness, such as imagery for a cool breeze, snow, or calmness., Results: A clinically significant reduction, defined as a 50% reduction, in daily hot flashes was experienced by 76.3% (106/139) of the women with hot flashes and night sweats and 56.8% (154/271) of the women with daily hot flashes from baseline to their last logged Evia app survey. On average, the women with hot flashes and night sweats experienced a reduction of 61.4% (SD 33.185%) in their hot flashes experienced at day and night while using the Evia app, and the women with daily hot flashes experienced a reduction of 45.2% (SD 42.567%) in their daytime hot flashes. In both groups, there was a large, statistically significant difference in the average number of daily hot flashes from baseline to end point (women with hot flashes and night sweats: Cohen d=1.28; t 138 =15.055; P<.001; women with daily hot flashes: Cohen d=0.82; t 270 =13.555; P<.001)., Conclusions: Hypnotherapy is an efficacious intervention for hot flashes, with the potential to improve women's lives by reducing hot flashes without hormonal or pharmacological intervention. This study takes the first step in evaluating the efficacy of an app-delivered hypnosis intervention for menopausal hot flashes, demonstrating the Evia app provides a promising app delivery of hypnotherapy with potential to increase accessibility to hypnotherapy., (©Katherine Scheffrahn, Claire Hall, Vanessa Muñiz, Gary Elkins. Originally published in JMIR Formative Research (https://formative.jmir.org), 09.01.2025.)

Background: Hot flashes can be a prevalent issue for postmenopausal women, but traditional treatments such as hormone therapy can have adverse side effects. Recommended psychotherapies for managing hot flashes include cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and clinical hypnosis, but an in-depth review comparing the efficacy of both treatments is warranted., Objectives: The aim of the present scoping review was to assess the clinical significance and efficacy of symptom reduction of CBT and clinical hypnosis as treatments of hot flashes., Eligibility Criteria: Peer-reviewed primary studies were included in this review if they were published in English, used CBT or clinical hypnosis as their intervention, included hot flash outcomes, and sampled women aged 18 years or older., Sources of Evidence: A search was conducted on PubMed, Web of Science, and PsycINFO over December 2023 and January 2024., Charting Methods: Extracted information included eligible studies' authors, year of publication, country, title, design, participant population, intervention type, control group, primary and secondary outcomes, and key findings., Results: Of the 1847 studies identified by the literature search, 23 studies were included in this scoping review. While CBT was found to benefit bother and daily interference related to hot flashes, only studies investigating clinical hypnosis found significant reductions in the frequency and severity of hot flashes., Conclusions: Clinical hypnosis was found to outperform CBT by a large effect in treatment for hot flashes based on the current state of the literature. While both modalities treat psychological distress, only clinical hypnosis demonstrates the ability to reduce the severity and frequency of hot flashes, thus showing clinical significance. Limitations and future directions for research into CBT and clinical hypnosis for hot flashes are discussed., (© The Author(s) 2025. Published by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc.)

Hypnotherapy is increasingly recognized as an effective treatment option for a wide range of psychological conditions and the psychological elements of physiologic health concerns. Despite its growing use, the mechanisms underlying hypnotherapy's therapeutic benefits remain unknown. Heart rate variability (HRV), a non-invasive biomarker of autonomic nervous system (ANS) activity and other processes relevant to the psychophysiological stress response, has been used to study the physiological effects of hypnosis. HRV is associated with adaptability to stress and overall mental and physical health. We review how HRV changes during hypnosis treatment and propose mechanisms by which hypnotherapy influences the stress response and psychological flexibility and improves wellbeing. Additionally, we highlight the use of HRV biofeedback as an adjunct to hypnotherapy and psychotherapy and illustrate its potential to enhance therapeutic outcomes. To showcase practical applications, we present a case study of hypnotherapy's impact on HRV in the treatment of hot flashes in post-menopausal women. We conclude by calling for further empirical research, particularly randomized controlled trials, to solidify the integration of HRV metrics in hypnotherapy practice. Understanding the interaction between hypnotherapy and HRV will support more targeted and effective interventions, benefiting both clinicians and patients., Competing Interests: Declarations. Conflict of interest: The authors declare no competing interests., (© 2024. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.)

