Medicine by Alexandros G. Sfakianakis,Anapafseos 5 Agios Nikolaos 72100 Crete Greece,00302841026182,00306932607174,alsfakia@gmail.com,

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Clinical Immunology Cis-regulatory genetic variants in the CCR5 gene and natural HIV-1 control in black South Africans Publication d...

Clinical Immunology

 

Cis-regulatory genetic variants in the CCR5 gene and natural HIV-1 control in black South AfricansPublication date: August 2019Source: Clinical Immunology, Volume 205Author(s): Gemma W. Koor, Maria Paximadis, Anabela C.P. Picton, Fidan Karatas, Shayne A. Loubser, Weijing He, Sunil K. Ahuja, Richard E....

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Addictive Behaviors

 

Limited utility of detailed e-cigarette use measures: An analysis of NESARC-IIIPublication date: October 2019Source: Addictive Behaviors, Volume 97Author(s): Maria A. Parker, Jennifer L. Pearson, Andrea C. VillantiAbstractIntroductionThe heterogeneity of e-cigarette products and e-liquids pose challenges...

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Atmospheric Environment

 

The transport of PM10 over Cape Town during high pollution episodesPublication date: 15 September 2019Source: Atmospheric Environment, Volume 213Author(s): Koketso M. Molepo, Babatunde J. Abiodun, Rembu N. MagobaAbstractThis study investigates the influence of PM10 from remote sources on PM10 episodes...

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Artificial Intelligence in Medicine

 

Distant Supervision for Treatment Relation Extraction by Leveraging MeSH SubheadingsPublication date: Available online 7 June 2019Source: Artificial Intelligence in MedicineAuthor(s): Tung Tran, Ramakanth KavuluruAbstractThe growing body of knowledge in biomedicine is too vast for human consumption....

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Neurochemistry

 

Protective effect of a 3 kDa peptide obtained from beef myofibrillar protein using alkaline-AK on neuronal cellsPublication date: October 2019Source: Neurochemistry International, Volume 129Author(s): Seung Yun Lee, Sun Jin HurAbstractThe protective effect of two 3 kDa peptide fractions (AK3KF1 and AK3KF2),...

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Microscopy and Ultrastructure

 

Mitogen-activated protein kinase pathway: A critical regulator in tumor-associated macrophage polarizationThikryat NeamatallahJournal of Microscopy and Ultrastructure 2019 7(2):53-56The notion that inflammation is a critical component of cancer has been researched extensively. Tumor-associated macrophages...

21m

Ethnopharmacology

 

Antidiabetic and hypolipidemic efficacy of skin and seed extracts of Momordica cymbalaria on alloxan induced diabetic model in ratsPublication date: 15 September 2019Source: Journal of Ethnopharmacology, Volume 241Author(s): Abbirami Elangovan, Abinaya Subramanian, Siva Durairaj, Jeyadevi Ramachandran,...

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Cranio-Maxillofacial Surgery

 

Analysing chin prominence in relation to the lower lip: The lower lip-chin prominence anglePublication date: Available online 9 June 2019Source: Journal of Cranio-Maxillofacial SurgeryAuthor(s): Farhad B. Naini, Umberto Garagiola, David WertheimAbstractThe purpose of this investigation is to describe...

24m

Neuroscience

 

This Week in The JournalInterferon-{gamma} as a Potential Link between Diabetes Mellitus and DementiaPTCD1 Is Required for Mitochondrial Oxidative-Phosphorylation: Possible Genetic Association with Alzheimer's DiseaseIn addition to amyloid-β plaques and tau tangles, mitochondrial dysfunction is implicated...

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Clinical Practice

 

Does introduction of user fees affect the utilization of cervical cancer screening services in Nigeria?TK Nyengidiki, N Inimgba, G Bassey, RN OguNigerian Journal of Clinical Practice 2019 22(6):745-749Background: Screening for cervical cancer improves outcome. This comes at an economic price which some...

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Effect of Expiratory Muscle Strength Training on Swallowing and Cough Functions in Patients with Neurological...

 

Effect of Expiratory Muscle Strength Training on Swallowing and Cough Functions in Patients with Neurological Diseases: A meta-analysisObjective The aim of this review is to evaluate and summarize the results of published studies exploring the effects of expiratory muscle strength training (EMST) on...

48m

The Effect of 4-channel Neuromuscular Electrical Stimulation on Swallowing Kinematics and Pressures:...

 

The Effect of 4-channel Neuromuscular Electrical Stimulation on Swallowing Kinematics and Pressures: A Pilot StudyObjective The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of the sequential 4-channel neuromuscular electrical stimulation (NMES) system. Design As a prospective case-control...

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Clinical Consensus Statement: Balloon Dilation of the Eustachian Tube Show less Debara L. Tucci, MD,...

 

Clinical Consensus Statement: Balloon Dilation of the Eustachian TubeShow lessDebara L. Tucci, MD, MS, MBA, Edward D. McCoul, MD, MPH, Richard M. Rosenfeld, MD, MPH, MBA, David E. Tunkel, MD, Pete S. Batra, MD, Sujana S. Chandrasekhar, MD, Susan R. Cordes, MD, Adrien A. Eshraghi, MD, David Kaylie, MD,...

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ultrasound-guided ozone (O2-O3) vs corticosteroid injection in patients with shoulder impingementIntroduction...

 

ultrasound-guided ozone (O2-O3) vs corticosteroid injection in patients with shoulder impingementIntroduction Ozone has been recently used as a safe alternative treatment in musculoskeletal disorders with fewer side effects than corticosteroids. The aim of this study was to compare the efficacy of a...

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Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation

 

A randomized control trial of comparing ultrasound-guided ozone (O2-O3) vs corticosteroid injection in patients with shoulder impingementIntroduction Ozone has been recently used as a safe alternative treatment in musculoskeletal disorders with fewer side effects than corticosteroids. The aim of this...

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Pro-life or pro-abortion – Women's attitude toward abortion in Darjeeling, India Pallabi Dasgupta,...

 

Pro-life or pro-abortion – Women's attitude toward abortion in Darjeeling, IndiaPallabi Dasgupta, Romy Biswas, Dilip Kumar Das, Jayanta Kumar RoyArchives of Medicine and Health Sciences 2019 7(1):42-47Background and Objective: Despite liberal abortion law in India, majority of abortions are unsafe. Behavioral...

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Primary localized cutaneous amyloidosis – A clinicopathological study Suguna Belur Venugopal, Aparna...

 

Primary localized cutaneous amyloidosis – A clinicopathological studySuguna Belur Venugopal, Aparna MuralidharArchives of Medicine and Health Sciences 2019 7(1):38-41Introduction: Cutaneous amyloidosis can be a manifestation of a systemic disorder or can result from localized process confined to the...

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Risk factors related to human papillomavirus infection in oral squamous cell carcinoma Alberto Rodriguez-Archilla,...

 

Risk factors related to human papillomavirus infection in oral squamous cell carcinomaAlberto Rodriguez-Archilla, Adriana Stuardo-ParadaArchives of Medicine and Health Sciences 2019 7(1):33-37Background: In addition to tobacco and alcohol consumption, some infectious pathogens such as human papillomavirus...

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Correlation between sputum and bronchoscopy-guided cytology (bronchoalveolar lavage fluid, transbronchial...

 

Correlation between sputum and bronchoscopy-guided cytology (bronchoalveolar lavage fluid, transbronchial needle aspiration, and bronchial brush) with bronchial biopsy in the diagnosis of pulmonary pathologyPushpanjali R Ojha, Renu Madan, Reena BharadwajArchives of Medicine and Health Sciences 2019 7(1):25-32Background:...

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Lycopene restores liver function and morphology of ifosfamide-intoxicated rats Elias Adikwu, Bonsome...

 

Lycopene restores liver function and morphology of ifosfamide-intoxicated ratsElias Adikwu, Bonsome BokoloArchives of Medicine and Health Sciences 2019 7(1):13-17Introduction: Low incidence of liver toxicity has been anticipated with the clinical use of ifosfamide (IFO); however, there is possible hepatotoxic...

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Medicine and Health Sciences

 

Understanding physician burnout syndrome: Antithesis of physician well-beingBhaskara P ShelleyArchives of Medicine and Health Sciences 2019 7(1):1-10Learning with emotions: The relationship between emotions, cognition, and learning in medical educationMeghan McConnellArchives of Medicine and Health Sciences...

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Nephrology and Transplantation

 

PrefaceJournal of The Egyptian Society of Nephrology and Transplantation 2019 19(2):0-0Parasitic infestation in organ transplant recipients: a comprehensive review in the absence of robust evidenceFedaey Abbas, Mohsen El Kossi, Jon J Kim, Ihab S Shaheen, Ajay Sharma, Ravi Pararajasingam, Ahmed HalawaJournal...

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Allergy, Asthma and Immunology

 

Homologous allergens: A regulatory and clinical perspectiveSN GaurIndian Journal of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology 2019 33(1):1-3Environmental triggers in allergic diseases: An overviewAB SinghIndian Journal of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology 2019 33(1):4-7Allergy and asthma are increasing all over the...

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Perioperative Practice

 

Dental clearance and postoperative heart infections: Observations from a preoperative evaluation clinic for day-admission surgeryJournal of Perioperative Practice, Ahead of Print. A controlled trial to investigate whether the orientation of the bevel and angle of approach determine the side of endobronchial...

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Anaesthesiology

 

A systematic review of randomised controlled trials investigating prehabilitation before major intra-abdominal cancer surgery: An analysis of prehabilitation content and outcome measuresBACKGROUND Although prehabilitation programmes for patients undergoing major intra-abdominal cancer surgery have been...

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Heart and Vessels

 

Coronary computed tomography angiography as a tool for long-term cardiovascular risk stratification in diabetic patientsAbstractObjectives of the study were to examine the long-term prognostic power of coronary computed tomography angiography (CCTA) to predict death or myocardial infarction in patients...

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Baseline Low Prognostic Nutritional Index Predicts Poor Survival in Locally Advanced Nasopharyngeal...

 

Baseline Low Prognostic Nutritional Index Predicts Poor Survival in Locally Advanced Nasopharyngeal Carcinomas Treated With Radical Concurrent ChemoradiotherapyEar, Nose & Throat Journal, Ahead of Print.Background:To retrospectively assess the impact of prognostic nutritional index (PNI) on survival...

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Unethical Surgery Robert T. Sataloff, MD, DMA, FACS First Published May 6, 2019 Editorial  https://doi.org/10.1177/0145561319843031...

 

Unethical SurgeryRobert T. Sataloff, MD, DMA, FACS First Published May 6, 2019 Editorial https://doi.org/10.1177/0145561319843031Article information  Free AccessOn February 6, 2019, The Guardian newspaper (England) published a troubling account of unethical surgery.1 Although it highlighted the call...

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Ear, Nose & Throat

 

Unethical SurgeryEar, Nose & Throat Journal, Volume 98, Issue 4, Page 186-187, April-May 2019. Intratympanic Membrane Congenital Cholesteatoma Removal Using an Endoscopic System: A Case ReportEar, Nose & Throat Journal, Volume 98, Issue 4, Page 188-189, April-May 2019. Endoscopic Finding of a...

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Head and Neck Cancer Complications in the Geriatric Population Based on Hospital Case Volume Show less...

 

Head and Neck Cancer Complications in the Geriatric Population Based on Hospital Case VolumeShow lessSamuel J. Rubin, MD, MPH, Kevin Y. Wu, BS, Diana N. Kirke, MBBS, MPhil, Waleed H. Ezzat, MD, Minh Tam Truong, MD, Andrew R. Salama, MD, DDS, Scharukh Jalisi, MD, MA First Published June 6, 2019 Research...

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Traumatic Orbital Subperiosteal Hematoma With Acute Visual Compromise: Role of the Head and Neck Surgeon...

