Advance care planning readiness, barriers, and facilitators among seriously ill Black older adults and their surrogates: A mixed methods study.

Objectives: Advance care planning (ACP) supports communication and medical decision-making and is best conceptualized as part of the care planning continuum. Black older adults have lower ACP engagement and poorer quality of care in serious illness. Surrogates are essential to effective ACP but are rarely integrated in care planning.

Process-Structure-Property Relationship Development in Large-Format Additive Manufacturing: Fiber Alignment and Ultimate Tensile Strength.

Parts made through additive manufacturing (AM) often exhibit mechanical anisotropy due to the time-based deposition of material and processing parameters. In polymer material extrusion (MEX), printed parts have weak points at layer interfaces, perpendicular to the direction of deposition. Poly(lactic acid) with chopped carbon fiber was printed on a large-format pellet printer at various extrusion rates with the same tool pathing to measure the fiber alignment with deposition via two methods and relate it to the ultimate tensile strength (UTS).

Four-Dimensional Computed Tomography for Parathyroid Adenoma Localization: A Pre-Operative Imaging Protocol.

Objective: Primary hyperparathyroidism (PHPT) affects approximately 0.86% of the population, with surgical resection as the treatment of choice. A 4D computed tomography (CT) is a highly effective tool in localizing parathyroid adenomas; however, there is currently no defined role for 4D CT when stratified against ultrasonography (USG) and nuclear medicine Technetium Sestamibi SPECT/CT (SES) imaging.

In Situ, Real-Time Temperature Mapping and Thermal FE Simulations of Large-Format 3D Printed PETG/CF Vertical Wall.

This work focuses on simulating the thermal history of a vertical wall consisting of a thermoplastic composite material, poly(ethylene terephthalate) glycol (PETG) with short carbon fiber reinforcement, manufactured using a Big Area Additive Manufacturing (BAAM) system. The incremental deposition process used in additive manufacturing, which corresponds to the repeated deposition of hot material onto cooler material, contributes to the presence of residual stresses and part warping. The prediction of these mechanisms is dependent on thermal history of the part, and the major motivation of this work was to improve the accuracy of finite element (FE) models used to quantify the thermal history of large-format additively manufactured parts.

Exploring exercise, physical wellbeing and the role of physiotherapy: perspectives from people with narcolepsy.

Narcolepsy is associated with reduced quality of life and physical performance. The study aimed to explore the attitudes of people with Type 1 narcolepsy towards exercise and physical activity, their physical wellbeing, and the potential role of physiotherapy. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 22 people with narcolepsy attending a dedicated outpatient narcolepsy clinic located in Dublin, Ireland.