Long-term Information Research Articles

Association between Mortality and Time Spent Out of Bed in Older-Adult Nursing Home Residents.

For older adults, spending time out of bed is important for preventing functional decline, but its relationship to mortality is not clear. In this study, we aimed to investigate the association between mortality and time spent out of bed in Japanese older-adult nursing home residents. We conducted a cohort study using data from the Long-term Care Information System for Evidence database. We used data collected between April 2022 and March 2024 from older-adult nursing home residents who required assistance with the activities of daily living. We compared outcome data between residents who spent 6 or more hours per day out of bed (group L) and those who spent less than 6 hours per day out of bed (group S). The outcome was all-cause mortality. Data were analyzed using Kaplan-Meier curves and Cox regression models. Data from 185 older-adult nursing home residents (median age: 89years; 141 women) were analyzed. Group L included 144 residents (77.8% of all participants). Of the 185 participants, 40 died during the observation period. Mortality in group L was significantly lower than in group S (16.7% vs 39.0%, P= .002). Kaplan-Meier curve analysis after the log-rank test revealed a significantly higher mortality in group S than group L. Univariate and multivariate Cox regression analyses with robust (Huber-White) standard errors identified the factor of time spent out of bed (≥6h) as a significant and independent risk factor for mortality. More time spent out of bed is associated with lower mortality in older-adult nursing home residents who require assistance with the activities of daily living.

Unveiling hydrological responses in Madagascar’s major river basins: addressing data scarcity and land-use change impacts

Insufficient observed hydro-climatological data and studies on land use and land cover change (LULCC) hinder the understanding of environmental changes at the Major River Basins in Madagascar (MRBM). This paper assesses the impact of LULCC on water resources across the MRBM. The ability of the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) model to simulate streamflow is evaluated to obtain long-term and consistent hydrological information across the country. Moreover, this study emphasized the process of single-gauge calibration and dealing with uncertainty on a large river basin scale. Despite the lack of data, the model efficiently simulated streamflow, achieving high predictive accuracy in 8 basins out of 12 during calibration and validation. By 2050, a major change in LULC is predicted across the MRBM, which is expected to significantly alter the water balance. Major causes of LUCC and measures to address these changes are also investigated. We recommend basin-specific water management plans.

Incremental accumulation of linguistic context in artificial and biological neural networks

Large Language Models (LLMs) have shown success in predicting neural signals associated with narrative processing, but their approach to integrating context over large timescales differs fundamentally from that of the human brain. In this study, we show how the brain, unlike LLMs that process large text windows in parallel, integrates short-term and long-term contextual information through an incremental mechanism. Using fMRI data from 219 participants listening to spoken narratives, we first demonstrate that LLMs predict brain activity effectively only when using short contextual windows of up to a few dozen words. Next, we introduce an alternative LLM-based incremental-context model that combines incoming short-term context with an aggregated, dynamically updated summary of prior context. This model significantly enhances the prediction of neural activity in higher-order regions involved in long-timescale processing. Our findings reveal how the brain’s hierarchical temporal processing mechanisms enable the flexible integration of information over time, providing valuable insights for both cognitive neuroscience and AI development.

Current status of relocation among terminally ill older residents of nursing facilities: Observational study using anonymous long-term care receipt information

