Anderson University - South Carolina

Designing and evaluating alternative chemicals, materials, processes, or products using a Safe and Sustainable by Design (SSbD) approach can be facilitated by integrating decision support methods like multicriteria decision analysis (MCDA) to evaluate safety, environmental, economic, and social sustainability criteria. Clear guidance is needed to assess chemical, material, or product life cycles on various criteria, especially when a wide range of options is available, and multiple stakeholders’ interests must be accounted for. This study adds to guidance on the implementation of MCDA in SSbD assessments. Reviewing a set of 18 papers addressing MCDA and safety and sustainability assessments, we discuss various decision-making features (MCDA process characteristics) that require development for the application of MCDA in the SSbD framework. We identify six features for further exploration, including defining the decision-maker and problem statement, justifying the set of alternatives under evaluation, defining whether the system should allow for rank reversal, taking a life cycle perspective and defining the assessment scope, justifying the set of criteria used for the assessment, and managing uncertainties. These issues motivate the call for guidance on defining SSbD-specific issues that influence the selection of a suitable MCDA method for a specific problem, to ensure tailored decision-making recommendations. Addressing the identified features should help clear the path toward methodologically sound studies, useful results, and appropriate decision support. • The novel SSbD concept can be facilitated by MCDA methods. • Guidance on implementing MCDA for complex decision-making in SSbD is needed. • Six decision-making features toward sound decision support need further attention. • Addressing these features will pave the way toward methodologically sound studies.

Abstract Background Polymicrobial biofilms of bacteria and fungi frequently occur in chronic wounds and pose a significant barrier to healing. Polygalacturonic + caprylic acids (PG+CAP) and hypochlorous acid (HOCl) have been shown to be well tolerated yet potent antimicrobial agents for eradicating a broad range of mono-microbial biofilms in traditional biofilm models. In this study we compared their efficacies in vitro against polymicriobial biofilms using a three-dimensional fibrin gel wound biofilm model (FGWB). Figure 1. Efficacies of polygalacturonic + caprylic acids (PG+CAP) and hypochlorous acid (HOCl) against mono-, and polymicrobial biofilm of methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) + Candida albicans after three-hours exposures using fibrin gel wound biofilm model (FGWB). Figure 2: Efficacies of polygalacturonic + caprylic acids (PG+CAP) and hypochlorous acid (HOCl) against polymicrobial biofilm of methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA)+ Candida albicans after three-, 24-, and 48-hours exposures using fibrin gel wound biofilm model (FGWB). Methods The efficacies of PG+CAP, and HOCl were compared against a polymicrobial biofilm of MRSA + Candida albicans isolates in an in vitro FGWB model with different treatment durations. Single applications of 3 hrs, 24 hrs, and a double application of two 24 hr exposures (48 hrs total) were tested. FGWBs were formed by co-culturing the pathogens for 48 hrs in human fibrinogen solutions to which thrombin and calcium were added. Challenge exposed the FGWBs to antimicrobials for different durations following which the number of viable microbes were enumerated by sonication, serial dilution, plating and colony counting. Untreated FGWB were used as a control. Results As shown in Figure 1, the polymicrobial biofilm showed less susceptibility to the antimicrobial agents when compared to monomicrobial biofilms. As shown in Figure 2, PG+CAP produced a greater reduction of viable organisms when compared to HOCl for all tested time exposures in the FGWB model. As shown in Table 2, the difference between PG+CAP and HOCl in eradicating both pathogens in polymicrobial biofilm was statistically significant (P≤0.05). Conclusion Polymicrobial (MRSA + C. albicans) biofilm was substantially less susceptible to antimicrobial treatments than monomicrobial biofilms. PG+CAP was more effective against both mono-, and polymicrobial biofilms in the FGWB than HOCl. PG+CAP merits further in vivo study in settings where wounds are colonized by polymicrobial biofilms. Disclosures Joel Rosenblatt, PhD, Citius Pharmaceuticals, Inc.: Advisor/Consultant|Citius Pharmaceuticals, Inc.: Grant/Research Support|Citius Pharmaceuticals, Inc.: Patent|Citius Pharmaceuticals, Inc.: Ownership Interest|Citius Pharmaceuticals, Inc.: Stocks/Bonds (Public Company)|Spectrum Vascular: SV Spectrum MRC Central Venous Catheter; SV Spectrum MR Central Venous Catheter; SV Central Venous Catheter|Spectrum Vascular: Ownership Interest Issam I. Raad, Distinguished Professor, Citius Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Grant/Research Support): Advisor/Consultant|Citius Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Grant/Research Support): Grant/Research Support|Citius Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Grant/Research Support): Patent|Citius Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Grant/Research Support): Ownership Interest|Citius Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Grant/Research Support): Stocks/Bonds (Public Company)|Spectrum Vascular: Patent|Spectrum Vascular: Ownership Interest

This quantitative study aimed to determine K-12 teachers’ level of motivation for online teaching and investigate possible differences in motivation according to group demographics. The Online Teaching Motivation Scale (OTMS) (Wiles et al., 2023) was used to collect data from K-12 teachers (N = 62) in the Southeastern United States between October 2023 and July 2024. Participants reported a mean motivation for online teaching of 2.66 (SD = 0.52) on a 4-point Likert-like scale. Significant differences in overall motivation and self-efficacy for online teaching were found when examining content areas (STEM versus non-STEM) and grade bands (elementary, middle, and secondary). Additionally, significant differences in perceptions of administrative support for online teaching were found among grade bands. Finally, teachers’ perceptions of online teaching and learning showed significant differences between grade bands, content areas, and gender. Implications for school and district leaders are discussed based on these differences among demographic groups. Results also imply the need to develop and implement differentiated systems of support to meet the diverse needs of teachers using online tools in their classrooms.

