Common Case Research Articles

Prevalence and Patterns of Domestic Violence among Women at M Djamil Hospital in Padang, West Sumatera, Indonesia

Gender-based violence is a major risk for women worldwide. Violence against women often occurs in domestic settings. All domestic violence victims have the right to protection, including access to health care. However, the number of women who seek assistance from health services is low. This study aimed to determine the prevalence and analyze patterns of domestic violence against women. This was a descriptive study using data from medical records of women victims of domestic violence from 2017–2022 in Dr. M. Djamil Hospital. The results of this study showed that a total of 28 cases of female victims of domestic violence were examined. The age range was 6–11 years (28.6%). Sexual violence was the most common (45.9%), followed by physical violence (32.4%), and psychological violence (21.6%). Lacerations (50%) were the most common type of injury, followed by abrasions (23.3%), and bruises (16.7%). The most common cases involved victims and perpetrators being biological siblings (21.9%). Physical violence was most common between siblings, while sexual violence was most common, with the perpetrators being biological fathers and uncles. The total number of cases reported to the police was 60.7%, while the remaining 39.3% had not yet been reported to the police. There were 57.1% of cases that were repeated incidents, and 42.9% of cases were first-time violence. Considering a relatively small number of persons seeking support from health services, it is critical to undertake domestic violence education so that people are better aware of and understand their rights as victims. Keywords: Domestic; Violence; Sexual; Women

Cancer Therapy Cardiac Dysfunction Remains Common but Most Cases are Mild

Cancer Therapy Cardiac Dysfunction Remains Common but Most Cases are Mild

Comparison of the Quality of Discharge Letters Written by Large Language Models and Junior Clinicians: Single-Blinded Study.

Discharge letters are a critical component in the continuity of care between specialists and primary care providers. However, these letters are time-consuming to write, underprioritized in comparison to direct clinical care, and are often tasked to junior doctors. Prior studies assessing the quality of discharge summaries written for inpatient hospital admissions show inadequacies in many domains. Large language models such as GPT have the ability to summarize large volumes of unstructured free text such as electronic medical records and have the potential to automate such tasks, providing time savings and consistency in quality. The aim of this study was to assess the performance of GPT-4 in generating discharge letters written from urology specialist outpatient clinics to primary care providers and to compare their quality against letters written by junior clinicians. Fictional electronic records were written by physicians simulating 5 common urology outpatient cases with long-term follow-up. Records comprised simulated consultation notes, referral letters and replies, and relevant discharge summaries from inpatient admissions. GPT-4 was tasked to write discharge letters for these cases with a specified target audience of primary care providers who would be continuing the patient's care. Prompts were written for safety, content, and style. Concurrently, junior clinicians were provided with the same case records and instructional prompts. GPT-4 output was assessed for instances of hallucination. A blinded panel of primary care physicians then evaluated the letters using a standardized questionnaire tool. GPT-4 outperformed human counterparts in information provision (mean 4.32, SD 0.95 vs 3.70, SD 1.27; P=.03) and had no instances of hallucination. There were no statistically significant differences in the mean clarity (4.16, SD 0.95 vs 3.68, SD 1.24; P=.12), collegiality (4.36, SD 1.00 vs 3.84, SD 1.22; P=.05), conciseness (3.60, SD 1.12 vs 3.64, SD 1.27; P=.71), follow-up recommendations (4.16, SD 1.03 vs 3.72, SD 1.13; P=.08), and overall satisfaction (3.96, SD 1.14 vs 3.62, SD 1.34; P=.36) between the letters generated by GPT-4 and humans, respectively. Discharge letters written by GPT-4 had equivalent quality to those written by junior clinicians, without any hallucinations. This study provides a proof of concept that large language models can be useful and safe tools in clinical documentation.

Inference with cross-lagged effects-Problems in time.

