Analytical and experimental analysis of guided waves in an aluminum plate under bending load.

Although guided waves offer great potential for monitoring various structures, interpreting signals from piezoelectric sensors remains a challenging task. One main reason is the significant influence of environmental conditions on the wave propagation. A lot of research has already been done on the influence of temperature effects and recently more attention has been shifted towards loads.

Global assessment of marine plastic exposure risk for oceanic birds.

Plastic pollution is distributed patchily around the world's oceans. Likewise, marine organisms that are vulnerable to plastic ingestion or entanglement have uneven distributions. Understanding where wildlife encounters plastic is crucial for targeting research and mitigation.

Coral reef fish larvae show no evidence for map-based navigation after physical displacement.

Millions of minute, newly hatched coral reef fish larvae get carried into the open ocean by highly complex and variable currents. To survive, they must return to a suitable reef habitat within a species-specific time. Strikingly, previous studies have demonstrated that return to home reefs is much more frequent than would be expected by chance.

Episodic Memory Retrieval Affects the Onset and Dynamics of Evidence Accumulation during Value-based Decisions.

In neuroeconomics, there is much interest in understanding simple value-based choices where agents choose between visually presented goods, comparable to a shopping scenario in a supermarket. However, many everyday decisions are made in the physical absence of the considered goods, requiring agents to recall information about the goods from memory. Here, we asked whether and how this reliance on an internal memory representation affects the temporal dynamics of decision making on a cognitive and neural level.

Cognitive and neural principles of a memory bias on preferential choices.

Value-based decisions depend on different forms of memory. However, the respective roles of memory and valuation processes that give rise to these decisions are often vaguely described and have rarely been investigated jointly. In this review article, we address the problem of memory-based decision making from a neuroeconomic perspective.

Using Explicit Thresholds were valuable for judging Benefits and Harms in partially contextualized GRADE Guidelines.

Objectives: Guideline panels must assess the magnitude of health benefits and harms to develop sensible recommendations. However, they rarely use explicit thresholds. In this paper we report on the piloting and the use thresholds for benefits and harms.

Accuracy of Rod Contouring to Desired Angles With and Without a Template: Implications for Achieving Desired Spinal Alignment and Outcomes.

Study Design: Biomechanical Study.

Objective: The search for optimal spinal alignment has led to the development of sophisticated formulas and software for preoperative planning. However, preoperative plans are not always appropriately executed since rod contouring during surgery is often subjective and estimated by the surgeon.

The Reflection Effect in Memory-Based Decisions.

Previous research has indicated a bias in memory-based decision-making, with people preferring options that they remember better. However, the cognitive mechanisms underlying this memory bias remain elusive. Here, we propose that choosing poorly remembered options is conceptually similar to choosing options with uncertain outcomes.

Response time models separate single- and dual-process accounts of memory-based decisions.

Human decisions often deviate from economic rationality and are influenced by cognitive biases. One such bias is the memory bias according to which people prefer choice options they have a better memory of-even when the options' utilities are comparatively low. Although this phenomenon is well supported empirically, its cognitive foundation remains elusive.

Frontal, Parietal, and Temporal Brain Areas Are Differentially Activated When Disambiguating Potential Objects of Joint Attention.

Humans establish joint attention with others by following the other's gaze. Previous work has suggested that a cortical patch (gaze-following patch, GFP) close to the posterior superior temporal sulcus (pSTS) may serve as a link between the extraction of the other's gaze direction and the resulting shifts of attention, mediated by human lateral intraparietal area (hLIP). However, it is not clear how the brain copes with situations in which information on gaze direction alone is insufficient to identify the target object because more than one may lie along the gaze vector.

Early outcomes and safety of outpatient (surgery center) vs inpatient based L5-S1 Anterior Lumbar Interbody Fusion.

We seek to determine the outcomes of patients undergoing outpatient-based ALIF compared to a consecutive series of inpatient based ALIF performed during the same time period. 58 consecutive patients at a single outpatient surgery center underwent ALIF from June 2015 - August 2017 and 79 ALIF's were performed at 2 Inpatient hospitals. Electronic medical records were reviewed for perioperative and postoperative complications as well as secondary interventions.

[Clinical guidelines using the GRADE system (Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation)].

The Ministry of Health of Chile, aiming to improve the quality of clinical practice guidelines, gradually incorporated the GRADE system (Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development and Evaluation) to develop evidence based recommendations. This system summarizes and evaluates the certainty of the available evidence. It moves from evidence to decision in a systematic and transparent manner, based on four main dimensions: balance between benefits and harms, certainty of evidence, patient's values and preferences and use of resources.

Adult Presentation of Noncirrhotic Portal Hypertension and Ascites following Treatment for Wilms' Tumor in Childhood.

A 37-year-old male, who at the age of 8 years had been treated for right-sided Wilms' tumor with nephrectomy, radiotherapy, and chemotherapy, presented with noncirrhotic portal hypertension (NCPH), grade 2 esophageal varices, and ascites. A CT scan demonstrated hypoplasia of liver segments 2 and 3. A liver biopsy showed portal tract fibrosis without cirrhosis, with histological features of NCPH.

Occupational Exposures to Ebola Virus in Ebola Treatment Center, Conakry, Guinea.

We report 77 cases of occupational exposures for 57 healthcare workers at the Ebola Treatment Center in Conakry, Guinea, during the Ebola virus disease outbreak in 2014-2015. Despite the high incidence of 3.5 occupational exposures/healthcare worker/year, only 18% of workers were at high risk for transmission, and no infections occurred.

