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Advanced treatments based on immune system manipulation, gene transcription and regulation, specific organ and cell targeting, and/or photon energy conversion have emerged as promising therapeutic strategies against a range of challenging diseases. Naturally derived macromolecules (e.g., proteins, lipids, polysaccharides, and polyphenols) have increasingly found use as fundamental building blocks for nanostructured particles as their advantageous properties, including biocompatibility, biodegradability, inherent bioactivity, and diverse chemical properties make them suitable for advanced therapeutic applications. This review provides a timely and comprehensive summary of the use of a broad range of natural building blocks in the rapidly developing field of advanced therapeutics with insights specific to nanostructured particles. We focus on an up-to-date overview of the assembly of nanostructured particles using natural building blocks and summarize their key scientific and preclinical milestones for advanced therapies, including adoptive cell therapy, immunotherapy, gene therapy, active targeted drug delivery, photoacoustic therapy and imaging, photothermal therapy, and combinational therapy. A cross-comparison of the advantages and disadvantages of different natural building blocks are highlighted to elucidate the key design principles for such bio-derived nanoparticles toward improving their performance and adoption. Current challenges and future research directions are also discussed, which will accelerate our understanding of designing, engineering, and applying nanostructured particles for advanced therapies.

The effects of behavioral addiction to video games has received increasing attention in the literature, given increased use intensity among subgroups of video game players.

This study seeks to empirically determine the relationship between intensity of video gaming and hedonic experience of the player.

We conducted a survey of 835 individuals who regularly play video games to determine the relationship between intensity of use and hedonic experience. We divided the sample into quartiles by self-reported video game addictive symptom level (from the Internet Gaming Disorder Scale) and conducted polynomial regressions separately for each quartile.

