Angular sway propagation in One Leg Stance and quiet stance with Inertial Measurement Units for older adults

Postural stability degrades with age, threating the health and life quality of the older adults. One Leg Stance (OLS) is one of the standard and commonly adopted assessments for postural stability, and the postural sway in OLS has been demonstrated to be related with age. The propagation of postural sway between body segments could be a hint to the underlying mechanism of balance control. However, it is not yet fully understood. Therefore, the aim of this paper was to study the angular sways and their propagation of the head, trunk, and lower limb in healthy older adults. A cross-correlation of the normalized angular speeds was performed and the experiment with 68 older adults was conducted. The results showed that the head, hip and ankle joints affected the transfer of angular sway with a relatively lower correlation and longer latency

How Can the European Federation for Colposcopy Promote High Quality Colposcopy Throughout Europe?

Since its inception in 1998, the European Federation for Colposcopy (EFC) now comprises 26 member societies. Its principle aim is to promote high quality colposcopy throughout Europe with special emphasis on training, education and treatment. This review summarises EFC’s activities and achievements to date

Statistical methods to control for confounders in rare disease settings that use external control

In the drug development for rare disease, the number of treated subjects in the clinical trial is often very small, whereas the number of external controls can be relatively large. There is no clear guidance on choosing an appropriate statistical method to control baseline confounding in this situation. To fill this gap, we conduct extensive simulations to evaluate the performance of commonly used matching and weighting methods as well as the more recently developed targeted maximum likelihood estimation (TMLE) and cardinality matching in small sample settings, mimicking the motivating data from a pediatric rare disease. Among the methods examined, the performance of coarsened exact matching (CEM) and TMLE are relatively robust under various model specifications. CEM is only feasible when the number of controls far exceeds the number of treated, whereas TMLE has better performance with less extreme treatment allocation ratios. Our simulations suggest bootstrap is useful for variance estimation in small samples after matching.</p

MOESM1 of Efficient conformational ensemble generation of protein-bound peptides

Additional file 1. The average accuracies and standard deviations of MODPEP for the peptides of 3–30 amino acids on ten randomly splitted training/test sets

New Knowledge-Based Scoring Function with Inclusion of Backbone Conformational Entropies from Protein Structures

Accurate prediction of a protein’s structure requires a reliable free energy function that consists of both enthalpic and entropic contributions. Although considerable progresses have been made in the calculation of potential energies in protein structure prediction, the computation for entropies of protein has lagged far behind, due to the challenge that estimation of entropies often requires expensive conformational sampling. In this study, we have used a knowledge-based approach to estimate the backbone conformational entropies from experimentally determined structures. Instead of conducting computationally expensive MD/MC simulations, we obtained the entropies of protein structures based on the normalized probability distributions of back dihedral angles observed in the native structures. Our new knowledge-based scoring function with inclusion of the backbone entropies, which is referred to as ITScoreDA or ITDA, was extensively evaluated on 16 commonly used decoy sets and compared with 50 other published scoring functions. It was shown that ITDA is significantly superior to the other tested scoring functions in selecting native structures from decoys. The present study suggests the role of backbone conformational entropies in protein structures and provides a way for fast estimation of the entropic effect

Broadband Microwave Spectroscopy of Prototypical Amino Alcohols and Polyamines: Competition between H‑Bonded Cycles and Chains

The rotational spectra of the amino alcohols d-allo-threoninol, 2-amino-1,3-propanediol, and 1,3-diamino-2-propanol and the triamine analog, propane-1,2,3-triamine, have been investigated under jet-cooled conditions over the 7.5–18.5 GHz frequency range using chirped-pulsed Fourier transform microwave spectroscopy. Microwave transitions due to three conformers of d-allothreoninol, four conformers of 2-amino-1,3-propanediol, four conformers of 1,3-diamino-2-propanol, and four conformers of propane-1,2,3-triamine have been identified and assigned, aided by comparison of the fitted experimental rotational constants with the predictions for candidate structures based on an exhaustive conformational search using force field, <i>ab initio</i> and DFT methods. Distinctions between conformers with similar rotational constants were made on the basis of the observed nuclear quadrupole splittings and relative line strengths, which reflect the direction of the permanent dipole moment of the conformers. With three adjacent H-bonding substituents along the alkyl chain involving a combination of OH and NH₂ groups, hydrogen-bonded cycles (3 H-bonds) and chains (2 H-bonds) remain close in energy, no matter what the OH/NH₂ composition. Two families of H-bonded chains are possible, with H-bonding substituents forming curved chain or extended chain structures. Percent populations of the observed conformers were extracted from the relative intensities of their microwave spectra, which compare favorably with relative energies calculated at the B2PLYP-D3BJ/aug-cc-pVTZ level of theory. In glycerol (3 OH), d-allothreoninol (2 OH, 1 NH₂), 2-amino-1,3-propanediol (2 OH, 1 NH₂), and 1,3-diamino-2-propanol (1 OH, 2 NH₂), H-bonded cycles are most highly populated, followed by curved chains (3 OH or 2 OH/1 NH₂) or extended chains (1 OH/2 NH₂). In propane-1,2,3-triamine (3 NH₂), H-bonded cycles are pushed higher in energy than both curved and extended chains, which carry all the observed population. The NH₂ group serves as a better H-bond acceptor than donor, as is evidenced by optimized structures in which H-bond lengths fall into the following order: <i>r</i>(OH···N) ≈ <i>r</i>(OH···O) < <i>r</i>(NH···N) ≈ <i>r</i>(NH···O)

