Important Updates Research Articles

COVID-19 bivalent boosters: What to know

Ever since FDA amended the EUAs in late August 2022 for the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine and the Pfizer–BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine to authorize bivalent formulations of the vaccines for use as a booster dose, patients have had questions. Here's what pharmacists need to know to navigate these important updates.

NCCN Guidelines® Insights: Gastrointestinal Stromal Tumors, Version 2.2022.

Gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GIST) are the most common type of soft tissue sarcoma that occur throughout the gastrointestinal tract. Most of these tumors are caused by oncogenic activating mutations in the KIT or PDGFRA genes. The NCCN Guidelines for GIST provide recommendations for the diagnosis, evaluation, treatment, and follow-up of patients with these tumors. These NCCN Guidelines Insights summarize the panel discussion behind recent important updates to the guidelines, including revised systemic therapy options for unresectable, progressive, or metastatic GIST based on mutational status, and updated recommendations for the management of GIST that develop resistance to specific tyrosine kinase inhibitors.

Rectal Cancer, Version 2.2022, NCCN Clinical Practice Guidelines in Oncology.

This selection from the NCCN Guidelines for Rectal Cancer focuses on management of malignant polyps and resectable nonmetastatic rectal cancer because important updates have been made to these guidelines. These recent updates include redrawing the algorithms for stage II and III disease to reflect new data supporting the increasingly prominent role of total neoadjuvant therapy, expanded recommendations for short-course radiation therapy techniques, and new recommendations for a "watch-and-wait" nonoperative management technique for patients with cancer that shows a complete response to neoadjuvant therapy. The complete version of the NCCN Guidelines for Rectal Cancer, available online at NCCN.org, covers additional topics including risk assessment, pathology and staging, management of metastatic disease, posttreatment surveillance, treatment of recurrent disease, and survivorship.

The Case of Geoffrey Chaucer and Cecily Chaumpaigne: New Evidence

The Case of Geoffrey Chaucer and Cecily Chaumpaigne: New Evidence

Dissent against ‘Definition debates’ about Social Work

This commentary dissents against definition debates. I argue that ongoing discussion about what social work is needs to find a common ground of recognition. Arguments about the bifurcation, demise or “end of social work” are challenged. Starting with the position that social work operates on a necessarily contested and contradictory space, the case is made for a shared definition of social work as a “mediator in the social”. To stand up as a foundational definition for the diversity of social work worldwide, “mediation in the social” as described by Philp (1979) requires important updates to fit the complex “socials” of the 21st century. This necessitates a shift from the inclusion of Indigenous knowledge as an add-on to expansively identifying indigenous knowledge as a constant that underpins social work internationally. This definition needs to be founded on shared values and assumptions that capture the essence of social work such as citizenship, relational practices, human rights and social justice as expressed in diverse cultural contexts worldwide.

Drug allergy: A 2022 practice parameter update

Drug allergy: A 2022 practice parameter update

What's new in kidney tumor pathology 2022: WHO 5th edition updates.

The 5th edition WHO Classification of Urinary and Male Genital Tumours (2022) introduces significant changes relevant to daily practice, especially in the completely restructured renal cell tumor chapters. Herein we highlight the most important diagnostic updates of known kidney tumor types, new and molecularly defined entities and emerging/provisional entities.

NCCN Guidelines® Insights: Ovarian Cancer, Version 3.2022

Epithelial ovarian cancer is the leading cause of death from gynecologic cancer in the United States, with less than half of patients living >5 years following diagnosis. The NCCN Guidelines for Ovarian Cancer provide recommendations for the diagnosis, evaluation, treatment, and follow-up for patients with ovarian, fallopian tube, and primary peritoneal cancers. These NCCN Guidelines Insights summarize the panel discussion behind recent important updates to the guidelines, including revised guidance on alternative chemotherapy regimens for patients with advanced age and/or comorbidities, a new algorithm for recurrent low-grade serous carcinoma based on developing research and novel therapeutic agents, and updated language regarding tumor molecular analysis applications in ovarian cancer.

