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This editorial explores the crucial yet often overlooked role of sleep in enhancing student-athlete performance and well-being. It highlights sleep’s impact on physical recovery, cognitive function, and emotional stability, emphasizing the unique benefits for athletes. The editorial examines the detrimental effects of early school start times on adolescent sleep patterns and their subsequent impact on academic and athletic performance. By advocating for policy changes that prioritize sleep, such as delaying school start times, this editorial presents a novel approach to optimizing student-athlete success. Through a synthesis of current research and practical insights, it urges stakeholders in education and sports to recognize and act upon the foundational importance of sleep, positioning it as a key component of athletic and academic excellence.

Rationale: Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension (PAH) is a progressive vascular remodeling disease with elevated pulmonary vascular resistance that is lethal. While therapeutic progress was recently made with endothelin, nitric oxide, and prostacyclin pathway-based therapy for the treatment of PAH, the disease is currently incurable with a high cost of morbidity and mortality. Sotatercept, a new activin receptor IIA-Fc fusion protein, may prove to be a game-changer as a therapeutic agent for the treatment of PAH by regulating the growth factor signaling aberration of PAH.Methods: It is a narrative review of evidence for the drug Sotatercept for Group 1 PAH from a systematic literature search for clinical trials, mechanism studies, and regulatory data up to 2024. Pivotal clinical trials such as PULSAR, SPECTRA, STELLAR, and ZENITH were evaluated for efficacy, safety, and comparative results.Results: Sotatercept is a TGF-β family member ligand trap that rebalances activin/BMP signaling to target vascular remodeling. Clinically, striking effects were shown with exercise (40.8 m improvement in STELLAR 6MWD), pulmonary hemodynamics (PVR reduction of 146-240 dyn·s·cm-5 in PULSAR), as well as clinical measures (76% reduction of composite morbidity/mortality through ZENITH). On the background with an acceptable drug safety profile of predominantly hematologic effects, as well as injection site reaction, benefits were achieved. Comparison with analyses implies at least similar, if superior in some dimensions, efficacy of current PAH therapies.Conclusion: Sotatercept is a new therapeutic option for PAH as the first drug to act on the activin/BMP pathway. With its strong effect on several clinically relevant end points, it is a “fourth pillar” of PAH therapy. Clinical trials will determine its place in the algorithm, ascertain other combinations, and potentially identify its utility for other types of pulmonary hypertension.

Cerebral Autoregulation (CA)-directed therapy, or optimal cerebral perfusion pressure (CPPopt)-targeted therapy, is a tailored bedside method of resuscitation used in critical care that aims to achieve and maintain the CPPopt, to fit the precise cerebral hemodynamics and metabolic demand. Different processes and multiple tools are available to conduct a CA-directed therapy in acute brain-damaged adult admitted into critical care settings, but literature is limited and primarily focused on traumatic brain injury; however, for other brain conditions. By this scope review, we aim to describe the main procedures used by authors to achieve a CA-directed therapy, as well as its acquisition methods and its usefulness in acute non-traumatic brain-damaged adult in neurocritical care.

This study explores the effectiveness of Homeopathy in managing infectious diseases, focusing on its integration with nanoscience. The key objectives include assessing the role of homoeopathic treatments in reducing morbidity and mortality from various infections, such as respiratory, gastrointestinal, and mosquito-borne diseases, and examining the scientific mechanisms behind its therapeutic effects.Key findings from the study include evidence of nanoparticles in highly diluted homoeopathic solutions, suggesting that these remedies may retain measurable amounts of the original substances. This nanoparticulate perspective bridges traditional homoeopathic practices with modern nanomedicine. Historical evidence, such as Hahnemann’s work on scarlet fever and recent studies during the 2006 Chikungunya epidemic, supports the effectiveness of homoeopathic treatments, demonstrating improved recovery rates and reduced complications with integrated homoeopathic and allopathic approaches.The main conclusion of the study is that Homeopathy, particularly when combined with nanoscience, holds significant promise as a complementary approach in the management of infectious diseases. The presence of nanoparticles in homoeopathic remedies may explain their therapeutic effects, positioning Homeopathy as a valuable component of holistic healthcare strategies, especially in developing countries.

Purpose: American expert consensus publications recommend discontinuation of antiplatelet agents 6 to 12 months after Percutaneous Coronary Intervention (PCI) in patients with Atrial Fibrillation (AF) who require chronic anticoagulation, and use of oral anticoagulant monotherapy thereafter. This study aimed to assess real-world long-term antithrombotic therapy management practices and factors associated with the continuation of antiplatelet agents past 12 months post-PCI in patients with AF requiring chronic anticoagulation. Methods: Patients with AF and a history of PCI greater than 12 months before their most recent encounter with physicians at an outpatient electrophysiology clinic were identified by chart review. Patient demographics, clinical characteristics, and current antithrombotic regimen were collected from encounters that occurred between July 2019 and June 2022. The independent predictive factors associated with the continuation of antiplatelet agents were identified using univariate and regression analyses. Results: Out of 66 patients, 67% continued antiplatelet therapy for greater than 12 months post-PCI. Patients on antiplatelets were significantly less likely to have bare metal stents (p = 0.006), be greater than five years post-PCI (p = 0.002), and have a HASBLED score of two or less (p = 0.028) when compared to patients on oral anticoagulant monotherapy. Bare metal stent history (p = 0.045) and HASBLED score of two or less (p = 0.016) were also significant in regression analysis.Conclusion: This study found that most patients with AF and a history of PCI continued antiplatelet therapy longer than 12 months post-PCI, often despite the high bleeding risk.

