Background
Cats in respiratory distress have limited tolerance for manipulation, hindering clinical monitoring. Minute volume (MV) can be utilized to rate dyspnea in humans, but its relationship with ...respiratory distress in cats remains poorly investigated.
Hypothesis
Cats with respiratory distress will show higher MV per kg body weight (MV/BW) than normal cats, and the MV/BW increase will correlate with survival.
Animals
Fifty‐two cats with respiratory distress from lung parenchymal disease, pleural space disease, lower airway obstruction (LAO), or upper airway obstruction were recruited since 2014.
Methods
This is a prospective observational study. Study cats were placed in a transparent chamber, allowing clinicians to easily observe their breathing status and record ventilation using barometric whole‐body plethysmography (BWBP). Ventilatory variables of the 52 cats were compared with those of 14 historic control cats. Follow‐up data, including disease category, clinical outcomes, and survival, were prospectively collected.
Results
Cats in respiratory distress demonstrated significantly higher MV/BW (397 mL/kg; range, 158‐1240) than normal cats (269 mL/kg; range, 168‐389; P < .001). Among the etiologies, cats with LAO, parenchymal, and pleural space disease exhibited higher‐than‐normal MV/BW trends. A cutoff value of 373 mL/kg (1.4‐fold increase) indicated abnormally increased breathing efforts (sensitivity, 67%; specificity, 93%). MV/BW was independently associated with increased cardiorespiratory mortality in cats with respiratory distress (adjusted hazard ratio 1.17, 95% confidence interval CI 1.02‐1.35; P = .03).
Conclusions and Clinical Importance
Breathing efforts in cats can be noninvasively quantified using BWBP. Measurement of MV/BW could serve as a prognostic index for monitoring cats experiencing respiratory distress.
A universal hepatitis B virus (HBV) vaccination program has been implemented in Taiwan since 1984. A total of 1611 individuals in Taipei were enrolled to monitor long-term efficacy. The prevalences ...of hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) and hepatitis B core antibody in the vaccinated birth cohort were lower than in those born before 1984 (0.4% vs 7.7%, and 2.2% vs 50.8%, respectively; P < .0001). Three vaccine-failure carriers all were born to HBsAg-carrier mothers, probably due to no antiviral intervention during pregnancy. Occult HBV infection was rare in the postvaccination era. High vaccination coverage, comprehensive HBV screening, and antiviral agents for pregnant mothers will be essential to eliminate HBV transmission.
Aims
We aimed to investigate the trajectories of absolute and relative risks of cause‐specific mortality among patients discharged from inpatient psychiatric services.
Methods
We conducted a national ...matched cohort study (2002–2013) using data from the Taiwan National Health Insurance database linked to national cause‐of‐death data files. Patients discharged from inpatient psychiatric care without prior psychiatric hospitalizations were individually matched to 20 comparison individuals based on sex and age. The rates, rate differences, and relative risks (hazard ratios, HRs) of cause‐specific mortality were calculated at six follow‐up periods post‐discharge. Cumulative mortality incidence was assessed at 5 years of follow‐up.
Results
The mortality risks of all causes were increased among patients (n = 158 065) relative to comparison individuals (n = 3 161 300). Mortality rate differences were greater for natural causes, while relative risks (HRs) were higher for unnatural causes. Suicide was the leading cause of death within the first year of discharge, while circulatory and respiratory diseases were the leading causes of death from the second year. The mortality rates and HRs for all causes of death (except homicide) were highest during the first 3 months. The elevated risk of unnatural‐cause mortality declined rapidly after discharge but remained high in the long term; in contrast, risk elevation for natural‐cause mortality was more stable over time. Approximately one‐eighth of patients (12.9%, 95% confidence interval 12.7–13.7%) died within 5 years of follow‐up.
Conclusions
Integrated physical and mental health care is needed to reduce excess mortality, particularly during the first 3 months post‐discharge, among psychiatric patients.
In this work, the degradation of the random telegraph noise (RTN) and the threshold voltage (Vt) shift of an 8.3Mpixel stacked CMOS image sensor (CIS) under hot carrier injection (HCI) stress are ...investigated. We report for the first time the significant statistical differences between these two device aging phenomena. The Vt shift is relatively uniform among all the devices and gradually evolves over time. By contrast, the RTN degradation is evidently abrupt and random in nature and only happens to a small percentage of devices. The generation of new RTN traps by HCI during times of stress is demonstrated both statistically and on the individual device level. An improved method is developed to identify RTN devices with degenerate amplitude histograms.
Objective
This study aimed to examine the incidence rates of diagnosed anorexia nervosa (AN) and bulimia nervosa (BN) and their variations over time in Taiwan.
Method
The data of individuals with AN ...and BN, as defined by the International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision, Clinical Modification's (ICD‐9‐CM), were extracted from merged databases by means of unique identification numbers. To fulfill the criteria of incident cases, individuals must not have had an AN or BN diagnosis in the preceding 2 years. The time trends were analyzed using Joinpoint regression analysis.
Results
The overall AN and BN incidence rates were 1.1 and 6.1 per 100,000, respectively. There was no significant change in the overall incidence rate for AN or both sexes across the study period. A significant increase in AN incidence occurred in the age groups of 10–14 and 30–39 years. The overall incidence rate of BN increased significantly in the few years before 2009 and then decreased. A similar trend occurred among the females and groups aged above 20 years. There was no significant change in the overall BN incidence rate over the whole period.
Discussion
Compared with Western countries, the AN incidence in Taiwan is very low, whereas the BN incidence is in the lower end of the range. The findings that the age of the first‐time detected AN and BN is older in Taiwan and that the significant increases in age‐specific incidence are mainly among adults suggest that more effort is needed to detect individuals with AN and BN at a younger age in Taiwan.