Objectives In Japan, efforts to provide "end-of-life care" in nursing homes are increasing and its introduction through long-term care insurance in 2006 is a major step forward. However, previous studies have shown that relocating older adults to their end-of-life care affects their burden. This study examined individuals' end-of-life care use under long-term care insurance in older care facilities and investigated the relocation frequency among terminally ill older residents of nursing facilities using receipt data.Methods The research targeted individuals aged ≥ 65 years under long-term care insurance who used formal end-of-life care services and were passed into residential facilities between April 1, 2018 and March 31, 2021. Data were obtained from anonymous long-term care certification information provided by the Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare. Six facilities providing end-of-life care were considered; older care facilities, geriatric health service facilities, designated establishments, and dementia group homes. A total of 233,735 individuals with service use records in the month of service cessation were aggregated according to facility, individual factors, and prefecture. Additionally, we defined end-of-life relocation as occurring if three categories of end-of-life care fees (day of death, 1-2 days before death, and 4-30 days before death) did not continue until the day of death.Results The participants were individuals aged ≥ 85 years (83.35%), 25.29% were men, and 93.53% required a care level of ≥ 3. Older nursing care facilities recorded the highest number (114,356) of end-of-life care users. The proportion of individuals with moderate-to-severe dementia (level ≥ IIIa; approximately 80%) was higher in nursing homes for older adults, community-based nursing homes for older adults, and dementia group homes than in other facilities. Relocation during the terminal phase was less prevalent in facilities with higher doctor and nurse staffing levels. At the individual level, relocation is more frequent among men, younger individuals, those with lower care levels, and those with intact decision-making and communication abilities. Conclusion Terminally ill residents aged ≥ 80 years with severe levels of care were the most likely to use end-of-life care. Moreover, 0.2-2% relocated across all facilities within 30 days before death. The relocation frequency increased based on individual factors and was mitigated by a thorough system of medical staff deployment.

A multiple imputation approach in enhancing causal inference for overall survival in randomized controlled trials with crossover

ABSTRACT Crossover or treatment-switching in randomized controlled trials presents notable challenges not only in the development and approval of new drugs but also poses a complex issue in their reimbursement, especially in oncology. When the investigational treatment is superior to control, crossover from control to investigational treatment upon disease progression or for other reasons will likely cause the underestimation of treatment benefit. Rank Preserving Structural Failure Time (RPSFT) and Two-Stage Estimation (TSE) methods are commonly employed to adjust for treatment switching by estimating counterfactual survival times. However, these methods may induce informative censoring by adjusting censoring times for switchers while leaving those for non-switchers unchanged. Existing approaches such as re-censoring or inverse probability of censoring weighting (IPCW) are often used alongside RPSFT or TSE to handle informative censoring, but may result in long-term information loss or suffer from model misspecification. In this paper, Kaplan–Meier multiple imputation with bootstrap procedure (KMIB) is proposed to address the informative censoring issues in adjustment methods for treatment switching. This approach can avoid information loss and is robust to model misspecification. In the scenarios that we investigate, simulation studies show that this approach performs better than other adjustment methods when the treatment effect is small, and behave similarly under other scenarios despite different switching probability. A case study in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) is also provided to demonstrate the use of this method.

DeepFusion: A Deep Bimodal Information Fusion Network for Unraveling Protein-RNA Interactions Using In Vivo RNA Structures

RNA-binding proteins (RBPs) are key post-transcriptional regulators, and the malfunctions of RBP-RNA binding lead to diverse human diseases. However, prediction of RBP binding sites is largely based on RNA sequence features, whereas in vivo RNA structural features based on high-throughput sequencing are rarely incorporated. Here, we designed a deep bimodal information fusion network called DeepFusion for unraveling protein-RNA interactions by incorporating structural features derived from DMS-seq data. DeepFusion integrates two sub-models to extract local motif-like information and long-term context information. We show that DeepFusion performs best compared with other cutting-edge methods with only sequence inputs on two datasets. DeepFusion’s performance is further improved with bimodal input after adding in vivo DMS-seq structural features. Furthermore, DeepFusion can be used for analyzing RNA degradation, demonstrating significantly different RBP-binding scores in genes with slow degradation rates versus those with rapid degradation rates. DeepFusion thus provides enhanced abilities for further analysis of functional RNAs. DeepFusion’s code and data are available at http://bioinfo.org/deepfusion/.

Markov Progressive Framework, a Universal Paradigm for Modeling Long Videos.

