bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Relationship Between Visual Acuity and Corneal Curvature Change in Children After Epiblepharon Surgery
Authors: Suh Su Youn , Ahn Jung Hyo 
Published: April 2020

Purpose:
To determine the relationship between visual acuity and corneal curvature change in children after epiblepharon correction surgery by corneal topography.

Methods:
The authors retrospectively reviewed the data of 62 children (121 eyes) who had epiblepharon surgery. The authors measured keratometric values of corneal curvature for 2 corneal zones: central 3 and 5 mm zone. Two zones were classified into 4 areas, including nasal, superior, temporal, and inferior area. Visual acuity and keratometric values were estimated preoperatively and at 1, 3, and 6 months postoperatively. The authors analyzed the correlation between visual acuity and corneal curvature change in 4 areas of the 2 zones.

Results:
There were statistically significant differences between preoperative and postoperative visual acuity 1 month after surgery. At postoperative 3 months, the inferior and superior areas of the 3 mm corneal zone were much flatter than before surgery (P < 0.05). Corneal curvature only at the inferior area of the 3 mm zone had significantly a negative correlation with postoperative visual acuity at 3 and 6 months (r =  −0.275, P = 0.02 and r = −0.351, P = 0.01, respectively). However, visual acuity had no significant correlation with corneal curvature change in any of the areas of the 5-mm corneal zone.

Conclusions:
The authors found that corneal curvature has significantly become flattened in the superior and inferior areas of the 3 mm corneal zone, postoperatively. Furthermore, inferior area in the 3 mm corneal zone affected only on the visual acuity improvement after postoperative 3 months.
Child and Caregiver Perspectives Towards Facial Appearance in Children With Microtia With or Without Craniofacial Microsomia Using a Newly Developed Likert Scale
Authors: Bradford Perry S. , Akinosun Moriyike , Danielson Kirstie K. , Monson Rebecca S. , Morris David. , Rosenberg Janine 
Published: April 2020

Abstract
Craniofacial microsomia (CFM) is the second most common congenital craniofacial malformation characterized by asymmetric malformation of the ear and mandible. Numerous studies have reported the importance of child perspective and psychosocial issues in patients with craniofacial abnormalities. However, clinical tools to evaluate child and caregiver perspectives in patients with microtia with or without CFM have been limited or not reported in the literature. The authors aimed to (1) To develop a tool for measuring patient and caregiver evaluation of facial appearance as it relates to microtia and craniofacial microsomia (CFM). (2) To utilize this tool in comparing children, between 7 and 20 years of age, and caregiver perspectives towards facial appearance in patients with microtia with or without craniofacial microsomia (CFM). A prospective single center study conducted from 2016 to 2017 using newly developed 13-item (Microtia) and 27-item (CFM) 5-point Likert scale Likert scale questionnaires given to patients with CFM and caregivers at a craniofacial center. Aged 7 to 20 (N = 25) and their caregivers. A total of 25 patients (13 male, 12 female; mean age at time of survey 13.2 ± 3.7) met criteria for the study. The Likert scale developed and presented in this study may be a useful tool for clinical use in investigating patient and caregiver perspectives for planning surgical timeline. Based on our pilot data it is important to incorporate all voices into decision-making on timing.
Successful Treatment of Full Thickness Frontal Skull Bone Defect With Dermal Fat Grafting and Artificial Bone Grafts
Authors: Yamauchi Daisuke , Rikimaru Hideaki , Rikimaru-Nishi Yukiko , Ueki Shoya , Hara Shigeru , Hashiguchi Shinichiro , Morinaga Keigo , Kiyokawa Kensuke 
Published: April 2020

