Tag: pubmed

Crit Care Explor. 2025 Jan 15;7(1):e1206. doi: 10.1097/CCE.0000000000001206. eCollection 2025 Jan 1.

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVES: To investigate the prevalence of pulmonary embolism (PE) in children admitted to critical care diagnosed with COVID-19 infection.

DESIGN: Retrospective database study.

SETTING: Data reported to the Virtual Pediatric Systems, 2018-2021.

PATIENTS: Patients 28 days to younger than 18 years old, admitted to a PICU with either PE or COVID-19 diagnoses.

INTERVENTIONS: None.

MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS: Among the PE-positive subgroups, from January 2020 to December 2021, 78 patients (14%) had an acute COVID-19 infection. The prevalence of PE pre-pandemic period (2018-2019) was 0.19% and for pandemic period (2020-2021) was 0.26% (p < 0.001). During the pandemic period, the prevalence of PE for COVID-negative patients was 0.21% and for COVID-positive patients was 1.01% (p < 0.001). The result shows that the chance to develop PE for COVID-positive patients is 4.8 times that for COVID-negative patients during the pandemic. In the subgroup of the PE-positive patients, 55.1% were Black or African American in the COVID-positive group and 19% in the COVID-negative group (p < 0.001). A multivariable logistic regression showed that race was an independent risk factor for COVID in PE-positive patients.

CONCLUSIONS: Our study demonstrates a significant increase in the prevalence of PE among pediatric patients admitted to PICUs during the COVID-19 pandemic compared with pre-pandemic. Our study indicates that COVID-positive patients are 4.8 times more likely to develop PE than COVID-negative patients. Additionally, the study highlights substantial racial disparities in the prevalence of PE, with Black or African American patients being disproportionately affected.

PMID:39823551 | DOI:10.1097/CCE.0000000000001206

Int J Oral Maxillofac Implants. 2025 Jan 17;0(0):1-20. doi: 10.11607/jomi.11254. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

PURPOSE: Implant stability (IS) is crucial to the success of any implant-based therapy. The present work aimed to determine the relationship between primary and secondary stability and a range of variables.

MATERIAL AND METHODS: This retrospective cohort study included a total of 169 patients, who received 445 dental implants. A case history for each participant was created. Data collection included each patient’s age, implant design, length and diameter, bone type, and surgical factors. Implant Stability Quotient (ISQ) values were measured at baseline (T0: primary stability) and T1 (secondary stability). To calculate the ISQ values at T0, T1 and their differences in the variables age, design, length and diameter, a multivariate ANOVA test was performed to determine which variables acted as confounding factors and to adjust the ISQ values to these variables.

RESULTS: The main variables age, design, length and diameter were adjusted to their confounding factors. Regarding primary (T0) and secondary (T1) stability, statistically significant differences (p<0.05) were only found in implant diameter, with the larger the diameter, the greater the stability. In all the other main variables, no statistically significant differences were found for primary and secondary stability.

CONCLUSIONS: It may be concluded, within the limitations of the study, that the implant diameter variable is the one that significantly affects the primary and secondary stability of the implant.

PMID:39823542 | DOI:10.11607/jomi.11254

PLoS One. 2025 Jan 17;20(1):e0316617. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0316617. eCollection 2025.

ABSTRACT

Topological indices are crucial tools for predicting the physicochemical and biological features of different drugs. They are numerical values obtained from the structure of chemical molecules. These indices, particularly the degree-based TIs are a useful tools for evaluating the connection between a compound’s structure and its attributes. This study addresses the research problemof how to optimize drug design for HIV treatment using degree-based topological indices. The need for safer and more effective medicines for HIV is further emphasized by the advent of drug resistance and severe negative effects from current therapies. Employing degree-based graph invariants, the study investigates 13 HIV drugs by applying a quantitative structure-property relationship (QSPR) technique to associate their molecular structures with their physical properties. HIV drugs are ranked using the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) according to specific parameters. The findings of the study demonstrate how well these approaches can determine the most effective possible drug combinations and designs, offering insightful information in developing improved HIV treatments.