 

Traumatic Orbital Subperiosteal Hematoma With Acute Visual Compromise: Role of the Head and Neck SurgeonTom Shokri, MD, Vijay A. Patel, MD, Neerav Goyal, MD, MPHFirst Published June 6, 2019 Research Article https://doi.org/10.1177/0145561319854743AbstractThe primary goal was to report our institutional...

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Extranodal NK/T-Cell Lymphoma, Nasal Type—Case Report of 2 Cases Show less Marina Neves Cavada, MD,...

 

Extranodal NK/T-Cell Lymphoma, Nasal Type—Case Report of 2 CasesShow lessMarina Neves Cavada, MD, Aline Silveira Martha, MD, Luise Sgarabotto Pezzin, MD, Juliana Mazzaferro Krebs, MD, Luciane Mazzini Steffen, MD, Gerson Schultz Maahs, MD, PhD First Published June 6, 2019 Other https://doi.org/10.1177/0145561319856016Article...

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Predictive Factors for Perinatal Outcomes of Infants Diagnosed With Micrognathia Antenatally Show less...

 

Predictive Factors for Perinatal Outcomes of Infants Diagnosed With Micrognathia AntenatallyShow lessSok Yan Tay, MD, Rekha Krishnasarma, MD, Deepak Mehta, MD, Amy Mehollin-Ray, MD, Binoy Chandy, MD First Published June 3, 2019 Research Article https://doi.org/10.1177/0145561319855641Article information ...

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Expression Profile of Survivin and p16 in Laryngeal Squamous Cell Carcinoma: Contribution of Tunisian...

 

Expression Profile of Survivin and p16 in Laryngeal Squamous Cell Carcinoma: Contribution of Tunisian PatientsShow lessMariem Ben Elhadj, PhD, Olfa E. L. Amine, MD, Nehla Mokni Baizig, PhD, Wided Ben Ayoub, MD, Aida Goucha, MD, Michèle-Veronique El May, PhD, Asma Fourati, PhD First Published June 3,...

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The Sensitivity and Specificity of Touch Preparation for Rapid Diagnosis of Invasive Fungal Sinusitis:...

 

The Sensitivity and Specificity of Touch Preparation for Rapid Diagnosis of Invasive Fungal Sinusitis: A Pilot StudyShow lessTheodore A. Schuman, MD, Josephine H. Nguyen, MD, Joshua C. Yelverton, MD, Jorge A. Almenara, PhD, Celeste N. Powers, MD, PhD First Published June 2, 2019 Research Article https://doi.org/10.1177/0145561319840853Article...

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Histological Study of The Healing of Traumatic Tympanic Membrane Perforation After Vivosorb and Epifilm...

 

Histological Study of The Healing of Traumatic Tympanic Membrane Perforation After Vivosorb and Epifilm ApplicationShow lessMahmut Sinan Yilmaz, MD, Elvan Sahin, MD, Recep Kaymaz, MD, Berrin Zuhal Altunkaynak, MD, Ayse Oznur Akidil, MD, Sevinc Yanar, MD, Deniz Demir, MD, Mehmet Guven, MD First Published...

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Incidence of Developing Contralateral Ménière's Disease in Patients Undergoing Transmastoid Labyrinthectomy...

 

Incidence of Developing Contralateral Ménière's Disease in Patients Undergoing Transmastoid Labyrinthectomy for Unilateral Ménière's DiseaseShow lessBo Pang, DO, Anya Costeloe, DO, Neal M. Jackson, MD, Seilesh Babu, MD First Published June 2, 2019 Research Article https://doi.org/10.1177/0145561319854744Article...

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Changing Trends of Color of Different Laryngeal Regions in Laryngopharyngeal Reflux Disease ...

 

Changing Trends of Color of Different Laryngeal Regions in Laryngopharyngeal Reflux DiseaseShow all authorsChen Du, MD, Paige Thayer, BS, Yan Yan, MD, ...Introduction:In our previous study, we demonstrated that there might be correlations between laryngopharyngeal reflux disorder and the hue value of...

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Guns n' Noses: Endoscopic Removal of an Air-Gun Pellet Retained in the Frontal Sinus Show...

 

Guns n' Noses: Endoscopic Removal of an Air-Gun Pellet Retained in the Frontal SinusShow all authorsDylan A. Levy, MBBS, Andrew Y. Lee, MD, Waleed M. Abuzeid, MD, ...First Published June 2, 2019 Other https://doi.org/10.1177/0145561319850813Article information Endoscopic Foreign Body Removal From the...

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Isolated Congenital Round Window Atresia: Report of 2 Cases Wai Keat Wong, MBChB, Lesley...

 

Isolated Congenital Round Window Atresia: Report of 2 CasesWai Keat Wong, MBChB, Lesley Salkeld, FRACS, David Flint, FRACSFirst Published June 2, 2019 Case Report https://doi.org/10.1177/0145561319840541Article information  AbstractRound window atresia (RWA) is an uncommon condition and can result in...

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A Retrospective Study to Identify the Relationship Between the Dimension of...

 

A Retrospective Study to Identify the Relationship Between the Dimension of Osseous External Auditory Canal and Chronic Otitis MediaShow all authorsYi-Fang Lee, MD, Pei-Yin Wei, MD, Chia-Huei Chu, MD, MPH, ...First Published June 2, 2019 Research Article https://doi.org/10.1177/0145561319840884Article...

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Impact of Sinus Surgery on Hospital Utilization for Complications of Sinusitis Vivek Pandrangi BA, Evan...

 

Impact of Sinus Surgery on Hospital Utilization for Complications of SinusitisVivek Pandrangi BA, Evan R. Reiter, MD First Published June 2, 2019 Research Article https://doi.org/10.1177/0145561319853786Article information  Free AccessAbstractBackground:Sinusitis complications are potentially lethal...

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Accidental Intubation of the Soft Palate Show all authors Wen-Sen Lai, MD, PhD, Yuan-Yung Lin, MD, Yueng-Hsiang...

 

Accidental Intubation of the Soft PalateShow all authorsWen-Sen Lai, MD, PhD, Yuan-Yung Lin, MD, Yueng-Hsiang Chu, MD, PhD, ...First Published June 6, 2019 Other https://doi.org/10.1177/0145561319840138Article information  A 55-year-old man with a 20-year history of cigarette smoking presented with hoarseness...

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Blue–yellow dyschromatopsia in toluene-exposed workers AbstractPurpose To evaluate the effects of a...

 

Blue–yellow dyschromatopsia in toluene-exposed workersAbstractPurposeTo evaluate the effects of a chronic occupational exposure to toluene on color vision.MethodsColor vision was tested in 51 workers exposed to pure toluene and in 51 matched control subjects. Current exposure was determined by biological...

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Emotional demands and exhaustion: cross-sectional and longitudinal associations in a cohort of Danish...

 

Emotional demands and exhaustion: cross-sectional and longitudinal associations in a cohort of Danish public sector employeesAbstractPurposeTo examine cross-sectional and longitudinal associations between content-related emotional demands at work and exhaustion, and to investigate if these associations...

2h

The health effects of visible wind turbine features on residents

 

The influence of wind turbine visibility on the health of local residents: a systematic reviewAbstractPurposeThe health effects of visible wind turbine features on residents were investigated. Further, it was examined, if visual annoyance has an influence on residents' health, and if wind turbine visibility...

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Long working hours and depressive symptoms: moderating effects of gender, socioeconomic status, and...

 

Long working hours and depressive symptoms: moderating effects of gender, socioeconomic status, and job resourcesAbstractPurposeSystematic reviews and meta-analyses have found inconsistent associations between working hours and depressive symptoms. The purpose of this study was to investigate the possible...

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Association between the return-to-work hierarchy and self-rated health, self-esteem, and self-efficacy...

 

Association between the return-to-work hierarchy and self-rated health, self-esteem, and self-efficacyAbstractPurposeThis study aimed to examine whether change of employer and/or job upon return-to-work after work-related injuries and diseases is related to health outcomes; self-rated health, self-esteem,...

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Occupational and Environmental Health

 

Blue–yellow dyschromatopsia in toluene-exposed workersAbstractPurposeTo evaluate the effects of a chronic occupational exposure to toluene on color vision.MethodsColor vision was tested in 51 workers exposed to pure toluene and in 51 matched control subjects. Current exposure was determined by biological...

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Low radon exposures and lung cancer risk: joint analysis of the Czech, French, and Beaverlodge cohorts...

 

Low radon exposures and lung cancer risk: joint analysis of the Czech, French, and Beaverlodge cohorts of uranium minersAbstractIt is well established that high radon exposures increase the risk of lung cancer mortality. The effects of low occupational exposures and the factors that confound and modify...

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PharmacoEconomics

 

Correction to: Are Quality-Adjusted Life Years a Good Proxy Measure of Individual Capabilities?Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0International LicenseCorrection to: Different Methods for Modelling Severe Hypoglycaemic Events:...

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A direct oral anticoagulant edoxaban accelerated fibrinolysis via enhancement of plasmin generation...

 

A direct oral anticoagulant edoxaban accelerated fibrinolysis via enhancement of plasmin generation in human plasma: dependent on thrombin-activatable fibrinolysis inhibitorAbstractA direct oral anticoagulant, edoxaban, is as effective as vitamin K antagonists for the treatment of venous thromboembolism...

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Normal D-dimer levels in cancer patients with radiologic evidence of pulmonary embolism Abstract Accurate...

 

Normal D-dimer levels in cancer patients with radiologic evidence of pulmonary embolismAbstractAccurate and expeditious diagnosis and treatment of pulmonary embolism in cancer patients improves patient outcomes. D-dimer is often used to rule out pulmonary embolism. However, this test is less accurate...

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Low incidence of thromboembolism in multiple myeloma patients receiving immunomodulatory drugs; a retrospective...

 

Low incidence of thromboembolism in multiple myeloma patients receiving immunomodulatory drugs; a retrospective single-institution analysisAbstractAnti-platelet agents or anticoagulants are administered for patients with multiple myeloma (MM) receiving immunomodulatory drugs (IMiDs) to prevent thrombotic...

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Body mass index reduction improves the baseline procoagulant imbalance of obese subjects Abstract Obesity...

 

Body mass index reduction improves the baseline procoagulant imbalance of obese subjectsAbstractObesity is a risk factor for cardiovascular diseases. The latter being dependent (at least in part) on plasma procoagulant imbalance (i.e., hypercoagulability). Information on hypercoagulability associated...

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De-escalation from ticagrelor to clopidogrel in acute coronary syndrome patients: a systematic review...

 

De-escalation from ticagrelor to clopidogrel in acute coronary syndrome patients: a systematic review and meta-analysisAbstractDe-escalation from ticagrelor to clopidogrel in acute coronary syndrome (ACS) may occur for a variety of reasons, including side effects (bleeding and non-bleeding) and costs....

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Thrombosis and Thrombolysis

 

Correction to: Use of oral anticoagulant drugs is associated with carotid intraplaque hemorrhage in atherosclerosis patients: a meta-analysisThe article Use of oral anticoagulant drugs is associated with carotid intraplaque hemorrhage in atherosclerosis patients: a meta‑analysis, written by Xin Cao,...

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Acquired Von Willebrand Syndrome (AVWS) in cardiovascular disease: a state of the art review for clinicians...

 

Acquired Von Willebrand Syndrome (AVWS) in cardiovascular disease: a state of the art review for cliniciansAbstractVon Willebrand Factor (vWF) is a large glycoprotein with a broad range of physiological and pathological functions in health and disease. While vWF is critical for normal hemostasis, vascular...

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Educational and Vocational Guidance

 

The role of selection and socialization processes in career mobility: explaining expatriation and entrepreneurial intentionsAbstractThe "traditional career," staying for the entirety of one's work life in a single occupation, is disappearing; the current career environment demands increasing flexibility...

