Nevin Manimala

Chron Respir Dis. 2024 Jan-Dec;21:14799731241238435. doi: 10.1177/14799731241238435.

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVES: This study aimed to determine the feasibility of a group-based pilot programme of low-to-moderate physical activity training, education and social activities, by investigating acceptability, practicality, implementation and efficacy testing. We offer suggestions on programme adaptions for future study.

METHODS: People with a range of chronic respiratory diseases were invited to participate in a pilot 12 week group activity programme. Activities included outdoor walking, tai-chi, education and a range of social activities. Acceptability was determined by participant experiences determined during interviews. Practicality was determined by programme and outcome measure completion, cost and adverse events. Implementation was determined according to whether the programme ran as planned. Efficacy was determined by statistical analyses of outcomes including hand grip strength, timed up and go test, COPD Helplessness Index, COPD Assessment Test, and measures of physical activity via accelerometry.

RESULTS: Thematic analysis indicated that the “BreatheHappy” programme was acceptable. Seven of nine participants completed eight out of 10 sessions and the majority completed all outcome measures. “BreatheHappy” was therefore considered practical. The programme was not implemented as planned, with only 10 sessions running rather than the 12 intended. There was a significant increase in daily step counts (MD: 1284 95% CI: 240-2329 p: 0.024 effect size: 0.988), stepping time (MD: 16 min 95% CI: 5-27 min p: 0.011 effect size: 1.36) and daily minutes completing light physical activity (MD: 23 95% CI: 6-38 p: 0.006 effect size: 1.6). However, time spent sitting for ≥30 min but ≤60 min significantly increased (MD: 26 95% CI: 0.2-52 min p: 0.049 effect size: 0.931), showing signs of efficacy and changing physical activity behaviour patterns.

DISCUSSION: A 10-week programme of low-moderate physical activity training, education and social activities shows signs of feasibility for future research. Suggested adaptions for future study include using physical activity measures such as daily step count or light physical activity for a primary outcome, and mental health and social health related outcome measures relatable to participant’s beneficial experiences of the programme. Recruitment in future studies will try and reach both those less socially active and possibly those who have completed pulmonary rehabilitation (PR). Venues should be close to efficient transport links whilst different frequencies and durations of programme delivery should be trialled. Adequate funding should be provided for both staff running the programme and blinded research staff for outcome measurement.

PMID:38553857 | DOI:10.1177/14799731241238435

J Cachexia Sarcopenia Muscle. 2024 Mar 29. doi: 10.1002/jcsm.13461. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: Telomere attrition may share common biological mechanisms with bone and muscle loss with aging. Here, we investigated the association between these hallmarks of aging using data from UK Biobank, a large observational study.

METHODS: Leukocyte telomere length (LTL as T/S ratio) was measured using a multiplex qPCR assay at baseline (2006-2010). Bone mineral density (whole body and regional; via dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry), trabecular bone score (via lumbar-spine dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry images), fat-free muscle volume (thighs; via magnetic resonance imaging), and muscle fat infiltration (thighs; via magnetic resonance imaging) were measured during the imaging visit (2014-2018). Regression models were used to model LTL against a muscle or bone outcome, unadjusted and adjusted for covariates.

RESULTS: A total of 16 356 adults (mean age: 62.8 ± 7.5 years, 50.5% women) were included. In the fully adjusted model, thigh fat-free muscle volume was associated with LTL in the overall sample (adjusted standardized β (aβ) = 0.017, 95% CI 0.009 to 0.026, P < 0.001, per SD increase in LTL), with stronger associations in men (aβ = 0.022, 95% CI 0.010 to 0.034, P < 0.001) than in women (aβ = 0.013, 95% CI 0.000 to 0.025, P = 0.041) (sex-LTL P = 0.028). The adjusted odds ratio (aOR) for low thigh fat-free muscle volume (body mass index-adjusted, sex-specific bottom 20%) was 0.93 per SD increase in LTL (95% CI 0.89 to 0.96, P < 0.001) in the overall sample, with stronger associations in men (aOR = 0.92, 95% CI 0.87 to 0.99, P = 0.008) than women (aOR = 0.93, 95% CI 0.88 to 0.98, P = 0.009), although the sex difference was not statistically significant in this model (sex-LTL P = 0.37). LTL was not associated with bone mineral density, trabecular bone score, or muscle fat infiltration in the overall or subgroup analyses (P > 0.05).