Objectives
This study aimed to use a deep learning (DL) approach for the automatic identification of the ridge deficiency around dental implants based on an image slice from cone‐beam computerized ...tomography (CBCT).
Materials and methods
Single slices crossing the central long‐axis of 630 mandibular and 845 maxillary virtually placed implants (4–5 mm diameter, 10 mm length) in 412 patients were used. The ridges were classified based on the intraoral bone‐implant support and sinus floor location. The slices were either preprocessed by alveolar ridge homogenizing prior to DL (preprocessed) or left unpreprocessed. A convolutional neural network with ResNet‐50 architecture was employed for DL.
Results
The model achieved an accuracy of >98.5% on the unpreprocessed image slices and was found to be superior to the accuracy observed on the preprocessed slices. On the mandible, model accuracy was 98.91 ± 1.45%, and F1 score, a measure of a model's accuracy in binary classification tasks, was lowest (97.30%) on the ridge with a combined horizontal‐vertical defect. On the maxilla, model accuracy was 98.82 ± 1.11%, and the ridge presenting an implant collar‐sinus floor distance of 5–10 mm with a dehiscence defect had the lowest F1 score (95.86%). To achieve >90% model accuracy, ≥441 mandibular slices or ≥592 maxillary slices were required.
Conclusions
The ridge deficiency around dental implants can be identified using DL from CBCT image slices without the need for preprocessed homogenization. The model will be further strengthened by implementing more clinical expertise in dental implant treatment planning and incorporating multiple slices to classify 3‐dimensional implant‐ridge relationships.
This study explored the effect of a moderate (90 g/d) low-carbohydrate diet (LCD) in type 2 diabetes patients over 18 months.
Ninety-two poorly controlled type 2 diabetes patients aged 20-80 years ...with HbA1c ≥7.5% (58 mmol/mol) in the previous three months were randomly assigned to a 90 g/d LCD r traditional diabetic diet (TDD). The primary outcomes were glycaemic control status and change in medication effect score (MES). The secondary outcomes were lipid profiles, small, dense low-density lipoprotein (sdLDL), serum creatinine, microalbuminuria and carotid intima-media thickness (IMT).
A total of 85 (92.4%) patients completed 18 months of the trial. At the end of the study, the LCD and TDD group consumed 88.0±29.9 g and 151.1±29.8 g of carbohydrates, respectively (p < 0.05). The 18-month mean change from baseline was statistically significant for the HbA1c (-1.6±0.3 vs. -1.0±0.3%), 2-h glucose (-94.4±20.8 vs. -18.7±25.7 mg/dl), MES (-0.42±0.32 vs. -0.05±0.24), weight (-2.8±1.8 vs. -0.7±0.7 kg), waist circumference (-5.7±2.7 vs. -1.9±1.4 cm), hip circumference (-6.1±1.8 vs. -2.9±1.7 cm) and blood pressure (-8.3±4.6/-5.0±3 vs. 1.6±0.5/2.5±1.6 mmHg) between the LCD and TDD groups (p<0.05). The 18-month mean change from baseline was not significantly different in lipid profiles, sdLDL, serum creatinine, microalbuminuria, alanine aminotransferase (ALT) and carotid IMT between the groups.
A moderate (90 g/d) LCD showed better glycaemic control with decreasing MES, lowering blood pressure, decreasing weight, waist and hip circumference without adverse effects on lipid profiles, sdLDL, serum creatinine, microalbuminuria, ALT and carotid IMT than TDD for type 2 diabetic patients.
The real time switching signal design and control input are developed to guarantee the passivity and H2 performance of switched systems with interval time‐varying delay and linear fractional ...perturbations. For the difficulty in real time switching, a synchronous switching on signal and sampled‐data control based on sampling instant is proposed to achieve the mixed performance (passivity/H2) of system under consideration. On the other hand, the sampled‐data controls under arbitrary switching are also considered for the capture anytime and at sampling instant of switching signal, respectively. The proposed LMI conditions can be implemented numerically by Matlab toolbox. Full matrix formulation approach is used to present the main results and improve the conservativeness of the published results. New inequality and Lyapunov–Krasovskii functional are developed to achieve better proposed results in this article. Finally, some numerical examples are illustrated to show the use of our main results.
Chiral nematic liquid crystals possess a one-dimensional periodic helical structure and are one of the oldest known materials with the ability of selective reflection of light. Their helix ...orientation, determining their optical properties, can be changed by a variety of stimuli, and it is also dominated by the surface treatment, ratio of the elastic constants and cell thickness. Here, we present a simple method to realize an angular independence reflective state, induced by a stable disturbed planar texture, in a surface-treatment-free chiral nematic liquid crystal cell. The scattering state caused by the defect-rich focal-conic texture can be electrically tuned to the reflective state from the disturbed planar texture in a very short time, and vice versa. These two optical conditions are both stable states in the null field until the next trigger. We find that the disturbed planar texture in the chiral nematic can provide a 100° viewing angle without reflected wavelength shift. The gray level of the reflected intensity can be tuned via application of the voltage pulses. Moreover, in this work, we discuss the effect of the chiral concentration on stabilizing the disturbed planar texture. When the chiral concentration is higher to induce the blue phases, the change in the texture of the ChNLCs after removing the strong electric field can stop at the disturbed planar texture with high reflectivity. In this work, the optical performance and the bistability based on the disturbed planar texture exhibits great potential for many applications, such as tunable filters, see-through/reflective displays and large-area smart windows.
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