New insights into grocery store visits among east Los Angeles residents using mobility data.

In this study, we employed spatially aggregated population mobility data, generated from mobile phone locations in 2021, to investigate patterns of grocery store visits among residents east and northeast of Downtown Los Angeles, in which 60% of the census tracts had previously been designated as "food deserts". Further, we examined whether the store visits varied with neighborhood sociodemographics and grocery store accessibility. We found that residents averaged 0.4 trips to grocery stores per week, with only 13% of these visits within home census tracts, and 40% within home and neighboring census tracts. The mean distance from home to grocery stores was 2.2 miles. We found that people visited grocery stores more frequently when they lived in neighborhoods with higher percentages of Hispanics/Latinos, renters and foreign-born residents, and a greater number of grocery stores. This research highlights the utility of mobility data in elucidating grocery store use, and factors that may facilitate or be a barrier to store access. The results point to limitations of using geographically constrained metrics of food access like food deserts.

Privacy-Preserving Synthetic Continual Semantic Segmentation for Robotic Surgery.

Deep Neural Networks (DNNs) based semantic segmentation of the robotic instruments and tissues can enhance the precision of surgical activities in robot-assisted surgery. However, in biological learning, DNNs cannot learn incremental tasks over time and exhibit catastrophic forgetting, which refers to the sharp decline in performance on previously learned tasks after learning a new one. Specifically, when data scarcity is the issue, the model shows a rapid drop in performance on previously learned instruments after learning new data with new instruments. The problem becomes worse when it limits releasing the dataset of the old instruments for the old model due to privacy concerns and the unavailability of the data for the new or updated version of the instruments for the continual learning model. For this purpose, we develop a privacy-preserving synthetic continual semantic segmentation framework by blending and harmonizing (i) open-source old instruments foreground to the synthesized background without revealing real patient data in public and (ii) new instruments foreground to extensively augmented real background. To boost the balanced logit distillation from the old model to the continual learning model, we design overlapping class-aware temperature normalization (CAT) by controlling model learning utility. We also introduce multi-scale shifted-feature distillation (SD) to maintain long and short-range spatial relationships among the semantic objects where conventional short-range spatial features with limited information reduce the power of feature distillation. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our framework on the EndoVis 2017 and 2018 instrument segmentation dataset with a generalized continual learning setting. Code is available at https://github.com/XuMengyaAmy/Synthetic_CAT_SD.

Food Insecurity Is Under-reported in Surveys That Ask About the Past Year.

INTRODUCTION: Food insecurity affects one in ten Americans in a typical year; recent U.S. Department of Agriculture data show that this food insecurity rate was stable from 2019 to 2021. However, data from Los Angeles County and other U.S. regions show that food insecurity spiked during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. One reason for this discrepancy may be that food insecurity measures assess experiences over different time frames. This study investigated the discrepancies in food insecurity rates by comparing past-week and past-year food insecurity measures and explored the role of recall bias. METHODS: Data were obtained from a representative survey panel of Los Angeles adults (N=1,135). Participants were surveyed about past-week food insecurity eleven times throughout 2021 and once about past-year food insecurity in December 2021. Data were analyzed in 2022. RESULTS: Of the participants who reported past-week food insecurity at any time in 2021, only two thirds also reported past-year food insecurity in December 2021, suggesting that one third of participants under-reported past-year food insecurity. Logistic regression models indicated that three characteristics were significantly associated with under-reporting of past-year food insecurity: having reported past-week food insecurity at fewer survey waves, not reporting recent past-week food insecurity, and having a relatively high household income. CONCLUSIONS: These results suggest substantial under-reporting of past-year food insecurity, related to recall bias and social factors. Measuring food insecurity at multiple points throughout the year may help to improve the accuracy of reporting and public health surveillance of this issue.

Task-aware asynchronous multi-task model with class incremental contrastive learning for surgical scene understanding.