The computational complexity of video models increases linearly with the square number of frames. Thus, constrained bycomputational resources, training video models to learn long-term temporal semantics end-to-end is quite a challenge. Currently, the main-stream method is to split a raw video into clips, leading to incomplete fragmentary temporal information flow and failure of modeling long-term semantics. In this paper, we design the Markov Progressive framework (MaPro), a theoretical framework consisting of the progressive modeling method and a paradigm model tailored for it. Thecore idea of MaPro is to find a paradigm model consisting of proposed Markov operators which can be trained in multiple sequential steps and ensure that the multi-step progressive modeling is equivalent to the conventional end-to-endmodeling. By training the paradigm model under the progressive method, we are able to model long videos end-to-endwith limited resources and ensure the effective transmission of long-term temporal information. We provide implementations of this theoretical system on the mainstream CNN- and Transformer-based models, where they are modified to conform to the Markov paradigm. As a general and robust training method, we experimentally demonstrate that it yields significant performance improvements on different backbones and datasets. As an illustrative example, the proposed method improves the SlowOnly network by 4.1 mAP on Charades and 2.5 top-1 accuracy on Kinetics. And for TimeSformer, MaPro improves its performance on Kinetics by 2.0 top-1 accuracy. Importantly, all these improvements areachieved with a little parameter and computation overhead.

Long-Term and Short-Term Information Propagation and Fusion for Learned Video Compression

Long-Term and Short-Term Information Propagation and Fusion for Learned Video Compression

Quantitative Assessment of Ecological Sustainability Development in Taiwan Coastal Zone Based on the Coastal Development Index

Quantitative assessment of coastal ecological sustainability development has received increasing interest in regional sustainable development research. It has a strategic value in guiding coastal zone management. We apply the Coastal Development Index (CDI) to quantify the ecological sustainability development in Taiwan coastal zone from 2000 to 2019. The results reveal a relatively high level of ecological sustainability with an overall inverted V-shaped trend in Taiwan coastal zone during this period. The coordination between environmental protection and economic growth in Taiwan coastal zone has experienced an uncoordinated → coordinated → uncoordinated process. Tracking the index of six sub-indicators shows some issues such as over-focusing on quantity rather than quality in coastal protection and facing a "green trap" in economic development. Moderate economic growth is crucial to realize the ecological sustainability development in Taiwan coastal zone. This study demonstrates the value of CDI in the quantitative assessment of ecological sustainable development with a detailed case study in Taiwan coastal zone. It also provides long-term historical data and information on Taiwan region, which may contribute to promoting coordinated development on both sides of the Taiwan Strait.

Advisors as key partners for achieving adoption at scale: embedding “My Climate View” into agricultural advisory networks

IntroductionThis paper examines the role of agricultural advisors as key partners for scaling adoption of long-term climate information. Agri-food sectors across the world face significant challenges in responding to climate change, which intersect with broader pressures driving transitions to more climate resilient and sustainable agri-food systems. Making better climate information available to farmers is a key part of responding to these challenges, since relevant and usable climate information can help farmers to adapt to future climate conditions. The development of climate services, which seek to provide climate information to assist with decision making, has therefore increased significantly over the last decade. The Climate Services for Agriculture (CSA) program provides long-term climate projections to help the Australian agriculture sector prepare for and adapt to future climate conditions. ‘My Climate View’ is an online tool produced by CSA, which provides localised and contextualised, commodity-specific climate information, through historic weather data and multi-decadal projections of future climate, aimed at Australian famers and farm advisors. Agricultural advisors have a critical yet often underutilised role as climate information intermediaries, through assisting farmers translate climate information into action.MethodsThis paper uses CSA as a case study to examine farmer-advisor interactions as a key adoption pathway for My Climate View. We interviewed 52 farmers and 24 advisors across Australia to examine the role of advisors as key partners in helping farmers to understand climate information and explore on-farm climate adaptation options.Results and discussionInteractions between farmers and their trusted advisors are an essential part of the enabling environment required to ensure that this long-term climate information can be used at the farm scale to inform longer-term decisions about climate adaptation. We use the concept of an interaction space to investigate farmer-advisor interactions in the adoption and sustained use of My Climate View. We find that although My Climate View is not a transformational technology on its own, its ability to enable farmers and advisors to explore and discuss future climate conditions and consider climate adaptation options has the potential to support transformational changes on-farm that are needed to meet the sustainability transition pressures that climate change presents.

