Hornersutton8434
individual with SARS-CoV-2.
This cohort study identified a COVID-19 Delta variant outbreak at an indoor event despite a high proportion of vaccinated attendees. It found that vaccination was associated with a reduced risk of infection.
This cohort study identified a COVID-19 Delta variant outbreak at an indoor event despite a high proportion of vaccinated attendees. It found that vaccination was associated with a reduced risk of infection.
Transgender and nonbinary (TNB) youths are disproportionately burdened by poor mental health outcomes owing to decreased social support and increased stigma and discrimination. Although gender-affirming care is associated with decreased long-term adverse mental health outcomes among these youths, less is known about its association with mental health immediately after initiation of care.
To investigate changes in mental health over the first year of receiving gender-affirming care and whether initiation of puberty blockers (PBs) and gender-affirming hormones (GAHs) was associated with changes in depression, anxiety, and suicidality.
This prospective observational cohort study was conducted at an urban multidisciplinary gender clinic among TNB adolescents and young adults seeking gender-affirming care from August 2017 to June 2018. Data were analyzed from August 2020 through November 2021.
Time since enrollment and receipt of PBs or GAHs.
Mental health outcomes of interest were assessed via the Patieed by this population, particularly the high levels of self-harm and suicide.
This study found that gender-affirming medical interventions were associated with lower odds of depression and suicidality over 12 months. These data add to existing evidence suggesting that gender-affirming care may be associated with improved well-being among TNB youths over a short period, which is important given mental health disparities experienced by this population, particularly the high levels of self-harm and suicide.Sparse coding has been incorporated in models of the visual cortex for its computational advantages and connection to biology. But how the level of sparsity contributes to performance on visual tasks is not well understood. In this work, sparse coding has been integrated into an existing hierarchical V2 model (Hosoya & Hyvärinen, 2015), but replacing its independent component analysis (ICA) with an explicit sparse coding in which the degree of sparsity can be controlled. After training, the sparse coding basis functions with a higher degree of sparsity resembled qualitatively different structures, such as curves and corners. Infigratinib The contributions of the models were assessed with image classification tasks, specifically tasks associated with mid-level vision including figure-ground classification, texture classification, and angle prediction between two line stimuli. In addition, the models were assessed in comparison with a texture sensitivity measure that has been reported in V2 (Freeman et al., 2013) and a deleted-region inference task. The results from the experiments show that although sparse coding performed worse than ICA at classifying images, only sparse coding was able to better match the texture sensitivity level of V2 and infer deleted image regions, both by increasing the degree of sparsity in sparse coding. Greater degrees of sparsity allowed for inference over larger deleted image regions. The mechanism that allows for this inference capability in sparse coding is described in this article.
Does prior severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection in women undergoing fertility treatments affect the outcomes of fresh ART cycles?
SARS-CoV-2 infection does not affect fresh ART treatment outcomes, except for a possible long-term negative effect on oocyte yield (>180 days postinfection).
A single previous study suggested no evidence that a history of asymptomatic or mild SARS-CoV-2 infection in females caused impairment of fresh ART treatment outcomes.
Retrospective cohort study, including all SARS-CoV-2 infected women who underwent fresh ART cycles within a year from infection (the first cycle postinfection), between October 2020 and June 2021, matched to non-diagnosed controls.
Patients from two large IVF units in Israel who were infected with SARS-CoV-2 and later underwent fresh ART cycles were matched by age to non-diagnosed, non-vaccinated controls. Demographics, cycle characteristics and cycle outcomes, including oocyte yield, maturation rate, fertilization of good quality embryos and clinical pregnancy rates, in fresh ART cycles, except for a possible long-term negative effect on oocyte yield when retrieval occurs >180 days post-SARS-CoV-2 infection. Further studies are warranted to support these findings.
None.
0010-21-HMC, 0094-21-ASF.
0010-21-HMC, 0094-21-ASF.
Higher protein and fiber diets promote weight management and metabolic health.
This study aimed to determine if greater weight loss and positive changes in metabolic outcomes could be achieved with twice-daily consumption of a high-protein and fiber-based multi-ingredient nutritional shake (HPF) compared with an isocaloric low-protein, lower fiber-based placebo (LPF).
