Background: Dermoid cysts are rare benign intracranial lesions arising from abnormal neuroectodermal folding during embryogenesis. While typically midline, near the sella or posterior fossa, we report an unusual case of a convexity dermoid cyst extending into the sylvian fissure. Methods: A 33-year-old female with a left convexity mass underwent resection, confirming a dermoid cyst. A literature review was also conducted. Results: The patient presented with progressive, intermittent right-sided hand and face paresthesias. CT showed a 4.3 × 4.7 cm hypodense lesion with peripheral calcification contiguous with the calvarium. MRI revealed an extra-axial, T2-hyperintense, T1-hypointense lesion with internal septations extending from the calvarium into the sylvian fissure. Craniotomy achieved gross total resection, revealing a soft lesion with interwoven hair, suggestive of a dermoid cyst. Pathology confirmed a cystic lesion with mature squamous epithelium, keratin, skin appendages, and chronic inflammation. Conclusions: Dermoid cysts are rare intracranial lesions that most commonly occur in the midline. This case highlights a rare convexity dermoid cyst, expanding our understanding of its atypical locations.

Food is a key lever for human and planetary health(1). Shifting to more plant-based foods supports environmentally sustainable, healthy and affordable diets(1). Taste preferences are formed in early childhood(2), presenting an opportunity for influencing plant-based food intake throughout the lifespan. Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) are important food environments due to high attendance rates for long hours(3), where children receive half of their daily nutritional needs(4). This study aimed to understand plant-based vs animal-based protein food provision in ECEC, their contribution to key nutrients, and their costs. Two weeks’ menus and recipes were collected from Victorian ECEC between 2018 and 2019 and entered into Foodworks10 for nutritional analysis. Desktop analysis categorised meals (lunches and snacks) by protein type as animal-based (red meat, white meat, fish, eggs, dairy, processed meat), plant-based (legumes, protein-enriched plant milk, seeds), or combined (both). Recipe items were priced at a metropolitan supermarket in March 2024 to determine cost per child per day and cost per child per lunch meal. A restricted maximum-likelihood mixed-effects model was used to estimate mean differences in lunch meal costs between the different meal protein types, adjusted for serving size. Iron bioavailability was assessed using previously published algorithms. Total daily energy, protein, calcium and iron were compared to 50% of the Australian Recommended Daily Intake for 2–3 year olds(5). Eighteen centres provided menus (n = 180 days, 540 meals). Preliminary findings indicated that 73% of meals contained animal-based protein, 7% a combination of animal and plant, and 4% plant-based protein. Animal-based protein meals most often contained dairy foods (64%, n = 253), followed by red meat (13%, n = 53). Plant-based protein meals mostly contained legumes (85%, n = 17). Mean (± SD) iron provision was below recommendations (2.86 mg ± 1.47 mg). Total protein (26 g ± 12 g) and calcium provision (271 mg ± 137.21 mg) were above recommendations. Mean food cost per child per day was AUD 2.46 (± AUD 1.09) and mean lunch meal cost per child was AUD 1.36 (± AUD 0.84). Animal-based lunches were AUD 0.45 more expensive than plant-based (p ≤ 0.01, 95% CI: AUD 0.15–AUD 0.73). These findings highlight very low provision of plant-based proteins in ECEC menus. Low red meat and iron provision suggests that plant-based protein should not displace current red meat on menus. High dairy and more than sufficient calcium may indicate that ‘meat-free meals’ are predominantly dairy-based, providing an opportunity for plant-based proteins in these meals. Plant-based protein lunches were a third cheaper than animal-based counterparts, suggesting an affordable option. Young children attending ECEC settings are currently missing the opportunity for exposure to plant-based proteins as healthy, environmentally sustainable and affordable additions to menus.

This paper reports an expansion of the English as a second language (L2) component of the Multilingual Eye Movement Corpus (MECO L2), an international database of eye movements during text reading. While the previous Wave 1 of the MECO project (Kuperman et al., 2023) contained English as a L2 reading data from readers with 12 different first language (L1) backgrounds, the newly collected dataset adds eye-tracking data on English text reading from 13 distinct L1 backgrounds (N = 660) as well as participants’ scores on component skills of English proficiency and information about their demographics and language background and use. The paper reports reliability estimates, descriptive statistics, and correlational analyses as means to validate the expansion dataset. Consistent with prior literature and the MECO Wave 1, trends in the MECO Wave 2 data include a weak correlation between reading comprehension and oculomotor measures of reading fluency and a greater L1-L2 contrast in reading fluency than reading comprehension. Jointly with Wave 1, the MECO project includes English reading data from more than 1,200 readers representing a diversity of native writing systems (logographic, abjad, abugida, and alphabetic) and 19 distinct L1 backgrounds. We provide multiple pointers to new venues of how L2 reading researchers can mine this rich publicly available dataset.