Abstract
Rigid reconstruction for frontal bone defects not only improves function, but also approximates more normal appearance. However, in cases involving dural scar contractures, a concave deformation remains when rigid reconstruction is performed without compensating for dead space created by swelling of the brain. This study involved 4 cases in which a 2-stage reconstruction procedure was used to first eliminate dead space by grafting dermal fat, and subsequently carry out rigid reconstruction to achieve a natural forehead configuration. This method is advantageous and considered to be effective in allowing dead space to be easily filled with minimal invasiveness for concave deformations of the dura mater with bone defects. Furthermore, the risk of artificial bone exposure is reduced by adding the dermal component of dermal fat, which is grafted to thinned frontal skin.
Outcomes of Immediate Titanium Cranioplasty Following Post-Craniotomy Infection
Authors: Talwar Ankoor A. , Bhat Deepa K. , Heiman Adee J. , Ricci Joseph A. 
Published: April 2020

Abstract
When craniotomy complicated by secondary infection requires debridement and craniectomy, the bony defect is typically not reconstructed immediately. Due to concerns about placing a prosthetic material in an infected field, cranioplasty has traditionally been delayed by weeks or months after craniectomy. However, surgeons have begun performing single-stage cranioplasty after craniectomy in an effort to reduce the morbidity associated with multiple procedures and reduce overall healthcare costs. The purpose of this systematic review is to analyze outcomes of immediate cranioplasty performed after bone flap debridement secondary to infection. A literature review from January 1, 1998 through January 1, 2019 was conducted, examining the data on immediate titanium cranioplasty and its complication and reoperation rates. A meta-analysis of these articles was then performed. Variables studied included incidence of infection post-cranioplasty, wound healing complications, need for unplanned reoperation, and mortality. In total, there were 40 patients who underwent immediate cranioplasty after bone flap debridement. Overall, there was a 5% rate of postoperative infection, a 12.5% rate of unplanned return to the operating room, 7.5% rate of CSF fistula or leak, a 2.5% rate of hematoma, and a 2.5% rate of mortality within the immediate post-op period. Although there are insufficient data in the literature to rigorously compare these immediate cranioplasties in a direct way with the more traditional delayed type; the outcomes of immediate cranioplasty procedures secondary to craniectomy for infection were similar to the outcomes of delayed cranioplasty after craniectomy for any reason. Given these results, immediate titanium cranioplasty should be considered in select patients.
Prominent Ear Correction With Anterior Rasping
Authors: Ors Safvet 
Published: April 2020

Purpose:
Prominent ear deformity is usually characterized by antihelical fold deficiency, concha hypertrophy and earlobe deformity.

Materials and Methods:
Between 2000 and 2018, 375 otoplasty patients aged 6 to 58 who underwent surgery in our clinic were included in this study. Among these 375 cases, 25 were unilateral and 350 were bilateral. As surgical techniques anterior rasping, concha-mastoid sutures and concha-scaphoid sutures were used. The average cephaloauricular angle, the upper pole-mastoid distance and the distance between the middle 1/3 of the ear and mastoid was measured preoperatively and postoperatively. Postoperative measurements were made on the 15th day, 3rd month and the 6th month after the surgery. The approximate follow-up period ranged from 6 months to 18 years.

Results:
Concha-mastoid sutures can be used not only to reduce the concha but also to adjust the proportion between the width and height of the ear. Attenuation of the cartilage by rasping provides homogeneous thinning of the cartilage and prevents deformation. In all age groups, relapse and angle changes were observed in the first 6 months. After 6 months, there were no cases of recurrence or angle changes.
Delayed Orbital Apex Syndrome in the Post-Reconstructed Orbit
Authors: Zhao Yiping , Li Zhengkang , Deng Yuan 
Published: April 2020

Abstract
Delayed orbital apex syndrome (OAS) is rare during orbital blowout fracture reconstruction. A 30-year-old woman fractured the right orbital floor in a fall and undergone repairing operation 2 weeks later. After severe sneezing on postoperative day 10, she gradually arose vision loss, ophthalmoplegia, ptosis with a dilated and fixed pupil within few hours, then consulted our department and was diagnosed as OAS. Computed tomography scan showed displaced implant and retrobulbar emphysema resulting in a constellation of compression to orbital apex. Therefore, an exploratory operation was engaged to reposition the implant and reduce the emphysema concurrent with mega-dose steroids. The patient regained vision immediately and resolved all symptoms at the 6 months follow-up.
Consequences of undetected olfactory loss for human chemosensory communication and well-being
Authors: Oleszkiewicz A. , Kunkel F. , Larsson M. , Hummel T. 
Published: April 2020

