Predictors of response to low-dose amitriptyline for irritable bowel syndrome and efficacy and tolerability according to subtype: post hoc analyses from the ATLANTIS trial.

Background: Low-dose amitriptyline, a tricyclic antidepressant (TCA), was superior to placebo for irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) in the AmitripTyline at Low-dose ANd Titrated for Irritable bowel syndrome as Second-line treatment (ATLANTIS) trial.

Objective: To perform post hoc analyses of ATLANTIS for predictors of response to, and tolerability of, a TCA.

Design: ATLANTIS randomised 463 adults with IBS to amitriptyline (232) or placebo (231).

Thermal imaging through hot emissive windows.

It is not currently possible for an infrared camera to see through a hot window. The window's own blinding thermal emission prevents objects on the other side from being imaged. Here, we demonstrate a path to overcoming this challenge by coating a hot window with an asymmetrically emitting infrared metasurface whose specially engineered imaginary index of refraction produces an asymmetric spatial distribution of absorption losses in its constituent nanoscale resonators.

Active surveillance for prostate cancer is a shared journey: the dyadic perspective.

Active surveillance for prostate cancer monitors disease progression, with a view to actively treat only if progression is evident. Living with an untreated cancer can negatively impact psychological wellbeing. Partners can influence decisions to convert to active treatment in the absence of disease progression, it is, therefore, important to consider partner reactions and responses to prostate cancer treatment options.

Self-management interventions for chronic widespread pain including fibromyalgia: a systematic review and qualitative evidence synthesis.

Supporting behavioural self-management is increasingly important in the care for chronic widespread pain (CWP), including fibromyalgia. Understanding peoples' experiences of these interventions may elucidate processes and mechanisms that lead to or hinder their intended impact. We conducted a systematic review and thematic synthesis of qualitative studies exploring peoples' experiences of self-management interventions for CWP, including fibromyalgia.

Low-dose amitriptyline for irritable bowel syndrome (IBS): a qualitative study of patients' and GPs' views and experiences.

Background: Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) can cause troublesome symptoms impacting patients' quality of life and incur considerable health service resource use. Guidelines suggest low-dose amitriptyline for IBS as second line treatment, but this is rarely prescribed in primary care.

Aim: To explore patients' and general practitioners' (GPs) views and experiences of using low-dose amitriptyline for IBS.

'Everyone has heard of it, but no one knows what it is': a qualitative study of patient understandings and experiences of herpes zoster.

Background: Shingles (herpes zoster), caused by reactivation of the varicella-zoster virus, is usually diagnosed and managed in primary care. The lifetime risk of shingles in the general population is approximately 30%, and it can have a detrimental effect on quality of life. There has been little qualitative research about patient experience and understanding of shingles.

Clustering by health and social care need in multple long-term conditions (MLTC): an exploratory qualitative study to understand the views of professionals and people living with MLTC about future interventions.

Background: Around one in four people are living with multiple long-term conditions (MLTC). Integrated care to holistically manage both health and social needs could improve outcomes for people living with MLTC, including lower rates of hospitalisation and mortality. However, given the number of people with MLTC and increasing strain on health and social care, stratified approaches to identifying and addressing social care needs may be more efficient and cost-effective.

Reduced-Dimensionality Al Nanocrystals: Nanowires, Nanobars, and Nanomoustaches.

Aluminum nanocrystals created by catalyst-driven colloidal synthesis support excellent plasmonic properties, due to their high level of elemental purity, monocrystallinity, and controlled size and shape. Reduction in the rate of nanocrystal growth enables the synthesis of highly anisotropic Al nanowires, nanobars, and singly twinned "nanomoustaches". Electron energy loss spectroscopy was used to study the plasmonic properties of these nanocrystals, spanning the broad energy range needed to map their plasmonic modes.

Effect of Brain-Gut Behavioral Treatments on Abdominal Pain in Irritable Bowel Syndrome: Systematic Review and Network Meta-Analysis.

