Activity

For young children, existing measures of children’s health-related quality of life must be parent-reported or interviewer-administered for those who cannot read or complete measures independently. Parents’ and childrens’ reports about the child’s health have been shown to disagree.

(a) To test the reliability and validity of an animated, computer-administered Child Health Rating Inventories (CHRIS2.0) among children aged 4-12 undergoing surgery; and (b) to develop and test two CHRIS measures of preoperative anxiety and postoperative pain management.

We conducted a longitudinal cohort study of a diverse group of 542 children aged 4-12 undergoing surgery. We compared the CHRIS measures to Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory (PedsQL), the Functional Disabilities Inventory (FDI), State-Trait Anxiety Inventory for children (STAI-CH), and the Parent Postoperative Pain Measure (PPPM).

Factor analyses supported the construct validity of the 12-item general physical health and the 8-item mental health CHRIS scce to pediatric outcomes.

The CHRIS measures were reliable and valid in this diverse sample of young children (4-12). Because CHRIS measures are self-administered, scored in real time, and run on multiple different platforms, this approach provides a feasible method for the collection of health-related quality of life in young children and those with limited literacy. Our data indicate that this approach is psychometrically sound and has the potential for adding the child’s voice to pediatric outcomes.

Enhanced perception of visceral stimuli is an important feature of Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS), but it is not known whether visceral sensitivity is associated with regional structural brain properties in IBS.

Structural brain magnetic resonance imaging data from 216 women with IBS and 138 healthy women were parcellated with FreeSurfer to define regional gray matter morphometry (volume, cortical thickness, surface area and mean curvature) in the sensorimotor network. General linear models were used to detect group differences between IBS and health. In a second set of 48 female IBS patients, pain threshold, pain intensity ratings during rectal balloon distension, and reported levels of abdominal pain and bloating were correlated with brain regions that showed differences between IBS and health in the first data set.

Several statistically significant differences between IBS patients and healthy controls were found, mainly higher gray matter volume and cortical thickness in primary somatosensory cortex, secondary somatosensory cortex, and subcortical regions, and lesser gray matter volume, surface area and cortical thickness in posterior insula and superior frontal gyrus. Pain intensity ratings during rectal distension were associated with left primary somatosensory cortical thickness, and pain threshold was associated with right nucleus accumbens volume.

Regional gray matter differences in sensorimotor network are associated with visceral sensitivity and may represent neuroplastic changes in female IBS patients.

Regional gray matter differences in sensorimotor network are associated with visceral sensitivity and may represent neuroplastic changes in female IBS patients.Cycling LiCoO2 to above 4.5 V for higher capacity is enticing; however, hybrid O anion- and Co cation-redox (HACR) at high voltages facilitates intrinsic Oα- (α less then 2) migration, causing oxygen loss, phase collapse, and electrolyte decomposition that severely degrade the battery cyclability. Hereby, commercial LiCoO2 particles are operando treated with selenium, a well-known anti-aging element to capture oxygen-radicals in the human body, showing an “anti-aging” effect in high-voltage battery cycling and successfully stopping the escape of oxygen from LiCoO2 even when the cathode is cycled to 4.62 V. Ab initio calculation and soft X-ray absorption spectroscopy analysis suggest that during deep charging, the precoated Se will initially substitute some mobile Oα- at the charged LiCoO2 surface, transplanting the pumped charges from Oα- and reducing it back to O2- to stabilize the oxygen lattice in prolonged cycling. As a result, the material retains 80% and 77% of its capacity after 450 and 550 cycles under 100 mA g-1 in 4.57 V pouch full-cells matched with a graphite anode and an ultralean electrolyte (2 g Ah-1 ).

Light microscopy to study the infection of fungi in skin specimens is time-consuming and requires automation.

We aimed to design and explore the application of an automated microscope for fungal detection in skin specimens.

An automated microscope was designed, and a deep learning model was selected. Skin, nail and hair samples were collected. The sensitivity and the specificity of the automated microscope for fungal detection were calculated by taking the results of human inspectors as the gold standard.

An automated microscope was built, and an image processing model based on the ResNet-50 was trained. A total of 292 samples were collected including 236 skin samples, 50 nail samples and six hair samples. The sensitivities of the automated microscope for fungal detection in skin, nails and hair were 99.5%, 95.2% and 60%, respectively, and the specificities were 91.4%, 100% and 100%, respectively.

The automated microscope we developed is as skilful as human inspectors for fungal detection in skin and nail samples; however, its performance in hair samples needs to be improved.

The automated microscope we developed is as skilful as human inspectors for fungal detection in skin and nail samples; however, its performance in hair samples needs to be improved.This study sought to assess the prognostic impact of treatment with single beta-blocker (BB) compared to combined therapy with BB plus amiodarone (BB-AMIO) on recurrences of ventricular tachyarrhythmias in implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD) recipients. A large retrospective registry was used including consecutive ICD recipients with index episodes of ventricular tachyarrhythmias from 2002 to 2016. Patients treated with BB were compared to patients treated with BB-AMIO. learn more Kaplan-Meier and Cox regression analyses were applied for the evaluation of the primary end-point defined as first recurrences of ventricular tachyarrhythmias at five years. Secondary end-points comprised first appropriate ICD therapies, first cardiac rehospitalization and all-cause mortality at five years. Among 512 ICD recipients, 81% were treated with BB and 19% with BB-AMIO. BB and BB-AMIO were associated with comparable risk of first recurrences of ventricular tachyarrhythmias (46% vs. 43%; log rank P = .941; HR = 1.013; 95% CI 0.