Olfactory perception has implications for human chemosensory communication and in a broader context, it affects well-being. However, most of the studies investigating the consequences of olfactory loss have recruited patients who have already been categorized as having a dysfunctional sense of smell and sought help in an ENT clinic. We revisit these findings by distinguishing subjects with olfactory impairment from a group of subjects who all declared a normal sense of smell when enrolling for this study. In the initial sample of 203 individuals, we found 59 to have impaired olfaction and four with marginal olfactory performance, not useful in daily life. Interestingly, we found a significant between-group difference in cognitive functioning, further supporting the notion of the relationship between cognition and olfactory performance. However, their chemosensory communication and well-being appeared not to be different from subjects with normosmia. Impaired olfactory function certainly has a severe impact on daily life but more so in individuals who are bothered with it and decide to seek treatment. The limited-to-no olfactory perception in the fraction of subjects who neither complain about it nor seek help in ENT clinics does not seem to have a major effect on their social, cognitive, emotional and health functioning.This article is part of the Theo Murphy meeting issue ‘Olfactory communication in humans’.
Chemosensory communication of aggression: women's fine-tuned neural processing of male aggression signals
Authors: Pause Bettina M. , Storch Dunja , Lübke Katrin T. 
Published: April 2020

The current study is the first to examine the central nervous processing of aggression chemosignals within men and women by means of chemosensory event-related potential (CSERP) analysis. Axillary sweat was collected from 17 men and 17 women participating in a competitive computer game (aggression condition) and playing a construction game (control condition). Sweat samples were pooled with reference to donor gender and condition, and presented to 23 men and 25 women via a constant flow olfactometer. Ongoing electroencephalogram was recorded from 61 scalp locations, CSERPs (P2, P3-1, P3-2) were analysed and neuronal sources calculated (low-resolution electromagnetic tomography, LORETA). Women, especially, showed larger P3-1 and P3-2 amplitudes in response to male as compared with female aggression signals (allpvalues < 0.01). The peak activation of this effect was related to activity within the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (Brodmann area 8). As male aggression commonly targets physical harm, the competence of the human brain to sensitively detect male aggression signals is considered to be highly adaptive. The detection of male aggression signals seems to be of higher importance for women than for men. It is suggested that the processing of male aggression signals in women induces an immediate response selection.This article is part of the Theo Murphy meeting issue ‘Olfactory communication in humans’.
Excess Mortality during the Covid-19 pandemic: Early evidence from England and Wales
Authors: Vandoros Sotiris 
Published: April 2020

AbstractBackgroundThe Covid-19 pandemic has claimed many lives in the UK and globally. The objective of this paper is to study whether the number of deaths not registered as covid-19-related has increased compared to what would have been expected in the absence of the pandemic. This may be a result of some covid-19 deaths being unreported or spillover effects on other causes of death (or both). Reasons behind this might include covid-19 underreporting, avoiding visits to hospitals or GPs, and the effects of the lockdown.MethodsI used weekly ONS data on the number of deaths in England and Wales that did not officially involve covid-19 over the period 2015-2020. Simply observing trends is not sufficient as spikes in deaths may occasionally occur. I thus followed a differences-in-differences econometric approach to study whether there was a relative increase in deaths not registered as covid-19-related during the pandemic, compared to a control. As an additional approach, an interrupted time series model was also used.ResultsResults suggest that there are an additional 968 weekly deaths that officially did not involve covid-19, compared to what would have otherwise been expected. This increase is also confirmed by the interrupted time series analysis.DiscussionThe number of deaths not officially involving covid-19 has demonstrated an absolute and relative increase during the pandemic. It is possible that some people are dying from covid-19 without being diagnosed, and that there are excess deaths due to other causes as a result of the pandemic. Analysing the cause of death for any excess non-covid-19 deaths will shed light upon the reasons for the increase in such deaths and will help design appropriate policy responses to save lives.
Significantly longer Covid-19 incubation times for the elderly, from a case study of 136 patients throughout China
Authors: Jiang Ally Bi-Zhu , Lieu Richard , Quenby Siobhan 
Published: April 2020

