This study sought to compare and validate baseball pitching mechanics, including joint angles and spatiotemporal parameters, from a single camera markerless motion capture solution with a 3D optical marker-based system. Ten healthy pitchers threw 2-3 maximum effort fastballs while concurrently using marker-based optical capture and pitchAI (markerless) motion capture. Time-series measures were compared using -squared (r), and root mean square error (RMSE).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFLong-term training effects of weighted ball throwing programs have been well documented. However, the mechanisms that facilitate these effects are poorly understood. The purpose of this study is to investigate within-session effects of throwing overload and underload baseballs to provide mechanistic evidence for weighted baseball training methods.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThis Letter introduces a synergistic combination of analytical and numerical methods to study the Hawking effect in optical systems containing the analog of a white-black hole pair. Our analytical treatment, based on techniques from Gaussian quantum information, provides a simple and efficient model to describe all aspects of the out-state, including the entanglement between any bipartition. We complement the study with a numerical analysis and apply our tools to investigate the influence that ambient thermal noise and detector inefficiencies have on the out-state.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe problem of simulating complex quantum processes on classical computers gave rise to the field of quantum simulations. Quantum simulators solve problems, such as boson sampling, where classical counterparts fail. In another field of physics, the unification of general relativity and quantum theory is one of the greatest challenges of our time.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Registries have shown that quality of care for acute coronary syndromes (ACS) often falls below the standards recommended in professional guidelines. Quality improvement (QI) is a strategy to improve standards of clinical care for patients, but the efficacy of QI for ACS has not been tested in randomized trials.
Methods: We undertook a prospective, cluster-randomized, multicenter, multinational study to evaluate the efficacy of a QI program for ACS.
Background: Acute coronary syndromes, including myocardial infarction and unstable angina, are important causes of premature mortality, morbidity and hospital admissions. Acute coronary syndromes consume large amounts of health care resources, and have a major negative economic and social impact through days lost at work, support for disability, and coping with the psychological consequences of illness. Several registries have shown that evidence based treatments are under-utilised in this patient population, particularly in high-risk patients.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: To assess the performance of published risk prediction models in common use in adult critical care in the United Kingdom and to recalibrate these models in a large representative database of critical care admissions.
Design: Prospective cohort study.
Setting: A total of 163 adult general critical care units in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland, during the period of December 1995 to August 2003.
Objective: To assess the Pediatric Risk of Mortality (PRISM, PRISM III-12, and PRISM III-24) systems and the Pediatric Index of Mortality (PIM and PIM2) systems for use in comparing the risk-adjusted mortality of children after admission for pediatric intensive care in the United Kingdom.
Methods: All PICUs in the United Kingdom were invited to participate. Predicted probability of PICU mortality was calculated using the published algorithms for PIM, PIM2, and PRISM and compared with observed mortality.
Objective: The objective of this study was to estimate the association between socioeconomic status (SES) and outcome for admissions to intensive care.
Research Design: Retrospective cohort study.
Subjects: We studied 51,572 admissions to 99 intensive-care units in England and Wales between 1995 and 2000.
Objective: To investigate whether mortality in UK intensive care units is higher in winter than in non-winter and to explore the importance of variations in case mix and increased pressure on ICUs.
Design And Setting: Cohort study in 115 adult, general ICUs in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Patients And Participants: 113,389 admissions from 1995 to 2000.
Objective: To assess whether a nurse led, flow monitored protocol for optimising circulatory status in patients after cardiac surgery reduces complications and shortens stay in intensive care and hospital.
Design: Randomised controlled trial.
Setting: Intensive care unit and cardiothoracic unit of a university teaching hospital.
Objective: To identify the exclusion criteria for the major severity of disease scoring methods in critical care and to investigate the impact of the exclusion criteria on the case mix, outcomes and length of stay for admissions to intensive care units (ICUs) in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Design: Cohort study-analysis of prospectively collected data.
Setting: 127 adult, general (mixed medical/surgical) ICUs in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Background: Intervention to reduce abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) expansion and optimization of screening intervals would improve current surveillance programs. The aim of this study was to characterize AAA growth in a national cohort of patients with AAA both overall and by cardiovascular risk factors.
Methods And Results: In this study, 1743 patients were monitored for changes in AAA diameter by ultrasonography over a mean follow-up of 1.
Introduction: This report describes the case mix, outcome and activity (duration of intensive care unit [ICU] and hospital stay, inter-hospital transfer, and readmissions to the ICU) for admissions to ICUs for acute severe asthma, and investigates the effect of case mix factors on outcome.
Methods: We conducted a secondary analysis of data from a high-quality clinical database (the Intensive Care National Audit and Research Centre [ICNARC] Case Mix Programme Database) of 129,647 admissions to 128 adult, general critical care units across England, Wales and Northern Ireland over the period 1995-2001.
Results: Asthma accounted for 2152 (1.
Introduction: The present paper describes the methods of data collection and validation employed in the Intensive Care National Audit & Research Centre Case Mix Programme (CMP), a national comparative audit of outcome for adult, critical care admissions. The paper also describes the case mix, outcome and activity of the admissions in the Case Mix Programme Database (CMPD).
Methods: The CMP collects data on consecutive admissions to adult, general critical care units in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Arterioscler Thromb Vasc Biol
February 2004
Small abdominal aortic aneurysms, up to 5.5 cm in diameter, are very common. Ultrasonography is the most cost-effective method of detecting these aneurysms and keeping them under surveillance, because the natural history is 1 of continued expansion.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: To investigate the numbers, clinical characteristics, resource use, and outcomes of admissions who met precise clinical and physiologic criteria for severe sepsis (as defined in the PROWESS trial) in the first 24 hrs in the intensive care unit.
Design: Observational cohort study, with retrospective analysis of prospectively collected data.
Setting: Ninety-one adult general intensive care units in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland between 1995 and 2000.
Prognostic models are designed to predict a clinical outcome in individuals or groups of individuals with a particular disease or condition. To avoid bias many researchers advocate the use of full models developed by prespecifying predictors. Variable selection is not employed and the resulting models may be large and complicated.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF