Use of the BioHole™ device for the creation of tunnel tracks for buttonhole cannulation of fistula for hemodialysis

Buttonhole cannulation is a method of cannulation of native arteriovenous fistulae traditionally practiced by self‐cannulators. At St Michael's Hospital, this method has been modified to allow its use in problematic fistulae by multiple cannulators. In a busy dialysis unit, the need for a few specific cannulators to establish the tunnel tracks in combination with the variable dialysis schedules creates logistical challenges. A new method of creating tunnel tracks with the use of the BioHole^? device was evaluated. Buttonhole tracks were created in 12 patients using a peg of polycarbonated material with a holder (BioHole^? kit). The peg was inserted into the path left by the hemodialysis sharp needle following the index cannulation. Four of the 12 patients had an alternate access. Buttonhole tracks were successfully created in all the patients, albeit in 2 patients, the initial attempt to establish buttonhole tracks was aborted due to complications and the procedure was rescheduled. Compared with the modified buttonhole technique, pain on cannulation following track creation was significantly less in the BioHole^? group (P<0.001). Ease of cannulation was significantly improved in the BioHole^? group (P<0.05) when compared with that in thrice‐weekly patients using the modified buttonhole technique. Hemostasis postdialysis did not differ between the study groups. The use of the BioHole^? device is effective in the creation of tunnel tracks for buttonhole cannulation, is associated with less pain, and simplifies the logistics of arranging patient and nurses' schedules.     

Posttraumatic stress disorder and retrospectively reported stressor exposure: A longitudinal prediction model.

There has been recent concern about the degree to which posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptomatology influences reports of prior exposure to highly stressful life events. In this longitudinal study of 2,942 male and female Gulf War veterans, the authors documented change in stressor reporting across 2 occasions and the association between change and PTSD symptom severity. A regression-based cross-lagged analysis was used to examine the relationship between PTSD symptom severity and later reported stressor exposure. Shifts in reporting over time were modestly associated with PTSD symptom severity. The cross-lagged analysis revealed a marginal association between Time 1 PTSD symptom severity and Time 2 reported stressor exposure for men and suggested that later reports of stressor exposure are primarily accounted for by earlier reports and less so by earlier PTSD symptomatology. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Fat globule membranes in ewes' milk: The main enzyme activities during lactation

A trial was carried out on seven Massese ewes, from which individual milk samples were taken during lactation. All the enzyme activities investigated (oxidase activity of xanthine oxidoreductase, gamma-glutamyltranspeptidase, alkaline phosphatase and 5′-nucleotidase) were affected by the lactation phase, with the exception of the dehydrogenase activity of xanthine oxidoreductase (XOR). A higher oxidase activity (XO) of XOR was found when the diameter of milk fat globules was smaller. In addition, the absence of XO in colostrum led to the hypothesis that its antibacterial role is independent of its activity. The increase in alkaline phosphatase activity during lactation requires further research to better define the criteria for pasteurised sheep milk.     

Preparation, Characterization and Photocatalytic Properties of Ba-Cd-Sr-Ti Doped Fe3O4 Nanohollow Spheres on Removal of Congo Red Under Visible-Light Irradiation

In this study, Ba-Cd-Sr-Ti doped Fe₃O₄ nanohollow spheres were successfully prepared via a simple solvothermal method. The crystal size, structure, morphology and elemental analysis of the as-prepared sample were investigated in detail by X-ray diffraction (XRD), FT-IR, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy dispersive X-ray (EDX) spectroscopy, respectively. Magnetic hysteresis measurement was carried out on a vibrant sample magnetometer (VSM) showing the soft ferromagnetic property at room temperature. The synthesized nanohollow spheres were employed as a photocatalyst to study the photocatalytic degradation of dye contaminations. The UV-Vis results showed that the specimen could well catalyze the decolorizing of congo red (CR) solution and a removal efficiency of 99.5 % was obtained at pH 6. The optical characteristic of the products was studied by estimating the band-gap energy based on diffuse-reflectance spectroscopy (DRS) which represented the doped magnetite with semiconductor metals to be more prone in the visible region as compared to UV region. Some factors such as initial dye concentration, pH, and contact time influencing the decomposition of CR were evaluated.     

Spectral analysis of GFDM modulated signal under nonlinear behavior of power amplifier

Wireless Networks - Generalized frequency division multiplexing (GFDM) is a flexible non-orthogonal waveform candidate for 5G which can offer some advantages such as low out-of-band emission and...     

Correction to: Optimal Design and Feature Selection by Genetic Algorithm for Emotional Artificial Neural Network (EANN) in Rainfall-Runoff Modeling

Water Resources Management - A correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11269-021-02861-z     

Detecting intrusion transactions in database systems:a novel approach

The security of computers and their networks is of crucial concern in the world today. One mechanism to safeguard information stored in database systems is an Intrusion Detection System (IDS). The purpose of intrusion detection in database systems is to detect malicious transactions that corrupt data. Recently researchers are working on using data mining techniques for detecting such malicious transactions in database systems. Their approach concentrates on mining data dependencies among data items. However, the transactions not compliant with these data dependencies are identified as malicious transactions. Algorithms that these approaches use for designing their data dependency miner have limitations. For instance, they need to experimentally determine appropriate settings for minimum support and related constraints, which does not necessarily lead to strong data dependencies. In this paper we propose a new data mining algorithm, called the Optimal Data Access Dependency Rule Mining (ODADRM), for designing a data dependency miner for our database IDS. ODADRM is an extension of k-optimal rule discovery algorithm, which has been improved to be suitable in database intrusion detection domain. ODADRM avoids many limitations of previous data dependency miner algorithms. As a result, our approach is able to track normal transactions and detect malicious ones more effectively than existing approaches.