Removal Forces of a Helical Microwire Structure Electrode.

(1) Background: Medical devices, especially neuromodulation devices, are often explanted for a variety of reasons. The removal process imparts significant forces on these devices, which may result in device fracture and tissue trauma. We hypothesized that a device's form factor interfacing with tissue is a major driver of the force required to remove a device, and we isolated helical and linear electrode structures as a means to study atraumatic removal.

Ensemble modelling in descriptive epidemiology: burden of disease estimation.

Ensemble modelling is a quantitative method that combines information from multiple individual models and has shown great promise in statistical machine learning. Ensemble models have a theoretical claim to being models that make the 'best' predictions possible. Applications of ensemble models to health research have included applying ensemble models like the super learner and random forests to epidemiological prediction tasks.

Forecasting life expectancy, years of life lost, and all-cause and cause-specific mortality for 250 causes of death: reference and alternative scenarios for 2016-40 for 195 countries and territories.

Background: Understanding potential trajectories in health and drivers of health is crucial to guiding long-term investments and policy implementation. Past work on forecasting has provided an incomplete landscape of future health scenarios, highlighting a need for a more robust modelling platform from which policy options and potential health trajectories can be assessed. This study provides a novel approach to modelling life expectancy, all-cause mortality and cause of death forecasts -and alternative future scenarios-for 250 causes of death from 2016 to 2040 in 195 countries and territories.

Near-Road Air Pollutant Measurements: Accounting for Inter-Site Variability Using Emission Factors.

A daily integrated emission factor (EF) method was applied to data from three near-road monitoring sites to identify variables that impact traffic related pollutant concentrations in the near-road environment. The sites were operated for 20 months in 2015-2017, with each site differing in terms of design, local meteorology, and fleet compositions. Measurement distance from the roadway and local meteorology were found to affect pollutant concentrations irrespective of background subtraction.

Research and Operations: Joining Forces to Improve Care for Veterans.

The Veterans Health Administration's move to adopt a joint operations-research perspective in promoting clinical innovation in the health care system has led to an increasing number of researchers, clinicians, and policy leaders collaborating on quality improvement activities. We describe 2 such programs, both aimed at improving care for older veterans, which were conducted by teams with both research and operations experience. We explore differences in perspectives, contributions, and roles of various team members, as well as discuss benefits and challenges of research-operations partnerships in quality improvement activities.