Background & Aims: Some brain-gut behavioral treatments (BGBTs) are beneficial for global symptoms in irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). United States management guidelines suggest their use in patients with persistent abdominal pain, but their specific effect on this symptom has not been assessed systematically.

Methods: We searched the literature through December 16, 2023, for randomized controlled trials (RCTs) assessing efficacy of BGBTs for adults with IBS, compared with each other or a control intervention.

The experiences of men on active surveillance for prostate cancer and their significant others: A qualitative synthesis.

Background: Active surveillance (AS) for prostate cancer (PCa) is a monitoring pathway for men with low-grade, slow growing PCa and aims to delay or avoid active treatment by treating only in the case of disease progression. Experiences of this pathway vary but living with an untreated cancer can have a negative psychological impact on both the patient and their significant other (SO). Literature suggests partners are the primary source of support for men on AS, and therefore it is important to consider SO experiences alongside those of the patient.

Talking in primary care (TIP): protocol for a cluster-randomised controlled trial in UK primary care to assess clinical and cost-effectiveness of communication skills e-learning for practitioners on patients' musculoskeletal pain and enablement.

Introduction: Effective communication can help optimise healthcare interactions and patient outcomes. However, few interventions have been tested clinically, subjected to cost-effectiveness analysis or are sufficiently brief and well-described for implementation in primary care. This paper presents the protocol for determining the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of a rigorously developed brief eLearning tool, EMPathicO, among patients with and without musculoskeletal pain.

Tailoring the aluminum nanocrystal surface oxide for all-aluminum-based antenna-reactor plasmonic photocatalysts.

Aluminum nanocrystals (AlNCs) are of increasing interest as sustainable, earth-abundant nanoparticles for visible wavelength plasmonics and as versatile nanoantennas for energy-efficient plasmonic photocatalysis. Here, we show that annealing AlNCs under various gases and thermal conditions induces substantial, systematic changes in their surface oxide, modifying crystalline phase, surface morphology, density, and defect type and concentration. Tailoring the surface oxide properties enables AlNCs to function as all-aluminum-based antenna-reactor plasmonic photocatalysts, with the modified surface oxides providing varying reactivities and selectivities for several chemical reactions.

Identifying the Optimum Strategy for Identifying Adults and Children With Celiac Disease: A Cost-Effectiveness and Value of Information Analysis.

Objectives: Celiac disease (CD) is thought to affect around 1% of people in the United Kingdom, but only approximately 30% are diagnosed. The aim of this work was to assess the cost-effectiveness of strategies for identifying adults and children with CD in terms of who to test and which tests to use.

Methods: A decision tree and Markov model were used to describe testing strategies and model long-term consequences of CD.

Amitriptyline at Low-Dose and Titrated for Irritable Bowel Syndrome as Second-Line Treatment in primary care (ATLANTIS): a randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled, phase 3 trial.

Background: Most patients with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) are managed in primary care. When first-line therapies for IBS are ineffective, the UK National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guideline suggests considering low- dose tricyclic antidepressants as second-line treatment, but their effectiveness in primary care is unknown, and they are infrequently prescribed in this setting.

Methods: This randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial (Amitriptyline at Low-Dose and Titrated for Irritable Bowel Syndrome as Second-Line Treatment [ATLANTIS]) was conducted at 55 general practices in England.

Controlling product selectivity in hybrid gas/liquid reactors using gas conditions, voltage, and temperature.

For the conversion of CO into fuels and chemical feedstocks, hybrid gas/liquid-fed electrochemical flow reactors provide advantages in selectivity and production rates over traditional liquid phase reactors. However, fundamental questions remain about how to optimize conditions to produce desired products. Using an alkaline electrolyte to suppress hydrogen formation and a gas diffusion electrode catalyst composed of copper nanoparticles on carbon nanospikes, we investigate how hydrocarbon product selectivity in the CO reduction reaction in hybrid reactors depends on three experimentally controllable parameters: (1) supply of dry or humidified CO gas, (2) applied potential, and (3) electrolyte temperature.

Patient perceptions of empathy in primary care telephone consultations: A mixed methods study.

