Background: Radiofrequency-assisted (RF) facial rejuvenation has become a safe and reliable option for "treatment gap" patients, including (1) patients whose skin laxity is not severe enough to warrant a facelift, yet not mild enough to reliably treat with noninvasive procedures; (2) patients who have already undergone a face or neck lift and have recurrent laxity; and (3) patients who would benefit from a traditional face or neck lift but want to avoid surgery and are willing to accept a more modest improvement without extensive surgical scar burden and recovery.
Objectives: In this study we aimed to educate the reader about providing bipolar RF to various anatomic regions of the face.
Methods: A retrospective review of cases was conducted to assess the safety of zone-specific RF-assisted facial rejuvenation in S.
The Heisenberg uncertainty principle dictates that the position and momentum of an object cannot be simultaneously measured with arbitrary precision, giving rise to an apparent limitation known as the standard quantum limit (SQL). Gravitational-wave detectors use photons to continuously measure the positions of freely falling mirrors and so are affected by the SQL. We investigated the performance of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) after the experimental realization of frequency-dependent squeezing designed to surpass the SQL.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAberrant functioning of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis is a hallmark of conditions such as depression, anxiety disorders, and post-traumatic stress disorder. Early-life adversity and genetic variation can interaction to disrupt HPA axis regulation, potentially contributing to certain forms of psychopathology. This study employs a rhesus macaque model to investigate how early parental neglect interacts with a single nucleotide polymorphism within the promoter region of the corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH-248) gene, impacting the development of the HPA axis.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: Non-ventilator-associated hospital-acquired pneumonia (nv-HAP) is the most common healthcare-associated infection (HCAI), is associated with high mortality and morbidity and places a major burden on healthcare systems. Diagnosis currently relies on chest x-rays to confirm pneumonia and sputum cultures to determine the microbiological cause. This approach leads to over-diagnosis of pneumonia, rarely identifies a causative pathogen and perpetuates unnecessary and imprecise antibiotic use.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMaize demand in Sub-Saharan Africa is expected to increase 2.3 times during the next 30 years driven by demographic and dietary changes. Over the past two decades, the area cropped with maize has expanded by 17 million hectares in the region, with limited yield increase.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFContext: Agronomic data such as applied inputs, management practices, and crop yields are needed for assessing productivity, nutrient balances, resource use efficiency, as well as other aspects of environmental and economic performance of cropping systems. In many instances, however, these data are only available at a coarse level of aggregation or simply do not exist.
Objectives: Here we developed an approach that identifies sites for agronomic data collection for a given crop and country, seeking a balance between minimizing data collection efforts and proper representation of the main crop producing areas.
Background: The aim of this study was to characterize the epidemiology of human seasonal coronaviruses (HCoVs) in southern Malawi.
Methods: We tested for HCoVs 229E, OC43, NL63, and HKU1 using real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) on upper respiratory specimens from asymptomatic controls and individuals of all ages recruited through severe acute respiratory illness (SARI) surveillance at Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital, Blantyre, and a prospective influenza-like illness (ILI) observational study between 2011 and 2017. We modeled the probability of having a positive PCR for each HCoV using negative binomial models, and calculated pathogen-attributable fractions (PAFs).
Background: Higher-valency pneumococcal vaccines are anticipated. We aimed to describe serotype distribution and risk factors for vaccine-serotype community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) in the two years pre-SARS-CoV-2 pandemic.
Methods: We conducted a prospective cohort study of adults hospitalised with CAP at three UK sites between 2018 and 2020.