[Clinical practice guidelines: qualitative study of their implementation in the Chilean health system].

Objective: Characterize the implementation process, barriers, and facilitators of evidence-based recommendations in the context of developing clinical practice guidelines (CPGs) generated by the Ministry of Health of Chile, in order to make proposals to optimize the process.

Methods: Qualitative "action-oriented research" study. Nineteen semi-structured interviews were conducted and nine discussion groups were organized at various levels of the Chilean public health system.

Demerelate: calculating interindividual relatedness for kinship analysis based on codominant diploid genetic markers using R.

The Demerelate package offers algorithms to calculate different interindividual relatedness measurements. Three different allele sharing indices, five pairwise weighted estimates of relatedness and four pairwise weighted estimates with sample size correction are implemented to analyse kinship structures within populations. Statistics are based on randomization tests; modelling relatedness coefficients by logistic regression, modelling relatedness with geographic distance by mantel correlation and comparing mean relatedness between populations using pairwise t-tests.

Positive Preferences: The Emotional Valence of What an Avatar Says Matters.

This study examined preferences and ascriptions of human control for avatars associated with positive and negative language. An avatar is a graphical representation of an individual user in a virtual world. Users form judgments of other virtual world users based on the appearance and behavior of their avatars in the absence of physical cues.

Fluorescent Rhodamines and Fluorogenic Carbopyronines for Super-Resolution STED Microscopy in Living Cells.

A range of bright and photostable rhodamines and carbopyronines with absorption maxima in the range of λ=500-630 nm were prepared, and enabled the specific labeling of cytoskeletal filaments using HaloTag technology followed by staining with 1 μm solutions of the dye-ligand conjugates. The synthesis, photophysical parameters, fluorogenic behavior, and structure-property relationships of the new dyes are discussed. Light microscopy with stimulated emission depletion (STED) provided one- and two-color images of living cells with an optical resolution of 40-60 nm.

Two Cases of Leptospirosis in French Travelers Returning From Koh Samui, Thailand.

We report the first two cases of leptospirosis in French travelers returning from Koh Samui, a famous tourist island in Thailand, in September 2014 and March 2015. The first patient developed a severe form of the disease including hemodynamic instability, interstitial pneumonia, rhabdomyolysis with renal impairment, and deep thrombocytopenia. The second patient had a milder disease, with severe muscle pain, jaundice, and renal impairment.

An image-based method to quantify biomechanical properties of the rectum in radiotherapy of prostate cancer.

Background: Gastrointestinal morbidity after radiotherapy (RT) for prostate cancer may be related to the biomechanical properties of the rectum. In this study we present a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)-based method to quantitate the thickness and elasticity of the rectal wall in prostate cancer patients treated with RT.

Material And Methods: Four patients previously treated with RT for prostate cancer underwent an MRI session with stepwise rectal bag deflation (from a maximum tolerable volume to 0 ml, in 50 ml steps), with a probe inserted inside the bag to monitor the internal rectal pressure.

Therapy of heavy menstrual bleeding in Korea: Subanalysis and results from a multinational clinical trial in the Asian region investigating the levonorgestrel-releasing intrauterine system versus conventional therapy.

Objective: To compare real-life clinical outcomes with the levonorgestrel-releasing intrauterine system (LNG-IUS) and conventional medical therapies (CMTs), including combined oral contraceptives and oral progestins in the treatment of idiopathic heavy menstrual bleeding (HMB) in South Korea.

Methods: This prospective, observational cohort study recruited a total of 647 women aged 18 to 45 years, diagnosed with HMB from 8 countries in Asia, including 209 women from South Korea (LNG-IUS, 169; CMTs, 40), who were followed up to one year. The primary outcome was cumulative continuation rate (still treated with LNG-IUS and CMTs) at 12 months.

EUnetHTA information management system: development and lessons learned.

Objectives: The aim of this study was to describe the techniques used in achieving consensus on common standards to be implemented in the EUnetHTA Information Management System (IMS); and to describe how interoperability between tools was explored.

Methods: Three face to face meetings were organized to identify and agree on common standards to the development of online tools. Two tools were created to demonstrate the added value of implementing interoperability standards at local levels.

Satisfaction and health-related quality of life in women with heavy menstrual bleeding; results from a non-interventional trial of the levonorgestrel-releasing intrauterine system or conventional medical therapy.

Purpose: To evaluate the patient satisfaction and health related quality of life (HRQoL) for levonorgestrel-releasing intrauterine system (LNG-IUS) versus conventional medical treatments ([CMTs] combined oral contraceptives, oral progestins, and antifibrinolytics, alone or in combination) in Asian women with heavy menstrual bleeding (HMB).

Patients And Methods: A total of 647 patients diagnosed with HMB were recruited to this non-interventional study from the eight participating countries in Asia. Patient satisfaction was recorded at the last visit (at 12 months or premature discontinuation).

Danish experiences with FOLFIRINOX as first-line therapy in patients with inoperable pancreatic cancer.

Introduction: Worldwide, pancreatic cancer (PC) ranks 13th in cancer incidence, but eighth as a cause of cancer death. For more than a decade, the reference regimen for palliative treatment of PC has been gemcitabine. In 2011, a randomised trial published by the PRODRIGE Intergroup showed an increase in median overall survival from 6.