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Background: This study aims to characterize the types of procedures performed on patients previously diagnosed with Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (EDS)/hypermobility spectrum disorder (HSD) and investigate rates of revision surgery following open, arthroscopic, or bony stabilization procedures in patients with and without a preoperative diagnosis of EDS/HSD. Methods: This is a retrospective comparative study utilizing a large nationwide claims database. Records were queried between January 2011 and December 2021 for patients undergoing surgical management for glenohumeral instability using Current Procedural Terminology codes. Patients with preoperative diagnoses of EDS/HSD were identified using International Classifications of Disease, ninth revision and tenth revision billing codes. Multivariable logistic regression was used to analyze the distribution of surgical techniques performed for patients with HSD and compare rates of revision operation following open, arthroscopic, and/or bony procedures. Unadjusted and adjusted odds ratios (aOR) and 95% confidence intervals are reported for each comparison. A P value of .05 was used to signify statistical significance. Results: Patients with preoperative diagnoses of EDS/HSD were significantly more likely to undergo open posterior (aOR = 3.47, 95% CI [2.13, 5.31]), open capsulorrhaphy (aOR = 5.04, 95% CI [3.97, 6.32]), and Latarjet (aOR = 1.84, 95% CI [1.33, 2.48]) procedures than patients without EDS/HSD. In contrast, these patients were significantly less likely to undergo arthroscopic Bankart repair (aOR = 0.48, 95% CI [0.40, 0.58]). Preoperative EDS/HSD was also associated with increased rates of secondary shoulder surgery (aOR = 2.63, 95% CI [2.01, 3.39]), but not necessarily ipsilateral revision shoulder surgery (aOR = 1.64, 95% CI [0.89, 2.77], P = .87). Conclusions: The present study demonstrates that EDS/HSD results in greater likelihood of shoulder instability being surgically managed through open procedures as opposed to arthroscopic procedures, as well as greater likelihood of requiring subsequent surgical procedures. These findings provide critical insights to patients with EDS/HSD and their clinical providers for developing treatment plans for shoulder instability. Providers should educate patients with known hyperlaxity to make them aware of their increased odds of future reoperation. Surgeons should also prioritize assessment of ligamentous laxity in all patients and adjust individual treatment protocols accordingly.

Purpose: To compare the odds of patellofemoral instability events requiring subsequent surgery and revision surgical intervention in patients with joint hypermobility syndromes (JHS) to that of a matched cohort. Methods: This is a retrospective cohort study using the PearlDiver Mariner Database. Records were queried between 2010 and 2021 with a diagnosis of JHS, including Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (EDS) and Marfan syndrome. Propensity matching was performed with a randomly generated control cohort without a diagnosis of JHS to account for age, sex, Charlson comorbidity index, diabetes, and obesity. Multivariable logistic regression was used to compare rates of patellar dislocation over a 1- and 2-year period between the 2 cohorts while controlling for previous knee injury or surgery. Patients who sustained a patellar dislocation over the 2-year period were followed to calculate rates of surgical intervention and subsequent revision. Results: In a population of 91,747, those with JHS experienced patellofemoral instability at a significantly increased rate at both a 1-year (adjusted odds ratio [aOR] 11.40; 95% confidence interval 9.23-14.25, P < .001) and 2-year (aOR 8.73; 7.36-10.44, P < .001) periods. The greatest risk was observed in patients with EDS at 1 year (aOR 16.32; 12.54-21.67, P < .001). Of those with an instability event, patients with JHS experienced a significantly increased rate of surgery at 1 year (aOR 3.20; 1.61-7.28, P = .002) and 2 years (aOR 3.18; 1.70-6.62, P < .001). Of those treated with surgery, there was no significant difference in the rates of revision surgical intervention between the JHS and control cohorts. Conclusions: Patients with JHS experienced significantly increased rates of patellofemoral instability and subsequent surgery. However, of those treated with surgery, there was no difference in rates of revision surgical intervention between those with or without joint hypermobility syndromes. Level of Evidence: Level III, retrospective cohort study.

