Loop diuretic discontinuation in chronic heart failure patients: A retrospective study.

Introduction And Objectives: The use of loop diuretics is central in managing congestion in heart failure (HF), but their impact on prognosis remains unclear. In euvolemic patients, dose reduction is recommended, but there is no recommendation on their discontinuation. This study aims to assess the impact of loop diuretic discontinuation on the prognosis of outpatients with HF with reduced ejection fraction.

Percolation of straight slots on a square grid.

This work is devoted to the emergence of a connected network of slots (cracks) on a square grid. Accordingly, extensive Monte Carlo simulations and finite-size scaling analysis have been conducted to study the site percolation of straight slots with length l measured in the number of elementary cells of the grid with the edge size L. A special focus was made on the dependence of the percolation threshold p_{C}(l,L) on the slot length l varying in the range 1≤l≤L-2 for the square grids with edge size in the range 50≤L≤1000.

Head-to-head comparison of CAMPYAIR aerobic culture medium versus standard microaerophilic culture for isolation from clinical samples.

spp. are considered the most frequent cause of acute gastroenteritis worldwide. However, outside high-income countries, its burden is poorly understood.

Understanding consumer liking of beef patties with different firmness among younger and older adults using FaceReader™ and biometrics.

Sensorial perceptions change as people age and biometrics analysis can be used to explore the unconscious consumer responses. Investigation was conducted of effects of consumer age (younger, 22-52 years; older, 60-76 years) on facial expression response (FER) during consumption of beef patties with varying firmness (soft, medium, hard) and taste (±plum sauce). Video images were collected and FERs analysed using FaceReader™.

Effect of age on sensory perception of beef patties with varying firmness.

Sensorial perceptions change as people age; hence the aim of this study was to test if there were differences between younger (n = 95; aged 20-56) compared to older (n = 97; aged 60-81) consumers in sensory assessment of beef patties with varying firmness ('soft', 'medium', 'hard') and the influence of adding plum sauce as a lubricant and flavouring. The firmness of patties influenced consumer scores for overall liking, appearance, texture, flavour, and saltiness for both age groups. Both groups preferred the 'soft' patty regardless of sauce addition.