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The United States provide Element Sets (ELSET) database in Two-Line Element (TLE) format for public use, which plays an important role in the inversion of atmospheric density in the thermosphere, ballistic coefficient estimation, early-warning and so on. Due to large uncertainties existing in the TLE generation process, space environment changes, and space events, ELSET database contains a large number of abnormal TLE data to be filtered, such as corrected TLE, orbital element outlier, and Bstar outlier. The existing methods to filter out the outliers lack general applicability and are very complicated, which are only applicable to a few space targets in certain orbit regions. To overcome the shortcomings of the existing methods, a filtering method is proposed based on Expectation Maximization (EM) algorithm employing a sliding window and polynomial fitting method, which can detect outliers for different orbital elements and space events. The research shows that the algorithm can effectively single out the outliers in TLE sequences and is suitable for all orbital debris. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Serum non-high-density lipoprotein-cholesterol (non-HDL-C) levels may be associated with cognitive function.Objective: The objective of this study was to evaluate the association between non-HDL-C and cognitive function among American elders.Methods: We used data from the 2011 to 2014 U.S. National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES). A total of 3,001 participants aged over 60 years were enrolled in our analysis. The cognitive function was evaluated with the word learning subtest from the Consortium to Establish a Registry for Alzheimer's disease (CERAD W-L), the Animal Fluency Test (AFT), and the digit symbol substitution test (DSST). We also created a composite cognitive z-score to represent a global cognition. We applied multivariate linear regression analyses to estimate the associations between non-HDL-C levels and all domains of cognitive function. Further, the generalized additive model and the smooth curve were conducted to investigate the dose-response relationship between non-HDL-C and global cognition.Results: Serum non-HDL-C was positively associated with global cognition (β= 0.20, 95% CI: 0.11, 0.28), AFT score (β= 0.54, 95% CI: 0.33, 0.76), and DSST score (β= 1.13, 95% CI: 0.56, 1.69) after fully adjusted. While non-HDL-C was not related to CERAD W-L score. In addition, an inverted U-shape curve was observed in the dose-response relationship between non-HDL-C and global cognition (p for non-linearity < 0.001).Conclusion: Serum non-HDL-C is positively and nonlinearly associated with cognitive function among American older adults. Maintaining serum cholesterol levels at an appropriate range may be helpful to the cognitive health of the elderly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Environmental reward (ER) is an established mechanism contributing to depression. Given the high prevalence of depression in China and Taiwan, it is important to develop measures that facilitate the examination of cultural similarities and differences in ER. The reward probability index (RPI) assesses ER through items measuring individual access to rewarding (Reward Probability) and aversive (Environmental Suppressor) events. The purpose of the current study is to translate the RPI into Chinese (C-RPI) and to study cultural difference in ER by examining structural- and item-level differences in RPI functioning. A total of 930 college students were recruited from China (n = 300), Taiwan (n = 300), and the United States (n = 330). Confirmatory factor analysis was used to study the configural invariance of the RPI and C-RPI. Item response theory-based differential item functioning (DIF) testing was used to study item level differences in functioning between the RPI and C-RPI. Results overall support the established RPI structure in all three regions. Most Reward Probability items exhibit no DIF across cultures, while most Environmental Suppressor items exhibit DIF across cultures. Findings highlight cultural difference in ER constructs and cultural factors contributing to the observed DIF. The assessment and clinical implications of the findings are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Aims: To compare outcomes for a behavioral activation group treatment for substance use [life enhancement treatment for substance use (LETS ACT)] versus a time and group size‐matched control condition delivered in a residential treatment setting. Design: Single‐site two‐arm parallel‐group randomized clinical trial with follow‐up assessment at 3, 6 and 12 months post‐treatment. Setting: Residential substance use treatment facility in the United States. Participants: Participants were 263 adults [mean age 42.7 (11.8); 29.5% female; 95.4% African American; 73.2% court mandated] whose insurance dictated 30‐day (65.9%) or 90‐day (34.1%) treatment duration. Intervention and comparator: LETS ACT (n = 142) is a treatment developed originally for depression and modified for substance use. It teaches participants to increase positively reinforcing value‐driven