Introduction Inflammation-induced neurodegeneration is the principal driver of disease progression and the accumulation of neurological disabilities in people with multiple sclerosis (pwMS) (1, 2), the most prevalent inflammatory disease of [...], A disturbed balance between excitation and inhibition (E/I balance) is increasingly recognized as a key driver of neurodegeneration in multiple sclerosis (MS), a chronic inflammatory disease of the central nervous system. To understand how chronic hyperexcitability contributes to neuronal loss in MS, we transcriptionally profiled neurons from mice lacking inhibitory metabotropic glutamate signaling with shifted E/I balance and increased vulnerability to inflammation- induced neurodegeneration. This revealed a prominent induction of the nuclear receptor NR4A2 in neurons. Mechanistically, NR4A2 increased susceptibility to excitotoxicity by stimulating continuous VGF secretion leading to glycolysis-dependent neuronal cell death. Extending these findings to people with MS (pwMS), we observed increased VGF levels in serum and brain biopsies. Notably, neuron-specific deletion of Vgf in a mouse model of MS ameliorated neurodegeneration. These findings underscore the detrimental effect of a persistent metabolic shift driven by excitatory activity as a fundamental mechanism in inflammation-induced neurodegeneration.

CLN3 disease is characterised by childhood-onset vision loss and premature death. Using patient-derived retinal cells, the authors show that CLN3 is required for retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) cell structure, microvilli and phagocytosis of photoreceptor outer segments that are essential for vision. They further suggest that gene-therapy targeting RPE cells can be effective for CLN3 disease.

Optical Earth Observation is often limited by weather conditions such as cloudiness. Radar sensors have the potential to overcome these limitations, however, due to the complex radar-surface interaction, the retrieving of crop biophysical variables using this technology remains an open challenge. Aiming to simultaneously benefit from the optical domain background and the all-weather imagery provided by radar systems, we propose a data fusion approach focused on the cross-correlation between radar and optical data streams. To do so, we analyzed several multiple-output Gaussian processes (MOGP) models and their ability to fuse efficiently Sentinel-1 (S1) Radar Vegetation Index (RVI) and Sentinel-2 (S2) vegetation water content (VWC) time series over a dry agri-environment in southern Argentina. MOGP models not only exploit the auto-correlations of S1 and S2 data streams independently but also the inter-channel cross-correlations. The S1 RVI and S2 VWC time series at the selected study sites being the inputs of the MOGP models proved to be closely correlated. Regarding the set of assessed models, the Convolutional Gaussian model (CONV) delivered noteworthy accurate data fusion results over winter wheat croplands belonging to the 2020 and 2021 campaigns (NRMSEwheat2020 = 16.1%; NRMSEwheat2021 = 10.1%). Posteriorly, we removed S2 observations from the S1 & S2 dataset corresponding to the complete phenological cycles of winter wheat from September to the end of December to simulate the presence of clouds in the scenes and applied the CONV model at the pixel level to reconstruct spatiotemporally-latent VWC maps. After applying the fusion strategy, the phenology of winter wheat was successfully recovered in the absence of optical data. Strong correlations were obtained between S2 VWC and S1 & S2 MOGP VWC reconstructed maps for the assessment dates (R2¯wheat−2020 = 0.95, R2¯wheat−2021 = 0.96). Altogether, the fusion of S1 SAR and S2 optical EO data streams with MOGP offers a powerful innovative approach for cropland trait monitoring over cloudy high-latitude regions.

Abstract Since January 2020, after Chinese health authorities identified a new type of coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2), the virus has spread throughout China and consecutively throughout the whole world. The most common symptoms include fever and respiratory tract symptoms. Nevertheless, some patients show less common symptoms such as gastrointestinal or neurological manifestations. This article presents the case of a 65-years old man who was presumptively infected with SARS-CoV-2 during his ski vacation in Austria in March 2020 and acutely presented with typical symptoms of Guillain-Barré syndrome.