Mediation analysis constitutes an important part of treatment study to identify the mechanisms by which an intervention achieves its effect. Structural equation model (SEM) is a popular framework for modeling such causal relationship. However, current methods impose various restrictions on the study designs and data distributions, limiting the utility of the information they provide in real study applications. In particular, in longitudinal studies missing data is commonly addressed under the assumption of missing at random (MAR), where current methods are unable to handle such missing data if parametric assumptions are violated.

In this paper, we propose a new, robust approach to address the limitations of current SEM within the context of longitudinal mediation analysis by utilizing a class of functional response models (FRM). Being distribution-free, the FRM-based approach does not impose any parametric assumption on data distributions. In addition, by extending the inverse probability weighted (IPW) estimates to the current context, the FRM-based SEM provides valid inference for longitudinal mediation analysis under the two most popular missing data mechanisms; missing completely at random (MCAR) and missing at random (MAR). We illustrate the approach with both real and simulated data.

A new type of environmental chamber for X-ray diffraction was designed that could sustain elevated, internal pressures of nitrogen or any other gas under oxygen-free conditions and that allowed the positions of the specimen and edge aperture to be adjusted by remote control. It was used to determine the values of the interlayer spacing, λ, of nontronite from Garfield, Washington, in different stages of reduction at different values of Π, the swelling pressure of the nontronite. At equilibrium, Π was equal to the pressure under which water was expressed from the clay. Both partially and fully expanded layers were found to exist in the reduced nontronite, the fraction of partially expanded layers increasing with increasing Π and Fe2+/Fe3+, the ratio of Fe2+ to Fe3+ in octahedral sites. Also, λ for the partially expanded layers was found to depend on Fe2+/Fe3+ but not on Π, and λ for the fully expanded layers was found to depend on Π but not on Fe2+/Fe3+. These findings were interpreted to mean that the reduction of Fe affected the short-range interlayer forces, but not the long-range ones.

Factors that are potentially important in the pulmonary pathogenesis of asbestos and other mineral particles are: 1) morphology, 2) Fe-content, 3) solubility under intraphagosomal conditions, 4) value and sign of the surface potential of the particle, 5) hydrophobicity or hydrophilicity, 6) capacity to activate phagocytic leukocytes, and 7) duration of exposure to the particles. The order of importance of these factors in causing severe or fatal pulmonary pathogenicity is estimated to be: 1 > 3 > 7 > 6 ≫ 5 > 4 > 2. The order of pathogenicity of the minerals is estimated as: amphibole asbestos: crocidolite, tremolite, amosite > erionite > serpentine asbestos: chrysotile > talc > silica > simple metal oxides. Particle length, duration of exposure to the particles, and pre-treatment of the particles may however enhance the pathogenic potential of any of the lower-ranked particles.

Suspensions were produced by mixing Na-saturated, Upton montmorillonite with aqueous solutions containing different concentrations of 1,4-dioxane. Each suspension was deposited on a porous ceramic filter in an environmental chamber, and the solution was expressed from it by admitting gaseous helium to the chamber at a slightly elevated pressure. The chamber was fitted 1) with beryllium windows so that X-rays could be transmitted into and out of it and 2) with a drain so that the expressed solution could be conducted to the outside atmosphere. Once a filter cake had formed on the filter, the pressure of the gaseous helium was raised in successive increments and, after each increment, the c-axis layer spacing(s) was determined by X-ray diffraction. Increasing the concentration of 1,4-dioxane caused some of the fully expanded layers to collapse to the partially expanded state (c-axis spacing = 15 Å) and appeared to cause the remaining fully expanded layers to move farther apart, especially at the higher pressures. Alternative explanations were given for these apparently contradictory results.

Knowledge graphs have become a common approach for knowledge representation. Yet, the application of graph methodology is elusive due to the sheer number and complexity of knowledge sources. In addition, semantic incompatibilities hinder efforts to harmonize and integrate across these diverse sources. As part of The Biomedical Translator Consortium, we have developed a knowledge graph–based question-answering system designed to augment human reasoning and accelerate translational scientific discovery: the Translator system. We have applied the Translator system to answer biomedical questions in the context of a broad array of diseases and syndromes, including Fanconi anemia, primary ciliary dyskinesia, multiple sclerosis, and others. A variety of collaborative approaches have been used to research and develop the Translator system. One recent approach involved the establishment of a monthly “Question-of-the-Month (QotM) Challenge” series. Herein, we describe the structure of the QotM Challenge; the six challenges that have been conducted to date on drug-induced liver injury, cannabidiol toxicity, coronavirus infection, diabetes, psoriatic arthritis, and ATP1A3-related phenotypes; the scientific insights that have been gleaned during the challenges; and the technical issues that were identified over the course of the challenges and that can now be addressed to foster further development of the prototype Translator system. We close with a discussion on Large Language Models such as ChatGPT and highlight differences between those models and the Translator system.