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Clinical Characteristics and Microsurgery Treatment of Anterior Cranial Fossa Dural Arteriovenous Fistula...

 

Clinical Characteristics and Microsurgery Treatment of Anterior Cranial Fossa Dural Arteriovenous FistulaAnterior cranial fossa dural arteriovenous fistulas (DAVFs) represent 6% of all intracranial DAVFs and have a high risk of intracranial hemorrhage. To analyze the clinical characteristics and microsurgery...

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Role of Autologous Fat Injection in Neglected Patients With Anterior Plagiocephaly Anterior plagiocephaly...

 

Role of Autologous Fat Injection in Neglected Patients With Anterior PlagiocephalyAnterior plagiocephaly is a type of non-syndromic craniosynostosis requiring surgery. In this study, the authors have presented 15 neglected patients with anterior plagiocephaly. Two of patients had moderate plagiocephaly...

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Transcranioplasty Ultrasound Through a Sonolucent Cranial Implant Made of Polymethyl Methacrylate:...

 

Transcranioplasty Ultrasound Through a Sonolucent Cranial Implant Made of Polymethyl Methacrylate: Phantom Study Comparing Ultrasound, Computed Tomography, and Magnetic Resonance ImagingBackground: Current methods of transcranial diagnostic ultrasound imaging are limited by the skull's acoustic properties....

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The Use of a Three-dimensional Printed Model for Surgical Excision of a Vascular Lesion in the Head...

 

The Use of a Three-dimensional Printed Model for Surgical Excision of a Vascular Lesion in the Head and NeckFacial vascular lesions are considered a great therapeutic challenge due to the considerable variability of clinical presentations. Surgical removal requires precise planning and advanced visualization...

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Risk Factors for Fistula Development Following Palatoplasty Purpose: The aim of this study is to assess...

 

Risk Factors for Fistula Development Following PalatoplastyPurpose: The aim of this study is to assess the influence of some risks factors on the fistula development after palatoplasty to improve the outcome of the patients Patients and Methods: A total of 48 patients (the males were 22, The females...

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The Utility of Endoscope-Assisted Rigid Bronchoscopy in Pediatric Airway Foreign Body Removals Introduction:...

 

The Utility of Endoscope-Assisted Rigid Bronchoscopy in Pediatric Airway Foreign Body RemovalsIntroduction: Aspiration of foreign bodies is an emergency condition in children and may result in death, especially in children under 3 years of age. Therefore, diagnosis and treatment must be made rapidly....

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The Familial Rhino Tooth: Two Mesiodentes The authors herein report on 2 cases of patients who had...

 

The Familial Rhino Tooth: Two MesiodentesThe authors herein report on 2 cases of patients who had supernumerary teeth. The 2 cases outline how 1 was managed sub-optimally and other managed efficiently. The patients were direct relatives with a very similar clinical problem. This case report explores...

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Craniofacial Surgery

 

Clinical Characteristics and Microsurgery Treatment of Anterior Cranial Fossa Dural Arteriovenous FistulaAnterior cranial fossa dural arteriovenous fistulas (DAVFs) represent 6% of all intracranial DAVFs and have a high risk of intracranial hemorrhage. To analyze the clinical characteristics and microsurgery...

2h

Biochemical Genetics

 

Expression of Concern: Genetic Diversity Among Historical Olive (Olea europaea L.) Genotypes from Southern Anatolia Based on SSR MarkersIdentification and Characterization of a Novel Strigolactone-Insensitive Mutant, Dwarfism with High Tillering Ability 34 ( dhta-34 ) in Rice ( Oryza sativa L.)AbstractRice...

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Treatment trends in head and neck cancer: Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) Patterns...

 

Treatment trends in head and neck cancer: Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) Patterns of Care analysisAbstractPurposeRecent advances in head and neck cancer (HNC) treatment, such as increased use of organ-preserving advanced radiation treatments, the approval of cetuximab for HNC treatment,...

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Cancer Causes & Control

 

Racial/ethnic differences in survival among gastric cancer patients in californiaAbstractBackgroundGastric cancer is an important cause of death among racial/ethnic minorities in the U.S. The objective of this study was to investigate racial disparities in survival among gastric cancer patients within...

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Prader- Willi syndrome: An uptodate on endocrine and metabolic complications Abstract Prader-Willi...

 

Prader- Willi syndrome: An uptodate on endocrine and metabolic complicationsAbstractPrader-Willi syndrome (PWS) is a genetic disorder characterized by short stature, low lean body mass, muscular hypotonia, mental retardation, behavioral abnormalities, dysmorphic features, and excessive appetite with...

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Primary tumors of the posterior pituitary: A systematic review Abstract In 2017, the World Health Organization...

 

Primary tumors of the posterior pituitary: A systematic reviewAbstractIn 2017, the World Health Organization established that pituicytoma, granular cell tumor (GCT), spindle cell oncocytoma (SCO) and sellar ependymomas (SE) are posterior pituitary tumors (PPT). They probably arise from the pituicytes...

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Functions of stem cells of thyroid glands in health and disease Abstract Thyroid gland has been implicated...

 

Functions of stem cells of thyroid glands in health and diseaseAbstractThyroid gland has been implicated in the regulation of many functions using endocrine, paracrine and autocrine signals. Functional thyroid follicular cells derived from stem cells attracted a great interest from researchers as a strategy...

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Endocrine and Metabolic Disorders

 

Correction to: Statins, metformin, proprotein-convertase-subtilisin-kexin type-9 (PCSK9) inhibitors and sex hormones: Immunomodulatory properties?The authors would like to note that several errors had occurred, especially in Table 2, Tables 5, 6 and 7, Figure 13, and in the legend of Figure 23.Nutritional...

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Membrane Biology

 

Interdigitation of Lipids Induced by Membrane–Active ProteinsAbstractThe membrane–active protein Nogo-66 is found to induce interdigitation in dimyristoylphosphocholine membranes. Extensive molecular dynamics simulations have been employed to probe the interactions of Nogo-66 with these model membranes....

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Addiction Medicine

 

Multivisceral Failure in a Context of Serotonin Syndrome Induced by MDMA: The Investigation of a Unique and Nationwide NetworkThe occasional ingestion of 3,4-methylenedioxy-N-methylamphetamine (MDMA) presents serious risks of side effects including death through multivisceral failure in a context of...

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Cell Biology and Toxicology

 

Keeping our eyes on CRISPR: the "Atlas" of gene editingOff-target challenge for base editor-mediated genome editingThe insect, Galleria mellonella , is a compatible model for evaluating the toxicology of okadaic acidAbstractThe polyether toxin, okadaic acid, causes diarrhetic shellfish poisoning in humans....

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Primary Prevention

 

Program Capacity to Deliver Prevention Services to Children of Adult Clients Receiving Substance Use Disorder TreatmentAbstractChildren whose parents have a history of substance use are at elevated risk of developing substance use disorders (SUDs) and related debilitating behaviors. Although specialty...

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Hazardous Materials

 

Removal of Cr3+ from tanning effluents by adsorption onto phosphate mine waste: Key parameters and mechanismsPublication date: 15 October 2019Source: Journal of Hazardous Materials, Volume 378Author(s): Amal Oumani, Laila Mandi, Fatima Berrekhis, Naaila OuazzaniAbstractThe present study aims to investigate...

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Clinical features of poorly differentiated thyroid papillary carcinoma Publication date: June 2019...

 

Clinical features of poorly differentiated thyroid papillary carcinomaPublication date: June 2019Source: Auris Nasus Larynx, Volume 46, Issue 3Author(s): Masaaki Higashino, Yusuke Ayani, Tetsuya Terada, Yoshitaka Kurisu, Yoshinobu Hirose, Ryo KawataAbstractObjectiveTo investigate the clinical feature...

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Inhibition of autophagy by chloroquine makes chemotherapy in nasopharyngeal carcinoma more efficient...

 

Inhibition of autophagy by chloroquine makes chemotherapy in nasopharyngeal carcinoma more efficientPublication date: June 2019Source: Auris Nasus Larynx, Volume 46, Issue 3Author(s): Tomomi Aga, Kazuhira Endo, Akira Tsuji, Mitsuharu Aga, Makiko Moriyama-Kita, Takayoshi Ueno, Yosuke Nakanishi, Miyako...

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Evaluation of folded amniotic membrane and injectable amniotic membrane pieces as soft tissue filler...

 

Evaluation of folded amniotic membrane and injectable amniotic membrane pieces as soft tissue filler materialsPublication date: June 2019Source: Auris Nasus Larynx, Volume 46, Issue 3Author(s): Mustafa Caglar Buday, Murat OzturkAbstractObjectiveThe search for safe and effective tissue fillers has been...

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Risk factors and distribution features of level IB lymph nodes metastasis in nasopharyngeal carcinoma...

 

Risk factors and distribution features of level IB lymph nodes metastasis in nasopharyngeal carcinomaPublication date: June 2019Source: Auris Nasus Larynx, Volume 46, Issue 3Author(s): Lei Zeng, Qin Zhang, Fan Ao, Chun-Ling Jiang, Yun Xiao, Hong-Hui Xie, Yi-Qiang Tang, Xiao-Chang Gong, Jin-Gao LiAbstractObjectiveThe...

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The inflammatory pseudotumor presenting periodic acid-Schiff-positive inclusions with acute unilateral...

 

The inflammatory pseudotumor presenting periodic acid-Schiff-positive inclusions with acute unilateral facial nerve palsyPublication date: June 2019Source: Auris Nasus Larynx, Volume 46, Issue 3Author(s): Akira Inagaki, Masaomi Motegi, Yuji Sato, Hideo Hattori, Shingo MurakamiAbstractAlthough most acute...

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Neck stiffness in a post-irradiated nasopharyngeal carcinoma adult: An unusual diagnosis Publication...

 

Neck stiffness in a post-irradiated nasopharyngeal carcinoma adult: An unusual diagnosisPublication date: June 2019Source: Auris Nasus Larynx, Volume 46, Issue 3Author(s): Kang Ni Lorna Ting, Yew Toong Liew, Zulkiflee Abu Bakar, Prepageran NarayananAbstractNasopharyngeal carcinoma is a neoplasm commonly...

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Laryngeal fractures treated with titanium mesh fixation Publication date: June 2019 Source: Auris Nasus...

 

Laryngeal fractures treated with titanium mesh fixationPublication date: June 2019Source: Auris Nasus Larynx, Volume 46, Issue 3Author(s): Taku Sato, Takaharu Nito, Rumi Ueha, Takao Goto, Tatsuya YamasobaAbstractThe larynx plays a vital role in respiration, swallowing, and vocal function. Thus, laryngeal...

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Biomedical Microdevices

 

Inkjet printed microfluidic paper-based analytical device (μPAD) for glucose colorimetric detection in artificial urineAbstractThis article introduces a novel inkjet printing method for the fabrication of a microfluidic paper-based analytical device (μPADs) with improved analytical performance for colorimetric...

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Cancer of the mandibular gingiva metastasizing to the small intestine Publication date: June 2019 Source: Auris...

 

Cancer of the mandibular gingiva metastasizing to the small intestinePublication date: June 2019Source: Auris Nasus Larynx, Volume 46, Issue 3Author(s): Takeshi Okamura, Takeshi Beppu, Takao Tokumaru, Masato Yamada, Tomonori Sugiyama, Nobuaki Koide, Miyuki Tani, Masayuki Kaneko, Atsumori Hamahata, Yu...

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Long-term efficacy and toxicity of concurrent chemoradiotherapy with nedaplatin and S-1 for head and...

 

Long-term efficacy and toxicity of concurrent chemoradiotherapy with nedaplatin and S-1 for head and neck squamous cell carcinomaPublication date: Available online 5 June 2019Source: Auris Nasus LarynxAuthor(s): Hiroshi Okuda, Masami Ohnishi, Hiroki Takahashi, Chiaki Takagi, Natsuki Takada, Toshimitsu...