Mitochondria – expanding the role of the powerhouse

In this issue of The Biochemist, we are bringing you articles that cover all the things that you didn’t know about mitochondria.We all know the definition of mitochondria as ‘the powerhouse of the cell’. When I first learnt about mitochondria, I was amazed and in awe of learning how chemistry and life connect. I was thrilled to dedicate a whole issue of The Biochemist on the topic of mitochondria and I was amazed again when I read the submissions – the knowledge we have about mitochondria has expanded way beyond that high school definition. Take the article from the Picard Lab, which explores how they are investigating the way in which mitochondria might influence mental and physiological functions: pushing the boundaries of how we understand individual elements within biology and how they can contribute to the system they exist within – beyond a singular function.This issue explores not only the wide-ranging role of mitochondria but also the many ways in which researchers can investigate and think about the role of mitochondria to better understand their function.It’s clear that in biology, individual components cannot be looked at in isolation. In visualizing and considering mitochondria and biological systems, it can be incredibly useful to work with artists and designers to shift the thinking and push research questions into new directions. I was incredibly excited by the article on the collaborative project from the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the Biochemical Society, and subsequent work which has led to the creation of a global collective–a network of researchers, biologists, artists and designers–to reframe how we think about mitochondria. One aspect of this work involved looking to the future of the study of mitochondria and this creative approach might aid researchers in making those next leaps in understanding these important organelle.I was also pleased to read about the advancements in mitochondrial DNA engineering techniques which are supporting the possibility of treatments for mitochondrial diseases. This area has not been as quick to advance due to the incompatibility of techniques developed for nuclear DNA but now some breakthroughs give hope in this area.In this edition of The Biochemist, you can also find a news section which features important updates on how the publications from the Biochemical Society are moving towards an open scholarship model and the steps that have been taken over the past few years to achieve that.The Biochemist magazine is, of course, free and available for all to read. The best way to support the publication if you enjoy reading articles is to share via social media and email.

Third-Person Perception as a Mediator of the Influence of Social Networking Sites Use & Personal Relevance to the 6M Preventive Behavioural Intention: A Study on the Online Covid-19 News Audience in Jakarta Special Capital Region

News coverage on Covid-19 is important as it provides people with important updates as well as crucial information for avoiding infection. Previous studies have shown undesirable messages such as Covid-19 news that circulates in social networking sites can trigger ‘third-person perception (TPP)’, which is a phenomenon in which audiences presume a message exerts more influence upon people other than themselves. It is crucial to examine whether audiences experience TPP during consumption of pandemic news – especially when there is a possible negative correlation between TPP and protective behavioural intentions. Previous studies showed empirical evidence when users used Covid-19 news in SNS (consume, contribute or create), such use could reduce TPP and was also correlated with preventive behavioural intentions. This suggests that three types of SNS usage and personal relevance have direct relationship with protective behavioural intentions, as well as indirect relationship with TPP, where it has a mediating role. To test these hypotheses, explanatory research of a positivistic paradigm and quantitative approach was administered. This research utilized quota sampling to collect data from 400 respondents through online questionnaire. Based on the structural analysis, there is no significant relationship between TPP and preventive behavioural intentions. Analyses also did not support the hypotheses that TPP mediated: 1.) SNS usage and preventive behavioural intensions; 2.) and personal relevance and preventive behavioural intensions. Personal relevance was found to be an important construct as it had a positive influence toward preventive behavioural intentions and a negative relationship with TPP. It is suggested that low level of interaction with Covid-19 news in Social Networking Sites is due to the respondents only incidentally consumed Covid-19 news. It is also suggested that non-existing relationship between third-person perception and preventive behavioural intention is due to the mandatory nature of health protocol in Indonesia.

Gastrointestinal involvement in systemic sclerosis: pathogenesis, assessment and treatment.