The interpretation of cross-effects from vector autoregressive models to infer structure and causality among constructs is widespread and sometimes problematic. I describe problems in the interpretation of cross-effects when processes that are thought to fluctuate continuously in time are, as is typically done, modeled as changing only in discrete steps (as in e.g., structural equation modeling)-zeroes in a discrete-time temporal matrix do not necessarily correspond to zero effects in the underlying continuous processes, and vice versa. This has implications for the common case when the presence or absence of cross-effects is used for inference about underlying causal processes. I demonstrate these problems via simulation, and also show that when an underlying set of processes are continuous in time, even relatively few direct causal links can result in much denser temporal effect matrices in discrete-time. I demonstrate one solution to these issues, namely parameterizing the system as a stochastic differential equation and focusing inference on the continuous-time temporal effects. I follow this with some discussion of issues regarding the switch to continuous-time, specifically regularization, appropriate measurement time lag, and model order. An empirical example using intensive longitudinal data highlights some of the complexities of applying such approaches to real data, particularly with respect to model specification, examining misspecification, and parameter interpretation. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

The impact of overweight and obesity on the results of laparoscopic ventral hernia repair, including robot-assisted repair - a literature review

Obesity is the fifth leading cause of death worldwide. In turn, ventral hernias (including an inguinal hernias) are one of the most common cases in general surgery. Minimally invasive techniques (laparoscopic or robot-assisted procedures) are becoming more and more popular in ventral hernia treatment compared to open procedures. The aim of this study is to analyze the impact of body mass index (BMI) value on the efficacy and safety of laparoscopic ventral hernia repairs, including inguinal hernia repairs. Numerous studies evaluating this relationship are available. In most studies, There were also no statistically significant differences in the rate of intraoperative complications, the median operative time, the median length of hospital stay, the rate of postoperative pain, the surgical site infection, the rate of postoperative complications, the median time to recurrence, and the rate of early and late recurrences between groups with different BMI values. Moreover, studies proved that laparoscopic ventral hernia repair in obese patients is more effective compared to the open repair. The analysis revealed that high BMI values do not have a statistically significant impact on the outcomes of laparoscopic repair, including robot-assisted laparoscopic repair, in patients with ventral hernias. However, it should be noted that the analyzed studies often have limitations. For this reason, it is essential to conduct multicenter studies and perform long-term evaluations of patients.

A COVID-19 Case: Isolated and Persistent Headache

COVID-19 effects many systems such as respiratory, nervous, renal and hematologic system. Third of patients have experienced neurological symptoms such as headache, anosmia, ageusia, and dizziness. Headache has been reported as the most common neurological manifestation but cases just headache are extremely rare. This case is a Covid-19 case with no symptoms other than sudden onset headache. The result of the nasal swab PCR sampling was negative however local infiltration areas with ground glass density in the periphery of the middle lobe, lateral segment of the both lungs were detected in the thorax CT.

Al-Ibdal according to Al-Alusi (d. 1270 AH) in his interpretation Ruh al-Maani

The phenomenon of substitution is one of the most important phonetic phenomena in Arabic, and much has been said about it, both ancient and modern. So I decided to write a research on it, aiming to conduct a descriptive and analytical study on the term substitution, its concept, and the method of analyzing it according to one of the commentators, namely Al-Alusi. To clarify his position on him. We decided to limit our research to the well-known and common cases in its interpretation that occurred due to the phonetic relationship between the substitute and its substitute. So we excluded those rare cases that occur between distant sounds that do not have a phonetic vowel between them, and we limited ourselves to sounds with united exits, close ones, and in the case of not The presence of an output relationship led us towards the acoustic characteristics of the two replaced sounds.

A narrative review on trypanosomiasis and its effect on food production

Trypanosomiasis is an endemic parasitic disease affecting both humans and animal with a severe negative impact on food production in almost all parts of the world. This review seeks to summarize the history of trypanosomiasis and examine the prevalence of trypanosome infection in animals and its effects on food production. A narrative review was conducted on the history of trypanosomiasis. The literature search was conducted on different databases, and selected articles were screened, data extracted, and analyzed. It is believed that trypanosomiasis has been in existence for several decades dating as far as about 2500 BC during the era of the Egyptian kingdom. Africa was found to have the most common cases of animal trypanosomiasis, with 36 out of 40 articles reporting cases. Cattle among other mammals are the most studied animals and they are the most affected. Hence, milk and meat production are greatly affected by trypanosomiasis. The age of animals and the feed provided to animals also played a role in the prevalence and distribution of the pathogen. This review reveals a wide geographical distribution and diverse host range of trypanosome species. The study also highlights the severity of trypanosomiasis and its impact on food production.