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Auris Nasus Larynx

 

Long-term efficacy and toxicity of concurrent chemoradiotherapy with nedaplatin and S-1 for head and neck squamous cell carcinomaPublication date: Available online 5 June 2019Source: Auris Nasus LarynxAuthor(s): Hiroshi Okuda, Masami Ohnishi, Hiroki Takahashi, Chiaki Takagi, Natsuki Takada, Toshimitsu...

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Association of geographic tongue and fissured tongue with ABO blood group among adult psoriasis patients:...

 

Association of geographic tongue and fissured tongue with ABO blood group among adult psoriasis patients: a novel study from a tertiary care hospital in Saudi ArabiaPublication date: June 2019Source: Oral Surgery, Oral Medicine, Oral Pathology and Oral Radiology, Volume 127, Issue 6Author(s): Nabeeh...

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Diagnostic delay and suboptimal management in persistent idiopathic facial pain and persistent dentoalveolar...

 

Diagnostic delay and suboptimal management in persistent idiopathic facial pain and persistent dentoalveolar pain; a cross-sectional studyPublication date: June 2019Source: Oral Surgery, Oral Medicine, Oral Pathology and Oral Radiology, Volume 127, Issue 6Author(s): Yazan Hassona, Ahmad El- Ma'aita,...

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Association between biomarkers and medication-related osteonecrosis of the jaws: a systematic review...

 

Association between biomarkers and medication-related osteonecrosis of the jaws: a systematic reviewPublication date: June 2019Source: Oral Surgery, Oral Medicine, Oral Pathology and Oral Radiology, Volume 127, Issue 6Author(s): Vittorio Moraschini, Daniel Costa Ferreira de Almeida, Carlos Marcelo Figueredo,...

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Acinetobacter baumannii orofacial cellulitis: report of 2 cases Publication date: June 2019 Source: Oral...

 

Acinetobacter baumannii orofacial cellulitis: report of 2 casesPublication date: June 2019Source: Oral Surgery, Oral Medicine, Oral Pathology and Oral Radiology, Volume 127, Issue 6Author(s): Thaís dos Santos Fontes Pereira, Denise Vieira Travassos, Raissa Cristina Costa Silva, Laiz Fernandes Mendes...

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Subjective analysis of the application of enhancement filters on magnetic resonance imaging of the...

 

Subjective analysis of the application of enhancement filters on magnetic resonance imaging of the temporomandibular jointPublication date: June 2019Source: Oral Surgery, Oral Medicine, Oral Pathology and Oral Radiology, Volume 127, Issue 6Author(s): Gonzalo André Montesinos, Sérgio Lucio Pereira de...

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Multiphase Contrast-Enhanced CT Imaging Features of Salivary Duct Carcinoma: Differentiation from Other...

 

Multiphase Contrast-Enhanced CT Imaging Features of Salivary Duct Carcinoma: Differentiation from Other Salivary Gland MalignanciesPublication date: Available online 6 June 2019Source: Oral Surgery, Oral Medicine, Oral Pathology and Oral RadiologyAuthor(s): Wen-li Wu, Cheng-long Wang, Dan Li, Jin Luo,...

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Morphological changes in idiopathic condylar resorption with different degrees of bone loss Publication...

 

Morphological changes in idiopathic condylar resorption with different degrees of bone lossPublication date: Available online 6 June 2019Source: Oral Surgery, Oral Medicine, Oral Pathology and Oral RadiologyAuthor(s): Yifan He, Han Lin, Qiuping Lin, Lin Lu, Mingyu Li, Qianli Li, Jingyi Xue, Yue XuAbstractObjectiveThe...

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Automatic detection and classification of radiolucent lesions in the mandible on panoramic radiographs...

 

Automatic detection and classification of radiolucent lesions in the mandible on panoramic radiographs using a deep learning object detection techniquePublication date: Available online 6 June 2019Source: Oral Surgery, Oral Medicine, Oral Pathology and Oral RadiologyAuthor(s): Yoshiko Ariji, Yudai Yanashita,...

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Endoscopic-assisted Enucleation of Large Mandibular Odontogenic Cysts Publication date: Available online...

 

Endoscopic-assisted Enucleation of Large Mandibular Odontogenic CystsPublication date: Available online 6 June 2019Source: Oral Surgery, Oral Medicine, Oral Pathology and Oral RadiologyAuthor(s): Yan Wang, Shao-hai Chang, Zhao-yu Lin, Rui Chen, Zhiquan HuangAbstractPurposeTraditional enucleation of large...

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Congenital nonvascular neck masses: A retrospective analysis Publication date: Available online 12 June...

 

Congenital nonvascular neck masses: A retrospective analysisPublication date: Available online 12 June 2019Source: Oral Surgery, Oral Medicine, Oral Pathology and Oral RadiologyAuthor(s): Matteo Brucoli, Paolo Boffano, Arnaldo Benech, Silvia Rosa, Massimiliano Garzaro, Paolo Aluffi VallettiABSTRACTIntroductionCongenital...

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Vital Signs: Trends in Human Rabies Deaths and Exposures — United States, 1938–2018 Weekly / June 12,...

 

Vital Signs: Trends in Human Rabies Deaths and Exposures — United States, 1938–2018Weekly / June 12, 2019 / 68(23)Emily G. Pieracci, DVM1; Christine M. Pearson1; Ryan M. Wallace, DVM1; Jesse D. Blanton, DrPH1; Erin R. Whitehouse, PhD1,2; Xiaoyue Ma, MPH1; Kendra Stauffer, DVM3; Richard B. Chipman, MS,...

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Nitric Oxide

 

Compensatory mechanisms in myoglobin deficient mice preserve NO homeostasisPublication date: 1 September 2019Source: Nitric Oxide, Volume 90Author(s): Ji Won Park, Barbora Piknova, Soumyadeep Dey, Constance T. Noguchi, Alan N. SchechterAbstractThe mechanism for nitric oxide (NO) generation from reduction...

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Oral Surgery, Oral Medicine, Oral Pathology ,Oral Radiology

 

Congenital nonvascular neck masses: A retrospective analysisPublication date: Available online 12 June 2019Source: Oral Surgery, Oral Medicine, Oral Pathology and Oral RadiologyAuthor(s): Matteo Brucoli, Paolo Boffano, Arnaldo Benech, Silvia Rosa, Massimiliano Garzaro, Paolo Aluffi VallettiABSTRACTIntroductionCongenital...

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Spinal motion restrictionPresent the following points from the ACS, ACEP, NAEMSP spinal motion...

 

Spinal motion restrictionPresent the following points from the ACS, ACEP, NAEMSP spinal motion restriction guidelines to help EMS students make transport, device decisionsJun 11, 2019This article originally posted at Limmer Education and is reprinted with permission.The EMS1 Academy features "Spinal...

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Scenarios where capnography is a mustTeach EMS providers the benefits of waveform capnography in cases...

 

Scenarios where capnography is a mustTeach EMS providers the benefits of waveform capnography in cases involving dyspnea and altered mental status, and before performing advanced airway managementJun 6, 2019Likely one of the top five advancements in EMS within the past decade or two has got to be the...

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Effect of Sunscreen Application Under Maximal Use Conditions on Plasma Concentration of Sunscreen Active...

 

Effect of Sunscreen Application Under Maximal Use Conditions on Plasma Concentration of Sunscreen Active IngredientsA Randomized Clinical TrialMurali K. Matta, PhD1; Robbert Zusterzeel, MD, PhD, MPH1; Nageswara R. Pilli, PhD1; et al Vikram Patel, PhD1; Donna A. Volpe, PhD1; Jeffry Florian, PhD1; Luke...

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Hemoglobin A1c Levels During Pregnancy and Risk of Autism Spectrum Disorders in Offspring Anny H. Xiang,...

 

Hemoglobin A1c Levels During Pregnancy and Risk of Autism Spectrum Disorders in OffspringAnny H. Xiang, PhD1; Ting Chow, MPH1; Mayra P. Martinez, MPH1; et al Darios Getahun, MD, PhD1; Kathleen A. Page, MD2; Thomas A. Buchanan, MD2; R. Klare Feldman, MD3Author Affiliations Article Information1Department...

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Management of Chronic Wounds, Ruth Ellen Jones, MD1; Deshka S. Foster, MD, MA1; Michael T. Longaker, MD,...

 

Management of Chronic Wounds,Ruth Ellen Jones, MD1; Deshka S. Foster, MD, MA1; Michael T. Longaker, MD, MBA1Author Affiliations Article Information1Hagey Laboratory for Pediatric Regenerative Medicine, Division of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, Department of Surgery, Stanford University School of...

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Effect of Pressure Support vs T-Piece Ventilation Strategies During Spontaneous Breathing Trials on...

 

Effect of Pressure Support vs T-Piece Ventilation Strategies During Spontaneous Breathing Trials on Successful Extubation Among Patients Receiving Mechanical VentilationA Randomized Clinical TrialCarles Subirà, MD1; Gonzalo Hernández, MD, PhD2; Antònia Vázquez, MD, PhD3; et al Raquel Rodríguez-García,...

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Systole and Diastole, Strength and Openness Colleen M. Farrell, MD1 Author Affiliations Article Information...

 

Systole and Diastole, Strength and OpennessColleen M. Farrell, MD1Author Affiliations Article Information1Department of Internal Medicine, Bellevue Hospital, NYU Langone Health, New York, New YorkJAMA. 2019;321(19):1871-1872. doi:10.1001/jama.2019.5650Seize diastole," my medical school professor said....

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ALEXANDROS SFAKIANAKIS ANAPAFSEOS 5 AGIOS NIKOLAOS CRETE 72100 GREECE +306932607174 +302841026182

Addictive Behaviors

Limited utility of detailed e-cigarette use measures: An analysis of NESARC-III Publication date: October 2019 Source: Addictive Behaviors, Volume 97 Author(s): Maria A. Parker, Jennifer L. Pearson, Andrea C. Villanti Abstract Introduction The heterogeneity of e-cigarette products and e-liquids pose challenges to surveillance of e-cigarette exposure. The goal of this study was to evaluate the internal consistency of e-cigarette use frequency, quantity, and duration measures in a national population-based survey. Methods Data were drawn from the 2012–2013 for the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions-III (n = 36,309; NESARC-III). Adults who used e-cigarettes/e-liquid during the past year (≤18 years old; n = 1,229) were asked about their age of first use, recency of use, quantity (i.e., cartridges, drops), nicotine concentration, and duration (hours). Several internal consistency parameters were compared for e-cigarette measures in past-year (n = 750) and past 30-day e-cigarette users (n = 472) overall, and by frequency of use (i.e., infrequent [≤3 days/month], non-daily [1–6 days/week], daily). Results There were no significant differences in quantity, nicotine concentration, or duration by frequency of use in past 30-day e-cigarette users. One-third of past 30-day and almost half of past-year users did not know the nicotine concentration of their cartridge or e-liquid. Correlations between all e-cigarette use measures were low, with the highest correlations seen between e-liquid quantity and cartridge quantity in all past 30-day users (r = 0.28) and those reporting any e-liquid use (r = 0.40). Cronbach's alpha and mean interitem correlations were low across all user groups. Conclusions Low to moderate correlation across e-cigarette measures in e-cigarette users implies low internal consistency of these measures in a population survey. Findings suggest measures such as quantity and nicotine concentration might more appropriate in samples of recent experienced e-cigarette users than in general population samples.

