Publications by authors named "Ferguson N"

Background: Survivorship after coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) critical illness may be associated with important long-term sequelae, but little is known regarding mental health outcomes.

Research Question: What is the association between COVID-19 critical illness and new post-discharge mental health diagnoses.

Study Design: AND METHODS: We conducted a population-based cohort study in Ontario, Canada (January 1, 2020-March 31, 2022).

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  • The study investigates whether immediate extubation after a successful breathing trial benefits adults with acute brain injuries.
  • It analyzed data from 1,406 patients in Toronto, focusing on those who were mechanically ventilated and had successful breathing trials.
  • The findings suggest that prompt extubation is linked to an increase in ventilator-free days, indicating that it may be beneficial for recovery in these patients.
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Background: Mathematical models and advanced analytics play an important role in policy decision making and mobilizing action. The Imperial College Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Response Team (ICCRT) provided continuous, timely and robust epidemiological analyses to inform the policy responses of governments and public health agencies around the world. This study aims to quantify the policy impact of ICCRT outputs, and understand which evidence was considered policy-relevant during the COVID-19 pandemic.

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Yellow fever (YF), a vector-borne viral hemorrhagic fever, is endemic in tropical regions of Africa and South America, with large vaccination programmes being used for control. However, significant outbreaks have occurred in recent years. Data on infection rates and seroprevalence is often sparse, requiring robust mathematical models to estimate the burden of yellow fever.

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Objectives: We sought to evaluate whether different subgroups of adults with acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) respond differently to high-frequency oscillatory ventilation (HFOV).

Design: The Oscillation for ARDS Treated Early (OSCILLATE) trial was a randomized controlled trial of HFOV vs. conventional ventilation that found an increased risk of in-hospital mortality (primary outcome) with HFOV.

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Background: Excessive car use hampers progress toward tackling global health challenges, including climate and sustainability issues, and is linked to lower physical activity. Local communities have been developing solutions through bike buses. This paper, one of the first on bike buses, explores how a bike bus is perceived by other road and place users.

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Estimates of the global health impact of immunisation are important for quantifying historical benefits as well as planning future investments and strategy. The Vaccine Impact Modelling Consortium (VIMC) was established in 2016 to provide reliable estimates of the health impact of immunisation. In this article we examine the consortium in its first five-year phase.

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Background: Since the late 1990s, there has been a worldwide surge of scientific interest in the pre-psychotic phase, resulting in the introduction of several clinical tools for early detection. The predictive accuracy of these tools has been limited, motivating the need for methodological and perspectival improvements. The EASE manual supports systematic assessment of anomalous self-experience, and proposes an overall model of understanding how most psychotic experiences may be initially generated on the basis of a unifying, fundamental, pre-reflective distortion of subjectivity.

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UGT2B4 is a highly expressed drug-metabolizing enzyme in the liver contributing to the glucuronidation of several drugs. To enable quantitatively assessing UGT2B4 contribution toward metabolic clearance, a potent and selective UGT2B4 inhibitor that can be used for reaction phenotyping was sought. Initially, a canagliflozin-2'--glucuronyl transferase activity assay was developed in recombinant UGT2B4 and human liver microsomes (HLM) [±2% bovine serum albumin (BSA)].

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Our comparative assessment is the first study to investigate microplastic body burden in native (Cambarus appalachiensis) and non-native (Faxonius cristavarius) crayfish along a semi-rural and urban stream across different seasons. Crayfish, sediment, and surface water were collected, processed, and characterized using μRaman spectroscopy to compare microplastic polymer types and shapes across compartments. Average surface water concentrations were significantly higher in our urban stream compared to our semi-rural stream (17.

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Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has caused over 7.02 million deaths as of January 2024 and profoundly affected most countries' Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Here, we study the interaction of SARS-CoV-2 transmission, mortality, and economic output between January 2020 and December 2022 across 25 European countries.

