Safety, feasibility, and effectiveness of virtual pulmonary rehabilitation in the real world.

Purpose: To assess the feasibility, safety, and effectiveness of a VIrtual PulmonAry Rehabilitation (VIPAR) program in a real-world setting.

Patients And Methods: Twenty-one patients with stable chronic lung disease at a spoke site received (VIPAR) through live video conferencing with a hub where 24 patients were receiving 14 sessions of standard, outpatient, multi-disciplinary pulmonary rehabilitation (PR) in a hospital. We studied three such consecutive PR programs with 6-10 patients at each site.

Tramadol: a valuable treatment for pain in Ghana and Nigeria.

Objective: Pain management is unsatisfactory worldwide, particularly in developing countries where access to opioids is restricted and cost is an issue. It is a major concern in West Africa and we therefore undertook a survey of pain experts to obtain a better understanding of the problems in the region.

Methods: Medical practitioners involved in pain management, identified via professional networks, were interviewed to share their experience in treating moderate-to-severe pain in West Africa.

Three laws for paperlessness.

We are familiar with paper and rarely think much about it, except that in healthcare there seems to be too much of it, and it is slow, inefficient, and old. In contrast, paperlessness promises the future and freedom from paper's obvious limitations. We need to think clearly how to ensure paperlessness really improves healthcare, hence three simple laws: 1.

Social media as a tool to rewrite the narrative for women in cardiothoracic surgery.

To deliver the best possible care, the global surgical workforce should mirror the diverse society it is entrusted to serve. Cardiothoracic surgery remains amongst the most under-represented of the surgical specialties for women. Herein, we describe the role of social media in the cardiothoracic surgery community and its potential to rewrite the narrative for women in cardiothoracic surgery.

Prevalence of faecal carriage of extended-spectrum β-lactamase (ESBL)-producing in veterinary hospital staff and students.

Extended-spectrum β-lactamase (ESBL)-producing bacteria causing clinical infections are often also multidrug-resistant (MDR; resistance to ≥3 antimicrobial drug classes), therefore treatment options may be limited. High carriage rates of these potentially zoonotic bacteria have been found in livestock and companion animals. Therefore, people working in veterinary hospitals may be a high-risk population for carriage.

Psychopathy and impulsivity: The relationship of psychopathy to different aspects of UPPS-P impulsivity.

Impulsivity is thought to be a major component of psychopathy. However, impulsivity is a multi-faceted concept, and different facets may have differential relationships to psychopathy. We measured impulsivity via the UPPS-P in a sample of prisoners and in patients in a personality disorder service resident in secure psychiatric care.

Poly and Tricky Dick: The drug war origins of the term "polydrug use".

Polydrug use is presented as a particular drug-use phenomenon when the combination of substances is and always has been the practice. The origin of the term is found in the early years of the war on drugs under the Nixon administration in the US, when it was used to justify the intensification of repressive measures against drug users and to counter the growing accommodation and normalisation of cannabis. Only by presenting cannabis as the first step towards the use of harder drugs could the repression of this largely innocuous and widely used substance be justified.

Socioeconomic differences in healthy and disease-free life expectancy between ages 50 and 75: a multi-cohort study.

Background: There are striking socioeconomic differences in life expectancy, but less is known about inequalities in healthy life expectancy and disease-free life expectancy. We estimated socioeconomic differences in health expectancies in four studies in England, Finland, France and Sweden.

Methods: We estimated socioeconomic differences in health expectancies using data drawn from repeated waves of the four cohorts for two indicators: (i) self-rated health and (ii) chronic diseases (cardiovascular, cancer, respiratory and diabetes).

Editor's Choice - Direct vs. Indirect Angiosomal Revascularisation of Infrapopliteal Arteries, an Updated Systematic Review and Meta-analysis.

Background: The importance of the angiosome concept in tibial artery revascularisation remains controversial. The aim of this review was to assess the outcomes of direct revascularisation (revascularisation to the angiosome of tissue loss; DR) versus indirect revascularisation (IR) in infrapopliteal arteries.

Methods: A previously conducted systematic review was updated according to PRISMA guidelines.

Sexual dimorphism in the ontogeny of second (2D) and fourth (4D) digit lengths, and digit ratio (2D:4D).

Objective: Sex differences are often reported in digit lengths and digit ratio (2D:4D). However, the ontogeny of these sex differences and their interrelationships are less well known.

Methods: We considered sex differences in the lengths of the 2nd (2D) and 4th (4D) digit and 2D:4D in children aged 2 to 18 years (Sample I, n = 680) and adults aged 18 to 30 years (Sample II, n = 89,246).

Acute kidney injury in the UK: a replication cohort study of the variation across three regional populations.

Objectives: A rapid growth in the reported rates of acute kidney injury (AKI) has led to calls for greater attention and greater resources for improving care. However, the reported incidence of AKI also varies more than tenfold between previous studies. Some of this variation is likely to stem from methodological heterogeneity.

Hypoglycaemia risk in the first 8 weeks of titration with insulin glargine 100 U/mL in previously insulin-naive individuals with type 2 diabetes mellitus.