Disease and Mortality in Free-Ranging Leporids in Canada, 1990-2019: A Retrospective Study.

Passive surveillance of wildlife disease is a valuable tool for the identification of emerging and changing disease patterns. Free-ranging leporids play an important role in their ecosystem and in the culture and diet of Canadians; however, little is known about their health status and the zoonotic pathogens they may carry. We summarized major causes of mortality and morbidity, as well as incidental infections and lesions, of free-ranging leporids submitted to the Canadian Wildlife Health Cooperative (CWHC) between 1990 and 2019. We identified Canadian leporids as competent hosts for several zoonotic pathogens, most notably Francisella tularensis (20/569; 3.5%). Trauma was the most frequent cause of mortality or morbidity among leporids, accounting for 46.0% of cases submitted to the CWHC, followed by bacterial infections (13.7%) and emaciation (5.1%). Human-mediated mortalities, such as those involving machines (23.7%), were the most common trauma case type, with apparently healthy individuals overrepresented within this mortality group. Harvesters proved to be a valuable resource for the monitoring of diseased and infected animals, as more than half (69.6%) of the animals submitted by this group had an incidental infection or lesion. The results from this study provide a scientific understanding the cause of mortality in free-ranging leporids in Canada with relevance to public health, wildlife biologists, veterinarians, and potential future surveillance programs.

Data Consistency of Two National Registries in Iran: A Preliminary Assessment to Health Information Exchange.

The National Spinal Cord Injury Registry of Iran (NSCIR-IR) and the National Trauma Registry of Iran (NTRI) were established to meet the data needs for research and assessing trauma status in Iran. These registries have a group of patients shared by both registries, and it is expected that some identical data will be collected about them. A general question arises whether the spinal cord injury registry can receive part of the common data from the trauma registry and not collect them independently. We examined variables captured in both registries based on structure and concept, identified the overlapping period during which both systems recorded data in the same centers and extracted relevant data from both registries. Further, we evaluated the data for any discrepancies in amount or nature and pinpointed the underlying reasons for any inconsistencies. Out of all the variables in the NSCIR-IR database, 18.6% of variables were similar to the NTRI in terms of concept and structure. Although four hospitals participated in both registries, only two (Sina and Beheshti Hospitals) had common cases. Patient names, prehospital intubation, ambulance arrival time, ICU length of stay, and admission time were consistent across both registries with no differences. Other common data variables had significant discrepancies. This study highlights the potential for health information exchange (HIE) between NSCIR-IR and NTRI and serves as a starting point for stakeholders and policymakers to understand the differences between the two registries and work toward the successful adoption of HIE.

Development of a method for recognizing emotions from a speech signal

The purpose of research is automatic recognition of the speaker's emotions, based on the processing of sound recordings intended for use in alarm systems when working with operators of locomotive crews and dispatch services.Methods. Human emotion recognition has been a rapidly developing area of research in recent years. Features of the vocal tract, such as sound power, formant frequencies, are used to detect certain emotions with good accuracy. A method was used to determine the signal energy by highlighting the dominant frequency. The work has developed a program code, on the basis of which an analysis of four emotions is given - anger, joy, fear and calm. The most important and difficult step is to determine the features most suitable for distinguishing emotions and the availability of databases. Collecting databases is a complex task requiring the manifestation of sincerity of emotions. Often, the collection of a database takes place in an artificial environment and the speech may sound staged; to eliminate such problems, it is necessary to use call center recordings.Results. Recordings of basic emotional states, such as anger, joy, sadness, fear and surprise, which are the most common case of the study, were obtained and processed. The developed software code allows us to get closer to automatically determining emotions from a speech signal. To analyze speech recordings in samples, indicators of signal energy and identification of the dominant frequency were used.Conclusion. The implemented method of monitoring the emotional state of a human operator using a speech signal is widely used in the prevention and improvement of indicators of the psychophysiological professional suitability of locomotive crew workers and the preservation of their professional health. Distinct differences are observed in the characteristics of all types of emotions.