The logarithmic law of the wall does not capture the mean flow when a boundary layer is subjected to a strong pressure gradient. In such a boundary layer, the mean flow is affected by the spatio-temporal history of the imposed pressure gradient; and accounting for history effects remains a challenge. This work aims to develop a universal mean flow scaling for boundary layers subjected to arbitrary adverse or/and favourable pressure gradients. We derive from the Navier–Stokes equation a velocity transformation that accounts for the history effects and maps the mean flow to the canonical law of the wall. The transformation is tested against channel flows with a suddenly imposed adverse or favourable pressure gradient, boundary layer flows subjected to an adverse pressure gradient, and Couette–Poiseuille flows with a streamwise pressure gradient. It is found that the transformed velocity profiles follow closely the equilibrium law of the wall.

In this article we rethink the chronotope approach by examining what happened to religious space-times in a Chinese urban development project that completely transformed what had once been five relatively rural townships. What happens to chronotopes when a place is so completely transformed? We focus on multiple chronotopic dimensions in the religious experience of those villagers whose families had long occupied this land, but who now live separated from their old neighbors, without their old livelihoods, having lost their old temples, and surrounded by new migrants who are generally wealthier and better educated. Building on recent anthropological work on chronotopes, coupled with insights taken from Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Gilles Deleuze, this article explores the complex interrelationships and workings of chronotopes through the idea of the fold. This approach reconsiders what the boundaries between chronotopes might look like—not necessarily straight lines that are difficult to cross, but more like the infinite inflections of curves as those curves intersect and interact with each other. Rather than thinking of chronotopes as structured wholes separated by clear boundaries—much as we also tend to think about “states,” “cultures,” or “ontologies”—folding allows us to reconceptualize the kinds of interactions that take place when one space-time touches another. We examine in particular three ways in which folding elucidates how chronotopic boundaries can work: they can make the distant near, separate inside from outside, and complicate the boundary by interdigitating.

The pulsed jet is a novel and effective active mixing enhancement approach. For the transverse pulsed jet in the supersonic crossflow, the frequency influence is investigated using the three-dimensional Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes (RANS) equations coupled with the SST k-ω turbulence model. The averaged flow field properties of the pulsed jet are better than those of the steady jet when considering mixing efficiency and jet penetration depth, especially for the case with the pulsed frequency being 50kHz. The flow field structures of the pulsed jet are connected with the time, with periodic wave structures generating in the flow field and moving downstream. The size of the wave structures and its distance are related to the frequency, namely the size and flow distance are relatively small at 50kHz, and it takes some time for the pulsed jet to establish its influence in the full flow field. At low frequencies, the flow field produces large fluctuations, and this may be detrimental to the stable operation of the engine.

The shape of emission lines in the optical spectra of star-forming galaxies reveals the kinematics of the diffuse gaseous component. We analyse the shape of prominent emission lines in a sample of $\sim$53000 star-forming galaxies from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, focusing on departures from gaussianity. Departures from a single gaussian profile allow us to probe the motion of gas and to assess the role of outflows. The sample is divided into groups according to their stellar velocity dispersion and star formation rate (SFR). The spectra within each group are stacked to improve the signal-to-noise ratio of the emission lines, to remove individual signatures, and to enhance the effect of SFR on the shapes of the emission lines. The moments of the emission lines, including kurtosis and skewness, are determined. We find that most of the emission lines in strong star-forming systems unequivocally feature negative kurtosis. This signature is present in $\mathrm{H}\unicode{x03B2}$, $\mathrm{H}\unicode{x03B1}$, [N ii], and [S ii] in massive galaxies with high SFRs. We attribute it as evidence of radial outflows of ionised gas driven by the star formation of the galaxies. Also, most of the emission lines in low-mass systems with high SFRs feature negative skewness, and we interpret it as evidence of dust obscuration in the galactic disk. These signatures are however absent in the [O iii] line, which is believed to trace a different gas component. The observed trend is significantly stronger in face-on galaxies, indicating that star formation drives the outflows along the galactic rotation axis, presumably the path of least resistance. The data suggest that outflows driven by star formation exert accumulated impacts on the interstellar medium, and the outflow signature is more evident in older galaxies as they have experienced a longer total duration of star formation.

Coarse-grained (CG) modelling with the Martini force field has come of age. By combining a variety of bead types and sizes with a new mapping approach, the newest version of the model is able to accurately simulate large biomolecular complexes at millisecond timescales. In this perspective, we discuss possible applications of the Martini 3 model in drug discovery and development pipelines and highlight areas for future development. Owing to its high simulation efficiency and extended chemical space, Martini 3 has great potential in the area of drug design and delivery. However, several aspects of the model should be improved before Martini 3 CG simulations can be routinely employed in academic and industrial settings. These include the development of automatic parameterisation protocols for a variety of molecule types, the improvement of backmapping procedures, the description of protein flexibility and the development of methodologies enabling efficient sampling. We illustrate our view with examples on key areas where Martini could give important contributions such as drugs targeting membrane proteins, cryptic pockets and protein–protein interactions and the development of soft drug delivery systems.