bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
The analgesic effect of transmuscular quadratus lumborum block versus erector spinae plane block for women undergoing elective Caesarean section: A randomized controlled trial
Authors: Mostafa Maha , Nasr Mohamed A , Fawzy Maher , Awad Aya E , Waheeb Mohsen M 
Published: June 2023

Background We aimed to compare the analgesic effect and quality of recovery of transmuscular quadratus lumborum block (QLB) and erector spinae plane block (ESPB) in the presence of multimodal analgesia following Caesarean section. Methods This randomised controlled trial included full-term pregnant women who underwent elective Caesarean section under spinal anaesthesia without intrathecal morphine. The included women were randomised to receive either bilateral QLB ( n = 51) or bilateral thoracic ESPB ( n = 51), in addition to the control group ( n = 51) who did not receive any block. All participants received regular paracetamol (1 g/6h) and diclofenac (50 mg/8 h). Intravenous morphine was used as a rescue analgesic. The primary outcome was time to first morphine requirement. Secondary outcomes included total postoperative morphine consumption and total Obstetric Quality of Recovery-11 (ObsQoR-11) score. Results We analysed 51, 50 and 48 patients in the QLB, ESPB and control groups, respectively. The time to first morphine requirement in both QLB and ESPB groups was longer than that in the control group (median [quartiles] time: 6 [6,12] h, 6 [6,6] h and 4 [3,4] h, respectively; p-value <0.001), without significant differences between the two former groups. The total morphine consumption in both QLB and ESPB groups was lower than that in the control group (median [quartiles]:0 [0,5] mg, 0 [0,5] mg and 25 [25,30] mg, respectively; p-value <0.001), without significant differences between the two former groups. The QLB and ESPB groups had comparable ObsQoR-11 score, and both groups’ scores were higher than the control group. Conclusion In patients undergoing elective Caesarean section under spinal anaesthesia without intrathecal morphine, both QLB and ESPB provided superior analgesia and quality of recovery compared to the standard care, without significant difference between the two blocks.
A novel simulation model for tube thoracostomy
Authors: Kouyoumjian Sarkis , Velilla Marc-Anthony , Paxton James H. 
Published: June 2023

Objective: Tube thoracostomy is a life-saving procedure that must be performed competently and expeditiously by emergency care providers. The primary objective of this project was to develop a simple, easily-reproducible, and realistic simulation model for tube thoracostomy placement by learners of emergency medicine. Methods: This chest tube simulator utilizes two slabs of pork ribs with associated intercostal muscle and fascial planes to aid learners in identifying anatomic landmarks, palpating intercostal spaces, and performing blunt dissection in a manner that approximates human anatomy. Holes are cut on both sides of a 1.8-bushel capacity rectangular plastic clothing hamper, and rib slabs are secured to the hamper with zip ties or metal wire. A bed pillow with plastic cover is then placed inside of the plastic hamper to simulate lung tissue. The rib-hamper complex is then wrapped with cellophane or elastic compression bandages to further anchor the rib slabs and simulate skin and subcutaneous tissues. Results: The initial cost of our thoracostomy model is approximately $50, much less than the $1,000–$3,000 cost for a commercial model. Although the hamper and pillow can be reused an indefinite number of times, the other components of our model must be replaced occasionally. Assuming a lifespan of 1,000 uses, our model costs approximately $1.78 per attempt, compared to $4.00 per attempt with the cheapest commercial mannequin system. In fact, assuming a longer useful lifespan for the mannequin does not substantially improve this comparison (e.g. $3.10 versus $1.77 per attempt for a 10,000 attempt lifespan for the commercial mannequin), largely due to the higher cost of commercial replacement skin pads when compared to the components consumed in our model with each attempt. Conclusions: We describe a porcine thoracostomy model that simulates the look and feel of human ribs for purposes of tube thoracostomy training, although it could also be used for thoracentesis and thoracotomy simulation. This model is relatively cheap (costing around $50) and easy to produce within a few minutes utilizing commonly-available materials. Further study is needed to determine whether an inexpensive model like ours provides the same educational value as more expensive commercial mannequin models.
Nfinder: automatic inference of cell neighborhood in 2D and 3D using nuclear markers
Authors: Moretti Bruno , Rodriguez Alvarez Santiago N. , Grecco Hernán E. 
Published: June 2023

