Tag: nevin manimala

Math Biosci. 2023 Sep 19:109075. doi: 10.1016/j.mbs.2023.109075. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

Understanding how tipping points arise is critical for population protection and ecosystem robustness. This work evaluates the impact of environmental stochasticity on the emergence of tipping points in a predator-prey system subject to the Allee effect and Holling type IV functional response, modelling an environment in which the prey has high group cohesion. We analyze the relationship between stochasticity and the probability and time that predator and prey populations in our model tip between different steady states. We evaluate the safety from extinction of different population values for each species, and accordingly assign extinction warning levels to these population values. Our analysis suggests that the effects of environmental stochasticity on tipping phenomena are scenario-dependent but follow a few interpretable trends. The probability of tipping towards a steady state in which one or both species go extinct generally monotonically increased with noise intensity, while the probability of tipping towards a more favourable steady state (in which more species were viable) usually peaked at intermediate noise intensity. For tipping between two equilibria where a given species was at risk of extinction in one equilibrium but not the other, noise affecting that species had greater impact on tipping probability than noise affecting the other species. Noise in the predator population facilitated quicker tipping to extinction equilibria, whereas prey noise instead often slowed down extinction. Changes in warning level for initial population values due to noise were most apparent near attraction basin boundaries, but noise of sufficient magnitude (especially in the predator population) could alter risk even far away from these boundaries. Our model provides critical theoretical insights for the conservation of population diversity: management criteria and early warning signals can be developed based on our results to keep populations away from destructive critical thresholds.

PMID:37734536 | DOI:10.1016/j.mbs.2023.109075

Chemosphere. 2023 Sep 19:140223. doi: 10.1016/j.chemosphere.2023.140223. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

Covalent organic frameworks (COFs) are class of porous coordination polymers made up of organic building blocks joined together by covalent bonding through thermodynamic and controlled reversible polymerization reactions. This review discussed versatile applications of COFs for remediation of wastewater containing dyes, emphasizing the advantages of both pristine and modified materials in adsorption, membrane separation, and advanced oxidations processes. The excellent performance of COFs towards adsorption and membrane filtration has been centered to their higher crystallinity and porosity, exhibiting exceptionally high surface area, pore size and pore volumes. Thus, they provide more active sites for trapping the dye molecules. On one hand, the photocatalytic performance of the COFs was attributed to their semiconducting properties, and when coupled with other functional semiconducting materials, they achieve good mechanical and thermal stabilities, positive light response, and narrow band gap, a typical characteristic of excellent photocatalysts. As such, COFs and their composites have demonstrated excellent potentialities for the elimination of the dyes.

PMID:37734509 | DOI:10.1016/j.chemosphere.2023.140223

Int J Cardiol. 2023 Sep 19:131379. doi: 10.1016/j.ijcard.2023.131379. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: Approximately 20-30% of patients with a cardiac disease suffer from anxiety and/or depression, leading to poor health outcomes. To identify this subgroup, clinical guidelines recommend screening for anxiety and depression in cardiac rehabilitation (CR). It is unknown how screening practice is delivered post-COVID.

METHODS: This observational study used data from the National Audit of Cardiac Rehabilitation from April 2018-March 2022. Descriptive statistics were used to assess screening rates and prevalence, while a multivariate logistic regression model was performed to analyse determinants for screening for anxiety and depression among patients participating in cardiac rehabilitation.

RESULTS: The population consisted of 245,705 patients, where 128,643 (52.4%) were screened and 117,062 (47.6%) were not. Patients attending CR during first year of COVID-19 were less likely to be screened. Patients with female gender, living alone, non-white ethnicity, living in the most deprived areas, current smoking, and physical inactivity were less likely to be screened, while patients who were revascularized, having an objective physical fitness test, and attending a certified CR center were more likely to be screened. For patients attending CR during COVID-19, the prevalence of anxiety and depression decreased significantly. For anxiety the prevalence dropped from 34.4% to 15.8%, for depression the prevalence dropped from 33.5% to 16.5%.

CONCLUSION: CR service provision was negatively impacted during COVID-19, leading to much lower screening for anxiety and depression in the CR setting. Prevalence of anxiety and depression decreased during COVID-19 for this population, possibly because psychologically affected patients refrained from attending CR.

