The rate of anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) rupture is three times higher in female athletes than in male athletes. Intrinsic factors such as increased quadriceps angle and increased posterior ...tibial slope may predispose girls and women to ACL injury. Compared with males, females have smaller notch widths and smaller ACL cross-sectional area; however, no conclusive correlation between ACL size and notch dimension exists, especially in relation to risk of ACL injury. Female athletes who land with the knees in inadequate flexion and in greater-than-normal valgus and external rotation are at increased risk of ACL injury. No conclusive link has been made between ACL injury and the menstrual cycle. Neuromuscular intervention protocols have been shown to reduce the rate of injury in girls and women. Females are more likely than males to have a narrow A-shaped intercondylar notch, and special surgical considerations are required in such cases. Following ACL reconstruction, female athletes are more likely than male athletes to rupture the contralateral ACL; however, males and females are equally likely to rupture the reconstructed knee. Although self-reported outcomes in the first 2 years following reconstruction are worse for females than for males, longer-term studies demonstrate no difference between males and females.
Aim
To estimate the healthcare costs of diabetic foot disease in England.
Methods
Patient‐level data sets at a national and local level, and evidence from clinical studies, were used to estimate the ...annual cost of health care for foot ulceration and amputation in people with diabetes in England in 2014–2015.
Results
The cost of health care for ulceration and amputation in diabetes in 2014–2015 is estimated at between £837 million and £962 million; 0.8% to 0.9% of the National Health Service (NHS) budget for England. More than 90% of expenditure was related to ulceration, and 60% was for care in community, outpatient and primary settings. For inpatients, multiple regression analysis suggested that ulceration was associated with a length of stay 8.04 days longer (95% confidence interval 7.65 to 8.42) than that for diabetes admissions without ulceration.
Conclusions
Diabetic foot care accounts for a substantial proportion of healthcare expenditure in England, more than the combined cost of breast, prostate and lung cancers. Much of this expenditure arises through prolonged and severe ulceration. If the NHS were to reduce the prevalence of diabetic foot ulcers in England by one‐third, the gross annual saving would be more than £250 million. Diabetic foot ulceration is a large and growing problem globally, and it is likely that there is potential to improve outcomes and reduce expenditure in many countries.
What's new?
At least 2% of people with diabetes experience new foot ulcers annually, and one in 400 undergoes amputation.
The cost of diabetic foot disease in England is almost 1% of the health service budget.
More than 90% of these costs are for ulcer care.
It is hoped that knowledge of human and financial costs will increase research effort, clinical attention and compliance with national guidance, to improve ulcer healing rates and reduce amputations.
Stochastic p -Bits for Invertible Logic Camsari, Kerem Yunus; Faria, Rafatul; Sutton, Brian M. ...
Physical review. X,
07/2017, Letnik:
7, Številka:
3
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
Conventional semiconductor-based logic and nanomagnet-based memory devices are built out of stable, deterministic units such as standard metal-oxide semiconductor transistors, or nanomagnets with ...energy barriers in excess of ≈40–60kT . In this paper, we show that unstable, stochastic units, which we call “p -bits,” can be interconnected to create robust correlations that implement precise Boolean functions with impressive accuracy, comparable to standard digital circuits. At the same time, they are invertible, a unique property that is absent in standard digital circuits. When operated in the direct mode, the input is clamped, and the network provides the correct output. In the inverted mode, the output is clamped, and the network fluctuates among all possible inputs that are consistent with that output. First, we present a detailed implementation of an invertible gate to bring out the key role of a single three-terminal transistorlike building block to enable the construction of correlated p -bit networks. The results for this specific, CMOS-assisted nanomagnet-based hardware implementation agree well with those from a universal model for p -bits, showing that p -bits need not be magnet based: any three-terminal tunable random bit generator should be suitable. We present a general algorithm for designing a Boltzmann machine (BM) with a symmetric connection matrix J (Jij=Jji ) that implements a given truth table with p -bits. The J matrices are relatively sparse with a few unique weights for convenient hardware implementation. We then show how BM full adders can be interconnected in a partially directed manner (Jij≠Jji ) to implement large logic operations such as 32-bit binary addition. Hundreds of stochastic p -bits get precisely correlated such that the correct answer out of 233 (≈8×109 ) possibilities can be extracted by looking at the statistical mode or majority vote of a number of time samples. With perfect directivity (Jji=0 ) a small number of samples is enough, while for less directed connections more samples are needed, but even in the former case logical invertibility is largely preserved. This combination of digital accuracy and logical invertibility is enabled by the hybrid design that uses bidirectional BM units to construct circuits with partially directed interunit connections. We establish this key result with extensive examples including a 4-bit multiplier which in inverted mode functions as a factorizer.
Understanding Conspiracy Theories Douglas, Karen M.; Uscinski, Joseph E.; Sutton, Robbie M. ...
Political psychology,
02/2019, Letnik:
40, Številka:
S1
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
Scholarly efforts to understand conspiracy theories have grown significantly in recent years, and there is now a broad and interdisciplinary literature. In reviewing this body of work, we ask three ...specific questions. First, what factors are associated with conspiracy beliefs? Our review of the literature shows that conspiracy beliefs result from a range of psychological, political, and social factors. Next, how are conspiracy theories communicated? Here, we explain how conspiracy theories are shared among individuals and spread through traditional and social media platforms. Next, what are the societal risks and rewards associated with conspiracy theories? By focusing on politics and science, we argue that conspiracy theories do more harm than good. We conclude by suggesting several promising avenues for future research.
Since the beginning of the 19th century humans have increasingly fixed atmospheric nitrogen as ammonia to be used as fertilizer. The fertilizers are necessary to create amino acids and carbohydrates ...in plants to feed animals and humans. The efficiency with which the fertilizers eventually reach humans is very small: 5–15%, with much of the remainder lost to the environment. The global industrial production of ammonia amounts to 117
Mton
NH
3-N
year
−1 (for 2004). By comparison, we calculate that anthropogenic emissions of NH
3 to the atmosphere over the lifecycle of industrial NH
3 in agriculture are 45.3
Mton
NH
3-N
year
−1, about half the industrial production. Once emitted ammonia has a central role in many environmental issues. We expect an increase in fertilizer use through increasing demands for food and biofuels as population increases. Therefore, management of ammonia or abatement is necessary.
Half of industrial ammonia production is eventually lost to the global environment with significant effects.
Background
Surgical wound complications remain a major cause of morbidity, leading to higher costs and reduced quality of life. Although psychological health is widely considered to affect wound ...healing, the evidence on wound outcomes after surgery is mixed. Studies generally focus on small samples of patients undergoing a specific procedure and have limited statistical power.
Methods
This study investigated the relationship between three different measures of anxiety and/or depression and seven adverse surgical outcomes using observational data collected before and after surgery between 2009 and 2011. A wide range of confounding factors was adjusted for, including patient demographics, physical co‐morbidities, health‐related behaviours, month of operation, procedure complexity and treating hospital.
Results
The estimation sample included 176 827 patients undergoing 59 410 hip replacements, 64 145 knee replacements, 38 328 hernia repairs and 14 944 varicose vein operations. Patients with moderate anxiety or depression had an increased probability of wound complications after a hip replacement (odds ratio (OR) 1·17, 95 per cent c.i. 1·11 to 1·24). They were more likely to be readmitted for a wound complication (OR 1·20, 1·02 to 1·41) and had an increased duration of hospital stay by 0·19 (95 per cent c.i. 0·15 to 0·24) days. Estimated associations were consistent across all four types of operation and for each measure of anxiety and/or depression.
Conclusion
Preoperative psychological health is a significant risk factor for adverse wound outcomes after surgery for four of the procedures most commonly performed in England.
Anxious and depressed patients get more complications
In contrast to traditional static cold preservation of donor livers, normothermic machine perfusion may reduce preservation injury, improve graft viability and potentially allows ex vivo assessment ...of graft viability before transplantation. We have studied the feasibility of normothermic machine perfusion in four discarded human donor livers. Normothermic machine perfusion consisted of pressure and temperature controlled pulsatile perfusion of the hepatic artery and continuous portal perfusion for 6 h. Two hollow fiber membrane oxygenators provided oxygenation of the perfusion fluid. Biochemical markers in the perfusion fluid reflected minimal hepatic injury and improving function. Lactate levels decreased to normal values, reflecting active metabolism by the liver (mean lactate 10.0 ± 2.3 mmol/L at 30 min to 2.3 ± 1.2 mmol/L at 6 h). Bile production was observed throughout the 6 h perfusion period (mean rate 8.16 ± 0.65 g/h after the first hour). Histological examination before and after 6 h of perfusion showed well‐preserved liver morphology without signs of additional hepatocellular ischemia, biliary injury or sinusoidal damage. In conclusion, this study shows that normothermic machine perfusion of human donor livers is technically feasible. It allows assessment of graft viability before transplantation, which opens new avenues for organ selection, therapeutic interventions and preconditioning.
This study demonstrates the technical feasibility of normothermic machine perfusion of human donor livers.
Color has the ability to influence a variety of human behaviors, such as object recognition, the identification of facial expressions, and the ability to categorize stimuli as positive or negative. ...Researchers have started to examine the relationship between emotional words and colors, and the findings have revealed that brightness is often associated with positive emotional words and darkness with negative emotional words (e.g., Meier, Robinson, & Clore,
Psychological Science, 15,
82-87,
2004
). In addition, words such as
anger
and
failure
seem to be inherently associated with the color red (e.g., Kuhbandner & Pekrun). The purpose of the present study was to construct norms for positive and negative emotion and emotion-laden words and their color associations. Participants were asked to provide the first color that came to mind for a set of 160 emotional items. The results revealed that the color RED was most commonly associated with negative emotion and emotion-laden words, whereas YELLOW and WHITE were associated with positive emotion and emotion-laden words, respectively. The present work provides researchers with a large database to aid in stimulus construction and selection.
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