Reversible Hydrogen Electrode (RHE) Scale Dependent Surface Pourbaix Diagram at Different pH

In the analysis of electrocatalysis mechanisms and the design of catalysts, the effect of electrochemistry-induced surface coverage is a critical consideration that should not be overlooked. The surface Pourbaix diagram emerges as a fundamental tool in this context, providing essential insights into the surface coverage of adsorbates generated via electrochemical potential-driven water activation. A classic surface Pourbaix diagram considers the pH effects by correcting the free energy of H+ ions by the concentration-dependent term: −kBT ln(10) × pH, which is independent of the reversible hydrogen electrode (RHE) scale. However, this is sometimes inconsistent with the experimentally observed potential-dependent surface coverage at an RHE scale, especially under high-pH conditions. Here, we derived the pH-dependent surface Pourbaix diagram at an RHE scale by considering the energetics computed by density functional theory with the Bayesian Error Estimation Functional with van der Waals corrections (BEEF-vdW), the electric field effects, the derived adsorption-induced dipole moment and polarizability, and the potential of zero-charge. Using Pt(111) as the typical example, we found that the surface coverage predicted by the proposed RHE-dependent surface Pourbaix diagram can significantly minimize the discrepancy between theory and experimental observations, especially under neutral-alkaline, moderate-potential conditions. This work provides a new methodology and establishes guidelines for the precise analysis of the surface coverage prior to the evaluation of the activity of an electrocatalyst

High Prevalence of HIV, HCV and Tuberculosis and Associated Risk Behaviours among New Entrants of Methadone Maintenance Treatment Clinics in Guangdong Province, China

<div><p>Background</p><p>Methadone maintenance treatment (MMT) has been available in Guangdong province, China since 2006. This study aims to estimate the prevalence levels of HIV, Hepatitis C (HCV), Tuberculosis (TB) and their co-infections and associated demographic and risk behaviours among MMT entrants.</p> <p>Method</p><p>A total of 2296 drug users at the time of their MMT enrolment were recruited from four clinics during 2006-2011. Participants’ demographic characteristics, infection status and self-reported high-risk drug-use and sexual behaviours were surveyed. Log-linear contingency analysis was employed to investigate the demographic and behavioural differences between gender and drug-user type, while multivariate regression analysis was used to identify the associated factors of HIV, HCV and TB infections.</p> <p>Results</p><p>Female drug users demonstrate significantly higher frequency of daily drug consumption (Log-linear contingency analysis, G²=10.86, <i>p</i>=0.013) and higher proportion of having had sex in the past three months (G²=30.22, <i>p</i><0.001) than their male counterparts. Among injecting drug users, females also inject (χ²=16.15, <i>p</i>=0.001) and share syringes (χ²=13.24, <i>p</i>=0.004) more frequently than males. Prevalence of HIV, HCV and TB among MMT entrants are 6.3%, 78.7% and 4.4% respectively. Co-infections of HIV/HCV, HIV/TB, HCV/TB and HIV/HCV/TB reportedly infect 5.6%, 0.5%, 3.8% and 0.3% of study participants. Infection risks of HIV, HCV and TB are consistently associated with increasing length of drug use, injecting drugs, financial dependence and reduced sexual activities.</p> <p>Conclusion</p><p>Injecting drug use is the major contributing factor in prevalence levels of HIV, HCV and TB among MMT entrants. Female drug users are more disadvantaged in their social status and risk-taking in their drug use behaviours than males.</p> </div

Simultaneous Formation of Artificial SEI Film and 3D Host for Stable Metallic Sodium Anodes

Metallic sodium is a promising anode for sodium-based batteries, owing to its high theoretical capacity (1165 mAh g^–1) and low potential (−2.714 V vs standard hydrogen electrode). However, the growth of sodium dendrites and the infinite volume change of metallic sodium during sodium striping/plating result in a low Coulombic efficiency and poor cycling stability, generating a safety hazard of sodium-based batteries. Here, an efficient approach was proposed to simultaneously generate an artificial SEI film and 3D host for metallic sodium based on a conversion reaction (CR) between sodium and MoS₂ (4Na + MoS₂ = 2Na₂S + Mo) at room temperature. In the resultant sodium–MoS₂ hybrid after the conversion reaction (Na–MoS₂ (CR)), the production Na₂S is homogeneously dispersed on the surface of metallic sodium, which can act as an artificial SEI film, efficiently preventing the growth of sodium dendrites; the residual MoS₂ nanosheets can construct a 3D host to confine metallic sodium, accommodating largely the volume change of sodium. Consequently, the Na–MoS₂ (CR) hybrid exhibits very low overpotential of 25 mV and a very long cycle stability more than 1000 cycles. This novel strategy is promising to promote the development of metal (lithium, sodium, zinc)-based electrodes

Bioinspired Hierarchical Surface Structures with Tunable Wettability for Regulating Bacteria Adhesion

To circumvent the influence from varied topographies, the systematic study of wettability regulated Gram-positive bacteria adhesion is carried out on bioinspired hierarchical structures duplicated from rose petal structures. With the process of tuning the interfacial chemical composition of the self-assembled films from supramolecular gelators, the varied wettable surfaces from superhydrophilicity to superhydrophobicity can be obtained. The investigation of Gram-positive bacteria adhesion on the hierarchical surfaces reveals that Gram-positive bacteria adhesion is crucially mediated by peptidoglycan due to its different interaction mechanisms with wettable surfaces. The study makes it possible to systematically study the influence mechanism of wettability regulated bacteria adhesion and provides a sight to make the bioinspired topographies in order to investigate wettability regulated bioadhesion