PURPOSE: Surgery scene understanding with tool-tissue interaction recognition and automatic report generation can play an important role in intra-operative guidance, decision-making and postoperative analysis in robotic surgery. However, domain shifts between different surgeries with inter and intra-patient variation and novel instruments' appearance degrade the performance of model prediction. Moreover, it requires output from multiple models, which can be computationally expensive and affect real-time performance. METHODOLOGY: A multi-task learning (MTL) model is proposed for surgical report generation and tool-tissue interaction prediction that deals with domain shift problems. The model forms of shared feature extractor, mesh-transformer branch for captioning and graph attention branch for tool-tissue interaction prediction. The shared feature extractor employs class incremental contrastive learning to tackle intensity shift and novel class appearance in the target domain. We design Laplacian of Gaussian-based curriculum learning into both shared and task-specific branches to enhance model learning. We incorporate a task-aware asynchronous MTL optimization technique to fine-tune the shared weights and converge both tasks optimally. RESULTS: The proposed MTL model trained using task-aware optimization and fine-tuning techniques reported a balanced performance (BLEU score of 0.4049 for scene captioning and accuracy of 0.3508 for interaction detection) for both tasks on the target domain and performed on-par with single-task models in domain adaptation. CONCLUSION: The proposed multi-task model was able to adapt to domain shifts, incorporate novel instruments in the target domain, and perform tool-tissue interaction detection and report generation on par with single-task models.

Ganciclovir-induced mutations are present in a diverse spectrum of post-transplant malignancies.

BACKGROUND: Ganciclovir (GCV) is widely used in solid organ and haematopoietic stem cell transplant patients for prophylaxis and treatment of cytomegalovirus. It has long been considered a mutagen and carcinogen. However, the contribution of GCV to cancer incidence and other factors that influence its mutagenicity remains unknown. METHODS: This retrospective cohort study analysed genomics data for 121,771 patients who had undergone targeted sequencing compiled by the Genomics Evidence Neoplasia Information Exchange (GENIE) or Foundation Medicine (FM). A statistical approach was developed to identify patients with GCV-associated mutational signature (GCVsig) from targeted sequenced data of tumour samples. Cell line exposure models were further used to quantify mutation burden and DNA damage caused by GCV and other antiviral and immunosuppressive drugs. RESULTS: Mutational profiles from 22 of 121,771 patient samples in the GENIE and FM cohorts showed evidence of GCVsig. A diverse range of cancers was represented. All patients with detailed clinical history available had previously undergone solid organ transplantation and received GCV and mycophenolate treatment. RAS hotspot mutations associated with GCVsig were present in 9 of the 22 samples, with all samples harbouring multiple GCV-associated protein-altering mutations in cancer driver genes. In vitro testing in cell lines showed that elevated DNA damage response and GCVsig are uniquely associated with GCV but not acyclovir, a structurally similar antiviral. Combination treatment of GCV with the immunosuppressant, mycophenolate mofetil (MMF), increased the misincorporation of GCV in genomic DNA and mutations attributed to GCVsig in cell lines and organoids. CONCLUSIONS: In summary, GCV can cause a diverse range of cancers. Its mutagenicity may be potentiated by other therapies, such as mycophenolate, commonly co-prescribed with GCV for post-transplant patients. Further investigation of the optimal use of these drugs could help reduce GCV-associated mutagenesis in post-transplant patients.

[Speciation and Risk of Heavy Metals in Surface Sediments of Different Types of Water Bodies in Baiyangdian Lake].

The morphological characteristics of Cd, Cr, Cu, Ni, Pb, and Zn in sediments were analyzed using an improved BCR extraction method in four water types of Baiyangdian Lake:watercourse, trench, lake surface, and fish pond. The potential ecological risk index, secondary and primary phases, and risk assessment codes were used to systematically assess the pollution level and ecological risk of heavy metals in surface sediments. The results showed that:① the mean contents of heavy metals Cd, Cu, and Zn in the sediments were 0.37, 28.49, and 83.08 mg·kg-1, respectively, 94.91%, 73.91%, and 46.39% of which exceeded the soil background value. ② Cd was dominated by the non-residual fraction (F1+F2+F3) with a fraction ranging from 54% to 97%, whereas Cr was dominated by the residual fraction (F4) with a mass fraction ranging from 87% to 99%. Cu, Ni, Pb, and Zn were mainly in the fraction of residual fraction. In the non-residual fraction, Cu and Ni were mainly in the oxidizable fraction (F3) state, whereas Pb and Zn were mainly in the reducible fraction (F2) state. ③ The RAC risk assessment results showed that there were 68.97%, 39.89%, 54.84%, and 49.78% points in channel, trench, open water, and fish pond samples, respectively, of Cd at high risk. The Cu, Ni, and Pb were at low risk. In general, the overall heavy metal pollution level in Baiyangdian Lake was low, but Cd had ecological risk and high bioavailability in the Fuhe River of the Nanliuzhuang area and the Baigouyin River.

