Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Yoga, breast cancer‐related lymphoedema and well‐being: A descriptive report of women's participation in a clinical trial

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES To describe the experiences of women taking part in a yoga intervention trial for breast cancer-related lymphoedema. BACKGROUND Around 20% of women will experience lymphoedema as a consequence of treatment for breast cancer. Specialist lymphoedema clearing, along with self-management, remains the mainstay of therapy. Yoga, an increasingly popular complementary therapeutic practice, may provide another tool to augment self-management. DESIGN A qualitative, descriptive design. METHODS Interviews were conducted with 15 women with stage one breast cancer-related lymphoedema who had completed an 8-week yoga intervention trial. The intervention consisted of a weekly teacher-led 1.5-hr yoga class and a daily home practice using a 45-min DVD. Interviews were audio-taped and transcribed. These data were then analysed using an iterative-thematic approach. RESULTS Participants reported improved well-being, increased awareness of their physical body as well as improved physical, mental and social functioning. They gained from being part of the yoga group that also provided a forum for them to share their experiences. Nine women felt empowered to describe their yoga participation as a transformative journey through illness. CONCLUSION When safe to do so, the holistic practice of yoga may augment and provide additional benefit to current self-management and treatment practices for women with breast cancer-related lymphoedema. RELEVANCE TO CLINICAL PRACTICE Patients with breast cancer-related lymphoedema may seek advice and guidance from nurses and other healthcare professionals on a range of complementary therapies to help relieve symptoms and promote recovery. Patients who choose to augment their treatment of breast cancer-related lymphoedema by practicing yoga should be carefully assessed, be taught an appropriate technique by a qualified yoga teacher/therapist and its impact monitored by their yoga teacher/therapist, breast care nurse, lymphoedema therapist or treating clinician.
A Process Matching Approach for ¯exible Work¯ow Process Reuse

Matching between two work¯ow processes is the key step of work¯ow process reuse. This paper presents an inexact matching approach for ¯exible work¯ow process reuse. A multi-valued process specialization relationship is de®ned based on the de®nition of activity specialization and the characteristics of work¯ow process. The matching degree between two work¯ow processes is determined by the matching degrees of their corresponding sub-processes or activities. The matching degree between two activities is determined by the activity-distance between them in the activity-ontology repository. A set of process specialization rules enables a new process matching to be derived from the existing matchings. Users are provided with an SQL-like command to retrieve the required processes in an inexact query condition from the work¯ow-process-ontology repository.
Biofabrication of injectable fibrin microtissues for minimally-invasive therapies: application of surfactants

Microtissues created from the protein fibrin and containing embedded cells can be used in modular tissue engineering approaches to create larger, hierarchical and complex tissue structures. In this paper we demonstrate an emulsification-based method for the production of such fibrin microtissues containing fibroblasts (FB) and endothelial cells (EC) and designed to promote tissue vascularization. Surfactants can be beneficial in the microtissue fabrication process to reduce aggregation and to facilitate recovery of microtissues from the emulsion, thereby increasing yield. The nonionic surfactants Pluronic L101® and Tween 20® both increased microtissue yield in a dose-dependent fashion. Cell viability of both human FB and human EC remained high after exposure to low surfactant concentrations but decreased with increasing surfactant concentration. L101 was markedly less cytotoxic than Tween, and therefore was the surfactant of choice in this application. The yield of cell-laden microtissues increased with increasing L101 concentration, though microtissues were slightly larger at low concentrations. The total metabolic activity of cells in retrieved microtissues was bimodal and was highest at an L101 concentration of 0.10% wt/vol. Network formation by EC in microtissues embedded in surrounding 3D fibrin hydrogels was also most extensive in microtissues made using an L101 concentration of 0.10% wt/vol. Minimally-invasive delivery of microtissue populations was demonstrated by injection through a standard 18 G needle, and the ability to form robust endothelial networks was maintained in injected microtissue populations. Taken together, these data demonstrate a facile emulsification-based method to create modular, cell-laden hydrogel microtissues that can be delivered by injection to promote tissue regeneration. Appropriate selection of the type and concentration of surfactant used in the process can be used to maximize viability and specialized function of the embedded cells. Such biomaterial-based microtissues may have broad applicability in cell-based therapies and tissue engineering.
Preliminary investigation of multiparametric strain Z‐score (MPZS) computation using displacement encoding with simulated echoes (DENSE) and radial point interpretation method (RPIM)

To describe and assess an automated normalization method for identifying sentinel (septal) regions of myocardial dysfunction in nonischemic, nonvalvular dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM), using an unprecedented combination of the navigator‐gated 3D spiral displacement encoding with stimulated echoes (DENSE) magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), radial point interpolation (RPIM) and multiparametric strain z‐score (MPZS).
The sensitivity of US wildfire occurrence to pre-season soil moisture conditions across ecosystems

