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Municipal wastewater treatment plants are required to monitor persistent organic pollutants (POPs) in their wastewater treatment related discharges and to assess the impact of the discharges on the environment and public health. One tool for monitoring chlorinated organic pollutants particularly is a gas chromatographic (GC) system coupled to a pair of halogen-specific electron capture detectors (ECDs) with helium (He) as the mobile phase. He supplies, however, has become inconsistent and unreliable lately. In its place, N 2 gas is evaluated in this study as a potential substitute for He in quantifying organochlorine pesticides, polychlorinated biphenyls, chlordane congeners and toxaphene in wastewater treatment related matrices (influent, effluent, benthic sediment, mussel tissue, and biosolids/sludge). N 2 is inert, inexpensive and requires no additional hardware to incorporate into the basic functions of a GC-ECD. Our results show that, with the usual data quality controls (blank, laboratory control, matrix spike/duplicate and proficiency testing samples, and the fact that certified reference materials data met requirements), N 2 can replace He for regulatory purposes. And when necessary, the N 2 -based retention times (t N ) can be predicted reliably from He-based retention times (t He ), irrespective of column chemistry or POPs (here: t N = 1.90t He + 0.04, R 2 = 0.996)., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper, (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Identifying the areas of the world with suitable environmental conditions for the establishment of invasive species represents a fundamental basis for preventing their impacts. One of the most widely used tools for this is ecological niche modeling. Nonetheless, this approach may underestimate the specie's physiological tolerances (it's potential niche) since wildlife populations of species usually do not occupy their entire environmental tolerance. Recently, it has been suggested that incorporating occurrences of phylogenetically related species improves the prediction of biological invasions. However, the reproducibility of this technique remains unclear. Here, we evaluated the generality of this protocol by assessing whether the construction of modeling units above species level improves the capacity of niche models to predict the distribution of 26 target marine invasive species. For each, we constructed supraspecific modeling units based on published phylogenies by grouping the native occurrence records of each invasive species with the records of its phylogenetically closest relative. We also considered units at species level, including only the presence of records in the native areas of the target species. We generated ecological niche models for each unit with three modeling methods (minimum volume ellipsoids - MVE, machine learning algorithms - Maxent and a presence-absence method - GLM). In addition, we grouped the 26 target species based on whether or not the species are in environmental pseudo-equilibrium (i.e., it occupies all habitats where it can disperse) and have any geographical or biological constraints. Our results suggest that the construction of supraspecific units improves the predictive capacity of correlative models to estimate the invasion area of our target species. This modeling approach consistently generated models with a higher predictive ability for species in non-environmental pseudo-equilibrium and with geographical constraints., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2023 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Background: Wild-type transthyretin (ATTRwt) amyloid deposition has been found in the ligamentum flavum (LF) of patients undergoing spinal stenosis surgery. Our group previously reported that ATTRwt amyloid is associated with an increased lumbar ligamentum flavum thickness at symptomatic levels that required surgery. A comprehensive evaluation of LF thickness at asymptomatic levels in addition to symptomatic, treated levels has never been performed in ATTRwt patients. In this study, we compare the total LF thickness of all lumbar levels (lumbar LF burden) in ATTRwt and non-ATTRwt patients., Methods: We retrospectively identified 177 patients who underwent lumbar spine surgery. Ligamentum flavum thickness of 885 lumbar levels was measured on T2-weighted axial MRI. Amyloid presence was confirmed through Congo red staining of specimens, and subtype of ATTRwt was confirmed using mass-spectrometry and gene sequencing., Results: Of the 177 patients, 30 (16.9%) were found to have ATTRwt in the ligamentum flavum. One hundred and fifty ATTRwt levels and 735 non-ATTRwt levels were measured by four different reviewers, with an intraclass coefficient (ICC) of 0.79. Mean ligamentum flavum thickness was 4.64 (±1.31) mm in the ATTRwt group and 3.99 (±1.45) mm in the non-ATTRwt group (p < 0.001). The lumbar LF burden (sum of ligamentum flavum thickness at all lumbar levels) for ATTRwt patients was 23.22 (±4.48) mm, and for non-ATTRwt patients was 19.96 (±5.49) mm (p = 0.003) CONCLUSION: The lumbar LF burden is greater in patients with ATTRwt amyloid compared to non-ATTRwt patients. This supports prior evidence that ATTRwt amyloid deposition might be associated with increased LF thickness and lumbar stenosis. This potential association requires more research and could be an important finding, as medications have recently become available that can treat patients with ATTRwt amyloid deposition., (Copyright © 2021. Published by Elsevier B.V.)

Background: Transthyretin wild-type (ATTRwt) amyloidosis is a systemic process resulting in deposition of misfolded transthyretin protein in several different tissues throughout the body. It is known to be a cause of progressive, life-threatening cardiomyopathy and lumbar spinal stenosis and carpal tunnel syndrome., Case Description: Here we present the case of a 71-year-old man who has clinical manifestations of all 3 entities over several years, providing a picture of the natural history of ATTRwt amyloidosis. This patient eventually underwent a heart transplant because of progressive cardiac amyloidosis (CA) resulting in end-stage heart failure. However, symptoms in carpal tunnel and lumbar spine manifested years before the symptoms of heart failure. ATTRwt amyloidosis may present as a clinical triad of lumbar stenosis, carpal tunnel syndrome, and heart failure. Recently developed medications have shown efficacy in slowing the progress of systemic and cardiac amyloidosis., Conclusions: Knowing that extracardiac symptoms may occur first, we propose that sending ligamentum flavum and flexor tenosynovium for pathologic evaluation may be a unique opportunity to screen and treat a population of patients at risk for developing CA and heart failure., (Copyright © 2019 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Objective: We devise a data-driven framework to assess the level of consciousness in etiologically heterogeneous comatose patients using intrinsic dynamical changes of resting-state Electroencephalogram (EEG) signals., Methods: EEG signals were collected from 54 comatose patients (GCS ⩽ 8) and 20 control patients (GCS > 8). We analyzed the EEG signals using a new technique, termed Intrinsic Network Reactivity Index (INRI), that aims to assess the overall lability of brain dynamics without the use of extrinsic stimulation. The proposed technique uses three sigma EEG events as a trigger for ensuing changes to the directional derivative of signals across the EEG montage., Results: The INRI had a positive relationship with GCS and was significantly different between various levels of consciousness. In comparison, classical band-limited power analysis did not show any specific patterns correlated to GCS., Conclusions: These findings suggest that reaching low variance EEG activation patterns becomes progressively harder as the level of consciousness of patients deteriorate, and provide a quantitative index based on passive measurements that characterize this change., Significance: Our results emphasize the role of intrinsic brain dynamics in assessing the level of consciousness in coma patients and the possibility of employing simple electrophysiological measures to recognize the severity of disorders of consciousness (DOC)., (Copyright © 2018 International Federation of Clinical Neurophysiology. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Background: A subgroup of children with obsessive-compulsive and tic disorders are proposed to have an infectious trigger. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between group A streptococcal titers and symptom fluctuations in children with a clinical course resembling that described for pediatric autoimmune neuropsychiatric disorders associated with streptococcus., Methods: Twenty-five children with obsessive-compulsive disorder and/or tic disorder were evaluated for neuropsychiatric severity and group A streptococcal antibody titers (streptolysin O, deoxyribonuclease B, and carbohydrate A) at 6-week intervals for > or = six consecutive evaluations (total visits=277)., Results: Children with large symptom fluctuations (n=15) were compared with children without dramatic fluctuations (n=10). Co-movements of obsessive-compulsive/tic severity and group A streptococcal antibodies were assessed. In subjects with large symptom changes, positive correlations were found between streptococcal titers and obsessive-compulsive severity rating changes (p=.0130). These subjects were also more likely to have elevated group A streptococcal titers during the majority of observations (p=.001). Tic symptom exacerbations occurred more often in the fall/winter months than spring/summer months (p=.03)., Conclusions: Patients with marked obsessive-compulsive/tic symptom changes may be characterized by streptococcal titer elevations and exhibit evidence of seasonal tic exacerbations.

Alpha-synuclein is a major component of Lewy bodies (LBs) in the substantia nigra and cortex in Parkinson's disease (PD) and dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB), and in glial inclusions in multiple systems atrophy (MSA). Mutations in alpha-synuclein have been associated with autosomal dominant forms of PD. We investigated the clinical and neuropathological effects of overexpression of human alpha-synuclein, alpha-synuclein A30P, and alpha-synuclein A53T under the control of the hamster prion protein (PrP) promoter; 5-15x endogenous levels of protein expression were achieved with widespread neuronal, including nigral, transgene expression. High expression of alpha-synuclein A30P in the Tg5093 line was associated with a progressive motor disorder with rigidity, dystonia, gait impairment, and tremor. Histological analysis of this line showed aberrant expression of the protein in cell soma and progressive CNS gliosis, but no discrete Lewy body-like alpha-synuclein inclusions could be identified. Biochemical analysis demonstrated alpha-synuclein fragmentation. Despite strong expression of the transgene in the nigra, there was no specific deterioration of the nigrostriatal dopaminergic system as assessed by quantitation of nigral tyrosine hydroxylase (TH) containing neurons, striatal TH immunoreactivity, dopamine levels, or dopamine receptor number and function. Lower expressing lines had no specific behavioral or histopathological phenotype. Thus, high expression of mutant human alpha-synuclein resulted in a progressive motor and widespread CNS gliotic phenotype independent of dopaminergic dysfunction in the Tg5093 line.