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Membrane separation technologies are of great interest in industrial processes such as water purification, gas separation, and materials synthesis. However, commercial filtration membranes have broad pore size distributions, leading to poor size cutoff properties. In this work, mesoporous silica thin membranes with uniform and large vertical mesochannels are synthesized via a simple biphase stratification growth method, which possess an intact structure over centimeter size, ultrathin thickness (≤50 nm), high surface areas (up to 1420 m(2) g(-1) ), and tunable pore sizes from ≈2...

Brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) is an important neurotrophin in the brain that modulates dopaminergic neurons. In this study, we aimed to investigate the changes in serum BDNF levels of children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in response to OROS methylphenidate treatment. We also aimed to determine whether there were any pre-post-differences between ADHD subtypes and comorbid psychiatric disorders in serum BDNF levels. Fifty male children with ADHD and 50 male healthy controls within the age range of 6-12 years were recruited to the study...

The trait-impulsivity etiological model assumes that a general factor (trait-impulsivity) underlies attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), oppositional defiant disorder (ODD), and other externalizing disorders. We investigated the plausibility of this assumption by testing the factor structure of ADHD and ODD in a bifactor framework for a clinical sample of 1420 children between 6 and 18 years of age (M = 9.99, SD = 3.34; 85% male). Further, the trait-impulsivity etiological model assumes that ODD emerges only if environmental risk factors are present...

BACKGROUND: Patient preferences are assumed to impact healthcare resource utilization, especially treatment options. There is limited data exploring this phenomenon. We sought to identify factors associated with patients transferring care for prostatectomy, from military to civilian facilities, and the receipt of minimally invasive radical prostatectomy (MIRP). METHODS: Retrospective review of 2006-2010 TRICARE data identified men diagnosed with prostate cancer (ICD-9 185) receiving open radical prostatectomy (ORP; ICD-9: 60...

During the summer of 2015, the Pan American and Parapan American Games took place in the Greater Toronto area of Ontario, Canada, bringing together thousands of athletes and spectators from around the world. The Acute Care Enhanced Surveillance (ACES) system-a syndromic surveillance system that captures comprehensive hospital visit triage information from acute care hospitals across Ontario-monitored distinct syndromes throughout the games. We describe the creation and use of a risk assessment tool to evaluate alerts produced by ACES during this period...

PURPOSE: To investigate outcomes of pediatric patients at a single institution with invasive fungal rhinosinusitis (IFRS) and to determine variables that impact overall survival. METHODS: All pediatric patients at a large tertiary children's hospital diagnosed with IFRS confirmed by surgical pathology from 2009 to 2015 were retrospectively reviewed. Demographics, underlying diseases, symptoms, antifungal therapy, absolute neutrophil count (ANC), surgical management,and outcomes were analyzed...

OBJECTIVE: This is a cross-sectional study using a free depression and suicide screening smartphone application, which contains the data from the Center for Epidemiological Studies-Depression (CES-D) and a Suicide Behaviors Questionnaire-Revised (SBQ-R). METHOD: The free application was downloaded worldwide from Apple's App Store and Android Market, and the participants who downloaded the application were actively measured. RESULTS: The subjects totaled 208,683 men and women...

INTRODUCTION: The involvement of students in the embodiment of university teaching through peer-assisted learning formats is commonly applied. Publications on this topic exclusively focus on strictly defined situations within the curriculum and selected target groups. This study, in contrast, presents and evaluates a large-scale structured and quality-assured peer teaching programme, which offers diverse and targeted courses throughout the preclinical part of the medical curriculum. METHODS: The large-scale peer teaching programme consists of subject specific and interdisciplinary tutorials that address all scientific, physiological and anatomic subjects of the preclinical curriculum as well as tutorials with contents exceeding the formal curriculum...

Quantitative analysis for thickness, temperature, and mass fraction of liquid film is extremely crucial to the relevant industrial processes, but these parameters cannot be determined simultaneously by conventional measurement techniques. In the present work, a novel measurement method based on laser absorption spectroscopy was developed to measure the film temperature, thickness, and mass fraction of urea-water-solutions simultaneously by combining three wavelengths, 1420 nm, 1488 nm, and 1531 nm. Moreover, measurement accuracy of this method was validated by a calibration tool which provided liquid film with known film thickness, temperature, and mass fraction, respectively...

Many studies have established a major effect of nanoscale confinement on the glass transition temperature (Tg) of polystyrene (PS), most commonly in thin films with one or two free surfaces. Here, we characterize smaller yet significant intrinsic size effects (in the absence of free surfaces or significant attractive polymer-substrate interactions) on the Tg and fragility of PS. Melt infiltration of various molecular weights (MWs) of PS into anodic aluminum oxide (AAO) templates is used to create nanorods supported on AAO with rod diameter (d) ranging from 24 to 210 nm...

