The objective of this current study was to analyze the biochemical compositions of three Malaysian
Channa spp. fish. The proximate analysis revealed that the protein content of
Channa lucius,
Channa ...micropeltes and
Channa striatus was 19.9%, 22.1%, 23.0% (% of dry weight), respectively. The total lipid content was generally high, ranging from 5.7% to 11.9% and crude ash ranged from 1.0% to 1.8%. The major amino acids were glutamic acid, aspartic acid and lysine, ranging from 9.7% to 21.7%, and the most abundant fatty acid in
Channa spp. was C16:0, ranging from 25.6% to 30.4%. The other major fatty acids detected were C22:6, C18:1 and C18:0. The level of arachidonic acid (C20:4) was unusually high in
C. striatus (19.02%). The levels of DHA in these fish would also explain the use of
Channa spp., especially
C. striatus, which has been used for centuries for reducing pain, inflammation and promote wound healing in Malaysia.
Our objective was to explore what people receiving and providing care consider to be 'good' in-home care for people living with dementia.
We conducted 36 in-depth interviews and two focus groups with ...key stakeholders in Australia in the first quarter of 2018. Participants included those receiving care (4 people living with dementia, 15 family carers) or providing care (9 case managers, 5 service managers, 10 home care workers). Qualitative thematic analysis was guided by Braun and Clarke's six-step approach.
Consensus was reached across all groups on five themes considered as important for good in-home dementia care: 1) Home care workers' understanding of dementia and its impact; 2) Home care workers' demonstrating person-centred care and empathy in their care relationship with their client; 3) Good relationships and communication between care worker, person with dementia and family carers; 4) Home care workers' knowing positive practical strategies for changed behaviours; 5) Effective workplace policies and workforce culture. The results contributed to the co-design of a dementia specific training program for home care workers.
It is crucial to consider the views and opinions of each stakeholder group involved in providing/receiving dementia care from home care workers, to inform workforce training, education program design and service design. Results can be used to inform and empower home care providers, policy, and related decision makers to guide the delivery of improved home care services.
ACTRN 12619000251123 .
Background
The purpose of the present study was to determine whether intrahepatic injection of
131
I-lipiodol (Lipiodol) is effective against recurrence of surgically resected hepatocellular ...carcinoma (HCC).
Methods
From June 2001 through March 2007, this nationwide multi-center prospective randomized controlled trial enrolled 103 patients 4–6 weeks after curative resection of HCC with complete recovery (52: Lipiodol, 51: Control). Follow-up was every 3 months for 1 year, then every 6 months. Primary and secondary endpoints were recurrence-free survival (RFS) and overall survival (OS), respectively, both of which were evaluated by the Kaplan–Meier technique and summarized by the hazard ratio (HR). The design was based on information obtained from a similar trial that had been conducted in Hong Kong.
Results
The Lipiodol group showed a small, and nonsignificant, improvement over control in RFS (HR = 0.75; 95 % confidence interval 95 % CI 0.46–1.23;
p
= 0.25) and OS (HR = 0.88; 95 % CI 0.51–1.51;
p
= 0.64). Only two serious adverse events were reported, both with hypothyroidism caused by
131
I-lipiodol and hepatic artery dissection during angiography.
Conclusions
The randomized trial provides insufficient evidence to recommend the routine use of
131
I-lipiodol in these patients.
Human–Robot Collaboration (HRC) is a term used to describe tasks in which robots and humans work together to achieve a goal. Unlike traditional industrial robots, collaborative robots need to be ...adaptive; able to alter their approach to better suit the situation and the needs of the human partner. As traditional programming techniques can struggle with the complexity required, an emerging approach is to learn a skill by observing human demonstration and imitating the motions; commonly known as Learning from Demonstration (LfD). In this work, we present a LfD methodology that combines an ensemble machine learning algorithm (i.e. Random Forest (RF)) with stochastic regression, using haptic information captured from human demonstration. The capabilities of the proposed method are evaluated using two collaborative tasks; co-manipulation of an object (where the human provides the guidance but the robot handles the objects weight) and collaborative assembly of simple interlocking parts. The proposed method is shown to be capable of imitation learning; interpreting human actions and producing equivalent robot motion across a diverse range of initial and final conditions. After verifying that ensemble machine learning can be utilised for real robotics problems, we propose a further extension utilising Weighted Random Forest (WRF) that attaches weights to each tree based on its performance. It is then shown that the WRF approach outperforms RF in HRC tasks.
•Ensemble Learning methods can be utilised to teach robots co-manipulation/assembly.•Co-manipulation skill can be demonstrated by two humans, or human and robot.•Human–human and human–robot skills were captured using Random Forest (RF) models.•The overall performance was enhanced by weighting RF trees based on their RMSE.•The co-manipulation and co-assembly tasks were intended to validate fitted models.