A preliminary study of early childhood parenting and adult past month drug use risk in low-income African American women Publication date: October 2019 Source: Addictive Behaviors, Volume 97 Author(s): Tyralynn Frazier, Jessica McDermott Sales Abstract Purpose This preliminary study was designed to assess the feasibility of examining early childhood parenting factors and their relationship with adult past month drug use among low-income African American women. Methods A cross-sectional survey of 156 low-income African American women was conducted. Measures included the childhood parental bonding scale, frequency of exposure to corporal punishment (CP) in childhood, The Drug Abuse Screening Test (DAST) and The Differentiation of Self Scale. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to assess the relationship between the primary predictors, latent parental bonding and corporal punishment exposure, with past month drug use. The intermediary construct, emotional reactivity, was also included in the SEM model to test mechanisms of mediation. Results There was a significant main effect for maternal care on lower emotional reactivity patterns in adulthood. There was also a significant main effect for frequent CP on higher emotional reactivity patterns in adulthood. The relationship between both parenting measures and drug use were mediated by emotional reactivity. Conclusion Childhood maternal factors are a strong predictor of adult past month drug use, and this may be accounted for, in part, by the influence that parenting patterns in childhood have on adult emotional reactivity patterns. These observations should be examined in a longitudinal study to determine the stability of our observation that CP in childhood, even when controlling for positive maternal bonding patterns, influences emotional reactivity patterns that predispose an individual to negative coping strategies, such as drug use, in adulthood, among low-income African American women.

A gender-based analysis of nonmedical prescription opioid use among people who use illicit drugs Publication date: October 2019 Source: Addictive Behaviors, Volume 97 Author(s): Tessa Cheng, Ekaterina Nosova, Will Small, Robert S. Hogg, Kanna Hayashi, Kora DeBeck Abstract Background Research investigating the unique impacts associated with engaging in nonmedical prescription opioid use (NMPOU) among males and females who also use illicit drugs is needed. Methods Data were collected between 2013 and 2017 from two linked prospective cohort studies in Vancouver: the At-Risk Youth Study and Vancouver Injection Drug Users Study. Generalized estimating equations were used to identify factors associated with engaging in NMPOU among females and males separately. Results Among 1459 participants, 534 were female (37%). Similar proportions of females (46%) and males (48%) engaged in NMPOU at their first visit during the study period. In multivariable analyses, factors associated with NMPOU among both males and females included heroin use, overdose, drug dealing, and difficulty accessing health and social services. Among females, those who engaged in NMPOU were more likely to report Caucasian or white ethnicity, cocaine use, crystal methamphetamine use, and sex work; among males, those who engaged in NMPOU were older, reported crack use and engaged in binge drug use (all p < 0.05). Conclusion The prevalence of NMPOU was similar among males and females who use illicit drugs in Vancouver, and NMPOU was independently associated with markers of vulnerability among both genders. Findings highlight the need for a comprehensive public health approach to address NMPOU that integrates overdose prevention and reversal services, employment opportunities, and better access to services for both women and men.

An Assessment of the Validity of the Gamblers Belief Questionnaire Publication date: October 2019 Source: Addictive Behaviors, Volume 97 Author(s): Kahlil S. Philander, Sally M. Gainsbury, Georgia Grattan Abstract Cognitive distortions in gambling are irrational thoughts that cause an individual to overestimate their level of control over the outcome of the game and diminish the role of chance. Due to their strong relation to gambling disorders, they are a particularly important characteristic to assess and understand in gamblers. Although numerous measures of gambling-related cognitive distortions exist, studies assessing criterion validity are scarce. In this study, we develop several tests of the Gamblers Belief Questionnaire (GBQ), a versatile and widely used scale. A sample of 184 U.S. adults was recruited through Amazon Mechanical Turk to complete an online study that included measurement of the GBQ and an assessment of the perceived role of skill and chance in various gambling and non-gambling activities. In addition to a confirmatory factor analysis of the scale, three novel validation tests were developed to understand whether the GBQ subscales can identify and discriminate measures of illusion of control and gambler's fallacy distortions. Our validation tests demonstrate that the scale does measure both distortions, providing information about gamblers' cognition that is unexplained by gambling problems, frequency of play, and demographics. Conversely, our analysis of the factor structure does not show good fit. We conclude that the GBQ measures gambling-related cognitive distortions, but there may be an opportunity to reduce the number of scale items and further refine precision of the two subscales.

The influence of perceived parenting on substance initiation among Mexican children Publication date: October 2019 Source: Addictive Behaviors, Volume 97 Author(s): Alejandro L. Vázquez, Melanie M. Domenech Rodríguez, Nancy G. Amador Buenabad, Marycarmen N. Bustos Gamiño, María de Lourdes Gutierrez López, Jorge A. Villatoro Velázquez Abstract Parents shape their children's behaviors and impact their developmental trajectories. Despite this, few studies have examined the potential relationship between child reported parenting factors and lifetime substance use and use intentions. The current study examined the potential impact of parenting factors (i.e., positive parenting, supervision, parental illicit substance use, substance-specific communication) on early substance use and intentions among Latinx children. Data for the present study utilized a representative sample of Mexican children (n = 52,171; 5th and 6th grades) who participated in a national survey on substance use. Children reported their demographics, lifetime substance use/intentions, and perceived parenting characteristic and practices. Child reported parental (i.e., individual or both parents) illicit substance use was associated with the largest increases in risk for reporting lifetime use of all substances examined. Higher levels of positive parenting were consistently associated with reductions in risk for reporting intentions for and use of all substances examined. Parent-child substance specific communication was not significantly related to child reported lifetime use or use intentions, with the exception of a minor decrease in the odds of reporting lifetime inhalant use. Supervision was associated with small to modest increase in risk. Substance use prevention efforts targeting Latinx populations may benefit from promoting positive parenting and direct supervision during childhood. Targeted prevention efforts may be needed for Latinx children exposed to parental illicit substance use, as they may be especially at risk for early substance initiation.

Nicotine or expectancies? Using the balanced-placebo design to test immediate outcomes of vaping Publication date: October 2019 Source: Addictive Behaviors, Volume 97 Author(s): Amanda M. Palmer, Thomas H. Brandon Abstract Introduction Electronic (e-)cigarette use has increased in popularity, especially among those attempting to quit smoking. Previous studies evaluating the therapeutic efficacy of e-cigarettes have suggested that non-pharmacologic factors, such as expectancies about nicotine effects, may influence the experienced effects of e-cigarettes. Method The independent and synergistic influences of drug and expectancies were parsed using a balanced-placebo design, whereby 128 participants (52 dual users) were provided an e-cigarette that either contained nicotine or non-nicotine solution, while told that it did or did not contain nicotine. We hypothesized main effects of nicotine content on physiological, objective outcomes (attention, appetite, aversion, respiratory tract sensations), and main effects of the instructions on more subjective, psychosocial outcomes (affect, reward, satisfaction). Sex was included as a moderator. Results Results showed that nicotine increased sustained attention, and more so among females. Nicotine delivery was associated with aversion among females, but not males. Among those who were both told and did not receive nicotine, higher enjoyment of respiratory tract sensations was reported. Nicotine with complementary instructions produced the highest reward ratings; additionally, nicotine was rewarding to males but not females. Discussion Findings demonstrated that both nicotine content and non-pharmacologic factors impact acute outcome effects of e-cigarettes, with moderation by sex in some cases. Results are relevant to the interpretation of clinical trials of e-cigarettes and suggest a more nuanced view of reinforcement pathways.

Selective invalidation of ambivalent pro-marijuana attitude components Publication date: October 2019 Source: Addictive Behaviors, Volume 97 Author(s): William D. Crano, Candice D. Donaldson, Jason T. Siegel, Eusebio M. Alvaro, Erin K. O'Brien Abstract Introduction Attitudes of drug-abstinent youth considering marijuana initiation can be highly ambivalent. Invalidating pro-usage elements (i.e., opinions) of ambivalent marijuana attitudes, while leaving anti-marijuana elements intact, may create stronger, less ambivalent marijuana-resistant attitudes and lower usage intentions, while concurrently elucidating the role of ambivalence in persuasive prevention. Method From an initial pool of marijuana-abstinent middle-school students (N = 538), the quintile expressing the most negative attitudes toward a marijuana prevention appeal (N = 101) were randomly assigned to one of three conditions designed to invalidate pro-marijuana opinions. Analyses then tested their susceptibility to a second marijuana prevention appeal. Results Personally threatening messages were found ineffective, but appeals contesting resistant responses significantly decreased ambivalence (p < .01). Mediational analyses showed that this decreased ambivalence was associated with less favorable attitudes and lower marijuana usage intentions (both p < .001). An attribution-based manipulation increased ambivalence (p < .05), which was associated with positive usage intentions mediated through positive attitudes (both p < .001). Conclusion Analyses elucidated the role of attitude ambivalence in prevention, providing a more complete understanding of potential facilitative use of ambivalence in prevention models based on prevention. Results support the further examination and use of methods that invalidate pro-marijuana opinions, thereby leading to greater susceptibility to subsequent prevention appeals.

Impulsivity moderates the effect of social anxiety on in-lab alcohol craving Publication date: October 2019 Source: Addictive Behaviors, Volume 97 Author(s): Theresa Adams, Karli K. Rapinda, Jona R. Frohlich, Roisin M. O'Connor, Matthew T. Keough Abstract Social anxiety (SA) is thought to relate to alcohol misuse. However, current evidence is inconsistent – especially in young adulthood. Recent non-experimental data show that trait impulsivity moderates the effect of SA on alcohol misuse. Specifically, this work suggests that concurrently elevated impulsivity may draw attention to the immediate, anxiolytic effects of drinking – thus promoting alcohol misuse among those high in SA. Otherwise, without elevated impulsivity, a socially anxious person may not drink due to focusing on alcohol's possible negative outcomes (e.g., embarrassing behaviours). The next step in this research is to examine if impulsivity impacts in-the-moment subjective craving among socially anxious individuals. This was the goal of the present experiment. After baseline measures, undergraduate participants (N = 110) completed the Trier Social Stress Test followed by an alcohol (versus neutral) cue exposure. Subjective craving ratings were collected at both baseline and post-cue exposure. Moderation analyses revealed that socially anxious individuals endorsed strong cravings following an alcohol (but not a neutral) cue exposure, but only if they also had elevated impulsivity. In-lab craving was positively correlated with retrospective reports of alcohol misuse. Our findings demonstrate that impulsivity contributes to SA-related risk for alcohol misuse.

Spatial and sociodemographic correlates of gambling participation and disorder among female Filipino migrant workers in Macao, People's Republic of China Publication date: October 2019 Source: Addictive Behaviors, Volume 97 Author(s): Grace Yi, Lei Huang, Agnes I.F. Lam, Carl Latkin, Brian J. Hall Abstract Background and aims Correlates and risk factors for gambling disorder among vulnerable or transient populations such as transnational migrant workers are unknown. The current study examined sociodemographic and spatial correlates of gambling disorder among female Filipino domestic workers in Macao (SAR), China. Design Survey-based, respondent-driven sampling study administered from November 2016 to August 2017. Setting Macao (SAR), which encompassed 38 casinos within its 30.4 km2 area at the time of this study. Participants Representative sample of N = 1194 female Filipino domestic workers in Macao. Measurements Symptoms of gambling disorder based on Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5). Correlates evaluated included sociodemographic information, proximity to venues, perceived social support, and symptoms of depression and anxiety. Findings Prevalence of gambling disorder was 5.1%. Multivariable regression analyses indicated that likelihood of gambling participation (i.e., ever gambling) was associated with current indebtedness (RR = 1.56, 95%CI = 1.08–2.25, p = .017) and worse self-reported health (RR = 1.31, 95%CI = 1.04–1.65, p = .02). Increased symptoms of gambling disorder were independently associated with lower perceived social support (RR = 0.92, 95%CI = 0.87–0.98, p = .006), increased dependents relying upon monthly remittances (RR = 1.10, 95%CI = 1.06–1.16, p < .001), increased depression severity (RR = 1.16, 95%CI = 1.07–1.25, p < .001), decreased salary quintile (RR = 0.97, 95%CI = 0.94–1.00, p = .04), and proximity to the nearest Mocha Club gaming venues (RR = 1.04, 95%CI = 1.02–1.07, p = .005). The association between proximity to casinos and increased symptoms of gambling disorder was significant only for domestic workers living apart from employers (RR = 1.07, 95%CI = 1.00–1.14, p = .04). Conclusions Increased spatial proximity to gambling venues and greater financial and psychosocial burdens are associated with gambling disorder among domestic workers in Macao.

