Search Results (468)

This paper reports the first case in which a hyperlipidemic retriever (due to hypothyroidism) with a nasal tumor was successfully treated—achieving partial remission—and managed using a metronomic combination of chlorambucil (3.74 mg/m², SID) and prednisolone (0.28 mg/kg, SID) orally for 9 months at a general practice. A 35 kg spayed female golden retriever aged 8 years and 8 months with nosebleeds visited the Bundang New York Animal Hospital in July 2023 after being diagnosed with nasal carcinoma. A protocol of 4 weeks of chemotherapy followed by 1 week of rest was repeated in two cycles and continued metronomically for 9 months without pause after the two cycles. The nasal exudate was significantly reduced. The size of the nasal tumor was monitored using computed tomography (CT) imaging at a referral hospital. Since the first occurrence of epistaxis, 18 months have passed (as of January 2025) and the nasal exudate is barely visible, and the vital signs and weight of the dog remain stable. The size of the nasal tumor significantly decreased after 9 months of chemotherapy completion without moderate side effects, and all the blood work was normalized, including hypercholesteremia. This study demonstrates that, in hyperlipidemic cancer patients, a prednisolone/chlorambucil metronomic combination which is cost-effective can be an alternative to tyrosine kinase inhibitors such as sorafenib, even when excluding the price. Through a literature review, the author also investigates the effect of the hyperlipidemic state on cancer, focusing on carcinoma and vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), as well as the RAS-RAF-MEK pathway, which is a target for tyrosine kinase inhibitors, in order to reveal the molecular mechanism of chlorambucil metronomic chemotherapy. Also, the author investigates the molecular pathway of carcinoma development in human hyperlipidemia patients through single-cell RNA sequence analysis using open public data, and discusses the molecular action of chlorambucil. Full article

This study investigates whether specific acoustic features can reliably indicate phrase boundaries for automatic detection. It includes (1) an analysis of acoustic markers at the end of prosodic units—intonational phrases, intermediate phrases, and words—and (2) the evaluation of these features in an automatic boundary detection algorithm. Data were drawn from professionally and expressively read speech (893 words), news broadcasts (732 words), and interviews (361 words). Key features analyzed were pause duration, final sound lengthening, intensity, and F0 changes. Findings show that pauses and their duration are the most consistent indicators of phrase boundaries, especially at intonational phrase ends. Final sound lengthening and reductions in intensity and F0 also contribute but are less reliable for intermediate phrases. In automatic detection phonetic cues can be used to predict boundaries assigned by phoneticians 69% of the time. Read speech yielded better results than spontaneous speech. Among the features, pause presence and length were the most reliable, while F0 and intensity changes played a minor role. Full article

Aims: To investigate the nutritional status and feeding behaviours of nursing home residents and the impact of cognitive impairments and feeding difficulties on nutritional health. Design: A cross-sectional observational design was employed. Methods: The study assessed 51 nursing home residents using the Mini Nutritional Assessment Short-Form (MNA-SF) for nutritional status, the Feeding Difficulty Index (FDI) for mealtime behaviours, and the MoCA (Montreal Cognitive Assessment or The MoCA Test) for cognitive function. Results: The average age of participants was 87.8 years. Nearly half (47.1%) were at high risk of malnutrition, and 13.7% were classified as malnourished. The average MoCA score was 14, indicating moderate cognitive impairment, which was inversely associated with nutritional status. Feeding difficulties were common, as follows: 74.5% of residents paused feeding for over one minute, and 62.8% were distracted during meals. A longer duration of nursing home residency was associated with poorer nutritional outcomes. Overall, 65% of residents required mealtime assistance, with higher FDI scores correlating with greater support needs. Significant positive correlations were found between cognitive function and nutritional status (r = 0.401, p = 0.037) and between food intake and nutritional status (r = 0.392, p = 0.004). In contrast, residency duration (r = −0.292, p = 0.037) and feeding difficulties (r = −0.630, p < 0.001) were negatively associated with MNA-SF scores. FDI scores were strongly associated with the level of assistance required during meals (r = 0.763, p < 0.001). This study highlights the critical need for targeted nutritional assessments and interventions in nursing homes, especially for residents with dementia facing cognitive impairments and feeding difficulties. Enhancing staff training on recognising and addressing eating challenges and risk factors is essential for improving nutritional well-being. Conclusions: The study highlighted the profound impact of cognitive impairments and feeding difficulties on the nutritional health of nursing home residents, indicating a high prevalence of malnutrition and a need for comprehensive mealtime assistance. Full article