activities in order to counter depression and relapse. The control group [supportive counseling (SC); n = 121] received time and group size‐matched supportive counseling. Treatment was delivered in five or eight 1‐hour sessions depending on patient length of stay. Measurements: Percentage abstinent at follow‐up, percentage of substance use days among those reporting use, depressive symptoms [Beck Depression Inventory (BDI)] and adverse consequences of drug use [Short Inventory of Problems—Alcohol and Drug (SIP‐AD)]. Findings: LETS ACT had significantly higher abstinence rates at 3 months [odds ratio (OR) = 2.2, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 1.3–3.7], 6 months (OR = 2.6, 95% CI= 1.3–5.0) and 12 months (OR = 2.9, 95% CI = 1.3–6.1) post‐treatment compared with SC. LETS ACT participants reported significantly fewer adverse consequences from substance use at 12 months post‐treatment [B = 4.50, standard error (SE) = 2.17, 95% CI = 0.22–8.78]. Treatment condition had no effect on percentage substance use days among those who resumed use or on change in depressive symptoms; the latter decreased over time only in those who remained abstinent after residential treatment irrespective of condition (B = 0.43, SE = 0.11, 95% confidence interval = 0.22–0.65). Conclusions: A behavioral activation group treatment for substance use (LETS ACT) appears to increase the likelihood of abstinence and reduce adverse consequences from substance use up to 12 months post‐treatment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Study Objective: This study aimed to assess the impact of data-driven didactic sessions on metrics including fund of knowledge, resident confidence in clinical topics, and stress in addition to American Board of Anesthesiology In-Training Examination (ITE) percentiles.Design: Observational mixed-methods study.Setting: Classroom, video-recorded e-learning.Subjects: Anesthesiology residents from two academic medical centers.Interventions: Residents were offered a data-driven didactic session, focused on lifelong learning regarding frequently asked/missed topics based on publicly-available data.Measurements: Residents were surveyed regarding their confidence on exam topics, organization of study plan, willingness to educate others, and stress levels. Residents at one institution were interviewed post-ITE. The level and trend in ITE percentiles were compared before and after the start of this initiative using segmented regression analysis.Results: Ninety-four residents participated in the survey. A comparison of pre-post responses showed an increased mean level of confidence (4.5 ± 1.6 vs. 6.2 ± 1.4; difference in means 95% CI:1.7[1.5,1.9]), sense of study organization (3.8 ± 1.6 vs. 6.7 ± 1.3;95% CI:2.8[2.5,3.1]), willingness to educate colleagues (4.0 ± 1.7 vs. 5.7 ± 1.9;95% CI:1.7[1.4,2.0]), and reduced stress levels (5.9 ± 1.9 vs. 5.2 ± 1.7;95% CI:-0.7[-1.0,-0.4]) (all p < 0.001). Thirty-one residents from one institution participated in the interviews. Interviews exhibited qualitative themes associated with increased fund of knowledge, accessibility of high-yield resources, and domains from the Kirkpatrick Classification of an educational intervention. In an assessment of 292 residents from 2012 to 2020 at one institution, there was a positive change in mean ITE percentile (adjusted intercept shift [95% CI] 11.0[3.6,18.5];p = 0.004) and trajectory over time after the introduction of data-driven didactics.Conclusion: Data-driven didactics was associated with improved resident confidence, stress, and factors related to wellness. It was also associated with a change from a negative to positive trend in ITE percentiles over time. Future assessment of data-driven didactics and impact on resident outcomes are needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Blacks had a 40% higher risk of virologic failure on initial antiretroviral therapy compared to whites. This observation was consistent over a broad range of regimens, suggesting it may be driven by unmeasured social factors; biological factors cannot be ruled out.Background. In the United States, black individuals infected with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) have higher rates of virologic failure on antiretroviral therapy (ART) and of death compared to white individuals. The cause for these disparities is uncertain. We sought to examine differences in virologic outcomes among antiretroviral-naive clinical trial participants starting randomized ART and to investigate factors to explain the differences.Methods. Individual-level data from participants initiating ART in 5 AIDS Clinical Trials Group studies were analyzed. Included studies were those conducted during 1998–2006 with a primary outcome of virologic failure. The primary outcome measure was time to virologic failure, regardless of ART changes.Results. A total of 2495 individuals (1151 black; 1344 white) were included with a median follow-up of 129 weeks. Compared to whites, blacks had an increased hazard of virologic failure (hazard ratio [HR]; 1.7; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.4–1.9; P < .001), with no evidence of heterogeneity across regimens (P = .97); the association remained after adjustment for measured confounders (HR, 1.4; 95% CI, 1.2–1.6; P < .001). Increased hazard of virologic failure was associated with younger age, higher pretreatment HIV type 1 RNA level, lower pretreatment CD4 cell count, hepatitis C antibody, less education, and recent nonadherence to treatment. Sensitivity analyses with different endpoint definitions demonstrated similar results.Conclusions. In this analysis, blacks had a 40% higher virologic failure risk than whites that was not explained by measured confounders. The observation was consistent over a range of regimens, suggesting that the difference may be driven by social factors; however, biological factors cannot be ruled out. Further research should identify the sources of racial disparities and develop strategies to reduce them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Team building has been given increasing attention and applied in diverse disciplines in recent years. The purpose of this study was to determine the multiple dimensions to the application for the effectiveness of team building in the military units such as ROTC since not many existing literature has investigated this in such an expectedly high command culture. The data suggested that participants generally rated themselves to possess the knowledge, experience, and expertise for team building. Secondly, they predominantly considered ROTC as a self-managing formal team, and that leaders basically led their team assuming the role of an educator. Thirdly, the top three selected significance of competences in team building were establishing open communication channels, setting clear, measureable goals, and making assignments clear and ensuring competence. Finally, based on the inconsistency from data, it was suggested that establishing an open communication channel can be expected to integrate and improve remarkably the effectiveness and efficiencies of team building in ROTC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The notable growth of the market in recent years indicates apparel consumers' interest in organic fibre products. Yet less is understood about how apparel consumers would respond to labelling for other credence attributes associated with animal-fibre products, such as animal welfare or eco-friendliness. An online survey of 507 US consumers was used to compare consumers' reactions with a variety of labelling schemes for wool product attributes, including animal-friendly, organic and environmentally friendly production. Consumer segments were created based on frequency of label choice, and analysis of variance and multinomial logit regression were used to identify and characterize the demographics and psychographics of the consumer segments that found labelling for animal welfare or environmental concerns appealing. The study identified a segment of consumers (19% of the sample) who were motivated to purchase apparel products labelled for animal welfare. These animal-focused consumers could be identified with relatively high accuracy from the demographic and psychographic variables in the model. The model variables, which included familiarity with organic products and self-perceived knowledge about environmental damage related to apparel production, were not effective in identifying the environment-focused apparel consumers. The results also demonstrated the ability of a general belief in animal rights to motivate the apparel consumers in the sample, suggesting that acting on a concern for animals could be a more powerful motivation for consumer behaviour than acting on a concern for the environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On January 25, 2022, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the use of tebentafusp, a bispecific glycoprotein 100 (gp100) peptide-human leukocyte antigen (HLA)-directed CD3 T-cell activator, for the treatment of HLA-A*02:01-positive adult patients with unresectable or metastatic uveal melanoma (mUM). Pharmacodynamic data indicate that tebentafusp targets a specific HLA-A*02:01/gp100 complex, activating both CD4+/CD8+ effector and memory T cells that induce tumor cell death. Tebentafusp is administered to patients via intravenous infusion daily or weekly, depending on the indication. Phase III trials have documented a 1-year overall survival of 73%, overall response rate of 9%, progression-free survival of 31% and disease control rate of 46%. Common adverse events reported are cytokine release syndrome, rash, pyrexia, pruritus, fatigue, nausea, chills, abdominal pain, edema, hypotension, dry skin, headache and vomiting. Compared to other types of melanomas, mUM presents with a distinct profile of genetic mutations, which phenotypically results in limited survival efficacy when using traditional melanoma treatments. The low current treatment efficacy for mUM, alongside a poor long-term prognosis and high mortality rates, gives precedence for the approval of tebentafusp to be groundbreaking in its clinical impact. This review will discuss the pharmacodynamic and pharmacokinetic profile, and the clinical trials used to evaluate the safety and efficacy of tebentafusp., (Copyright 2023 Clarivate.)