PMID:39823527 | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0316617

PLoS Comput Biol. 2025 Jan 17;21(1):e1012746. doi: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1012746. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

Sensory neurons continually adapt their response characteristics according to recent stimulus history. However, it is unclear how such a reactive process can benefit the organism. Here, we test the hypothesis that adaptation actually acts proactively in the sense that it optimally adjusts sensory encoding for future stimuli. We first quantified human subjects’ ability to discriminate visual orientation under different adaptation conditions. Using an information theoretic analysis, we found that adaptation leads to a reallocation of coding resources such that encoding accuracy peaks at the mean orientation of the adaptor while total coding capacity remains constant. We then asked whether this characteristic change in encoding accuracy is predicted by the temporal statistics of natural visual input. Analyzing the retinal input of freely behaving human subjects showed that the distribution of local visual orientations in the retinal input stream indeed peaks at the mean orientation of the preceding input history (i.e., the adaptor). We further tested our hypothesis by analyzing the internal sensory representations of a recurrent neural network trained to predict the next frame of natural scene videos (PredNet). Simulating our human adaptation experiment with PredNet, we found that the network exhibited the same change in encoding accuracy as observed in human subjects. Taken together, our results suggest that adaptation-induced changes in encoding accuracy prepare the visual system for future stimuli.

PMID:39823517 | DOI:10.1371/journal.pcbi.1012746

PLoS One. 2025 Jan 17;20(1):e0317617. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0317617. eCollection 2025.

ABSTRACT

Latent transition analysis (LTA) is a useful statistical modelling approach for describe transitions between latent classes over time. LTA may be characterized in terms of prevalence at each time point and through transition probabilities over time. Investigating predictors of these transitions is often of key interest. Currently, LTA can mostly be carried out using commercial and specialized software and only to some limited extent by means of open source statistical software. This tutorial demonstrates a flexible and modular approach for LTA, providing a powerful alternative using R through a combination latent class analysis and multiple logistic regression models. This approach has several advantages from a modelling perspective, as demonstrated through revisiting a previously conducted LTA, published in PLoS ONE recently. In short, results were very similar to the original analysis using commercial software although some additional novel results were also obtained. The proposed alternative approach offers more options in terms of choice of effect measures, model assumptions such as hierarchical structures and covariate adjustment, and differential handling of missing data. R code snippets are provided in the tutorial. A detailed accompanying script is also provided for full reproducibility.

PMID:39823505 | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0317617

PLoS One. 2025 Jan 17;20(1):e0317671. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0317671. eCollection 2025.

ABSTRACT

The financialization of real enterprises presents a dilemma for China’s economic development. This study examines the impact of the financial asset allocation term structure on audit fees using a sample of Chinese A-share listed companies from 2009 to 2019. It also investigates the mediating role of financial risk and the moderating role of independent director characteristics. The results indicate that higher long-term financial assets is associated with higher audit fees, while short-term financial assets show no significant relationship with audit fees. These findings remain robust after several tests. Financial risk mediates the relationship between long-term financial assets and audit fees. Furthermore, among the characteristics of independent directors, the proportion of female independent directors and those with a financial background negatively moderate the relationship between long-term financial assets and audit fees, while independent directors with an overseas background and academic credentials positively moderate this relationship. Additional analysis reveals that firm size and financing constraints exhibit heterogeneity in their effects. This study contributes to the literature by enhancing our understanding of the factors influencing firms’ financial asset allocation and audit fees, and by expanding the literature on the financial risk and characteristics of independent directors.

PMID:39823494 | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0317671

PLoS One. 2025 Jan 17;20(1):e0315101. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0315101. eCollection 2025.

ABSTRACT

With the popularity of circular economy around the world, transactions in the second-hand sailboat market are extremely active. Determining pricing strategies and exploring their regional effects is a blank area of existing research and has important practical and statistical significance. Therefore, this article uses the random forest model and XGBoost algorithm to identify core price indicators, and uses an innovative rolling NAR dynamic neural network model to simulate and predict second-hand sailboat price data. On this basis, we also constructed a regional effect multi-level model (RE-MLM) from three levels: geography, economy and country to clarify the impact of geographical areas on sailboat prices. The research results show that, first of all, the price of second-hand sailboats fluctuates greatly, and the predicted value better reflects the overall average price level. Secondly, there are significant regional differences in price levels across regions, economies and ethnic groups. Therefore, the price of second-hand sailboats is affected by many factors and has obvious regional effects. In addition, the model evaluation results show that the model constructed in this study has good accuracy, validity, portability and versatility, and can be extended to price simulation and regional analysis of different markets in different regions.

PMID:39823493 | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0315101

PLoS One. 2025 Jan 17;20(1):e0316726. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0316726. eCollection 2025.

