BACKGROUND: Noninvasive biomarkers for diagnosing and monitoring eosinophilic esophagitis (EoE) are currently lacking. This study evaluates 20 biomarkers in serum and saliva, aiming to assess their diagnostic potential in pediatric EoE patients and healthy individuals.
METHODS: Blood and saliva from children undergoing upper endoscopy were analyzed for biomarkers, including absolute eosinophil count (AEC), eosinophil-derived neurotoxin (EDN), total and specific IgG4-antibodies (sIgG4), specific IgE-antibodies (sIgE) and 15-hydroxyeicosatetraenoic acid (15(S)-HETE). Some patients participated twice, forming a longitudinal cohort. The ability to use the biomarkers to predict the EoE diagnosis was evaluated.
RESULTS: Analysis from 105 children divided into active EoE, remission, and healthy, revealed elevated levels of serum biomarkers (AEC, EDN, 15(S)-HETE, sIgG4, and sIgE) in active EoE compared to healthy individuals. A combination of biomarkers (AEC, EDN, sIgE to egg white and wheat) and symptoms showed an AUC of 0.92 in distinguishing between the three groups. We further showed that optimal cutoff values for these biomarkers could discriminate between active EoE and healthy with a sensitivity of 88% and a specificity of 100% in distinguishing EoE (active and in remission) from healthy. Longitudinally, levels of EDN, sIgG4 to Bos d 4, Bos d 5, Bos d 8, gliadin, and birch, and sIgE to milk decreased in patients progressing from active EoE to remission (p <.05).
CONCLUSIONS: This study identified novel biomarkers associated with EoE and proposes a panel, together with symptoms, for effective discrimination between active EoE, EoE in remission, and healthy individuals. The findings may contribute to a less invasive diagnostic method and may be a potential surveillance tool for pediatric EoE patients.

OBJECTIVE: Few people who are ages 80+ meet the criteria of successful aging (SA) proposed by Rowe and Kahn. Going beyond the individual-level conceptualization, we argue that SA always operates in multiple contexts and that context may become most critical in advanced old age. However, we are not aware of any previous study providing an empirical test of how contexts for SA unfold across persons 80 years and older, including those living in institutions.
METHODS: We estimated and compared prevalences of successful aging based on a classic versus context-enriched understanding of SA in multiple large surveys of older adults, i.e., the D80+ study (N = 3.233) and the NRW80+ study (N [baseline] = 1.863). In addition to replication across independent samples, we investigated the stability of context-related SA across time.
RESULTS: Prevalences of SA according to Rowe and Kahn were 9.1% in adults aged 80-84 and 0.7% in persons 90 years or older. However, prevalence rates for those with good contexts at their disposal even if not fulfilling Rowe and Kahn\'s criteria were much higher across all age groups (80-84 years: 54.9%, 90 years and older: 44.4%). Greater two-year stability was observed for contextual compared to individual criteria. Notably, positive effects of context on SA were stronger at onset compared to late fourth age.
CONCLUSIONS: Our findings support a contextualized understanding of SA and inform policy that furthering SA in the fourth age requires the optimization of multiple contexts at the community level.

The work proposed here is an automated pre and post-processor integrated to PanAir that is is a high-order aerodynamic panel method-based software for flow analysis developed in 70s but still in active use especially for preliminary aircraft design. With the integrated environment proposed in this work, manipulation of input and output data to and from PanAir is bypassed successfully that is otherwise requires manual manipulations and use of third party software. The integrated environment is validated over a Cessna 210 aircraft with a modified NLF (1)-0414 airfoil. The flow around the aircraft is analyzed using PanAir together with the integrated environment and results show that pre and post processing times reduced and ease in PanAir use is increased significantly.

Undescended testis (UDT, cryptorchidism) is the most frequent genital anomaly in boys. However, its treatment varies widely throughout the world. This second part of our roundtable discussion aims to continue to ask global experts to express their attitudes towards several case scenarios of UDT in order to explore the rationale for their clinical decisions. As the European Association of Urology - Young Academic Urologists Pediatric Urology Working Group, we believe that this roundtable series will facilitate colleagues all over the world to reflect and improve their practices regarding the treatment of UDT.

