University of Pennsylvania

Coherent Pulsed Dynamic Nuclear Polarization with Endogenous Metal Ions

Abstract Dynamic nuclear polarization (DNP) can overcome the intrinsically low sensitivity of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and enable structural characterization of a wide range of materials. In inorganic solids, DNP can be achieved endogenously by introducing paramagnetic me...

Patient characteristics and outcomes of colorectal cancer at a cancer hospital in Rwanda: results from a retrospective cohort

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is a significant contributor to cancer mortality in sub-Saharan Africa, yet it remains understudied. This study describes care gaps and survival outcomes of CRC in Rwanda. This was a retrospective observational cohort study. We included patients treated at...

Catalyst-Free Urea Synthesis from Methanol and Nitrogen via Radical-Mediated Redox Coupling on Aqueous Microdroplets

Abstract Urea is an indispensable nitrogen fertilizer and an important feedstock for chemical synthesis. Compared to the energy-intensive Bosch–Meiser process, photocatalytic redox coupling offers a sustainable approach toward urea synthesis. However, artificial photosynthesis re...

The Modular CAR: Adapting T Cells without Reengineering Them

Abstract The therapeutic potential of chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells has long been limited by the static nature of the engineered receptor; once manufactured, the cell is committed to a single antigen, unable to respond to the immune evasion and antigen heterogeneity tha...

Estimating the effect of very low nicotine content cigarettes on abstinence by menthol status using novel statistical methods: A reanalysis of a randomized trial in an experimental marketplace with alternative nicotine systems

Abstract Introduction Very low nicotine content (VLNC) cigarettes have been proposed to reduce cigarette consumption. However, previous studies were not adequately powered to analyze the effects of VLNC cigarettes on abstinence, especially within subpopulations (e.g., people who...

Does disfluency affect social judgments and decisions? Evidence from spontaneous speech

Disfluency in speech (e.g., English um and uh , also known as filled pauses ) has long been argued to have social costs for the speaker. However, this conclusion is based on a limited set of measures obtained for scripted, lab-recorded speech. Here, using stimuli from spontaneous...

Is Stephen Curry really a guard? A new perspective on player typologies using functional data analysis

Abstract We present a novel representation of NBA players’ shooting patterns based on Functional Data Analysis (FDA). Each player’s charts of made and missed shots are treated as smooth functional data defined over a two-dimensional domain corresponding to the offensive half-cour...

Patient Outcomes and Nurse Understaffing in For-Profit Hospitals

Background: For-profit hospital ownership has been associated with worse patient outcomes, but the mechanisms remain unclear. Underinvestment in nurse staffing is a plausible pathway linking for-profit ownership to performance. Objectives: To examine whether differences in nurse...

Early-life colonization with Clostridioides difficile remodels the developing gut

Clostridioides difficile causes severe disease in adults but commonly colonizes infants asymptomatically. The consequences of early-life colonization on host development remain unknown. In a neonatal mouse model, C. difficile colonization drove proinflammatory and tissue repair r...

Improving Ventilation Performance in a Multi-Storey Solar Chimney System Using Neutral Plane Analysis: A CFD Case Study

Multi-storey solar chimneys are often evaluated using shaft-outlet airflow, which may conceal uneven airflow distribution among floors. A shaft may provide adequate extraction while upper floors receive insufficient air or experience reverse airflow. This study examined the relat...

Kicking for goal or touch? An expected points framework for penalty decisions in rugby union

Abstract Following a penalty in rugby union, teams typically choose between attempting a kick at goal or kicking to touch to pursue a try. We develop an Expected Points (EP) framework that quantifies the value of each option as a function of field location and game context. Using...

Remote engineering of particle-like topologies to visualise entanglement dynamics

Abstract Skyrmions are a particle-like topology with a quantized skyrmion number, realized across condensed matter and photonic platforms alike. In quantum photonics, they constitute an emerging resource, promising robust quantum information encoding, so far realized as single-ph...

Mechanical cues of an interpenetrating polysaccharide matrix regulate self-assembly of collagen fibers

Collagen molecules self-assemble into supramolecular fibers within a molecularly crowded, polysaccharide-rich extracellular matrix (ECM). The ECM typically has fluid-like, viscoelastic properties that can be quantified rheologically. Here, we determine that the viscoelasticity of...

Robust inference and correlates from genetic associations with personality

Personality traits describe stable differences in how people think, feel and behave, and how they interact with and experience their social and physical environments1,2. Many questions remain unanswered about associations between DNA and personality traits, such as their robustne...

The Randomization Effect in a Double-Blind Placebo-Controlled Depression Study

BACKGROUND: Double-blind, placebo-controlled trials are often affected by higher-than-anticipated placebo responses that may contribute to study failure. It is common to observe symptomatic improvement immediately after randomization regardless of treatment allocation. METHODS: T...

Care Models for the Genetic Evaluation of Dilated Cardiomyopathy at Sites of the DCM Consortium

Abstract Background Clinical genetic evaluation for patients with dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) is minimally implemented and models of care are not defined. To understand current genetics care for DCM, a systematic needs assessment was conducted. Methods Principal Investigators (P...

Workplace Discrimination Affecting Nurse Practitioners in US Hospitals

Background Workplace discrimination remains a concern in health care, contributing to burnout and turnover among nurses, particularly those belonging to racial and ethnic minority groups. Although evidence is growing for staff nurses, little is known about discrimination among ho...

Anatomical white matter tracts span the cortical hierarchy to support cognitive diversity

Long-range white matter (WM) tracts support cognition by enabling communication between distant cortical regions, which are organized along a hierarchy defined by the sensorimotor-to-association (S-A) axis. However, it remains unknown how WM tracts are positioned within the corti...

Repositioning of polyubiquitin alters the pathologic tau filament structure

Abstract Structurally diverse tau filaments form proteinaceous aggregates in a heterogeneous group of neurodegenerative diseases called tauopathies 1 . The factors extrinsic to the highly ordered core structure that influence tau filament stability are not well understood. Here,...

Epithelial convergent extension as a tuning process

Self-tuning—the ability of disordered systems to develop desired collective behaviors by tuning internal couplings in response to feedback—has recently emerged as a powerful framework for understanding adaptation in amorphous solids, mechanical metamaterials, and electrical netwo...