Dexmedetomidine as Neuroanesthesia Management in Patient with Meningioma Craniotomy

Meningiomas are the type of tumour that grows from the protective membranes of the brain, which line both the brain and spinal cord. The incidence rate of meningioma between females and males is 2:1 and tt is a fairly common neurosurgical case at Margono Soekarjo General Hospital Purwokerto. Dexmedetomidine is the drug of choice used for sedation and analgesia. In various literature, it is said that the use of dexmedetomidine will reduce hemodynamic fluctuations during surgery. A 49-year-old man was hospitalized because of cephalgia and hemiparesis of his left extremity. Computed tomography scan revealed a solid tumour at parietooccipitalis region, lobulated, measuring 7,2 x 7,1 x 4,4 cm, and an increase in intracranial pressure. General anesthesia was administered, beginning with premedication using sufentanil for analgesia, followed by induction with thiopental, and rocuronium for muscle relaxation to facilitate intubation. Dexmedetomidine is an attractive option available for anesthesiologist for maintaining general anesthesia. In this surgical procedure to remove an intracranial tumor, appropriate induction and monitoring of the patient's condition during surgery is required to prevent the risk of increasing intracranial pressure. Dexmedetomidine reduces cerebral blood flow, decreases intracranial pressure, reduces the rate of cerebral oxygen metabolism, and maintains cerebral perfusion pressure. Good management of neuroanesthesia supports the maintenance of hemodynamic stability and leads to better outcomes in craniotomy surgery. Dexmedetomidine has benefits on maintenance of anaesthesia in neurosurgical procedures

Declining Incidence of Kawasaki Disease During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Time Series Analysis.

In 2020, Taiwan experienced a dramatic disruption of daily life due to measures aimed at limiting the spread of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), although domestic COVID-19 cases were extremely rare. This provided a chance to investigate the change of incidence and possible triggers of Kawasaki disease (KD) without the interference of multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children. This population-based study used Taiwan's National Health Insurance Research Database. To detect the change in KD incidence in children less than 6 years old during the period of social distancing policy in 2020, the autoregressive integrated moving average model was used based on seasonal variation and the increasing trend of KD incidence over the past 10 years. The trends in population mobility and common infectious diseases were also analyzed to observe their effects on KD incidence. The predicted monthly incidence [95% confidence interval (CI)] of KD in April, May and June 2020 were 5.26 (3.58-6.94), 5.45 (3.70-7.20) and 5.41 (3.61-7.21) per 100,000 person-months. The actual observed incidences were 2.41, 2.67 and 2.60 per 100,000 person-months, respectively, representing a 51.2%, 51.0% and 51.9% reduction in incident rates in the 3-month period of stringent COVID-19 mitigation measures. The trend was not proportionate to the profound decline of common infectious cases. KD incidence decreased by approximately 50% during the period of stringent COVID-19 mitigation measures in 2020 in Taiwan. Human-to-human contact may be a potential KD trigger, but there are likely other contributing factors aside from infection.

A ridge-based detection algorithm with filament overlap identification for 2D mycelium network analysis

Many terrestrial ecosystems engage mycorrhizal symbiotic associations, potentially to enhance nutrition, increase resistance to soil-borne pests and diseases, and improve resilience and soil structure. Mycorrhizal fungi create dynamic networked structures through branching and anastomosis that connect multiple plants and consent to transport resources underground from nutrient-rich patches to demanding plants. Controlled laboratory experiments are fundamental to improving our knowledge of mycelium network growth dynamics and further understanding its role in preserving ecological niches. We propose a method for highly automated analysis of the mycelium network structure and other morphological properties, such as hyphal length, hyphal density, and number of crossing and branches, in 2D microscopy images of fungal samples. Available tools for automated network analyses suffer from overestimating network connectivity since filament crossings are not considered. In particular, we propose a) a ridge-based mycelium detection algorithm and b) a geometrical-based approach to identify overlapping filaments crossing each other. The algorithmic solution is evaluated on a total of 135 real mycelium sample images over different validation steps, originating from different datasets and having different characteristics, including background, contrast, image acquisition system, fungal species, and clearness (e.g., level of transparency, homogeneity, dirtiness of the medium) of the sample. Results show that 1) the proposed detection method can be used to measure the length of mycelium in an image, replacing manual tracing and allowing for less laborious analysis ρ̂c=0.96, 2) the filament detection is on par with state-of-the-art techniques F1=0.88−0.94 with a more intuitive parameterization, and 3) the proposed algorithm correctly identifies filament crossings F1=0.89 in most common cases, yielding a reduction in the overestimation of network connectivity. The latter feature consents to applying the proposed fully automated solution to complex and irregular fungal structures, advancing mycelium detection and reconstruction performance accuracy with respect to the state-of-the-art.

Performant almost-latch-free data structures using epoch protection in more depth

AbstractMulti-core scalability presents a major implementation challenge for data system designers today. Traditional methods such as latching no longer scale in today’s highly parallel architectures. While the designer can make use of techniques such as latch-free programming to painstakingly design specialized, highly-performant solutions, such solutions are often intricate to build and difficult to reason about. Of particular interest to data system designers is a class of data structures we call almost-latch-free; such data structures can be made scalable in the common case, but have rare complications (e.g., dynamic resizing) that prevent full latch-free implementations. In this work, we present a new programming framework called Epoch-Protected Version Scheme (EPVS) to make it easy to build such data structures. EPVS makes use of epoch protection to preserve performance in the common case of latch-free operations, while allowing users to specify critical sections that execute under mutual exclusion for the rare, non-latch-free operations. We showcase the use of EPVS-based concurrency primitives in a few practical systems to demonstrate its competitive performance and intuitive guarantees. EPVS is available in open source as part of Microsoft’s FASTER project (Epoch Protected Version Scheme (source code) 2022; Microsoft FASTER 2022).

Implementing Library Maker Projects Outside of the Makerspace

The popularity and relevance of the library makerspace has been well-established and documented in the previous decade of researcher and practitioner work, including numerous hands-on guides from a variety of dimensions relevant to starting and operating a makerspace. Less studied, however, and the focus of this work are the applications of maker technologies within wider library work. Prior qualitative research conducted by the author included interviews with librarians to understand and document their use of maker technologies, such as the Raspberry Pi single-board computer, to support broader library work outside of the makerspace. The findings indicated that common use cases included running library display screens and collecting patron traffic numbers and environmental data. The objective of this subsequent case study is to examine the potential for wider use of such projects by librarians in an academic library setting, by introducing these projects into a new library setting and assessing the related code and educational materials developed by the researcher. This work reports on the findings of the case study, in which the projects were successfully operated in several usage contexts, as well as the challenges and broader implications for adoption within libraries of all types.

New Protocol for Twinning of Raman Devices Toward a Raman Intensity Harmonization.

The use of Raman spectroscopy has rapidly been on the rise across a great number of industries where comparability, reproducibility, and reliability of the data are of paramount importance. However, controlling the intensity of the Raman signal depends on a large number of factors such as the wavelength of the laser light, the optical components of each device, or the number of molecules in the illuminated volume. For this reason, in this study, a new protocol has been applied to twin Raman devices to achieve a conversion of the signal between them, by pairing the intensity response of the units using a reference sample. The new reference material is a homogenous dispersion of a 0.5 wt% anatase (titanium dioxide, or TiO2) in an epoxy resin matrix, with deviations <2.5% in Raman intensity across the reference material. The proposed protocol for Raman-twinned devices takes a well-defined approach that leads to obtaining a correction factor that relates the differences in the signal intensity between the two Raman devices, in order to obtain the same Raman intensity counts. The performance of the proposed method was evaluated based on the data from the devices, which presented the most common user cases: twinning Raman devices of the non-confocal same model for two different wavelengths; and twinning confocal and non-confocal devices. The results obtained show that the protocol has worked for both of the Raman twinning cases, allowing the Raman intensity harmonization of Raman spectra between two different devices.

