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Women and Dictionary-Making: Gender, Genre, and English Language Lexicography, Lindsay Rose Russell (2018) Cambridge, 264pp.
No full textLow circulating miR-190a-5p predicts progression of chronic kidney disease
No full textMicroRNAs may act as diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers of chronic kidney disease and are functionally important in disease pathogenesis. To identify novel microRNA biomarkers, we performed small RNA-sequencing on plasma from individuals with type 2 diabetes, with and without chronic kidney disease. MiR-190a-5p abundance was significantly lower in the circulation of type 2 diabetic patients with reduced function compared to those with normal kidney function. In an independent cohort of patients with chronic kidney disease of diverse aetiology, miR-190a-5p abundance predicted disease progression in individuals with no or moderate albuminuria ( < 300 mg/mmol). miR-190a-5p expression in kidney biopsy tissue correlated with the level of miR-190a-5p in the circulation and with estimated glomerular filtration rate, tubular mass and negatively with histological fibrosis. Administration of a miR-190a-5p mimic in a murine ischaemia-reperfusion injury model in male mice reduced tubular injury and fibrosis and increased expression of genes associated with tubular health. Our analyses suggest that miR-190a-5p is a biomarker of tubular cell health, low circulating levels may predict chronic kidney disease progression independent of existing risk factors and strategies to preserve miR-190a-5p may be an effective treatment for restoring tubular cell health following kidney injury.</p
Artificial lipidation of proteins and peptides: from mechanism to clinical applications
No full textThe landscape of modern medicine has been transformed by protein-based therapeutics, offering targeted treatments for complex disorders with remarkable specificity and efficacy. However, these biologics face significant limitations in clinical settings, including rapid clearance, vulnerability to enzymatic degradation, poor absorption across biological membranes and inefficient distribution within target tissues. Artificial lipidation provides an innovative solution to these challenges, by the deliberate attachment of lipid groups to proteins and peptide structures. This biomimetic approach harnesses principles observed in natural post-translational modifications to create therapeutics with superior pharmacological profiles. By strategically incorporating lipid moieties, researchers can significantly prolong circulation half-life through albumin binding, protect against proteolytic breakdown, facilitate cellular uptake, customize pharmacokinetic parameters and enhance tissue-specific targeting. This Review provides a comprehensive analysis of current lipidation technologies, contrasting covalent modification strategies with noncovalent complexation approaches. We examine the molecular mechanisms underlying the therapeutic benefits, survey successful clinical applications and explore emerging opportunities across diverse therapeutic areas. Through this analysis, we offer insights to guide rational design decisions for developing optimized lipidated biotherapeutics with enhanced clinical performance.<br/
Editorial: Using methods and approaches from behavioral ecology to address issues in applied animal sciences
No full textDigital serious games for cancer education and behavioural change: a scoping review of evidence across patients, professionals, and the public
No full textBackground/Objectives: Gamification and game-based learning (GBL) have recently emerged as fresh and appealing ways of health education, and they have been shown to perform better in knowledge acquisition than traditional teaching approaches. Digital serious games are developing as innovative tools for cancer education and behaviour change, yet no review has systematically synthesized their use across key populations. This scoping review aimed to map evidence on serious games for cancer prevention, care, and survivorship among the public, patients, and healthcare professionals, framed through the Capability, Opportunity, Motivation-Behaviour (COM-B) model. Methods: Following Joanna Briggs Institute methodology, we searched Web of Science, MEDLINE, CINAHL, and PsycINFO. Eligible studies evaluated a serious game with a cancer focus and reported outcomes on knowledge, awareness, engagement, education, or behaviour. Data extraction and synthesis followed the PRISMA-ScR checklist. Results: Thirty-five studies met the inclusion criteria, covering diverse cancers, populations, and platforms. Most reported improvements in knowledge, engagement, self-efficacy, and communication. However, heterogeneity in study design and limited assessment of long-term behaviour change constrained comparability. Conclusions: Digital serious games show promise for enhancing cancer literacy and supporting behavioural outcomes across patients, professionals, and the public. By integrating multiple perspectives, this review highlights opportunities for theory-driven design, robust evaluation, and implementation strategies to maximize their impact in cancer education and awareness.<br/
Reach, effectiveness, adoption, implementation and maintenance of a school eye health program in Petauke district, Zambia
No full textPurpose: This study evaluates the performance of a school eye health program conducted by Vision Action in the Petauke district, Zambia, using the RE-AIM framework (Reach, Effectiveness, Adoption, Implementation, Maintenance). Design: Program evaluation study design. Methods: The program targeted 50,000 learners and 780 teachers across 101 schools. Teachers conducted screenings, with referrals made to mobile eye clinics. Data on knowledge, attitudes, practices (KAP), and children's quality of life (QoL) were collected and analyzed using qualitative and quantitative indicators. Results: A total of 53,353 children (106 % of the target) were screened, with rural students (65 %) and girls (55 %) being the largest beneficiaries. Teachers exhibited the greatest improvement in eye health knowledge and practices. Children's QoL scores significantly improved from a baseline mean of 48.9 (95 % CI: 45.9–51.9) to 70.2 (95 % CI: 64.9–75.5), representing a 51.6 % change (p < 0.001). However, spectacle compliance was low (17 %), and only 59 % of referred children attended the mobile clinic due to barriers like COVID-19 fears and harvest season timing. Conclusion: The program successfully reached over 53,000 children, surpassing its target and improving eye health awareness and QoL. While it demonstrated strong effectiveness, challenges like low spectacle compliance and referral uptake persist. Addressing barriers such as parental fears and community activities is essential. The findings emphasize the importance of sustainable screening practices and integrating community engagement strategies to ensure long-term benefits in resource-limited settings.</p