Introduction
Many patients with cognitive and neuropsychiatric symptoms face diagnostic delay and misdiagnosis. We investigated whether cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) neurofilament light (NfL) and ...total‐tau (t‐tau) could assist in the clinical scenario of differentiating neurodegenerative (ND) from psychiatric disorders (PSY), and rapidly progressive disorders.
Methods
Biomarkers were examined in patients from specialist services (ND and PSY) and a national Creutzfeldt‐Jakob registry (Creutzfeldt‐Jakob disease CJD and rapidly progressive dementias/atypically rapid variants of common ND, RapidND).
Results
A total of 498 participants were included: 197 ND, 67 PSY, 161 CJD, 48 RapidND, and 20 controls. NfL was elevated in ND compared to PSY and controls, with highest levels in CJD and RapidND. NfL distinguished ND from PSY with 95%/78% positive/negative predictive value, 92%/87% sensitivity/specificity, 91% accuracy. NfL outperformed t‐tau in most real‐life clinical diagnostic dilemma scenarios, except distinguishing CJD from RapidND.
Discussion
We demonstrated strong generalizable evidence for the diagnostic utility of CSF NfL in differentiating ND from psychiatric disorders, with high accuracy.
Understanding how the age of dementia symptom onset affects the longitudinal course of dementia can assist with prognosis and care planning.
To synthesize evidence regarding the relationship of age ...of symptom onset with the longitudinal course of sporadic Alzheimer's disease (AD), vascular dementia (VaD), and frontotemporal dementia (FTD).
We searched Medline, CINAHL, Embase, PsycINFO, PubMed, and Scopus for longitudinal studies that examined the impact of sporadic AD, VaD, or FTD symptom onset age on measures of cognition, function, or behavioral symptoms. Studies that examined age at diagnosis only were excluded. Quantitative meta-analysis was conducted where studies reported sufficient data for pooling.
Thirty studies met all inclusion criteria (people with AD (n = 26), FTD (n = 4)) though no studies examined VaD. Earlier onset of AD was associated with more rapid annual cognitive decline (estimate = -0.07; 95% CI -0.14 to 0.00; p = 0.045). Most studies that stratified their sample reported that younger AD onset (usually < 65 years) was associated with more rapid cognitive decline. Other evidence was inconclusive.
Younger people with AD appear to have a poorer prognosis in terms of faster cognitive decline than older people with AD. More research is required to determine the impact of symptom onset age in VaD and FTD, and on functional decline in all dementias.
Abstract Background The Sendai Consensus Guidelines (SCG) were formulated in 2006 to guide the management of mucinous cystic lesions of the pancreas (CLPs) and were updated in 2012 (International ...Consensus Guidelines, ICG 2012). This study aims to evaluate the clinical utility of the ICG 2012 with the SCG based on initial cross-sectional imaging findings. Methods One hundred fourteen patients with mucinous CLPs were reviewed and classified according to the ICG 2012 as high risk (HRICG2012 ), worrisome (WICG2012 ), and low risk (LRICG2012 ), and according to the SCG as high risk (HRSCG ) and low risk (LRSCG ). Results On univariate analysis, the presence of symptoms, obstructive jaundice, elevated serum carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA)/carbohydrate antigen (CA)19-9, solid component, main pancreatic duct ≥10 mm, and main pancreatic duct ≥5 mm was associated with high grade dysplasia/invasive carcinoma in all mucinous CLPs. Increasing number of HRSCG or HRICG2012 features was associated with a significantly increased likelihood of malignancy. The positive predictive value of HRSCG and HRICG2012 for high grade dysplasia/invasive carcinoma was 46% and 62.5% respectively. The negative predictive value of both LRSCG and LRICG2012 was 100%. Conclusion Both the guidelines were useful in the initial cross-sectional imaging evaluation of mucinous CLPs. The ICG 2012 guidelines were superior to the SCG guidelines.
Home care service providers are increasingly supporting clients living with dementia. Targeted and comprehensive dementia-specific training for home care staff is necessary to meet this need. This ...study evaluates a training programme delivered to care staff (paid personal carers) of clients living with dementia at home.
This study is a pragmatic stepped-wedge cluster-randomised controlled trial (SW-CRT). Home care workers (HCWs) from seven home care service providers are grouped into 18 geographical clusters. Clusters are randomly assigned to intervention or control groups. The intervention group receives 7 h of a dementia education and upskilling programme (Promoting Independence Through quality dementia Care at Home PITCH) after baseline measures. The control group receives PITCH training 6 months after baseline measures. This approach will ensure that all participants are offered the program. Home care clients living with dementia are also invited to participate, as well as their family carers. The primary outcome measure is HCWs' sense of competence in dementia care provision.
Upskilling home care staff is needed to support the increasing numbers of people living with dementia who choose to remain at home. This study uses a stepped-wedge cluster-randomised trial to evaluate a training programme (PITCH) for dementia care that is delivered to front-line HCWs.
anzctr.org.au ; ACTRN12619000251123. Registered on 20 February 2019.
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