The majority of patients with systemic sclerosis (SSc) will experience involvement of their gastrointestinal over the course of their disease. Despite the high prevalence of gastrointestinal involvement in SSc, the strategies pertaining to the assessment and treatment for this clinical dimension of SSc have historically been limited. However, the present review highlights recent research contributions that enhance our understanding of SSc-GI patient subsets and provides updates on pathogenic mechanisms of disease, assessment and symptom-directed management. In the past few years, several studies have identified risk factors for more severe gastrointestinal disease in SSc and have provided insight to optimize diagnosis and management of SSc-GI symptoms. This article also provides a review of currently available investigations and therapies for individual SSc-GI disease manifestations and reflects on actively evolving areas of research, including our understanding the role of the gut microbiome in SSc. Here, we provide important updates pertaining to the risk stratification, assessment, diagnosis and management of SSc patients with gastrointestinal symptoms. These findings provide opportunities to enhance patient care and highlight exciting opportunities for future research.

The Thermoeconomic Environment and the exergy-based cost accounting of technological and biological systems

The paper is focused on the presentation of the Thermoeconomic Environment (TEE), showing the motivations for introducing this new concept, the consistency of the TEE with some important and recent updates of the extended exergy accounting methodologies, as well as the new perspectives that the concept of TEE allows us to identify. The TEE is a consistent ultimate boundary of the exergy cost accounting, where various exergy reservoirs, of limited content, are immersed in a background with no exergy (the zero-exergy matrix). The exergy reservoirs are kept separated from the zero-exergy matrix by some confinement constraints. Based on this very simple, but meaningful framework, some of the main issues of extended exergy accounting methodologies are reviewed and some possible new perspectives are highlighted for the exergy cost accounting of polluting emissions and of the products of biological systems. In addition the paper discusses the exergy cost of mineral resources, of capital and of human work.

PEER TO PEER MEDIA STREAMING USING CLUSTERS

Audio and video Streaming is one of the most interesting technologies that give the user detailed multimedia resources such as important video updates, real time sports surfing and entertainment movies. Constructive management of the information is the important factor to gain rapid and fast success in this field of service. As it is a very habitual for many users wanting have the same type of entertainment resource at the same time, the conventional Client server model may provide service bottle neck, bandwidth loss, improper management of the cache and increased delay. Broadcasting or multiple screening is not a solution because there will be different users who will be connecting to the server and request to provide access to similar kind of video at different interval of time. Apart from this, once we start playing a video, the following part must be obtained and should be provided to the user at the right time to keep away the video from getting interrupted. Predictive stashing is very important to prevail over the instability of wireless connection. In this paper, we put forth the idea and deliver a new two-level cooperative architecture service and a wide range of technology for streaming.

NCCN Guidelines® Insights: Bladder Cancer, Version 2.2022.

The NCCN Guidelines for Bladder Cancer provide recommendations for the diagnosis, evaluation, treatment, and follow-up of patients with bladder cancer and other urinary tract cancers (upper tract tumors, urothelial carcinoma of the prostate, primary carcinoma of the urethra). These NCCN Guidelines Insights summarize the panel discussion behind recent important updates to the guidelines regarding the treatment of non-muscle-invasive bladder cancer, including how to treat in the event of a bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) shortage; new roles for immune checkpoint inhibitors in non-muscle invasive, muscle-invasive, and metastatic bladder cancer; and the addition of antibody-drug conjugates for metastatic bladder cancer.

ATAC-STARR-seq reveals transcription factor-bound activators and silencers within chromatin-accessible regions of the human genome.