Objective: Clinical empathy can enhance patient outcomes. This study examined patients' perceptions of empathy in primary care consultations delivered by telephone.

Methods: A mixed methods study was nested in a larger feasibility study conducted May-October 2020.

-Band Hole Dynamics in Gold Nanoparticles Measured with Time-Resolved Emission Upconversion Microscopy.

The performance of photocatalysts and photovoltaic devices can be enhanced by energetic charge carriers produced from plasmon decay, and the lifetime of these energetic carriers greatly affects overall efficiencies. Although hot electron lifetimes in plasmonic gold nanoparticles have been investigated, hot hole lifetimes have not been as thoroughly studied in plasmonic systems. Here, we demonstrate time-resolved emission upconversion microscopy and use it to resolve the lifetime and energy-dependent cooling of -band holes formed in gold nanoparticles by plasmon excitation and by following plasmon decay into interband and then intraband electron-hole pairs.

Designing structures that maximize spatially averaged surface-enhanced Raman spectra.

We present a general framework for inverse design of nanopatterned surfaces that maximize spatially averaged surface-enhanced Raman (SERS) spectra from molecules distributed randomly throughout a material or fluid, building upon a recently proposed trace formulation for optimizing incoherent emission. This leads to radically different designs than optimizing SERS emission at a single known location, as we illustrate using several 2D design problems addressing effects of hot-spot density, angular selectivity, and nonlinear damage. We obtain optimized structures that perform about 4 × better than coating with optimized spheres or bowtie structures and about 20 × better when the nonlinear damage effects are included.

Selective Photodetoxification of a Sulfur Mustard Simulant Using Plasmonic Aluminum Nanoparticles.

Plasmonic nanostructures have attracted increasing interest in the fields of photochemistry and photocatalysis for their ability to enhance reactivity and tune reaction selectivity, a benefit of their strong interactions with light and their multiple energy decay mechanisms. Here we introduce the use of earth-abundant plasmonic aluminum nanoparticles as a promising renewable detoxifier of the sulfur mustard simulant 2-chloroethylethylsulfide through gas phase photodecomposition. Analysis of the decomposition products indicates that C-S bond breaking is facilitated under illumination, while C-Cl breaking and HCl elimination are favored under thermocatalytic (dark) conditions.

Empathy in patient-clinician interactions when using telecommunication: A rapid review of the evidence.

Objectives: The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the replacement of many face-to-face healthcare consultations with telephone consultations. Little is known about the extent to which empathy can be expressed in telephone consultations. Our objective is to review evidence related to empathy in telephone consultations including clinical outcomes, and patient/practitioner experiences.

The Proof Is in the Pudding: Using a Randomized Controlled Trial to Evaluate the Long-Term Effectiveness of a Household Food Waste Reduction Intervention During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

To halve per capita global food waste by 2030, policies and programs that effectively reduce household food waste generation are needed. Building upon a previous randomized controlled trial, this study evaluated the long-term effectiveness of the "Reduce Food Waste, Save Money" household food waste reduction intervention by comparing direct measurements of household food waste generated by treatment ( = 47) and control households ( = 52) over three time periods. The results indicate that there has been a long-term, sustained 30% reduction of avoidable food waste sent to landfill by treatment households following the implementation of this intervention.

Planning and developing a web-based intervention for active surveillance in prostate cancer: an integrated self-care programme for managing psychological distress.

Objectives: To outline the planning, development and optimisation of a psycho-educational behavioural intervention for patients on active surveillance for prostate cancer. The intervention aimed to support men manage active surveillance-related psychological distress.

Methods: The person-based approach (PBA) was used as the overarching guiding methodological framework for intervention development.

Amitriptyline at low-dose and titrated for irritable bowel syndrome as second-line treatment (The ATLANTIS trial): protocol for a randomised double-blind placebo-controlled trial in primary care.

Background: Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is a common functional bowel disorder that has a considerable impact on patient quality of life and substantial societal and health care resource costs. Current treatments are often ineffective. Tricyclic antidepressants have shown promise in secondary care populations but their effectiveness in a primary care setting remains unclear.