Social neuroscientists often use magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to understand the relationship between social experiences and their neural substrates. Although MRI is a powerful method, it has several limitations in the study of social experiences, first and foremost its low ecological validity. To address this limitation, researchers have conducted multimethod studies combining MRI with Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA). However, there are no existing recommendations for best practices for conducting and reporting such studies. To address the absence of standards in the field, we conducted a systematic review of papers that combined the methods. A systematic search of peer-reviewed papers resulted in a pool of 11,558 articles. Inclusion criteria were studies in which participants completed (a) Structural or functional MRI and (b) an EMA protocol that included self-report. Seventy-one papers met inclusion criteria. The following review compares these studies based on several key parameters (e.g., sample size) with the aim of determining feasibility and current standards for design and reporting in the field. The review concludes with recommendations for future research. A special focus is given to the ways in which the two methods were combined analytically and suggestions for novel computational methods that could further advance the field of social neuroscience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data provides an appealing opportunity for all-weather day or night Earth surface monitoring. The European constellation Sentinel-1 (S1) consisting of S1-A and S1-B satellites offers a suitable revisit time and spatial resolution for the observation of croplands from space. The C-band radar backscatter is sensitive to vegetation structure changes and phenology as well as soil moisture and roughness. It also varies depending on the local incidence angle (LIA) of the SAR acquisition’s geometry. The LIA backscatter dependency could therefore be exploited to improve the retrieval of the crop biophysical variables. The availability of S1 radar time-series data at distinct observation angles holds the feasibility to retrieve leaf area index (LAI) evolution considering spatiotemporal coverage of intensively cultivated areas. Accordingly, this research presents a workflow merging multi-date S1 smoothed data acquired at distinct LIA with a Gaussian processes regression (GPR) and a cross-validation (CV) strategy to estimate cropland LAI of irrigated winter wheat. The GPR-S1-LAI model was tested against in situ data of the 2020 winter wheat campaign in the irrigated valley of Colorador river, South of Buenos Aires Province, Argentina. We achieved adequate validation results for LAI with RCV2 = 0.67 and RMSECV = 0.88 m2 m−2. The trained model was further applied to a series of S1 stacked images, generating temporal LAI maps that well reflect the crop growth cycle. The robustness of the retrieval workflow is supported by the associated uncertainties along with the obtained maps. We found that processing S1 smoothed imagery with distinct acquisition geometries permits accurate radar-based LAI modeling throughout large irrigated areas and in consequence can support agricultural management practices in cloud-prone agri-environments.

Earth observation offers an unprecedented opportunity to monitor intensively cultivated areas providing key support to assess fertilizer needs and crop water uptake. Routinely, vegetation traits mapping can help farmers to monitor plant development along the crop’s phenological cycle, which is particularly relevant for irrigated agricultural areas. The high spatial and temporal resolution of the Sentinel-2 (S2) multispectral instrument leverages the possibility to estimate leaf area index (LAI), canopy chlorophyll content (CCC), and vegetation water content (VWC) from space. Therefore, our study presents a hybrid retrieval workflow combining a physically-based strategy with a machine learning regression algorithm, i.e., Gaussian processes regression, and an active learning technique to estimate LAI, CCC and VWC of irrigated winter wheat. The established hybrid models of the three traits were validated against in-situ data of a wheat campaign in the Bonaerense valley, South of the Buenos Aires Province, Argentina, in the year 2020. We obtained good to highly accurate validation results with LAI: R2 = 0.92, RMSE = 0.43 m2 m−2, CCC: R2 = 0.80, RMSE = 0.27 g m−2 and VWC: R2 = 0.75, RMSE = 416 g m−2. The retrieval models were also applied to a series of S2 images, producing time series along the seasonal cycle, which reflected the effects of fertilizer and irrigation on crop growth. The associated uncertainties along with the obtained maps underlined the robustness of the hybrid retrieval workflow. We conclude that processing S2 imagery with optimised hybrid models allows accurate space-based crop traits mapping over large irrigated areas and thus can support agricultural management decisions.

The production of onions bulbs (Allium cepa L.) requires a high amount of nitrogen. According to the demand of sustainable agriculture, the information-development and communication technologies allow for improving the efficiency of nitrogen fertilization. In the south of the province of Buenos Aires, Argentina, between 8000 and 10,000 hectares per year−1 are cultivated in the districts of Villarino and Patagones. This work aimed to analyze the relationship of biophysical variables: leaf area index (LAI), canopy chlorophyll content (CCC), and canopy cover factor (fCOVER), with the nitrogen fertilization of an intermediate cycle onion crop and its effects on yield. A field trial study with different doses of granulated urea and granulated urea was carried out, where biophysical characteristics were evaluated in the field and in Sentinel-2 satellite observations. Field data correlated well with satellite data, with an R2 of 0.91, 0.96, and 0.85 for LAI, fCOVER, and CCC, respectively. The application of nitrogen in all its doses produced significantly higher yields than the control. The LAI and CCC variables had a positive correlation with yield in the months of November and December. A significant difference was observed between U250 (62 Mg ha−1) and the other treatments. The U500 dose led to a yield increase of 27% compared to U250, while the difference between U750 and U500 was 6%.