Substance craving changes in university students receiving heart rate variability biofeedback: A longitudinal multilevel modeling approach Publication date: October 2019 Source: Addictive Behaviors, Volume 97 Author(s): Nour Alayan, David Eddie, Lucille Eller, Marsha E. Bates, Dennis P. Carmody Abstract Background Previously published findings from a study of university students living in substance use disorder (SUD) recovery housing showed an eight-session heart rate variability biofeedback (HRVB) intervention significantly reduced craving. That study, however, uncovered pronounced inter-participant variability in craving change patterns through the course of HRVB that warranted further exploration. The purpose of the current investigation was to examine how within- and between-person factors may have differentially influenced craving changes. Methods A longitudinal multilevel modeling approach was used with time at level-1 nested within persons at level-2. Multilevel models of change were estimated to model craving trajectories and predictor relationships over time as a function of age, sex, length of abstinence, daily HRVB practice, anxiety, depression, and stress. Results A quadratic pattern of craving reductions was found, indicating that craving reductions accelerated over time for some participants. Daily HRVB practice of >12 min and older age significantly enhanced craving reductions over time. Increases in depressive symptoms attenuated the effects of HRVB on craving. The other predictors were not significantly associated with craving in this study. The true R2 for the final model indicated that 20.5% of the variance in craving was explained by older age, daily HRVB >12 min, and within-person changes in depression. Conclusions HRVB shows promise as an accessible, scalable, and cost-effective complementary anti-craving intervention. Healthcare providers may help persons recovering from SUD to better manage substance craving by the routine and strategic use of HRVB practice.

Alexandros Sfakianakis
Anapafseos 5 . Agios Nikolaos
Crete.Greece.72100
2841026182

6948891480

alsfakia@gmail.com

Atmospheric Environment

The transport of PM10 over Cape Town during high pollution episodes Publication date: 15 September 2019 Source: Atmospheric Environment, Volume 213 Author(s): Koketso M. Molepo, Babatunde J. Abiodun, Rembu N. Magoba Abstract This study investigates the influence of PM10 from remote sources on PM10 episodes over the city of Cape Town. For the study, we analysed observation data from Cape Town's air quality monitoring stations as well as high-resolution simulation data from the Weather Research and Forecasting model with Chemistry (WRF-Chem). The observation data were used to identify PM10 episodes during the study period (2008–2014) and WRF-Chem was applied to simulate the atmospheric conditions and PM10 transport over southern Africa during each episode. The capability of WRF-Chem to simulate the wind and PM10 concentration over Cape Town was quantified and the paths of air parcels over Cape Town during each episode were tracked. Results of the study show that WRF-Chem gives a realistic simulation of observed wind (speed and direction) over the city during the episodes, but the model struggles to reproduce the observed PM10 concentration. For most episodes, the magnitude of the simulated PM10 is lower than the observed due to lack of local emissions in the simulations. In some cases, the model reproduces the peak in PM10 concentration some days earlier or later than observed. The simulations show that most air parcels over Cape Town during the episodes have travelled over major dust source regions (i.e., the Kalahari or Namib Desert) before reaching the city. Most of episodes are associated with a southward transport of a plume of PM10 from the north-west coast of southern Africa to Cape Town. This PM10 plume is induced by a coastal trough and a continental high pressure system. In some cases, local topography influences the intrusion of the PM10 plume into Cape Town by blocking some of the pollution, thereby minimising the amount of PM10 that reaches the city. Results of the study suggest that the transport of PM10 from the north-west coast of southern Africa may contribute to PM10 episodes in Cape Town.

Characterization of crucial fragments during the nucleation and growth of secondary organic aerosol from the high-NO photo-oxidation of α-pinene Publication date: 15 September 2019 Source: Atmospheric Environment, Volume 213 Author(s): Peng Zhang, Pengkun Ma, Jinian Shu, Jingyun Huang, Bo Yang, Haixu Zhang Abstract We propose the use of thermal-desorption dichloromethane-induced low-pressure photoionization mass spectrometry (TD-CH2Cl2-induced LPPI-MS) via a laboratory-built krypton vacuum ultraviolet lamp for the real-time analysis of α-pinene secondary organic aerosol (αP-SOA). Using this technology, the peak intensities of the majority of SOA were enhanced by at least two orders of magnitude after doping with 720 ppm dichloromethane. Clear temporal evolutions of the SOA oxidation products with particle formation were also observed. The molecular ion peaks at m/z value of 153 and 109 showed a similar sharp increase with particle-number concentration. These two species (i.e. protonated α-campholenic aldehyde or dehydrated protonated pinalic-3-acid) with the fragment at m/z 153 and 109 may be critical species to prompt new particle formation. Furthermore, the monomers with the fragment ion peaks at m/z value of 69 and 87 (i.e. protonated pinonic acid, pinic acid, oxopinonic acid, and OH-pinonic acid etc.) were found to be intermediate species with high reactivities during SOA growth. The obtained results provide supplementary knowledge regarding the characterization and temporal evolution of the key components that promote αP-SOA formation. Graphical abstract

Aldehyde as a potential source of aminol in troposphere: Influence of water and formic acid catalysis on ammonolysis of formaldehyde Publication date: 15 September 2019 Source: Atmospheric Environment, Volume 213 Author(s): Saptarshi Sarkar, Monu, Biman Bandyopadhyay Abstract Formation of 1-aminomethanol in troposphere through the reaction between formaldehyde and ammonia has been investigated by means of electronic structure and chemical kinetics calculations employing CCSD(T)/CBS//MP2/aug-cc-pVTZ level of theory. The process is not favorable under tropospheric conditions due to high reaction barrier (30.4 kcal mol−1) and very low rate coefficient (1.7×10−34 cm3 molecule−1 s−1 at 298 K). As a result, catalytic influence of water (monomer and dimer) and formic acid on the ammonolysis of formaldehyde have also been studied. Formic acid was found to be the most efficient in lowering the activation energy and makes the reaction barrierless. It acts better than the other catalysts in terms of rate coefficient as well (increment in rate coefficient with respect to uncatalyzed channel is by ∼1021 times whereas the same for water dimer and water monomer are by ∼1015 and ∼1011, respectively). Further comparative studies on the efficiencies of catalysts carried out by means of relative rate calculations reveal that formic acid catalyzed channel dominates over the water catalyzed channels at 0 km altitude when concentration of the former is high but water catalyzed channels dominate at higher temperature when formic acid is present in low concentration. On the other hand, the reaction proceeds almost exclusively via formic acid catalyzed channel at higher altitudes in troposphere.

Effect of the molecular structure of volatile organic compounds on atmospheric nucleation: A modeling study based on gas kinetic theory and graph theory Publication date: 15 September 2019 Source: Atmospheric Environment, Volume 213 Author(s): Binfan Jiang, Dehong Xia, Yulei Xie, Xiangjun Liu Abstract Severe PM2.5 (particulate matter with aerodynamic diameter smaller than 2.5 μm) pollution in China, with adverse impact on human health and global climate change, has raised great concern in recent years. The volatile organic compound (VOC) is suggested to be a significant precursor of PM2.5, but which VOC structure contributes the most to the aerosol particulate formation is still an open question. With large space occupation and complex structures (cyclic, linear and branched), VOCs together with inorganics may play a critical role in atmospheric new particle formation (NPF). To explore the effect of molecular structure on nucleation in NPF, a multi-component (H2SO4-HNO3-NH3-VOC) kinetic model is established based on the gas kinetic theory and graph theory. As the most common VOCs in the atmosphere, alkanes with 2–15 carbons are selected for model analysis. The results show that alkanes especially those with a cyclic structure or carbon number ≥4 results in the highest rate of NPF within the species considered in this study. The dominant size of nuclei, as well as the concentration of particles (larger than 1 nm), is enhanced by the increasing carbon number in alkanes. Taking the alkanes with same carbon number for comparison, the contribution to the nucleation by molecular structure is found to follow the order cyclic>linear>branched, and inversely proportion to branching number. Graphical abstract

A high-resolution inventory of air pollutant emissions from crop residue burning in China Publication date: 15 September 2019 Source: Atmospheric Environment, Volume 213 Author(s): Xiaohui Zhang, Yan Lu, Qin'geng Wang, Xin Qian Abstract Crop residue burning is an important source of air pollutants and strongly affects the regional air quality and global climate change. This study presents a detailed emission inventory of major air pollutants from crop residue burning for the year of 2014 in China by the bottom-up method. Activity data were investigated for 296 prefecture-level cities. Emission factors were determined for indoor and in-field burning separately. Regional differences were considered for the proportion of residue burned (PCRB), the ratio between indoor and in-field burning, and the ratio of straw to grain production. The emissions were estimated at prefecture-city level as the first step; then they were redistributed within a city based on 1-km resolution land-use, MODIS fire counts, and rural population. Temporal variation was determined according to farming practices in different regions and MODIS fire counts. Uncertainties were estimated using the Monte Carlo method. The total emissions from crop residue burning in China were estimated to be 0.13 (−47–92%) for BC, 0.71 (−48–92%) for OC, 1.77 (−48–91%) for PM2.5, 2.04 (−50–100%) for PM10, 0.16 (−59–133%) for SO2, 0.53 (−55–105%) for NOX, 0.12 (−47–93%) for NH3, 1.07 (−55–102%) for CH4, 1.85 (−43–74%) for NMVOC, 18.33 (−46–85%) for CO and 305.20 (−45–80%) for CO2, in unit of Tg yr−1. Our results are remarkably lower than those reported in previous studies, mainly because of the PCRB has decreased significantly in recent years. For most of the pollutants, indoor burning accounted for about 50–70% of the emissions. Rice, wheat and corn contributed more than 85% of the emissions, but their relative contributions varied a lot with region and season. High emissions were mostly located in the eastern China, central China and northeastern China, and temporally peaked in April, June and October, with different intensities in the north and the south. This study provides a useful basis for air quality modeling and the policy making of pollution control strategies.

Global and local sensitivity analysis of urban background ozone modelled with a simplified photochemical scheme Publication date: 15 September 2019 Source: Atmospheric Environment, Volume 213 Author(s): Andrea L. Pineda Rojas, Damián E. Bikiel Abstract The Generic Reaction Set (GRS) is a simplified photochemical scheme that allows estimation of ozone (O3) concentrations resulting from nitrogen oxides (NOx) and reactive organic compounds (ROC) emissions in an urban area. Due to its simplicity and relative good performance, it has been included in the algorithms of many atmospheric dispersion models. However, few works assess quantitatively the sensitivity of simulated O3concentrations to the uncertainty in the GRS input variables. In order to do so, in this work we carry out two sensitivity analyses: global (applying an atmospheric dispersion model to a representative real case) and local (using a box-GRS model under a wide range of hypothetical conditions). In the global study, a Monte Carlo analysis is performed to estimate the uncertainty of maximum O3 concentrations that is caused by possible errors in the GRS input variables, applying the DAUMOD-GRS model in the Metropolitan Area of Buenos Aires. Results show that the initial concentration of O3 dominates at all analysed receptors while that of NOx can make a non-negligible contribution if its error is relatively large. In order to further analyse the effect of each parameter individually, a local sensitivity analysis is performed using a box-GRS model under a wide range of conditions. Except for the small NOx-limited region, sensitivity indexes computed for ±1 ppb changes in the initial concentrations of ROC, NOx and O3 are in the ranges 0.00–0.35, 0.00–0.81 and 0.05–0.96, respectively, with that of ozone dominating over most of the isopleth diagram space. In turn, its relative impact increases with decreasing ROC initial concentrations. Reaction rate coefficients have also different effects on O3 peak concentrations depending on the initial conditions of the system. Our results show quantitatively the change of dominant variables under different environments.