Massively parallel reporter assays (MPRAs) test the capacity of putative gene regulatory elements to drive transcription on a genome-wide scale. Most gene regulatory activity occurs within accessible chromatin, and recently described methods have combined assays that capture these regions—such as assay for transposase-accessible chromatin using sequencing (ATAC-seq)—with self-transcribing active regulatory region sequencing (STARR-seq) to selectively assay the regulatory potential of accessible DNA (ATAC-STARR-seq). Here, we report an integrated approach that quantifies activating and silencing regulatory activity, chromatin accessibility, and transcription factor (TF) occupancy with one assay using ATAC-STARR-seq. Our strategy, including important updates to the ATAC-STARR-seq assay and workflow, enabled high-resolution testing of ∼50 million unique DNA fragments tiling ∼101,000 accessible chromatin regions in human lymphoblastoid cells. We discovered that 30% of all accessible regions contain an activator, a silencer, or both. Although few MPRA studies have explored silencing activity, we demonstrate that silencers occur at similar frequencies to activators, and they represent a distinct functional group enriched for unique TF motifs and repressive histone modifications. We further show that Tn5 cut-site frequencies are retained in the ATAC-STARR plasmid library compared to standard ATAC-seq, enabling TF occupancy to be ascertained from ATAC-STARR data. With this approach, we found that activators and silencers cluster by distinct TF footprint combinations, and these groups of activity represent different gene regulatory networks of immune cell function. Altogether, these data highlight the multilayered capabilities of ATAC-STARR-seq to comprehensively investigate the regulatory landscape of the human genome all from a single DNA fragment source.

A synopsis of the 2021 International Society of Fertility Preservation bi-annual meeting.

On November 19, 2021, the first virtual meeting of the International Society for Fertility Preservation (ISFP) took place. Eight experts in the field of reproductive medicine presented important updates on their research in the field of fertility preservation and reproductive surgery for absolute uterine factor infertility. Presentations included talks on ovarian stem cell therapy for premature ovarian insufficiency, practical aspects of oocyte vitrification, ovarian stimulation for patients with breast cancer, in vitro maturation of oocytes at the time of ovarian tissue harvesting, male fertility preservation, and uterine transplantation. These presentations are summarized below and can be viewed in their entirety at www.isfp-fertility.org.

Pigeon Circovirus over Three Decades of Research: Bibliometrics, Scoping Review, and Perspectives.

The pigeon circovirus (PiCV), first described in the literature in the early 1990s, is considered one of the most important infectious agents affecting pigeon health. Thirty years after its discovery, the current review has employed bibliometric strategies to map the entire accessible PiCV-related research corpus with the aim of understanding its present research landscape, particularly in consideration of its historical context. Subsequently, developments, current knowledge, and important updates were provided. Additionally, this review also provides a textual analysis examining the relationship between PiCV and the young pigeon disease syndrome (YPDS), as described and propagated in the literature. Our examination revealed that usages of the term ‘YPDS’ in the literature are characterizations that are diverse in range, and neither standard nor equivalent. Guided by our understanding of the PiCV research corpus, a conceptualization of PiCV diseases was also presented in this review. Proposed definitions and diagnostic criteria for PiCV subclinical infection (PiCV-SI) and PiCV systemic disease (PiCV-SD) were also provided. Lastly, knowledge gaps and open research questions relevant to future PiCV-related studies were identified and discussed.

Diabetes updates are a game changer

Pharmacists and other health care professionals have anxiously awaited the most recent update to the Standards of Medical Care in Diabetes from the American Diabetes Association (ADA), which is finally here with some important updates, including how health care providers can approach pharmacologic treatment for those with type 2 diabetes.

Turkistonda milliy matbuot, adabiyot va adabiy til

Abstract. Any literary process operates the connection of existing social conditions, political system. The socio-political changes and historical conditions that occurred in Turkestan at the beginning of the XXth century at the end of the XIXth century had the stronger impact on literature than usual. The creators of this period vividly depicted the themes of national freedom, national identity, and enlightenment in their works. This article covers the issues of historical conditions, influence of socio – political factors, which played an important role in the development of the process of Uzbek literature – intensive literature of the beginning of the XXth century. The Manifesto adopted by the tsarist government in 1905 and its importance and essence are discussed based on the sources. Press and printing works in Turkestan were stopped. Important updates in Jadid literature, the method of artistic representation, literary relations, comments on the attitude to the national language have been reflected.

What's new in breast pathology 2022: WHO 5th edition and biomarker updates.

The 5th edition WHO Classification of Breast Tumours (2019) has introduced changes to our practices. Highlights are presented below, with a focus on modifications to morphological subtype categorization. In addition, we summarize important updates to ER and PR testing made in the 2020 ASCO/CAP guidelines, and briefly discuss PD-L1 and Ki-67 testing in breast cancer.