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Landscape on the Drug Development Strategies for Marine Products
No full textAilments caused by illnesses alter patterns, and new ailments appear as a result of shifting environmental conditions. The resources already avail¬able for pharmaceuticals are already at capacity due to the rapid increase in the global population. Due to the rising needs of the global population, pharmaceutical producers are always searching for new sources to provide efficient and secure medications. Water covers 75% of the earth’s surface, yet little is explored about the pharmacology of marine creatures, and much of it is still unknown. All across the world, they are heavily utilized in the creation of novel drugs. Research on these medications of marine origin is possible thanks to marine pharmacology. For these frequently complicated compounds to be successfully developed as drugs, a number of obstacles must be addressed, such as the supply issue and target identification. Never¬theless, strategies are available to get over these obstacles. The effectiveness of marine natural products as therapeutic lead depends on advancements in technologies such as sampling techniques, nanoscale NMR for structure analysis, total chemical synthesis, fermentation, and biotechnology. We provide examples of the high levels of innovation occurring in the sector of marine natural goods, which, in our opinion, will result in the release of a new wave of pharmaceuticals onto the market and into pharmacies in the future
Equanimity Scale-16 (ES-16)
No full textTraditionally and in modern science, equanimity has been defined as both a practice and the resulting mental state cultivated by this practice. Equanimity is an inseparable component and a central mechanism of action and change in mindfulness practice; requiring exposure to neutral, pleasant, and unpleasant experiences while accepting the experience as it is and preventing the learned reaction (attachment or aversion) to it. Given the interdependence of mindfulness and equanimity, there has been a growing interest for constructing measurement tools to assess equanimity. In response, the Equanimity Scale (ES-16) was developed due to the lack of adequate measures. The development of the ES-16 commenced by identifying a pool of 517 theoretically appropriate items from 26 existing self-report measures of mindfulness and relevant constructs. Following an item selection process by three experienced meditators and teachers specialized in the development of equanimity, 42 items were endorsed as being sufficiently representing equanimity. These reflected two underlying dimensions of equanimity (experiential acceptance and non-reactivity). Studies examining exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses found two factors reflecting these dimensions and supported the reliability of the overall ES-16, and the dimensions of Experiential Acceptance and Non-Reactivity. Research using the ES-16 has provided evidence of concurrent validity through positive correlations with measures of related constructs, such as nonattachment, and negative correlations with measures of psychological distress. The ES-16 was also found to be appropriately sensitive to mental health improvements in clinical settings, where ES-16 scores increased in response to a mindfulness-based intervention, with concordant decreases in self-reported symptoms of anxiety, stress, and depressive symptoms
Revolutionizing cancer treatment: Nanotherapeutics targeting the tumor micro-environment.
Get PDFPrecise targeting of the tumor micro-environment (TME) through nanotherapeutic innovations offers a transformative approach to cancer treatment. In order to increase the treatment efficacy, this review delves into the complex tactics for targeting different parts of the TME. Targeting the extracellular matrix, controlling acidosis and hypoxia, and preventing neovascularization by concentrating on pericytes and endothelial cells are important areas covered in this article. Strategies to stimulate anti-tumor immunity, regulate chronic inflammation, and restrict macrophage recruitment emphasize the immune system's participation. We have also highlighted the role of fibroblasts and exosomes linked to the cancer progression. The EPR effect, which is vital for cancer nanotherapeutics to work, and vascular pathophysiology are also included in the review. We examine how changes to the dynamics of pH inside the TME affect by nano-therapeutics. Additionally, the possibility of prodrug therapy within the TME, the use of controlled release mechanisms in nanocarriers to imitate metronomic therapy has been discussed. Lastly, the paper examines nanoparticle preference targeting as a potential strategy to improve treatment specificity and therapeutic efficacy in cancer management
BRIDGING THE GAP BETWEEN VARIATIONAL INFERENCE AND STOCHASTIC GRADIENT MCMC IN FUNCTION SPACE
Get PDFTraditional parameter-space posterior inference for Bayesian neural networks faces several challenges, such as the difficulty in specifying meaningful prior, the potential pathologies in deep models and the intractability for multi-modal posterior. To address these issues, functional variational inference (fVI) and functional Markov Chain Monte Carlo (fMCMC) are two recently emerged Bayesian inference schemes that perform posterior inference directly in function space by incorporating more informative functional priors. Similar to their parameter-space counterparts, fVI and fMCMC have their own strengths and weaknesses. For instance, fVI is computationally efficient but imposes strong distributional assumptions, while fMCMC is asymptotically exact but suffers from slow mixing in high dimensions. To inherit the complementary benefits of both schemes, this work proposes a novel hybrid inference method for the functional posterior inference. Specifically, it combines fVI and fMCMC successively by an elaborate linking mechanism to form an alternating approximation process. We also provide theoretical justification for the soundness of such a hybrid inference through the lens of Wasserstein gradient flows in the function space. We evaluate our method on several benchmark tasks and observe improvements in both predictive accuracy and uncertainty quantification compared to parameter/function-space VI and MCMC
Psychometric validation of the Appearance Anxiety Inventory in an adolescent and young adult sample
No full textObjective: Body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) typically emerges in adolescence, however, the development of self-report measures for BDD has largely focused on adult samples. gThe aim of the current study was to validate the psychometric properties of the Appearance Anxiety Inventory (AAI) in adolescent and young adult (AYA) sample. Method: 195 AYA aged 12–21 years (Mage = 18.25 years; SD = 2.51) completed the study. Results: Both the 9-item (χ2 (27) = 118.91, p 2 (35) = 129.10, p <.001; SRMR =.047 and CFI =.931) demonstrated acceptable fit. The AAI was found to differentiate between those with and without clinically significant BDD symptoms (d = 1.87). The AAI also demonstrated excellent internal consistency (Cronbach’s α =.93) and excellent convergent validity with the Body Dysmorphic Disorder Dimensional Scale (r =.79). Divergent validity was demonstrated with smaller correlations with the Life Orientation Test Revised (r = -.41) or General Self-Efficacy Scale (r = -.43). Conclusions: The AAI may be a useful tool to assist with the assessment and measurement of BDD-related symptoms in the AYA population
Prediction of symptomatic and asymptomatic bacteriuria in spinal cord injury patients using machine learning.
