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Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is frequently seen in females of reproductive age and is associated with metabolic disorders that are exacerbated by obesity. Although body weight reduction programs via diet and lifestyle changes are recommended for modifying reproductive and metabolic phenotypes, the drop-out rate is high. Thus, an efficacious, safe, and continuable treatment method is needed. Recent studies have shown that oxytocin (OT) reduces body weight gain and food intake, and promotes lipolysis in some mammals, including humans (especially obese individuals), without any adverse effects. In the present study, we evaluated the changes in endogenous OT levels, and the effects of acute and chronic OT administration on body weight changes, food intake, and fat mass using novel dihydrotestosterone-induced PCOS model rats. We found that the serum OT level was lower in PCOS model rats than in control rats, whereas the hypothalamic OT mRNA expression level did not differ between them. Acute intraperitoneal administration of OT during the dark phase reduced the body weight gain and food intake in PCOS model rats, but these effects were not observed in control rats. In contrast, chronic administration of OT decreased the food intake in both the PCOS model rats and control rats. These findings indicate that OT may be a candidate medicine that is efficacious, safe, and continuable for treating obese PCOS patients.

Digital twins are virtual replicas of physical objects or systems. This new technology is increasingly being adopted in industry to improve the monitoring and efficiency of products and organizations. In healthcare, digital human twins (DHTs) represent virtual copies of patients, including tissues, organs, and physiological processes. Their application has the potential to transform patient care in the direction of increasingly personalized data-driven medicine. The use of DHTs can be integrated with digital twins of healthcare institutions to improve organizational management processes and resource allocation. By modeling the complex multi-omics interactions between genetic and environmental factors, DHTs help monitor disease progression and optimize treatment plans. Through digital simulation, DHT models enable the selection of the most appropriate molecular therapy and accurate 3D representation for precision surgical planning, together with augmented reality tools. Furthermore, they allow for the development of tailored early diagnosis protocols and new targeted drugs. Furthermore, digital twins can facilitate medical training and education. By creating virtual anatomy and physiology models, medical students can practice procedures, enhance their skills, and improve their understanding of the human body. Overall, digital twins have immense potential to revolutionize healthcare, improving patient care and outcomes, reducing costs, and enhancing medical research and education. However, challenges such as data security, data quality, and data interoperability must be addressed before the widespread adoption of digital twins in healthcare. We aim to propose a narrative review on this hot topic to provide an overview of the potential applications of digital twins to improve treatment and diagnostics, but also of the challenges related to their development and widespread diffusion.

Background Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is a clinically heterogeneous endocrine disorder with lifelong health risks. Androgen excess, particularly testosterone, plays a key role in the pathophysiology of PCOS. Dihydrotestosterone (DHT) is an active metabolite derived from testosterone, and the total testosterone (TT) to DHT ratio is known as a potential marker of androgen metabolism, which can be used for evaluation of metabolic phenotype. This exploratory study aims to evaluate the association between DHT levels and TT/DHT ratio with the metabolic parameters and clinical features of PCOS patients. Methods This cross-sectional study was conducted on 30 patients diagnosed with PCOS based on the Rotterdam 2003 criteria. Clinical, metabolic, and biochemical parameters were assessed. The association between DHT levels, TT/DHT ratio, and clinical as well as metabolic features was analyzed using ANOVA, Spearman correlation, and independent sample t-tests, with a significance threshold of p  < 0.05. Results The TT/DHT ratio was significantly lower in patients with regular menstruation compared to those with oligomenorrhea and amenorrhea ( p  < 0.05). A moderate positive correlation was found between DHT levels and BMI ( r  = 0.487, p  < 0.05), while fasting blood sugar (FBS) was significantly correlated with the TT/DHT ratio ( r  = 0.376, p  < 0.05). Patients with insulin resistance had a significantly higher TT/DHT ratio compared to those without insulin resistance ( p  < 0.05), whereas DHT levels did not differ significantly between these groups. Conclusion The TT/DHT ratio could be a useful biomarker to identify PCOS patients with more severe metabolic issues.

