Anesthesia for neonatal surgical emergencies

In this review of the anesthetic considerations for the neonate who requires anesthesia for emergency surgery, the authors discuss preoperative, intraoperative, and postoperative management from an anesthetic perspective. Monitoring the cardiorespiratory and metabolic status of neonates during anesthesia is usually difficult because the neonate is not physically accessible. Specific monitoring techniques that provide accurate measurements are discussed. General anesthesia is usually required for the surgery, the airway must be secured and anesthesia managed with a combination of inhalational and intravenous agents. Regional anesthesia and opioids may be included to decrease the intraoperative anesthetic requirements and prevent pain in the postoperative period. The pharmacology of specific anesthetic and adjuvant agents are discussed.     

ConfDTree： A Statistical Method for Improving Decision Trees

Decision trees have three main disadvantages： reduced performance when the training set is small; rigid decision criteria; and the fact that a single ＂uncharacteristic＂ attribute might ＂derail＂ the classification process. In this paper we present ConfDTree （Confidence-Based Decision Tree） -- a post-processing method that enables decision trees to better classify outlier instances. This method, which can be applied to any decision tree algorithm, uses easy-to-implement statistical methods （confidence intervals and two-proportion tests） in order to identify hard-to-classify instances and to propose alternative routes. The experimental study indicates that the proposed post-processing method consistently and significantly improves the predictive performance of decision trees, particularly for small, imbalanced or multi-class datasets in which an average improvement of 5%-9% in the AUC performance is reported.     

Depression and self-medication with nicotine: The modifying influence of the dopamine D4 receptor gene.

This study evaluated whether there are genetic subgroups of depressed individuals who are more or less predisposed to engage in self-medication smoking practices. Smokers (N?=?231) completed self-report questionnaires of depression and smoking practices and were genotyped for the dopamine D4 (DRD4) gene. A significant interaction (DRD4 Genotype?×?Depression) was found for stimulation smoking and negative-affect reduction smoking. Specifically, these smoking practices were significantly heightened in depressed smokers homozygous for the short alleles of DRD4 but not in those heterozygous or homozygous for the long alleles of DRD4. These preliminary results suggest that the rewarding effects of smoking and the beneficial effects of nicotine replacement therapy for depressed smokers may depend, in part, on genetic factors involved in dopamine transmission. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Time-based approach to obtain quantitative measures for ergonomics hazard analysis

The paper describes a methodology for conducting an ergonomic analysis that allows ergonomists to gather data while off site. The analysis described is carried out on portable computing devices, using common computer applications. It includes data collection via a camera on the manufacturing floor and conversion into a digital format. Software is suggested for playback and semi-automatic work sampling of work cycles while recording observations to electronic form, to generate rapidly the analysis of results. Snapshot observations are made on frozen video frames that are categorized into work elements, upper body joint posture and static/dynamic effort. Using two case studies, it is shown how the approach may be implemented as a procedure of choice to complete a quantitative work analysis.     

Is Swedish snus associated with smoking initiation or smoking cessation?

Nicotine replacement therapies (NRT) are an effective treatment for tobacco dependence, yet most smokers do not quit or remain abstinent. We investigated whether Swedish snus (snuff) use was associated with smoking cessation among males participating in a large population based twin study in Sweden. Snus use was associated with smoking cessation but not initiation. Given that snus delivers comparable nicotine concentrations but carries lesser cancer risk than cigarettes, snus may be a widely used, non-medical form of NRT. Evaluation of the efficacy of snus for smoking cessation should be evaluated in randomised clinical trials.     

Amplified surface plasmon resonance and electrochemical detection of Pb2+ ions using the Pb2+-dependent DNAzyme and hemin/G-quadruplex as a label