A Latin American network of microbial observatories for monitoring aquatic ecosystems

Freshwater environments and coastal marine areas provide key ecosystem services to society and serve as habitats for biodiversity. However, they face major challenges from human activities and climate factors, leading to global degradation. The effect of these agents depends on geographic location and climate, among other factors. To comprehensively understand the effect of these factors, continuous, standardized and long-term information is crucial. In particular, the aquatic microbiome plays a fundamental role in the cycling of matter and has been shown to act as a robust indicator of ecological status. Long-term monitoring of microbial assemblages can provide valuable insights into the characteristics and the changes water bodies undergo, delivering early warnings of critical impacts. Thus, the Latin American Aquatic Microbial Observatory Network (AMOLat) was set up during the inaugural meeting of the Latin American Collaborative Network on Microbial Aquatic Ecology (μSudAqua) in 2017. Observatory sites were carefully chosen, considering their accessibility and local relevance to each research group, ensuring the ongoing consistency of sampling efforts. This work aims to provide a historical overview of the network’s formation, highlighting key debates and definitions that took place during 2017-2023. Furthermore, it includes an initial characterization of the observatory sites and explores the possibilities that they offer to understand the structure and function of aquatic ecosystems in Latin America. The network presently encompasses 13 observatories, spanning a broad latitudinal range, numerous ecoregions and diverse aquatic ecosystems, displaying different environmental and anthropic impacts. Participating groups enhanced interactions, created a Protocol Book and showcased initial results through various communication efforts. Ultimately, establishing a regional network of aquatic observatories becomes mandatory for providing essential reference points to assess the response of microorganisms to global change in both the short and long term within Latin America.

Joint smoking–vaping prevalence rates among American youth and young adults 2011–2022

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) annually tracks American youth and adult smoking prevalence using data from the National Youth Tobacco Survey (NYTS) and the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS). The NYTS and the NHIS began collecting information on vaping in 2011 and 2014 respectively. However, since those years the CDC has only reported smoking and vaping rates separately, which presents a long-term and important information gap, given the decade-long debate about whether e-cigarettes help people who smoke reduce or quit, and whether they are a gateway to youth smoking. This short report provides joint smoking and vaping prevalence rates for American high school students from 2011 to 2022 from the NYTS, and rates for American adults 18–44 years old over the same period from the NHIS. The results show that cigarette smoking declined sharply, especially in high schoolers and emerging young adults (18–20 years) while vaping increased substantially. In addition, the prevalence of vaping among people who formerly smoked also increased. The importance of these trends is highlighted by sharp increases in quit ratios among emerging and junior (21–24 years) young adults, who had historically low levels of quitting.

Clinical outcomes of Omicron infection and vaccine acceptance among pediatric liver transplant recipients: insights from a cross-sectional survey

ObjectivesOur study aims to explore the clinical characteristics of Omicron infection in pediatric liver transplant recipients (PLTRs), after the national COVID-19 outbreak. Additionally, we will investigate changes in vaccine coverage and parental attitudes towards vaccinating their children after this current outbreak.MethodsWe conducted a web-based questionnaire survey to gather information on Omicron infection, vaccination status, and guardian attitude among PLTRs. Besides, utilized valid questionnaire and long-term follow-up information processing techniques, and performed statistical analysis of relevant parameters.Results528 valid questionnaires were collected, among which, 251 responses replied Omicron infection status. The Omicron infection rate in Chinese PLTRs was 56.2% (141/251), similar to the report in the normal population (around 60%). 99.3% of infected PLTRs presented mild symptoms, mostly with fever (78.0%), followed by Cough (76.6%), with a mean RTPCR conversion time of 7 days; the overall PLTRs’ vaccination rate in this study was 13.3%, similar to that of our previous study (9.4%). Besides, we found no significant differences of either infection rate or clinical symptoms between the vaccinated and unvaccinated groups. Moreover, the study showed 61.6% of guardians supported COVID-19 inoculation despite the outbreak of Omicron status.ConclusionsThe symptoms of Omicron infection in Chinese PLTRs were relatively mild, vaccine immunization had a limited effect on PLTRs’ defense against Omicron infection, besides, their guardians supported the inoculation policy with a caution.Clinical trial registrationhttp://www.chictr.org.cn, identifier ChiCTR2200055968.

