University of British Columbia

Ambient Alkaline Pretreatment Enables Isoprenol Fermentation from Lignocellulosic Biomass for Sustainable Aviation Fuel Production

Abstract Mitigating aviation’s carbon emissions remains challenging because air travel relies on energy-dense liquid fuels with limited substitutes. Here, we report a fermentation-based bioconversion process for producing isoprenol, a precursor to 1,4-dimethylcyclooctane (DMCO),...

School Belonging in Early Adolescence: A Multilevel Analysis of Individual, Relational, and Organizational Predictors Among Canadian Middle-Grade Students

This study examined how individual, relational, and organizational factors relate to school belonging in early adolescence. Multilevel models used population-level data from 23,421 Grade 6-8 students in 365 British Columbia schools, with predictors centered within cluster and sch...

Police drug seizures without arrest before and during a decriminalization pilot in Vancouver, Canada: a longitudinal analysis

On 31 January 2023, the province of British Columbia (BC), Canada implemented a three-year “Decriminalization Pilot” in response to a toxic drug supply public health emergency, which removed criminal sanctions for the personal possession of some drugs below a cumulative total of...

Rapid progression of coronary atherosclerosis across glycemic status: a serial coronary computed tomography angiography study from the PARADIGM registry

Rapid progression of coronary atherosclerosis is associated with an increased risk of future adverse cardiovascular events. However, evidence regarding the association between glycemic status and rapid plaque progression (RPP) in the major epicardial coronary arteries remains lim...

Sex Differences in a Contemporary, Real-World Cohort of Patients with Transthyretin Amyloid Cardiomyopathy Treated with Tafamidis

INTRODUCTION: Tafamidis improves outcomes in patients with transthyretin amyloid cardiomyopathy (ATTR-CM) versus placebo. ATTR-CM has historically been considered a predominantly male disease, and women are underrepresented in prior studies. Sex-specific data in contemporary pati...

Efficacy and safety of canagliflozin are consistent across polypharmacy burden in CKD: the CREDENCE trial

Abstract Background Polypharmacy in chronic kidney disease (CKD) is substantial. Clinicians and patients are often reluctant to add medications to already complex regimens, partly due to concerns about diminishing efficacy and increased adverse effects. We assessed whether effica...

ntSynt-viz: Visualizing synteny patterns across multiple genomes

Abstract With the explosion of chromosome-scale genome assemblies being generated in recent years, there is vast potential for comparative genomics analyses through detecting multi-genome synteny. While existing tools can detect synteny blocks between multiple genomes, their text...

Ensemble clustering: A practical tutorial

Abstract Cluster analysis is an explorative analytical method, serving as a critical tool in psychology, psychiatry, and related fields to map heterogeneous data into meaningful subgroups. Despite their extensive historical use, traditional clustering techniques suffer from a lac...

Impact of Moisture Content on the Withdrawal Resistance of Self-Tapping Screws in Timber

Abstract Self-tapping screws (STS) have emerged as the state-of-the-art connector for mass-timber structures, often taking advantage of their ability to resist high loads parallel to their axis in withdrawal. This withdrawal resistance is affected by the timber moisture content....

Substance use and co-occurring mental health conditions among adolescents and young adults in North America: a systematic review

Abstract Background Substance use and co-occurring mental health conditions are common among adolescents and young adults and represent an important clinical and public health concern in North America. Trauma exposure, psychiatric symptoms, and social adversity frequently co-occu...

Numerical Investigation of Competitive Methane Transport in Multiborehole Coal Seam Drainage and Its Implications for Borehole Layout Design

Abstract Methane drainage efficiency in coal seams is significantly affected by borehole arrangement, as overlapping pressure sinks in multiborehole systems can redistribute gas migration pathways and reduce the effective performance of individual boreholes. To quantify this inte...

The nutritional value of invertebrate aquatic foods

Abstract Aquatic invertebrates are a diverse, nutrient-dense, and socio-ecologically important food whose contribution to human nutrition is frequently overlooked. We quantify their contribution to global nutrient supplies and estimate the nutrient content of >50,000 macroinverte...

Identifying social structural factors associated with HIV community based organization service use and community participation among women living with HIV in Metro Vancouver

Abstract Background HIV Community-Based Organizations (CBOs) remain underfunded, limiting programming and support, with limited research examining factors influencing women’s engagement with HIV CBOs. Therefore, social-structural factors associated with HIV CBO service use and co...

Survival of cancer cells following taxol-induced apoptosis is supported by ZEB1-mediated ferroptosis sensitivity

Abstract Chemotherapy remains the mainstay treatment of many solid cancers; however, resistance and recurrence compromise patient outcomes. We investigated chemotherapy resistance mechanisms in Triple Negative Breast Cancer (TNBC) by examining cells that survive chemotherapy-indu...

Prevalence and Risk of Heart Failure Among Older Adults Experiencing Homelessness: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Background Understanding the prevalence and risk of heart failure (HF) among older adults is crucial for informing the design and implementation of interventions and guiding equitable healthcare delivery. Methods A systematic search was conducted in MEDLINE, Embase, Cochrane Data...

Cochlear Place Specificity of the Auditory Brainstem Response to Narrowband Chirp Versus 2-1-2 Stimuli: High-Pass Noise/Derived Responses

OBJECTIVES: In recent years, many researchers have recommended using narrowband chirp (NBchirp) stimuli for auditory brainstem response (ABR) audiometry instead of more-standard 2-1-2 cycles linear-gated tones, primarily because NBchirps often result in larger ABR wave V amplitud...

Cross-sectional evaluation of anthropometric measures vs MRI-measured visceral and hepatic fat in a Canadian cohort

Abstract Context Accurate assessment of excess body fat and its cardiometabolic risk is essential in clinical and epidemiologic research. Body mass index (BMI), although widely used, does not capture visceral or ectopic fat. Objective To evaluate how anthropometric measures—BMI,...

Fall Risk Identification with Innovative Technologies for Aging in Place: A Clinical Needs Assessment Study

Background: Falls are a leading cause of injury and loss of independence among older adults. While gait-monitoring technologies offer promise for early fall risk detection, adoption is hindered by usability, cost, and integration challenges. Few studies incorporate perspectives f...

Multimodal large language model–assisted workflow for image-dependent very short answer question generation and response grading in neurosurgical residency assessment: development and validation study

Very short answer questions (VSAQs) reduce cueing but require substantial specialist effort to develop and grade, particularly when they involve neuroimaging. We evaluated an expert-supervised workflow using multimodal large language models (LLMs) to generate image-dependent neur...

A genomic catalog of Earth’s bacterial and archaeal symbionts

1 SUMMARY Microbial symbiosis drives the functional and phylogenomic diversification of life on Earth, yet remains underexplored due to culturing challenges. This study employed machine learning (ML) to predict symbiotic lifestyles in hundreds of thousands of microbial genomes fr...