CONCLUSIONS: LTL was consistently associated with thigh fat-free muscle volume in men and women. Future research should investigate moderating effects of lifestyle factors (e.g., physical activity, nutrition, or chronic diseases) in the association between LTL and muscle volume.

PMID:38553835 | DOI:10.1002/jcsm.13461

J Neurosurg. 2024 Mar 29:1-9. doi: 10.3171/2024.1.JNS232450. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVE: Psammomatous meningiomas (PMs) are a rare histological subtype of meningioma but are rather frequent in spinal meningiomas. The authors aimed to analyze the incidence, clinical features, molecular alterations, long-term outcomes, and prognostic factors of PMs.

METHODS: In total, 151 patients with PMs were included in this study. Clinical characteristics, molecular alterations, and progression-free survival (PFS) were analyzed in PMs. Clinical characteristics were compared between PMs and other WHO grade 1 meningiomas. Targeted sequencing of meningioma-relevant genes was performed to determine the molecular alterations in PMs.

RESULTS: PMs accounted for 1.34% of all meningiomas. Clinically, spinal location (p < 0.001) and female predominance (p < 0.001) were statistically significant in PMs when compared with the other grade 1 subtypes. Radiologically, calcification was frequently found in PMs (88.24%). Genetically, NF2 was the most frequently mutated gene in PMs (59.7%), followed by TRAF7 and AKT1. Ten patients experienced recurrence during the long-term follow-up. Multivariate analysis demonstrated that age (p = 0.009), extent of resection (p < 0.001), Ki-67 index (p = 0.007), and NF2 status (p < 0.001) were independent prognostic factors in the cohort of PMs. Interestingly, NF2 mutation was detected in all (48/48) spinal PMs (SPMs) but in only 38.46% (35/91) of cranial PMs (CPMs), revealing a significant difference (p < 0.001). The mean Ki-67 index (p = 0.044) and proportion of PMs with PR-positive expression (p = 0.048) were significantly higher in SPMs than in CPMs. The frequent NF2 mutations are associated with spinal location predominance and worse PFS in PMs.

CONCLUSIONS: Female sex and spinal location predominance were statistically significant in PMs. NF2 mutation was an independent predictor for worse PFS of PMs. Of note, NF2 mutation was detected in all SPMs but in only 38.46% of CPMs, revealing a significant difference.

PMID:38552238 | DOI:10.3171/2024.1.JNS232450

Eval Rev. 2024 Mar 29:193841X241241354. doi: 10.1177/0193841X241241354. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

Randomized experiments involving education interventions are typically implemented as cluster randomized trials, with schools serving as clusters. To design such a study, it is critical to understand the degree to which learning outcomes vary between versus within clusters (schools), specifically the intraclass correlation coefficient. It is also helpful to anticipate the benefits, in terms of statistical power, of collecting household data, testing students at baseline, or relying on administrative data on previous cohorts from the same school. We use data from multiple cluster-randomized trials in four Latin American countries to provide information on the intraclass correlations in early grade literacy outcomes. We also describe the proportion of variance explained by different types of covariates. These parameters will help future researchers conduct statistical power analysis, estimate the required sample size, and determine the necessity of collecting different types of baseline data such as child assessments, administrative data at the school level, or household surveys.

PMID:38552214 | DOI:10.1177/0193841X241241354

J Clin Oncol. 2024 Mar 29:JCO2400033. doi: 10.1200/JCO.24.00033. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

PURPOSE: Outcomes for Richter transformation (RT) are poor with current therapies. The efficacy and safety of anti-CD19 chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy (CAR-T) for RT are not established.

METHODS: We performed an international multicenter retrospective study of patients with RT who received CAR-T. Patient, disease, and treatment characteristics were summarized using descriptive statistics, and modeling analyses were used to determine association with progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS). PFS and OS were estimated from the date of CAR-T infusion.

