The following prospective study has the aim of evaluating the efficiency of the F22 MAD (mandibular advancement device), a new oral device for the treatment of OSAS (Obstructive Sleep Apnea Syndrome) and snoring. Methods: AHI (apnea-hypopnea index), ODI (Oxygen Desaturation Index), snoring percentage, time spent in the supine position, and Epworth Sleepiness Scale score were evaluated in 19 patients with snoring, mild to moderate OSAS, or severe OSAS who declined CPAP (Continuous Positive Air Pressure) treatment, before and after the application of the F22 MAD. Results: The median value of AHI varied from 15.6 ± 10.7 to 5.7 ± 5.7; the median value of ODI varied from 13.4 ± 8.8 to 6.2 ± 5.2; the median value of the percentage of snoring varied from 30.7 ± 7 to 7.5 ± 10.8, except for the patient who has severe OSAS who increased their value. The value obtained by the self-completion of the ESS questionnaire (Epworth Sleepiness Scale) underwent a statistically significant variation, while clinically significant for 13\19 patients who obtained a reduction of the value >/= of 2 points. Conclusions: It is possible to conclude that the F22 MAD is effective in the treatment of patients with mild and moderate OSAS or simple snoring, reducing the polysomnographic outcomes with statistically and clinically significant results in terms of reduction of AHI, ODI and percentage of snoring. Full article

Bacillus velezensis FZB42 is a plant growth-promoting rhizobacterium (PGPR) and a model microorganism for biofilm studies. Biofilms are required for the colonization and promotion of plant growth in the rhizosphere. However, little is known about how the final stage of the biofilm life cycle is regulated, when cells regain their motility and escape the mature biofilm to spread and colonize new niches. In this study, the non-annotated gene ccdC was found to be involved in the process of biofilm dispersion. We found that the ccdC-deficient strain maintained a wrinkled state at the late stage of biofilm formation in the liquid—gas interface culture, and the bottom solution showed a clear state, indicating that no bacterial cells actively escaped, which was further evidenced by the formation of a cellular ring (biofilm pellicle) located on top of the preformed biofilm. It can be concluded that dispersal, a biofilm property that relies on motility proficiency, is also positively affected by the unannotated gene ccdC. Furthermore, we found that the level of cyclic diguanylate (c-di-GMP) in the ccdC-deficient strain was significantly greater than that in the wild-type strain, suggesting that B. velezensis exhibits a similar mechanism by regulating the level of c-di-GMP, the master regulator of biofilm formation, dispersal, and cell motility, which controls the fitness of biofilms in Pseudomonas aeruginosain. In this study, we investigated the mechanism regulating biofilm dispersion in PGPR. Full article

In this work, we experimentally analyzed and demonstrated the performance of an in-line Mach–Zehnder interferometer in the visible region, with an LED light source. The different waist diameter taper and asymmetric core-offset interferometers proposed used a single-mode fiber (SMF). The visibility achieved was V = 0.14 with an FSR of 23 nm for the taper MZI structure and visibilities of V = 0.3, V = 0.27, and V = 0.34 with FSRs of 23 nm, 17 nm, and 8 nm and separation lengths L of 2.5 cm, 4.0 cm, and 5.0 cm between the core-offset structure, respectively. The experimental investigation of the response to the temperature sensor yielded values from 50 °C to 300 °C; the sensitivity obtained was 3.53 a.u./°C, with ${\mathrm{R}}^2$ of 0.99769 and 1% every 1 °C in the transmission. For a range of 50 °C to 150 °C, 20.3 pm/°C with a ${\mathrm{R}}^2$ of 0.96604 was obtained. Full article

The dilational modulus (E) of polymer films has been commonly measured using the oscillating ring/bubble/drop methods with an external force, and often without specifying the state of the adsorbed film. This study explores an approach where E was determined from the relaxations of surface tension (ST) and surface area (SA) of natural perturbations, in which ST and SA were monitored using a pendant bubble tensiometer. The E of the adsorbed film of PAA (polyacrylic acid) was evaluated for aqueous solutions at C_PAA = 5 × 10⁻⁴ g/cm³, [MW = 5, 25, and 250 (kDa)]. The E (=dγ/dlnA) was estimated from the surface dilational rate (dlnA/dt) and the rate of ST change (dγ/dt) of the bubble surface from the natural perturbation caused by minute variations in ambient temperature. The data revealed that (i) a considerable time is required to reach the equilibrium-ST (γ_eq) and to attain the saturated dilational modulus (E_sat) of the adsorbed PAA film, (ii) both γ_eq and E_sat of PAA solutions increase with MW of PAA, (iii) a lower MW solution requires a longer time to reach its γ_eq and E_sat, and (iv) this approach is workable for evaluating the E of adsorbed polymer films. Full article