PMID:37734491 | DOI:10.1016/j.ijcard.2023.131379

Vet Parasitol. 2023 Sep 14;322:110029. doi: 10.1016/j.vetpar.2023.110029. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

Parascaris spp. infect foals worldwide and foals typically shed eggs in the feces from about three to six months of age, upon which natural immunity is incurred. High levels of anthelmintic resistance of Parascaris spp. are a global concern, and further understanding egg shedding patterns and fecal egg counting (FEC) data variability is of high importance. The aims of this study were to monitor Parascaris spp. egg shedding in untreated foals during 12-23 weeks of age, estimate sources of data variability, and assess precision of two ascarid FEC techniques. Fecal samples were collected weekly from 11 foals born in 2022, from May through November (29 weeks). Six subsamples were extracted from each weekly sample to determine 30 FECs between two techniques: a McMaster technique and an Automated Egg Counting System (AECS). Mixed linear modeling was carried out with age, sex, birth month, seasonality, spring- or summer-born foals, and egg counting technique as explanatory variables. Ascarid FECs were associated with age (p < 0.001), seasonality (p < 0.001), and technique (p < 0.001). The McMaster technique was more precise with a mean coefficient of variation (CV) of 34.57% and a 95% confidence interval (CI) of 30.80%- 38.30% compared to the CV for the AECS, which was 42.22% (CI: 37.70%-46.70%). Seasonality accounted for the highest proportion of variance (PV) of all covariates, but differences in PVs for covariates existed between techniques with foal age and subsample contributing more variance to the McMaster, and individual foal and seasonality contributing more to the AECS. Subsamples and replicate counts accounted for less than 1% of the total data variance. The results highlighted substantial differences in PVs between the two techniques at the subsample (AECS: 57.14%; McMaster: 77.51%) and replicate count levels (AECS: 42.86%; McMaster: 22.49%). While differences in precision were observed between the two FEC techniques, they were negligible in the data set, as the overwhelming majority of the data variability in ascarid FECs was attributed to individual foal, seasonality, and foal age.

PMID:37734131 | DOI:10.1016/j.vetpar.2023.110029

J Infect Public Health. 2023 Aug 22;16(11):1736-1741. doi: 10.1016/j.jiph.2023.08.011. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: Approximately 15-20 million people worldwide are infected with hepatitis delta virus (HDV), which is approximately 5 % of people with chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV). Sub-Saharan Africa has high HDV prevalence, leading to worse clinical outcomes among people who are HIV/HBV/HDV tri-infected. There are limited data on HDV prevalence among people with HIV (PWH) who are HBV-infected and uninfected in Botswana. We, therefore, determined HDV prevalence among PWH in Botswana.

METHODS: This was a retrospective cross-sectional study utilizing archived plasma samples from PWH with results for HBV markers such as hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg), hepatitis B core antibody (anti-HBc), immunoglobulin M antibody to hepatitis B core antigen (IgM anti-HBc) and hepatitis B e antigen (HBeAg). Samples were categorized according to their HBsAg status and screened for anti-HDV antibodies. Total nucleic acid was extracted from samples with a single positive anti-HDV result, and HDV ribonucleic acid (RNA) load was quantified using the Altona Diagnostic RealStar® HDV RT-PCR kit. Statistical analysis was performed using STATA version 14.0 where p-values < 0.05 were considered statistically significant.

RESULTS: The study cohort (n = 478) included both HBsAg positive (44 %) and negative (56 %) participants, with a median age of 42 [IQR; 41-43]. Anti-HDV prevalence of (15/211) [7.1 %, 95 % CI: 4.4 – 11.4] was recorded among HBsAg positive participants, all of whom were IgM anti-HBc negative, while 5/6 participants were HBeAg negative. HDV RNA load was detected in 11/12 (92 %) anti-HDV-positive participants. No HDV prevalence was recorded among participants who were HBsAg negative, therefore, the overall HDV prevalence was (15/478) [3.1 %, 95 % CI: 1.9 – 5.1]. HIV viral load suppression was statistically insignificant, irrespective of HDV status.

