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BACKGROUND: Affecting >20million people in the U.S., including 4 % of all hospitalized patients, substance use disorder (SUD) represents a growing public health crisis. Evaluating a national cohort, we aimed to characterize the association of concurrent SUD with perioperative outcomes and resource utilization following elective abdominal operations. METHODS: All adult hospitalizations entailing elective colectomy, gastrectomy, esophagectomy, hepatectomy, and pancreatectomy were tabulated from the 2016-2020 National Inpatient Sample. Patients with concurrent substance use disorder, comprising alcohol, opioid, marijuana, sedative, cocaine, inhalant, hallucinogen, or other psychoactive/stimulant use, were considered the SUD cohort (others: nSUD). Multivariable regression models were constructed to evaluate the independent association between SUD and key outcomes. RESULTS: Of ∼1,088,145 patients, 32,865 (3.0 %) comprised the SUD cohort. On average, SUD patients were younger, more commonly male, of lowest quartile income, and of Black race. SUD patients less frequently underwent colectomy, but more often pancreatectomy, relative to nSUD.Following risk adjustment and with nSUD as reference, SUD demonstrated similar likelihood of in-hospital mortality, but remained associated with increased odds of any perioperative complication (Adjusted Odds Ratio [AOR] 1.17, CI 1.09-1.25). Further, SUD was linked with incremental increases in adjusted length of stay (β + 0.90 days, CI +0.68-1.12) and costs (β + $3630, CI +2650-4610), as well as greater likelihood of non-home discharge (AOR 1.54, CI 1.40-1.70). CONCLUSIONS: Concurrent substance use disorder was associated with increased complications, resource utilization, and non-home discharge following major elective abdominal operations. Novel interventions are warranted to address increased risk among this vulnerable population and address significant disparities in postoperative outcomes.

Due to the increasingly serious harm caused by marine fouling to humans, marine antifouling has become an urgent issue in the development of marine resources. Many antifouling countermeasures have been explored, among which applying antifouling coatings is the most economical and effective method and is currently the most widely used approach. Given the significant harm of traditional marine antifouling coatings to the ecological environment, focusing on green, efficient and environment-friendly marine antifouling coatings, the development status and research progress of modified polyurethane in marine antifouling were summarized. Polyurethane coatings are divided into solvent-based and water-based types, both of which exhibit good properties such as solvent resistance. Water-based polyurethane coatings are more environmentally friendly, while solvent-based polyurethane coatings have superior water resistance. These coatings can serve as substrate resins in the field of marine antifouling, helping to reduce biological pollution on the surface of marine structures. By modifying polyurethane coating, its antifouling performance can be further enhanced. In this paper, the application of modified polyurethane in marine antifouling coatings was reviewed, and the existing problems and improvement schemes were analyzed to provide references and suggestions for the research and development of marine antifouling coatings.

Molybdenum carbide (Mo2CTx) has an electronic structure similar to that of platinum, thereby making it a promising non-precious-metal catalyst. However, preparing Mo2CTx efficiently and rapidly using a conventional redox method is challenging owing to the high exfoliation energy of the Mo2Ga2C precursor. In this study, a novel alloying method was developed to etch Ga rapidly from its precursor. The etching process was conducted in a LiCl–KCl molten salt containing Li3N and an iron triad element (Fe, Co, or Ni). Here, Ga formed an alloy with the iron triad element, thereby reducing the reaction energy barrier and promoting the kinetics of Ga etching. Simultaneously, adding Li3N to the molten salt created a specific N ion as a stable functional group adsorbed on the surface of Mo2C. This nitrogen functional group (–N) optimizes the electronic structure of surface molybdenum by inducing strong covalent bonds. Consequently, the synthesized N-terminated Mo2CTx demonstrates superior electrocatalytic oxygen evolution activity to conventional F-terminated Mo2CTx and commercial IrO2 in a 1 M KOH solution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The bHLH transcription factors are important plant regulators against abiotic stress and involved in plant growth and development. In this study, SlALC, a gene coding for a prototypical DNA-binding protein in the bHLH family, was isolated, and SlALC-overexpression tomato (SlALC-OE) plants were generated by Agrobacterium-mediated genetic transformation. SlALC transgenic lines manifested higher osmotic stress tolerance than the wild-type plants, estimated by higher relative water content and lower water loss rate, higher chlorophyll, reducing sugar, starch, proline, soluble protein contents, antioxidant enzyme activities, and lower MDA and reactive oxygen species contents in the leaves. In SlALC-OE lines, there were more significant alterations in the expression of genes associated with stress. Furthermore, SlALC-OE fruits were more vulnerable to dehiscence, with higher water content, reduced lignin content, SOD/POD/PAL enzyme activity, and lower phenolic compound concentrations, all of which corresponded to decreased expression of lignin biosynthetic genes. Moreover, the dual luciferase reporter test revealed that SlTAGL1 inhibits SlALC expression. This study revealed that SlALC may play a role in controlling plant tolerance to drought and salt stress, as well as fruit lignification, which influences fruit dehiscence. The findings of this study have established a foundation for tomato tolerance breeding and fruit quality improvement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Object manipulation is one of the most fundamental tasks in 3D user interfaces. Compared with interacting with objects within reach, remote object manipulation is often more challenging, which is often an iterative process that need clutching. However, while there are many interaction techniques designed for manipulating remote objects, it is not well studied the effects of clutching mechanism on remote object manipulation tasks. In this paper, we present a controlled experiment to evaluate the effects of two clutching mechanisms (Normal Clutching vs. Easy Clutching) on 3-DOF translation, 3-DOF rotation and 6-DOF docking tasks under various tasks settings. The results show that easy clutching can significantly save more completion time and clutching time compared with Normal Clutching. In addition, the results also reveal that easy clutching can be more effective especially when dealing with hard tasks and long user-target distance. We also find that users prefer easy clutching over Normal Clutching, indicating that well designed clutching mechanism can effectively improve user experience in manipulation tasks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Disparities in colorectal cancer screening have been documented among people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD). However, surgical outcomes in this population have yet to be studied. The present work aimed to evaluate the association of IDD with outcomes following colorectal cancer resection. Methods: All adults undergoing resection for colorectal cancer in the 2011–2020 National Inpatient Sample were identified. Multivariable linear and logistic regression models were developed to examine the association of IDD with risk factors as well as outcomes including mortality, complications, costs, length of stay (LOS), and non-home discharge. The study is limited by its retrospective nature and did not capture disease staging or time of diagnosis. Results: Among 722,736 patients undergoing colorectal cancer resection, 2,846 (0.39%) had IDD. Compared to patients without IDD, IDD patients were younger and had a higher burden of comorbidities. IDD status was associated with increased odds of non-elective admission (AOR 1.40 [95% CI 1.14–1.73]) and decreased odds of treatment at high-volume centers (AOR 0.64 [95% CI 0.51–0.81]). Furthermore, IDD patients experienced significantly greater LOS (9 vs 6 days, p<0.001) and hospitalization costs ($23,500 vs $19,800, p<0.001) relative to neurotypical patients. Upon risk adjustment, IDD was significantly associated with 2-fold increased odds of mortality (AOR 2.34 [95% CI 1.48–3.71]), 1.4-fold increase in complications (AOR 1.41 [95% CI 1.15–1.74]), and 6.8-fold increase in non-home discharge (AOR 6.83 [95% CI 5.46–8.56]). Conclusions: IDD patients undergoing colorectal cancer resection experience increased likelihood of non-elective admission, adverse clinical outcomes, and resource use. Our findings highlight the need for more accessible screening and patient-centered interventions to improve quality of surgical care for this at-risk population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]