Background: Accurate, reliable, non-invasive assessment of patients diagnosed with prostate cancer is essential for proper disease management. Quantitative assessment of multi-parametric MRI, such as through artificial intelligence or spectral/statistical approaches, can provide a non-invasive objective determination of the prostate tumor aggressiveness without side effects or potential poor sampling from needle biopsy or overdiagnosis from prostate serum antigen measurements. To simplify and expedite prostate tumor evaluation, this study examined the efficacy of autonomously extracting tumor spectral signatures for spectral/statistical algorithms for spatially registered bi-parametric MRI. Methods: Spatially registered hypercubes were digitally constructed by resizing, translating, and cropping from the image sequences (Apparent Diffusion Coefficient (ADC), High B-value, T2) from 42 consecutive patients in the bi-parametric MRI PI-CAI dataset. Prostate cancer blobs exceeded a threshold applied to the registered set from normalizing the registered set into an image that maximizes High B-value, but minimizes the ADC and T2 images, appearing “green” in the color composite. Clinically significant blobs were selected based on size, average normalized green value, sliding window statistics within a blob, and position within the hypercube. The center of mass and maximized sliding window statistics within the blobs identified voxels associated with tumor signatures. We used correlation coefficients (R) and p-values, to evaluate the linear regression fits of the z-score and SCR (with processed covariance matrix) to tumor aggressiveness, as well as Area Under the Curves (AUC) for Receiver Operator Curves (ROC) from logistic probability fits to clinically significant prostate cancer. Results: The highest R (R > 0.45), AUC (>0.90), and lowest p-values (<0.01) were achieved using z-score and modified registration applied to the covariance matrix and tumor signatures selected from the “greenest” parts from the selected blob. Conclusions: The first autonomous tumor signature applied to spatially registered bi-parametric MRI shows promise for determining prostate tumor aggressiveness. Full article

Antipsychotics are associated with severe metabolic side effects including insulin resistance; however, the mechanisms underlying this side effect are not fully understood. The skeletal muscle plays a critical role in insulin-stimulated glucose uptake, and changes in skeletal muscle DNA methylation by antipsychotics may play a role in the development of insulin resistance. A double-blind, placebo-controlled trial of olanzapine was performed in healthy volunteers. Twelve healthy volunteers were randomized to receive 10 mg/day of olanzapine for 7 days. Participants underwent skeletal muscle biopsies to analyze DNA methylation changes using a candidate gene approach for the insulin signaling pathway. Ninety-seven methylation sites were statistically significant (false discovery rate < 0.05 and beta difference between the groups of ≥10%). Fifty-five sites had increased methylation in the skeletal muscle of olanzapine-treated participants while 42 were decreased. The largest methylation change occurred at a site in the Peroxisome Proliferator-Activated Receptor Gamma Coactivator 1-Alpha (PPARGC1A) gene, which had 52% lower methylation in the olanzapine group. Antipsychotic treatment in healthy volunteers causes significant changes in skeletal muscle DNA methylation in the insulin signaling pathway. Future work will need to expand on these findings with expression analyses. Full article

The aqueous extract of Annona muricata L. leaves was thoroughly analyzed using the UPLC-MS/MS, in addition to a new approach of examination of the extract’s impact on cancer of EAC(Ehrlich ascites carcinoma) in albino male mice. The aim was to investigate the diversity of the phytochemical constituents of the aqueous leaf capsule extract and their impacts on EAC as anticancer agents. The UPLC-ESI-MS/MS screening resulted in 410 tentatively identified metabolites. Among them, 384 compounds were tentatively identified in a previous study, besides a number of 26 compounds belonging to acetogenins, phenolics, flavonoids, alkaloids, and other miscellaneous compounds, which were exclusively identified in the aqueous extract of the leaf capsule. Interestingly, a new compound was tentatively characterized as galloyl-quinic acid-rutinoside. This study also demonstrated that treating EAC mice with an extract from A. muricata leaves significantly improved the abnormalities in the expression of pro-apoptotic (Bax and caspase-3) and anti-apoptotic (Bcl-2) genes. Furthermore, the extract showed good protection against induced Ehrlich hepatocarcinoma, according to the microscopical, histological, and immune-histochemical analyses of the liver tissues and tumor mass. Full article