Filled pauses are thought to be reflections of linguistic processes (e.g., lexical retrieval, speech planning and execution). Uh may be a self-directed cue for when a speaker needs more time to retrieve lexical–semantic representations, whereas um serves as a listener-directed, pragmatic cue. The use of filled pauses has not been examined in children who are hard of hearing (CHH). Participants included 68 CHH and 33 children with typical hearing (CTH). Participants engaged in conversations, expository discourse, and fable retells. We analyzed filled pauses as a function of hearing status and discourse contexts and evaluated the relationship between filled pauses and language ability. CHH produced uh across discourse contexts more often than their hearing peers. CHH did not differ in their use of um relative to CTH. Both um and uh were used more often in conversational samples compared to other types of discourse. Spearman’s correlations did not show any significant associations between the rate of filled pauses and standardized language scores. These results indicate that CHH produces uh more often than CTH, suggesting that they may have difficulty retrieving lexical–semantic items during ongoing speech. This information may be useful for interventionists who are collecting language samples during assessment. Full article

This study investigates the effect of code-switching (CS) on the processing and attachment resolution of ambiguous relative clauses (RCs) like ‘Bill saw the friend of the neighbor that was talking about football’ by heritage speakers of Spanish. It checks whether code-switching imposes a prosodic break at the place of language change, and whether this prosodic break affects RC parsing, as predicted by the Implicit Prosody Hypothesis: a high attachment (HA) preference results from a prosodic break at the RC. A prosodic break at the preposition ‘of’ in the complex DP ‘the friend of the neighbor’ entails a low attachment (LA) preference. The design compares RC resolution in unilingual sentences (Spanish, with a default preference for HA in RC, and English, with the default LA) with the RC parsing in sentences with CS. The CS occurs at the places of prosodic breaks considered by the IPH. The results show sensitivity to the place of CS in RC attachment. CS prompting LA causes longer response times. The preference for HA in Spanish unilingual sentences is higher than in English ones. Heritage speakers are sensitive to the prosodic effects of CS. However, there is high variability across speakers. Full article

The DNA of all living organisms is a common matrix for both replication and transcription processes. This sometimes leads to inevitable collisions between DNA replication and transcription machinery. There is plethora of evidence demonstrating that such collisions (or TRCs) are one of the most common and significant reasons for genomic instability. One of the key outcomes of TRCs is the accumulation of non-canonical DNA secondary structures, including R-loops. R-loops are three-stranded DNA–RNA hybrids with a displaced third single-stranded DNA fragment. Although R-loops are thought to play several functional roles in biological processes, an imbalance in their metabolism has been proven to have severe consequences. In this review, we attempt to summarize the current knowledge of the participants in the process of R-loop regulation in cells, with an emphasis on eukaryotic systems. We also touch upon the conditions favoring TRCs and the possible ways of dealing with these conflicts. Full article

We present a buffer-pH-modulated electrokinetic concentration strategy in MEMS microchannels that harnesses simple pH shifts to neutralize and charge proteins, reversibly “pausing” them at a planar electric-gate electrode by tuning to their isoelectric point (pI) and mobilizing them with slight pH offsets under an applied field. This synergistic coupling of dynamic pH control and electrode-gated focusing, which requires only buffer composition changes, enables rapid and tunable protein capture and release across diverse channel geometries for lab-on-chip, preparative, and point-of-care diagnostics. Moreover, it dovetails with established MEMS biomedical platforms ranging from diagnostics to drug delivery and microsurgery to gene and cell-manipulation devices. Future work on tailored electrode coatings and optimized channel profiles will further boost selectivity, speed, and integration in sub-100 µm MEMS devices. Full article

Dementia is a neurodegenerative disorder characterized by progressive cognitive impairment that significantly affects daily living. Early detection of Alzheimer’s disease—the most common form of dementia—remains essential for prompt intervention and treatment, yet clinical diagnosis often requires extensive and resource-intensive procedures. This article explores the effectiveness of automated Natural Language Processing (NLP) methods for identifying Alzheimer’s indicators from audio transcriptions of the Cookie Theft picture description task in the PittCorpus dementia database. Five NLP approaches were compared: a classical Tf–Idf statistical representation and embeddings derived from large language models (GloVe, BERT, Gemma-2B, and Linq-Embed-Mistral), each integrated with a logistic regression classifier. Transcriptions were carefully preprocessed to preserve linguistically relevant features such as repetitions, self-corrections, and pauses. To compare the performance of the five approaches, a stratified 5-fold cross-validation was conducted; the best results were obtained with BERT embeddings (84.73% accuracy) closely followed by the simpler Tf–Idf approach (83.73% accuracy) and the state-of-the-art model Linq-Embed-Mistral (83.54% accuracy), while Gemma-2B and GloVe embeddings yielded slightly lower performances (80.91% and 78.11% accuracy, respectively). Contrary to initial expectations—that richer semantic and contextual embeddings would substantially outperform simpler frequency-based methods—the competitive accuracy of Tf–Idf suggests that the choice and frequency of the words used might be more important than semantic or contextual information in Alzheimer’s detection. This work represents an effort toward implementing user-friendly software capable of offering an initial indicator of Alzheimer’s risk, potentially reducing the need for an in-person clinical visit. Full article