Although ulnar nerve entrapment is the second most common entrapment neuropathy, there is a dearth of studies identifying occupational prognosis factors. We carried out a systematic review of the occupational prognosis factors for ulnar nerve entrapment in order to identify professions at risks and allow better follow-up for their workers. Using the key words, "ulnar OR cubital", "neuropathy OR tunnel", and "work OR occupational" without limitations, original prospective studies were selected from four databases (PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, Cochrane Library) after two rounds (valid design, valid prognosis outcome reported, valid work exposure)...

PURPOSE: To examine trends in female authorship in the journal Emergency Radiology from January 1994 to December 2014. METHODS: We obtained institutional review board approval for our study. We retrospectively reviewed a total of 1617 articles published in the journal Emergency Radiology over a 20-year period. Original articles, case reports, review articles, and pictorial essays were included. The first and last position author's gender was categorized as female or male...

Campylobacter jejuni polysaccharide capsules (CPS) are characterized by the presence of nonstoichiometric O-methyl phosphoramidate (MeOPN) modifications. The lack of stoichiometry is due to phase variation at homopolymeric tracts within the MeOPN transferase genes. C. jejuni strain 81-176 contains two MeOPN transferase genes and has been shown previously to contain MeOPN modifications at the 2 and 6 positions of the galactose (Gal) moiety in the CPS. We demonstrate here that one of the two MeOPN transferases, encoded by CJJ81176_1435, is bifunctional and is responsible for the addition of MeOPN to both the 2 and the 6 positions of Gal...

BACKGROUND: Insertable cardiac monitors (ICM) are leadless devices utilized in long-term monitoring of the heart rhythm. The implantation procedure of the new-generation ICMs is minimally invasive, but little experience exists regarding complications. We thus aimed to investigate adverse events (AE) according to procedure-related characteristics after implantation of a large number of new-generation ICMs. METHODS: The study population consisted of participants randomized to receive ICM in a multi-center trial...

The prognostic value of clinic and ambulatory BP in predicting incident CKD and whether CKD risk reduction associates with progressive treatment-induced decrease of clinic, awake, or asleep BP are unknown. We prospectively evaluated 2763 individuals without CKD, 1343 men and 1420 women (mean±SD age: 51.5±14.3 years old), with baseline ambulatory BP ranging from normotension to hypertension. On recruitment and annually thereafter (more frequently if hypertension treatment was adjusted on the basis of ambulatory BP), we simultaneously monitored BP and physical activity (wrist actigraphy) for 48 hours to accurately derive individualized mean awake and asleep BP...

Subscapularis tenotomy (ST) has been the standard method of mobilizing the subscapularis during the approach to a total shoulder arthroplasty (TSA). Recently, lesser tuberosity osteotomy (LTO), which avoids subscapularis complications, has gained in popularity. We performed a systematic review to elucidate any differences in clinical or radiographic outcomes between ST and LTO. Using PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) guidelines, we identified clinical and/or radiographic TSA studies with minimum mean 2-year follow-up and level I to IV evidence...

State of the art and novel high-throughput DNA sequencing technologies enable fascinating opportunities and applications in the life sciences including microbial genomics. Short high-quality read data already enable not only microbial genome sequencing, yet can be inadequately to solve problems in genome assemblies and for the analysis of structural variants, especially in engineered microbial cell factories. Single-molecule real-time sequencing technologies generating long reads promise to solve such assembly problems...

Two protocols that allow for the comparison of Raman spectra of planktonic cells and biofilm formed from these cells in their growth phase have been developed. Planktonic cells are washed and flash-frozen in <1 min to reduce the time for metabolic changes during processing, prior to freeze-drying. Biofilm is formed by standing cells in 50 μL indentations in aluminum foil in an atmosphere of saturated water vapor for 24-48 h. The results for Escherichia coli type K12 cells, which do not readily form biofilm, are compared to those for Staphylococcus epidermidis cells, which prolifically synthesize biofilm...

OBJECTIVE: Little national data exist regarding service use patterns for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) of varying severity. This study aimed to assess the relationship between parent-reported severity and use of educational and health care services. METHODS: Data from the 2011 Survey of Pathways to Diagnosis and Services were used to examine a nationally representative sample of 1420 US children aged 6 to 17 years with ASD, with or without developmental delay and intellectual disability...

In Taiwan, oral cancer has causally been associated with environmental carcinogens. CCL4 (C-C chemokine ligand 4), a macrophage inflammatory protein with a key role in inflammation and immune-regulation, was implicated in carcinogenesis by facilitating instability in the tumor environment. The purpose of this study was to identify gene polymorphisms of CCL4 specific to patients with oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) susceptibility and clinicopathological characteristics. A total of 2,053 participants, including 1192 healthy people and 861 patients with oral cancer, were recruited for this study...