We review some known bounds for eigenvalues of matrices and use similar techniques to derive bounds for nonlinear eigen problems and the eigenvalues for LTI systems with delays as a special case. There are two classes of results. The first are based on Hermitian decompositions, the second on Gershgorin's theorem. The bounds are easily computable. We reflect on implications for stability theory, which may be contrasted with bounds that have been obtained via Riccati stability based on Lyapunov-Krasovskii theory.

Background: CFTR-Related Metabolic Syndrome/ Cystic Fibrosis Screen Positive, Inconclusive Diagnosis (CRMS/CFSPID) is the diagnosis in infants who have a positive Cystic Fibrosis (CF) newborn screen (NBS), 2 CF-causing mutations, and borderline or normal sweat test. NY State implemented a new CF NBS algorithm (IRT-DNA-SEQ) in December 2017 with significant improvement in positive predictive value. This algorithm also resulted in detection of more CRMS cases. For these infants repeat sweat testing is recommended at 6, 12, and 18 months to monitor for risk of rising sweat chloride over time and 6-48% of infants with CRMS develop clinical features suggestive of CF. Infants with CRMS and sweat test results in the normal range are often lost to follow and parents were unwilling to return for recommended repeat sweat testing during the statewide lockdown during the peak of COVID-19 pandemic. We recognized the practice gap exacerbated during the pandemic and underscore the importance of establishing a medical home in a CF Center for longitudinal care. Methods: Retrospective analysis of infants with CRMS from December 2017 to December 2020 were collected by 10 NY CF Centers and the NBS program with NYU as the data collection and statistical analysis site. Infants with CRMS without repeat sweat chloride testing at 6 months of age were considered lost to follow up, and their parents were contacted via mail or telephone. Families completed a questionnaire that was developed with the assistance of CF Voice to evaluate parental understanding of CRMS and the recommendation for repeat sweat chloride testing. Primary care providers (PCPs) caring for infants with CRMS were also contacted and provided educational materials about CRMS. A subcommittee of CF Center Directors met to develop a statewide approach for the management of infants with CRMS. Results: Of 350 infants diagnosed with CRMS, 179 (51.1%) infants were lost to follow up. As an outcome of this QI effort 31 (17.3%) were scheduled for repeat sweat tests and follow up at CF Centers. This QI effort explored the knowledge and practice gap among PCPs with limited understanding of the implications of a CRMS diagnosis. CF Center Directors subcommittee issued a consensus statement regarding evaluation and follow up for infants with CRMS in NY. Conclusions: This QI effort effectively recaptured infants with CRMS previously lost to follow up. Consensus recommendations for CRMS include annual visits until 2-6 years of age for repeat sweat testing and in adolescence to educate the patient about clinical and reproductive implications of CRMS.

Background: Accurate prediction of SARS-CoV-2 severity remains a challenge. Torque Teno Virus (TTV), recognized as a surrogate marker for cellular immunity in solid organ transplant recipients, holds potential for assessing infection outcomes. Objectives: We investigated whether quantifying TTV in nasopharyngeal samples upon emergency ward (ED) admission could serve as an early predictor of SARS-CoV-2 severity. Study design: Retrospective single-center study in the ED of Saint-Louis Hospital in Paris, France. TTV DNA was quantified in nasopharyngeal swab samples collected for SARS-CoV-2 testing. Results: Among 295 SARS-CoV-2 infected patients, 92 returned home, 160 were admitted to medical wards, and 43 to the intensive care unit. Among 295 SARS-CoV-2 patients, 92 were discharged, 160 hospitalized, and 43 admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU). Elevated TTV loads were observed in ICU patients (Median: 3.02 log copies/mL, interquartile range [IQR]: 2.215-3.825), exceeding those in discharged (2.215, [0; 2.962]) or hospitalized patients (2.24, [0; 3.29]) (p=0.006). Multivariate analysis identified diabetes, obesity, hepatitis, fever, dyspnea, oxygen requirement, and TTV load as predictors of ICU admission. A 2.91 log 10 copies/mL TTV threshold independently predicted ICU admission. Conclusion: Nasopharyngeal TTV quantification in SARS-CoV-2 infected patients is linked to the likelihood of ICU admission and might reflect respiratory immunosuppression.