Background: The efficacy of EA575 in the treatment of respiratory diseases is described in various clinical studies, improving patients’ disease-related symptoms. However, mechanistic in vivo data proving its beneficial effects are limited. Methods: Focusing on the treatment of acute airway inflammation and accompanying cough, this study aimed to elucidate antitussive and mucoactive properties of EA575, applying two animal models. Animals were treated orally twice daily for 7 days, resulting in 43, 215.2, or 430.5 mg/kg bw/d of EA575. Antitussive effects were investigated within an acute lung inflammation model of bleomycin-treated guinea pigs after citric acid exposure. Hereby, the number of coughs, enhanced pause (penH), and bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF) were investigated. Mucoactivity of EA575 was assessed within a murine model, determining phenol red concentration in BALF. Results: EA575 treatment within the acute lung inflammation model reduced cough events up to 56% while reducing inflammatory cell influx in BALF dose-dependently, e.g., reducing neutrophils in BALF up to 70.9%. This suggests a strong connection between anti-inflammatory and antitussive properties of EA575. Furthermore, penH decreased in a dose-dependent manner, suggesting an ease in respiration. Mucoactivity was shown by a dose-dependent increase in phenol red concentration in BALF up to 38.9%. Notably, EA575/salbutamol co-administration resulted in enhanced phenol red secretion compared to respective single administrations. Conclusions: These data highlight the benefits of EA575 in treating cough-related respiratory diseases, particularly when accompanied by sputum, as EA575 has been shown to obtain mucoactivity. Furthermore, the combinatory effect of EA575/salbutamol treatment provides a foundation for future research in the treatment of chronic respiratory diseases. Full article

Mesoporous silicon dioxide films have been shown to be well suited as adhesion-promoting interlayers for generating high-strength polymer–metal interfaces. These films can be fabricated via microwave plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition using the precursor hexamethyldisiloxane and oxygen as working gas. The resulting mesoporous structures enable polymer infiltration during overmolding, which leads to a nanoscale form-locking mechanism after solidification. This mechanism allows for efficient stress transfer across the interface and makes the resulting adhesion highly dependent on the morphology of the deposited film. To gain a deeper understanding of the underlying deposition mechanisms and improve process stability, this work investigates the growth behavior of mesoporous silica films using a multiple regression analysis approach. The seven process parameters coating time, distance, chamber pressure, substrate temperature, flow rate, plasma pulse duration, and pause-to-pulse ratio were systematically varied within a Design of Experiments framework. The resulting films were characterized by their free surface area, mean agglomerate diameter, and film thickness using digital image analysis, white light interferometry, and atomic force microscopy. The deposited films exhibit a wide range of morphological appearances, ranging from quasi-dense to dust-like structures. As part of this research, the free surface area varied from 15 to 55 percent, the mean agglomerate diameter from 17 to 126 nm, and the film thickness from 35 to 1600 nm. The derived growth model describes the deposition process with high statistical accuracy. Furthermore, all coatings were overmolded via injection molding and subjected to mechanical testing, allowing a direct correlation between film morphology and their performance as adhesion-promoting interlayers. Full article

The present paper examines and compares the role of cognitive discourse markers (DMs), such as uhm, like, or I mean, and a set of prosodic parameters as indicators of prosodic boundaries. Cognitive DMs traditionally are not studied as a separate DM group on par with the ideational, sequential, rhetorical, or interpersonal group. However, as they reflect the speaker’s mental processes during speech production, they offer an exceptional glimpse into how speakers construct their verbalisations. Along with the analysis of DMs, prosodic parameters, including pitch and intensity reset, speech rate change, and pauses, were automatically annotated to determine how well they overlapped with the manually annotated prosodic boundaries. To accommodate for the natural variability in speech, the parameters were evaluated using relative comparison methods. Among the prosodic parameters, pauses were found to overlap most often with the manually annotated prosodic boundaries. Cognitive DMs in the function of realising new information, restructuring, and emphasis indeed proved as relevant boundary indicators, however, the group of cognitive DMs as a whole fell behind the group of sequential and rhetorical DMs, which overlapped most frequently with the manually annotated prosodic boundaries. Full article