Get PDFBACKGROUND: Individuals with spinal cord injuries (SCI) frequently rely on urinary catheters to drain urine from the bladder, making them susceptible to asymptomatic and symptomatic catheter-associated bacteriuria and urinary tract infections (UTI). Current identification of these conditions lacks precision, leading to inappropriate antibiotic use, which promotes selection for drug-resistant bacteria. Since infection often leads to dysbiosis in the microbiome and correlates with health status, this study aimed to develop a machine learning-based diagnostic framework to predict potential UTI by monitoring urine and/or catheter microbiome data, thereby minimising unnecessary antibiotic use and improving patient health. RESULTS: Microbial communities in 609 samples (309 catheter and 300 urine) with asymptomatic and symptomatic bacteriuria status were analysed using 16S rRNA gene sequencing from 27 participants over 18 months. Microbial community compositions were significantly different between asymptomatic and symptomatic bacteriuria, suggesting microbial community signatures have potential application as a diagnostic tool. A significant decrease in local (alpha) diversity was noted in symptomatic bacteriuria compared to the asymptomatic bacteriuria (P < 0.01). Beta diversity measured in weighted unifrac also showed a significant difference (P < 0.05) between groups. Supervised machine learning models were trained on amplicon sequence variant (ASVs) counts and bacterial taxonomic abundances (Taxa) to classify symptomatic and asymptomatic bacteriuria with a repeated tenfold and leave-one-out participant (LOPO) type of cross-validation approaches. Combining urine and catheter microbiome data improved the model performance during repeated tenfold cross-validation, yielding a mean area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUROC) of 0.95 (95% CI 93-0.97) and 0.83 (95% CI 0.79-0.89) for ASVs and taxonomic features in the independent held-out test set, respectively. The LOPO cross-validation yielded a mean AUROC of 0.87 (95% CI 0.85-0.89) and 0.79 (95% CI 0.77-0.82) for ASVs and taxa features, respectively. These results suggest the potential of microbiome features in differentiating symptomatic and asymptomatic bacteriuria states. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings demonstrate that signatures within catheter and urine microbiota could serve as tools to monitor the health status of SCI patients. Establishing a classification system based on these microbial signatures could equip physicians with alternative management strategies, potentially reducing UTI episodes and associated hospital costs, thus significantly improving patient quality of life while mitigating the impact of drug-resistant UTI. Video Abstract
Health of refugee children upon arrival in high-income countries: A scoping review.
Get PDFBACKGROUND: Refugee children represent one of the most vulnerable population groups globally, facing higher health risks. This scoping review aimed to systematically identify, map, and synthesize recent evidence on the health outcomes of refugee children during the initial resettlement phases in high-income countries. METHODS: We conducted a comprehensive search of major electronic databases, including MEDLINE, CINHAL, EMBASE, Emcare, Scopus, and Web of Science, to identify relevant peer-reviewed studies. The study selection processes adhered to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis Extension for the Scoping Review guidelines. Furthermore, we applied the Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) framework for scoping reviews to ensure methodological rigor and transparency. RESULTS: Of the 3440 articles retrieved, we included 43 studies (38 cross-sectional, three longitudinal, and two cohort). Findings categorized into seven key thematic areas: (1) nutritional deficiencies (e.g., stunting, wasting, underweight, overweight, obesity, and vitamin deficiency); (2) infectious diseases (e.g., latent tuberculosis, hepatitis); (3) neglected tropical diseases (e.g., scabies and schistosomiasis); (4) dental caries; (5) Elevated blood lead level (6) inadequate immunization status; and (7) mental health problems. CONCLUSIONS: This review emphasizes that refugee children are resettled with a multiple burden of health problems. Comprehensive health screening and culturally responsive targeted interventions are essential in addressing unmet health needs of refugee children. Future research should focus on longitudinal study designs and the use of disaggregated data by countries of origin, age, migration pathways, resettlement context, and specific child health outcomes. Such approaches enhance understanding of health disparities, inform evidence-based health planning, and support the development of refugee health policies
RWD10 PREFERENCES FOR ADOPTING ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IN RADIATION THERAPY TREATMENT: A DISCRETE CHOICE EXPERIMENT
No full textCorrigendum to "Case management of a patient with botulism by an intensive care nurse practitioner team" [Aust Crit Care 38 (5) (2025) 101291].
No full textThe authors regret and apologise for the incorrect statement in the abstract results section, “The patient returned to their previous employment and function.” This is incorrect. The statement, “The patient continues to work towards a full recovery” is correct and reflects the outcome reported in the main text of the paper. The authors would like to apologise for any inconvenience caused
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