Corrosion-Related Degradation Phenomena in PEM Water Electrolysis - an Industrial Perspective

One of the most reliable ways to produce green hydrogen is to use electrolysis systems from renewable energy sources. Proton exchange membrane water electrolysis (PEMWE) is one of the most promising electrolyzer technologies. To reach the goal of 1 Dollar per 1 kilogram of hydrogen in 1 decade – launched by the Department of Energy on June 7, 2021 [1] a long lifetime of electrolysis systems is key. The research focus is therefore to achieve low degradation rates for PEMWE-systems, measured in µV/h.Within this presentation two different aspects of degradation related to metallic parts within the stack and within the process technology will be presented briefly. From this, open research questions concerning these aspects will be derived and their evaluation discussed. This industrial view reveals the needs and possible future development-trends of large-scale PEM water electrolyzer manufacturers.First, corrosion of metallic parts, and thereby ion release into the process water, should be avoided as much as possible. It is well known that metal cations can lower the cell performance or even accelerate membrane degradation. The influence of stainless steel parts on PEMWE degradation has been studied by performing electrolysis tests on two different test-stands. One is made of commonly used stainless steel pipes and a stainless steel heat exchanger and the other is made of plastic piping and a titanium heat exchanger to exclude contamination from the Balance of Plant. In following electrolysis experiments on the plastic test-stand, titanium cell components have been subsequently replaced by stainless steel cell components. Resulting contamination (determined with ICP-MS) will be presented, and future work will be addressed as starting point for academic research.Next, ohmic resistances in the PEMWE cells should be low to achieve low cell voltages. High anodic potentials within the electrolyzer cell can lead to growing oxide layers with poor electrical conductivity. The resulting additional ohmic resistance increases cell voltage over time and therefore promotes cell degradation. Especially for titanium, the commonly applied metal under anodic PEMWE conditions, it is known that growing Ti-oxide layers can result in increased cell voltages. Consequently, the impact of conductive coatings on different cell components on the degradation rate has been studied. Bipolar plates, coarse gas diffusion layers and porous transport layers have been coated with noble metals. The influence of these coatings on cell performance will be presented, and open questions will be addressed.Finally, for the evaluation of the above-mentioned aspects, ex-situ experiments should be performed prior to electrolysis experiments. They are much easier to perform, reduce cost and time and allow a more separate look on certain material properties than in an electrolysis cell where the interaction of many parts needs to be considered. When compared to PEM fuel cells, no comparably clear guidance exists for the study of metallic parts for PEMWE [2]. We will provide insights on “how to perform ex-situ corrosion experiments” for PEMWE applications as a guidance for future testing based on the experience from researchers from both, academia and industry [3].In conclusion, several sources for metal contamination exist in PEMWE-systems which can have a significant influence on degradation rates. Unfortunately, only limited research is available on the criticality of different contamination types. Furthermore, long-term stability information and degradation mechanisms on coating are of great importance as the currently used materials are rare. In addition, it is a challenge to generate a common understanding of suitable test conditions to simulate PEMWE-environment in ex-situ testing which would simplify improving components.[1] Department of Energy, Hydrogen and Fuel Cell technologies Officehttps://www.energy.gov/eere/fuelcells/hydrogen-shot [latest access: 15.03.2024][2] Department of Energy, Hydrogen and Fuel Cell technologies Office: DOE Technical Targets for Polymer Electrolyte Membrane Fuel Cell Componentshttps://www.energy.gov/eere/fuelcells/doe-technical-targets-polymer-electrolyte-membrane-fuel-cell-components [latest access: 15.03.2024][3] L. H. Prado et al., to be submitted Figure 1

Certification as an effective element of the information and analytical system of social and hygienic monitoring (literature review, part 1)