Type I interferon signaling (IFN-I) perturbations are major drivers of COVID-19. Dysregulated IFN-I in the brain, however, has been linked to both reduced cognitive resilience and neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s. Previous works from our group have proposed a model where peripheral induction of IFN-I may be relayed to the CNS, even in the absence of fulminant infection. The aim of our study was to identify significantly enriched IFN-I signatures and genes along the transolfactory route, utilizing published datasets of the nasal mucosa and olfactory bulb amygdala transcriptomes of COVID-19 patients. We furthermore sought to identify these IFN-I signature gene networks associated with Alzheimer’s disease pathology and risk. Gene expression data involving the nasal epithelium, olfactory bulb, and amygdala of COVID-19 patients and transcriptomic data from Alzheimer’s disease patients were scrutinized for enriched Type I interferon pathways. Gene set enrichment analyses and gene–Venn approaches were used to determine genes in IFN-I enriched signatures. The Agora web resource was used to identify genes in IFN-I signatures associated with Alzheimer’s disease risk based on its aggregated multi-omic data. For all analyses, false discovery rates (FDR) <0.05 were considered statistically significant. Pathways associated with type I interferon signaling were found in all samples tested. Each type I interferon signature was enriched by IFITM and OAS family genes. A 14-gene signature was associated with COVID-19 CNS and the response to Alzheimer’s disease pathology, whereas nine genes were associated with increased risk for Alzheimer’s disease based on Agora. Our study provides further support to a type I interferon signaling dysregulation along the extended olfactory network as reconstructed herein, ranging from the nasal epithelium and extending to the amygdala. We furthermore identify the 14 genes implicated in this dysregulated pathway with Alzheimer’s disease pathology, among which HLA-C, HLA-B, HLA-A, PSMB8, IFITM3, HLA-E, IFITM1, OAS2, and MX1 as genes with associated conferring increased risk for the latter. Further research into its druggability by IFNb therapeutics may be warranted. Full article

Estuaries that become closed from the ocean through the formation of a sand bar are particularly susceptible to degradation and often experience poor water quality and fish kills. Sampling was conducted seasonally for two years in the deeper waters of the Vasse–Wonnerup (southwestern Australia) after a large fish mortality event to identify the fish species present and determine if richness, abundance, diversity and faunal composition differed among regions and over time. Species richness, abundance and diversity were far greater in the downstream regions than in the upstream regions, reflecting patterns in salinity. Catch rates of two marine estuarine-opportunist mugilids (Mugil cephalus and Aldrichetta forsteri) and an estuarine-resident sparid (Acanthopagrus butcheri), which were the species most affected by the mortality event, were relatively stable. It is suggested that before sampling commenced, mugilids had entered the estuary following an artificial sand bar breach, while the loss of 0+ (new recruits) A. butcheri in the mortality event and subsequent recruitment failure prevented stocks from increasing. Temporal shifts in fish composition were driven by less abundant species, which utilized the estuary more opportunistically. Increases in the occurrences and abundances of these species coincided with an open bar and salinities close to those of seawater. The data also show how the estuary responds to differing hydrodynamic phases and artificial breaches. Full article

The aim was to evaluate the effect of different whitening toothpastes on the enamel surface roughness and color variation. Twenty-four molars were sectioned and divided into eight groups (n = 3) considering the following two factors under study: toothpaste type (Colgate^® Total Original, Oral B^® 3D White Luxe Perfection, Curaprox^® Black is White, and Signal^® White Now) and brushing protocol (short- and long-term). Surface roughness was examined by atomic force microscopy (AFM), and color change (ΔE) was measured using the CIE L*a*b* system. Data were statistically analyzed using comparative parametric tests at a 5% significance level. In the short-term protocol, only the Signal^® White Now toothpaste increased surface roughness (p = 0.038) compared to the Colgate^® Total Original group. No significant differences (p > 0.05) were observed in surface roughness in the long-term protocol. Regarding color variation, no statistically significant differences (p > 0.05) were observed in either protocol. Overall, the whitening toothpastes did not affect enamel surface roughness or color, except for Signal^® White Now, which caused increased roughness in the short-term protocol. However, all toothpastes induced a visual change in color. Full article

