Comparison of Work Relative Value Units Assigned to Urological and Gynecological Surgical Procedures.

Introduction: We sought to determine if work relative value unit differences exist between analogous, sex-specific procedures.

Methods: Representatives from the AUA and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists independently reviewed the entire procedural code set and identified sex-specific procedures that had an analogous procedure in the opposite sex. These pairs were then evaluated and compared using current American Medical Association Relative Value Scale Update Committee methodology.

Developing nitrogen removal models for stormwater bioretention systems.

Bioretention systems have the potential of simultaneous runoff volume reduction and nitrogen removal. Internal water storage (IWS) layers and real-time control (RTC) strategies may further improve performance of bioretention systems. However, optimizing the design of these systems is limited by the lack of effective models to simulate nitrogen transformations under the influences of IWS design and environment conditions including soil moisture and temperature.

Environmental regulations in the United States lead to improvements in untreated stormwater quality over four decades.

Identifying sources of pollutants in watersheds is critical to accurately predicting stormwater quality. Many existing software used to model stormwater quality rely on decades-old data sets which may not represent current runoff quality in the United States. Because of environmental regulations promulgated at the federal level over previous decades, there is a need to understand long-term trends (and potential shifts) in runoff quality to better parameterize models.

Building resiliency to climate change uncertainty through bioretention design modifications.

Climate stationarity is a traditional assumption in the design of the urban drainage network, including green infrastructure practices such as bioretention cells. Predicted deviations from historic climate trends associated with global climate change introduce uncertainty in the ability of these systems to maintain service levels in the future. Climate change projections are made using output from coarse-scale general circulation models (GCMs), which can then be downscaled using regional climate models (RCMs) to provide predictions at a finer spatial resolution.

Robotic Sacral Colpopexy Using Autologous Fascia Lata Compared with Mesh.

The objective is to compare robotic sacral colpopexy (RSC) utilizing autologous fascia lata with RSC with synthetic mesh in the treatment of pelvic organ prolapse (POP). We performed a prospective nonrandomized case comparison trial at a single institution. We compared RSC utilizing either synthetic mesh or autologous fascia lata in women with symptomatic POP, stages II through IV.

Securing Mesh with Delayed Absorbable Suture Does Not Increase Risk of Prolapse Recurrence After Robotic Sacral Colpopexy.

Nonabsorbable monofilament suture is traditionally used to secure vaginal mesh for robot-assisted sacral colpopexy (RASC) but can become exposed postoperatively requiring invasive vaginal removal. Polydioxanone delayed absorbable suture may avoid this. We sought to determine the objective and subjective impact of suture choice for mesh fixation.

Testing of new stormwater pollution build-up algorithms informed by a genetic programming approach.

Pollution build-up and wash-off processes are often included in urban stormwater quality models. However, these models are often unreliable and have poor performance at large scales and in complicated catchments. This study tried to improve stormwater quality models by adopting the genetic programming (GP) approach to generate new build-up algorithms for three different pollutants (total suspend solids - TSS, total phosphorus - TP and total nitrogen - TN).

Plant-Microbe Interactions Drive Denitrification Rates, Dissolved Nitrogen Removal, and the Abundance of Denitrification Genes in Stormwater Control Measures.

The microbial community and function along with nitrate/nitrite (NOx) removal rates, and nitrogen (N) partitioning into "uptake", "denitrification", and "remaining" via isotope tracers, were studied in soil bioretention mesocolumns (8 unique plant species). Total denitrification gene reads per million (rpm) were positively correlated with % denitrified ( r = 0.69) but negatively correlated with total NOx removal following simulated rain events ( r = -0.

Health Impacts of Extreme Weather Events: Exploring Protective Factors with a Capitals Framework.

Purpose: Extreme weather events are increasing with climate change. The physical and mental health of people served by social workers may be especially at risk from these hazards. This exploratory study examines if specific types of human, financial, physical, and social capital are associated with health impacts from excessive summer heat and extreme winter weather.

Robotic Sacral Colpopexy.

Introduction And Objective: Robot-assisted sacral colpopexy (RASC) is a fast growing approach for surgeons treating patients with advanced stage pelvic organ prolapse (POP). Open abdominal sacral colpopexy has been the gold standard for advanced POP but requires longer hospital stays and a much larger incision. The indications, preoperative preparation, operative positioning, and operative steps are detailed, and an accompanying video shows the approach.

Heat and Humidity in the City: Neighborhood Heat Index Variability in a Mid-Sized City in the Southeastern United States.

Daily weather conditions for an entire city are usually represented by a single weather station, often located at a nearby airport. This resolution of atmospheric data fails to recognize the microscale climatic variability associated with land use decisions across and within urban neighborhoods. This study uses heat index, a measure of the combined effects of temperature and humidity, to assess the variability of heat exposure from ten weather stations across four urban neighborhoods and two control locations (downtown and in a nearby nature center) in Knoxville, Tennessee, USA.

HPV: diagnosis, prevention, and treatment.

Human papilloma virus (HPV) is the most common sexually transmitted disease in the world. Almost 80% of the world's population is exposed by the age of 50. HPV can cause oropharyngeal, genital, and anal cancers.

Is liquid-based pap testing affected by water-based lubricant?

Objective: To estimate the effect of water-based lubricant on the liquid-based Pap test.

Methods: Two hundred women each had 2 simultaneous Pap test collections. One specimen was randomly contaminated with 0.

Intact genetic material is present in commercially processed cadaver allografts used for pubovaginal slings.

Purpose: We determined the presence, quantitated the concentration and assessed the length of DNA present in 4 commercially available human cadaver allografts.

Materials And Methods: We evaluated 10 tissue samples from each of 4 commercial sources of human allograft (Mentor Corp., Santa Barbara, California; Musculoskeletal Transplant Foundation, Edison, New Jersey; Regeneration Technologies, Inc.