Otolaryngology Applicant Perspectives on In-person and Virtual Residency Interviews.

Objective: The objective of this study was to understand applicant perspectives on in-person and virtual otolaryngology residency interviews.

Study Design: Survey study.

Setting: Otolaryngology residency applicants who were interviewed during 2022-2023.

Association for Human Pharmacology in the Pharmaceutical Industry conference 2022: impending change, innovations and future challenges.

The Association for Human Pharmacology in the Pharmaceutical Industry's annual meeting focused on current and impending challenges facing the United Kingdom's (UK) pharmaceutical industry and how these opportunities can inspire innovation and best practice. The UK pharmaceutical landscape is still evolving following Brexit and learnings from the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. As such, the UK's clinical community is in a unique position to steer innovation in a meaningful direction.

Evaluating global Vaccinium germplasm for resistance against invasive Drosophila suzukii (Diptera: Drosophilidae).

Control of spotted-wing Drosophila, Drosophila suzukii, in small fruits emphasizes biological, cultural, and chemical approaches, whereas studies of host plant resistance as a form of genetic control are just getting underway. The identification of resistance patterns among genotypes of host plants whose fruit, leaves, roots, stems, or seeds are specifically targeted by an invasive pest is the first step in the development of an effective genetic control. Therefore, a detached fruit bioassay was developed to screen for D.

Side-Firing Intraoperative Ultrasonograhy for Resection of Giant Pituitary Adenomas.

Background: Suprasellar extension, cavernous sinus invasion, and involvement of intracranial vascular structures and cranial nerves are among the challenges faced by surgeons operating on giant pituitary macroadenomas. Intraoperative tissue shifts may render neuronavigation techniques inaccurate. Intraoperative magnetic resonance imaging can solve this problem, but it may be costly and time consuming.

Insecticidal Activity of Jatropha Extracts Against the Azalea Lace Bug, Stephanitis pyrioides (Hemiptera: Tingidae).

We assessed bioactivity of ethanolic extracts from 35 species of Jatropha L. against an ornamental plant pest, the azalea lace bug, Stephanitis pyrioides (Scott). Jatropha extracts were prepared by air-drying stem, root, or whole plant material, grinding the tissue into a fine powder, adding 70% ethanol, and then vacuum filtering the contents.

Side-firing intraoperative ultrasound applied to resection of pituitary macroadenomas and giant adenomas: A single-center retrospective case-control study.

Introduction: Multiple intraoperative navigation and imaging modalities are currently available as an adjunct to endoscopic transsphenoidal resection of pituitary adenomas, including intraoperative CT and MRI, fluorescence guidance, and neuronavigation. However, these imaging techniques have several limitations, including intraoperative tissue shift, lack of availability in some centers, and the increased cost and time associated with their use. The side-firing intraoperative ultrasound (IOUS) probe is a relatively new technology in endoscopic endonasal surgery that may help overcome these obstacles.

Hierarchical binding in convolutional neural networks: Making adversarial attacks geometrically challenging.

We approach the issue of robust machine vision by presenting a novel deep-learning architecture, inspired by work in theoretical neuroscience on how the primate brain performs visual feature binding. Feature binding describes how separately represented features are encoded in a relationally meaningful way, such as an edge composing part of the larger contour of an object. We propose that the absence of such representations from current models might partly explain their vulnerability to small, often humanly-imperceptible distortions known as adversarial examples.

Risk factors associated with COVID-19 severity among patients on maintenance haemodialysis: a retrospective multicentre cross-sectional study in the UK.

Objectives: To assess the applicability of risk factors for severe COVID-19 defined in the general population for patients on haemodialysis.

Setting: A retrospective cross-sectional study performed across thirty four haemodialysis units in midlands of the UK.

Participants: All 274 patients on maintenance haemodialysis who tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 on PCR testing between March and August 2020, in participating haemodialysis centres.

Biological assessment of western USA sandy bottom rivers based on modeling historical and current fish and macroinvertebrate data.

Biological monitoring is important for assessing the ecological condition of surface waters. However, there are challenges in determining what constitutes reference conditions, what assemblages should be used as indicators, and how assemblage data should be converted into quantitative indicator scores. In this study, we developed and applied biological condition gradient (BCG) modeling to fish and macroinvertebrate data previously collected from large, sandy bottom southwestern USA rivers.

Is there a role of the kidney failure risk equation in optimizing timing of vascular access creation in pre-dialysis patients?

Background: The aims of this study were to assess the utility of using the Kidney Failure Risk Equation (KFRE) as an indicator to guide timing of vascular access creation in pre-dialysis patients.

Materials And Methods: Patients referred for vascular access creation had KFRE calculated at the time of assessment and compared to standard criteria for referral. Receiver operating characteristic curves were produced for each parameter.

