Does Oral Health Predict Functional Status in Late Life? Findings From a National Sample.

Objective: This study aims to examine the association between oral health and the decline in functional status among middle-aged and older adults in the United States.

Method: Generalized estimation equation (GEE) Poisson regression models with robust standard errors were used to analyze the longitudinal panel data (2008-2014) from the Health and Retirement Study ( N = 1,243). Oral health was evaluated using self-rated oral health, poor mouth condition, and tooth loss.

Patient-Centered Care in Small Primary Care Practices in New York City: Recognition Versus Reality.

Background: The Primary Care Information Project (PCIP) is a program administered by the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene to help primary care providers adopt a fully functional electronic health record (EHR) and focus on population health. PCIP also offers practices assistance with the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) patient-centered medical home (PCMH) recognition application. The objectives of this study were to assess the presence of key dimensions of PCMH among PCIP practices with 5 or fewer providers and to determine whether and to what extent NCQA recognition was related to the presence of these dimensions.

Carpal Tunnel Syndrome Following Corrective Osteotomy for Distal Radius Malunion: A Rare Case Report and Review of the Literature.

Background: Although median nerve neuropathy and carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) are known complications of both untreated and acutely treated distal radius fracture, median neuropathy after correction of distal radius malunion is not commonly reported in hand surgery literature. We describe a patient with severe CTS after corrective osteotomy, open reduction internal fixation (ORIF) with a volar locking plate (VLP), and bone grafting for distal radius malunion.

Methods: We report a case of severe acute CTS as a complication of corrective osteotomy with bone grafting for distal radius malunion.

Sluggish Cognitive Tempo, Internalizing Symptoms, and Executive Function in Adults With ADHD.

Objective: We sought to characterize relationships between sluggish cognitive tempo (SCT) and both internalizing symptoms and executive functioning in adults with ADHD.

Method: A total of 102 adults with ADHD completed clinical interviews and clinical rating scales. Hierarchical regression analyses were conducted to ascertain the independent predictive power of SCT symptoms for deficits in executive function (EF) after considering severity of ADHD inattentive and hyperactive-impulsive symptoms and internalizing symptoms.

Comparison of Postoperative Height Changes of the Second Metatarsal Among 3 Osteotomy Methods for Hallux Valgus Deformity Correction.

Background: We aimed to compare the postoperative height of the second metatarsal head relative to the first metatarsal head using axial radiographs among 3 different commonly used osteotomy techniques: proximal chevron metatarsal osteotomy (PCMO), scarf osteotomy, and distal chevron metatarsal osteotomy (DCMO).

Methods: We retrospectively reviewed the radiographs and clinical findings of the patients with painful callosities under the second metatarsal head, complicated by hallux valgus, who underwent isolated PCMO, scarf osteotomy, or DCMO from February 2005 to January 2015. Each osteotomy was performed with 20 degrees of plantar ward obliquity.

Intimate Partner Violence Among Help-Seeking Deaf Women: An Empirical Study.

Deaf women face heightened rates of intimate partner violence (IPV) compared with hearing women, yet limited research has focused on IPV among this population. Empirical studies are warranted to examine the unique experiences and resource needs of Deaf women, along with barriers excluding Deaf participants from IPV research and service provision. Our study addresses these gaps by providing a profile of 80 Deaf women attending an IPV program serving individuals with disabilities.

American Thoracic Society and Marron Institute Report. Estimated Excess Morbidity and Mortality Caused by Air Pollution above American Thoracic Society-Recommended Standards, 2011-2013.

Estimates of the health impacts of air pollution are needed to make informed air quality management decisions at both the national and local levels. Using design values of ambient pollution concentrations from 2011-2013 as a baseline, the American Thoracic Society (ATS) and the Marron Institute of Urban Management estimated excess morbidity and mortality in the United States attributable to exposure to ambient ozone (O3) and fine particulate matter (PM2.5) at levels above the American Thoracic Society-recommended standards.

Evaluating and Optimizing Online Advertising: Forget the Click, but There Are Good Proxies.

Online systems promise to improve advertisement targeting via the massive and detailed data available. However, there often is too few data on exactly the outcome of interest, such as purchases, for accurate campaign evaluation and optimization (due to low conversion rates, cold start periods, lack of instrumentation of offline purchases, and long purchase cycles). This paper presents a detailed treatment of proxy modeling, which is based on the identification of a suitable alternative (proxy) target variable when data on the true objective is in short supply (or even completely nonexistent).

Relationship between tobacco cessation and mental health outcomes in a tobacco cessation trial.