Acinetobacter baumannii is one of the most important pathogens worldwide. The intrinsic and acquired resistance of A. baumannii, coupled with the slow pace of novel antimicrobial drug development, poses an unprecedented and enormous challenge to clinical anti-infective therapy of A. baumannii. Recent studies in the field of pathogenicity, antibiotic resistance, and biofilms of A. baumannii have focused on the model strains, including ATCC 17978, ATCC 19606, and AB5075. However, these model strains represent only a limited portion of the heterogeneity in A. baumannii. Furthermore, variants of these model strains have emerged that show significant diversity not only at the genotypic level but also reflected in differences at the phenotypic levels of capsule, virulence, pathogenicity, and antibiotic resistance. Research on A. baumannii, a key pathogen, would benefit from a standardized approach, which characterizes heterogeneous strains in order to facilitate rapid diagnosis, discovery of new therapeutic targets, and efficacy assessment. Our study provides and describes a standardized, genomically and phenotypically heterogeneous panel of 45 different A. baumannii strains for the research community. In addition, we performed comparative analyses of several phenotypes of this panel. We found that the sequence type 2 (ST2) group showed significantly higher rates of resistance, lower fitness cost for adaptation, and yet less biofilm formation. The Macrocolony type E (MTE, flat center and wavy edge phenotype reported in the literature) group showed a less clear correlation of resistance rates and growth rate, but was observed to produce more biofilms. Our study sheds light on the complex interplay of resistance fitness and biofilm formation within distinct strains, offering insights crucial for combating A. baumannii infection.
OBJECTIVE: Acinetobacter baumannii is globally notorious, and in an effort to combat the spread of such pathogens, several emerging candidate therapies have already surfaced. However, the strains used to test these therapies vary across studies (the sources and numbers of test strains are varied and often very large, with little heterogeneity). The variation complicates the studies. Furthermore, the limited standardized resources of A. baumannii strains have greatly restricted the research on the physiology, pathogenicity, and antibiotic resistance. Therefore, it is crucial for the research community to acquire a standardized and heterogeneous panel of A. baumannii. Our study meticulously selected 45 diverse A. baumannii strains from a total of 2,197 clinical isolates collected from 64 different hospitals across 27 provinces in China, providing a scientific reference for the research community. This assistance will significantly facilitate scientific exchange in academic research.

BACKGROUND: Clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC) is a prevalent malignant tumor affecting the urinary system. Due to its unfavorable prognosis, there is a pressing need to discover effective approaches for early diagnosis and treatment of ccRCC. Extensive research has consistently demonstrated the presence of stable microRNAs (miRNAs) in human serum. Accordingly, the objective of this study was to identify a specific panel of miRNAs in serum that can serve as a reliable and non-invasive biomarker for the early detection of ccRCC.
METHODS: The study comprised of training and validation phases to identify potential biomarkers. In the training phase, a total of 10 miRNAs exhibiting the most significant differential expression among 28 ccRCC patients and 28 healthy controls (HCs) were identified using quantitative reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR). In the subsequent validation phase, these 10 miRNAs were assessed in serum samples obtained from an additional 80 ccRCC patients and 84 HCs using RT-qPCR. To construct a panel with optimal diagnostic capability, backward stepwise logistic regression analysis was conducted. Furthermore, bioinformatics analysis was performed on this selected miRNA panel.
RESULTS: In ccRCC patients, the serum expression level of miRNA-142-5p was found to be significantly elevated compared to healthy controls (HCs), whereas the expression levels of let-7f-5p, miRNA-27b-3p, miRNA-212-3p, and miRNA-216-5p were significantly reduced. To assess their diagnostic potential for ccRCC, receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis was performed. The analysis revealed that miRNA-27b-3p, let-7f-5p, and miRNA-142-5p exhibited moderate diagnostic capabilities for ccRCC, with area under the curve (AUC) values of 0.826, 0.828, and 0.643, respectively. To further enhance diagnostic accuracy, a final diagnostic panel consisting of these three miRNAs was constructed, demonstrating good diagnostic value with an AUC of 0.952.
CONCLUSIONS: The miRNA serum biomarker panel (miRNA-27b-3p, let-7f-5p, and miRNA-142-5p) identified in this study holds promise for early, non-invasive, and accurate diagnosis of ccRCC. This panel could potentially provide a valuable tool in clinical settings to aid in the timely detection and management of ccRCC.