Results of a pilot feasibility randomised controlled trial exploring the use of an electronic patient-reported outcome measure in the management of UK patients with advanced chronic kidney disease.

Objectives: The use of routine remote follow-up of patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) is increasing exponentially. It has been suggested that online electronic patient-reported outcome measures (ePROMs) could be used in parallel, to facilitate real-time symptom monitoring aimed at improving outcomes. We tested the feasibility of this approach in a pilot trial of ePROM symptom monitoring versus usual care in patients with advanced CKD not on dialysis.

The Role of Idiothetic Signals, Landmarks, and Conjunctive Representations in the Development of Place and Head-Direction Cells: A Self-Organizing Neural Network Model.

Place and head-direction (HD) cells are fundamental to maintaining accurate representations of location and heading in the mammalian brain across sensory conditions, and are thought to underlie path integration-the ability to maintain an accurate representation of location and heading during motion in the dark. Substantial evidence suggests that both populations of spatial cells function as attractor networks, but their developmental mechanisms are poorly understood. We present simulations of a fully self-organizing attractor network model of this process using well-established neural mechanisms.

Ruptured sinus of Valsalva aneurysm: An uncommon presentation of shock to the pediatric emergency department.

This case report describes a rare etiology of cardiogenic shock, particularly in the pediatric population. A healthy 17 year old male presents from an outside hospital in undifferentiated shock requiring vasopressor support. Ruptured sinus of Valsalva aneurysm was diagnosed by echocardiogram and the patient went emergently to the operating room for surgical repair.

Secondary overtriage of isolated facial trauma.

Design: Retrospective chart review.

Setting: Academic, tertiary care, level I trauma center in a rural state.

Background: Unnecessary transfer of certain facial trauma patients results in a burden of time, money, and other resources on both the patient and healthcare system; identification and development of outpatient treatment pathways for these patients is a significant opportunity for cost savings.

The Association for Human Pharmacology in the Pharmaceutical Industry London Meeting October 2019: Impending Change, Innovation, and Future Challenges.

The Association for Human Pharmacology in the Pharmaceutical Industry (AHPPI) annual meeting focused on impending change, innovation, and future challenges facing early phase drug development as we move into the second decade of the 21th century. The meeting opened with discussion around the technical revolution in pharmaceutical medicine over the 4 decades since the AHPPI was founded and how transformative technologies have accompanied the introduction of processes such as physiologically based pharmacokinetic modeling. During the meeting examples were presented of how in terms of the development of new therapies, the classic phases of clinical drug development are becoming a thing of the past and the lines between the phases have begun to blur, particularly in the field of oncology.

Feasibility of Implementing Opioid Stewardship Recommendations for Sinonasal Surgery.

Objective: The objective of our study was to review the current literature pertaining to perioperative opioids in sinus surgery and to determine the effects of implementing opioid stewardship recommendations in the setting of endoscopic sinonasal surgery.

Study Design: Single-institution retrospective case-control study.

Setting: Academic medical center outpatient area.

Diversity of the Genomes and Neurotoxins of Strains of Group I and Associated with Foodborne, Infant and Wound Botulism.

Group I and are closely related bacteria responsible for foodborne, infant and wound botulism. A comparative genomic study with 556 highly diverse strains of Group I and (including 417 newly sequenced strains) has been carried out to characterise the genetic diversity and spread of these bacteria and their neurotoxin genes. Core genome single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) analysis revealed two major lineages; Group I (most strains possessed botulinum neurotoxin gene(s) of types A, B and/or F) and (some strains possessed a type B botulinum neurotoxin gene).

The formation and use of hierarchical cognitive maps in the brain: A neural network model.

Many researchers have tried to model how environmental knowledge is learned by the brain and used in the form of cognitive maps. However, previous work was limited in various important ways: there was little consensus on how these cognitive maps were formed and represented, the planning mechanism was inherently limited to performing relatively simple tasks, and there was little consideration of how these mechanisms would scale up. This paper makes several significant advances.

Development of an electronic patient-reported outcome measure (ePROM) system to aid the management of patients with advanced chronic kidney disease.

Background: Effective management of patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) relies on timely detection of clinical deterioration towards end stage kidney failure. We aimed to design an electronic Patient-Reported Outcome Measure (ePROM) system, which would allow patients with advanced CKD (pre-dialysis) to: (i) remotely self-report their symptoms using a simple and secure online platform; (ii) share the data with the clinical team in real-time via the electronic patient record to help optimise care. We adopted a staged development process which included: a systematic review of PROMs used in CKD; formation of a co-design team; prototype system design/development, user acceptance testing and refinement; finalisation of the system for testing in a pilot/feasibility trial.