Patient characteristics associated with hypoglycaemia frequency during insulin glargine 100 U/mL (Gla-100) titration and clinical outcomes at Week 24 were examined using participant-level data from 16 treat-to-target trials involving individuals with type 2 diabetes mellitus who were inadequately controlled with oral antidiabetes drugs and were initiating Gla-100 (n = 3549). Hypoglycaemia (plasma glucose <3.9 mmol/L or severe) during the first 8 weeks of titration was stratified by number of events (0, 1-3 and ≥4), resulting in 72.

Recombinant Human Insulin in Global Diabetes Management - Focus on Clinical Efficacy.

Biosynthetic human insulin and insulin analogues are the mainstay of insulin therapy for both type 1 and type 2 diabetes although access to human insulin at affordable prices remains a global issue. The world is experiencing an exponential rise in the prevalence of diabetes presenting an urgent need to establish effective diabetes therapy in countries burdened by inadequate health care budgets, malnutrition and infectious diseases. Recombinant human insulin has replaced animal insulins and animal-based semisynthetic human insulin thereby available in sufficient quantities and at affordable prices able to provide global access to insulin therapy.

Psychological interventions for coronary heart disease: Cochrane systematic review and meta-analysis.

Background Although psychological interventions are recommended for the management of coronary heart disease (CHD), there remains considerable uncertainty regarding their effectiveness. Design Systematic review and meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials (RCTs) of psychological interventions for CHD. Methods The Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, MEDLINE, EMBASE, CINAHL and PsycINFO were searched to April 2016.

Stability of Schottky and Ohmic Au Nanocatalysts to ZnO Nanowires.

Manufacturable nanodevices must now be the predominant goal of nanotechnological research to ensure the enhanced properties of nanomaterials can be fully exploited and fulfill the promise that fundamental science has exposed. Here, we test the electrical stability of Au nanocatalyst-ZnO nanowire contacts to determine the limits of the electrical transport properties and the metal-semiconductor interfaces. While the transport properties of as-grown Au nanocatalyst contacts to ZnO nanowires have been well-defined, the stability of the interfaces over lengthy time periods and the electrical limits of the ohmic or Schottky function have not been studied.

Efficacy of 5% imiquimod for the treatment of Vaginal intraepithelial neoplasia-A systematic review of the literature and a meta-analysis.

Vaginal intraepithelial neoplasia (VaIN) is an uncommon disease associated with HPV and is considered to be a precursor of vaginal carcinoma. To date, treatment recommendations vary with no universally accepted standard of care as best treatment modality. Nevertheless, 5% imiquimod appears to be a promising, alternative, non-invasive treatment option.

Associations between symptoms of depression and heart rate variability: An exploratory study.

Major depressive disorder (MDD) is associated with decreased heart rate variability (HRV), a predictor of cardiovascular morbidity by many, but not all studies. This inconsistency could be due to the association of HRV with specific depressive symptoms. Here, we investigated the association of HRV parameters with components of depressive symptoms from 120 MDD patients, at baseline of a published trial comparing the effect of sertraline to transcranial direct current stimulation.

Surface sensitivity of four-probe STM resistivity measurements of bulk ZnO correlated to XPS.

Multi-probe instruments based on scanning tunnelling microscopy (STM) are becoming increasingly common for their ability to perform nano- to atomic-scale investigations of nanostructures, surfaces and in situ reactions. A common configuration is the four-probe STM often coupled with in situ scanning electron microscopy (SEM) that allows precise positioning of the probes onto surfaces and nanostructures enabling electrical and scanning experiments to be performed on highly localised regions of the sample. In this paper, we assess the sensitivity of four-probe STM for in-line resistivity measurements of the bulk ZnO surface.

Interactive numerals.

Although Arabic numerals (like '2016' and '3.14') are ubiquitous, we show that in interactive computer applications they are often misleading and surprisingly unreliable. We introduce as a new concept and show, like Roman numerals and Arabic numerals, interactive numerals introduce another way of using and thinking about numbers.

Different trajectories of decline for global form and global motion processing in aging, mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer's disease.

The visual processing of complex motion is impaired in Alzheimer's disease (AD). However, it is unclear whether these impairments are biased toward the motion stream or part of a general disruption of global visual processing, given some reports of impaired static form processing in AD. Here, for the first time, we directly compared the relative preservation of motion and form systems in AD, mild cognitive impairment, and healthy aging, by measuring coherence thresholds for well-established global rotational motion and static form stimuli known to be of equivalent complexity.

Psychological interventions for coronary heart disease.

Background: Coronary heart disease (CHD) is the most common cause of death globally, although mortality rates are falling. Psychological symptoms are prevalent for people with CHD, and many psychological treatments are offered following cardiac events or procedures with the aim of improving health and outcomes. This is an update of a Cochrane systematic review previously published in 2011.

Response inhibition in the parametric Go/No-Go task in psychopathic offenders.

Previous research on response inhibition in psychopaths has failed to find consistent evidence for aberrant inhibitory ability, despite strong expectations to the contrary. However, previous examinations have utilised inhibition paradigms that suffer from critical shortcomings, such as a lack of ecological validity and overly simplistic response criteria. To assess inhibition under conditions close to the demands of everyday settings, the current study employs a parametric Go/No-go task in male offenders (n77).