Optimal control is a critical tool for mechanical robotic systems, facilitating the precise manipulation of dynamic processes. These processes are described through differential equations governed by a control function, addressing a time-optimal problem with bilinear characteristics. Our study utilizes the classical approach complemented by Pontryagin’s Maximum Principle (PMP) to explore this inverse optimal problem. The objective is to develop an exact piecewise control function that effectively manages trajectory control while considering the effects of viscous friction. Our simulations demonstrate that the proposed control law markedly diminishes oscillations induced by boundary conditions. This research not only aims to delineate the reachability set but also strives to determine the minimal time required for the process. The findings include an exact analytical solution for the stated control problem. Full article

Bone tumors often manifest with non-specific symptoms such as pain and swelling, often posing diagnostic challenges. Optimal treatment requires centralized care in specialized centers, emphasizing the need for complete tumor removal and interdisciplinary collaboration. We developed the Bone Tumor Surgery Complexity Score (BT-SCS) based on a retrospective study of 501 patients. The BT-SCS, structured around patient demographics, tumor biology, and surgical parameters, categorizes surgical cases into four groups to comprehensively assess complexity. Application of the BT-SCS resulted in scores ranging from 3 to 33, with an average score of 14 ± 7.2. Patients with malignant tumors had higher scores (19.6 ± 5.2) compared to those with benign (10.0 ± 3.8) or intermediate malignant tumors (14.6 ± 7.1). Patients with pelvic tumors registered the highest scores (16.0), followed by extremities/trunk (14.3) and spinal tumors (13.6). The BT-SCS was validated against the Case Mix Index (CMI), using an independent cohort of bone and soft tissue cases. This validation process, utilizing Loess smoothing, illustrated the BT-SCS’s granular differentiation of surgical complexity, particularly in the lower-to-mid-range of case severities. The BT-SCS represents a significant shift from volume-based to complexity-based assessments in surgical care, aligning with evolving healthcare paradigms. It serves as a tool for strategic patient allocation to treatment centers, aiming to improve outcomes and benchmarking in sarcoma care. The score’s development and application in clinical practice align with the focus on patient-centered and value-based healthcare. Future enhancements, including machine learning integration and outcome data, will refine its categorization process, enhancing clinical utility. Full article

A simple higher-order model (HOM) is presented in this study for the bending analysis of an intact or delaminated composite and sandwich beam. This model adopts the concept of sub-laminates to simulate multilayered structures, and each sub-laminate takes cubic variation for axial displacement and linear variation for transverse displacement through the thickness. A sub-laminate possesses displacement components at its surfaces (bottom and top) that provide a straightforward way to improve the accuracy of prediction by stacking several sub-laminates. Thus, analysts will have the flexibility to balance the computational cost and the accuracy by selecting an appropriate sub-lamination scheme. The proposed model was implemented by developing a C⁰ beam element that has only displacement unknowns. The model was used to solve numerical examples of composite and sandwich beams to demonstrate its performance. Full article

Research has suggested that near future events are typically viewed from a first-person (an own-eyes, also known as field) perspective while distant future events are typically viewed from a third-person (an observer) perspective. We investigated whether these distinct mental perspectives would be accompanied by distinct eye movement activities. We invited participants to imagine near and distant future events while their eye movements (i.e., scan path) were recorded by eye-tracking glasses. Analysis demonstrated fewer but longer fixations for near future thinking than for distant future thinking. Analysis also demonstrated more “field” mental visual perspective responses for near than for distant future thinking. The long fixations during near future thinking may mirror a mental visual exploration involving processing of a more complex visual representation compared with distant future thinking. By demonstrating how near future thinking triggers both “field” responses and long fixations, our study demonstrates how the temporality of future thinking triggers both distinct mental imagery and eye movement patterns. Full article