We found that the higher video game addictive symptom level groups experienced a U-shaped (curvilinear) relationship between hedonic experience and intensity of play, whereas groups with lower video game addictive symptom levels exhibited no such relationship. The coefficients for the highest addictive symptom level group (quartile 4) for marginal effects for hOur results are consistent with sensitization and tolerance theories, which suggest that high-symptom groups experience frustration and disappointment until they achieve excessive dopamine release, at which point their hedonic experience is expected to improve with additional play. Conversely, low-symptom groups experience no such fall-and-rise pattern. This result is consistent with the outcome that members of the latter group play the game for the direct experience, such that their hedonic experience is more directly related to events occurring in the game than to the increasingly elusive pursuit of excessive dopamine release. We also find that high-symptom groups spend substantially more time and money to support video game use and are much more likely to engage in video game use at the expense of other important activities, such as working, sleeping, and eating.The changing expression levels of ocular proteins in response to systemic disease has been well established in literature. In this study, we examined the ocular proteome to identify protein biomarkers with altered expression levels in women diagnosed with breast cancer. Tear samples were collected from 273 participants using Schirmer strip collection methods. Following protein elution, proteome wide trypsin digestion with Liquid chromatography/tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) was used to identify potential protein biomarkers with altered expression levels in breast cancer patients. Selected biomarkers were further validated by enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). A total of 102 individual tear samples (51 breast cancer, 51 control) were analyzed by LC-MS/MS which identified 301 proteins. Spectral intensities between the groups were compared and 14 significant proteins (p-value less then 0.05) were identified as potential biomarkers in breast cancer patients. Three biomarkers, S100A8 (p-value = 0.0069, 7.8-fold increase), S100A9 (p-value = 0.0048, 10.2-fold increase), and Galectin-3 binding protein (p-value = 0.01, 3.0-fold increase) with an increased expression in breast cancer patients were selected for validation using ELISA. Validation by ELISA was conducted using 171 individual tear samples (75 Breast Cancer and 96 Control). Similar to the observed LC-MS/MS results, S100A8 (p-value less then 0.0001) and S100A9 (p-value less then 0.0001) showed significantly higher expression in breast cancer patients. However, galectin-3 binding protein had increased expression in the control group. Our results provide further support for using tear proteins to detect non-ocular systemic diseases such as breast cancer. Our work provides crucial details to support the continued evaluation of tear samples in the screening and diagnosis of breast cancer and paves the way for future evaluation of the tear proteome for screening and diagnosis of systemic diseases.We explored the effect of kinesthetic illusion induced by visual stimulation (KINVIS) therapy on motor function in patients with stroke during the subacute phase based on paralysis severity. selleck The study was performed using an ABAB design (A1, B1, A2, B2; for 10 days each). KINVIS therapy was additionally administered in periods B1 and B2. Ten patients with stroke were classified according to severity. The improvement in upper limb motor function was higher after B1 and B2 than after A1 and A2 in the moderate group. The effect of KINVIS therapy increases the degree of improvement in motor function, especially in the moderate group.Rifaximin and lactulose are widely used in patients with hepatic encephalopathy (HE); however, data on whether the combined use of rifaximin and lactulose could yield additional benefits for patients with HE are limited and inconclusive. We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) to determine the treatment effectiveness of rifaximin plus lactulose versus lactulose alone in patients with HE. Electronic databases (PubMed, Embase, Cochrane Library, and China National Knowledge Infrastructure) were searched for eligible RCTs from their inception until November 2020. Relative risks (RRs) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were applied to calculate pooled effect estimates for the treatment effectiveness of rifaximin plus lactulose versus lactulose alone by using the random-effects model. Sensitivity, subgroup, and publication bias analyses were also performed. We included 7 RCTs enrolling 843 patients with HE. We noted that the use of rifaximin plus lactulose was associated with an increased incidence of effective rate than lactulose alone (RR, 1.30; 95% CI, 1.10-1.53; P = 0.002). Moreover, the use of rifaximin plus lactulose was associated with a reduced risk of mortality as compared with lactulose alone (RR, 0.57; 95% CI, 0.41-0.80; P = 0.001). This study found that the use of rifaximin in combination with lactulose could provide additional benefits in terms of increased effective rate and decreased mortality than lactulose alone in patients with HE.This paper demonstrates the application of hybrid energy system (HES) that comprises of photovoltaic (PV) array, battery storage system (BSS) and stand-by diesel generator (DGen) to mitigate the problem of load shedding. The main work involves techno-economic modelling to optimize the size of HES such that the levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) is minimized. The particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm is used to determine the optimum size of the components (PV, BSS). Simulations are performed in MATLAB using real dataset of irradiance, temperature and load shedding schedule of the small residential community situated in the city of Quetta, Pakistan. The LCOE for the HES system under study is 8.32 cents/kWh-which is lower than the conventional load shedding solution, namely the uninterruptable power supply (UPS) (13.06 cents/kWh) and diesel and generator system (29.19 cents/kWh). In fact, the LCOE of the HRES is lower than the grid electricity price of Pakistan (9.3 cents/kWh). Besides that, the HES alleviates the grid burden by 47.9% and 13.1% compared to the solution using the UPS and generator, respectively. The outcomes of the study suggests that HES is able to improve reliability and availability of electric power for regions that is affected by the load shedding issue.Objective This study examined levels of mental health literacy amongst US university students, as well as relationships between mental health literacy, help-seeking behaviors, and mental health outcomes. Participants Three hundred and twenty-six (326) US university students participated in this study online. Methods Participants filled out questionnaires that assessed their mental health literacy, intentions to seek support, psychological distress, wellbeing, and self-compassion. Results The mean mental health literacy score was 123.96 (SD = 16.01). Women scored significantly higher than men (p  less then  .01) on mental health literacy. Individuals who had a previous mental disorder diagnosis had significantly higher scores than those with no previous diagnosis (p  less then  .01). A significant positive relationship was found between mental health literacy and self-compassion (p  less then  .01). Conclusions Our research highlights significant differences between women and men in relation to mental health literacy, psychological distress, and help-seeking behavior. There is a need to design culturally competent interventions that involve diverse students.Histology is a long standing and well-established gold standard for pathological characterizations. In recent years however, synchrotron radiation-based micro-computed tomography (SRμCT) has become a tool for extending the imaging of two-dimensional thin sections into three-dimensional imaging of tissue blocks, enabling so-called virtual histology with arbitrary clipping planes, volumetric rendering and automatic segmentation. In this study, we present a thorough characterization of human carotid plaques after endarterectomy of patients with stroke or transient ischemic attack (TIA), investigating several different pathologic structures using both SRμCT and histology. Phase-contrast SRμCT was performed with two different magnifications (voxel sizes 6.5 μm and 0.65 μm, respectively), and histology was performed with multiple different stainings (Alpha-actin, Glycophorin A, von Kossa, Movat, CD68). The 0.65 μm high-resolution SRμCT was performed on selected areas with plaque typical relevant morphology, identified on the 6.5 μm low-resolution SRμCT. The tomography datasets were reconstructed with additional 3D volume rendering and compared to histology. In total, nine different regions with typical pathologic structures were identified and imaged with high-resolution SRμCT. The results show many characteristics typical for advanced atherosclerotic plaques, clinically relevant, namely ruptures with thrombosis, neo-vascularization, inflammatory infiltrates in shoulder regions, lipid rich necrotic cores (LRNC), thin fibrous cap, calcifications, lumen irregularities, and changes in vessel wall structures such as the internal elastic membrane. This method's non-destructive nature renders details of micro-structures with an excellent visual likeness to histology, with the additional strength of multiplanar and 3D visualization and the possibility of multiple re-scans.