Design guidelines for movement-assistive clothing based on a comprehensive understanding of older adults' needs and preferences.

This study aimed to explore the needs and wants of older adults in the context of movement-assistive clothing (MSC), with a focus on muscle strength and posture correction. A survey was conducted to understand the needs and wants of older adults, considering aspects of functions and designs, and to evaluate the comfort, safety, ease of use, usefulness, and intention of users to purchase and use products. A total of 408 individuals aged > 65 years participated in the study. The data were analyzed using descriptive analyses, such as mean, standard deviation, percentages, Cronbach's alpha, chi-square test, independent t-test, analysis of variance, and regression using IBM SPSS 27.0. Exploratory Factor Analysis was also conducted to test the hypotheses. Open-ended questions were extracted using major themes after color-coding. Based on the results, design recommendations were derived, including the development of pants and innerwear with casual, minimalist styles, featuring achromatic colors, and utilizing stretchy, breathable fabrics. Comfort, safety, ease of use, and usefulness emerged as critical factors influencing the purchase and use of MSC by older adults. This study aimed to establish design guidelines by understanding the needs and wants of older adults and considering the aspects of movement-assistive clothing to relieve musculoskeletal issues. Accordingly, these findings are expected to aid in the creation of wearable suits using flexible fabric artificial muscles for active musculoskeletal correction in older adults.

Comparison of EUS-guided ablation and surgical resection for nonfunctioning small pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors: a propensity score-matching study.

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: Treatment strategies for small pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors (PNETs) <2 cm in size are still under debate. The feasibility and safety of EUS-guided ethanol ablation (EUS-EA) have been demonstrated. However, sample sizes in previous studies were small with no comparative studies on surgery. Therefore, we aimed to compare the safety and long-term outcomes of EUS-EA with those of surgery for the management of nonfunctioning small PNETs. METHODS: We retrospectively reviewed patients with PNETs who were managed by EUS-EA (from 2011 to 2018) and surgery (from 2000 to 2018) at Asan Medical Center. Propensity score matching (PSM) was performed to increase comparability. The primary outcome was early and late major adverse events (Clavien-Dindo grade ≥III) after treatment. Secondary outcomes were 10-year overall (OS) and disease-specific survival (DSS) rates, length of hospital stay, and development of endocrine pancreatic insufficiency. RESULTS: Of all patients, 97 and 188 patients were included in the EUS-EA and surgery groups, respectively. PSM created 89 matched pairs. EUS-EA was associated with a significantly lower rate of early major adverse events (0% vs 11.2%, P = .003). Late major adverse events occurred more frequently after surgery, with no significant difference between groups (3.4% vs 10.1%, P = .07). Both treatment modalities showed comparable 10-year OS and DSS rates. The length of hospital stay was significantly shorter in the EUS-EA group (4 days vs 14.1 days, P < .001), and endocrine pancreatic insufficiency was less common after EUS-EA than after surgery (33.3% vs 48.6%, P = .121). CONCLUSIONS: EUS-EA had fewer adverse events and a shorter hospital stay with similar OS and DSS rates compared with surgery, suggesting that EUS-EA may be a preferred alternative to surgical resection in selected patients with nonfunctioning small PNETs.

Predicting Pharmacodynamic Drug-Drug Interactions through Signaling Propagation Interference on Protein-Protein Interaction Networks.

As pharmacodynamic drug-drug interactions (PD DDIs) could lead to severe adverse effects in patients, it is important to identify potential PD DDIs in drug development. The signaling starting from drug targets is propagated through protein-protein interaction (PPI) networks. PD DDIs could occur by close interference on the same targets or within the same pathways as well as distant interference through cross-talking pathways. However, most of the previous approaches have considered only close interference by measuring distances between drug targets or comparing target neighbors. We have applied a random walk with restart algorithm to simulate signaling propagation from drug targets in order to capture the possibility of their distant interference. Cross validation with DrugBank and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes DRUG shows that the proposed method outperforms the previous methods significantly. We also provide a web service with which PD DDIs for drug pairs can be analyzed at http://biosoft.kaist.ac.kr/targetrw.