Persons with mental health diagnoses use tobacco at alarming rates, yet misperceptions remain about the effect of quitting on mental health outcomes. This article examines the relationship between tobacco cessation and changes in severity of mental illness. Participants were N = 577 veterans with a history of mental health treatment enrolled in a tobacco cessation study.

Coercive Sexual Environments: Development and Validation of a Scale.

In this article, we present the results of our efforts to develop and test a scale to operationalize and measure a neighborhood-level indicator of coercive sexual environments (CSEs), a construct emerging from our earlier work on safety and sexual threats among young girls living in chronically disadvantaged neighborhoods. Data for this study come from a survey of 124 adult and 79 youth respondents living in public housing in Washington, D.C.

A multicenter, randomized, placebo-controlled study to evaluate the efficacy and safety of Varithena® (polidocanol endovenous microfoam 1%) for symptomatic, visible varicose veins with saphenofemoral junction incompetence.

Objectives A randomized, placebo-controlled, multicenter study was conducted to evaluate the safety and efficacy of polidocanol endovenous microfoam (1%, Varithena® [polidocanol injectable foam], BTG International Ltd.). Methods Patients (n = 77) with symptomatic, visible varicose veins were randomized to treatment with either Varithena 1% or placebo.

Radioembolization with Yttrium-90 microspheres for patients with unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma.

Background: Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is aggressive primary malignancy of the liver that most commonly presents late in the disease course. As a result, the majority of patients are not candidates for curative therapies. Locoregional therapies including Yttrium-90 (Y-90) radioembolization play an important role in management of the vast majority of patients with HCC.

Intimate Partner Violence Among Men With Disabilities: The Role of Health Care Providers.

Men with disabilities experience higher rates of interpersonal violence (IPV) than either women or men without disabilities, yet research exploring this problem is limited. This retrospective descriptive study examines the clinical files of male survivors of IPV with disabilities who received services from the Secret Garden, a disability-specific nonresidential IPV program located in New York City. These data inform the role health care providers may fill in helping address IPV against men with disabilities.

Perceived ethnic and language-based discrimination and Latina immigrant women's health.

Perceiving ethnic discrimination can have aversive consequences for health. However, little is known about whether perceiving language-based (how one speaks a second language) discrimination poses the same risks. This study examined whether perceptions of language-based and ethnic discrimination are associated with mental and physical health.

Therapeutic Uses of Active Videogames: A Systematic Review.

Background: Active videogames (AVGs) may be useful for promoting physical activity for therapeutic uses, including for balance, rehabilitation, and management of illness or disease. The literature from 64 peer-reviewed publications that assessed health outcomes of AVGs for therapeutic purposes was synthesized.

Materials And Methods: PubMed, Medline, and PyschInfo were queried for original studies related to the use of AVGs to improve physical outcomes in patients who were ill or undergoing rehabilitation related to balance, burn treatment, cancer, cerebral palsy, Down's syndrome, extremity dysfunction or amputation, hospitalization, lupus, Parkinson's disease, spinal injury, or stroke.

Multiple levels of linguistic and paralinguistic features contribute to voice recognition.

Voice or speaker recognition is critical in a wide variety of social contexts. In this study, we investigated the contributions of acoustic, phonological, lexical, and semantic information toward voice recognition. Native English speaking participants were trained to recognize five speakers in five conditions: non-speech, Mandarin, German, pseudo-English, and English.

Deep learning.

Deep learning allows computational models that are composed of multiple processing layers to learn representations of data with multiple levels of abstraction. These methods have dramatically improved the state-of-the-art in speech recognition, visual object recognition, object detection and many other domains such as drug discovery and genomics. Deep learning discovers intricate structure in large data sets by using the backpropagation algorithm to indicate how a machine should change its internal parameters that are used to compute the representation in each layer from the representation in the previous layer.

Genome-wide association study identifies multiple susceptibility loci for pancreatic cancer.

We performed a multistage genome-wide association study including 7,683 individuals with pancreatic cancer and 14,397 controls of European descent. Four new loci reached genome-wide significance: rs6971499 at 7q32.3 (LINC-PINT, per-allele odds ratio (OR) = 0.

Virtual finger boosts three-dimensional imaging and microsurgery as well as terabyte volume image visualization and analysis.

Three-dimensional (3D) bioimaging, visualization and data analysis are in strong need of powerful 3D exploration techniques. We develop virtual finger (VF) to generate 3D curves, points and regions-of-interest in the 3D space of a volumetric image with a single finger operation, such as a computer mouse stroke, or click or zoom from the 2D-projection plane of an image as visualized with a computer. VF provides efficient methods for acquisition, visualization and analysis of 3D images for roundworm, fruitfly, dragonfly, mouse, rat and human.