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Abstract Orthognathic surgery has a high incidence of postoperative nausea (PON) and vomiting (POV), delaying mobility initiation and postoperative recovery. Bleeding is another risk associated with this surgical procedure. We aimed to compare total intravenous anesthesia (TIVA) and volatile anesthesia in patients undergoing orthognathic surgery in terms of postoperative nausea and vomiting (PONV) incidence and hemodynamic changes. This retrospective study included 82 patients who underwent bilateral sagittal split ramus osteotomies at Saga University Hospital between April 2016 and April 2021. We compared the effects of TIVA and volatile anesthesia on PONV onset after surgery, acute postoperative hemodynamic changes (blood pressure and heart rate), and factors contributing to PONV. PON was significantly lower in the TIVA group than in the volatile anesthesia group. The total dose of fentanyl contributed to the onset of POV, while the onset of PON was associated with low volumes of fluid infusion and urine in the TIVA and volatile anesthesia groups, respectively. Furthermore, post-extubation hemodynamic change was significantly smaller in the TIVA group than in the volatile anesthesia group. Therefore, TIVA could have a reduced risk of PONV and hemodynamic changes in patients undergoing orthognathic surgery. Employing TIVA could mitigate perioperative complications and enhance patient safety.

Background: Identification and characterization of steroids from complex mixtures with isomeric precision is key to studying endocrine-related metabolism and disorders. Whereas the golden standard chromatography, including liquid chromatography and gas chromatography, can be coupled with mass spectrometry to separate steroids prior to ionization, this separation is time-consuming. Contrarily, direct infusion techniques can offer increased throughput; however, these are often hampered by limited structural specificity. Thus, it is important to develop new analytical tools for direct infusion mass spectrometry that will provide isomeric specificity. Results: Herein, we show that direct infusion with electrospray ionization in combination with silver adduction and cyclic ion mobility mass spectrometry (cIMS) enables mobility separation and improves the detectability of steroid isomers. Specifically, silver ion adduction of steroids increases instrumental response up to 14 times and enables almost baseline mobility separation of closely related structural steroid isomers even at low cIMS resolution. By combining experimental and theoretical data, we show that the silver interacts with the steroid isomer at single or multiple sites, which introduces conformational changes that enable mobility separation. Moreover, we show that the combination of cIMS and silver adduct fragmentation in tandem mass spectrometry provides an additional dimension for annotation of steroid isomers. Thus, the simple introduction of silver ions into the electrospray solvent provides a great gain in the analytical discernment of steroid isomers. Significance: For the first time, we show that the use of silver adduction introduces a conformational change in steroids that allows for them to be separated with low-resolution ion mobility spectrometry without any prior derivatization, chromatographic separation, or instrumental modification. This is a new and important tool for analyzing steroid isomers that can unravel their importance in biological systems.

Abstract Background Vanillin is a flavoring substance derived from vanilla. We are currently developing a biotransformation method for vanillin production using glucose. This report describes the last step in vanillin production: the conversion of vanillic acid to vanillin. First, we selected Corynebacterium glutamicum as the host owing to its high vanillin resistance. The aromatic aldehyde reductase gene (NCgl0324) and vanillic acid demethylase protein subunits A and B gene (vanAB, NCgl2300-NCgl2301) were deleted in C. glutamicum genome to avoid vanillin degradation. Next, we searched for an aromatic carboxylic acid reductase (ACAR), which converts vanillic acid to vanillin. Seventeen ACAR homologs from various organisms were introduced into C. glutamicum. Results In vivo conversion experiments showed that eight ACARs were successfully expressed and produced vanillin. In terms of conversion activity and substrate specificity, the ACARs from Gordonia effusa, Coccomyxa subellipsoidea, and Novosphingobium malaysiense are promising candidates for commercial production. Conclusions Corynebacterium glutamicum harboring Gordonia effusa ACAR produced 22 g/L vanillin, which is, to the best of our knowledge, the highest accumulation reported in the literature. At the same time, we discovered ACAR from Novosphingobium malaysiense and Coccomyxa subellipsoidea C-169 with high substrate specificity. These findings are useful for reducing the byproducts.

