Mobile applications for encouraging blood donation: A systematic review and case study.

Objectives: Given the current shortage of blood donors in the USA, researchers have tried to identify different strategies to attract more young people and spread the voice of donors' needs. Methods: A systematic literature review is conducted to investigate the current mobile applications used to track, attract, and retain donors. We also provide some preliminary results of a pilot study, based on a cross-sectional survey of 952 participants (aged 18 to 39), about the willingness of donors to use mobile apps as tools for encouraging blood donation. The data is collected using a 20-item questionnaire, which includes four constructs of the Theory of Planned Behavior to assess the respondents' willingness to donate blood. A range of statistical techniques, including univariate analysis, multivariate analysis, and structural equation modeling, were utilized to analyze the collected data. Results: The 37 research articles, selected after applying several exclusion criteria, are classified into five main categories. The majority of the research (44.1%) is about using mobile apps to find blood donors and blood centers, followed by publications on using mobile apps to encourage blood donation (26.4%) and to recruit blood donors (14.7%). The remaining studies are about retaining blood donors (8.8%) and using mobile apps for scheduling donations (5.8%). Our pilot case study suggests that 73% of participants have favorable perceptions toward a blood donation mobile app. Conclusions: Many efforts have been undertaken to employ mobile apps to make blood donations more convenient and create communities around donating blood. The case study findings suggest a high level of readiness of using mobile apps for blood donation among the younger generation.

An Automated, Home-Cage, Video Monitoring-based Mouse Frailty Index Detects Age-associated Morbidity in C57BL/6 and Diversity Outbred Mice.

Frailty indexes (FIs) provide quantitative measurements of nonspecific health decline and are particularly useful as longitudinal monitors of morbidity in aging studies. For mouse studies, frailty assessments can be taken noninvasively, but they require handling and direct observation that is labor-intensive to the scientist and stress inducing to the animal. Here, we implement, evaluate, and provide a refined digital FI composed entirely of computational analyses of home-cage video and compare it to manually obtained frailty scores in both C57BL/6 and genetically heterogeneous Diversity Outbred mice. We show that the frailty scores assigned by our digital index correlate with both manually obtained frailty scores and chronological age. Thus, we provide an automated tool for frailty assessment that can be collected reproducibly, at scale, without substantial labor cost.

Automated 16-Plex Plasma Proteomics with Real-Time Search and Ion Mobility Mass Spectrometry Enables Large-Scale Profiling in Naked Mole-Rats and Mice.

Performing large-scale plasma proteome profiling is challenging due to limitations imposed by lengthy preparation and instrument time. We present a fully automated multiplexed proteome profiling platform (AutoMP3) using the Hamilton Vantage liquid handling robot capable of preparing hundreds to thousands of samples. To maximize protein depth in single-shot runs, we combined 16-plex Tandem Mass Tags (TMTpro) with high-field asymmetric waveform ion mobility spectrometry (FAIMS Pro) and real-time search (RTS). We quantified over 40 proteins/min/sample, doubling the previously published rates. We applied AutoMP3 to investigate the naked mole-rat plasma proteome both as a function of the circadian cycle and in response to ultraviolet (UV) treatment. In keeping with the lack of synchronized circadian rhythms in naked mole-rats, we find few circadian patterns in plasma proteins over the course of 48 h. Furthermore, we quantify many disparate changes between mice and naked mole-rats at both 48 h and one week after UV exposure. These species differences in plasma protein temporal responses could contribute to the pronounced cancer resistance observed in naked mole-rats. The mass spectrometry proteomics data have been deposited to the ProteomeXchange Consortium via the PRIDE [1] partner repository with the dataset identifier PXD022891.

Atrial pacing every other beat: Is it pacemaker malfunction?

A 45 year old female with hypertrophic obstructive cardiomyopathy and a dual chamber ICD underwent left ventricular outflow and mid ventricular cavity myectomy and mitral valve replacement. On her 5th day after surgery, ECG shows electronic atrial pacing every other complex with monomorphic wide QRS rhythm. The explanation of this ECG pattern is discussed.

Extraintestinal Crohn disease causing bilateral nasolacrimal duct obstruction.

A 16-year-old boy presented with complaints of epiphora and bilateral palpably distended lacrimal sacs. He had a history of Crohn disease involving the small and large intestines, and a history of granulomatous cheilitis. Bilateral dacryocystorhinostomies were performed through an external approach and revealed multiple nodular masses in both lacrimal sacs, which on biopsy, contained granulomatous inflammation consistent with extraintestinal Crohn disease. A literature search from 1966 to the present using the PubMed database revealed three previous publications describing nasolacrimal duct obstruction associated with Crohn disease, but these cases did not show pathologic evidence of granulomatous inflammation. To our knowledge, this is the first reported case of extraintestinal Crohn disease with granulomatous inflammation affecting the lacrimal-outflow system.