Background Androgenetic alopecia (AGA) is a genetic disorder caused by dihydrotestosterone (DHT), accompanied by the senescence of androgen-sensitive dermal papilla cells (DPCs) located in the base of hair follicles. DHT causes DPC senescence in AGA through mitochondrial dysfunction. However, the mechanism of this pathogenesis remains unknown. In this study, we investigated the protective role of cyanidins on DHT-induced mitochondrial dysfunction and DPC senescence and the regulatory mechanism involved. Methods DPCs were used to investigate the effect of DHT on mitochondrial dysfunction with MitoSOX and Rhod-2 staining. Senescence-associated β-galactosidase activity assay was performed to examine the involvement of membrane AR-mediated signaling in DHT-induced DPC senescence. AGA mice model was used to study the cyanidins on DHT-induced hair growth deceleration. Results Cyanidin 3- O -arabinoside (C3A) effectively decreased DHT-induced mtROS accumulation in DPCs, and C3A reversed the DHT-induced DPC senescence. Excessive mitochondrial calcium accumulation was blocked by C3A. C3A inhibited p38-mediated voltage-dependent anion channel 1 (VDAC1) expression that contributes to mitochondria-associated ER membrane (MAM) formation and transfer of calcium via VDAC1–IP3R1 interactions. DHT-induced MAM formation resulted in increase of DPC senescence. In AGA mice models, C3A restored DHT-induced hair growth deceleration, which activated hair follicle stem cell proliferation. Conclusions C3A is a promising natural compound for AGA treatments against DHT-induced DPC senescence through reduction of MAM formation and mitochondrial dysfunction.

Wearable digital health technologies and mobile apps (personal digital health technologies [DHTs]) hold great promise for transforming health research and care. However, engagement in personal DHT research is poor. The objective of this paper is to describe how participant engagement techniques and different study designs affect participant adherence, retention, and overall engagement in research involving personal DHTs. Quantitative and qualitative analysis of engagement factors are reported across 6 unique personal DHT research studies that adopted aspects of a participant-centric design. Study populations included (1) frontline health care workers; (2) a conception, pregnant, and postpartum population; (3) individuals with Crohn disease; (4) individuals with pancreatic cancer; (5) individuals with central nervous system tumors; and (6) families with a Li-Fraumeni syndrome affected member. All included studies involved the use of a study smartphone app that collected both daily and intermittent passive and active tasks, as well as using multiple wearable devices including smartwatches, smart rings, and smart scales. All studies included a variety of participant-centric engagement strategies centered on working with participants as co-designers and regular check-in phone calls to provide support over study participation. Overall retention, probability of staying in the study, and median adherence to study activities are reported. The median proportion of participants retained in the study across the 6 studies was 77.2% (IQR 72.6%-88%). The probability of staying in the study stayed above 80% for all studies during the first month of study participation and stayed above 50% for the entire active study period across all studies. Median adherence to study activities varied by study population. Severely ill cancer populations and postpartum mothers showed the lowest adherence to personal DHT research tasks, largely the result of physical, mental, and situational barriers. Except for the cancer and postpartum populations, median adherences for the Oura smart ring, Garmin, and Apple smartwatches were over 80% and 90%, respectively. Median adherence to the scheduled check-in calls was high across all but one cohort (50%, IQR 20%-75%: low-engagement cohort). Median adherence to study-related activities in this low-engagement cohort was lower than in all other included studies. Participant-centric engagement strategies aid in participant retention and maintain good adherence in some populations. Primary barriers to engagement were participant burden (task fatigue and inconvenience), physical, mental, and situational barriers (unable to complete tasks), and low perceived benefit (lack of understanding of the value of personal DHTs). More population-specific tailoring of personal DHT designs is needed so that these new tools can be perceived as personally valuable to the end user.

[...]the approach via the GDHT proves to be advantageous mainly because of the simplifications that results from the fact that no complex arithmetic is required when real data are being processed. [...]the developments of the split radix algorithms introduced for the DHT-II (SR-DHT-II) were use indirect approaches [20, 21]. [...]it is purpose of this paper to introduce a direct split radix algorithm for the efficient calculations of the DHT-II using decimation-in-time (DIT) approach. [...]radix-2 algorithm for the X^sub ev^ (k) can be written as; Secondly, radix-4 algorithm for the DHT-II can be developed by dividing the input samples x(n) into four (N/4) DHTs-II as follows: where, Therefore, by considering the odd indexed samples only for the X(k) in (6) i.e., [X^sub od^(k) = X^sub 1^(k) + X^sub 3^(k)], we get: [...]the trivial arithmetic operations (multiplying by -1, 0, 1) will be removed; the resultant butterfly calculates 8 points and requires 16 additions and 8 multiplications. [...]for transform length N = 2m, the split-radix DHT-II needs log2 N rounds of butterflies' computation and each round uses 2N additions and JV multiplications.

