Activity

Viscoelastic coagulation tests are useful to assess coagulation status in the clinical setting and to aid in understanding underlying pathophysiological mechanisms that affect coagulation status. Such tests also are useful for coagulation research. Because mouse models are widely used to study molecular mechanisms in fine detail, a simple viscoelastic coagulation test requiring small blood volumes would be convenient for such studies in mice.

We tested viscoelastic coagulation properties of normal healthy adult mice using a novel veterinary clinical point-of-care device, Viscoelastic Coagulation Monitor (VCM Vet™; Entegrion Corp.). Fresh whole blood was collected from 63 healthy mature adult C57 black 6N mice, with ultimately 54 mice, equal numbers of male and females, used to determine reference intervals (RIs) for VCM test parameters.

RIs were determined for equal numbers of male and female mice clot time 43.0-353.0 s; clot formation time 49.4-137.6 s; alpha angle 54.4-62.2°; A10 25.0-49.6 VCM units; underlie greater coagulopathic, hemorrhagic, or thromboembolic risk during trauma or other pathophysiologic conditions.There is limited information about the prevalence and treatment of concurrent acetaminophen and iron overdose. One case study has suggested that this combination may be lethal. We present a case of fatal intentional acetaminophen and iron overdose and treatment with extracorporeal methods, including continuous venovenous hemofiltration and plasmapheresis, for removal of both toxins.

Thyroid function is increasingly recognized as an important modifiable factor for atrial fibrillation (AF); however, it is unclear if the changes in thyroid hormones, even within the normal range, are associated with AF recurrence after catheter ablation.

Consecutive paroxysmal AF patients who underwent catheter ablation were enrolled. Patients with abnormal thyroid hormones or previous thyroid illnesses were excluded. Patients were followed for 12 months or until they presented with the first episode of atrial tachyarrhythmia after a blanking period.

The study included 448 patients with a mean age of 61 (14) years, and 46% were women. After a 1-year follow-up, 104 (23.2%) patients experienced atrial tachyarrhythmia recurrences after an ablation procedure. Recurrence was significantly different among quartile groups of thyroid function, with highest FT4 and FT3 levels associated with the greatest risk of recurrence (p < 0.001 and p = 0.024, respectively). FT4 and FT3 levels were independent predictors of atrial tachyarrhythmia recurrence (hazard ratio 1.07 per 1 pmol/L increase in FT4, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.01-1.15, p = 0.036 and 1.31 per 1 pmol/L increase in FT3, 95% CI 1.01-1.71, p = 0.032).

High-normal FT3 and FT4 levels are associated with AF recurrence after catheter ablation in this Chinese population. Attention to thyroid hormones could be valuable to assist in the management of AF.

High-normal FT3 and FT4 levels are associated with AF recurrence after catheter ablation in this Chinese population. Attention to thyroid hormones could be valuable to assist in the management of AF.We investigate heat transport through an assembly consisting of a two-level system coupled between two harmonic oscillators, which is described by the quantum Rabi model, as a prototype of nanoscale heat devices using controllable multi-level systems. Using the noninteracting-blip approximation, we find that the linear thermal conductance shows a characteristic temperature dependence with a two-peak structure. We also show that heat transport is sensitive to model parameters for weak system-bath coupling and strong hybridization between the two-level system and the harmonic oscillators. This property characteristic of the multi-level system is advantageous for applications such as a heat transistor, and can be examined in superconducting circuits.As the number of novel data-driven approaches to material science continues to grow, it is crucial to perform consistent quality, reliability and applicability assessments of model performance. In this paper, we benchmark the Materials Optimal Descriptor Network (MODNet) method and architecture against the recently released MatBench v0.1, a curated test suite of materials datasets. MODNet is shown to outperform current leaders on 6 of the 13 tasks, while closely matching the current leaders on a further 2 tasks; MODNet performs particularly well when the number of samples is below 10 000. Attention is paid to two topics of concern when benchmarking models. First, we encourage the reporting of a more diverse set of metrics as it leads to a more comprehensive and holistic comparison of model performance. Second, an equally important task is the uncertainty assessment of a model towards a target domain. Significant variations in validation errors can be observed, depending on the imbalance and bias in the training set (i.e., similarity between training and application space). By using an ensemble MODNet model, confidence intervals can be built and the uncertainty on individual predictions can be quantified. Imbalance and bias issues are often overlooked, and yet are important for successful real-world applications of machine learning in materials science and condensed matter.We try to develop an atlas-guided automatic planning (AGAP) approach and evaluate its feasibility and performance in rectal cancer intensity-modulated radiotherapy. The developed AGAP approach consisted of four independent modules patient atlas, similar patient retrieval, beam morphing (BM), and plan fine-tuning (PFT) modules. The atlas was setup using anatomy and plan data from Pinnacle auto-planning (P-auto) plans. Given a new patient, the retrieval function searched the top similar patient by a generic Fourier descriptor algorithm and retrieved its plan information. The BM function generated an initial plan for the new patient by morphing the beam aperture from the top similar patient plan. The beam aperture and calculated dose of the initial plan were used to guide the new plan optimization in the PFT function. The AGAP approach was tested on 96 patients by the leave-one-out validation and plan quality was compared with the P-auto plans. Bicuculline ADC Cytotoxin inhibitor The AGAP and P-auto plans had no statistical difference for target coverage and dose homogeneity in terms ofV100%(p = 0.