Background Undernutrition during the early years of life has a harmful and irreversible impact on child growth and cognitive development. Many of the interventions tested to improve outcomes across infancy have had disappointing or inconsistent impact, a common feature being the absence of any attempt to provide nutritional supplements to infants during the first six months. With increasing evidence of micronutrient deficiencies in this age group, alongside strong evidence that growth and developmental deficits begin before six months, a renewed focus on the micronutrient status of infants is required. Methods This study is a five-arm, double-blind, placebo-controlled, randomised efficacy trial of micronutrient supplementation to mothers (during pregnancy or pregnancy and lactation) and infants (Day 8 to six months of age) in rural Gambia, where rates of micronutrient deficiencies are high. 600 pregnant women (

Abstract This study aimed to establish a virtual cross cylinder method to calculate the total corneal astigmatism by combining the anterior and posterior corneal astigmatism on the secondary principal plane of the cornea based on Gaussian optics. The meridian with the least refractive power, namely, the flattest meridian of the virtual cross cylinder of a ± 0.5 × C diopter, is set as the reference meridian, and the power (F) at an angle of φ between an arbitrary meridian and the reference meridian is defined as F(φ) = − 0.5 × C × cos2φ. The magnitude and axis of the total corneal astigmatism were calculated by applying trigonometric functions and the atan2 function based on the combination of the virtual cross cylinders of the anterior corneal astigmatism and the posterior corneal astigmatism. To verify the performance of the virtual cross cylinder method, a verification experiment with two Jackson cross cylinders and a lensmeter was performed, and the measured and calculated values were compared. The limit of the natural domain of the arctangent function is circumvented by using the atan2 function. The magnitude and axis of the total corneal astigmatism are determined through generalized mathematical expressions. The verification experiment results showed good agreement between the measured and calculated values. Compared to the vector analysis method, the virtual cross cylinder method is mathematically sound and straightforward. A novel technique for calculating total corneal astigmatism, the virtual cross cylinder method, was developed and verified.

Abstract Many patients are frightened of or anxious about dental treatment. We have recently reported our use of virtual reality (VR) to alleviate the fear and anxiety experienced during oral surgical procedures However, the effectiveness of VR in alleviating anxiety varies greatly between individuals. We therefore investigated whether the content of the VR presentation made any difference to its effect in alleviating anxiety, and whether it had any analgesic effect. The study subjects experienced one of two different types of VR presentation and were asked to complete a questionnaire about any changes in their anxiety during the procedure, including a visual analog scale (VAS) score. As an objective evaluation, changes in pain threshold during the VR presentation were investigated using PainVision. For those patients who experienced a presentation showing a natural landscape, the change in VAS score was − 13.3 ± 28.7 mm, whereas for those who experienced a presentation showing a video game the change was − 22.2 ± 32.1 mm, an even greater reduction. In a pain questionnaire completed by individuals who had experienced the video game presentations, approximately 70% reported that their pain had diminished. An objective evaluation of pain threshold also showed that the pain threshold of individuals increased by around 3% while experiencing the natural landscape VR presentation, but that while experiencing the video game presentation, it increased significantly by around 15% compared with baseline. These results show that the content of the presentation affected not only the rate of decrease in anxiety, but also the pain threshold.

Recent developments in multilingualism research urge us to move beyond seeing bilingualism as 'double monolingualism' and towards "translanguaging," which conceptualises language as a bundle of socially constructed linguistic resources that individuals can deploy to make sense of their multilingual world. Despite this theoretical development, the monolingualist ideology remains strong in child language acquisition and bilingual education. The One Parent One Language policy (OPOL) which I examine in detail in this paper is one of the most commonly practiced family language policies; it requires parents to constantly monitor their language practices at home based on the assumption that language is a fixed, countable, and complete system. Part of a broader ethnographic research with Japanese-English multilingual families in the UK, this article focuses on a single-family case study, through which it aims to critically examine the way in which OPOL is negotiated and exercised in situated language practices in the family home. Focusing particularly on language interactions between two pre- and early-school age children and their mother, the paper shows how the strategic and creative employment of linguistic resources by children undermines monolingualist dogmas that OPOL is reliant on. The paper thus makes a significant contribution to the empirical study of "translanguaging."

Background The AT(N) classification was proposed for categorising individuals according to biomarkers. However, AT(N) profiles may vary depending on the markers chosen and the target population.Methods We stratified 177 individuals who participated in the Japanese Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative by AT(N) classification according to cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) biomarkers. We compared the frequency of AT(N) profiles between the classification using total tau and neurofilament light chain (NfL) as N markers (AT(N)tau and AT(N)NfL). Baseline characteristics, and longitudinal biological and clinical changes were examined between AT(N) profiles.Results We found that 9% of cognitively unimpaired subjects, 49% of subjects with mild cognitive impairment, and 61% of patients with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) dementia had the biological AD profile (ie, A+T+) in the cohort. The frequency of AT(N) profiles substantially differed between the AT(N)tau and AT(N)NfL classifications. When we used t-tau as the N marker (AT(N)tau), those who had T− were more frequently assigned to (N)−, whereas those who had T+were more frequently assigned to (N)+ than when we used NfL as the N marker (AT(N)NfL). During a follow-up, the AD continuum group progressed clinically and biologically compared with the normal biomarker group in both the AT(N)tau and AT(N)NfL classifications. More frequent conversion to dementia was observed in the non-AD pathological change group in the AT(N)tau classification, but not in the AT(N)NfL classification.Conclusions AT(N)tau and AT(N)NfL in CSF may capture different aspects of neurodegeneration and provide a different prognostic value. The AT(N) classification aids in understanding the AD continuum biology in various populations.

