Interobserver Agreement Between Primary Sonographers and Secondary Overreaders for Screening and Surveillance Liver Ultrasounds Using Ultrasound Liver Imaging Reporting and Data System.

The authors aim to identify if primary sonographers and secondary reviewers, both radiologists and sonographers, are likely to assign the same Ultrasound Liver Imaging Reporting and Data System (US LI-RADS) scores for liver surveillance ultrasounds. Institutional review board approval was obtained. Sonographers were familiarized with US LI-RADS via radiologist-led lectures.

Autophagy Declines with Premature Skin Aging resulting in Dynamic Alterations in Skin Pigmentation and Epidermal Differentiation.

Autophagy is a membrane traffic system that provides sustainable degradation of cellular components for homeostasis, and is thus considered to promote health and longevity, though its activity declines with aging. The present findings show deterioration of autophagy in association with premature skin aging. Autophagy flux was successfully determined in skin tissues, which demonstrated significantly decreased autophagy in hyperpigmented skin such as that seen in senile lentigo.

Critical-care visitation: the patients' perspective.

The purpose of this study was to determine critically ill patients' satisfaction and preference with the restricted visiting hours in the critical-care units in a 435-bed acute-care hospital in North Carolina. The major aims of the study were to (1) identify the time that most patients preferred for visitation and (2) identify how often patients wanted to have visitors. This article discusses the findings of this study, one of which is that patients want more control over visitation.

The Cost-Time Index: a new method for measuring the efficiencies of recruitment-resources in clinical trials.

Paid media are important resources used to recruit subjects in clinical trials. An index for evaluating which advertising resource has minimal cost and time requirement for patient accrual, for a given study design, has not been previously introduced. In this communication the authors present a new index, the Cost-Time Index, which represents a measure of the average amount of money and time spent, simultaneously, on a given advertising resource to recruit one analyzable subject.

Analysis of a microbial community oxidizing inorganic sulfide and mercaptans.

Successful treatment of refinery spent-sulfidic caustic (which results from the addition of sodium hydroxide solutions to petroleum refinery waste streams) was achieved in a bioreactor containing an enrichment culture immobilized in organic polymer beads with embedded powdered activated carbon (Bio-Sep). The aerobic enrichment culture had previously been selected using a gas mixture of hydrogen sulfide and methyl mercaptan (MeSH) as the sole carbon and energy sources. The starting cultures for the enrichment consisted of several different Thiobacilli spp.