Introduction. Social and hygienic monitoring (SHM) at the current stage of the problem development is impossible without the use of material-intensive databases, where long-term information on environmental indicators, population health, and the relationships between them accumulates. A comprehensive analysis of this multi-component information makes it possible to obtain the most complete and adequate answer on choosing the most effective way to reduce the negative impact of various environmental factors on human health and life. However, the vastness of information in the databases, a large number of applications to them, complicates and slows down the process of making management decisions, reducing their effectiveness. It is possible to avoid excessive time and effort when working with SHM data by minimizing their text parts with subsequent inclusion in the passports of territories and institutions – specialized documents with a standardized, easy-to-read structure, which increases the efficiency of using SHM results. The research material was scientific publications on the problem of certification as an element of the SHM information and analytical system. Literature search methods: according to the CyberLeninka database, selective, analytical-synthetic, typological. There was analyzed experience of passportization in the Sverdlovsk, Orenburg, Arkhangelsk, Bryansk regions, the Republic of Tatarstan and the Primorsky Territory, Moscow and St. Petersburg with the preparation of social-hygienic, radiation-hygienic, sanitary-hygienic passports of territories and institution. Limitations of the research are related to the uniqueness of passports as elements of SHM and the lack of possibility of comparing them with similar forms of reporting abroad. Conclusion. Currently, the certification of territories and economic facilities is a proven effective information and analytical tool of the SGM, which allows, with minimal time and effort, to purposefully collect and compare data to resolve issues of environmental improvement measures and reduce morbidity among the population in the shortest possible time. Passports, specialized digital documents with a standardized structure that is easy to quickly perceive, provide clarity and visibility of the level of sanitary and epidemiological well-being of the population.

The Role of Strategic Management Accounting Techniques in the Improvement of A Company’s Financial Performance: The Case of low-cost Airlines

This article presents a unique exploration of the role of Strategic Management Accounting techniques in supporting decision-making. This perspective has not been extensively studied in the context of low-cost airlines. This accounting branch is characterized by providing external, financial, non-financial, long-term, and forward-looking information, expanding the informational framework for strategic management and decision-making. The methodology relies on the application questionnaires and the financial performance analysis of fifteen low-cost airlines in America and Europe. Structural equation models were applied to test the relationships among the variables. The results evidence that the strategic management accounting techniques that positively and significantly affect the financial performance of the analyzed low-cost airlines are the ones related to the group of costing and strategic decision-making.

Challenging Conventional Wisdom: Early Treatment and Chronicity Outcomes in Acute Severe Hepatitis B.

This study aimed to evaluate the clinical outcomes of patients diagnosed with acute severe hepatitis B (ASHB) who received early antiviral therapy compared to those who did not. Patients diagnosed with acute hepatitis B between February 2019 and February 2023 at our hospital were retrospectively analyzed for admission characteristics, antiviral treatments, and serum HBsAg and anti-HBs levels over 3-6-12 months. Acute severe hepatitis B was defined as serum total bilirubin > 5 mg or INR > 1.5. Of the 57 patients included, 26.3% (n=15) were female, and the median age was 40.2 (21-90) years. Within 48 hours of admission, 2 patients had concurrent diseases (3%) died. Two patients with concurrent HIV diagnosis were excluded. Treatment was initiated in 27 of 53 ASHB patients (entecavir/tenofovir: 24/3). One patient in the treatment group underwent liver transplantation due to fulminant hepatitis, and another patient died while on the waiting list. Long-term follow-up information for 3 patients in the untreated group was unavailable. The study continued with 25 treated and 23 untreated patients. No significant differences were observed in age, ALT levels, albumin, leukocyte, neutrophil, and platelet levels between the two groups (respectively; p = 0.57, p = 0.071, p = 0.187, p = 0.46, p = 0.94, p = 0.307). However, in the treated group, AST, total bilirubin, INR, and hospitalization duration were higher, and lymphopenia was more common. In the entire patient population, HBsAg seroclearance rates were 54% at 3 months (69% in treated vs. 34% in untreated; p = 0.127), 83.3% at 6 months (95% in treated vs. 74% in untreated; p = 0.218), and 100% at 12 months. Early antiviral therapy did not show an association with chronicity in ASHB patients. Conducting randomized controlled studies with a larger patient population is necessary to provide a definitive conclusion on initiating early antiviral therapy. However, such studies pose ethical challenges.