Nocturnal, seasonal and intra-annual variability of tropospheric aerosols observed using ground-based and space-borne lidars over a tropical location of India Publication date: 15 September 2019 Source: Atmospheric Environment, Volume 213 Author(s): P. Prasad, M.Roja Raman, M.Venkat Ratnam, V. Ravikiran, B.L. Madhavan, S. Vijaya Bhaskara Rao Abstract The nocturnal, seasonal and intra-annual variation of vertical distribution of tropospheric aerosols over two nearby stations Gadanki (13.5oN, 79.2oE) and Tirupati (13.6oN, 79.4oE) is investigated using ground-based Micro Pulse Lidar (MPL) and space-borne Lidar (CALIPSO) systems during 2010–2017. The nocturnal variation of aerosol extinction (AE) coefficient reveal high AE below ∼2 km in midnight hours and aerosols are slowly descending towards the surface during early morning hours. From the seasonal variation, AE values are found to be higher at lower altitudes (<2 km) during winter and post-monsoon seasons, a sharp decrease with increasing altitude is found in tandem with boundary layer and low wind speeds. Interestingly, during monsoon season, significant aerosol loading is found in the altitude range of ∼2–5.5 km mainly due to the influence of strong Low Level Jet (LLJ). The clean environment observed below ∼2 km during this season is attributed to the wet scavenging, downward vertical winds and existance of no strong local source. The seasonal mean AE profile derived from CALIPSO matches well with the MPL in all the seasons except in monsoon season where a large bias is noticed below 2 km. The intra-annual variation revealed more than 80% of aerosols existing above (below) the boundary layer during monsoon (winter) months contribute to the total Aerosol Optical Depth (AOD). The depolarization ratio (>0.2) in the month of July shows the dominance of dust particles which includes long-range transport over this locations. Back trajectories reveals that potential sources are changing from season to season at different altitudes and confirms that the aerosols observed at higher altitudes are advected from other land and oceanic regions. Thus, aerosol vertical distribution is mainly controlled by meteorology and dynamics over this region. Further, the reasonably good correlation found between MPL and MODIS AODs suggests that MODIS could provide reliable AOD over land region also.

Study of the occurrence of airborne Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons associated with respirable particles in two coastal cities at Eastern Mediterranean: Levels, source apportionment, and potential risk for human health Publication date: 15 September 2019 Source: Atmospheric Environment, Volume 213 Author(s): Minas Iakovides, Euripides G. Stephanou, Maria Apostolaki, Marios Hadjicharalambous, John S. Evans, Petros Koutrakis, Souzana Achilleos Abstract Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs) are one of the most hazardous substances in the environment. Although their occurrence and fate in the atmosphere of Eastern Mediterranean is well documented, there is limited information on PAH levels in the inhalable aerosol fraction. Additionally, to the best of our knowledge, there is lack of information on particulate matter with aerodynamic diameter equal or less than 2.5 and 10 μm (PM2.5/PM10)-bound PAH concentrations and sources in Cyprus. We therefore present the first study that i) determines the concentration levels of PAHs in the respirable and inhalable (PM2.5 and PM10) fraction of particulate matter; ii) identifies, quantifies, and compares PAH emission sources by applying two receptor models (Principal Components Analysis/Multiple Linear Regression Analysis, PCA/MLR; and UNMIX factorization), and iii) assesses their relative toxicity at two different coastal sites in Eastern Mediterranean (Island of Crete, Greece; and Cyprus). For this purpose, a total of 79 samples were collected in Heraklion (Island of Crete) and Limassol (Cyprus) during a 2-year sampling campaign between 2012 and 2014. Thirty five PAH members were identified and the total concentration (Σ35PAHs) levels in PM2.5 ranged between 0.15 and 9.19 ng/m3 in Heraklion; 0.12 and 3.91 ng/m3 (PM2.5), and 0.16 and 4.02 ng/m3 (PM10) in Limassol. PAH concentrations were the highest when air masses were passing over highly polluted areas, such as the eastern Balkan Peninsula/Adriatic Sea and northern Greece. The most abundant members at both sites were Benzo[b]fluoranthene (7–16%), Benzo[e]pyrene (8–11%), Indeno[1,2,3-cd]pyrene (10–18%) and Benzo[ghi]perylene (9–21%); as well as Anthranene (5–6%) and Coronene (9–11%) in Limassol. The major PAH emission sources obtained from the application of PCA/MLRA were gasoline and diesel/coal combustion sources, accounting for almost 60% and 40% of total contribution in Heraklion, while in Limassol both sources contributed nearly equally (51% and 49%, respectively). Similar findings were obtained using the UNMIX model. The lifetime incremental cancer risk (ILCR) due to both inhalation and ingestion exposure from particulate PAHs was well below the U.S. EPA regulatory threshold in both study areas.

Performance of MODIS high-resolution MAIAC aerosol algorithm in China: Characterization and limitation Publication date: 15 September 2019 Source: Atmospheric Environment, Volume 213 Author(s): Minghui Tao, Jun Wang, Rong Li, Lili Wang, Lunche Wang, Zifeng Wang, Jinhua Tao, Huizheng Che, Liangfu Chen Abstract The MODIS Multiple Angle Implication of Atmospheric Correction (MAIAC) algorithm enables simultaneous retrieval of aerosol and bidirectional surface reflectance at high resolution of 1 km. Taking advantage of multi-angle and image-based information, the MAIAC algorithm has great potential for improving retrieval of aerosols over both dark and bright surfaces. Here, by comparing MAIAC aerosol products with the ground-based observations at 9 typical sites spread out in China, we gain the insights regarding the performance of MAIAC algorithm, for the first time, over Asia that has complicated surface types, diverse aerosol sources, and heavy loading of aerosols in the atmosphere. While aerosol products from MAIAC show similar spatial distribution as that from MODIS Dark-Target (DT) and Deep-Blue (DB) algorithms, they are superior to reveal numerous hotspots of high AOD values in fine scales due to their higher resolution at 1 km. Moreover, since MAIAC algorithm for cloud screening uses time series of observations, it shows higher effectiveness to mask cloudy pixels as well as the pixels of the melting and aging ice/snow surfaces. While MAIAC and ground-observed AOD values show high correlation coefficient of ∼0.94 in two AERONET sites of Beijing and Xianghe, considerable bias is prevalent in other regions of China. Systematic underestimation is found over the deserts in western China likely due to the high bias of single scattering properties of aerosol model prescribed in MAIAC algorithm. In eastern China, the distinct positive bias is found in conditions with low-moderate AOD values and likely results from errors in regression coefficients in the surface reflectance model. Given its advantages in cloud and snow/ice screening and retrieval in fine spatial resolution, MAIAC algorithm can be improved by further refinement of regional aerosol and surface properties.

Sources of the seasonal-trend behaviour and periodicity modulation of 7Be air concentration in the atmospheric surface layer observed in southeastern Spain Publication date: 15 September 2019 Source: Atmospheric Environment, Volume 213 Author(s): E. Chham, A. Milena-Pérez, F. Piñero-García, M.A. Hernández-Ceballos, J.A.G. Orza, E. Brattich, T. El Bardouni, M.A. Ferro-García Abstract The components and the periodicity characterising airborne 7Be monthly concentration collected in Granada (SE Spain) between 2000 and 2018 are studied. These 19 years of measurements are particularly significant for the 7Be analysis as they cover the complete 24th solar cycle, 2008–2018. A Time Series Decomposition (TSD) technique has been applied to determine the different components present in the dataset: the trend, seasonal and irregular components. Then, the atmospheric parameters (Precipitation (Pp), Relative Humidity (RH), Temperature (Temp), Wind speed (WS), Total Cloudiness (TC), Low Cloudiness (LC)), teleconnection indices and the solar activity (Sun Spot Number, SSN) were used to justify the variability of each component. SSN and the teleconnection indices (Western Mediterranean Oscillation (WeMO), Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) and Quasi Biennial Oscillation (QBO)) are found to have a major impact on the trend component of 7Be. In turn, all the atmospheric parameters were found to have strong impact on the seasonal component. In order to observe the change in the impact of the parameters from the 24th solar cycle (from 2008 to 2018) to the complete time series (starting in 2000), the comparison between the two periods has been carried out. The results show that, over the 24th solar cycle, the SSN impacted predominantly on the trend component, whereas atmospheric parameters showed a slightly higher impact on the seasonal component. In addition, some atmospheric factors (Temp, RH, Pp, TC, LC) appeared to partially affect the irregular component. The analysis of the two phases of the 24th solar cycle shows that the influence of SSN is higher during the descending phase than during the ascending one. This behaviour is opposed to the one found for the 23rd solar cycle, which clarifies the special characteristics of the 24th cycle. Besides that, the Continuous Wavelet Transform (CWT) analysis was applied in order to extract the possible periodicities characterising 7Be data. The analysis revealed three sets of periodicities. Then, the Wavelet Coherence Analysis (WCA) method was particularly useful to study coherences between 7Be data and teleconnection indices. The 7Be concentrations in the large period (11–14 years) detected by CWT was found to be mainly modulated by WeMO, AMO and QBO, while the NAO modulates the smaller periods.

Alexandros Sfakianakis
Anapafseos 5 . Agios Nikolaos
Crete.Greece.72100
2841026182

6948891480

alsfakia@gmail.com

Artificial Intelligence in Medicine

Distant Supervision for Treatment Relation Extraction by Leveraging MeSH Subheadings Publication date: Available online 7 June 2019 Source: Artificial Intelligence in Medicine Author(s): Tung Tran, Ramakanth Kavuluru Abstract The growing body of knowledge in biomedicine is too vast for human consumption. Hence there is a need for automated systems able to navigate and distill the emerging wealth of information. One fundamental task to that end is relation extraction, whereby linguistic expressions of semantic relationships between biomedical entities are recognized and extracted. In this study, we propose a novel distant supervision approach for relation extraction of binary treatment relationships such that high quality positive/negative training examples are generated from PubMed abstracts by leveraging associated MeSH subheadings. The quality of generated examples is assessed based on the quality of supervised models they induce; that is, the mean performance of trained models (derived via bootstrapped ensembling) on a gold standard test set is used as a proxy for data quality. We show that our approach is preferable to traditional distant supervision for treatment relations and is closer to human crowd annotations in terms of annotation quality. For treatment relations, our generated training data performs at 81.38%, compared to traditional distant supervision at 64.33% and crowd-sourced annotations at 90.57% on the model-wide PR-AUC metric. We also demonstrate that examples generated using our method can be used to augment crowd-sourced datasets. Augmented models improve over non-augmented models by more than two absolute points on the more established F1 metric. We lastly demonstrate that performance can be further improved by implementing a classification loss that is resistant to label noise.

A Deep Survival Analysis Method Based on Ranking Publication date: Available online 6 June 2019 Source: Artificial Intelligence in Medicine Author(s): Bingzhong Jing, Tao Zhang, Zixian Wang, Ying Jin, Kuiyuan Liu, Wenze Qiu, Liangru Ke, Ying Sun, Caisheng He, Dan Hou, Linquan Tang, Xing Lv, Chaofeng Li Abstract Survival analyses of populations and the establishment of prognoses for individual patients are important activities in the practice of medicine. Standard survival models, such as the Cox proportional hazards model, require extensive feature engineering or prior knowledge to model at an individual level. Some survival analysis models can avoid these problems by using machine learning extended the CPH model, and higher performance has been reported. In this paper, we propose an innovative loss function that is defined as the sum of an extended mean squared error loss and a pairwise ranking loss based on ranking information on survival data. We apply this loss function to optimize a deep feed-forward neural network (RankDeepSurv), which can be used to model survival data. We demonstrate that the performance of our model, RankDeepSurv, is superior to that of other state-of-the-art survival models based on an analysis of 4 public medical clinical datasets. When modelling the prognosis of nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC), RankDeepSurv achieved better prognostic accuracy than the CPH established by clinical experts. The difference between high and low risk groups in the RankDeepSurv model is greater than the difference in the CPH. The results show that our method has considerable potential to model survival data in medical settings.

