Impacts of discriminated PM on global under-five and maternal mortality.

Globally, it was estimated that maternal and under-five deaths were high in low-income countries than that of high-income countries. Most studies, however, have focused only on the clinical causes of maternal and under-five deaths, and yet there could be other factors such as ambient particulate matter (PM). The current global estimates indicate that exposure to ambient PM (with ≤ 2.

Ambient Particulate Matter Exposure and Under-Five and Maternal Deaths in Asia.

The Asian region is one of the major emission sources of air pollution. Although ambient PM has been linked to several health risks in high-, low-, and middle-income countries, the further analysis of type impact is still rare but significant. The PM distribution retrieved from MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) aerosol optical depth products within 16 years thus explored the associations between under-five and maternal mortality for 45 countries in Asia.

Aerosol pollution and its potential impacts on outdoor human thermal sensation: East Asian perspectives.

Aerosols affect the insolation at ground and thus the Aerosol Optical Depth (AOD, a measure of aerosol pollution) plays an important role on the variation of the Physiological Equivalent Temperature (PET) at locations with different aerosol climatology. The aerosol effects upon PET were studied for the first time at four East Asian cities by coupling a radiative transfer model and a human thermal comfort model which were previously well evaluated. Evident with the MODIS and AERONET AOD observations, the aerosol pollution at Beijing and Seoul was higher than at Chiayi (Taiwan) and Hong Kong.

The Associations between Types of Ambient PM and Under-Five and Maternal Mortality in Africa.

Exploring the effects of different types of PM is necessary to reduce associated deaths, especially in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Hence we determined types of ambient PM before exploring their effects on under-five and maternal mortality in Africa. The spectral derivate of aerosol optical depth (AOD) from Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) products from 2000 to 2015 were employed to determine the aerosol types before using Generalized Linear and Additive Mixed-Effect models with Poisson link function to explore the associations and penalized spline for dose-response relationships.

Reversal of Progressive Conscious Disturbance with Epidural Blood Patch for Cerebrospinal Fluid Leakage at C2 Level.

Intracranial hypotension syndrome (IHS) is generally caused by cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) leakage. Complications include bilateral subdural hygroma or haematoma and herniation of the cerebellar tonsils. Epidural blood patch (EBP) therapy is indicated if conservative treatment is ineffective.

Parkinson disease and musculoskeletal pain: an 8-year population-based cohort study.

The aim of this study was to evaluate the incidence and clinical features of musculoskeletal pain (MSP) in patients with Parkinson disease (PD) compared with a control group without the disease. The retrospective cohort study used a subset of the Taiwan National Health Insurance Research Database (NHIRD) comprising information on 1 million beneficiaries randomly sampled from the entire population of Taiwan. A total of 490 patients aged 50 and above with newly diagnosed Parkinson disease were identified during a period from 2000 to 2005.

Attenuation of Isoflurane Preconditioning-Induced Acute Cardioprotection in Hypertensive Hypertrophied Hearts.

Objectives: To evaluate the efficiency of isoflurane-induced anesthetic preconditioning and the role of mitochondrial manganese superoxide dismutase (MnSOD) in hypertensive hypertrophied hearts.

Design: A prospective animal investigation.

Setting: Medical center hospital research laboratory.