ABSTRACT

Undetected chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) and hepatitis C virus (HCV) infections can lead to cirrhosis and liver cancer. Syrian migrants are the largest non-European migrant group in the Netherlands with HBV and HCV prevalence rates above 2%. This study aimed to reach Syrian migrants for HBV and HCV testing using point-of-care tests (POCT). A multifaceted strategy was employed to reach Syrian migrants aged ≥16 years from two Dutch municipalities for free-of-charge HBsAg and anti-HCV POCT using finger prick blood at the regional Public Health Service. All were personally invited by the Public Health Service by postal mail, based on municipal registry data. Respondents’ medical history data were analysed descriptively and data on age, sex, and municipality were compared with non-participating invitees, using Pearson’s Chi-square test. Of the study population (N = 832), 32.3% (n = 269) attended the testing. The mean age of participants was 36 years (range 16-70), 59.1% were men, and 66.5% were unemployed. Non-participation was higher in the younger age groups (<30 years) (p < .001). The POCT using finger prick blood was well received. None tested HBsAg or anti-HCV positive. With approximately one-third of participation, this study demonstrated relatively high reach of Syrian migrants for testing, compared to studies with similar recruitment methods. However, while the reach could be considered successful, testing failed to demonstrate new infection in this key population. Thereby, other methods may be preferred to identify new HBV and HCV infections, such as opportunistic testing within existing care processes.

PMID:39823486 | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0316726

PLoS One. 2025 Jan 17;20(1):e0299751. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0299751. eCollection 2025.

ABSTRACT

INTRODUCTION: Language barriers within clinical settings pose a threat to patient safety. As a potential impediment to understanding, they hinder the process of obtaining informed consent and uptake of critical medical information. This study investigates the impact of the current use of interpreters, with a particular focus on of engaging laypersons as interpreters, rather than professional interpreters potentially affecting patient safety. A further objective is to explore the reliability of phone-based telemedicine in terms of the retention of important medical facts.

METHODS: In three groups (N per group = 30), we compared how using lay or professional interpreters affected non-German speaking patients’ subjectively perceived understanding (understood vs. not understood) and recollection (recollected vs. not recollected) of information about general anaesthesia. Proficient German speaking patients served as the control group. Statistical analyses (χ2 tests and binomial) were calculated to show differences between and within the groups.

RESULTS: All three groups indicated similar, high self-reported levels of having understood the medical information provided. This was in stark contrast to the assessed objective recollection data. In the lay interpreter group, recollection of anaesthesia facts was low; only around half of participants recalled specific facts. For patients supported by professional interpreters, their recollection of facts about anaesthesia was significantly enhanced and elevated to the same level of the control group (fluent in German). Moreover, for these patients, providing information by means of phone-based telemedicine before anaesthesia yielded high levels of understanding and recollection of anaesthesia facts.

CONCLUSION: Phone-based telemedicine is a safe and reliable method of communication in the professional interpreter group and German speaking control group, but not in the lay interpreter group. Compared to lay interpreters, professional interpreters significantly improve patients’ uptake of critical information about general anaesthesia, thus highlighting the importance of professional interpreters for patient safety and informed consent.

PMID:39823485 | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0299751

Mol Biol Evol. 2025 Jan 17:msaf006. doi: 10.1093/molbev/msaf006. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

A common problem when analyzing ancient DNA (aDNA) data is to identify the species which corresponds to the recovered aDNA sequence(s). The standard approach is to deploy sequence similarity based tools, such as BLAST. However, as aDNA reads may frequently stem from unsampled taxa due to extinction, it is likely that there is no exact match in any database. As a consequence, these tools may not be able to accurately place such reads in a phylogenetic context. Phylogenetic placement is a technique where a read is placed onto a specific branch of a phylogenetic reference tree, which allows for a substantially finer resolution when identifying reads. Prior applications of phylogenetic placement has deployed only on data from extant sources. Therefore, it is unclear how the aDNA damage affects phylogenetic placement’s applicability to aDNA data. To investigate how aDNA damage affects placement accuracy, we re-implemented a statistical model of aDNA damage. We deploy this model, along with a modified version of the existing assessment pipeline PEWO, to seven empirical datasets with four leading tools: APPLES, EPA-NG, pplacer, and RAPPAS. We explore the aDNA damage parameter space via a grid search in order to identify the aDNA damage factors that exhibit the largest impact on placement accuracy. We find that the frequency of DNA backbone nicks (and consequently read length) has the, by far, largest impact on aDNA read placement accuracy, and that other factors, such as misincorporations, have a negligible effect on overall placement accuracy.

PMID:39823473 | DOI:10.1093/molbev/msaf006