Shallow Geologic Storage of Carbon to Remove Atmospheric CO and Reduce Flood Risk.

Geologic carbon storage currently implies that CO is injected into reservoirs more than 1 km deep, but this concept of geologic storage can be expanded to include the injection of solid, carbon-bearing particles into geologic formations that are one to two orders of magnitude shallower than conventional storage reservoirs. Wood is half carbon, available in large quantities at a modest cost, and can be milled into particles and injected as a slurry. We demonstrate the feasibility of shallow geologic storage of carbon by a field experiment, and the injection process also raises the ground surface.

Virological Characterization of Critically Ill Patients With COVID-19 in the United Kingdom: Interactions of Viral Load, Antibody Status, and B.1.1.7 Infection.

Background: Convalescent plasma containing neutralizing antibody to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is under investigation for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) treatment. We report diverse virological characteristics of UK intensive care patients enrolled in the Immunoglobulin Domain of the REMAP-CAP randomized controlled trial that potentially influence treatment outcomes.

Methods: SARS-CoV-2 RNA in nasopharyngeal swabs collected pretreatment was quantified by PCR.

Effect of high-irradiance light curing on exposure times and pulpal temperature of adequately polymerized composite.

This study investigated the effect of high-irradiance light-curing on exposure time and pulpal temperature of adequately-cured composite. Composite placed in a molar preparation was cured using high-irradiance light-curing units (Flashmax P3, Valo, S.P.

Patient experience with family history tool: analysis of patients' experience sharing their family health history through patient-computer dialogue in a patient portal.

Objective: The collection and use of a family health history are important for assessing the patient's risk of disease, but history taking is often impeded by practical barriers in the office. Provision for patient-computer dialogue, linked with the electronic health record, may enable patients to contribute their history while bypassing these barriers. We sought to assess the patient experience using such a tool.

InfoSAGE: Supporting Elders and Families through Online Family Networks.

With an increasingly elderly population, families are finding it increasingly challenging to coordinate care for their older family members. This paper reports on the findings of InfoSAGE, an online private social network that has tools for communication and care coordination for elders and their families. The InfoSAGE system has 257 registered users; 52 of these opted into an in-depth longitudinal study.

Rethinking the outpatient medication list: increasing patient activation and education while architecting for centralization and improved medication reconciliation.

Objective: Identify barriers impacting the time consuming and error fraught process of medication reconciliation. Design and implement an electronic medication management system where patient and trusted healthcare proxies can participate in establishing and maintaining an inclusive and up-to-date list of medications.

Methods: A patient-facing electronic medication manager was deployed within an existing research project focused on elder care management funded by the AHRQ, InfoSAGE, allowing patients and patients' proxies the ability to build and maintain an accurate and up-to-date medication list.

InfoSAGE: Use of Online Technologies for Communication and Elder Care.

Aging creates new information and communication needs for families who are helping to coordinate care for frail parents. To identify how information and communication needs evolve with the aging process, we created a living laboratory of families, supported by an online private social network with tools for care coordination. Site registrants are invite to participate in a more in-depth survey-based longitudinal study.

Designing online health services for patients.

Patients are increasingly interacting with their healthcare system through online health services, such as patient portals and telehealth programs. Recently, Shabrabani and Mizrachi provided data outlining factors that are most important for users or potential users of these online services. The authors conclude convincingly that while online health services have great potential to be helpful to their users, they could be better designed.

Improving health care proxy documentation using a web-based interview through a patient portal.

Objective: Health care proxy (HCP) documentation is suboptimal. To improve rates of proxy selection and documentation, we sought to develop and evaluate a web-based interview to guide patients in their selection, and to capture their choices in their electronic health record (EHR).

Methods: We developed and implemented a HCP interview within the patient portal of a large academic health system.

Information Sharing Preferences of Older Patients and Their Families.

Importance: Elderly patients often share control of their personal health information and decision making with family and friends when needed. Patient portals can help with information sharing, but concerns about privacy and autonomy of elderly patients remain. Health systems that implement patient portals would benefit from guidance about how best to implement access to portals for caregivers of elderly patients.