AbstractObjectiveTo infer Covid-19 incubation time distribution from a large sample.MethodBased on individual case data published online by 21 cities of China, we investigated a total of 136 COVID-19 patients who traveled to Hubei from 21 cities of China between January 5 and January 31, 2020, remained there for 48 hours or less, and returned to these cities with onset of symptoms between January 10 and February 6, 2020. Among these patients, 110 were found to be aged 15 – 64, 22 aged 65 – 86, and 4 aged under 15.FindingsThe differential incubation time histogram of the two age groups 15 – 64 and 65 – 86 are adequately fitted by the log normal model. For the 15 - 64 age group, the median incubation time of days (uncertainties are 95 −0.90 % CL) is broadly consistent with previous literature. For the 65-86 age group, the median is days is statistically significantly longer. Moreover, for −2.0 this group, the 95 % confidence contour indicates the data cannot constrain the upper bound of the log normal parameters µ, σ by failing to close there; this is because the sample has a maximum incubation time of 17 days, beyond which we ran out of data even though the histogram has not yet peaked. Thus there is the potential of a much longer incubation time for the 65-86 age group than 10 – 14 days. Only a much larger sample can settle this.
Impact of healthcare worker shift scheduling on workforce preservation during the COVID-19 pandemic
Authors: Kluger Dan M. , Aizenbud Yariv , Jaffe Ariel , Parisi Fabio , Aizenbud Lilach , Minsky-Fenick Eyal , Kluger Jonathan M. , Farhadian Shelli , Kluger Harriet M. , Kluger Yuval 
Published: April 2020

ABSTRACTBackgroundAs we contend with the massive SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, preventing infections among healthcare workers (HCWs) and patients is critical for delivering care to patients admitted for other purposes, and many standard scheduling practices require reassessment. In most academic hospitals in the United States, inpatient rotations are designed to deliver optimal patient care by staggering rotations of attendings and house-staff, and much emphasis is placed on HCW burnout, yet during a pandemic preventing further infection is the single most important factor. Our purpose was to model various inpatient rotation schedules of physicians and nurses to determine patterns associated with optimal workforce preservation and lower nosocomial infections in settings in which personal protective equipment is imperfect or unavailable.Summary of MethodsWe simulated the spread of COVID-19 in hospital wards using Monte Carlo methods. Universal model parameters for COVID-19 included incubation period distribution and latent period distribution. Situation-dependent COVID-19 model parameters included pre-admission infection probability, team member infection probability, physician-to-patient, nurse-to-patient, patient-to-physician, patient-to-nurse, and HCW-to-HCW transmission probabilities, team member absence after symptom onset, daily SARS-CoV-2 exposure probability of team members (e.g. via exposure to other staff), length of admission after COVID-19 symptoms, and length of simulation time. Model parameters that varied by hospital setting and service type included average patient load per team, average patient hospitalization, and number of physicians and nurses on a team and on duty.ResultsThe primary outcome measure was probability of team failure, defined as the likelihood that at some point there are insufficient attendings, house-staff or nurses to staff a fully functioning floor. In all of our simulations, physician and nurse rotation lengths of 1-3 days led to higher team failure rates. Nursing shifts of 12 versus 8 hours and avoiding staggering of physician rotations also decreased the chance of team failure.ConclusionsSimple changes in staff scheduling, such as lengthening nursing shifts or avoiding rotations that are either staggered or last fewer than three days, can result in improved workforce preservation. These workforce scheduling changes are easy to implement.
A Validation Study for the Successful Isolation Policy in China: a Meta-Analysis in COVID-19
Authors: Dong Jianghu (James) , Zhou Yongdao , Zhang Ying , Fraz Douglas 
Published: April 2020

