Building hope: early rehabilitation response of the international committee of the red cross post beirut port blast.

Background: In the face of escalating health emergencies globally, the need for timely rehabilitation services has become increasingly evident. However, deficiencies in the provision of early rehabilitation interventions following disasters underscore the urgent need for improved integration and response strategies. The objective of this study is to assess the effectiveness of the early physical rehabilitation response initiated by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) following the 2020 Beirut blast, with a focus on evaluating patient outcomes, time to intervention, and long-term outcomes.

Exploring legitimacy in a municipal budget decision in Switzerland: empirical insights into citizens' perceptions.

This study examines legitimacy in municipal budgeting decisions, focusing on input, throughput and output dimensions. Using data from four Swiss studies, we explore how citizens assess these dimensions across traditional and innovative decision-making processes and investigate the impact of different voting methods on legitimacy perceptions. Our findings reveal that in routine processes using traditional voting, legitimacy dimensions are considered collectively.

Towards multimodal visualization of esophageal motility: fusion of manometry, impedance, and videofluoroscopic image sequences.

Purpose: Dysphagia is the inability or difficulty to swallow normally. Standard procedures for diagnosing the exact disease are, among others, X-ray videofluoroscopy, manometry and impedance examinations, usually performed consecutively. In order to gain more insights, ongoing research is aiming to collect these different modalities at the same time, with the goal to present them in a joint visualization.

The Expression of Toll-like Receptors in Cartilage Endplate Cells: A Role of Toll-like Receptor 2 in Pro-Inflammatory and Pro-Catabolic Gene Expression.

Introduction: The vertebral cartilage endplate (CEP), crucial for intervertebral disc health, is prone to degeneration linked to chronic low back pain, disc degeneration, and Modic changes (MC). While it is known that disc cells express toll-like receptors (TLRs) that recognize pathogen- and damage-associated molecular patterns (PAMPs and DAMPs), it is unclear if CEP cells (CEPCs) share this trait. The CEP has a higher cell density than the disc, making CEPCs an important contributor.

6G in medical robotics: development of network allocation strategies for a telerobotic examination system.

Purpose: Healthcare systems around the world are increasingly facing severe challenges due to problems such as staff shortage, changing demographics and the reliance on an often strongly human-dependent environment. One approach aiming to address these issues is the development of new telemedicine applications. The currently researched network standard 6G promises to deliver many new features which could be beneficial to leverage the full potential of emerging telemedical solutions and overcome the limitations of current network standards.

Robotic scrub nurse to anticipate surgical instruments based on real-time laparoscopic video analysis.

Background: Machine learning and robotics technologies are increasingly being used in the healthcare domain to improve the quality and efficiency of surgeries and to address challenges such as staff shortages. Robotic scrub nurses in particular offer great potential to address staff shortages by assuming nursing tasks such as the handover of surgical instruments.

Methods: We introduce a robotic scrub nurse system designed to enhance the quality of surgeries and efficiency of surgical workflows by predicting and delivering the required surgical instruments based on real-time laparoscopic video analysis.

Model-based individual life-spanning documentation in visceral surgery: a proof of concept.

Introduction: Surgical documentation has many implications. However, its primary function is to transfer information about surgical procedures to other medical professionals. Thereby, written reports describing procedures in detail are the current standard, impeding comprehensive understanding of patient-individual life-spanning surgical course, especially if surgeries are performed at a timely distance and in diverse facilities.

Overcoming a Conceptual Limitation of Industrial ε-Caprolactone Production via Chemoenzymatic Synthesis in Organic Medium.

The multi-10.000 tons scale manufactured chemical ε-caprolactone attracts high industrial interest due to its favorable biodegradability properties. However, besides being of petrochemical origin yet, its production has a conceptual limitation that is the difficult extraction of this highly water-soluble monomer from the water phase resulting from the aqueous solution of HO applied as reagent.

Enantioselective Synthesis of Secondary Amines by Combining Oxidative Rearrangement and Biocatalysis in a One-Pot Process.

This contribution describes the development of chemoenzymatic one-pot processes, which combine an oxidative rearrangement and a biotransformation catalyzed by an imine reductase (IRED), for the synthesis of highly enantiomerically enriched secondary amines, such as an aryl-substituted pyrrolidine and a benzazepine. The benefits of this chemoenzymatic one-pot approach include high overall conversions (up to >99%), high enantiomeric excesses (up to >99% ), and a straightforward synthetic approach toward secondary amines without the need to isolate the formed intermediate. For the initial chemical reaction, namely, the oxidative rearrangement, PhI(OAc) in methanol is used as a non-natural reagent, whereas the enzymatic step requires only stoichiometric amounts of d-glucose along with catalytic amounts of IRED, glucose dehydrogenase (GDH), and the cofactor NADPH.