Abstract
Background
In tissues and organisms, the coordination of neighboring cells is essential to maintain their properties and functions. Therefore, knowing which cells are adjacent is crucial to understand biological processes that involve physical interactions among them, e.g. cell migration and proliferation. In addition, some signaling pathways, such as Notch or extrinsic apoptosis, are highly dependent on cell–cell communication. While this is straightforward to obtain from membrane images, nuclei labelling is much more ubiquitous for technical reasons. However, there are no automatic and robust methods to find neighboring cells based only on nuclear markers.

Results
In this work, we describe Nfinder, a method to assess the cell’s local neighborhood from images with nuclei labeling. To achieve this goal, we approximate the cell–cell interaction graph by the Delaunay triangulation of nuclei centroids. Then, links are filtered by automatic thresholding in cell–cell distance (pairwise interaction) and the maximum angle that a pair of cells subtends with shared neighbors (non-pairwise interaction). We systematically characterized the detection performance by applying Nfinder to publicly available datasets from Drosophila melanogaster, Tribolium castaneum, Arabidopsis thaliana and C. elegans. In each case, the result of the algorithm was compared to a cell neighbor graph generated by manually annotating the original dataset. On average, our method detected 95% of true neighbors, with only 6% of false discoveries. Remarkably, our findings indicate that taking into account non-pairwise interactions might increase the Positive Predictive Value up to + 11.5%.

Conclusion
Nfinder is the first robust and automatic method for estimating neighboring cells in 2D and 3D based only on nuclear markers and without any free parameters. Using this tool, we found that taking non-pairwise interactions into account improves the detection performance significantly. We believe that using our method might improve the effectiveness of other workflows to study cell–cell interactions from microscopy images. Finally, we also provide a reference implementation in Python and an easy-to-use napari plugin.
Association filtering and generative adversarial networks for predicting lncRNA-associated disease
Authors: Zhong Hua , Luo Jing , Tang Lin , Liao Shicheng , Lu Zhonghao , Lin Guoliang , Murphy Robert W. , Liu Lin 
Published: June 2023

Abstract
Background
Long non-coding RNA (lncRNA) closely associates with numerous biological processes, and with many diseases. Therefore, lncRNA-disease association prediction helps obtain relevant biological information and understand pathogenesis, and thus better diagnose preventable diseases.

Results
Herein, we offer the LDAF_GAN method for predicting lncRNA-associated disease based on association filtering and generative adversarial networks. Experimentation used two types of data: lncRNA-disease associated data without lncRNA sequence features, and fused lncRNA sequence features. LDAF_GAN uses a generator and discriminator, and differs from the original GAN by the addition of a filtering operation and negative sampling. Filtering allows the generator output to filter out unassociated diseases before being fed into the discriminator. Thus, the results generated by the model focuses only on lncRNAs associated with disease. Negative sampling takes a portion of disease terms with 0 from the association matrix as negative samples, which are assumed to be unassociated with lncRNA. A regular term is added to the loss function to avoid producing a vector with all values of 1, which can fool the discriminator. Thus, the model requires that generated positive samples are close to 1, and negative samples are close to 0. The model achieved a superior fitting effect; LDAF_GAN had superior performance in predicting fivefold cross-validations on the two datasets with AUC values of 0.9265 and 0.9278, respectively. In the case study, LDAF_GAN predicted disease association for six lncRNAs-H19, MALAT1, XIST, ZFAS1, UCA1, and ZEB1-AS1-and with the top ten predictions of 100%, 80%, 90%, 90%, 100%, and 90%, respectively, which were reported by previous studies.

Conclusion
LDAF_GAN efficiently predicts the potential association of existing lncRNAs and the potential association of new lncRNAs with diseases. The results of fivefold cross-validation, tenfold cross-validation, and case studies suggest that the model has great predictive potential for lncRNA-disease association prediction.
Gene coexpression network during ontogeny in the yellow fever mosquito, Aedes aegypti
Authors: Lin Zhinan , Huang Yuqi , Liu Sihan , Huang Qiwen , Zhang Biliang , Wang Tianpeng , Zhang Ziding , Zhu Xiaowei , Liao Chenghong , Han Qian 
Published: June 2023

Abstract
Background
The behaviors and ontogeny of Aedes aegypti are closely related to the spread of diseases caused by dengue (DENV), chikungunya (CHIKV), Zika (ZIKV), and yellow fever (YFV) viruses. During the life cycle, Ae. aegypti undergoes drastic morphological, metabolic, and functional changes triggered by gene regulation and other molecular mechanisms. Some essential regulatory factors that regulate insect ontogeny have been revealed in other species, but their roles are still poorly investigated in the mosquito.

Results
Our study identified 6 gene modules and their intramodular hub genes that were highly associated with the ontogeny of Ae. aegypti in the constructed network. Those modules were found to be enriched in functional roles related to cuticle development, ATP generation, digestion, immunity, pupation control, lectins, and spermatogenesis. Additionally, digestion-related pathways were activated in the larvae and adult females but suppressed in the pupae. The integrated protein‒protein network also identified cilium-related genes. In addition, we verified that the 6 intramodular hub genes encoding proteins such as EcKinase regulating larval molt were only expressed in the larval stage. Quantitative RT‒PCR of the intramodular hub genes gave similar results as the RNA-Seq expression profile, and most hub genes were ontogeny-specifically expressed.

Conclusions
The constructed gene coexpression network provides a useful resource for network-based data mining to identify candidate genes for functional studies. Ultimately, these findings will be key in identifying potential molecular targets for disease control.
Prevalence of different virulence factors and their association with antimicrobial resistance among Pseudomonas aeruginosa clinical isolates from Egypt
Authors: Edward Eva A. , El Shehawy Marwa R. , Abouelfetouh Alaa , Aboulmagd Elsayed 
Published: June 2023

AbstractBackgroundEmergence of multi-drug resistantPseudomonas aeruginosa,coupled with the pathogen’s versatile virulence factors, lead to high morbidity and mortality rates. The current study investigated the potential association between the antibiotic resistance and the production of virulence factors amongP. aeruginosaclinical isolates collected from Alexandria Main University Hospital in Egypt. We also evaluated the potential of the phenotypic detection of virulence factors to reflect virulence as detected by virulence genes presence. The role of alginate in the formation of biofilms and the effect of ambroxol, a mucolytic agent, on the inhibition of biofilm formation were investigated.ResultsA multi-drug resistant phenotype was detected among 79.8% of the isolates. The most predominant virulence factor was biofilm formation (89.4%), while DNase was least detected (10.6%). Pigment production was significantly associated with ceftazidime susceptibility, phospholipase C production was significantly linked to sensitivity to cefepime, and DNase production was significantly associated with intermediate resistance to meropenem. Among the tested virulence genes,lasBandalgDshowed the highest prevalence rates (93.3% and 91.3%, respectively), whiletoxAandplcNwere the least detected ones (46.2% and 53.8%, respectively). Significant association oftoxAwith ceftazidime susceptibility,exoSwith ceftazidime and aztreonam susceptibility, andplcHwith piperacillin-tazobactam susceptibility was observed. There was a significant correlation between alkaline protease production and the detection ofalgD,lasB,exoS,plcHandplcN; pigment production and the presence ofalgD,lasB,toxAandexoS; and gelatinase production and the existence oflasB,exoSandplcH. Ambroxol showed a high anti-biofilm activity (5% to 92%). Quantitative reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction showed that alginate was not an essential matrix component inP. aeruginosabiofilms.ConclusionsHigh virulence coupled with the isolates’ multi-drug resistance to commonly used antimicrobials would increase morbidity and mortality rates amongP. aeruginosainfections. Ambroxol that displayed anti-biofilm action could be suggested as an alternative treatment option, yet in vivo studies are required to confirm these findings. We recommend active surveillance of antimicrobial resistance and virulence determinant prevalence for better understanding of coregulatory mechanisms.
Clinical characteristics and treatment patterns of pregnant women with hypertension in primary care in the Federal Capital Territory of Nigeria: cross-sectional results from the hypertension treatment in Nigeria Program
Authors: Mahmoud Zainab , Orji Ikechukwu A. , Shedul Gabriel L. , Aluka-Omitiran Kasarachi , Ripiye Nanna , Akor Blessing , Eze Helen , Ojo Tunde , Iyer Guhan , Baldridge Abigail S. , Hirschhorn Lisa R. , Huffman Mark D. , Ojji Dike B. 
Published: June 2023

