Changing estimates of leadership ability before a programme: retrospective self-assessments and response-shift bias.

Background: Most evaluations of clinical leadership development programmes rely on self-assessments. Self-assessments are vulnerable to response-shift bias. Using retrospective then-tests may help to avoid this bias.

X-ray quasi-periodic eruptions from two previously quiescent galaxies.

Quasi-periodic eruptions (QPEs) are very-high-amplitude bursts of X-ray radiation recurring every few hours and originating near the central supermassive black holes of galactic nuclei. It is currently unknown what triggers these events, how long they last and how they are connected to the physical properties of the inner accretion flows. Previously, only two such sources were known, found either serendipitously or in archival data, with emission lines in their optical spectra classifying their nuclei as hosting an actively accreting supermassive black hole.

Postoperative Telehealth Visits Reduce Emergency Department Visits and 30-Day Readmissions in Elective Thoracic Surgery Patients.

Background: Preventing postoperative 30-day readmissions requires an investment in patient care. The use of postdischarge telehealth visits to prevent potential adverse events or hospital visits has been shown in previous studies.

Purpose: We aim to determine the impact of postoperative telehealth visits (PTV) on reducing emergency department visits (EDV) and readmissions within 30 days postdischarge (30DR).

Debility Risk Model as a Predictor for Postsurgical Outcomes.

Background: Decreased patient functional status is associated with higher rates of postoperative morbidity and mortality. The Vizient program recently implemented a debility risk model to identify patients with impaired functional status. We examined the relationship between this novel model and inpatient postsurgical outcomes in a large urban tertiary care center.

Detection of large-scale X-ray bubbles in the Milky Way halo.

The halo of the Milky Way provides a laboratory to study the properties of the shocked hot gas that is predicted by models of galaxy formation. There is observational evidence of energy injection into the halo from past activity in the nucleus of the Milky Way; however, the origin of this energy (star formation or supermassive-black-hole activity) is uncertain, and the causal connection between nuclear structures and large-scale features has not been established unequivocally. Here we report soft-X-ray-emitting bubbles that extend approximately 14 kiloparsecs above and below the Galactic centre and include a structure in the southern sky analogous to the North Polar Spur.

Correction to: Safety of orogastric tubes in foregut and bariatric surgery.

The article "Safety of orogastric tubes in foregut and bariatric surgery," written by Kulvir Nandra and Richard Ing, was originally published Online First without Open Access. After publication in volume 32, issue 10, pages 4068-4070, the authors decided to opt for Open Choice and to make the article an Open Access publication. Therefore, the copyright of the article has been changed to © The Author(s) 2018 and the article is forthwith distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.

An X-ray chimney extending hundreds of parsecs above and below the Galactic Centre.

Evidence has mounted in recent decades that outflows of matter and energy from the central few parsecs of our Galaxy have shaped the observed structure of the Milky Way on a variety of larger scales. On scales of 15 parsecs, the Galactic Centre has bipolar lobes that can be seen in both the X-ray and radio parts of the spectrum, indicating broadly collimated outflows from the centre, directed perpendicular to the Galactic plane. On larger scales, approaching the size of the Galaxy itself, γ-ray observations have revealed the so-called 'Fermi bubble' features, implying that our Galactic Centre has had a period of active energy release leading to the production of relativistic particles that now populate huge cavities on both sides of the Galactic plane.

Telehealth provides a comprehensive approach to the surgical patient.

Background: This study describes telehealth use within the Department of Surgery in a large urban academic medical center and its role in diverse surgical patients.

Methods: We performed a retrospective descriptive study of video telehealth visits conducted by an academic urban surgery department from February 2017 to November 2017. We report our experience in accordance with the National Quality Forum recommended domains of access, experience and effectiveness.

Safety of orogastric tubes in foregut and bariatric surgery.

Background: Orogastric tubes have traditionally aided foregut procedures with sizing and organ protection. The rise of bariatric surgery has led to the creation of novel medical devices aimed at facilitating the laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy. While approved by the FDA, the long-term safety profile of these devices in the general population is often unknown.

A dust-enshrouded tidal disruption event with a resolved radio jet in a galaxy merger.

Tidal disruption events (TDEs) are transient flares produced when a star is ripped apart by the gravitational field of a supermassive black hole (SMBH). We have observed a transient source in the western nucleus of the merging galaxy pair Arp 299 that radiated >1.5 × 10 erg at infrared and radio wavelengths but was not luminous at optical or x-ray wavelengths.

The Effect of Intra-articular Cocktail Versus Femoral Nerve Block for Patients Undergoing Hip Arthroscopy.

Purpose: To compare clinical efficacy and complication rate as measured by postoperative falls and development of peripheral neuritis between intra-articular blockade and femoral nerve block in patients undergoing arthroscopic hip surgery.

Methods: An institutional review board approved retrospective review was conducted on a consecutive series of patients who underwent elective arthroscopic hip surgery by a single surgeon, between November 2013 and April 2015. Subjects were stratified into 2 groups: patients who received a preoperative femoral nerve block for perioperative pain control, and patients who received an intra-articular "cocktail" injection postoperatively.

Successful Reinnervation of the Diaphragm After Intercostal to Phrenic Nerve Neurotization in Patients With High Spinal Cord Injury.

Objective: Our objective in this study was to extend diaphragmatic pacing therapy to include paraplegic patients with high cervical spinal cord injuries between C3 and C5.