Enlarged Perivascular Space and Its Correlation with Polysomnography Indicators of Obstructive Sleep Apnea.

PURPOSE: There is increasing evidence of a causal interaction between obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) and white matter hyperintensity (WMH). WMH and enlarged perivascular space (EPVS) are the neuroimaging markers for cerebral small vessel disease (CSVD). Thus, this study aimed to determine whether a contextual relationship existed between OSA and EPVS. PARTICIPANTS AND METHODS: In this study, 107 participants underwent 1-night polysomnography, brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and health screening examinations and were classified as 63 OSA patients (mild, moderate, and severe groups), and 44 healthy controls. We assessed the sleep characteristics in OSA group, quantified the total EPVS from MRI and related them to the measures of polysomnography-obtained sleep parameters. RESULTS: Polysomnography revealed that 63 OSA patients had sleep architecture alteration. A higher proportion of N2 phase sleep (N2%), lower percentage of N3 sleep (N3%) and REM sleep (REM%), as well as increased arousal index (AI), oxygen desaturation index (ODI) and decreased lowest arterial oxygen saturation (LSaO2) were detected. The results also indicated a higher prevalence and a larger number of EPVS, and a lower Mini Mental State Scale (MMSE) scale score in OSA group. LSaO2, N3% and REM% were negatively correlated with the total EPVS, whereas ODI, AI and N2% were positively correlated with the total EPVS. CONCLUSION: The findings suggested that OSA patients had sleep disturbances with a higher incidence and more severe EPVS. Furthermore, the EPVS in OSA might be secondary to sleep disturbances, intermittent hypoxemia and the respiratory event-related hemodynamic changes. Thus, our findings highlighted that increased risk for EPVS in OSA is a potential contributor to increased stroke risk in OSA.

Novel Fluorescent Probe toward Fe3+ Based on Rhodamine 6G Derivatives and Its Bioimaging in Adult Mice, Caenorhabditis elegans, and Plant Tissues.

A new fluorescent probe LXY based on the rhodamine 6G platforms has been designed, synthesized, and characterized, which could recognize Fe3+ effectively in HEPES buffer (10 mM, pH = 7.4)/CH3CN (2:3, v/v). And the distinct color change and the rapid emergence of fluorescence emission at 550 nm achieved "naked eye" detection of Fe3+. The interaction mode between them was achieved by Job's plot, MS, SEM, and X-ray single-crystal diffraction. Importantly, the crystal structures proved that Fe3+ could induce the rhodamine moiety transform the closed-cycle form to the open-cycle form. But it is interesting that Fe3+ did not appear in the crystal structures. Meanwhile, the limit of detection (LOD) of LXY to Fe3+ was calculated to be 3.47 × 10-9. In addition, the RGB experiment, test papers, and silica gel plates all indicated that the probe LXY could be used to distinguish Fe3+ quantitatively and qualitatively on-site. Moreover, the probe LXY has also been successfully applied to Fe3+ image in Caenorhabditis elegans, adult mice, and plant tissues. Thus, LXY was considered to have some potential for application in bioimaging.

Unmet care needs of community-dwelling stroke survivors: a systematic review of quantitative studies.

