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Open Access Publications from the University of California

Scholarly Works (6 results)

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Clinical Practice and Cases in Emergency Medicine, Volume 8, Issue 3 (2024)

Introduction: Recognizing testicular torsion is extremely important in patients presenting to the emergency department (ED) with acute scrotal pain. Traditional manual detorsion techniques are frequently employed by emergency physicians but are not always successful. Delays in detorsion increase the risk of testicular infarction and infertility, and the need for orchiectomy. Novel techniques such as the testicular traction technique have been described as a potential solution for difficult-to-detorse testicles.

Case Report: Our case report describes a 20-year-old male with no significant past medical history who presented to a rural ED with acute, atraumatic testicular pain secondary to testicular torsion with an intact cremasteric reflex. After confirming the diagnosis using Doppler ultrasound, manual detorsion using the traditional “open book” technique was attempted and unsuccessful. The patient was subsequently successfully detorsed using the novel testicular traction technique.

Conclusion: The testicular traction technique is a safe, rapid, and effective primary or adjunctive technique in manual testicular detorsion. Given the time-sensitive nature of testicular torsions, adjunctive techniques play a crucial role in managing challenging detorsions, particularly in resource-limited rural settings with limited access to urologic services. Although it is commonly thought that the cremasteric reflex is absent in testicular torsions, it may be present in rare circumstances, and its presence should not be an absolute in ruling out torsion.

    Cover page: Testicular Traction Technique with Intact Cremasteric Reflex, a Novel Approach for Manual Detorsion: Case ReportCreative Commons 'BY' version 4.0 license
    • Article
    • Peer Reviewed
    UC Santa Cruz Previously Published Works (2025)
    One of the most common ways of assessing voice quality is through the spectral slope measure H1*-H2*. However, Chai and Garellek [J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 152(3), 1856-1870 (2022)] propose and demonstrate the robustness of a new measure-residual H1*. In this study, we test the reliability of residual H1* in capturing voice quality contrasts in Santiago Laxopa Zapotec. We find that residual H1* is a more robust measure of voice quality than H1*-H2* and can capture the differences in voice quality in Santiago Laxopa Zapotec, which supports the use of this measure in voice quality research.
      Creative Commons 'BY' version 4.0 license
      • Article
      Clinical Practice and Cases in Emergency Medicine, Volume 7, Issue 2 (2023)

      Case Presentation: A 92-year-old female with past medical history of hypertension presented to the emergency department with pain in her right shoulder, right flank, and right upper quadrant of her abdomen. Point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) and computed tomography imaging showed concerns for multiple large hepatic abscesses. Percutaneous drainage removed 240 milliliters of purulent fluid that identified Fusobacterium nucleatum, a rare cause of pyogenic liver abscess.


      Discussion: Emergency physicians should keep hepatic abscess on their differential for right upper quadrant abdominal pain and can use POCUS for expeditious diagnosis.

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      Cover page: Point-of-care Ultrasound Identification of Hepatic Abscess in the Emergency DepartmentCreative Commons 'BY' version 4.0 license
      • Article
      • Peer Reviewed
      UC San Diego Previously Published Works (2015)
      Ixodes scapularis is the principal vector of Lyme disease on the East Coast and in the upper Midwest regions of the United States, yet the tick is also present in the Southeast, where Lyme disease is absent or rare. A closely related species, I. affinis, also carries the pathogen in the South but does not seem to transmit it to humans. In order to better understand the geographic diversity of the tick, we analyzed the microbiota of 104 adult I. scapularis and 13 adult I. affinis ticks captured in 19 locations in South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, Connecticut, and New York. Initially, ticks from 4 sites were analyzed by 454 pyrosequencing. Subsequently, ticks from these sites plus 15 others were analyzed by sequencing with an Illumina MiSeq machine. By both analyses, the microbiomes of female ticks were significantly less diverse than those of male ticks. The dissimilarity between tick microbiomes increased with distance between sites, and the state in which a tick was collected could be inferred from its microbiota. The genus Rickettsia was prominent in all locations. Borrelia was also present in most locations and was present at especially high levels in one site in western Virginia. In contrast, members of the family Enterobacteriaceae were very common in North Carolina I. scapularis ticks but uncommon in I. scapularis ticks from other sites and in North Carolina I. affinis ticks. These data suggest substantial variations in the Ixodes microbiota in association with geography, species, and sex.
        Cover page: Variation in the Microbiota of Ixodes Ticks with Regard to Geography, Species, and Sex
        • Article
        • Peer Reviewed
        UCLA Previously Published Works (2025)
        Patients with metastatic pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma survive longer if disease spreads to the lung but not the liver. Here we generated overlapping, multi-omic datasets to identify molecular and cellular features that distinguish patients whose disease develops liver metastasis (liver cohort) from those whose disease develops lung metastasis without liver metastases (lung cohort). Lung cohort patients survived longer than liver cohort patients, despite sharing the same tumor subtype. We developed a primary organotropism (pORG) gene set enriched in liver cohort versus lung cohort primary tumors. We identified ongoing replication stress response pathways in high pORG/liver cohort tumors, whereas low pORG/lung cohort tumors had greater densities of lymphocytes and shared T cell clonal responses. Our study demonstrates that liver-avid pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma is associated with tolerance to ongoing replication stress, limited tumor immunity and less-favorable outcomes, whereas low replication stress, lung-avid/liver-averse tumors are associated with active tumor immunity that may account for favorable outcomes.
          Cover page: Ongoing replication stress tolerance and clonal T cell responses distinguish liver and lung recurrence and outcomes in pancreatic cancer.
          • Article
          • Peer Reviewed
          UC Irvine Previously Published Works (2017)
          Knowledge of the ice thickness distribution of glaciers and ice caps is an important prerequisite for many glaciological and hydrological investigations. A wealth of approaches has recently been presented for inferring ice thickness from characteristics of the surface. With the Ice Thickness Models Intercomparison eXperiment (ITMIX) we performed the first coordinated assessment quantifying individual model performance. A set of 17 different models showed that individual ice thickness estimates can differ considerably - locally by a spread comparable to the observed thickness. Averaging the results of multiple models, however, significantly improved the results: on average over the 21 considered test cases, comparison against direct ice thickness measurements revealed deviations on the order of 10 ± 24% of the mean ice thickness (1σ estimate). Models relying on multiple data sets - such as surface ice velocity fields, surface mass balance, or rates of ice thickness change - showed high sensitivity to input data quality. Together with the requirement of being able to handle large regions in an automated fashion, the capacity of better accounting for uncertainties in the input data will be a key for an improved next generation of ice thickness estimation approaches.
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