Today, many computing workloads are executed in loosely coupled, geographically distributed environments where resources are owned by different organizations. Examples include inter-institutional research infrastructures, community-operated clusters, and edge deployments. As disconnections are frequent in such environments, ensuring reliable task execution remains a fundamental challenge. Kubernetes, the de facto standard for cluster orchestration, provides centralized control and strong consistency, but suffers from slow recovery when node failures occur frequently. At the opposite extreme, blockchain-based orchestration removes centralized control but incurs substantial latency due to global consensus, making it unsuitable for time-sensitive task scheduling. This paper presents Mutual Cloud, a decentralized orchestration framework that operates between these two extremes. Mutual Cloud adopts a hybrid architecture where task admission and queue management are handled in a centralized manner similar to conventional public clouds, whereas most scheduling functions, including execution-node selection and failure handling, are performed in a decentralized manner by autonomous agents using a distributed hash table. We implement a prototype of Mutual Cloud and evaluate its performance through large-scale simulation studies. The results show that Mutual Cloud maintains stable performance comparable to centralized baselines under normal conditions while achieving approximately five-second-level recovery latency under substantial node failures.

Background Digital health technologies (DHT) have become an integral component of modern healthcare systems, offering the potential to improve healthcare delivery and outcomes. Guided by the Technology-Organization-Environment (TOE) framework, this study examines the impact of DHT adoption on healthcare workers' performance and workload in public and private hospitals in Mogadishu, Somalia. Method A stratified random sampling approach was used to collect data from 286 healthcare workers in public and private hospitals. Data were analyzed using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) to test hypotheses and assess direct and mediating relationships among variables. Results The analysis revealed that DHT significantly improves healthcare workers' performance and workload respectively (β = 0.452, C.R. = 10.150, p  < 0.001) and (β = 0.594, C.R. = 9.972, p  < 0.001), organizational and environmental factors are positively impacting on healthcare workers' performance (β = 0.327, C.R. = 8.709, p  < 0.001) and (β = 0.102, C.R. = 2.872, p  = 0.004). Healthcare workers’ performance significantly reduces workload (β = 0.594, C.R. = 9.972, p  < 0.001) and the mediating role of healthcare workers’ performance between DHT and workload were also confirmed (β = 0.281, C.R. = 5.9787, p  < 0.001). Conclusion The findings underscore the critical role of DHT in enhancing healthcare workers' performance and reducing workload, with the TOE framework and performance acting as significant mediators. These results provide actionable insights for healthcare administrators and policymakers to optimize DHT implementation, support workforce efficiency, and address workload challenges through strategic organizational and environmental adaptations.

Abstract Background Perioperative neurocognitive disorder (PND) is the main cause of poor postoperative recovery in elderly patients with age‐related reductions in androgen levels. However, the underlying mechanisms have not been completely elucidated. Methods A mouse model of PND was constructed using abdominal surgery. Dihydrotestosterone (DHT), as the primary androgen, can improve the cognitive function of mice with PNDs by reducing REDOX damage. To clarify the role of circular RNA (circRNA) in DHT in improving cognitive function in mice with PND, circRNA sequencing was performed to analyze the expression of circRNA in the hippocampus of mice. Results We confirmed that mmu_(c)irc₀001442 is the primary circRNA responsive to DHT stimulation in mice with PND. The mmu_(c)irc₀001442/miR‐125a‐3p/NUFIP2 axis was predicted and constructed according to the analysis of databases, including pita, miRanda, TargetScan, miRDB, micro‐CDS, PolymiRTS, and TarBase v.8. Subsequently, the axis was verified by qPCR and double‐luciferase reporter gene assays. In vitro, we found that DHT rarely had an effect on the growth of BV2 cells using the CCK‐8 assay, but it attenuated the cytotoxic effect of lipopolysaccharide (LPS) on BV2 cells. In addition, we found that LPS stimulation promoted the release of proinflammatory cytokines, including IL‐6 and TNF‐α, in BV2 cells, whereas mmu_(c)irc₀001442 knockdown and NUFIP2 knockdown partially abrogated this effect. Conclusions Taken together, DHT inhibited REDOX damage and neuroinflammation in the hippocampus to alleviate cognitive disorders in mice with PNDs via activation of the mmu_(c)irc₀001442/miR‐125a‐3p/NUFIP2 axis. This study provides a novel rationale for developing DHT as a potential therapeutic agent for PND prevention.