Early absolute lymphocyte count was associated with one-year mortality in critically ill surgical patients: A propensity score-matching and weighting study.

Background: Absolute lymphocyte count (ALC) is a crucial indicator of immunity in critical illness, but studies focusing on long-term outcomes in critically ill patients, particularly surgical patients, are still lacking. We sought to explore the association between week-one ALC and long-term mortality in critically ill surgical patients.

Methods: We used the 2015-2020 critical care database of Taichung Veterans General Hospital (TCVGH), a referral hospital in central Taiwan, and the primary outcome was one-year all-cause mortality.

Association between early blood urea nitrogen-to-albumin ratio and one-year post-hospital mortality in critically ill surgical patients: a propensity score-matched study.

Background: Blood urea nitrogen to albumin ratio (BAR) is increasingly recognized as an early predictor for short-term outcomes in critically ill patients, but the association of BAR with long-term outcomes in critically ill surgical patients remains underexplored.

Methods: We enrolled consecutive patients who were admitted to surgical intensive care units (ICUs) at Taichung Veterans General Hospital between 2015 and 2020, and the dates of death were retrieved from Taiwan's National Health Insurance Research Database. In addition to Cox regression, we also used propensity score matching to determine the hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for one-year post-hospital mortality of the variables.

Anaemia in the first week may be associated with long-term mortality among critically ill patients: propensity score-based analyses.

Background: Anaemia is highly prevalent in critically ill patients; however, the long-term effect on mortality remains unclear.

Methods: We retrospectively included patients admitted to the medical intensive care units (ICUs) during 2015-2020 at the Taichung Veterans General Hospital. The primary outcome of interest was one-year mortality, and hazard ratios (HRs) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were determined to assess the association.

Week-One Anaemia was Associated with Increased One-Year Mortality in Critically Ill Surgical Patients.

Background: Anaemia has a deleterious effect on surgical patients, but the long-term impact of anaemia in critically ill surgical patients remains unclear.

Methods: We enrolled consecutive patients who were admitted to surgical intensive care units (ICUs) at a tertiary referral centre in central Taiwan between 2015 and 2020. We used both Cox proportional hazards analysis and propensity score-based analyses, including propensity score matching (PSM), inverse probability of treatment weighting (IPTW), and covariate balancing propensity score (CBPS) to determine hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for one-year mortality.

A Positive Fluid Balance in the First Week Was Associated With Increased Long-Term Mortality in Critically Ill Patients: A Retrospective Cohort Study.

Introduction: Early fluid balance has been found to affect short-term mortality in critically ill patients; however, there is little knowledge regarding the association between early cumulative fluid balance (CFB) and long-term mortality. This study aims to determine the distinct association between CFB day 1-3 (CFB 1-3) and day 4-7 (CFB 4-7) and long-term mortality in critically ill patients.

Patients And Methods: This study was conducted at Taichung Veterans General Hospital, a tertiary care referral center in central Taiwan, by linking the hospital critical care data warehouse 2015-2019 and death registry data of the Taiwanese National Health Research Database.

Relationship between exposure to ozone and exacerbation requiring hospital admission among patients with asthma: a case-control study in central Taiwan.

Objective: The convergence of asthma and air pollutants in ageing populations is currently a growing health issue worldwide, and hence there is an essential need to investigate the association between exposure to air pollution, particularly ozone (O), and exacerbation requiring admission in patients with asthma.

Setting: A case-control study at a tertiary referral hospital in central Taiwan.

Participants: We used an asthma cohort, which included 11 400 patients with asthma, for the period 2006-2018 at Taichung Veterans General Hospital.

Culture positivity may correlate with long-term mortality in critically ill patients.

Background: The long-term outcome is currently a crucial issue in critical care, and we aim to address the association between culture positivity and long-term mortality in critically ill patients.

Methods: We used the 2015-2019 critical care database at Taichung Veterans General Hospital and Taiwanese nationwide death registration files. Multivariable Cox proportional hazards regression model was conducted to determine hazard ratio (HR) and 95% confidence interval (CI).

Impact of Early Fluid Balance on Long-Term Mortality in Critically Ill Surgical Patients: A Retrospective Cohort Study in Central Taiwan.

Fluid balance is an essential issue in critical care; however, the impact of early fluid balance on the long-term mortality in critically ill surgical patients remains unknown. This study aimed to address the impact of day 1-3 and day 4-7 fluid balance on the long-term mortality in critically ill surgical patients. We enrolled patients who were admitted to surgical intensive care units (ICUs) during 2015-2019 at a tertiary hospital in central Taiwan and retrieved date-of-death from the Taiwanese nationwide death registration profile.

The association between culture positivity and long-term mortality in critically ill surgical patients.

Background: The long-term outcome is an essential issue in critically ill patients, and the identification of early determinant is needed for risk stratification of the long-term outcome. In the present study, we investigate the association between culture positivity during admission and long-term outcome in critically ill surgical patients.

Methods: We linked the 2015-2019 critical care database at Taichung Veterans General Hospital with the nationwide death registration files in Taiwan.

Conservation region finding for influenza A viruses by machine learning methods of N-linked glycosylation sites and B-cell epitopes.

Influenza type A, a serious infectious disease of the human respiratory tract, poses an enormous threat to human health worldwide. It leads to high mortality rates in poultry, pigs, and humans. The primary target identity regions for the human immune system are hemagglutinin (HA) and neuraminidase (NA), two surface proteins of the influenza A virus.

Objective fidelity evaluation in multisensory virtual environments: auditory cue fidelity in flight simulation.

We argue that objective fidelity evaluation of virtual environments, such as flight simulation, should be human-performance-centred and task-specific rather than measure the match between simulation and physical reality. We show how principled experimental paradigms and behavioural models to quantify human performance in simulated environments that have emerged from research in multisensory perception provide a framework for the objective evaluation of the contribution of individual cues to human performance measures of fidelity. We present three examples in a flight simulation environment as a case study: Experiment 1: Detection and categorisation of auditory and kinematic motion cues; Experiment 2: Performance evaluation in a target-tracking task; Experiment 3: Transferrable learning of auditory motion cues.

The rubber hand illusion in a mirror.

In the rubber hand illusion (RHI) one's hand is hidden, and a fake hand is visible. We explored the situation in which visual information was available indirectly in a mirror. In the mirror condition, compared to the standard condition (fake hand visible directly), we found no reduction of the RHI following synchronised stimulation, as measured by crossmanual pointing and by a questionnaire.