Waveguide excitation and spin pumping of chirally coupled quantum dots
No full textOn-chip excitation of single quantum emitters is a key requirement for developing scalable quantum photonic technologies. Here, we report a remote excitation protocol on an integrated semiconductor chip, in which a single quantum dot (QD) is driven in-plane via a photonic-crystal waveguide through a p-shell optical transition. The chirality of the waveguide mode is exploited to achieve both directional absorption and directional emission, resulting in a substantial enhancement in directional contrast, as measured for the Zeeman components of the waveguide-coupled QD. This remote excitation scheme enables near-unity directionality (≥ 0.95) across∼56% of the waveguide area, with significant overlap with the Purcell-enhanced region, where the electric field intensity profile is near its peak. In contrast, conventional out-of-plane local excitation yields only ∼25% overlap. This enhancement increases the likelihood of locating Purcell-enhanced QDs in regions that support high directionality, allowing the experimental demonstration of a six-fold enhancement in the decay rate of a QD with directionality of 90 ± 3%. The remote p-shell excitation protocol thus establishes a benchmark for waveguide quantum optics by combining Purcell enhancement with high directionality. This approach enables efficient on-chip spin initialization and control in solid-state quantum technologies operating in high-β-factor regimes, with implications for scalable quantum networks and integrated devices.<br/
Prevalence, incidence, and risk factors of diabetic retinopathy and macular edema in patients with early and late‐onset type 2 diabetes mellitus
No full textAimsTo compare the prevalence, incidence, and factors of diabetic retinopathy (DR) and macular edema (DME) in patients with early-onset (EOD) and late-onset diabetes (LOD).MethodsParticipants with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) were recruited from a community-based study conducted in southern urban China. Participants were followed up for 2 years. The prevalence and incidence of DR and DME were compared between EOD (≤40 years) and LOD (>40 years) groups, and potential factors were evaluated using multivariate logistic regression.ResultsAmong 2,703 participants, 173 (6.4%) with EOD had a higher prevalence of DR than 2,530 (93.6%) with LOD (27.8% vs 15.5%, P < 0.001). Participants with EOD had a higher incidence of DR, although this difference was not statistically significant (EOD: 8.1% vs LOD: 3.6%, P = 0.12). Insulin use and higher HbA1c levels were significantly associated with DR in both EOD and LOD groups (both P < 0.05). Additionally, longer diabetes duration, higher systolic blood pressure, and the presence of albuminuria independently associated with the presence of any DR in LOD patients (all P < 0.05). For DME, HbA1c level was a significant association in EOD, while in LOD, age, BMI, insulin use, and albuminuria were significant factors (all P < 0.05).ConclusionsA higher prevalence of DR was observed among patients with early-onset T2DM in urban southern China. Timely diagnosis of DR and regular eye care services are needed for early-onset T2DM.<br/
HiRED: attention-guided token dropping for efficient inference of high-resolution vision-language models
No full textHigh-resolution Vision-Language Models (VLMs) are widely used in multimodal tasks to enhance accuracy by preserving detailed image information. However, these models often generate an excessive number of visual tokens due to the need to encode multiple partitions of a high-resolution image input. Processing such a large number of visual tokens poses significant computational challenges, particularly for resource-constrained commodity GPUs. To address this challenge, we propose High-Resolution Early Dropping (HiRED), a plug-and-play token-dropping method designed to operate within a fixed token budget. HiRED leverages the attention of CLS token in the vision transformer (ViT) to assess the visual content of the image partitions and allocate an optimal token budget for each partition accordingly. The most informative visual tokens from each partition within the allocated budget are then selected and passed to the subsequent Large Language Model (LLM). We showed that HiRED achieves superior accuracy and performance, compared to existing token-dropping methods. Empirically, HiRED-20% (i.e., a 20% token budget) on LLaVA-Next-7B achieves a 4.7x increase in token generation throughput, reduces response latency by 78%, and saves 14% of GPU memory for single inference on an NVIDIA TESLA P40 (24 GB). For larger batch sizes (e.g., 4), HiRED-20% prevents out-of-memory errors by cutting memory usage by 30%, while preserving throughput and latency benefits.<br/
Network analysis of temporomandibular disorder pain and subject‐based bruxism in post‐traumatic stress disorder patients
No full textBackground: Post‐traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a psychosocial factor of interest in the multifactorial aetiology of temporomandibular disorder (TMD) pain, awake bruxism (AB) and sleep bruxism (SB). Objective: To investigate direct and indirect associations between post‐traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), TMD pain, AB, SB and demographic and psychological variables using network analysis. Methods: The study sample included 597 subjects recruited from a specialised centre for the treatment of PTSD. Network analysis was performed using a Mixed Graphical Model and included variables of self‐reported TMD pain, self‐reported AB, self‐reported SB, age, sex, PTSD symptom severity, mood disorders, anxiety disorders and insomnia severity. These variables were visualised in the network model as nodes connected by edges, representing individual associations. Results: The network model revealed a triangular positive association between TMD pain, AB and SB. AB also displayed a positive connection with anxiety disorders, while PTSD symptom severity was linked to insomnia, mood disorders and anxiety disorders. Age and sex did not significantly influence the network structure, although a negative association was observed between these variables, indicating younger ages among female subjects. Conclusion: TMD pain, AB and SB were strongly associated with each other in subjects with PTSD. The presence of anxiety disorders emerged as a bridge factor, connecting the triangular positive association between TMD pain, AB and SB with psychological conditions (PTSD severity, insomnia severity, mood disorders)