It is generally accepted that year-to-year variability in moisture conditions and drought are linked with increased wildfire occurrence. However, quantifying the sensitivity of wildfire to surface moisture state at seasonal lead-times has been challenging due to the absence of a long soil moisture record with the appropriate coverage and spatial resolution for continental-scale analysis. Here we apply model simulations of surface soil moisture that numerically assimilate observations from NASA’s Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) mission with the USDA Forest Service’s historical Fire-Occurrence Database over the contiguous United States. We quantify the relationships between pre-fire-season soil moisture and subsequent-year wildfire occurrence by land-cover type and produce annual probable wildfire occurrence and burned area maps at 0.25 degree resolution. Cross-validated results generally indicate a higher occurrence of smaller fires when months preceding fire season are wet, while larger fires are more frequent when soils are dry. This is consistent with the concept of increased fuel accumulation under wet conditions in the pre-season. These results demonstrate the fundamental strength of the relationship between soil moisture and fire activity at long lead-times and are indicative of that relationship’s utility for the future development of national-scale predictive capability.
A rapid and non-invasive method to determine toxic levels of alcohols and γ-hydroxybutyric acid in saliva samples by gas chromatography–differential mobility spectrometry

A polydimethylsiloxane oral sampler was used to extract methanol, ethanol, ethylene glycol, 1,3-propandiol and γ-hydroxybutyric acid from samples of human saliva obtained using a passive drool approach. The extracted compounds were recovered by thermal desorption, isolated by gas chromatography and detected with differential mobility spectrometry, operating with a programmed dispersion field. Complex signal behaviours were also observed that were consistent with hitherto unobserved fragmentation behaviours in differential mobility spectrometry. These yielded high-mobility fragments obscured within the envelope of the water-based reactant ion peak. Further, compensation field maxima shifts were also observed which were attributable to transport gas modification phenomena. Nevertheless, the responses obtained indicated that in vivo saliva sampling with thermal desorption gas chromatography may be used to provide a semi-quantitative diagnostic screen over the toxicity threshold concentration ranges of 100 mg dm−3 to 3 g dm−3. A candidate method suitable for use in low resource settings for the non-invasive screening of patients intoxicated by alcohols and volatile sedatives has been demonstrated.
Measuring the outcomes of nursing practice: A Delphi study

AIMS AND OBJECTIVE To develop nursing-sensitive patient indicators to measure the outcomes of nursing practice. BACKGROUND Nurses play an important role in the healthcare system, yet there is no consensus on how the impact of nursing work should be evaluated. Limited research has previously examined the views of clinical nurses on the important concepts for measuring nursing practice. DESIGN A four-round modified Delphi survey sought opinions from patients and nurses about the relevant concepts and their relative priority as indicators of quality nursing practice. METHOD Round 1 comprised semi-structured interviews with patients and nurses to identify key concepts. Nurses were then asked to participate in three rounds of Delphi survey to identify and rate key concepts from which indicators were developed. Thematic analysis and descriptive statistics were used to analyse the data. RESULTS By the end of Round 4, the process had generated 103 concepts and participants had agreed on eight overarching constructs, namely care and caring; communication; coordination and collaboration; safety; patient characteristics; workload; Nurses work environment; and organisational characteristics. CONCLUSIONS Consensus was achieved between nurses on the most important concepts, which can provide the basis for measuring the quality and safety of nursing practice in a comprehensive and holistic way. RELEVANCE TO CLINICAL PRACTICE The identification of concepts that patients and nurses consider important for measuring nursing practice will guide the development of methods for evaluating nursing in the future. Ensuring that nursing practice is rigorously evaluated has the potential to identify opportunities to improve nursing quality, patient safety and improve health outcomes.
The use of a gas chromatography-sensor system combined with advanced statistical methods, towards the diagnosis of urological malignancies