CONCLUSIONS: We report high HDV prevalence among HBsAg-positive PWH in Botswana. Most HDV-positive participants had active HDV infection, therefore, we recommend HDV screening in this cohort to guide their clinical care.

PMID:37734129 | DOI:10.1016/j.jiph.2023.08.011

Obstet Gynecol. 2023 Oct 1;142(4):855-861. doi: 10.1097/AOG.0000000000005327. Epub 2023 Sep 7.

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVE: To compare the rate of blood pressure ascertainment within 10 days of postpartum discharge among individuals with hypertensive disorders of pregnancy randomized either to in-office blood pressure assessment or at-home monitoring.

METHODS: This was a multisite randomized controlled trial of postpartum patients diagnosed with a hypertensive disorder of pregnancy before discharge between April 2021 and September 2021 and was performed at two academic training institutions. Patients were randomized to either an in-office blood pressure check or remote monitoring through a web-enabled smartphone platform. The primary outcome was the rate of any blood pressure ascertainment within 10 days of discharge. Secondary outcomes include rates of initiation of antihypertensive medication, readmission, and additional office or triage visits for hypertension. Assuming a 10-day postdischarge blood pressure ascertainment rate of 50% in the in-office arm, we estimated that 186 participants would provide 80% power to detect a 20% difference in the primary outcome between groups.

RESULTS: One hundred ninety-seven patients were randomized (96 remote, 101 in-office). Patients with remote monitoring had higher rates of postpartum blood pressure ascertainment compared with in-office surveillance (91.7% [n=88] vs 58.4% [n=59]; P<.001). There were 11 (11.5%) patients in the intervention arm whose only qualifying blood pressure was a postdischarge in-person ascertainment, yielding a true remote monitoring uptake rate of 80.2%. In those with remote blood pressure uptake (n=77), the median number of blood pressure checks was 15 (interquartile range 6-26) and the median duration of remote monitoring use was 14 days (interquartile range 9-16). There were no differences in rates of readmission for hypertension (5.0% [n=5] vs 4.2% [n=4], P=.792) or initiation of antihypertensive medications after discharge (9.4% [n=9] vs 6.9% [n=7], P=.530). Rates of unscheduled visits were increased in the remote monitoring arm, but this did not reach statistical significance (5.0% [n=5] vs 12.5% [n=12], P=.059). When stratifying the primary outcome by race and randomization group, Black patients had lower rates of blood pressure ascertainment than White patients when assigned to in-office surveillance (41.2% [n=14] vs 69.5% [n=41], P=.007), but there was no difference in the remote management group (92.9% [n=26] vs 92.9% [n=52], P>.99).

CONCLUSION: Remote monitoring can increase postpartum blood pressure ascertainment within 10 days of discharge for women with hypertensive disorders of pregnancy and has the potential to promote health equity.

CLINICAL TRIAL REGISTRATION: ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT04823949.

PMID:37734091 | DOI:10.1097/AOG.0000000000005327

Med Phys. 2023 Sep 21. doi: 10.1002/mp.16700. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: Precise staging of hepatic fibrosis with MRI is necessary as it can assist precision medicine. Computer aided diagnosis (CAD) system with distinguishing radiomics features and radiologists domain knowledge is expected to obtain 5-grade meta-analysis of histological data in viral hepatitis (METAVIR) staging.

PURPOSE: This study aims to obtain the precise staging of hepatic fibrosis based on MRI as it predicts the risk of future liver-related morbidity and the need for treatment, monitoring and surveillance. Based on METAVIR score, fibrosis can be divided into five stages. Most previous researches focus on binary classification, such as cirrhosis versus non-cirrhosis, early versus advanced fibrosis, and substantial fibrosis or not. In this paper, a comprehensive CAD system TMM is proposed to precisely class hepatic fibrosis into five stages for precision medicine instead of the common binary classification.

METHODS: We propose a novel hepatic fibrosis staging CAD system TMM which includes three modules, Two-level Image Statistical Radiomics Feature (TISRF), Monotonic Error Correcting Output Codes (MECOC) and Monotone Multiclassification with Deep Forest (MMDF). TISRF extracts radiomics features for distinguishing different hepatic fibrosis stages. MECOC is proposed to encode monotonic multiclass by making full use of the progressive severity of hepatic fibrosis and increase the fault tolerance and error correction ability. MMDF combines multiple Deep Forest network to ensure the final five-class classification, which can achieve more precise classification than the common binary classification. The performance of the proposed hepatic fibrosis CAD system is tested on the hepatic data collected from our rabbits models of fibrosis.