Quantifying and mitigating recorder-induced variability in ecological acoustic indices

Due to the complexity of soundscapes, Ecological Acoustic Indices (EAI) are frequently used as metrics to summarize ecologically meaningful information from audio recordings. Recent technological advances have allowed the rapid development of many audio recording devices with significant hardware/firmware variations among brands, whose effects in calculating EAI have not yet been determined. In this work, we show how recordings of the same landscape with different devices effectively hinder reproducibility and produce contradictory results. To address these issues, we propose a preprocessing pipeline to reduce EAI variability resulting from different hardware without altering the target information in the audio. To this end, we tested eight EAI commonly used in soundscape analyses. We targeted three common cases of variability caused by recorder characteristics: sampling frequency, microphone gain variation, and frequency response. We quantified the difference in the probability density functions of each index among recorders according to the Kullback-Leibler divergence. As a result, our approach reduced up to 75% variations among recorders from different brands (AudioMoth and SongMeter) and identified the conditions in which these devices are comparable. In conclusion, we demonstrated that different devices effectively affect EAI and show how these variations can be mitigated.

Epidemiology of RSV in Adults and Children with Medically-Attended Acute Respiratory Illness over Three Seasons.

Data on the true prevalence of RSV among medically-attended acute respiratory illnesses (MAARI) has been limited by the lack of regular clinical testing of mild to moderate illnesses. Here we present a prospective evaluation of the epidemiology of RSV-associated MAARI across age groups and multimorbidity status over three seasons, which is informative in light of the recommendations for shared decision-making for vaccination in older adults. Ambulatory patients ≥6 months of age meeting a common MAARI case definition were prospectively enrolled in the Michigan Ford Influenza Vaccine Effectiveness (MFIVE) study, a subsite of the US Influenza Vaccine Effectiveness Network. All participants were tested by nasal-throat swab for RSV and influenza, including subtype, independently from clinician-directed testing. Participant illness characteristics and calculated Multimorbidity-Weighted Index (MWI) were collected by in-person survey and electronic medical record review. Over three surveillance seasons (fall 2017 to spring 2020), 9.9% (n=441) of 4,442 participants had RSV detected. RSV-associated MAARI was more prevalent than influenza for participants 6 months-4 years of age. Adults with RSV-MAARI had higher median MWI scores overall compared to influenza-MAARI and controls with neither virus (1.62, 0.40, and 0.64, respectively). RSV is a significant, underrecognized cause of MAARI in both children and adults presenting for ambulatory care. Multimorbidity is an important contributor to RSV-associated MAARI in outpatient adults, providing information to support shared clinical decision-making for vaccination.

Effects of Tomato and Carrot-Supplemented Diets on Physical and Haemalogical Characteristics of Wistar Rats Exposed to Breast Carcinogen (Dimethylbenz-[A]-Anthracene)

Cancer, particularly of the breast, is one of the most common cases of morbidity and mortality in women globally. This research aimed at exploring the potentials of tomato and/or carrot-supplemented diets in mitigating against breast cancer carcinogen, DMBA in rats. Forty-eight female rats were randomly distributed into 8 groups. Groups 1 and 2 comprised of unexposed rats fed standard diet and DMBA-administered group fed standard diet respectively. Groups 3-5 were DMBA-administered groups fed diets containing 20% tomato, 20% carrot, and 20% of an equally mixed tomato and carrot respectively. For groups 6-8, unexposed rats fed diets containing 20% tomato, carrot, and 20% of an equally mixed tomato and carrot respectively. The feeding was for a period of 10 weeks. Feed intake, changes in weight and hematological changes were determined. The exposed rats fed supplemented diets had significantly (p&lt;0.05) higher feed intake and percentage weight gain compared with the exposed group fed standard diet. Similarly, the unexposed groups fed supplemented diets had significantly (p&lt;0.05) higher feed intake and percentage weight gain in comparison with the unexposed group fed standard diet. DMBA- Exposed group and unexposed group fed 20% tomato-supplemented diet had significantly higher WBC and hemoglobin compared with the control. In conclusion, supplementation of diets with either carrot or tomato improves feed intake in normal rats and antagonizes appetite-suppressing effects of cancer, and ameliorate weight loss in rats exposed to breast carcinogen.