The North American Great Lakes offer a dynamic case study of inundated cultural landscapes. These bodies of water and the life around them have never been static. While submerged lands offer avenues for archaeological research, it is essential to first understand that these cultural landscapes have also been flooded with invasive power dynamics through settler colonialism. For example, the land and water systems in Anishinaabe Akiing (the northern Great Lakes) have fundamentally shifted from flourishing life systems to poisoned areas and now struggle to deal with invasive species. When seeking to learn from or otherwise engage Indigenous knowledge, it is essential to work from a perspective that takes all these changes into consideration. There are Indigenous communities who are interested in these inundated landscapes, and in this research, but a pause, naandamo, is needed to ethically consider the ongoing process of settler colonialism and Indigenous perspectives. Here we address ethical considerations for researchers participating in, or interested in participating in, submerged site research. By incorporating settler colonialism as a methodology of understanding, we will provide an ethical starting place for working with Indigenous communities and inundated landscapes. Full article

To accelerate breeding progress for egg production traits in Lindian chickens, the genetic parameters for egg production and clutch-related traits in Lindian chickens were evaluated in the present study. Data regarding the age at first egg (AFE), egg number (EN), average clutch length (ACL), and average pause length (APL) were collected from two generations of Lindian chickens based on individual egg production records at 32 weeks of age (32–wk), 43–wk, and 52–wk. The results showed that the AFE of Lindian chickens was 179.3 d of age, with a heritability of 0.35. The heritability was 0.26 for EN32, 0.28 for EN43, and 0.34 for EN52. ACL showed moderate-to-high heritability (h² = 0.3–0.54), but APL traits showed low heritability (h² = 0.09–0.14). There were high positive genetic and phenotypic correlations for EN in the three periods from the start of laying up to 32–wk, 43–wk, and 52–wk. EN had high negative genetic correlations with AFE (r_G = −0.47–−0.80) and high positive genetic correlations with ACL (r_G = 0.45–0.81). The correlation between EN and APL was positive for 32–wk and 43–wk, but negative for 52–wk. These results indicated that the egg production of Lindian chickens could be improved by the selection of AFE, early EN, and ACL. Full article

Background: This study investigated boxers’ activity profiles during the final matches (3 × 3 min format) of the IBA 2023 Women’s World Boxing Championships. Methods: Footage of the 12 finals was used to analyse the frequency and duration of fighting (F), punching (P), clinching (C), no-fighting (NF), and arbitral interruption (AI) phases. The analysis was conducted both for weight categories and divisions (lightweight (LWC): 48, 50, 52, 54, 57, and 60 kg; middleweight (MWC): 63, 66, 70, and 75 kg; heavyweight (HWC): 81 and 81+ kg). Results: Pooled data per round revealed significant differences for P (<0.001), C (p = 0.002), NF (p < 0.001), and AI (p < 0.001) phases, as well for P mean duration across rounds (p < 0.001). The MWC division showed significantly shorter F duration compared with the LWC (p = 0.007) and MWC divisions (<0.001). The F/NF total time ratio showed a prevalence of F in the 48, 50, 63, and 81+ kg categories, while NF prevailed in the 54, 57, 60, and 75 kg categories. Conclusions: While HWC primarily relied on C actions, the 54, 57, 60, and 75 kg categories showed higher NF frequency. This fact explains a different strategic match management approach with deliberate rhythm, controlled pauses, and opponent analysis, which coaches should consider for enhancing athletes’ performance by considering weight categories. Full article

Background/Objectives: Research on oral dysfunctions as contributing factors to obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is needed to prevent and treat OSA. This study aimed to explore the association of OSA with oral dysfunction and examine its impact on nutrient intake, physical activity, and handgrip strength. Methods: This cross-sectional study analyzed data from the Eighth cycle Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (KNHANES, 2019–2021). The OSA group included diagnosed individuals and those over 40 years with symptoms such as snoring, fatigue, or witnessed breathing pauses during sleep. The non-OSA group included individuals not meeting these criteria. Using 1:1 propensity score matching to control for confounders (sex, age, lifestyle factors), 7636 participants were included. Oral dysfunction was assessed based on chewing problems, complaints of chewing discomfort, and speech difficulties. Nutrient intake, physical activity, and handgrip strength were analyzed using the Rao–Scott χ² test, complex sample t-test, and complex sample logistic regression. Results: The OSA group demonstrated significantly more oral dysfunction elements than the non-OSA group (p < 0.001). Higher energy intake was observed in the OSA group, with no significant differences in macronutrient intake. Physical activity levels were similar between groups; however, OSA participants without oral problems had higher handgrip strength (p < 0.05). Regression analysis showed increased OSA risk correlated with greater oral dysfunction and lower protein intake. Conclusions: This study revealed a strong association between oral dysfunction and OSA risk. Focusing on the assessment and early intervention of oral dysfunctions that influence OSA risk factors may aid in the early detection and prevention of OSA. Full article