Rationale for Using High-Frequency Ultrasound as a Routine Examination in Skin Cancer Surgery: A Practical Approach.

Ultrasound and high-frequency ultrasound assessment of melanoma and non-melanoma skin cancer in the pre-therapeutical setting is becoming increasingly popular in the field of dermatosurgery and dermatooncology, as it can provide clinicians with relevant, "in vivo" parameters regarding tumor lateral and depth extension as well as potential locoregional spread, cancelling the need of more extensive imaging methods and avoiding a delay in diagnosis. Furthermore, preoperative sonography and color Doppler can aid in orienting the clinical diagnosis, being able in numerous situations to differentiate between benign and malignant lesions, which require a different therapeutic approach. This preoperative knowledge is of paramount importance for planning an individualized treatment regimen.

[Mobile C-arm-Radiation exposure and workflow killer? : Potential of an innovative assistance system for intraoperative positioning].

Despite its versatile applicability the intraoperative use of a mobile C‑arm is often problematic and potentially associated with increased radiation exposure for both the patient and the personnel. In particular, the correct positioning for adequate imaging can become a problem as the nonsterile circulating nurse has to coordinate the various maneuvers together with the surgeon without having a good view of the surgical field. The sluggishness of the equipment and the intraoperative setting (sterile borders, additional hardware, etc.

Versatile end effector for laparoscopic robotic scrub nurse.

Purpose: Integrating robotic scrub nurses in the operating room has the potential to help overcome staff shortages and limited use of available operating capacities in hospitals. Existing approaches of robotic scrub nurses are mainly focused on open surgical procedures, neglecting laparoscopic procedures. Laparoscopic interventions offer great potential for the context-sensitive integration of robotic systems due to possible standardization.

Checkpoint blockade and BRAF/MEK therapy in the therapeutic setting improved the overall survival after sentinel node biopsy: A retrospective study comparing patients with primary care between 1998-2009 and 2010-2017.

Immunotherapies using checkpoint blockade and BRAF/MEK therapies have improved overall survival (OS) in patients with unresectable melanoma metastases. In this retrospective study, we aimed to demonstrate the resulting increase in melanoma-specific survival (MSS) and OS after the excision of primary melanomas (≥1 mm thick) and sentinel lymph node (SN) biopsy (SNB). Using Kaplan-Meier estimates and Cox models, we compared two consecutive cohorts.

Intuitive teaching of medical device operation to clinical assistance robots.

Purpose: The adjustment of medical devices in the operating room is currently done by the circulating nurses. As digital interfaces for the devices are not foreseeable in the near future and to incorporate legacy devices, the robotic operation of medical devices is an open topic.

Methods: We propose a teleoperated learning from demonstration process to acquire the high-level device functionality with given motion primitives.

Usage of a graph database for the selection of sterile items in the OR.

Purpose: In this work, we present a subsystem of a robotic circulating nurse, that produces recommendations for the next supplied sterile item based on incomplete requests from the sterile OR staff, the current situation, predefined knowledge and experience from previous surgeries. We describe a structure to store and query the underlying information in terms of entities and their relationships of varying strength.

Methods: For the implementation, the graph database Neo4j is used as a core component together with its querying language Cypher.

Towards the OR of the future: introducing an adaptive and technology-embracing OR wing layout.

Purpose: Overageing and climate change cause a need for making processes in the operating room wing (OR wing) more efficient. While many promising technologies are available today, traditional OR wings are not designed for seamlessly integrating these aids. To overcome this discrepancy, we present and motivate multiple ideas on how to transform current architectural design strategies.

Mobile service robots for the operating room wing: balancing cost and performance by optimizing robotic fleet size and composition.

Purpose: Integrating fleets of mobile service robots into the operating room wing (OR wing) has the potential to help overcome staff shortages and reduce the amount of dull or unhealthy tasks for humans. However, the OR wing has been little studied in this regard and the requirements for realizing this vision have not yet been fully identified. This includes fundamental aspects such as fleet size and composition, which we have now studied comprehensively for the first time.

Robotic Endoscope Control - State of the Art of Voice Control and Other Options for Laparoscopic Camera Robot Guidance.

In video-based surgery (VBS), the surgeon is no longer the master of his or her view. Visualization of the surgical field is mediated by a video camera guided by an assistant. The separation of visualization and surgical activities leads to significant drawbacks.

"Hybrid" scientific conference: lessons learned from the digital annual meeting of the CARS international conference during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Objectives: Due to the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) pandemic, all scientific conferences in the year 2020 had to be adapted in their form of presence to accommodate for safety regulations, postponed, or canceled entirely. As organizers of the annual Computer Assisted Radiology & Surgery International Conference & Exhibition (CARS)-Conference 2020, we decided to hold a "hybrid" conference, i.e.