Prostate cancer is one of the most common cancers. Serum prostate-specific antigen (PSA) is used to aid the selection of men undergoing biopsies. Its use remains controversial. We propose a GC-sensor algorithm system for classifying urine samples from patients with urological symptoms. This pilot study includes 155 men presenting to urology clinics, 58 were diagnosed with prostate cancer, 24 with bladder cancer and 73 with haematuria and or poor stream, without cancer. Principal component analysis (PCA) was applied to assess the discrimination achieved, while linear discriminant analysis (LDA) and support vector machine (SVM) were used as statistical models for sample classification. Leave-one-out cross-validation (LOOCV), repeated 10-fold cross-validation (10FoldCV), repeated double cross-validation (DoubleCV) and Monte Carlo permutations were applied to assess performance. Significant separation was found between prostate cancer and control samples, bladder cancer and controls and between bladder and prostate cancer samples. For prostate cancer diagnosis, the GC/SVM system classified samples with 95% sensitivity and 96% specificity after LOOCV. For bladder cancer diagnosis, the SVM reported 96% sensitivity and 100% specificity after LOOCV, while the DoubleCV reported 87% sensitivity and 99% specificity, with SVM showing 78% and 98% sensitivity between prostate and bladder cancer samples. Evaluation of the results of the Monte Carlo permutation of class labels obtained chance-like accuracy values around 50% suggesting the observed results for bladder cancer and prostate cancer detection are not due to over fitting. The results of the pilot study presented here indicate that the GC system is able to successfully identify patterns that allow classification of urine samples from patients with urological cancers. An accurate diagnosis based on urine samples would reduce the number of negative prostate biopsies performed, and the frequency of surveillance cystoscopy for bladder cancer patients. Larger cohort studies are planned to investigate the potential of this system. Future work may lead to non-invasive breath analyses for diagnosing urological conditions.
Development of the Sydney Falls Risk Screening Tool in brain injury rehabilitation: A multisite prospective cohort study

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES To develop a falls risk screening tool (FRST) sensitive to the traumatic brain injury rehabilitation population. BACKGROUND Falls are the most frequently recorded patient safety incident within the hospital context. The inpatient traumatic brain injury rehabilitation population is one particular population that has been identified as at high risk of falls. However, no FRST has been developed for this patient population. Consequently in the traumatic brain injury rehabilitation population, there is the real possibility that nurses are using falls risk screening tools that have a poor clinical utility. DESIGN Multisite prospective cohort study. METHODS Univariate and multiple logistic regression modelling techniques (backward elimination, elastic net and hierarchical) were used to examine each variable's association with patients who fell. The resulting FRST's clinical validity was examined. RESULTS Of the 140 patients in the study, 41 (29%) fell. Through multiple logistic regression modelling, 11 variables were identified as predictors for falls. Using hierarchical logistic regression, five of these were identified for inclusion in the resulting falls risk screening tool: prescribed mobility aid (such as, wheelchair or frame), a fall since admission to hospital, impulsive behaviour, impaired orientation and bladder and/or bowel incontinence. The resulting FRST has good clinical validity (sensitivity = 0.9; specificity = 0.62; area under the curve = 0.87; Youden index = 0.54). The tool was significantly more accurate (p = .037 on DeLong test) in discriminating fallers from nonfallers than the Ontario Modified STRATIFY FRST. CONCLUSION A FRST has been developed using a comprehensive statistical framework, and evidence has been provided of this tool's clinical validity. RELEVANCE TO CLINICAL PRACTICE The developed tool, the Sydney Falls Risk Screening Tool, should be considered for use in brain injury rehabilitation populations.
Implementation of Fowler's method for end-tidal air sampling

The design, realization and testing of a CO2-triggered breath sampler, capable of a separate collection of dead space and end-tidal air on multiple breaths, is presented. This sampling procedure has advantages in terms of the sample volume, insights regarding the origin of compounds, increased reproducibility and higher concentrations of compounds. The high quality of design and the speed of the components ensure a breath-by-breath estimate of dead volume, as well as the comfort and safety of the subject under test. The system represents a valid tool to contribute to the development of a standardized sampling protocol needed to compare results obtained by the various groups in this field.
Quantifying heterogeneity in exposure–risk relationships using exhaled breath biomarkers for 1,3-butadiene exposures

The health effects of human exposure to 1,3-butadiene (BD) have been extensively studied using both epidemiological and animal toxicology approaches. However, various data and knowledge gaps remain, one of which is an understanding of the human heterogeneity in BD dosimetry. The objective of our study was to better understand the role of individual variability in delivered tissue dose. We designed a study of laboratory exposures of a relatively large group of healthy human subjects. Subjects were then exposed to 2.0 ppm BD through a face mask for 20 min, followed by 40 min of breathing clean air. Exhaled breath concentrations of BD were measured at ten time points during and after exposure, and a three-compartment physiologically based pharmacokinetic (PBPK) model was used to quantify the kinetic behavior of BD. We implemented a Markov chain Monte Carlo procedure to fit the model to the experimental data, and used global sensitivity analysis techniques to examine the sensitivity of exhaled breath concentrations to PBPK model parameters. Uptake during exposure was strongly influenced by rebreathing of exhaled BD during exposure; inclusion of rebreathing in the model simulations resulted in a 21% increase in the amount of BD retained in the body. We found that uptake ranged from 38% to 77% across individuals. We measured considerable intra-individual variability from 11 subjects who underwent the testing twice. Most of this variation stemmed from phase I metabolism of BD, which varied by as much as a factor of 2.6 within individuals. Overall, we have sought to quantify the sources of inter- and intra-individual variabilities in the pharmacokinetic behavior of BD. The results of our research may impact the current framework for biomarker and pharmacokinetic studies by improving our understanding of the sources of heterogeneity in response to chemical exposures.
A fundamental conflict of care: Nurses’ accounts of balancing patients' sleep with taking vital sign observations at night