The First World War blurred the lines between “ordinary” and “literary” writing practices. Many sources corroborate this: necrologies written about poets who died in the act of writing not a poem but rather a letter, or introductions to poetry collections where bereaved families and friends admit they had no knowledge of their loved one’s writing practices until they found a journal full of poems after the author’s death, which they only published as a posthumous tribute. This article uses examples of French poetry of the Great War to explore this permeability between what is considered war poetry and what is considered war ephemera. The main question it addresses is what changes when we look at the war poems that were initially ephemera or ordinary writing. Whose stories get told when poetry is studied not as literature to be judged as accomplished or failed art but as a way of writing to make sense of the world? It argues that when we choose to read poems as ephemera and from the point of view of a larger anthropology of writing practices, diverse histories emerge and communities who write poetry not only as an artistic pursuit but also as a means of organizing experience and leaving traces behind reclaim ownership over their own narratives. This can challenge the false equivalence between the cultural history of warfare and an intellectual history of the elites at war and includes poetry within paradigmatic shifts that place objects at the centre of mediations of the experience of war. Full article

Though often under-represented in the official and national narratives and in Canadian military historiography more broadly, the intimate and personal lived experiences of Canadian prisoners of war (POW) during the Second World War can be found in archives, photography collections, and collections of war art. In an attempt to see past the mythologised versions of POWs that appear in Hollywood films, best-selling monographs, and other forms of popular culture, it is through bits of ephemera—including wartime log books and the drawings carefully kept and sent home to loved ones along with handwritten letters—that the stories of non-combatant men and women who spent their war as POWs, can be told. Together, Canadian POWs created and curated community and fostered unconventional family ties, sometimes called “emotional communities”, through the collection and accumulation of drawings, illustrations, paintings, and other examples of war art on the pages of their wartime log books while living behind barbed wire. This article uncovers some of these stories, buried in the thousands of boxes in the George Metcalf Archival Collection—the textual archives—at the Canadian War Museum (CWM) in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. Full article

During the Holocaust, poets went to extraordinary lengths to write their poems and transmit them. Poems that were written during those years were often buried in the ground, stitched into clothing, smuggled out of prisons, or graffitied onto walls. These object documents carried more than facts about these events; they carried the feeling of living through these events. This research explores the last poems of four Holocaust poets, Władysław Szlengel, Selma Meerbaum-Eisinger, Hannah Szenes, and Abramek Koplowicz, investigating not only the poems but their object-ness and their stories of transference. These poems, like urgent postcards, deliver messages to a family, to a community, to the world. They ask―what does it mean to write a poem as a last will and testament? Full article

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the repair process in rat calvaria filled with synthetic biphasic bioceramics (Plenum^® Osshp-70:30, HA:βTCP) or autogenous bone, covered with a polydioxanone membrane (PDO). A total of 48 rats were divided into two groups (n = 24): particulate autogenous bone + Plenum^® Guide (AUTOPT+PG) or Plenum^® Osshp + Plenum^® Guide (PO+PG). A defect was created in the calvaria, filled with the grafts, and covered with a PDO membrane, and euthanasia took place at 7, 30, and 60 days. Micro-CT showed no statistical difference between the groups, but there was an increase in bone volume (56.26%), the number of trabeculae (2.76 mm), and intersection surface (26.76 mm²) and a decrease in total porosity (43.79%) in the PO+PG group, as well as higher values for the daily mineral apposition rate (7.16 µm/day). Histometric analysis presented material replacement and increased bone formation at 30 days compared to 7 days in both groups. Immunostaining showed a similar pattern between the groups, with an increase in proteins related to bone remodeling and formation. In conclusion, Plenum^® Osshp + Plenum^® Guide showed similar and sometimes superior results when compared to autogenous bone, making it a competent option as a bone substitute. Full article