Terrorist attacks, war, violent acts, and their media coverage remind us of our own mortality, which may provoke stress and coping mechanisms. The terror management health model (TMHM) proposes that even subliminal thoughts about existential threats trigger worldview defense and self-esteem-related behaviors. Based on the TMHM, our field experiment (N=228) examines the impact of a terrorist attack on death-thought accessibility, the choice between alcoholic and nonalcoholic beverages, and if the impact on this choice is moderated by the importance of alcohol to one’s self-esteem (i.e., alcohol-based self-esteem), and the consciousness of the terrorist attack. Results show that thoughts about the terrorist attack increased death-thought accessibility. The salience of the terrorist attack had no main effect on beverage choice, but alcohol-based self-esteem predicted choosing an alcoholic beverage. However, in the unconscious thought condition, participants who had low alcohol-based self-esteem and were provoked with death-related thoughts about terrorism were more likely to choose an alcoholic beverage. In the conscious thought condition, participants who had high alcohol-based self-esteem were less likely to choose alcohol. This study suggests that thoughts about terrorism and, therefore, the threat of death, can be provoked in everyday situations and affect substance use behaviors with potentially adverse health consequences.

An increase in alternative activation in cerebral lateralisation with the ultradian rhythm dominates sympathetic or parasympathetic phases. In this study, we tested the reaction time (RT) of right-handed younger people to an auditory stimulus by shifting the ultradian rhythm to the sympathetic activation (SA) period. Twenty-three women and 7 men students volunteered for our study. In the resting period and SA phase, after measuring the participants’ blood pressure, heart rate, and nasal dominance, we assessed their right and left-hand RTs against regular and irregular auditory stimuli. SA was provided by running for 5 minutes on a treadmill at a rate that doubled the resting heart rate. In the SA phase, right-and left-hand RTs were accelerated in both stimulus types compared to pre-exercise (p<.05). With regular stimuli, the difference between right and left-hand RTs was insignificant in both the resting period and SA (p>.05). However, with irregular stimuli, the left-hand RT was faster than the right-hand RT for the resting period and after SA (p<.01). We conclude that the known superiority of the right hemisphere in processing non-verbal sounds, and its greater functionality in the formation of attention compared with the left hemisphere, accelerated the left-hand RT against irregular stimuli. Although the right hand and the motor area of the left hemisphere have an advantage of learned automatic motor skills, we suppose that the right hemisphere is superior in reaching the non-verbal sounds to the auditory cortex and the right auditory cortex processes these sensory signals faster via short-cut pathways.

Gastroduodenal Artery Pseudoaneurysm: A Case ReportArticle type: Case Report

Leaf gas exchange measurements provide an important tool for inferring a plant’s photosynthetic biochemistry. In most cases, the responses of photosynthetic CO 2 assimilation to variable intercellular CO 2 concentrations ( A/ Ci response curves) are used to model the maximum rate of carboxylation by ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase (Rubisco, V cmax) and the rate of electron transport at a given photosynthetically active radiation (PAR; J PAR). The standard Farquhar-Von Caemmerer-Berry model is typically used with default parameters of Rubisco kinetic values and mesophyll conductance to CO 2 ( g m) derived from tobacco that impairs analytical reliability across species. To study this, here we measured the temperature responses of key in vitro Rubisco catalytic properties and g m in cotton ( Gossypium hirsutum cv. Sicot 71) and derived V cmax and J 2000 ( J at 2000 µmol m -2 s -1 PAR) from cotton A/ Ci curves incrementally measured at 15°C to 40°C using cotton and tobacco parameters with our new automated fitting R package ‘OptiFitACi’. When applied to cotton, the tobacco parameters produced unrealistic J 2000: V cmax ratio of <1 at 25°C, two- to three-fold higher estimates of V cmax, approximately 50% higher estimates of J 2000 and more variable estimates of V cmax and J 2000, compared to model parameterisation with cotton-derived values. We determined that errors arise when using a g m of 0.23 mol m -2 s -1 bar -1 or below and Rubisco CO 2-affinities under ambient O 2 ( K C 21%O2) outside 461 µbar to 627 µbar to model A/ C i responses in cotton. We show how the multi- A/ C i modelling capabilities of ‘OptiFitACi’ serves as a robust, user-friendly extension of ‘plantecophys’ by providing simplified temperature-sensitivity and species-specificity parameterisation capabilities to enable higher accuracy estimates of V cmax and J 2000.