Aims and objectives To explore why adherence to vital sign observations scheduled by an early warning score protocol reduces at night. Background Regular vital sign observations can reduce avoidable deterioration in hospital. early warning score protocols set the frequency of these observations by the severity of a patient's condition. Vital sign observations are taken less frequently at night, even with an early warning score in place, but no literature has explored why. Design A qualitative interpretative design informed this study. Methods Seventeen semi‐structured interviews with nursing staff working on wards with varying levels of adherence to scheduled vital sign observations. A thematic analysis approach was used. Results At night, nursing teams found it difficult to balance the competing care goals of supporting sleep with taking vital sign observations. The night‐time frequency of these observations was determined by clinical judgement, ward‐level expectations of observation timing and the risk of disturbing other patients. Patients with COPD or dementia could be under‐monitored, while patients nearing the end of life could be over‐monitored. Conclusion In this study, we found an early warning score algorithm focused on deterioration prevention did not account for long‐term management or palliative care trajectories. Nurses were therefore less inclined to wake such patients to take vital sign observations at night. However, the perception of widespread exceptions and lack of evidence regarding optimum frequency risks delegitimising the early warning score approach. This may pose a risk to patient safety, particularly patients with dementia or chronic conditions. Relevance to clinical practice Nurses should document exceptions and discuss these with the wider team. Hospitals should monitor why vital sign observations are missed at night, identify which groups are under‐monitored and provide guidance on prioritising competing expectations. early warning score protocols should take account of different care trajectories.
Detecting bacterial lung infections: in vivo evaluation of in vitro volatile fingerprints

The identification of bacteria by their volatilomes is of interest to many scientists and clinicians as it holds the promise of diagnosing infections in situ, particularly lung infections via breath analysis. While there are many studies reporting various bacterial volatile biomarkers or fingerprints using in vitro experiments, it has proven difficult to translate these data to in vivo breath analyses. Therefore, we aimed to create secondary electrospray ionization-mass spectrometry (SESI-MS) pathogen fingerprints directly from the breath of mice with lung infections. In this study we demonstrated that SESI-MS is capable of differentiating infected versus uninfected mice, P. aeruginosa-infected versus S. aureus-infected mice, as well as distinguish between infections caused by P. aeruginosa strains PAO1 versus FRD1, with statistical significance (p < 0.05). In addition, we compared in vitro and in vivo volatiles and observed that only 25–34% of peaks are shared between the in vitro and in vivo SESI-MS fingerprints. To the best of our knowledge, these are the first breath volatiles measured for P. aeruginosa PAO1, FRD1, and S. aureus RN450, and the first comparison of in vivo and in vitro volatile profiles from the same strains using the murine infection model.
Liver fibrosis: Review of current imaging and MRI quantification techniques

Liver fibrosis is characterized by the accumulation of extracellular matrix proteins such as collagen in the liver interstitial space. All causes of chronic liver disease may lead to fibrosis and cirrhosis. The severity of liver fibrosis influences the decision to treat or the need to monitor hepatic or extrahepatic complications. The traditional reference standard for diagnosis of liver fibrosis is liver biopsy. However, this technique is invasive, associated with a risk of sampling error, and has low patient acceptance. Imaging techniques offer the potential for noninvasive diagnosis, staging, and monitoring of liver fibrosis. Recently, several of these have been implemented on ultrasound (US), computed tomography, or magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Techniques that assess changes in liver morphology, texture, or perfusion that accompany liver fibrosis have been implemented on all three imaging modalities. Elastography, which measures changes in mechanical properties associated with liver fibrosis—such as strain, stiffness, or viscoelasticity—is available on US and MRI. Some techniques assessing liver shear stiffness have been adopted clinically, whereas others assessing strain or viscoelasticity remain investigational. Further, some techniques are only available on MRI—such as spin‐lattice relaxation time in the rotating frame (T1ρ), diffusion of water molecules, and hepatocellular function based on the uptake of a liver‐specific contrast agent—remain investigational in the setting of liver fibrosis staging. In this review, we summarize the key concepts, advantages and limitations, and diagnostic performance of each technique. The use of multiparametric MRI techniques offers the potential for comprehensive assessment of chronic liver disease severity.