Tag: nevin manimala

Clin Chem. 2023 Aug 11:hvad104. doi: 10.1093/clinchem/hvad104. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

A secondary higher-order calibrator is required to be commutable with clinical samples to be suitable for use in the calibration hierarchy of an end-user clinical laboratory in vitro diagnostic medical device (IVD-MD). Commutability is a property of a reference material that means results for a reference material and for clinical samples have the same numeric relationship, within specified limits, across the measurement procedures for which the reference material is intended to be used. Procedures for assessing commutability have been described in the literature. This report provides recommendations for establishing a quantitative criterion to assess the commutability of a certified reference material (CRM). The criterion is the maximum allowable noncommutability bias (MANCB) that allows a CRM to be used as a calibrator in a calibration hierarchy for an IVD-MD without exceeding the maximum allowable combined standard uncertainty for a clinical sample result (umaxCS). Consequently, the MANCB is derived as a fraction of the umaxCS for the measurand. The suitability of an MANCB for practical use in a commutability assessment is determined by estimating the number of measurements of clinical samples and CRMs required based on the precision performance and nonselectivity for the measurand of the measurement procedures in the assessment. Guidance is also provided for evaluating indeterminate commutability conclusions and how to report results of a commutability assessment.

PMID:37566391 | DOI:10.1093/clinchem/hvad104

Environ Sci Technol Lett. 2020 Nov 11;8(1):46-52. doi: 10.1021/acs.estlett.0c00764. eCollection 2021 Jan 12.

ABSTRACT

The COVID-19 pandemic is the single largest event in contemporary history in terms of the global restriction of mobility, with the majority of the world population experiencing various forms of “lockdown”. This phenomenon incurred increased amounts of teleworking and time spent at home, fewer trips to shops, closure of retail outlets selling non-essential goods, and the near disappearance of leisure and recreational activities. This paper presents a novel method for an economy-wide estimate of the emissions reductions caused by the restriction of movement. Using a global multiregional macro-economic model complemented by Google Community Mobility Reports (CMRs) and national transport data, we cover 129 individual countries and quantify direct and indirect global emissions reductions of greenhouse gases (GHG; 1173 Mt), PM_2.5 (0.23 Mt), SO₂ (1.57 Mt), and NO_x (3.69 Mt). A statistically significant correlation is observed between cross-country emission reductions and the stringency of mobility restriction policies. Due to the aggregated nature of the CMRs, we develop different scenarios linked to consumption, work, and lifestyle aspects. Global reductions are on the order of 1-3% (GHG), 1-2% (PM_2.5), 0.5-2.8% (SO₂), and 3-4% (NO_x). Our results can help support crucial decision making in the post-COVID world, with quantified information about how direct and indirect consequences of mobility changes benefit the environment.

PMID:37566352 | PMC:PMC7671098 | DOI:10.1021/acs.estlett.0c00764

ACS ES T Water. 2021 Sep 12;1(10):2174-2185. doi: 10.1021/acsestwater.1c00146. eCollection 2021 Oct 8.

ABSTRACT

A novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) causing corona virus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has attracted global attention due to its highly infectious and pathogenic properties. Most of current studies focus on aerosols released from infected individuals, but the presence of SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater also should be examined. In this review, we used bibliometrics to statistically evaluate the importance of water-related issues in the context of COVID-19. The results show that the levels and transmission possibilities of SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater are the main concerns, followed by potential secondary pollution by the intensive use of disinfectants, sludge disposal, and the personal safety of workers. The presence of SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater requires more attention during the COVID-19 pandemic. Thus, the most effective techniques, i.e., wastewater-based epidemiology and quantitative microbial risk assessment, for virus surveillance in wastewater are systematically analyzed. We further explicitly review and analyze the successful operation of a sewage treatment plant in Huoshenshan Hospital in China as an example and reference for other sewage treatment systems to properly ensure discharge safety and tackle the COVID-19 pandemic. This review offers deeper insight into the prevention and control of SARS-CoV-2 and similar viruses in the post-COVID-19 era from a wastewater perspective.

PMID:37566346 | PMC:PMC8457323 | DOI:10.1021/acsestwater.1c00146

Clin Transl Oncol. 2023 Aug 11. doi: 10.1007/s12094-023-03300-8. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: This review was implemented to examine the impact of bone metastasis on the prognosis of non-small cell lung cancer patients (NSCLC) treated with immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs).

METHODS: A literature search was conducted in the PubMed, CENTRAL, Web of Science, and Embase databases up to 4th September 2022. Multivariable adjusted data were pooled in a random-effects model.

RESULTS: 13 studies were included. On a combined analysis of 10 studies, it was noted that bony metastasis was associated with poor overall survival (OS) in NSCLC patients treated with ICIs (HR: 1.55 95% CI 1.24, 1.94 I² = 69% p = 0.001). Meta-analysis of seven studies showed that bony metastasis was not associated with poor progression-free survival (PFS) in NSCLC patients treated with ICIs (HR: 1.31 95% CI 0.85, 2.01 I² = 85% p = 0.22). Meta-regression analysis using the moderator’s age, male gender, smoking history, squamous histology, and ICI as 1st line therapy for the outcome OS was not statistically significant.