Di(2-ethylhexyl) terephthalate (DEHTP) is a substitutive plasticizer with various industrial applications. However, its wide occurrence in environmental matrices and human tissues is urging concerns on its toxicities. Presently, the effects of DEHTP on the fitness of Caenorhabditis elegans were explored with a consecutive exposure from F1 to F4 generations. The fitness was represented by reproduction, lifespan and behavior. Effects of DEHTP on reproduction showed an oscillation pattern with alteration from stimulation to inhibition and backwards. Influences of DEHTP on reproduction and lifespan showed trade-off relationships. Regarding behavior, DEHTP inhibited satiety quiescence duration, body bending and head swing, while stimulated reverse and Omega turns. At the biochemical level, DEHTP disturbed the lipid metabolites and lipid metabolism enzymes. Moreover, positive correlations were found between the effects on reproduction and with those on fatty acid synthase (FAS) and acyl-CoA (FA-CoA). DEHTP also disturbed the neural regulations including neural transmitters and the expressions of related genes. Out of expectation, the effects on neural regulations were positively correlated with those on lipid metabolism, but not with locomotion behavior. Hierarchical clustering analysis (HCA) results also indicated oscillatory changes underlying multi-generational effects of DEHTP, e.g., serotonin was more connected with other neural regulations than other indicators in F1 and F3, while it was more connected with behavior than others in F2 and F4.

Atherosclerosis is a chronic inflammatory disease that poses a serious threat to human health. It starts with the buildup of plaque in the artery wall, which results from the accumulation of pro-inflammatory factors and other substances. In this paper, we propose a mathematical model of early atherosclerosis with a free boundary and time delay. The time delay represents the transformation of macrophages into foam cells. We obtain an explicit solution and analyze the stability of the model and the effect of the time delay on plaque size. We show that for non-radial symmetric perturbations, when $n = 0$ or $1$, the steady-state solution $(M_*,p_*,r_*)$ is linearly stable; when $n \ge 2$, there exists a critical parameter $L_*$ such that the steady-state solution is linearly stable for $L < L_*$ and unstable for $L > L_*$. Moreover, we find that smaller plaque are associated with the presence of time delay.

Title: Serrated Adenocarcinoma of Sigmoid Colon: A Case Report

Multiphase reactors’ performance depends on the mesoscale structures formed due to multiphase hydrodynamics. Examples of mesoscale structures include gas bubbles in a fluidized bed and particle clusters in a riser. Experimental investigation of these mesoscale structures is challenging and expensive. To this end, Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations are extensively employed; however, post-processing CFD data to capture mesoscale structures is challenging. This work develops a DBSCAN-based methodology to capture and characterize mesoscale structures from multiphase CFD simulation data. DBSCAN is an unsupervised machine-learning algorithm, which requires the value of two hyperparameters. A simple technique to calculate these hyperparameters is provided and the performance of DBSCAN is assessed on CFD-DEM simulations of bubbling fluidized beds and particle clustering. We demonstrate the computational complexity of DBSCAN to be Ο(n log n), lower than the existing techniques, by testing its scalability on highly resolved grids (up to 100 million grid points).