Electron as well as proton elastic scattering is not able to determine the point proton and point neutron densities, |$\rho _\tau (r), (\tau =p,n)$|⁠ , separately. If both scatterings are analyzed consistently, those densities would be determined uniquely, since the two densities are observed by different combinations from each other. Previous experiments have not provided |$\rho _\tau (r)$| uniquely, but the values of the mean square radii of |$\rho _p(r)$|⁠ , |$\langle \, r^2\, \rangle _p$|⁠ , and of |$\rho _n(r)$|⁠ , |$\langle \, r^2\, \rangle _n$|⁠ , are shown to be determined consistently through the fourth moment of the observed charge density, |$\langle \, r^4\, \rangle _c$|⁠ , in 208Pb. The previous analyses of |$(\gamma , \pi ^0)$| and |$\bar{p}$| -nucleus obtained a similar value of |$\langle \, r^2\, \rangle _n$|⁠ , but they do not yield the experimental value of |$\langle \, r^4\, \rangle _c$| observed in electron scattering. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) have a tumor-homing capacity; therefore, MSCs are a promising drug delivery carrier for cancer therapy. To maintain the viability and activity of MSCs, anti-cancer drugs are preferably loaded on the surface of MSCs, rather than directly introduced into MSCs. In this study, we attempted to load liposomes on the surface of MSCs by using the magnetic anionic liposome/atelocollagen complexes that we previously developed and assessed the characters of liposome-loaded MSCs as drug carriers. We observed that large-sized magnetic anionic liposome/atelocollagen complexes were abundantly associated with MSCs via electrostatic interactions under a magnetic field, and its cellular internalization was lower than that of the small-sized complexes. Moreover, the complexes with higher atelocollagen concentrations showed lower cellular internalization than the complexes with lower atelocollagen concentrations. Based on these results, we succeeded in the efficient loading of liposomes on the surface of MSCs by using large-sized magnetic anionic liposomes complexed with a high concentration of atelocollagen. The constructed liposome-loaded MSCs showed a comparable proliferation rate and differentiation potential to non-loaded MSCs. Furthermore, the liposome-loaded MSCs efficiently adhered to vascular endothelial cells and migrated toward the conditioned medium from cancer cells in vitro and solid tumor tissue in vivo. These findings suggest that liposome-loaded MSCs could serve as an efficient cell-based drug carrier for tumor-targeted delivery.

The interest in mechanochemical research has dramatically increased in recent years with the advent of computational chemistry tools where detailed reaction thermodynamics, and kinetics can be studied. However, most chemistry software packages do not address mechanochemical phenomena and computational chemists need to modify a quantum chemical software to perform specialized simulations. Current implementation includes Force Modified Potential Energy Surface (FMPES), External Force Explicitly Included (EFEI), and Enforce Geometry Optimizations (EGO) formalisms. This also includes a wall potential based function to simulate mechanical grinding. In this work, a Python module that allows inclusion of external forces during molecular geometry optimizations and molecular dynamics simulations while virtually employing any quantum chemical or molecular mechanical software is presented. It is expected that OpenMechanochem will facilitate mechanochemical reaction simulations that will explain the interplay of external forces to a chemical system.

Cholesky decomposition (CD) of the two-electron integrals and the resolution-of-identity (RI) techniques are established inner projection methods to efficiently evaluate two-electron integrals. Both approaches share the notion of an auxiliary basis set as a mean to reduce the scaling. In the past years, the close relationship between the two approaches has fostered developments on how to systematically derive unbiased auxiliary basis sets – atomic CD (aCD) and atomic compact CD (acCD) auxiliary basis sets, different to the precomputed auxiliary basis sets. The accuracy of these approximations in the RI approach can be further improved via an explicit correction of the one-centred two-electron integrals, which is the main object of this research. Correcting the one-centred two-electron integrals directly, which scales linear with system size, is expected to provide a new degree of freedom to the design of auxiliary basis sets. This can either be used to gain faster convergence towards the conventional treatment of the two-electron integrals or as a mean to design lighter auxiliary basis sets while maintaining the same accuracy as of the uncorrected approach. The benchmarks of the one-centre corrections applied to several auxiliary basis set types were investigated in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The coherence times of nitrogen-vacancy centres are key factors influencing their performance in quantum applications. Here the authors show that synthesising phosphorus-doped diamond yields nitrogen-vacancy centres with significantly improved $$T_2^ \ast$$ T2* and T 2.