Animal welfare and ethics are important factors influencing wildlife conservation practice, and critics are increasingly challenging the underlying ethics and motivations supporting common conservation practices. "Compassionate Conservationists" argue that all conservationists should respect the rights of individual sentient animals and approach conservation problems from a position of compassion, and that doing so requires implementing practices that avoid direct harm to individual animals. In this way Compassionate Conservationists seek to contrast themselves with "Traditional Conservationists" who often express consequentialist decision-making processes that ostensibly aim to dispassionately minimize net animal harms, resulting in the common use of practices that directly harm or kill some animals.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: Ataxia telangiectasia mutated kinase (ATM) inhibitors are potent radiosensitizers that regulate DNA damage responses and redox metabolism, but they have not been translated clinically because of the potential for excess normal tissue toxicity. Pharmacologic ascorbate (P-AscH; intravenous administration achieving mM plasma concentrations) selectively enhances HO-induced oxidative stress and radiosensitization in tumors while acting as an antioxidant and mitigating radiation damage in normal tissues including the bowel. We hypothesized that P-AscH could enhance the therapeutic index of ATM inhibitor-based chemoradiation by simultaneously enhancing the intended effects of ATM inhibitors in tumors and mitigating off-target effects in adjacent normal tissues.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFRationale And Objective: In this study, we evaluate the ability of a novel cloud-based radiology analytics platform to continuously monitor imaging volumes at a large tertiary center following institutional protocol and policy changes.
Materials And Methods: We evaluated response to environmental factors through the lens of the COVID-19 pandemic. Analysis involved 11 CT/18 MR imaging systems at a large tertiary center.
Hedgehog signaling controls tissue patterning during embryonic and postnatal development and continues to play important roles throughout life. Characterizing the full complement of Hedgehog pathway components is essential to understanding its wide-ranging functions. Previous work has identified neuropilins, established semaphorin receptors, as positive regulators of Hedgehog signaling.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: 4D Flow MRI is a quantitative imaging technique to evaluate blood flow patterns; however, it is unclear how compressed sensing (CS) acceleration would impact aortic hemodynamic quantification in type B aortic dissection (TBAD).
Purpose: To investigate CS-accelerated 4D Flow MRI performance compared to GRAPP-accelerated 4D Flow MRI (GRAPPA) to evaluate aortic hemodynamics in TBAD.
Study Type: Prospective.
Studies examining the etiology of problematic sexual behavior (PSB) among pre-teen children often rely on identifying correlational relationships without examining potential causal mechanisms. This study describes an exploratory analysis of a potential mediational model where child sexual abuse (CSA) and child physical abuse (CPA) predict the onset of PSB through their impact on the emergence of posttraumatic stress (PTS) symptoms and self-dysregulation. The caregivers of 189 children between the ages of 3 and 11 years presenting for mental health treatment in the United States completed a battery of measures designed to assess each of the variables in the model.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: The hemispherical aortic annuloplasty reconstructive technology (HAART) is an internal geometric annuloplasty ring designed to restore a natural elliptical shape to the aortic annulus as part of aortic valve repair. We present four-dimensional flow hemodynamic analysis before and after implementation of the HAART ring in patients undergoing ascending aortic replacement.
Methods: Aortic hemodynamics over the cardiac cycle were visualized using time-resolved three-dimensional pathlines.
: Learner mistreatment has remained an ongoing challenge in academic medicine despite accreditation requirements mandating that every program has systems in place to prevent and respond to mistreatment. While efforts vary across institutions, much remains unanswered in the literature about best practices. Additionally, for the foreseeable future, challenges in the learning environment will likely continue and potentially worsen, given the confluence of multiple external stressors including the COVID-19 pandemic, faculty burnout and general political divisiveness in the nation.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFClin Child Fam Psychol Rev
March 2023
Problematic sexual behavior (PSB) among preteen children is a poorly understood clinical phenomenon that may leave even the most skilled and knowledgeable of clinicians at a loss when attempting to develop an evidence-based treatment approach. Much of this lack of practical direction can be credited to the relatively scarce clinical trial research examining this outcome. Nonetheless, the etiological research on PSB provides clearer directions and suggests the implementation of already well-established interventions may be effective.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPharmacological ascorbate (i.e., intravenous infusions of vitamin C reaching ~ 20 mM in plasma) is under active investigation as an adjuvant to standard of care anti-cancer treatments due to its dual redox roles as an antioxidant in normal tissues and as a prooxidant in malignant tissues.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIEEE Trans Neural Syst Rehabil Eng
September 2022
Hybrid exoskeletons, which combine functional electrical stimulation (FES) with a motorized testbed, can potentially improve the rehabilitation of people with movement disorders. However, hybrid exoskeletons have inherently nonlinear and uncertain dynamics, including combinations of discrete modes that switch between different continuous dynamic subsystems, which complicate closed-loop control. A particular complication is the uncertain muscle control effectiveness associated with FES.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Med Imaging Radiat Oncol
June 2023
Introduction: The diagnosis of vascular graft infections and infected aneurysms via conventional methods such as computed tomography (CT) and ultrasound (US) can often be challenging. Nuclear medicine imaging techniques can detect infection in these difficult cases. We aim to evaluate the diagnostic value of technetium-99m-labelled leukocyte scans in diagnosing vascular graft infections in our centre.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFRationale And Objectives: The aim of this study is to elucidate the prevalence and factors associated with follow-up chest computed tomography (CT) imaging in patients undergoing stress-perfusion cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (sCMR) and coronary CT angiography (cCTA).