Lysine acetylation is an evolutionarily conserved protein modification that regulates different cellular pathways. The acetyl moiety can be transferred to the lysine side chain in two ways, enzymatically by lysine acetyltransferases and non-enzymatic. Usually, acetyl coenzyme A is the donor agent, although acetyl phosphate is the main regulator of acetylation in bacteria. The removal of the acetyl group occurs exclusively enzymatically. In prokaryotes, lysine acetyltransferases are grouped by a core structural domain architecture in the protein superfamily Gcn5-related N-acetyltransferase (GNAT). With different implications, these enzymes can acetylate the amino group of small molecules, metabolites, peptides, and proteins. As well as mitochondria, chemical acetylation has also been demonstrated as a global regulatory mechanism in bacteria. This review presents current knowledge of acetylation mechanisms and functional implications in bacteria metabolism. Additionally, the advances in mass spectrometry for studying this PTM, including relative quantification and stoichiometry quantification, and how these methods have allowed researchers to elucidate the biological significance in bacteria are reviewed.

Organ-on-a-chip technology has shown great potential in disease modeling and drug evaluation. However, traditional organ-on-a-chip devices are mostly pump-dependent with low throughput, which makes it difficult to leverage their advantages. In this study, we have developed a generic, pump-free organ-on-a-chip platform consisting of a 32-unit chip and an adjustable rocker, facilitating high-throughput dynamic cell culture with straightforward operation. By utilizing the rocker to induce periodic fluid forces, we can achieve fluidic conditions similar to those obtained with traditional pump-based systems. Through constructing a gut-on-a-chip model, we observed remarkable enhancements in the expression of barrier-associated proteins and the spatial distribution of differentiated intestinal cells compared to static culture. Furthermore, RNA sequencing analysis unveiled enriched pathways associated with cell proliferation, lipid transport and drug metabolism, indicating the ability of the platform to mimic critical physiological processes. Additionally, we tested seven drugs which represent a range of high, medium, and low in vivo permeability using this model and found a strong correlation between their Papp values and human Fa, indicating reliable and predictive simulation outcomes for drug absorption. Our findings highlight the potential of this pump-free organ-on-a-chip platform as a valuable tool for advancing drug development and enabling personalized medicine.

While previous research has investigated the effects of emotional videos on peripheral physiological measures and conscious experience, this study extends the research to include cortical measures, specifically the steady-state visual evoked potential (ssVEP). A carefully curated set of 45 videos, designed to represent a wide range of emotional and neutral content, were presented with a flickering border. The videos featured a continuous single-shot perspective, natural soundtrack, and excluded elements associated with professional films, to enhance realism. The results demonstrate a consistent reduction in ssVEP amplitude during emotional videos which strongly correlates with the rated emotional intensity of the clips. This suggests that narrative audiovisual stimuli have the potential to track dynamic emotional processing in the cortex, providing new avenues for research in affective neuroscience. The findings highlight the potential of using realistic video stimuli to investigate how the human brain processes emotional events in a paradigm that increases ecological validity. Future studies can further develop this paradigm by expanding the video set, targeting specific cortical networks, and manipulating narrative predictability. Overall, this study establishes a foundation for investigating emotional perception using realistic video stimuli and has the potential to expand our understanding of real-world emotional processing in the human brain.

A seven year old Slovak warmblood gelding, used as a police horse, initially presented to the refferal clinic when it was five years old, with an itching keloid on the distal limb, requiring surgical removal. After surgical removal of the keloid and successful closure of the skin, it was necessary to maintain bandaging the healed wound to prevent self mutilation as the healed surgical site remained pruritic post operatively. After two years, the horse presented to the clinic again with pruritic and alopetic regions of the head, neck, limbs and base of the tail. Attempts to find the cause of dermal iritation included dermatological, parazitological, microbiological and ultrasonographic examination. Treatment with corticosteroids, antiparasitics and antibiotics were not succesfull. Further investigation due to the horse's worsening general status led to the finding of marked pleural effusion. Cytology of the pleural fluid confirmed there was, as suspected, neoplastic changes in the thoracic cavity. Furthermore there were gross pathological changes of the lymphatic tissue of the cranial mediastinum, surroundings of the aorta in the thoracic cavity and lymph nodes of the abdominal cavity. Histolology of the lymphatic nodes found poorly differentiated round cell tumours. Histopathological findings confirmed there was a very aggressive form of lymphoma. The pruritus, generalised moth-eaten alopecia and self-mutilation were the first symptoms of the terminal disease in this case.