The hemin/G-quadruplex nanostructure and the Pb(2+)-dependent DNAzyme are implemented to develop sensitive surface plasmon resonance (SPR) and electrochemical sensing platforms for Pb(2+) ions. A complex consisting of the Pb(2+)-dependent DNAzyme sequence and a ribonuclease-containing nucleic acid sequence (corresponding to the substrate of the DNAzyme) linked to a G-rich domain, which is "caged" in the complex structure, is assembled on Au-coated glass surfaces or Au electrodes. In the presence of Pb(2+) ions, the Pb(2+)-dependent DNAzyme cleaves the substrate, leading to the separation of the complex and to the self-assembly of the hemin/G-quadruplex on the Au support. In one sensing platform, the Pb(2+) ions are analyzed by following the dielectric changes at the surface as a result of the formation of the hemin/G-quadruplex label using SPR. This sensing platform is further amplified by the immobilization of the sensing complex on Au NPs (13 nm) and using the electronic coupling between the NPs and the surface plasmon wave as an amplification mechanism. This method enables the sensing of Pb(2+) ions with a detection limit that corresponds to 5 fM. The second sensing platform implements the resulting hemin/G-quadruplex as an electrocatalytic label that catalyzes the electrochemical reduction of H(2)O(2). This method enables the detection of Pb(2+) with a detection limit of 1 pM. Both sensing platforms reveal selectivity toward the detection of Pb(2+) ions.     

Assessing dimensions of nicotine dependence: an evaluation of the Nicotine Dependence Syndrome Scale (NDSS) and the Wisconsin Inventory of Smoking Dependence Motives (WISDM)

Considerable research, ranging from survey to clinical to genetic, has utilized traditional measures of tobacco dependence, such as the Fagerstrom Test of Nicotine Dependence (FTND) and the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (4th ed.) (DSM-IV) criteria, that focus on endpoint definitions of tobacco dependence such as heavy smoking, time to first cigarette in the morning, and smoking despite consequences. In an effort to better understand possible theories and mechanisms underlying tobacco dependence, which could be used to improve treatment and research, two multidimensional measures of tobacco dependence have been developed: the Nicotine Dependence Syndrome Scale (NDSS) and the Wisconsin Inventory of Smoking Dependence Motives (WISDM). This research used data from three randomized smoking cessation trials to examine the internal consistency and validity (convergent, concurrent and predictive) of these scales, relative to each other and the traditional measures. Results reveal that NDSS and WISDM subscales are related to important dependence criteria, but in a heterogeneous fashion. The data suggest that there are important underlying mechanisms or motives that are significantly related to different important outcomes, such as withdrawal and cessation. The FTND was most strongly related to abstinence at 1 week and 6 months post-quit, whereas the WISDM Tolerance subscale was most strongly related to abstinence at the end of treatment. The NDSS Priority subscale was consistently predictive of outcome at all three follow-up time points. There is also evidence that WISDM subscales are related to a biomarker of the rate of nicotine metabolism.     

Spectral Curvature Clustering (SCC)

This paper presents novel techniques for improving the performance of a multi-way spectral clustering framework (Govindu in Proceedings of the 2005 IEEE Computer Society Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR’05), vol. 1, pp. 1150–1157, 2005; Chen and Lerman, 2007, preprint in the supplementary webpage) for segmenting affine subspaces. Specifically, it suggests an iterative sampling procedure to improve the uniform sampling strategy, an automatic scheme of inferring the tuning parameter from the data, a precise initialization procedure for K-means, as well as a simple strategy for isolating outliers. The resulting algorithm, Spectral Curvature Clustering (SCC), requires only linear storage and takes linear running time in the size of the data. It is supported by theory which both justifies its successful performance and guides our practical choices. We compare it with other existing methods on a few artificial instances of affine subspaces. Application of the algorithm to several real-world problems is also discussed. This work was supported by NSF grant #0612608. Supplementary webpage: .     

Mathematical optimization to improve cows’ artificial insemination services

Engineering tools and mathematical optimization are applied in this study to plan the work of the agents of the cow artificial insemination service (inseminator) in Israel. Time is crucial in insemination as the chances of conception decline with increasing delay between the start of estrus and insemination. About 1,090 artificial inseminations of cows are performed daily in Israel. They involve 412 farms in 283 villages, and are performed by 29 inseminators; the work plan should balance the work load among the inseminators. To this end, the working time of an inseminator in each village is required. Thus, a model to predict the working time in a village was developed. Subsequently, a mathematical optimization model was designed and solved, which aims to allocate customers to trips and to determine the itinerary of each trip to minimize total distance/time. The main benefits included a 21.4% reduction in total traveling time and a 55% reduction in the difference between the lengths of the longest and shortest working days. Moreover, the longest delay in reaching an estrous cow is reduced from 7.6 to 5.9 h (i.e., by 1.7 h), which may increase the conception ratio by some 7%. In addition, the trade-off between work balance and total traveling time was studied.