Weakly supervised video anomaly detection based on hyperbolic space

In recent years, there has been a proliferation of weakly supervised methods in the field of video anomaly detection. Despite significant progress in existing research, these efforts have primarily focused on addressing this issue within Euclidean space. Conducting weakly supervised video anomaly detection in Euclidean space imposes a fundamental limitation by constraining the ability to model complex patterns due to the dimensionality constraints of the embedding space and lacking the capacity to model long-term contextual information. This inadequacy can lead to misjudgments of anomalous events due to insufficient video representation. However, hyperbolic space has shown significant potential for modeling complex data, offering new insights. In this paper, we rethink weakly supervised video anomaly detection with a novel perspective: transforming video features from Euclidean space into hyperbolic space may enable the network to learn implicit relationships in normal and anomalous videos, thereby enhancing its ability to effectively distinguish between them. Finally, to validate our approach, we conducted extensive experiments on the UCF-Crime and XD-Violence datasets. Experimental results show that our method not only has the lowest number of parameters but also achieves state-of-the-art performance on the XD-Violence dataset using only RGB information.

Long-Term Implicit Epigenetic Stress Information in the Enteric Nervous System and its Contribution to Developing and Perpetuating IBS.

Psychiatric and mood disorders may play an important role in the development and persistence of irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). Previously, we hypothesized that stress-induced implicit memories may persist throughout life via epigenetic processes in the enteric nervous system (ENS), independent of the central nervous system (CNS). These epigenetic memories in the ENS may contribute to developing and perpetuating IBS. Here, we further elaborate on our earlier hypothesis. That is, during pregnancy, maternal prenatal stresses perturb the HPA axis and increase circulating cortisol levels, which can affect the maternal gut microbiota. Maternal cortisol can cross the placental barrier and increase cortisol-circulating levels in the fetus. This leads to dysregulation of the HPA axis, affecting the gut microbiota, microbial metabolites, and intestinal permeability in the fetus. Microbial metabolites, such as short-chain fatty acids (which also regulate the development of fetal ENS), can modulate a range of diseases by inducing epigenetic changes. These mentioned processes suggest that stress-related, implicit, long-term epigenetic memories may be programmed into the fetal ENS during pregnancy. Subsequently, this implicit epigenetic stress information from the fetal ENS could be conveyed to the CNS through the bidirectional microbiota-gut-brain axis (MGBA), leading to perturbed functional connectivity among various brain networks and the dysregulation of affective and pain processes.

Percutaneous ultrasound-guided anchor wire placement aids in the intraoperative localization of nonpalpable, superficial foreign bodies and abscesses in dogs.

To describe and evaluate the use of preoperative percutaneous ultrasound-guided anchor wire placement to aid intraoperative localization of superficial foreign bodies and abscesses in dogs. 11 dogs. In a retrospective observational study, the medical records of dogs that underwent surgical exploration of superficial abscesses, guided by anchor wire, between 2018 and 2023 were reviewed for clinical and histopathological findings and complications. Owners or veterinarians were contacted to collect long-term follow-up information. 11 dogs were included. Superficial swelling was the most common clinical presentation. Computed tomography and ultrasound revealed an abscess cavity and suspected foreign body in 9 dogs and an abscess cavity without evidence of a foreign body in 2 dogs. Anchor wires were placed in close proximity to the foreign body or inside the abscess. All documented foreign bodies were successfully located and retrieved. Two dogs suffered minor postoperative complications. No major intra- or postoperative complications were documented. One dog displayed recurrence of clinical signs, but no further surgical management was required. Preoperative percutaneous placement of an anchor wire via ultrasound guidance was successful in aiding intraoperative localization of nonpalpable abscesses and retrieval of foreign bodies. This technique may decrease surgical time, minimize the surgical approach required, and increase the likelihood of successful localization.