Survival, growth and reproduction of non-native Nile tilapia II: fundamental niche projections and invasion potential in the northern Gulf of Mexico.

Understanding the fundamental niche of invasive species facilitates our ability to predict both dispersal patterns and invasion success and therefore provides the basis for better-informed conservation and management policies. Here we focus on Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus Linnaeus, 1758), one of the most widely cultured fish worldwide and a species that has escaped local aquaculture facilities to become established in a coastal-draining river in Mississippi (northern Gulf of Mexico). Using empirical physiological data, logistic regression models were developed to predict the probabilities of Nile tilapia survival, growth, and reproduction at different combinations of temperature (14 and 30°C) and salinity (0-60, by increments of 10).

Evaluation of computer-based medical histories taken by patients at home.

The authors developed a computer-based general medical history to be taken by patients in their homes over the internet before their first visit with their primary care doctor, and asked six doctors and their participating patients to assess this history and its effect on their subsequent visit. Forty patients began the history; 32 completed the history and post-history assessment questionnaire and were for the most part positive in their assessment; and 23 continued on to complete their post-visit assessment questionnaire and were for the most part positive about the helpfulness of the history and its summary at the time of their visit with the doctor. The doctors in turn strongly favored the immediate, routine use of two modules of the history--the family and social histories--for all their new patients.

Test-retest reliability in a computer-based medical history.

The authors developed a computer-based medical history for patients to take in their homes via the internet. The history consists of 232 'primary' questions asked of all patients, together with more than 6000 questions, explanations, and suggestions that are available for presentation as determined by a patient's responses. The purpose of this research was to measure the test-retest reliability of the 215 primary questions that have preformatted, mutually exclusive responses of 'Yes,' 'No,' 'Uncertain (Don't know, Maybe),' 'Don't understand,' and 'I'd rather not answer.

Combining steam injection with hydraulic fracturing for the in situ remediation of the unsaturated zone of a fractured soil polluted by jet fuel.

A steam injection pilot-scale experiment was performed on the unsaturated zone of a strongly heterogeneous fractured soil contaminated by jet fuel. Before the treatment, the soil was stimulated by creating sub-horizontal sand-filled hydraulic fractures at three depths. The steam was injected through one hydraulic fracture and gas/water/non-aqueous phase liquid (NAPL) was extracted from the remaining fractures by applying a vacuum to extraction wells.

Reflections on electronic medical records: when doctors will use them and when they will not.

Purpose: Our purpose is to counter the common wisdom that doctors are refractory to change and therefore responsible for the limited use of electronic medical records.

Methods: We draw on experience with electronic medical records in two Harvard Medical School teaching hospitals dating back to the early 1980s.

Results: Doctors quickly become ardent users of electronic medical records if the software is sufficiently helpful in the care of their patients.

A web-based rapid prototyping and clinical conversational system that complements electronic patient record system.

Even the most extensive hospital information system cannot support all the complex and ever-changing demands associated with a clinical database, such as providing department or personal data forms, and rating scales. Well-designed clinical dialogue programs may facilitate direct interaction of patients with their medical records. Incorporation of extensive and loosely structured clinical data into an existing medical record system is an essential step towards a comprehensive clinical information system, and can best be achieved when the practitioner and the patient directly enter the contents.

Patient-Computer Dialogue: A Review.

Since the first study of communication between patient and computer was performed at the University of Wisconsin in 1965, programs for patient-computer dialogue have been developed, implemented, and studied in numerous settings in the United States and abroad, and the results have been encouraging. This review presents a brief history of patient-computer dialogue together with suggested guidelines for programs in the future.

The CCC system in two teaching hospitals: a progress report.

Computing systems developed by the Center for Clinical Computing (CCC) have been in operation in Beth Israel and Brigham and Women's hospitals for over 10 years. Designed to be of direct benefit to doctors, nurses, and other clinicians in the care of their patients, the CCC systems give the results of diagnostic studies immediately upon request; offer access to the medical literature: give advice, consultation, alerts, and reminders; assist in the day-to-day practice to medicine, and participate directly in the education of medical students and house officers. The CCC systems are extensively used, even by physicians who are under no obligation to use them.