Materials And Methods: Cardiac imaging encounters between January 1, 2015 and May 16, 2020 were selected for analysis. Follow-up was tracked within 1-year of initial cardiac imaging, up to May 16, 2021.
Eur J Hybrid Imaging
August 2022
Background: Large vessel vasculitis (LVV) can be characterized based on symptom severity, and this characterization helps clinicians decide upon treatment approach. Our aim was to compare the imaging findings of combined modality positron emission tomography/magnetic resonance (PET/MR) and inflammatory markers between severe and non-severe LVV. A retrospective query was performed to identify all patients with LVV who underwent PET/MR at our institution between January 2015 and January 2021.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFInt J Environ Res Public Health
August 2022
Ecological theories suggest that environmental, social, and individual factors interact to cause obesity. Yet, many analytic techniques, such as multilevel modeling, require manual specification of interacting factors, making them inept in their ability to search for interactions. This paper shows evidence that an explainable artificial intelligence approach, commonly employed in genomics research, can address this problem.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAims And Objectives: (1) To investigate the vulnerability of nurses to experiencing professional burnout and low fulfilment across 5 months of the COVID-19 pandemic. (2) To identify modifiable variables in hospital leadership and individual vulnerabilities that may mitigate these effects.
Background: Nurses were at increased risk for burnout and low fulfilment prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Background: Portal vein thrombus (PVT) in cirrhotic patients is associated with worsening portal hypertension, leads to increased complexity of necessary interventions such as transjugular liver portosystemic shunt or liver transplantation, and is associated with worse outcomes after liver transplantation. Additionally, there are no established consensus guidelines for management of bland PVT in cirrhotic patients, which currently exists on a spectrum and is patient and provider dependent.
Purpose: The aim of this study was to determine whether there are associations between key clinical and imaging variables and bland PVT burden over time.
The role of different G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) in the cardiovascular system is well understood in cardiomyocytes and vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMCs). In the former, stimulation of Gs-coupled receptors leads to increases in contractility, whereas stimulation of Gq-coupled receptors modulates cellular survival and hypertrophic responses. In VSMCs, stimulation of GPCRs also modulates contractile and cell growth phenotypes.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Although not mentioned in the most recent guidelines, the 2016 Surviving Sepsis Campaign guidelines recommend to taper corticosteroids once vasopressors are no longer needed; however, at the time of publication, there were no studies comparing taper versus abrupt discontinuation of corticosteroids.
Objectives: The purpose of this study was to further evaluate the impact of abrupt versus taper discontinuation of corticosteroids in septic shock.
Methods: This was a retrospective cohort study that included patients who received an initial dose of 200 to 300 mg of hydrocortisone for septic shock.
Background And Purpose: Many studies have explored the possibility of using cranial ultrasound for discerning intracranial pathologies like tumors, hemorrhagic stroke, or subdural hemorrhage in clinical scenarios where computer tomography may not be accessible or feasible. The visualization of intracranial anatomy on B-mode ultrasound is challenging due to the presence of the skull that limits insonation to a few segments on the temporal bone that are thin enough to allow transcranial transmission of sound. Several artifacts are produced by hyperechoic signals inherent in brain and skull anatomy when images are created using temporal windows.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAs the role of artificial intelligence (AI) in clinical practice evolves, governance structures oversee the implementation, maintenance, and monitoring of clinical AI algorithms to enhance quality, manage resources, and ensure patient safety. In this article, a framework is established for the infrastructure required for clinical AI implementation and presents a road map for governance. The road map answers four key questions: Who decides which tools to implement? What factors should be considered when assessing an application for implementation? How should applications be implemented in clinical practice? Finally, how should tools be monitored and maintained after clinical implementation? Among the many challenges for the implementation of AI in clinical practice, devising flexible governance structures that can quickly adapt to a changing environment will be essential to ensure quality patient care and practice improvement objectives.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: Explore the experiences of couples engaging in a positive psychology intervention post-stroke (ReStoreD: Promoting Resilience after Stroke in Dyads).
Materials And Methods: This is a secondary analysis of qualitative data collected following an 8-week self-administered dyadic positive psychology intervention (Clinical Trial number: NCT03335358). Participants included dyads consisting of one partner who had a stroke at least three months prior and their cohabiting partner.
Polyoxometalate nanoparticles (POMs) are a class of compounds made up of multiple transition metals linked together using oxygen atoms. POMs commonly include group 6 transition metals, with two of the most common forms using molybdenum and tungsten. POMs are suggested to exhibit antimicrobial effects.
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