RESULTS: Sixty-nine patients were identified. The median age at CAR-T infusion was 64 years (range, 27-80). Patients had a median of four (range, 1-15) previous lines of therapy for CLL and/or RT, including previous Bruton tyrosine kinase inhibitor and/or BCL2 inhibitor therapy in 58 (84%) patients. The CAR-T product administered was axicabtagene ciloleucel in 44 patients (64%), tisagenlecleucel in 17 patients (25%), lisocabtagene maraleucel in seven patients (10%), and brexucabtagene autoleucel in one patient (1%). Eleven patients (16%) and 25 patients (37%) experienced grade ≥3 cytokine release syndrome and immune effector cell-associated neurotoxicity syndrome, respectively. The overall response rate was 63%, with 46% attaining a complete response (CR). After a median follow-up of 24 months, the median PFS was 4.7 months (95% CI, 2.0 to 6.9); the 2-year PFS was 29% (95% CI, 18 to 41). The median OS was 8.5 months (95% CI, 5.1 to 25.4); the 2-year OS was 38% (95% CI, 26 to 50). The median duration of response was 27.6 months (95% CI, 14.5 to not reached) for patients achieving CR.

CONCLUSION: CAR-T demonstrates clinical efficacy for patients with RT.

PMID:38552193 | DOI:10.1200/JCO.24.00033

Chaos. 2024 Mar 1;34(3):033133. doi: 10.1063/5.0192642.

ABSTRACT

Opinion dynamics is of paramount importance as it provides insights into the complex dynamics of opinion propagation and social relationship adjustment. It is assumed in most of the previous works that social relationships evolve much faster than opinions. This is not always true in reality. We propose an analytical approximation to study this issue for arbitrary time scales between opinion adjustment and network evolution. To this end, the coefficient of determination in statistics is introduced and a one-dimensional stable manifold is analytically found, i.e., the most likely trajectory. With the aid of the stable manifold, we further obtain the fate of opinions and the consensus time, i.e., fixation probability and fixation time. We find that for in-group bias, the more likely individuals are to adopt the popular opinion, the less likely the majority opinion takes over the population, i.e., conformity inhibits the domination of popular opinions. This counterintuitive result can be interpreted from a game perspective, in which in-group bias refers to a coordination game and rewiring probability refers to a rescaling of the selection intensity. Our work proposes an efficient approximation method to foster the understanding of opinion dynamics in dynamical networks.

PMID:38552181 | DOI:10.1063/5.0192642

Rev Sci Instrum. 2024 Mar 1;95(3):033908. doi: 10.1063/5.0185357.

ABSTRACT

In light of the accumulation of characterization measurement data in the industrial production of solar cell devices, the investigation of a large amount of samples by statistical means lends itself to be a useful tool to gain further insights into how the data correlate with performance parameters. However, due to the multicollinearity among high-dimensional input parameters of compositional data, revealing the underlying patterns may prove to be a difficult endeavor. In this work, we present statistics consisting of 280 thin-film solar cell samples based on Cu(In, Ga)(S, Se)2 absorber layers whose depth-resolved composition was assessed by glow-discharge optical emission spectroscopy (GDOES). After parameterization of the features of [Ga]/([Ga] + [In])and[S]/([S] + [Se]) gradings, we employ two-way clustering in order to group samples and features by their similarity. In addition, using principal component analysis, information in the dataset, which is irrelevant to the problem, is removed by dimensionality reduction. In this way, it is possible to create a map that provides an overview of the GDOES data of all samples in their entirety, including correlations among features. More importantly, it also opens up a more precise way to plan further improvements in the compositional gradings by unveiling a path along which the experimenter can read the feature changes concerned with an improvement in the open-circuit voltage deficit or any other target parameter of interest. New samples can then be assigned to existing cluster centroids to predict what target parameter value they would assume.

PMID:38552175 | DOI:10.1063/5.0185357

ACS Macro Lett. 2024 Mar 29:453-460. doi: 10.1021/acsmacrolett.3c00756. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

The assembly of long-range aligned structures of two-dimensional nanosheets (2DNSs) in polymer nanocomposites (PNCs) is in urgent need for the design of nanoelectronics and lightweight energy-storage materials of high conductivity for electricity or heat. These 2DNS are thin and exhibit thermal fluctuations, leading to an intricate interplay with polymers in which entropic effects can be exploited to facilitate a range of different assemblies. In molecular dynamics simulations of experimentally studied 2DNSs, we show that the layer-forming crystallization of 2DNSs is programmable by regulating the strengths and ranges of polymer-induced entropic depletion attractions between pairs of 2DNSs, as well as between single 2DNSs and a substrate surface, by exclusively tuning the temperature and size of the 2DNS. Enhancing the temperature supports the 2DNS-substrate depletion rather than crystallization of 2DNSs in the bulk, leading to crystallized layers of 2DNSs on the substrate surfaces. On the other hand, the interaction range of the 2DNS-2DNS depletion attraction extends further than the 2DNS-substrate attraction whenever the 2DNS size is well above the correlation length of the polymers, which results in a nonmonotonic dependence of the crystallization layer on the 2DNS size. It is demonstrated that the depletion-tuned crystallization layers of 2DNSs contribute to a conductive channel in which individual lithium ions (Li ions) migrate efficiently through the PNCs. This work provides statistical and dynamical insights into the balance between the 2DNS-2DNS and 2DNS-substrate depletion interactions in polymer-2DNS composites and highlights the possibilities to exploit depletion strategies in order to engineer crystallization processes of 2DNSs and thus to control electrical conductivity.