One of the key issues in finance is whether sentiment is related to stock prices. Sentiment can influence prices via its effect on investors’ moods. A recent innovation in this space has been to perform text analysis on newspaper articles. A recent technique that is applied for this purpose is supervised Latent Dirichlet Allocation (sLDA), which allows articles to be scored based on topics such as War, Conflict, Financial Crisis, and so on. This work clarifies some issues surrounding two research papers published and forthcoming on the subject of whether war discourse in the New York Times predicts returns. One paper indicates that war discourse positively predicts next-month ahead market returns. The rationale is that the sentiment surrounding war discourse suppresses current prices and thus increases future expected returns. The second paper argues that loadings (betas) on the war factor command negative premia in the cross-section of stock returns. The rationale is that people require lower returns on stocks that form a hedge against the war factor. In this paper, I take a deeper look at the papers’ findings. I argue that authors are making judgment calls that need to be discussed and disclosed, and that the results are not robust.

Disclosure: L. Mitchell: None. S. Gundlapally: None. S. Patel: None. A. Smoleva: None. B. Wright: None. M. Antony: None.Introduction: Studies have reported an association between Primary Hyperparathyroidism [PHPT] and thyroid cancer. However, the overall association is rare with most of the cases being papillary thyroid carcinoma followed by follicular thyroid carcinoma. Tumor characteristics also show that patients usually have a small-sized tumor measuring up to 1 cm with fewer cases of extra-thyroidal invasion. Case Description: A 37-year-old Caucasian female with past medical history of obesity, nephrolithiasis, sleep gastrectomy and primary hypothyroidism presented with complaints of polyuria and polydipsia. Lab evaluation revealed elevated corrected serum calcium 11.2 mg/dl [8.0-10.0 mg/dl], elevated PTH 100 pg/ml [15-65 pg/ml], normal creatinine 0.69 mg/dl [0.5-0.9 mg/dl], EGFR> 60 ml/min/1.73m2 milligram. Sestamibi parathyroid scan was non-localizing. 4D parathyroid CT scan revealed candidate bilateral parathyroid adenomas versus low-density exophytic posterior thyroid nodules. Patient underwent surgery and final pathology revealed 0.7 mm intrathyroidal hypercellular parathyroid gland with multifocal bilateral classic subtype PTC with greatest tumor size of 2.4 cm with 3 out of 12 positive lymph nodes with 0.6 cm largest size of the metastatic deposit. Postoperative neck ultrasound revealed multiple bilateral suspicious lymph nodes and subsequent FNA of right level 6 lymph node reported to be metastatic PTC. Patient underwent modified radical neck dissection and final pathology revealed 7 out of 31 positive lymph nodes with size of largest metastatic deposit 2.6 cm and presence of extra nodal extension. Patient received 156 mci I-131 as remnant radioactive iodine treatment using thyroid hormone withdrawal thyroid. Posttherapy whole-body scan revealed no significant uptake in the neck. Follow-up neck ultrasound revealed bilateral morphologically benign-appearing lymph nodes and labs revealed thyroglobulin 0.1 ng/ml [1.5-38.5 ng/ml], thyroglobulin antibody<1.0 IU/mL [0.0-0.9 IU/mL], TSH 0.039 uIU/mL [0.30-4.0 uIU/mL]. Conclusion: PHPT and thyroid cancer can co-exist in a patient. Neck ultrasound should be considered as the initial choice of imaging during evaluation of PHPT due to the following reasons. It helps in early detection of thyroid cancer before the thyroid tumor can grow or spread outside the thyroid gland. It also helps to decide the extent of the initial neck surgery and avoid future additional surgery as well as all the surgical complications associated with repeat surgery.Presentation: Monday, July 14, 2025

Polygenic indexes (PGIs) — DNA-based predictors of individual phenotypes — have become essential tools across biomedical and social sciences. We introduce Version 2 of the Polygenic Index Repository, which expands phenotype coverage from 47 to 61, increases the number of participating datasets from 11 to 20, and adopts a more consistent and improved methodology for PGI construction. For 16 phenotypes, we leverage summary statistics from an updated GWAS meta-analysis with greater statistical power compared to the original release, thereby improving the PGI’s predictive power. To improve power for family-based analyses, we provide imputed parental PGIs in all datasets with first-degree relatives and offer a framework for interpreting results from analyses that control for parental PGIs. We illustrate the utility of parental PGIs using two applications: (1) comparing PGI associations with and without parental PGI controls for all phenotypes in two Repository datasets with family data, and (2) for BMI and diastolic blood pressure, exploring the contribution of causal versus non-causal components of PGI associations to the imperfect portability of PGIs across subgroups within a genetic ancestry. Collectively, the updates enhance predictive performance, broaden the Repository’s scope, and introduce novel resources that reduce confounding bias and improve interpretability.