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) approaches that could learn from large data sources have been identified as useful tools to support clinicians in their decisional process; AI and ML implementations have had a rapid acceleration during the recent COVID-19 pandemic. However, many ML classifiers are “black box” to the final user, since their underlying reasoning process is often obscure. Additionally, the performance of such models suffers from poor generalization ability in the presence of dataset shifts. Here, we present a comparison between an explainable-by-design (“white box”) model (Bayesian Network (BN)) versus a black box model (Random Forest), both studied with the aim of supporting clinicians of Policlinico San Matteo University Hospital in Pavia (Italy) during the triage of COVID-19 patients. Our aim is to evaluate whether the BN predictive performances are comparable with those of a widely used but less explainable ML model such as Random Forest and to test the generalization ability of the ML models across different waves of the pandemic. Full article

Excessive blood loss could lead to pathological conditions such as tissue necrosis, organ failure, and death. The limitations of recently developed hemostatic approaches, such as their low mechanical strength, inadequate wet tissue adhesion, and weak hemostatic activity, pose challenges for their application in controlling visceral bleeding. In this study, a novel hydrogel (CT) made of collagen and tannic acid (TA) was proposed. By altering the proportions between the two materials, the mechanical properties, adhesion, and coagulation ability were evaluated. Compared to commercial hydrogels, this hydrogel has shown reduced blood loss and shorter hemostatic time in rat hepatic and cardiac bleeding models. This was explained by the hydrogel’s natural hemostatic properties and the significant benefits of wound closure in a moist environment. Better biodegradability was achieved through the non-covalent connection between tannic acid and collagen, allowing for hemostasis without hindering subsequent tissue repair. Therefore, this hydrogel is a new method for visceral hemostasis that offers significant advantages in treating acute wounds and controlling major bleeding. And the production method is simple and efficient, which facilitates its translation to clinical applications. Full article

Fungal infections cause 1.7 million deaths annually, which can be attributed not only to fungus-specific factors, such as antifungal resistance and biofilm formation, but also to drug-related challenges. In this study, the potential of Amphotericin (AmB) loaded polymeric nanoparticles (AmB-NPs) combined with murine monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) (i.e., CC5 and DD11) was investigated as a strategy to overcome these challenges. To achieve this goal, AmB-NPs were prepared by nanoprecipitation using different polymers (polycaprolactone (PCL) and poly(D,L-lactide) (PLA)), followed by comprehensive characterization of their physicochemical properties and in vitro biological performance. The results revealed that AmB-loaded NPs exhibited no cytotoxicity toward mammalian cells (baby hamster kidney cells—BHK and human monocyte cells—THP-1). Conversely, both AmB-NPs demonstrated a cytotoxic effect against C. albicans, C. neoformans, and H. capsulatum throughout the entire evaluated range (from 10 µg/mL to 0.1 µg/mL), with a significant MIC of up to 0.031 µg/mL. Moreover, the combination of AmB-NPs with mAbs markedly intensified antifungal activity, resulting in a synergistic effect that was two to four times greater than that of AmB-NPs alone. These findings suggest that the combination of AmB-NPs with mAbs could be a promising new treatment for fungal infections that is potentially more effective and less toxic than current antifungal treatments. Full article

(1) Background: Assessing phonatory disorders due to laryngeal biomechanical alterations requires aerodynamic analysis, assessing subglottic pressure, transglottic flow, and laryngeal resistance. This study explores whether the acoustic parameter, the relative fundamental frequency (RFF), can be studied using the current acoustic analysis protocol at the University of Navarra’s voice laboratory and its association with pathologies linked to laryngeal biomechanical alterations. (2) Methods: A retrospective cohort study included patients diagnosed with muscular tension dysphonia, organic lesions of the vocal fold, and vocal fold paralysis (VFP) at the Clínica Universidad de Navarra from 2019 to 2021. Each patient underwent endoscopic laryngeal exploration, followed by acoustic study, RFF calculation, and an aerodynamic study. Additionally, a control group was recruited. (3) Results: 79 patients and 22 controls were studied. Two-way ANOVA showed significant effects for groups and cycles in offset and onset cycles. Statistically significant differences were observed in cycle 1 onset among all groups and in cycles 1 and 2 between the control group and non-healthy groups. (4) Conclusions: RFF is a valuable indicator of phonatory biomechanics, distinguishing healthy and pathological voices and different disorders. RFF in onset cycles offers a cost-effective, accurate method for assessing biomechanical disorders without complex aerodynamic analyses. This study describes RFF values in VFP for the first time, revealing differences regardless of aerodynamic patterns. Full article