Introduction: Diaphragmatic pacing has been used in patients experiencing ventilator-dependent respiratory failure due to spinal cord injury as a means to reduce or eliminate the need for mechanical ventilation. However, this technique relies on intact phrenic nerve function.

Artesunate Protects Against the Organ Injury and Dysfunction Induced by Severe Hemorrhage and Resuscitation.

Objective: To evaluate the effects of artesunate on organ injury and dysfunction associated with hemorrhagic shock (HS) in the rat.

Background: HS is still a common cause of death in severely injured patients and is characterized by impairment of organ perfusion, systemic inflammatory response, and multiple organ failure. There is no specific therapy that reduces organ injury/dysfunction.

Active galaxies. A fast and long-lived outflow from the supermassive black hole in NGC 5548.

Supermassive black holes in the nuclei of active galaxies expel large amounts of matter through powerful winds of ionized gas. The archetypal active galaxy NGC 5548 has been studied for decades, and high-resolution x-ray and ultraviolet (UV) observations have previously shown a persistent ionized outflow. An observing campaign in 2013 with six space observatories shows the nucleus to be obscured by a long-lasting, clumpy stream of ionized gas not seen before.

Pharmacological preconditioning with erythropoietin attenuates the organ injury and dysfunction induced in a rat model of hemorrhagic shock.

Pre-treatment with erythropoietin (EPO) has been demonstrated to exert tissue-protective effects against 'ischemia-reperfusion'-type injuries. This protection might be mediated by mobilization of bone marrow endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs), which are thought to secrete paracrine factors. These effects could be exploited to protect against tissue injury induced in cases where hemorrhage is foreseeable, for example, prior to major surgery.

Do atypical antipsychotics promote neurogenesis as a class effect?

It has been reported that some atypical antipsychotics promote neurogenesis in the hippocampus and possibly in the frontal cortex. Atypical antipsychotics are a heterogeneous group of drugs. Hence the question arises as to whether neurogenesis is a class effect which relates to them all.

The differences between typical and atypical antipsychotics: the effects on neurogenesis.

Recently, the pharmacological division between typical and atypical antipsychotics has been called into question. New evidence, however, continues to emerge showing differences between these two classes of drugs. Hence typical and atypical antipsychotics are clearly different classes of drugs, as evidenced by their actions, mechanisms, effects and side effects.

Bench-to-bedside review: Erythropoietin and its derivatives as therapies in critical care.

Erythropoietin (EPO) is known to have numerous biological functions. Its primary function in the body is to increase red blood cell numbers by way of preventing the apoptosis of erythroid progenitor cells via the homodimeric EPO receptor. The discovery that the local production of EPO within the brain in response to hypoxia or ischemia protects neurons against injury via an anti-apoptotic effect formed the basis of the hypothesis that the local generation of EPO limits the extent of injury.

Acute treatment with bone marrow-derived mononuclear cells attenuates the organ injury/dysfunction induced by hemorrhagic shock in the rat.

Recent evidence suggests that cell therapy such as the injection of bone marrow-derived mononuclear cells (BMMNCs) can exert protective effects in various conditions associated with ischemia-reperfusion injury. Here, we investigate the effects of BMMNCs on the organ injury/dysfunction induced by hemorrhagic shock (HS). Thirty-seven anesthetized male Wistar rats were subjected to hemorrhage by reducing mean arterial pressure to 35 ± 5 mmHg for 90 min, followed by resuscitation with 20 mL/kg Ringer's lactate administered over 10 min and 50% of the shed blood over 50 min.

A nonerythropoietic peptide that mimics the 3D structure of erythropoietin reduces organ injury/dysfunction and inflammation in experimental hemorrhagic shock.

Recent studies have shown that erythropoietin, critical for the differentiation and survival of erythrocytes, has cytoprotective effects in a wide variety of tissues, including the kidney and lung. However, erythropoietin has been shown to have a serious side effect-an increase in thrombovascular effects. We investigated whether pyroglutamate helix B-surface peptide (pHBSP), a nonerythropoietic tissue-protective peptide mimicking the 3D structure of erythropoietin, protects against the organ injury/ dysfunction and inflammation in rats subjected to severe hemorrhagic shock (HS).

A Highly Doppler Blueshifted Fe-K Emission Line in the High-Redshift QSO PKS 2149-306.

We report the results from an ASCA observation of the high-luminosity, radio-loud quasar PKS 2149-306 (redshift 2.345), covering the approximately 1.7-30 keV band in the quasar frame.

Ciliogenesis and ciliation of the respiratory epithelium in the human fetal cartilaginous trachea.

Ciliogenesis of the respiratory epithelium in the human cartilaginous trachea start during the 12th week of gestation. Ciliary shafts are first seen under the scanning electron microscope during the 13th week. Unlike its membranous counterpart, ciliary shafts appear all over the epithelial surface at almost the same time.

Modulation of carcinogenesis in the urinary bladder by retinoids.

Bladder cancer has a 70% recurrence rate within five years and a high associated mortality. It commonly occurs in one or both of two predominant growth/behaviour patterns: either well-differentiated, relatively benign exophytic papillary lesions, or flat, poorly differentiated invasive carcinoma usually arising from carcinoma-in-situ. We have used the F344 rat treated with N-butyl-N-(4-hydroxybutyl)nitrosamine (BBN) as a model for the papillary disease, and the BBN-treated B6D2F1 mouse for flat, invasive bladder carcinoma.