Combining clustering and classification ensembles: A novel pipeline to identify breast cancer profiles Publication date: June 2019 Source: Artificial Intelligence in Medicine, Volume 97 Author(s): Utkarsh Agrawal, Daniele Soria, Christian Wagner, Jonathan Garibaldi, Ian O. Ellis, John M.S. Bartlett, David Cameron, Emad A. Rakha, Andrew R. Green Abstract Breast Cancer is one of the most common causes of cancer death in women, representing a very complex disease with varied molecular alterations. To assist breast cancer prognosis, the classification of patients into biological groups is of great significance for treatment strategies. Recent studies have used an ensemble of multiple clustering algorithms to elucidate the most characteristic biological groups of breast cancer. However, the combination of various clustering methods resulted in a number of patients remaining unclustered. Therefore, a framework still needs to be developed which can assign as many unclustered (i.e. biologically diverse) patients to one of the identified groups in order to improve classification. Therefore, in this paper we develop a novel classification framework which introduces a new ensemble classification stage after the ensemble clustering stage to target the unclustered patients. Thus, a step-by-step pipeline is introduced which couples ensemble clustering with ensemble classification for the identification of core groups, data distribution in them and improvement in final classification results by targeting the unclustered data. The proposed pipeline is employed on a novel real world breast cancer dataset and subsequently its robustness and stability are examined by testing it on standard datasets. The results show that by using the presented framework, an improved classification is obtained. Finally, the results have been verified using statistical tests, visualisation techniques, cluster quality assessment and interpretation from clinical experts.

Recurrent neural networks with segment attention and entity description for relation extraction from clinical texts Publication date: June 2019 Source: Artificial Intelligence in Medicine, Volume 97 Author(s): Zhi Li, Jinshan Yang, Xu Gou, Xiaorong Qi Abstract At present, great progress has been achieved on the relation extraction for clinical texts, but we have noticed that the current models have great drawbacks when dealing with long sentences and multiple entities in a sentence. In this paper, we propose a novel neural network architecture based on Bidirectional Long Short-Term Memory Networks for relation classification. Firstly, we utilize a concat-attention mechanism for capturing the most important context words for relation extraction in a sentence. In addition, a segment attention mechanism is proposed to improve the performance of the model processing long sentences. Finally, a tensor-based entity description is used to overcome the performance degradation of the model when there are multiple entities in a sentence. The performance of the proposed model is evaluated on a part of the i2b2-2010 shared task clinical relation extraction dataset. The result indicates that our model can effectively overcome the above two problems and improve the F1-score by approximately 3% compared with baseline model.

Incorporated region detection and classification using deep convolutional networks for bone age assessment Publication date: June 2019 Source: Artificial Intelligence in Medicine, Volume 97 Author(s): Toan Duc Bui, Jae-Joon Lee, Jitae Shin Abstract Bone age assessment plays an important role in the endocrinology and genetic investigation of patients. In this paper, we proposed a deep learning-based approach for bone age assessment by integration of the Tanner-Whitehouse (TW3) methods and deep convolution networks based on extracted regions of interest (ROI)-detection and classification using Faster-RCNN and Inception-v4 networks, respectively. The proposed method allows exploration of expert knowledge from TW3 and features engineering from deep convolution networks to enhance the accuracy of bone age assessment. The experimental results showed a mean absolute error of about 0.59 years between expert radiologists and the proposed method, which is the best performance among state-of-the-art methods.

Texture descriptors and voxels for the early diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease Publication date: June 2019 Source: Artificial Intelligence in Medicine, Volume 97 Author(s): Loris Nanni, Sheryl Brahnam, Christian Salvatore, Isabella Castiglioni, the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative Abstract Background and objective Early and accurate diagnosis of Alzheimer's Disease (AD) is critical since early treatment effectively slows the progression of the disease thereby adding productive years to those afflicted by this disease. A major problem encountered in the classification of MRI for the automatic diagnosis of AD is the so-called curse-of-dimensionality, which is a consequence of the high dimensionality of MRI feature vectors and the low number of training patterns available in most MRI datasets relevant to AD. Methods A method for performing early diagnosis of AD is proposed that combines a set of SVMs trained on different texture descriptors (which reduce dimensionality) extracted from slices of Magnetic Resonance Image (MRI) with a set of SVMs trained on markers built from the voxels of MRIs. The dimension of the voxel-based features is reduced by using different feature selection algorithms, each of which trains a separate SVM. These two sets of SVMs are then combined by weighted-sum rule for a final decision. Results Experimental results show that 2D texture descriptors improve the performance of state-of-the-art voxel-based methods. The evaluation of our system on the four ADNI datasets demonstrates the efficacy of the proposed ensemble and demonstrates a contribution to the accurate prediction of AD. Conclusions Ensembles of texture descriptors combine partially uncorrelated information with respect to standard approaches based on voxels, feature selection, and classification by SVM. In other words, the fusion of a system based on voxels and an ensemble of texture descriptors enhances the performance of voxel-based approaches.

Supporting the Distributed Execution of Clinical Guidelines by Multiple Agents Publication date: Available online 18 May 2019 Source: Artificial Intelligence in Medicine Author(s): Alessio Bottrighi, Luca Piovesan, Paolo Terenziani Abstract Clinical guidelines (GLs) are widely adopted in order to improve the quality of patient care, and to optimize it. To achieve such goals, their application on a specific patient usually requires the interventions of different agents, with different roles (e.g., physician, nurse), abilities (e.g., specialist in the treatment of alcohol-related problems) and contexts (e.g., many chronic patients may be treated at home). Additionally, the responsibility of the application of a guideline to a patient is usually retained by a physician, but delegation of responsibility (of the whole guideline, or of a part of it) is often used\required (e.g., delegation to a specialist), as well as the possibility, for a responsible, to select the executor of an action (e.g., a physician may retain the responsibility of an action, but delegate to a nurse its execution). To manage such phenomena, proper support to agent interaction and communication must be provided, providing agents with facilities for (1) treatment continuity (2) contextualization, (3) responsibility assignment and delegation (4) check of agent "appropriateness". In this paper we extend GLARE, a computerized GL management system, to support such needs. We illustrate our approach by means of a practical case study.

Personalized conciliation of clinical guidelines for comorbid patients through multi-agent planning Publication date: May 2019 Source: Artificial Intelligence in Medicine, Volume 96 Author(s): Juan Fdez-Olivares, Eva Onaindia, Luis Castillo, Jaume Jordán, Juan Cózar Abstract The conciliation of multiple single-disease guidelines for comorbid patients entails solving potential clinical interactions, discovering synergies in the diagnosis and the recommendations, and managing clinical equipoise situations. Personalized conciliation of multiple guidelines considering additionally patient preferences brings some further difficulties. Recently, several works have explored distinct techniques to come up with an automated process for the conciliation of clinical guidelines for comorbid patients but very little attention has been put in integrating the patient preferences into this process. In this work, a Multi-Agent Planning (MAP) framework that extends previous work on single-disease temporal Hierarchical Task Networks (HTN) is proposed for the automated conciliation of clinical guidelines with patient-centered preferences. Each agent encapsulates a single-disease Computer Interpretable Guideline (CIG) formalized as an HTN domain and conciliates the decision procedures that encode the clinical recommendations of its CIG with the decision procedures of the other agents' CIGs. During conciliation, drug-related interactions, scheduling constraints as well as redundant actions and multiple support interactions are solved by an automated planning process. Moreover, the simultaneous application of the patient preferences in multiple diseases may potentially bring about contradictory clinical decisions and more interactions. As a final step, the most adequate personalized treatment plan according to the patient preferences is selected by a Multi-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) process. The MAP approach is tested on a case study that builds upon a simplified representation of two real clinical guidelines for Diabetes Mellitus and Arterial Hypertension.

Indexing the Event Calculus: Towards practical human-readable Personal Health Systems Publication date: May 2019 Source: Artificial Intelligence in Medicine, Volume 96 Author(s): Nicola Falcionelli, Paolo Sernani, Albert Brugués, Dagmawi Neway Mekuria, Davide Calvaresi, Michael Schumacher, Aldo Franco Dragoni, Stefano Bromuri Abstract Personal Health Systems (PHS) are mobile solutions tailored to monitoring patients affected by chronic non communicable diseases. In general, a patient affected by a chronic disease can generate large amounts of events: for example, in Type 1 Diabetic patients generate several glucose events per day, ranging from at least 6 events per day (under normal monitoring) to 288 per day when wearing a continuous glucose monitor (CGM) that samples the blood every 5 minutes for several days. Just by itself, without considering other physiological parameters, it would be impossible for medical doctors to individually and accurately follow every patient, highlighting the need of simple approaches towards querying physiological time series. Achieving this with current technology is not an easy task, as on one hand it cannot be expected that medical doctors have the technical knowledge to query databases and on the other hand these time series include thousands of events, which requires to re-think the way data is indexed. Anyhow, handling data streams efficiently is not enough. Domain experts' knowledge must be explicitly included into PHSs in a way that it can be easily readed and modified by medical staffs. Logic programming represents the perfect programming paradygm to accomplish this task. In this work, an Event Calculus-based reasoning framework to standardize and express domain-knowledge in the form of monitoring rules is suggested, and applied to three different use cases. However, if online monitoring has to be achieved, the reasoning performance must improve dramatically. For this reason, three promising mechanisms to index the Event Calculus Knowledge Base are proposed. All of them are based on different types of tree indexing structures: k-d trees, interval trees and red-black trees. The paper then compares and analyzes the performance of the three indexing techniques, by computing the time needed to check different type of rules (and eventually generating alerts), when the number of recorded events (e.g. values of physiological parameters) increases. The results show that customized jREC performs much better when the event average inter-arrival time is little compared to the checked rule time-window. Instead, where the events are more sparse, the use of k-d trees with standard EC is advisable. Finally, the Multi-Agent paradigm helps to wrap the various components of the system: the reasoning engines represent the agent minds, and the sensors are its body. The said agents have been developed in MAGPIE, a mobile event based Java agent platform.

Towards a modular decision support system for radiomics: A case study on rectal cancer Publication date: May 2019 Source: Artificial Intelligence in Medicine, Volume 96 Author(s): Roberto Gatta, Mauro Vallati, Nicola Dinapoli, Carlotta Masciocchi, Jacopo Lenkowicz, Davide Cusumano, Calogero Casá, Alessandra Farchione, Andrea Damiani, Johan van Soest, Andre Dekker, Vincenzo Valentini Abstract Following the personalized medicine paradigm, there is a growing interest in medical agents capable of predicting the effect of therapies on patients, by exploiting the amount of data that is now available for each patient. In disciplines like oncology, where images and scans are available, the exploitation of medical images can provide an additional source of potentially useful information. The study and analysis of features extracted by medical images, exploited for predictive purposes, is termed radiomics. A number of tools are available for supporting some of the steps of the radiomics process, but there is a lack of approaches which are able to deal with all the steps of the process. In this paper, we introduce a medical agent-based decision support system capable of handling the whole radiomics process. The proposed system is tested on two independent data sets of patients treated for rectal cancer. Experimental results indicate that the system is able to generate highly performant centre-specific predictive model, and show the issues related to differences in data sets collected by different centres, and how such issues can affect the performance of the generated predictive models.

Alexandros Sfakianakis
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