PMID:38552169 | DOI:10.1021/acsmacrolett.3c00756

ISME J. 2024 Mar 29:wrae055. doi: 10.1093/ismejo/wrae055. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

Viruses impact microbial systems through killing hosts, horizontal gene transfer, and altering cellular metabolism, consequently impacting nutrient cycles. A virus-infected cell, a “virocell”, is distinct from its uninfected sister cell as the virus commandeers cellular machinery to produce viruses rather than replicate cells. Problematically, virocell responses to the nutrient-limited conditions that abound in nature are poorly understood. Here we used a systems biology approach to investigate virocell metabolic reprogramming under nutrient limitation. Using transcriptomics, proteomics, lipidomics, and endo- and exo-metabolomics, we assessed how low phosphate (low-P) conditions impacted virocells of a marine Pseudoalteromonas host when independently infected by two unrelated phages (HP1 and HS2). With the combined stresses of infection and nutrient limitation, a set of nested responses were observed. First, low-P imposed common cellular responses on all cells (virocells and uninfected cells), including activating the canonical P-stress response, and decreasing transcription, translation, and extracellular organic matter consumption. Second, low-P imposed infection-specific responses (for both virocells), including enhancing nitrogen assimilation and fatty acid degradation, and decreasing extracellular lipid relative abundance. Third, low-P suggested virocell-specific strategies. Specifically, HS2-virocells regulated gene expression by increasing transcription and ribosomal protein production, whereas HP1-virocells accumulated host proteins, decreased extracellular peptide relative abundance, and invested in broader energy and resource acquisition. These results suggest that although environmental conditions shape metabolism in common ways regardless of infection, virocell-specific strategies exist to support viral replication during nutrient limitation, and a framework now exists for identifying metabolic strategies of nutrient-limited virocells in nature.

PMID:38552150 | DOI:10.1093/ismejo/wrae055

Work. 2024 Mar 29. doi: 10.3233/WOR-230569. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: Load carriage tasks during United States Marine Corps (USMC) recruit training can cause injury. Load carriage conditioning, if optimized, can reduce injury risk.

OBJECTIVE: To compare injuries sustained by USMC recruits following participation in either the Original Load Carriage (OLC) program or a Modified Load Carriage (MLC) program.

METHODS: Retrospective musculoskeletal injury data were drawn from the USMC San Diego Sports Medicine injury database for recruits completing the OLC (n = 2,363) and MLC (n = 681) programs. Data were expressed as descriptive statistics and a population estimate of the OLC:MLC relative risk ratio (RR) was calculated.

RESULTS: The proportion of injuries sustained in the MLC cohort (n = 268; 39% : OLC cohort, n = 1,372 : 58% ) was lower, as was the RR (0.68, 95% CI 0.61- 0.75). The leading nature of injury for both cohorts was sprains and strains (OLC n = 396, 29% ; MLC n = 66; 25% ). Stress reactions were proportionally higher in MLC (n = 17, 6% ; OLC n = 4, 0.3% ), while stress fractures were proportionately lower (MLC n = 9, 3% ; OLC n = 114, 8% ). Overuse injuries were lower in MLC (- 7% ). The knee, lower leg, ankle, and foot were the top four bodily sites of injuries and the Small Unit Leadership Evaluation (SULE), Crucible, overuse-nonspecific, running, and conditioning hikes were within the top five most common events causing injury. The prevalence rates of moderate severity injury were similar (MLC = 23% ; OLC = 24% ), although MLC presented both a higher proportion and prevalence of severe injuries (MLC = 6% ; OLC = 3% , respectively).

CONCLUSION: A periodized load carriage program concurrently increased exposure to load carriage hikes while reducing injuries both during the load carriage hikes and overall.

PMID:38552130 | DOI:10.3233/WOR-230569