OBJECTIVES: Understanding the unmet needs of community-dwelling stroke survivors is essential for further intervention. This systematic review was performed to summarise their unmet needs from a quantitative viewpoint. DESIGN: Systematic review using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines. DATA SOURCES: A comprehensive search of six databases was conducted from inception to February 2020: PubMed, EMBASE, CINAHL, PsycINFO, SCOPUS and CBM. The methodological quality of the studies was assessed. Unmet needs were categorised, and a pooled analysis of the main outcomes was conducted. ELIGIBILITY CRITERIA FOR SELECTING STUDIES: We included quantitative studies focused on the unmet needs of stroke survivors who live at homes rather than in any other institutionalised organisation. RESULTS: In total, 32 of 2660 studies were included, and 1980 unmet needs were identified. The prevalence of patients with unmet needs ranged from 15.08% to 97.59%, with a median of 67.20%; the median number of unmet needs per patient ranged from 2 to 8 (0-31). The prevalence of unmet needs was high at 6 months post-stroke (62.14%) and 2 years post-stroke (81.37%). After categorisation, the main concerns among these patients were revealed to be information support, physical function and mental health; a few studies reported unmet needs related to leisure exercise, return to work and so on. Additionally, differences in the measurement tools used across studies affect what unmet needs participants report. CONCLUSIONS: Sufficient, accurate, individualised and dynamic information support is a priority among community-dwelling stroke survivors. Physical function and mental health are also the most significant concerns for re-achieving social participation. It is essential to design and disseminate standard, effective and time-saving tools to assess unmet needs. TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER: CRD42018112181.

Transcriptome, Phenotypic, and Virulence Analysis of Streptococcus sanguinis SK36 Wild Type and Its CcpA-Null Derivative (ΔCcpA).

Catabolic control protein (CcpA) is linked to complex carbohydrate utilization and virulence factor in many bacteria species, influences the transcription of target genes by many mechanisms. To characterize the activity and regulatory mechanisms of CcpA in Streptococcus sanguinis, here, we analyzed the transcriptome of Streptococcus sanguinis SK36 and its CcpA-null derivative (ΔCcpA) using RNA-seq. Compared to the regulon of CcpA in SK36 in the RegPrecise database, we found that only minority of differentially expressed genes (DEGs) contained putative catabolite response element (cre) in their regulatory regions, indicating that many genes could have been affected indirectly by the loss of CcpA and analyzing the sequence of the promoter region using prediction tools is not a desirable method to recognize potential target genes of global regulator CcpA. Gene ontology and pathway analysis of DEGs revealed that CcpA exerts an influence predominantly involved in carbon catabolite metabolism and some amino acid catabolite pathways, which has been linked to expression of virulence genes in many pathogens and coordinately regulate the disease progression in vivo studies. However, in some scenarios, differences observed at the transcript level could not reflect the real differences at the protein level. Therefore, to confirm the differences in phenotype and virulence of SK36 and ΔCcpA, we characterized the role of CcpA in the regulation of biofilm development, EPS production and the virulence of Streptococcus sanguinis. Results showed CcpA inactivation impaired biofilm and EPS formation, and CcpA also involved in virulence in rabbit infective endocarditis model. These findings will undoubtedly contribute to investigate the mechanistic links between the global regulator CcpA and the virulence of Streptococcus sanguinis, further broaden our understanding of the relationship between basic metabolic processes and virulence.

Curcumin Prevents Brain Damage and Cognitive Dysfunction During Ischemic-reperfusion Through the Regulation of miR-7-5p.

OBJECTIVE: This study was to investigate the potential protective effects of curcumin in cerebral ischemia-reperfusion (CIR) and its regulation of miR-7. METHODS: Rats were occluded by middle cerebral artery occlusion (MCAO) for 1.5 h and reperfused for 2 h to establish a local CIR model. After 24 hours of model establishment, MCAO rats were given curcumin for 3 days by intragastric administration. PC12 cells were cultured for 6 h in oxygen-glucose deprivation medium and then reoxygenated for 24 h to establish an oxygenglucose deprivation/reoxygenation (OGD/R) model. The OGD/R model cells were treated with curcumin for 48 h. RESULTS: Curcumin inhibited the decrease of miR-7-5p expression and an increase of RelA p65 expression induced by CIR and ODG/R. RelA p65 was a target of miR-7-5p. MiR-7-5p antagonists were able to counteract the effect of curcumin on the expression of RelA p65 in ischemic brain tissue of MCAO rats and OGD/R model cells. Curcumin improved OGD/R-induced inhibition of cell activity, necrosis and apoptosis. Curcumin significantly reduced the levels of tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α, interleukin (IL)-6, IL-1ß, reactive oxygen species (ROS) and malondialdehyde (MDA) and increased the activity of superoxide dismutases (SOD) and catalase (CAT) in OGD/R-induced cells. Curcumin may inhibit OGD/R-induced cell damage by regulating miR-7-5p. Curcumin improved cerebral infarction, nerve damage and cognitive dysfunction in rats with CIR, which may be related to the regulation of miR-7-5p/RelA p65 axis. CONCLUSION: Curcumin exerts cerebral protection by attenuating cell necrosis and apoptosis, inflammatory response and oxidative stress following CIR, which may be related to its regulation of the miR-7/RELA p65 axis.