Study procedures were conducted by an independent research organization under clinicaltrials.gov registration NCT03057873. Healthy overweight and obese adults [n=206; BMI (kg/m2) 27-35; 70% female] were randomly assigned to HPF or LPF. All participants were prescribed an energy-restricted diet (500kcal/d less than energy needs) and consumed a HPF (17g protein, 6g fiber) or LPF (1g protein, 3g fiber) shake 30 min before breakfast and lunch for 12 wk. Primary outcomes included body weight and total body fat percentage. Blood samples were collected at days (D) 0, 28, 56, and 84 for secondary analyses related to metabolic markers of health.
ake consumed as a preload before breakfast and lunch positively influenced weight management and metabolic outcomes in overweight adults compared with an LPF placebo. These findings suggest that specific nutrient factors (i.e., potentially including protein, fiber, and bioactive content) other than calorie reduction alone influence the success of a weight-loss regimen. This trial was registered at www.clinicaltrials.gov as NCT03057873.In the phylogenetic tree of RRM-type Rbps (RNA-binding proteins) in cyanobacteria, Rbp1 of Synechocystis 6803, with a single RRM (RNA recognition motif) region and a C-terminal glycine-rich region, and Rbp2, without the C-terminal region, both belong to the cluster I, whereas Rbp3 with a different type of C-terminal region is in the cluster II. Rbp1 is required for the cold adaptability of the cyanobacterium, and Rbp3 is for salt tolerance. Here, we report that the C-terminal region of Rbp1 is not required for the cold adaptability function but the C-terminal region of Rbp3 can direct the RRM of Rbp1 to the salt tolerance function. Bioinformatic and experimental analyses indicate that Rbps in cyanobacteria should be classified as two types. It is the first report for the distinct roles of C-terminal regions of Rbps in stress tolerance of cyanobacteria.Former studies have established that loss of heterozygosity can be a key driver of sequence evolution in unicellular eukaryotes and tissues of metazoans. However, little is known about whether the distribution of loss of heterozygosity events is largely random or forms discernible patterns across genomes. To initiate our experiments, we introduced selectable markers to both arms of all chromosomes of the budding yeast. Subsequent extensive assays, repeated over several genetic backgrounds and environments, provided a wealth of information on the genetic and environmental determinants of loss of heterozygosity. Three findings stand out. First, the number of loss of heterozygosity events per unit time was more than 25 times higher for growing than starving cells. Second, loss of heterozygosity was most frequent when regions of homology around a recombination site were identical, about a half-% sequence divergence was sufficient to reduce its incidence. Finally, the density of loss of heterozygosity events was highly dependent on the genome's physical architecture. It was several-fold higher on short chromosomal arms than on long ones. Comparably large differences were seen within a single arm where regions close to a centromere were visibly less affected than regions close, though usually not strictly adjacent, to a telomere. We suggest that the observed uneven distribution of loss of heterozygosity events could have been caused not only by an uneven density of initial DNA damages. Location-depended differences in the mode of DNA repair, or its effect on fitness, were likely to operate as well.In CD-1 mice, gestational-only exposure to cadmium (Cd) causes female-specific hepatic insulin resistance, metabolic disruption, and obesity. To evaluate whether sex differences in uptake and changes in essential metal concentrations contribute to metabolic outcomes, placental and liver Cd and essential metal concentrations were quantified in male and female offspring perinatally exposed to 500 ppb CdCl2. Exposure resulted in increased maternal liver Cd+2 concentrations (364 µg/kg) similar to concentrations found in non-occupationally exposed human liver. At gestational day (GD) 18, placental Cd and manganese concentrations were significantly increased in exposed males and females, and zinc was significantly decreased in females. Placental efficiency was significantly decreased in GD18-exposed males. Increases in hepatic Cd concentrations and a transient prenatal increase in zinc were observed in exposed female liver. Fetal and adult liver iron concentrations were decreased in both sexes, and decreases in hepatic zinc, iron, and manganese were observed in exposed females. Analysis of GD18 placental and liver metallothionein mRNA expression revealed significant Cd-induced upregulation of placental metallothionein in both sexes, and a significant decrease in fetal hepatic metallothionein in exposed females. In placenta, expression of metal ion transporters responsible for metal ion uptake was increased in exposed females. In liver of exposed adult female offspring, expression of the divalent cation importer (Slc39a14/Zip14) decreased, whereas expression of the primary exporter (Slc30a10/ZnT10) increased. These findings demonstrate that Cd can preferentially cross the female placenta, accumulate in the liver, and cause lifelong dysregulation of metal ion concentrations associated with metabolic disruption.
Calciprotein particles (CPP) are colloidal aggregates of calcium phosphate and the mineral-binding protein fetuin-A, and are potential mediators of cardiovascular disease in chronic kidney disease (CKD). Emerging evidence suggests non-calcium containing phosphate binders may reduce serum CPP in patients with kidney failure who require dialysis, however it is unclear whether similar interventions are effective in patients with earlier stages of CKD.
IMPROVE-CKD was a multi-centre, placebo-controlled, randomised trial of lanthanum carbonate on cardiovascular markers in 278 participants with stage 3b/4 CKD. In this pre-specified exploratory analysis, primary (CPP-I) and secondary (CPP-II) CPP were measured in a sub-cohort of participants over 96 weeks. Treatment groups were compared using linear mixed-effects models, and the relationship between serum CPP and pulse wave velocity (PWV) and abdominal aortic calcification (AAC) was examined.
253 participants had CPP data for baseline and at least one follow-up timepoint and were included in this analysis.