UNASSIGNED: Entertainment media content is often mentioned as one of the roots of children\'s unhealthy food consumption. This might be due to the high quantity of unhealthy foods presented in children\'s media environments. However, less is known about the role of the centrality of food placement, that is, whether foods are interacted with, consumed, verbally mentioned, or appear unobtrusively. We also lack longitudinal research measuring both children\'s unhealthy and healthy food consumption behaviors as outcomes.
UNASSIGNED: The aim is to connect content analytical data based on children\'s actual media diet with panel data in order to explain children\'s food preferences. Moreover, this study not only focuses on the amount of healthy and unhealthy foods children are exposed to, but also on how these foods are presented (ie, centrally or not). Furthermore, we looked at the question of how parental coviewing can diminish (or enhance) the effects of unhealthy (or healthy) food depictions, and we measured healthy and unhealthy consumption as dependent variables.
UNASSIGNED: We conducted a 2-wave panel study with children and one of their parents (of 2250 parents contacted, 829 responded, for a response rate of 36.84%; 648 valid cases, ie, parent-child pairs, were used for analysis), with 6 months between the 2 panel waves. We linked the 2-wave panel data for the children and their parents to content analytical data for movies (n=113) and TV series (n=134; 3 randomly chosen episodes per TV series were used) that children were exposed to over the course of 6 months.
UNASSIGNED: There was no significant relationship between exposure to unhealthy food presentation and unhealthy (b=0.008; P=.07) or healthy (b=-0.003; P=.57) food consumption over time. Also, healthy food presentation was unrelated to unhealthy (b=0.009; P=.18) or healthy (b=0.000; P=.99) food consumption over time. However, there was a significant, positive interaction between unhealthy food presentation and presentation centrality on unhealthy food consumption (b=0.000; P=.03), suggesting that the effects of unhealthy food presentation rise with increasing levels of centrality. There was no interaction between unhealthy food presentation and presentation centrality on the consumption of healthy foods (b=0.000; P=.10). Also, exposure to healthy food presentation interacted with centrality (b=-0.001; P=.003). That is, when a healthy product was presented at maximum centrality, it led to less unhealthy food consumption in children. Coviewing did not interact with exposure to unhealthy foods when explaining unhealthy (b=0.003; P=.08) or healthy (b=-0.001; P=.70) food consumption.
UNASSIGNED: We conclude that simply presenting more healthy foods is not sufficient to combat children\'s unhealthy food preferences. Further regulations may be necessary with respect to representations of unhealthy foods in children\'s media.

OBJECTIVE: This paper is to offer insights for designing research utilizing Olink technology to identify biomarkers and potential therapeutic targets for disease treatment.
METHODS: We discusses the application of Olink technology in oncology, cardiovascular, respiratory and immune-related diseases, and Outlines the advantages and limitations of Olink technology.
RESULTS: Olink technology simplifies the search for therapeutic targets, advances proteomics research, reveals the pathogenesis of diseases, and ultimately helps patients develop precision treatments.
CONCLUSIONS: Although proteomics technology has been rapidly developed in recent years, each method has its own disadvantages, so in the future research, more methods should be selected for combined application to verify each other.

[This corrects the article on p. 2,21 in vol. 9, PMID: 38282983.].

The purpose of this paper is twofold: analyzing stationarity of energy consumption by source in the United States and studying their cycles and pairwise synchronization. We study a panel of nine time series of monthly energy consumption for the period 1973-2022. Four of the series (namely coal, natural gas, petroleum, and nuclear electric power consumption) are non-renewables, whereas the remaining ones (hydroelectric power, geothermal, biomass, solar, and wind energy consumption) are renewable energy sources. We employ a nonparametric, panel stationarity testing approach. The results indicate that most of the series may be trend-stationarity, with nuclear and geothermal energy consumption being the only exceptions. Additionally, a study on potential cycles in the series of energy consumption by source is carried out, and subsequently we analyze pairwise concordance between states of different energy sources and between states of energy sources and the business cycle. Significant correlations are detected in the latter analysis, which are positive in the case of fossil fuel sources and negative for two renewable sources, namely geothermal and biomass energy consumption.