Complete Genome Sequence of Vibrio mediterranei 117-T6, a Potentially Pathogenic Bacterium Isolated from the Conchocelis of Pyropia spp.

Vibrio mediterranei is a Gram-negative bacterium of the family Vibrionaceae. Vibrio mediterranei strain 117-T6 was pathogenic to Pyropia yezoensis, a red seaweed cultivated in China, by causing death to its conchocelis. Here, we report the complete genome sequence of Vibrio mediterranei 117-T6.

Corrigendum: Transcriptome, Phenotypic, and Virulence Analysis of Streptococcus sanguinis SK36 Wild Type and Its CcpA-Null Derivative (ΔCcpA).

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.3389/fcimb.2019.00411.].

Is SpxA2 involved in hydrogen peroxide production and competence development in Streptococcus sanguinis?

PURPOSE: The objective of the present study was to investigate whether Streptococcus sanguinis SpxA2 plays a role in competence development and endogenous H2O2 generation, and whether the SpxA2 Cys10-XX-Cys13 (CXXC) motif is involved in competence development. METHODOLOGY: The competence development of wild-type S. sanguinis (SK36) and its derivatives was compared by transformation efficiency assay and real-time RT-PCR. The spx allele mutants, spxA2 (C10A) and spxA2 (C13A), were constructed by site-directed mutagenesis. The Δpox mutant was treated with 1 mM H2O2 to exclude the effect of other Pox products on competence development. RESULTS: Compared with the wild-type (4.42±0.58×10-4), the ΔspxA2 mutant showed decreased transformation efficiency (0.07±0.03×10-4). Furthermore, there was a 2- to 15-fold reduction in ΔspxA2 mutant com gene expression. SpxA2 was able to down-regulate endogenous H2O2 generation by repressing pox expression. Additionally, endogenous H2O2 negatively regulated competence without affecting spxA2 expression. The Δpox mutant increased com gene expression (2- to 8-fold), but the 1 mM H2O2-treated Δpox mutant showed decreased com gene expression. Interestingly, the ΔspxA2Δpox mutant showed enhanced competence-associated parameters. The fact that spxA2 (C10A) and spxA2 (C13A) behaved like the ΔspxA2 mutant revealed the role of the CXXC motif in competence development. CONCLUSION: Although the intricate relationship between SpxA2, pox-mediated H2O2 production and competence development was clarified in S. sanguinis, it would be worthwhile to explore further whether H2O2 is involved in competence development through oxidizing the SpxA2 CXXC motif.

SpxB-mediated H2 O2 induces programmed cell death in Streptococcus sanguinis.

Streptococcus sanguinis (S. sanguinis) is a commensal oral streptococci that produces hydrogen peroxide (H2 O2 ), and this production is dependent on pyruvate oxidase (SpxB) activity. In addition to its well-known role in intraspecies or interspecies competitions, recent studies have shown that H2 O2 produced by S. sanguinis under aerobic conditions not only upregulates biofilm formation and eDNA release but also regulates cell death without obvious cell lysis. Here, we report that S. sanguinis exhibits characteristic hallmarks of eukaryotic apoptosis when it encounters endogenous and exogenous H2 O2 . As the most common mode of programmed cell death (PCD), apoptosis is accompanied by a series of biochemical and morphological events, including DNA fragmentation, chromosome condensation, membrane potential depolarization, phosphatidylserine (PS) exposure, and caspase substrate binding protein activity changes. In addition, we also provide genetic evidence that there is decreased expression of the related DNA repair genes comEA, recA, dnaC, dinG, and pcrA in the wild-type compared to the isogenic spxB mutant in S. sanguinis. Our data suggest that endogenous H2 O2 is the most important agent in this development process in S. sanguinis.