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  • Severe acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) with low PaO/FiO levels is life-threatening, and this study aimed to compare different management methods like low tidal volumes, moderate tidal volumes, prone ventilation, and venovenous ECMO on patient mortality.
  • A meta-analysis included 10 randomized controlled trials involving 812 participants, revealing that both VV-ECMO and prone ventilation significantly reduced mortality compared to low and moderate tidal volume strategies.
  • Though VV-ECMO showed some advantages, the comparison between VV-ECMO and prone ventilation remains unclear due to limited and indirect evidence.
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  • - The study explores how the introduction of tocilizumab for COVID-19 treatment impacted patient outcomes by using data from electronic health records (EHRs) before and after a new formulary policy was implemented in a large medical center.
  • - Researchers evaluated the drug's effect on 28-day mortality using various statistical methods, concluding that tocilizumab was linked to reduced mortality rates among patients, with 69% of eligible patients receiving the medication.
  • - The findings showed a significant 3.1% reduction in mortality risk directly attributed to the new guidelines and an additional 8.6% reduction tied to actual tocilizumab administration, aligning with results from existing clinical research.
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Decreased white matter (WM) integrity and disturbance in fatty acid composition have been reported in individuals at ultra-high risk of psychosis (UHR). The current study is the first to investigate both WM integrity and erythrocyte membrane polyunsaturated fatty acid (PUFA) levels as potential risk biomarkers for persistent UHR status, and global functioning in UHR individuals. Forty UHR individuals were analysed at baseline for erythrocyte membrane PUFA concentrates.

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Considerable spatial heterogeneity has been observed in COVID-19 transmission across administrative areas of England throughout the pandemic. This study investigates what drives these differences. We constructed a probabilistic case count model for 306 administrative areas of England across 95 weeks, fit using a Bayesian evidence synthesis framework.

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  • - The COVID-19 pandemic has put immense pressure on healthcare workers and experts, leading to serious psychological issues like stress, burnout, and moral injury, which affect their wellbeing and productivity.
  • - A workshop was held with diverse professionals to reflect on the personal and professional impacts of pandemic response work, leading to collective recommendations for improving future epidemics responses.
  • - Key concerns identified included inadequate institutional support and mental health challenges; recommendations focused on enhancing collaboration, recognition, and sustainable practices within public health work.
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Background: Adaptive trials usually require simulations to determine values for design parameters, demonstrate error rates, and establish the sample size. We designed a Bayesian adaptive trial comparing ventilation strategies for patients with acute hypoxemic respiratory failure using simulations. The complexity of the analysis would usually require computationally expensive Markov Chain Monte Carlo methods but this barrier to simulation was overcome using the Integrated Nested Laplace Approximations (INLA) algorithm to provide fast, approximate Bayesian inference.

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  • The study looked at how climate change impacts malaria and other tropical diseases over the past 13 years.
  • Researchers found that many studies focus on malaria and dengue, but less on some other important diseases.
  • There’s still a lot we don’t know about how climate change will affect these diseases, so we need better research to figure it out.
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  • - The study investigates how HIF-1α in astrocytes contributes to the harmful effects of HIV-1 Tat on neurons, particularly related to the formation of amyloids that are linked to Alzheimer's-like symptoms in HIV-Associated Neurocognitive Disorders (HAND).
  • - Researchers found that when rat hippocampal neurons are exposed to astrocyte-derived extracellular vesicles (ADEVs) carrying these toxic amyloids, it leads to neuronal damage, including synaptic loss and functional declines in communication between neurons.
  • - Silencing HIF-1α in astrocytes reduced the production of amyloid-carrying ADEVs, protecting neurons from damage and preventing related behavioral changes and Alzheimer's-like pathology in mice, suggesting HIF
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Objective: Australia has inadequate publicly available data regarding the use of involuntary psychiatric care. This study examined the association between patient clinical/demographic factors and involuntary psychiatric admission following initial psychiatric assessment in Royal Darwin Hospital.

Method: Retrospective review of 638 psychiatric assessments followed by covariate analysis of patient variables associated with involuntary psychiatric admission.

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Background: Pre-clinical studies suggest that dyssynchronous diaphragm contractions during mechanical ventilation may cause acute diaphragm dysfunction. We aimed to describe the variability in diaphragm contractile loading conditions during mechanical ventilation and to establish whether dyssynchronous diaphragm contractions are associated with the development of impaired diaphragm dysfunction.

Methods: In patients receiving invasive mechanical ventilation for pneumonia, septic shock, acute respiratory distress syndrome, or acute brain injury, airway flow and pressure and diaphragm electrical activity (Edi) were recorded hourly around the clock for up to 7 days.

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  • The global immunization coverage has decreased during the COVID-19 pandemic, leading to under-immunized groups and impacting efforts to control vaccine-preventable diseases.
  • This study utilized modeling from 112 low- and middle-income countries to assess the effects of disrupted vaccine coverage on 14 diseases and identify regions needing recovery efforts.
  • Results were derived from historical vaccine coverage data and aimed to understand whether lost immunization advantages could be regained through targeted catch-up initiatives.
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In the United States, rates of Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection have been declining for decades. Osteoarticular tuberculosis of the ankle is rarely observed. We present the case of a 65-year-old man who immigrated to the United States from India 24 years before the onset of symptoms.

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