RESULTS: A total of 140 regions of interest (ROI) are selected from MRI T1W of liver fibrosis models in 35 rabbits with F0(n = 16), F1(n = 28), F2(n = 29), F3(n = 44) and F4(n = 23). The performance is evaluated by five-fold cross-validation. TMM can achieve the highest total accuracy of 72.14% for five fibrosis stages compared with other popular classifications. To make a comprehensive comparison, a binary classification experiment have been carried out.

CONCLUSIONS: T1WI can obtain precise staging of hepatic fibrosis with the help of comprehensive CAD including radiomics features extraction inspired by radiologists, monotonic multiclass according to the severity of hepatic fibrosis, and deep learning classification.

PMID:37734071 | DOI:10.1002/mp.16700

Am J Respir Crit Care Med. 2023 Sep 21. doi: 10.1164/rccm.202305-0800LE. Online ahead of print.

NO ABSTRACT

PMID:37734029 | DOI:10.1164/rccm.202305-0800LE

Otol Neurotol. 2023 Sep 20. doi: 10.1097/MAO.0000000000004020. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVE: With ongoing national expansions in cochlear implantation (CI) candidacy criteria, more patients qualify for CI today than ever before. Among US veterans and military service members, the prevalence of qualifying degrees of hearing loss secondary to occupational noise exposure exceeds the general population. The primary aim of the current work was to evaluate CI trends across the military health system.

STUDY DESIGN: Database review.

SETTING: Military and civilian practices.

PATIENTS: Department of Defense (DoD) beneficiaries who underwent CI.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: CI rates between 2010 and 2019.

RESULTS: A total of 3,573 cochlear implant operations were performed among DoD beneficiaries from 2010 to 2019. A majority of patients (55%) were older than 64 years, with the next most commonly implanted age group being 0 to 4 years of age (14%). From 2010 to 2019, annual CI increased at a rate of 7.9% per year for all implantation over the study period (r = 0.97, p < 0.0001); there was a statistically significant difference of this rate compared with tympanoplasty, which was used as a reference procedure (rate, -1.9%; p = 0.03). This trend was similar for beneficiaries implanted both in military (11.9% per year, r = 0.77, p = 0.009) and civilian facilities (7.7% per year, r = 0.96, p < 0.0001); there was no statistically significant difference between the annual growth rates of these groups (p = 0.68).

CONCLUSIONS: Although the number of devices implanted is rapidly increasing among DoD beneficiaries, reported national utilization rates remain low. This disparity likely exists in the general public, considering the aging demographic in the West and continual expansions in US Federal Drug Administration labeling. These data suggest that widespread expansion of the procedure to general otolaryngology practices will be required to meet current and future demands for CI. For this reason, CI should be considered for “key indicator” designation among residency training programs.

PMID:37733998 | DOI:10.1097/MAO.0000000000004020

J Occup Environ Med. 2023 Sep 19. doi: 10.1097/JOM.0000000000002973. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVE: We aimed to evaluate the enzyme activity of chitotriosidase as a biomarker in early diagnosis silicosis, and to investigate immune system response and oxidative stress caused by silica exposure.

MATERIALS AND METHODS: Silicosis patients (n = 116), exposed to silica without disease (n = 76), and healthy individuals(n = 55) were included. Serum levels of chitotriosidase, proinflammatory cytokines, oxidant-antioxidant and immune parameters were measured.

RESULTS: Serum chitotriosidase enzyme levels in the silicosis group were statistically significantly higher than the exposure and control groups. Inflammatory biomarkers, 8-hydroxy-2-deoxyguanosine levels were found to be statistically significantly higher in the silicosis and exposure group compared to the controls, while superoxide dismutase and glutathione peroxidase were lower.

CONCLUSION: Increased serum chitotriosidase level emerged as a biomarker that can not only distinguish silicosis from exposure and healthy controls, but also indicate early pulmonary effects of silica.

PMID:37733997 | DOI:10.1097/JOM.0000000000002973