The proliferation of various forms of artificial intelligence (AI) brings many opportunities to improve health care. AI models can harness complex evolving data, inform and augment human actions, and learn from health outcomes such as morbidity and mortality. The global public health challenge of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) needs large-scale optimisation of antimicrobial use and wider infection care, which could be enabled by carefully constructed AI models.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIndividuals with anorexia nervosa (AN) exhibit dangerous weight loss due to restricted eating and hyperactivity. Those with AN are predominantly women and most cases have an age of onset during adolescence. Activity-based anorexia (ABA) is a rodent behavioral paradigm that recapitulates many of the features of AN including restricted food intake and hyperactivity, resulting in precipitous weight loss.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Despite children and young people (CYP) having a low risk for severe coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outcomes, there is still a degree of uncertainty related to their risk in the context of immunodeficiency or immunosuppression, primarily due to significant reporting bias in most studies, as CYP characteristically experience milder or asymptomatic COVID-19 infection and the severe outcomes tend to be overestimated.
Methods: A comprehensive systematic review to identify globally relevant studies in immunosuppressed CYP and CYP in general population (defined as younger than 25 years of age) up to 31 October 2021 (to exclude vaccinated populations) was performed. Studies were included if they reported the two primary outcomes of our study, admission to intensive therapy unit (ITU) and mortality, while data on other outcomes, such as hospitalization and need for mechanical ventilation were also collected.
Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci
September 2023
Efficient decision-making requires accounting for sources of uncertainty (noise, or variability). Many studies have shown how the nervous system is able to account for perceptual uncertainty (noise, variability) that arises from limitations in its own abilities to encode perceptual stimuli. However, many other sources of uncertainty exist, reflecting for example variability in the behaviour of other agents or physical processes.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Opt Soc Am A Opt Image Sci Vis
March 2023
Color constancy is the perceptual stability of surface colors under temporal changes in the illumination spectrum. The illumination discrimination task (IDT) reveals worse discrimination for "bluer" illumination changes in normal-trichromatic observers (changes towards cooler color temperatures on the daylight chromaticity locus), indicating greater stability of scene colors or better color constancy, compared with illumination changes in other chromatic directions. Here, we compare the performance of individuals with X-linked color-vision deficiencies (CVDs) to normal trichromats on the IDT performed in an immersive setting with a real scene illuminated by spectrally tunable LED lamps.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAdvanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO A+) is a major upgrade to LIGO-the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory. For the A+ project, we have developed, produced, and characterized sensors and electronics to interrogate new optical suspensions designed to isolate optics from vibrations. The central element is a displacement sensor with an integrated electromagnetic actuator known as a BOSEM (Birmingham Optical Sensor and ElectroMagnetic actuator) and its readout and drive electronics required to integrate them into LIGO's control and data system.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Immunocompromised patients may be at higher risk of mortality if hospitalised with Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) compared with immunocompetent patients. However, previous studies have been contradictory. We aimed to determine whether immunocompromised patients were at greater risk of in-hospital death and how this risk changed over the pandemic.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose Of The Review: To describe important recent developments in the treatment of multidrug resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB).
Recent Findings: In the last decade, novel and repurposed antituberculosis drugs have transformed MDR-TB treatment with improved rates of treatment success, better tolerability and safety and reduced duration. As recently as 2016, standard care relied on up to seven drugs for 24 months with treatment success no better than 70%.
Anorexia Nervosa (AN) is associated with a high rate of morbidity and mortality as well as a high rate of relapse. The molecular mechanisms underlying the progression of the disorder or the relapses are largely unknown. Patients with AN have been shown to have increased oxidative stress, but its involvement in the development in the disease is unknown.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFReliability-weighted averaging of multiple perceptual estimates (or cues) can improve precision. Research suggests that newly learned statistical associations can be rapidly integrated in this way for efficient decision-making. Yet, it remains unclear if the integration of newly learned statistics into decision-making can directly influence perception, rather than taking place only at the decision stage.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWe investigated the claims of EnChroma that their notch filters aid chromatic discrimination in color-vision deficiencies (CVD). Few research studies have addressed these claims and reports are still inconclusive, mainly due to small sample sizes. We here add to previous research finding little evidence to support the benefits of EnChroma lenses.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Graduate nursing education strives to promote collaborative practice on interprofessional teams. However, measuring collaboration during formative stages of professional development is rare. Few assessments are available to determine whether graduates of nursing education programs have met the required accreditation benchmarks.
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