Species richness has been shown to decrease, and elevational range increase (the Rapoport effect), with elevation as a consequence of biotic and abiotic factors, but patterns are inconsistent across taxonomic groups. Despite being an important indicator taxon and component of local communities, Orthoptera distributions at higher elevations in Europe remain unclear. We investigated the relationship of Orthoptera species richness and elevational range with elevation by conducting field studies at 28 sites across three study areas in the Pyrenees mountains, Europe. We found that species richness declined with elevation. Study area and the site-specific factors of sampling effort, topography (slope) and vegetation structure (density and cover) were also important predictors of species richness. We did not observe a Rapoport effect, with elevational range peaking at mid-elevation instead. Smaller elevational ranges found at high elevations may be due to a combination of sampling over a restricted elevational range and the presence of specialist high-elevation species. We also explored the composition of Orthoptera assemblages using multivariate methods, finding no clear effect of elevation, slope or vegetation structure on these communities, although study area somewhat influenced assemblages. To our knowledge, this is the first study of the Rapoport effect along an elevational gradient using insects as a study system in Europe. We argue that our findings are useful for understanding species distributions with elevation at the interface between local and regional scales. Clarifying the biotic and abiotic predictors of species distribution is important for informing conservation efforts and predicting consequences of climate change.

This case report describes successful conservative management of a comminuted fracture of the atlas. To the authors knowledge, fracture of the atlas in the horse and intrathecal corticosteroid injection in the standing sedated patient has not been previously reported. Clinical signs included acute onset ataxia, proprioceptive deficits and neck stiffness; which developed immediately post trauma during assisted recovery from general anaesthesia. Radiographic examination was not diagnostic immediately post trauma and computed tomographic (CT) imaging subsequently identified a fracture of the atlas. Treatment included ultrasound guided intrathecal medication of the cerebrospinal fluid and intra-articular medication of the atlantooccipital joint under standing sedation. Medication resulted in a marked improvement in clinical signs (grade 4 ataxia to grade 1 ataxia).

Fish play vital roles in river ecosystems; however, traditional investigations of fish usually cause certain ecological damage. Extracting DNA from aquatic environments and identifying DNA sequences offers an alternative, non-invasive approach for detecting fish species. In this study, environmental DNA (eDNA), coupled with PCR and next-generation sequencing, and electrofishing were used to compare their effects in identifying fish community characteristics. In three subtropical rivers of southern China, fish specimens and eDNA in water were collected from headwaters to estuaries. Both eDNA OTU richness and individual abundance (including number and biomass) could group 38 sampling sites into eight spatial zones with significant differences in local fish community composition. Compared with the order-/family-level grouping, the genus-/species-level grouping could more accurately recognize the differences between upstream zones I − III, midstream zones IV − V, and downstream zones VI – VIII. From headwaters to estuary, two environmental gradients significantly influenced the longitudinal distribution of fish species, including the first gradient composed of habitat and physical water parameters and the second gradient composed of chemical water parameters. The high regression coefficient of alpha diversity between eDNA and electrofishing methods as well as the accurate recognition of dominant, alien, and biomarker species at each spatial zone indicated that eDNA could characterize fish community attributes at a similar level of traditional approach. Generally, our results demonstrated that eDNA metabarcoding can be used as an effective tool in revealing fish composition and diversity, which is important for using the eDNA technique in aquatic field monitoring.