Conocer la severidad de los incendios rurales es imprescindible para evaluar daños y analizar los procesos de recuperación en forma económica y eficaz. Entre diciembre de 2016 y enero de 2017 se quemaron más de 30.000 km2 de arbustos y pastizales en Argentina. El incendio estudiado en este trabajo, localizado en el sur de la provincia de Buenos Aires, corresponde a una zona semiárida con predominio de arbustales xerófilos y pastizales, siendo este ecosistema muy abundante en la zona centro y sur de Argentina. A partir de campañas de campo en el área afectada por este incendio, se georreferenciaron zonas quemadas y se caracterizó la severidad del fuego en 5 niveles. El objetivo de este trabajo es analizar la potencialidad de los nuevos satélites Sentinel-2 para el estudio de incendios, comparándolo con Landsat-8, pues esta misión ha sido una de las más usadas en ello. A partir de imágenes Sentinel-2 y Landsat-8 antes y después del incendio, se han analizado todas las posibles combinaciones de bandas de ambos satélites en índices espectrales de diferencia normalizada (NDSI), así como la diferencia de esos valores antes y después del incendio (dNDSI). Los resultados muestran una significativa correlación (R2 =0,72 y error de estimación de 0,77) del dNDSI obtenido con Sentinel-2 con los niveles de severidad obtenidos en la campaña de campo usando las bandas 8a y 12 (del NIR y del SWIR), que coinciden con las bandas del Normalized Burn Ratio (NBR) mejorando respecto a Landsat-8 (R2 =0,63 y error de estimación de 0,92). Además se observa que la correlación mejora todavía más usando las bandas 6 y 5 de Sentinel-2 localizadas en la región del Red-Edge (R2 =0,74 y error de estimación de 0,76). Se ha observado una correlación inversa entre la recuperación de la vegetación cuatro meses después del incendio y el nivel de severidad del incendio.

We recently reported the potential of a new gallium compound, gallium acetylacetonate (GaAcAc) in combating osteoclastic bone resorption through inhibition of osteoclast differentiation and function. Herein, we focused on 3D-printed polylactic acid scaffolds that were loaded with GaAcAc and investigated the impact of scaffold pretreatment with polydopamine (PDA) or sodium hydroxide (NaOH). We observed a remarkable increase in scaffold hydrophilicity with PDA or NaOH pretreatment while biocompatibility and in vitro degradation were not affected. NaOH-pretreated scaffolds showed the highest amount of GaAcAc loading when compared to other scaffolds (p < 0.05). NaOH-pretreated scaffolds with GaAcAc loading showed effective reduction of osteoclast counts and size. The trend was supported by suppression of key osteoclast differentiation markers such as NFAT2, c-Fos, TRAF6, & TRAP. All GaAcAc-loaded scaffolds, regardless of surface pretreatment, were effective in inhibiting osteoclast function as evidenced by reduction in the number of resorptive pits in bovine cortical bone slices (p < 0.01). The suppression of osteoclast function according to the type of scaffold followed the ranking: GaAcAc loading without surface pretreatment > GaAcAc loading with NaOH pretreatment > GaAcAc loading with PDA pretreatment. Additional studies will be needed to fully elucidate the impact of surface pretreatment on the efficacy and safety of GaAcAc-loaded 3D-printed scaffolds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

General chemistry is a gateway course that impacts the STEM trajectory of tens of thousands of students each year, and its role in the introductory curriculum as well as its pedagogical design are the center of an ongoing debate. To investigate the role of general chemistry in the curriculum, we report the results of a posthoc analysis of 10 years of archived student data (ca. 12,000 students) aimed at discovering whether taking college-level general chemistry has an impact on student performance in and progression to subsequent chemistry courses. We introduce regression discontinuity; a quasi-experimental method that originated in educational psychology and can be used to estimate causal impacts of educational treatment when ex ante randomization is not feasible. Using regression discontinuity, we estimated a positive impact of prior general chemistry coursework of about one-fourth of a letter grade in two subsequent courses, Organic Chemistry I and a physical general chemistry course for nonmajors. We also found that taking general chemistry had no impact on the likelihood that students will progress to the final course in the nonmajors sequence.