Relationship of hepatitis C risk to hepatitis C test acceptance among adult patients participating in an ED hepatitis C screening programme.

Background: It is possible that adult ED patients consider their hepatitis C virus (HCV) risk factor history when deciding whether to accept HCV screening. To help address this question, we examined whether self-reporting any HCV risk was more common among ED patients who agreed than who declined HCV screening. Among ED patients who agreed to HCV screening, we also assessed if self-reporting any HCV risk was more common among those whose HCV antibody (Ab) and HCV viral load (VL) test results were positive.

MIT Emergency-Vent: An Automated Resuscitator Bag for the COVID-19 Crisis.

MIT's Emergency-Vent Project was launched in March 2020 to develop safe guidance and a reference design for a bridge ventilator that could be rapidly produced in a distributed manner worldwide. The system uses a novel servo-based robotic gripper to automate the squeezing of a manual resuscitator bag evenly from both sides to provide ventilation according to clinically specified parameters. In just one month, the team designed and built prototype ventilators, tested them in a series of porcine trials, and collaborated with industry partners to enable mass production.

() in western North America.

Understanding diversity in the genus in western North America has been obscured by morphological variability, widespread use of species epithets typified by specimens from Europe and eastern North America, misunderstood phylogenetic relationships, and species complexes. We collected extensively and used genetic and morphological data to establish the occurrence of ten species in western North America. We generated ITS sequences from five type collections and from vouchered representative collections to clarify our understanding of existing species concepts.

Safe Local Navigation for Visually Impaired Users With a Time-of-Flight and Haptic Feedback Device.

This paper presents ALVU (Array of Lidars and Vibrotactile Units), a contactless, intuitive, hands-free, and discreet wearable device that allows visually impaired users to detect low- and high-hanging obstacles, as well as physical boundaries in their immediate environment. The solution allows for safe local navigation in both confined and open spaces by enabling the user to distinguish free space from obstacles. The device presented is composed of two parts: a sensor belt and a haptic strap.

[Eyelid surgery for refractory filamentary keratitis].

Purpose: Cases of filamentary keratitis that are unresponsive to conventional medical treatment methods are often encountered in the clinical setting. Here we report on cases of filamentary keratitis that showed no recurrence for long periods after performing eyelid surgery.

Subjects And Methods: Enrolled were 17 eyes of 13 patients with filamentary keratitis who had eyelid surgery (4 men and 9 women ranging in age from 54-89 years; mean age: 73.

Histopathology of blepharoptosis induced by prolonged hard contact lens wear.

Purpose: To clarify histopathologically the structural features of blepharoptosis in prolonged hard contact lens wearers.

Design: Retrospective case-control study.

Methods: Biopsy specimens from identical sites at the levator aponeurosis and Mueller muscle from 15 long-term hard contact lens wearers were examined histopathologically (group 1).