CONCLUSION: The presence of bone metastasis is a predictor of poor OS in NSCLC treated with ICIs. However, PFS does not seem to be influenced by the presence of bone metastasis. Clinicians should prioritize the management of NSCLC patients with bone metastasis and explore the use of combination therapies to achieve optimal results. Further studies taking into account different combination therapies for such patients would strengthen the evidence.

PMID:37566344 | DOI:10.1007/s12094-023-03300-8

Obes Surg. 2023 Aug 11. doi: 10.1007/s11695-023-06750-9. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

INTRODUCTION: With the increase in life expectancy and a growing number of people suffering from obesity, bariatric and metabolic surgery is becoming a major concern in the elderly population. The study aimed to collect, systematize and present the available data on the surgical treatment of obesity among Polish patients over 65 years of age.

MATERIAL AND METHODS: A retrospective study analysed patients over 65 years who underwent laparoscopic bariatric procedures in Poland from 2008 to 2022. The efficacy endpoints were percentage of excess weight loss (EWL%), percentage of total weight loss (%TWL), improvement in obesity-related diseases.

RESULTS: The group consisted of 284 patients (173 women, 60.9%). The mean follow-up was 47.5 months. The mean BMI before surgery was 43.1 kg/m2. 146 (51.4%) patients had T2D, and 244 (85.9%) had HT. The most common procedure was sleeve gastrectomy (82.0%). The mean EWL% after surgery was 50.9%, and the mean TWL% after surgery was 20.6%. There was the statistically significant difference between AGB vs OAGB, SG vs OAGB in %EWL (p = 0.0116, p = 0.009, respectively) and RYGB vs OAGB in %TWL (p = 0.0291). After surgery, 93 patients (63.7%) had complete or partial remission of T2D, and 112 patients (45.9%) had complete or partial remission of HT.

CONCLUSION: Bariatric surgery appears to be a safe and effective method of treatment of obesity in patients over 65 years of age. OAGB seems to have better results in weight loss than SG, RYGB, and AGB in older patients.

PMID:37566339 | DOI:10.1007/s11695-023-06750-9

Behav Res Methods. 2023 Aug 11. doi: 10.3758/s13428-023-02198-y. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

This article presents CPB-LEX, a large-scale database of lexical statistics derived from children’s picture books (age range 0-8 years). Such a database is essential for research in psychology, education and computational modelling, where rich details on the vocabulary of early print exposure are required. CPB-LEX was built through an innovative method of computationally extracting lexical information from automatic speech-to-text captions and subtitle tracks generated from social media channels dedicated to reading picture books aloud. It consists of approximately 25,585 types (wordforms) and their frequency norms (raw and Zipf-transformed), a lexicon of bigrams (two-word sequences and their transitional probabilities) and a document-term matrix (which shows the importance of each word in the corpus in each book). Several immediate contributions of CPB-LEX to behavioural science research are reported, including that the new CPB-LEX frequency norms strongly predict age of acquisition and outperform comparable child-input lexical databases. The database allows researchers and practitioners to extract lexical statistics for high-frequency words which can be used to develop word lists. The paper concludes with an investigation of how CPB-LEX can be used to extend recent modelling research on the lexical diversity children receive from picture books in addition to child-directed speech. Our model shows that the vocabulary input from a relatively small number of picture books can dramatically enrich vocabulary exposure from child-directed speech and potentially assist children with vocabulary input deficits. The database is freely available from the Open Science Framework repository: https://tinyurl.com/4este73c .

PMID:37566336 | DOI:10.3758/s13428-023-02198-y

Environ Sci Pollut Res Int. 2023 Aug 11. doi: 10.1007/s11356-023-28576-9. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

Cancer disease is one of the main causes of death in the world, with million annual cases in the last decades. The need to find a cure has stimulated the search for efficient treatments and diagnostic procedures. One of the most promising tools that has emerged against cancer in recent years is machine learning (ML), which has raised a huge number of scientific papers published in a relatively short period of time. The present study analyzes global scientific production on ML applied to the most relevant cancer types through various bibliometric indicators. We find that over 30,000 studies have been published so far and observe that cancers with the highest number of published studies using ML (breast, lung, and colon cancer) are those with the highest incidence, being the USA and China the main scientific producers on the subject. Interestingly, the role of China and Japan in stomach cancer is correlated with the number of cases of this cancer type in Asia (78% of the worldwide cases). Knowing the countries and institutions that most study each area can be of great help for improving international collaborations between research groups and countries. Our analysis shows that medical and computer science journals lead the number of publications on the subject and could be useful for researchers in the field. Finally, keyword co-occurrence analysis suggests that ML-cancer research trends are focused not only on the use of ML as an effective diagnostic method, but also for the improvement of radiotherapy- and chemotherapy-based treatments.

PMID:37566331 | DOI:10.1007/s11356-023-28576-9

Environ Sci Pollut Res Int. 2023 Aug 11. doi: 10.1007/s11356-023-28988-7. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

The increasing occurrence of micropollutants in natural water bodies has medium to long-term effects on both aquatic life and human health. The aim of this study is to optimize the degradation of two pharmaceutical pollutants of emerging concern: amoxicillin and acetaminophen in aqueous solution at laboratory and pilot scale, by solar photo-Fenton process carried out at neutral pH using ethylenediamine-N,N’-disuccinic acid (EDDS) as a complexing agent to maintain iron in solution. The initial concentration of each compound was set at 1 mg/L dissolved in a simulated effluent from a municipal wastewater treatment plant (MWTP). A factorial experimental design and its surface response analysis were used to optimize the operating parameters to achieve the highest initial degradation rate of each target. The evolution of the degradation process was measured by ultra-performance liquid chromatography (UPLC/UV), obtaining elimination rates above 90% for both contaminants. Statistical study showed the optimum concentrations of Fe(III) at 3 mg/L at an Fe-EDDS ratio of 1:2 and 2.75 mg/L H₂O₂ for the almost complete removal of the target compounds by solar photo-Fenton process. Validation of the experimental design was successfully carried out with actual MWTP effluent spiked with 100 μg/L of amoxicillin and acetaminophen, each at pilot plant scale.

PMID:37566324 | DOI:10.1007/s11356-023-28988-7

Int Urol Nephrol. 2023 Aug 11. doi: 10.1007/s11255-023-03663-5. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: Intraperitoneal pressure (IPP) in peritoneal dialysis (PD) is an individual characteristic that can be modified by posture and intraperitoneal volume (IPV). It is considered one of the predisposing factors for complications in the abdominal wall, such as the appearance of hernias. No studies to date have confirmed this. The main aim of this study was to assess the relationship between the development of hernia in incident PD patients and IPP measured at PD onset.

METHODS: A prospective observational study of incident patients in a PD programme between 2010 and 2020. IPP was measured using the Durand’s method.

RESULTS: One hundred and twenty-four incident patients on PD, 68% male, mean age 62.1 ± 15.23 years, body mass index (BMI) 27.7 ± 4.82 kg/m², 44% were diabetic. IPP in supine was 16.6 ± 4.60 cm H₂O for a mean IPV of 2047.1 ± 359.19 mL. Hernias were reported in 18.5% of patients during PD follow-up: 57% were inguinal hernias, 33% umbilical, and a further 10% presented in a combined form. PD hernias correlated positively with IPP in supine position (p = 0.037), patient age (p = 0.008), BMI (p = 0.043), a history of prior hernia (0.016), laparoscopic catheter placement (p = 0.026), and technique failure (p = 0.012). In the multivariate analysis, a higher IPP was independently related to the development of hernias (p = 0.028).

CONCLUSIONS: The development of hernias in PD was related to a higher IPP at PD onset, older age, higher BMI, history of prior hernia, catheter placement by laparoscopy, and technique failure.

PMID:37566322 | DOI:10.1007/s11255-023-03663-5

J Assist Reprod Genet. 2023 Aug 11. doi: 10.1007/s10815-023-02901-0. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

PURPOSE: To evaluate embryo ploidy in a cohort of patients who underwent preimplantation genetic testing for aneuploidy (PGT-A) with vitrified oocytes compared to fresh oocytes.

METHODS: Patients who underwent their first autologous oocyte vitrification and warming followed by in vitro fertilization (IVF) and trophectoderm biopsy for PGT-A between 1/1/2017 and 12/31/2021 at a single academic institution were included. Patients were compared 1:3 to age-matched controls who underwent their first IVF cycle with fresh oocytes and subsequent trophectoderm biopsy for PGT-A. The primary outcome was the proportions of euploid, mosaic, and aneuploid embryos between those using vitrified versus fresh oocytes.

RESULTS: 117 patients who cryopreserved a total of 1,272 mature oocytes were included in the study and were matched with 351 controls using fresh oocytes. The average age was 36.9 ± 2.6 years, and the median interval between oocyte vitrification and warming was 38 months. There were similar numbers of mature oocytes (10.9 ± 4.9 vs. 11.1 ± 6.3, P = .67), fertilized oocytes (7.8 ± 4.0 vs. 8.7 ± 5.5, P = .10), and blastocysts per patient (5.1 ± 3.1 vs. 5.8 ± 4.3, P = .10) between those using vitrified versus fresh oocytes. In terms of embryo ploidy results, there were no statistically significant differences in rates of euploidy (40.1% vs. 41.6%), mosaicism (15.7% vs. 12.0%), or aneuploidy (44.3% vs. 46.4%) (P = .06) between the two groups.

CONCLUSIONS: Oocyte vitrification with subsequent warming, fertilization, and trophectoderm biopsy for PGT-A was not associated with adverse chromosomal competence when compared to age-matched controls utilizing fresh oocytes.

PMID:37566316 | DOI:10.1007/s10815-023-02901-0