Background: Human protein kinases play important roles in cancers, are highly co-regulated by kinase families rather than a single kinase, and complementarily regulate signaling pathways. Even though there are > 100,000 protein kinase inhibitors, only 67 kinase drugs are currently approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)., Results: In this study, we used "merged moiety-based interpretable features (MMIFs)," which merged four moiety-based compound features, including Checkmol fingerprint, PubChem fingerprint, rings in drugs, and in-house moieties as the input features for building random forest (RF) models. By using > 200,000 bioactivity test data, we classified inhibitors as kinase family inhibitors or non-inhibitors in the machine learning. The results showed that our RF models achieved good accuracy (> 0.8) for the 10 kinase families. In addition, we found kinase common and specific moieties across families using the Shapley Additive exPlanations (SHAP) approach. We also verified our results using protein kinase complex structures containing important interactions of the hinges, DFGs, or P-loops in the ATP pocket of active sites., Conclusions: In summary, we not only constructed highly accurate prediction models for predicting inhibitors of kinase families but also discovered common and specific inhibitor moieties between different kinase families, providing new opportunities for designing protein kinase inhibitors., (© 2022. The Author(s).)

Objective: To investigate the relationship between the guidelines issued by the American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association (ACC/AHA) in 2004 and the changes in early reperfusion, drug treatment and outcome of inpatients with acute myocardial infarction (AMI) in China, and to explore what extent the guidelines are followed in the management of AMI in China, and the differences in managements and patients' outcome after its issue., Methods: A retrospective study of clinical data of 1 278 patients with AMI admitted to 12 Chinese Hospitals from January 2002 to December 2006 was carried out. They were divided into two groups: group A included 734 patients admitted from January 2002 to August 2004, and group B comprised 544 patients admitted from August 2004 to December 2006. The baseline characteristics, early reperfusion, drug treatment, reinfarction, angina pectoris, heart failure, cardiogenic shock, bleeding and death were compared between two groups. The correlation between therapeutic measure and mortality was analyzed to estimate the difference between two groups, and relationship between the differences and the guidelines issued in 2004 was also analyzed., Results: The age, sex, systolic blood pressure, history of past illness excepting old myocardial infarction of patients with AMI bore no significant difference between two groups. The incidence of Killip≥III in group B was lower significantly than that in group A (7.5% vs. 14.7%, P<0.01). Reperfusion therapy was used more often in group B than in group A (78.5% vs. 71.2%, P<0.05). And percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) therapy was used more often in group B than in group A (71.5% vs. 61.0%, P<0.01). However, the rate of lytic treatment was lower in group B than that in group A (8.6% vs. 16.3%, P<0.01). ³ The percentage of use of antiplatelet drug and aspirin was both over 97.0%. The tidopidine was used more frequently in group A than in group B (54.9% vs. 8.3%), and the clopidogrel and glycoprotein IIIa/IIb antagonists was used more frequently in group B than in group A (83.8% vs. 27.4%, 4.8% vs. 0.7%, both P<0.01). The angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor/angiotensin II receptor antagonist (ACEI/ARB) were administered more frequently in group B than in group A (98.2% vs. 93.5%, P<0.01), and the increasing trend of ARB was obvious (13.6% vs. 4.4%, P<0.05), but the decreasing trend of ACEI was obvious also (84.6% vs. 89.1%, P<0.01). Heparin/low molecular heparin, β-blocker and statin were used more often in group B than in group A (97.4% vs. 94.8%, 80.1% vs. 74.8%, 87.7% vs. 82.4%, P<0.05 or P<0.01). (4) In-hospital mortality, reinfarction, angina pectoris were lower in group B than in group A (4.6% vs. 7.6%, 2.8% vs. 4.8%, 8.4% vs. 12.4%, all P<0.05). (5) Multivariate Logistic regression analysis showed that reperfusion, antiplatelet drug, statin and heparin/low molecular heparin were associated significantly with in-hospital mortality (all P<0.05)., Conclusion: After guideline was issued by ACC/AHA in 2004, the regime of early reperfusion and drug treatment in China had followed more closely the recommendations of the guidelines. At the same time, in-hospital mortality, reinfarctions, angina pectoris were decreased. And the changes in strategy of early reperfusion, antiplatelet drug, statin and heparin/low molecular heparin are closely related with in-hospital mortality. However, current management of AMI in China has not followed the recommendations of guidelines closely. It is essential to promote the use of β-blocker and ACEI/ARB drug treatment in China in accordance with the guidelines.