The Critical Assessment of Massive Data Analysis (CAMDA) addresses the complexities of harnessing Big Data in life sciences by hosting annual competitions that inspire research groups to develop innovative solutions. In 2023, the Forensic Challenge focused on identifying the city of origin for 365 metagenomic samples collected from public transportation systems and identifying associations between bacterial distribution and other covariates. For microbiome classification, we incorporated both taxonomic and functional annotations as features. To identify the most informative Operational Taxonomic Units, we selected features by fitting negative binomial models. We then implemented supervised models conducting 5-fold cross-validation (CV) with a 4:1 training-to-validation ratio. After variable selection, which reduced the dataset to fewer than 300 OTUs, the Support Vector Classifier achieved the highest F1 score (0.96). When using functional features from MIFASER, the Neural Network model outperformed other models. When considering climatic and demographic variables of the cities, Dirichlet regression over Escherichia , Enterobacter , and Klebsiella bacteria abundances suggests that population increase is indeed associated with a rise in the mean of Escherichia while decreasing temperature is linked to higher proportions of Klebsiella . This study validates microbiome classification using taxonomic features and, to a lesser extent, functional features. It shows that demographic and climatic factors influence urban microbial distribution. A Docker container and a Conda environment are available at the repository: GitHub facilitating broader adoption and validation of these methods by the scientific community., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted without any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2024 Contreras-Peruyero, Nuñez, Vazquez-Rosas-Landa, Santana-Quinteros, Pashkov, Carranza-Barragán, Perez-Estrada, Guerrero-Flores, Balanzario, Muñiz Sánchez, Nakamura, Ramírez-Ramírez and Sélem-Mojica.)

Introduction: Hypnosis-based apps geared toward smoking cessation are among the most downloaded by individuals wanting to reduce or stop smoking. However, to date, there are few evaluations regarding the use or efficacy of hypnosis apps for smoking cessation. Finito is an empirically-based mHealth app developed by Mindset Health designed to provide users with a three-week hypnotherapy program to quit smoking. This study aimed to examine demographic and clinical characteristics of Finito app users and conduct a preliminary analysis of survey data from participants of the program. Method: Finito app users were asked to voluntarily complete an online survey regarding their experience with the program, current smoking habits, app usability, relevant improvement, and demographic information. Retrospective data analyses were conducted to provide descriptive and inferential findings from the responses. Results: A total of 120 individuals responded to the survey. Respondents originated from over five different countries and approximately 72.5% reported completing the full Finito program. Approximately 58.3% of participants reported that they accomplished their goal with Finito with 50.8% of all respondents reporting that they quit smoking and an additional 25.8% reporting that their smoking was reduced. Among a variety of secondary outcomes, saving money was the most frequently reported secondary benefit with 46.7% of respondents endorsing that item. Conclusion: Our preliminary survey results suggest that Finito may be a useful, pleasant, and cost-effective tool in a patient's journey to quit smoking. The majority of app users reported that they achieved their goal with Finito and completion of the program was associated with goal achievement. The Finito app may be effective in the dissemination and delivery of a helpful hypnotherapy intervention across a diverse population., Competing Interests: Dr Gary Elkins is a consultant for Mindset Health and worked with app developers to create the Finito app., (© The Author(s) 2024.)

Hypnotherapy is used in clinical settings to treat mental and physical health-related conditions. Hypnotic response can be measured through hypnotizability scales to help interventionists personalize treatment plans to suit the patients' individualized hypnotic abilities. Examples of these scales are the Elkins Hypnotizability Scale (EHS) and the Stanford Hypnotic Susceptibility Scale, Form C (SHSS:C). According to the previous literature, these scales have good discriminating ability and internal consistency (α = 0.85) in collegiate samples, but the psychometric properties of the EHS for a targeted clinical population have not been determined yet. This study assessed said properties, and results showed adequate reliability of the EHS in a targeted clinical sample and strong convergent validity of the EHS to the SHSS:C. The authors conclude that the EHS is a strong and useful measure of hypnotizability that is pleasant, safe, brief, and sensible to individualities in hypnotic ability found in diverse clinical samples.

The absence of a Spanish translation of the Elkins Hypnotizability Scale (EHS) suggests access to clinical research and hypnotic interventions may be limited for those in predominantly Spanish-speaking populations. The present study aims to mitigate this disparity by providing a translation of the EHS to facilitate participation in experimental research and clinical care in Spanish-speaking communities. The EHS was translated and administered to 9 participants. No major modifications were done to the characteristics or structure of the EHS after translation. To assess feasibility, mean hypnotizability levels and self-reported levels of pleasantness and comprehension were observed and compared to the English EHS. The results provide a Spanish translation of the EHS. This study demonstrates the Spanish translation of the EHS is feasible for further research.

