aP vaccine (aP vaccine, NAVA)

Implicit Prejudice Differentially Predicts Placement Into Valuable and Scarce Opportunities.

Park Yeji Y, Sinclair Stacey S

Racial excellence gaps persist, partly due to unequal participation in advanced learning opportunities. Guided by the opportunity hoarding framework, this research investigates whether White Americans' pro-White/anti-Black prejudice differentially predict simulated Advanced Placement (AP) course admission decisions, and under what conditions-when the opportunity is valuable, scarce, or both. Across two experiments, we observed an unexpected overall pattern in which Black students were placed into higher priority tiers than White students. Nonetheless, greater implicit prejudice predicted larger White-Black differences in placement decisions, explained by placing Black students into lower tiers rather than White students into higher tiers. Critically, we found preliminary evidence that this pattern emerges only when AP participation was described as both valuable and scarce. Explicit prejudice showed less consistent associations with differences in placement decisions across studies. The valuable and scarce nature of advanced learning opportunities may amplify the effect of implicit prejudice in deciding who deserves access.

A subunit vaccine protects A129 mice from death and joint swelling against lethal Chikungunya virus challenge.

Li Jiangfan J, Fang Ting T, Song Liyuan L, Qiang Li L et al.

Chikungunya virus (CHIKV) is primarily transmitted to humans through bites of infected Aedes mosquitoes, causing febrile illness as well as acute or chronic arthritis. With increasing reports in previously non-endemic regions, it poses an emerging threat to public health and a growing risk to travelers. Despite the recent approval of live-attenuated and virus-like particle-based vaccines, a safe, efficacious, and cost-effective vaccine remains urgently needed. The envelope glycoproteins E1 and E2, which play crucial roles in viral attachment and entry, are the major immunodominant structural proteins and can effectively elicit protective antibodies. We engineered mammalian cells to produce the ectodomains of the E1 and E2 glycoproteins and evaluated the protective efficacy of the resulting vaccine formulations in vivo. A two-dose vaccination regimen elicited high levels of antibodies and provided full protection against lethal challenge in A129 mice, preventing both death and joint swelling. These findings demonstrate the potential of this vaccine candidate against CHIKV and warrant its further development.

High-volume cervical lymph node metastasis in papillary thyroid carcinoma: development and external validation of an interpretable prediction model.

Wang Dehao D, Wang Jinchao J, Wu Zhen Z, Cui Zhaoqing Z

The transportability of models for postoperative high-volume cervical nodal disease in papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC) and the incremental predictive value of molecular variables remain uncertain. We developed models in the public Deyang cohort (521 patients; 90 events) and performed geographic external validation in the independent Liaocheng cohort (193 patients; 73 events). The outcome was >5 pathologically confirmed metastatic cervical lymph nodes. Five algorithms were compared using repeated stratified nested cross-validation with a prespecified 10-variable postoperative feature set. Ridge logistic regression (C = 0.1) was selected and applied without refitting. Paired comparisons of 8-variable clinicopathological and 10-variable clinicopathological-molecular models assessed the incremental value of high-risk co-mutation status and mutation count in both cohorts. Internal validation yielded an area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUROC) of 0.795 (95% CI, 0.745-0.842), average precision (AP) of 0.497 (0.406-0.598), and Brier score of 0.115 (0.098-0.134). External AUROC was 0.752 (0.678-0.821), AP 0.601 (0.498-0.728), and Brier score 0.217 (0.180-0.254). Observed and mean predicted risks were 37.8% and 23.9%, respectively; the observed-to-expected ratio was 1.582 (1.319-1.860) and the weak-calibration slope was 0.831 (0.542-1.191). At the prespecified threshold of 0.158, sensitivity was 0.795 and specificity 0.600. Net benefit was 0.254 for the model and 0.261 for classifying all patients as high risk (difference, -0.008; 95% CI, -0.051 to 0.033). External paired differences after adding molecular variables were +0.002 for AUROC (-0.005 to 0.010), -0.002 for AP (-0.016 to 0.010), -0.001 for Brier score (-0.002 to 0.000), and +0.009 for net benefit (-0.003 to 0.026). The model retained moderate discrimination across centers but underestimated absolute risk and did not demonstrate a net benefit advantage over classifying all patients as high risk at the prespecified threshold. High-risk co-mutation status and mutation count showed no clear incremental predictive value. Further validation with standardized lymph-node assessment and patient outcomes is required before clinical application.

[Strategies to address vaccine hesitancy in Brazil: evidence synthesis].

Marques Ana Paula da Costa APDC, Gubert Vanessa Terezinha VT, Dias Adriano da Costa ADC, Gasparoto Antonio Luiz Dal Bello ALDB et al.