In order to provide theoretical foundation for forestation of Phyllostachys bambusoides f. shouzhu Yi, the site factors, and the morphological character and biomass of standard bamboo were investigated in 16 sample spots of bamboo forest in Liangping county, Chongqing City, and then the effects of site factors on the clonal growth was discussed. Three site factors as the slope position, altitude, species diversity, had significant effects on the clonal growth of the bamboo. The effects of the gradient, slope aspect, humus thickness, and soil thickness were little, but that of slope aspects was not significant. The altitude of above 800 m, the upper slope, the steep slope and slope, and the thin soil were not suitable for its clonal growth. The results showed that (1) the main site factors affecting the growth of P. bambusoides f. shouzhu were slope position, soil thickness and humus thickness; (2) The forestation site of P. bambusoides f. shouzhu should be selected at the flat ground and the gentle slope of the hills below altitude of 800 m, and the slope position of the forestation site should be selected at the mid and lower position of a hill; (3) Soil thickness and humus thickness should be kept at a suitable level; (4) The diversity of plant species in the bamboo forest should be kept at a suitable level for keeping its growth environment.

Natural dyes have become a viable alternative to expensive and rare organic sensitizers because of their low cost, easy attainability, abundance of supply of raw materials and environmental friendliness. Chlorophyll, the most abundant pigment, can be extracted from plant leaves with simple and inexpensive methods, but it’s difficult to use as a Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells (DSSC) sensitizer due to the absence of OH and COOH groups. The opposite is true for xanthophylls, a particular class of carotenoids that contain free hydroxyl groups and thus may be considered as potential DSSC sensitizers. In this work we describe a new and inexpensive method of chlorophyll extraction from leaves based on the use of a basic solvent that provides the creation of COOH groups, allowing chlorophyll binding on the TiO2 layer. This modified chlorophyll dye showed a higher DSSC efficiency level (0.72%) compared to xanthophylls, which had lower efficiency.

Plant hormones are versatile chemical regulators of plant growth. The concept of hormone ‘interaction’ [1] has gained much importance and several key players of hormonal network are uncovered for major plant hormones. The fact that hormones are structurally unrelated and their interaction elicits different genomic and non-genomic responses suggest hormone interaction involve co-regulation at multiple levels [2]. Recent studies suggest that hormonal interaction involves control over biosynthesis genes [3-6], key components of signalling pathways [7,8], hormone distribution [9,10], and interaction at the level of gene expression [11-13].

In this work we used semi-isolated heart of the cockroach Nauphoeta cinerea for the investigation of the pharmacological effects of extracts (aqueous, 1:1, 1:2, 1:4 and 1:8) from Nephrolepis exaltata L. leaves, a popular ornamental fern considered to be safe. The use of insects in experimental studies has grown due to the easy handling, proliferation/growing assuring its rapid obtention, and absence of ethical issues. An aqueous extract 0.2 % was obtained after maceration of 1 g N. exaltata leaves powder with 20 mL of distilled water (1:20). Diluted extracts in water were obtained to have the following proportion 1:1, 1:2, 1:4 and 1:8. Experiments (n=4) consisted of 200 µL addition onto semi-isolated heart preparation of N. cinerea with concomitant heart beating counting. Aqueous, 1:1 and 1:2 extracts paralyzed completely the heart beatings of cockroachs (p<0.05 compared to saline control), but not 1:4 or 1:8, which showed only a slight decline (p>0.05 compared to saline control). A preliminary thin layer chromatography showed the presence of unidentified terpenoid in aqueous extract of N. exaltata. These pharmacological findings of N. exaltata can be exploited for future use as insecticide or as dose-dependently cholinergic agent.

Tropical forests have long been of interest to biologists because of their high species diversity and their complicated patterns of community organization. The recent ecological studies which have demonstrated that tropical trees are diverse in their reproductive biology and dynamic population structure. Asynchronous flowering among the clones in a clonal seed orchard is an inherent problem resulting in poor seed and fruit set in them. These results in the complete defeat of the prime objective of establishment of clonal seed orchards (CSOs) i.e. abundant quality seed production poor flowering and asynchronous flowering between the clones are a major bottleneck in higher seed set in these clonal seed orchards across the country. Asynchrony found between clones may be attributed to the origin of clones, which are collected from different zonal populations as revealed by isoenzyme and DNA markers studies. This article reviews the work done in CSOs across the world and suggests an alternate strategy in designing the clonal seed orchards of the future.