The most common machine-learning methods solve supervised and unsupervised problems based on datasets where the problem's features belong to a numerical space. However, many problems often include data where numerical and categorical data coexist, which represents a challenge to manage them. To transform categorical data into a numeric form, preprocessing tasks are compulsory. Methods such as one-hot and feature-hashing have been the most widely used encoding approaches at the expense of a significant increase in the dimensionality of the dataset. This effect introduces unexpected challenges to deal with the overabundance of variables and/or noisy data. In this regard, in this paper we propose a novel encoding approach that maps mixed-type data into an information space using Shannon's Theory to model the amount of information contained in the original data. We evaluated our proposal with ten mixed-type datasets from the UCI repository and two datasets representing real-world problems obtaining promising results. For demonstrating the performance of our proposal, this was applied for preparing these datasets for classification, regression, and clustering tasks. We demonstrate that our encoding proposal is remarkably superior to one-hot and feature-hashing encoding in terms of memory efficiency. Our proposal can preserve the information conveyed by the original data.

Wnt signaling controls various aspects of developmental and cell biology, as well as contributing to certain cancers. Expression of the human Rho family small GTPase Wrch/RhoU is regulated by Wnt signaling, and Wrch and its paralog Chp/RhoV are both implicated in oncogenic transformation and regulation of cytoskeletal dynamics. We performed developmental genetic analysis of the single Caenorhabditis elegans ortholog of Chp and Wrch, CHW-1. Using a transgenic assay of the distal tip cell migration, we found that wild-type CHW-1 is likely to be partially constitutively active and that we can alter ectopic CHW-1-dependent migration phenotypes with mutations predicted to increase or decrease intrinsic GTP hydrolysis rate. The vulval P7.p polarity decision balances multiple antagonistic Wnt signals, and also uses different types of Wnt signaling. Previously described cooperative Wnt receptors LIN-17/Frizzled and LIN-18/Ryk orient P7.p posteriorly, with LIN-17/Fz contributing approximately two-thirds of polarizing activity. CHW-1 deletion appears to equalize the contributions of these two receptors. We hypothesize that CHW-1 increases LIN-17/Fz activity at the expense of LIN-18/Ryk, thus making the contribution of these signals unequal. For P7.p to polarize correctly and form a proper vulva, LIN-17/Fz and LIN-18/Ryk antagonize other Wnt transmembrane systems VANG-1/VanGogh and CAM-1/Ror. Our genetic data suggest that LIN-17/Fz represses both VANG-1/VanGogh and CAM-1/Ror, while LIN-18/Ryk represses only VANG-1. These data expand our knowledge of a sophisticated signaling network to control P7.p polarity, and suggests that CHW-1 can alter ligand gradients or receptor priorities in the system.

We present the experience of General Hospital CMN La Raza from 1996 to 2011. In this period, we have made 40 liver transplants in adults and 22 pediatric liver transplants. A 100% of adult population received a graft from deceased donor; while in the pediatric age group, 60% were from deceased donor and 40% from living donor. The long-term follow-up is shown only for adult group due to lack of data in the pediatric group. The mean age for the adult group is 42 years old and 4.5 years for the pediatric group. The main indications for liver transplantation in adults were: cirrhosis due to chronic hepatitis C in 47.5% and cirrhosis due to alcohol abuse in 15% of the group. In the pediatric group was more likely the biliary atresia (60%) as an indication for liver transplantation followed by fulminant hepatitis (15%). We show the evolution of the hepatectomy's technique in the adult group: it was initially using conventional technique and later it changed to preservation of cava vein (Piggy Back). In the same way, the reconstruction of the bile-duct was initially made using a T-tube stenting and currently, we use end to end bile-duct reconstruction. The patient's survival at 1, 5, and 10 years was 41.5, 27.2, and 13.6%, respectively; with a median of global survival of 6.2 months. Long-term patient's survival has improved after 2004 compared to previous period.

Nuclear grade is considered a valuable prognostic factor in mammary carcinomas. Since the histological diagnosis of most of these tumors is made by "non expert" pathologists, it was considered interesting to find out the reproducibility of general pathologists to define the nuclear grade. In order to do this, a series of 15 mammary carcinomas, 10 of them randomly selected and 5 because they were considered difficult to classify for nuclear grade, were examined separately by 10 general pathologists. In a first round of observation, each one of them graded the cases according to their own criteria as used routinely, and for a second round they followed a written guide. An analysis of variance was applied to the data and no significant differences were found between observers, neither in the randomly selected cases nor in the total series. The written guide, surprisingly, instead of lowering the differences, increased them. Analysis of the individual performance of observers showed two of them having a great variation between both rounds of observation, and this was considered to influence the results of the whole group. Interobserver performance to discriminate high grade tumors (G3) from the rest, showed a good correlation in all the participants. These results allow us to conclude that in this series, examined by general pathologists, an acceptable reproducibility was observed, specially when high risk tumors were being identified.