Abstract
Background
Hypertensive disorders of pregnancy, including hypertension, are a leading cause of maternal mortality in Nigeria. However, there is a paucity of data on pregnant women with hypertension who receive care in primary health care facilities. This study presents the results from a cross-sectional analysis of pregnant women enrolled in the Hypertension Treatment in Nigeria Program which is aimed at integrating and strengthening hypertension care in primary health care centres.

Methods
A descriptive analysis of the baseline results from the Hypertension Treatment in Nigeria Program was performed. Baseline blood pressures, treatment and control rates of pregnant women were analysed and compared to other adult women of reproductive age. A complete case analysis was performed, and a two-sided p value < 0.05 was considered statistically significant.

Results
Between January 2020 to October 2022, 5972 women of reproductive age were enrolled in the 60 primary healthcare centres participating in the Hypertension Treatment in Nigeria Program and 112 (2%) were pregnant. Overall mean age (SD) was 39.6 years (6.3). Co-morbidities were rare in both groups, and blood pressures were similar amongst pregnant and non-pregnant women (overall mean (SD) first systolic and diastolic blood pressures were 157.4 (20.6)/100.7 (13.6) mm Hg and overall mean (SD) second systolic and diastolic blood pressures were 151.7 (20.1)/98.4 (13.5) mm Hg). However, compared to non-pregnant women, pregnant women had a higher rate of newly diagnosed hypertension (65.2% versus 54.4% p = 0.02) and lower baseline walk-in treatment (32.1% versus 42.1%, p = 0.03). The control rate was numerically lower among pregnant patients (6.3% versus 10.2%, p = 0.17), but was not statistically significant. Some pregnant patients (8.3%) were on medications contraindicated in pregnancy, and none of the pregnant women were on aspirin for primary prevention of preeclampsia.

Conclusions
These findings indicate significant gaps in care and important areas for future studies to improve the quality of care and outcomes for pregnant women with hypertension in Nigeria, a country with the highest burden of maternal mortality globally.
Digital health technologies for peripartum depression management among low-socioeconomic populations: perspectives from patients, providers, and social media channels
Authors: Zingg Alexandra , Singh Tavleen , Franklin Amy , Ross Angela , Selvaraj Sudhakar , Refuerzo Jerrie , Myneni Sahiti 
Published: June 2023

Abstract
Background
Peripartum Depression (PPD) affects approximately 10–15% of perinatal women in the U.S., with those of low socioeconomic status (low-SES) more likely to develop symptoms. Multilevel treatment barriers including social stigma and not having appropriate access to mental health resources have played a major role in PPD-related disparities. Emerging advances in digital technologies and analytics provide opportunities to identify and address access barriers, knowledge gaps, and engagement issues. However, most market solutions for PPD prevention and management are produced generically without considering the specialized needs of low-SES populations. In this study, we examine and portray the information and technology needs of low-SES women by considering their unique perspectives and providers’ current experiences. We supplement our understanding of women’s needs by harvesting online social discourse in PPD-related forums, which we identify as valuable information resources among these populations.

Methods
We conducted (a) 2 focus groups (n = 9), (b) semi-structured interviews with care providers (n = 9) and low SES women (n = 10), and (c) secondary analysis of online messages (n = 1,424). Qualitative data were inductively analyzed using a grounded theory approach.

Results
A total of 134 open concepts resulted from patient interviews, 185 from provider interviews, and 106 from focus groups. These revealed six core themes for PPD management, including “Use of Technology/Features”, “Access to Care”, and “Pregnancy Education”. Our social media analysis revealed six PPD topics of importance in online messages, including “Physical and Mental Health” (n = 725 messages), and “Social Support” (n = 674).

Conclusion
Our data triangulation allowed us to analyze PPD information and technology needs at different levels of granularity. Differences between patients and providers included a focus from providers on needing better support from administrative staff, as well as better PPD clinical decision support. Our results can inform future research and development efforts to address PPD health disparities.
MicroRNA-188-5p inhibits hepatocellular carcinoma proliferation and migration by targeting forkhead box N2
Authors: Wu Yan-hui , Yu Bin , Zhou Jiang-min , Shen Xue-han , Chen Wei-xun , Ai Xi , Leng Chao , Liang Bin-yong , Shao Ya-jie 
Published: June 2023

Abstract
Background
This study aimed to identify the biological functions, expression modes, and possible mechanisms underlying the relationship between metastatic human hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and MicroRNA-188-5p (miR-188) dysregulation using cell lines.

Methods
A decrease in miR-188 was detected in low and high metastatic HCC cells compared to that in normal hepatic cells and non-invasive cell lines. Gain- and loss-of-function experiments were performed in vitro to investigate the role of miR-188 in cancer cell (Hep3B, HepG2, HLF, and LM3) proliferation and migration.

Results
miR-188 mimic transfection inhibited the proliferation of metastatic HLF and LM3 cells but not non-invasive HepG2 and Hep3B cells; nonetheless, miR-188 suppression promoted the growth of HLF and LM3 cells. miR-188 upregulation inhibited the migratory rate and invasive capacity of HLF and LM3, rather than HepG2 and Hep3B cells, whereas transfection of a miR-188 inhibitor in HLF and LM3 cells had the opposite effects. Dual-luciferase reporter assays and bioinformatics prediction confirmed that miR-188 could directly target forkhead box N2 (FOXN2) in HLF and LM3 cells. Transfection of miR-188 mimics reduced FOXN2 levels, whereas miR-188 inhibition resulted in the opposite result, in HLF and LM3 cells. Overexpression of FOXN2 in HLF and LM3 cells abrogated miR-188 mimic-induced downregulation of proliferation, migration, and invasion. In addition, we found that miR-188 upregulation impaired tumor growth in vivo.

Conclusions
In summary, this study showed thatmiR-188 inhibits the proliferation and migration of metastatic HCC cells by targeting FOXN2.
Oral cavity and oropharyngeal carcinoma disparities in age and survival in Indigenous and non-Indigenous populations of Queensland
Authors: Alkandari Abdulrahman Sakeen , Ho Jemmi Ching Ying , Choi Siu Wai , Thomson Peter 
Published: June 2023

Abstract
Objectives
To investigate the risk and prognosis of oral squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) between Indigenous and non-Indigenous populations of Queensland.

Materials and methods
Retrospective analysis of data from the Queensland Cancer Registry (QCR) between the years 1982–2018. Main outcome measures were age at diagnosis and cumulative survival to compare the risk and prognosis of oral SCC between the populations.

Results
9424 patients with self-declared ethnicity were identified with oral SCC from the QCR, with a male to female ratio of 2.56:1. Of these patients, 9132 were non-Indigenous (96.9%) and 292 Indigenous (3.1%). Indigenous people were significantly younger at diagnosis (mean (SD) age 54.3 (10.1) years), compared to 62.0 (12.1) years in non-Indigenous people. Mean survival in the full cohort was 4.3 years (SD: 5.6), with Indigenous people presenting a significant shorter mean survival of 2.0 years (SD: 3.5) when compared with 4.4 years (SD: 5.7) in non-Indigenous people (p < 0.001).

Conclusions
Indigenous Australians are diagnosed at a significantly younger age and present with worse survival and poorer prognosis. Due to missing variables in the Queensland Cancer Registry, it is not possible in the current study to ascertain the scientific or social reasons behind these disparities.

Clinical relevance
Results from this study can inform public policy and raise awareness in Queensland regarding disparity in oral cancer prognosis.