AbstractCOVID-19 is quickly spreading around the world and carries along with it a significant threat to public health. This study sought to apply meta-analysis to more precisely and accurately estimate the basic reproduction number (R0) of COVID-19 in order to evaluate the effectiveness of the isolation policy across countries, and the corresponding public health capability to care for patients. Prior estimates of R0 have varied widely and range from 1.95 to 6.49. Utilizing meta-analysis techniques we determined a more robust estimation of 3.05 for R0, which is substantially larger than that provided by the WHO. We also present the infectious rate standardized to per million population, which has proved to be a good index to determine whether the isolation measures in specific countries are effective. Also, this standardized infection rate can be used to determine whether the current infectious severity status is out of range of the national health capacity. Finally, we utilize our robust estimate of R0 and the standardized infectious rate to illustrate that the early and aggressive isolation measures enforced by the Chinese government were substantially more effective in controlling the negative impact COVID-19 than the more permissive measures enacted early in Italy and the United States.
A consideration of publication-derived immune-related associations in Coronavirus and related lung damaging diseases
Authors: Geifman Nophar , Whetton Anthony D. 
Published: April 2020

ABSTRACTThe severe acute respiratory syndrome virus SARS-CoV-2, a close relative of the SARS-CoV virus, is the cause of recent COVID-19 pandemic affecting, to date, nearly 2 million individuals across the globe and demonstrating relatively high rates of infection and mortality. A third virus, the H5N1, responsible for avian influenza, has caused infection with some clinical similarities to those in COVID-19 infections.Cytokines, small proteins that modulate immune responses, have been directly implicated in some of the severe responses seen in COVID-19 patients, e.g. cytokine storms.Understanding the immune processes related to COVID-19, and other similar infections, could help identify diagnostic markers and therapeutic targets.Here we examine data of cytokine, immune cell types, and disease associations captured from biomedical literature associated with coronavirus, SARS, and H5N1 influenza, with the objective of identifying potentially useful relationships and areas for future research. Cytokine and cell-type associations captured from MeSH terms linked to thousands of PubMed abstracts, has identified differing patterns of associations between the three corpuses of abstracts (coronavirus, SARS, or H5N1 influenza). Clustering of cytokine-disease co-occurrences in the context of coronavirus has identified compelling clusters of co-morbidities and symptoms, some of which already known to be linked to COVID-19. Finally, network analysis identified sub-networks of cytokines and immune cell types associated with different manifestations, co-morbidities and symptoms of coronavirus, SARS, and H5N1.Systematic review of research in medicine is essential to facilitate evidence-based choices about health interventions. In a fast moving pandemic the approach taken here will identify trends and enable rapid comparison to the literature of related diseases.
Machine learning based predictive model of early mortality in stage III and IV prostate cancer
Authors: Chen Robert 
Published: April 2020

AbstractProstate cancer remains the third highest cause of cancer-related deaths. Metastatic prostate cancer could yield poor prognosis, however there is limited work on predictive models for clinical decision support in stage III and IV prostate cancer.We developed a machine learning model for predicting early mortality in prostate cancer (survival less than 21 months after initial diagnosis). A cohort of 10,303 patients was extracted from the Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) program. Features were constructed in several domains including demographics, histology of primary tumor, and metastatic sites. Feature selection was performed followed by regularized logistic regression. The model was evaluated using 5-fold cross validation and achieved 75.2% accuracy with AUC 0.649. Of the 19 most predictive features, all of them were validated to be clinically meaningful for prediction of early mortality.Our study serves as a framework for prediction of early mortality in patients with stage II and stage IV prostate cancer, and can be generalized to predictive modeling problems for other relevant clinical endpoints. Future work should involve integration of other data sources such as electronic health record and genomic or metabolomic data.