BAG

BACKGROUND: Bacterial contamination of platelet concentrates (PCs) is still a major challenge in transfusion medicine. Different methodologic concepts and screening strategies have been developed and investigated concerning their usability. We evaluated the feasibility of BacT/ALERT automated culture (BacT/A, bioMérieux) with late sampling after 3 days at the earliest. STUDY DESIGN AND METHODS: Twenty-four bacterial strains isolated from PCs and six relevant strains from reference stocks were spiked into apheresis-derived PCs (10-60 colony-forming units [CFU]/bag)...

An Emergency Medical Service (EMS) system must encompass a spectrum of care, with dedicated pre-hospital and in-hospital medical facilities. It has to be organised in such a way as to include all necessary services—such as triage accurate initial assessment, prompt resuscitation, efficient management of emergency cases, and transport to definitive care. The global economic downturn has had a direct effect on the health sector and poses additional threats to the healthcare system. Greece is one of the hardest-hit countries...

Introduction: The proper classification of sharp and infectious waste in situ by the healthcare workers is an important measure of prevention of sharps and other exposure incidents in non-healthcare workers, who handle such waste. The aim was to examine the practice of classifying sharp and infectious waste in family and dental practices. Methods: An analysis of 50 bags of infectious and 50 bags of municipal waste from five family and five dental practices for five days in October 2016 at the Health centre Osijek...

This study evaluates the effects of toxic metal pollution in the highly contaminated Sarno River (South Italy), by using the aquatic moss Leptodictyum riparium in bags at 3 representative sites of the river. Biological effects were assessed by metal bioaccumulation, ultrastructural changes, oxidative stress, as Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS) production and Glutathione S-transferase (GST) activity, as well as Heat Shock Proteins 70 (HSP70s) induction. The results showed that L. riparium is a valuable bioindicator for toxic metal pollution of water ecosystem, accumulating different amounts of toxic metals from the aquatic environment...

Raw poultry products often are contaminated with Salmonella and Campylobacter, and these bacteria can be transmitted through meat juice on the packages. An observational study was conducted to assess consumer exposure to meat juice during shopping and to quantify the transmission of meat juice from poultry packages to hands and other surfaces. Ninety-six participants completed the shopping study; 402 swabs were collected and analyzed for the presence of meat juice by an immunoassay. Overall, meat juice was detected on 61% of poultry package surfaces, 34% of shoppers' hands, 41% of grocery bags, 60% of kitchen surfaces, and 51% of food item surfaces...

We investigated repair of acrylamide (AA) induced damage in intestines by administration of crocin. We used 40 male Wistar rats in four groups of 10 animals: control, AA, crocin, and AA + crocin groups. We investigated biochemical and histological changes to small and large intestine. AA ingestion decreased glutathione (GSH) levels and total antioxidant status (TAS) in the intestine compared to the control group, while superoxide dismutase (SOD) and catalase (CAT) activities, and total oxidant status (TOS) and malondialdehyde (MDA) levels were increased...

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Two of the predictive factors of the quality of small volumes of platelets suitable for paediatric use are bag size and material. This study evaluated the storage properties of paediatric platelet aliquots in TOTM-, BTHC- or DINCH-PVC bags. METHODS/MATERIALS: (i) Three apheresis platelet concentrates (PC) were pooled and split into three units. One was retained as an adult unit (control; polyolefin bag). The second and third units were split into four MacoPharma TOTM-PVC and BTHC-PVC paediatric bags, respectively...

Purpose: We report an unusual case of rapid and severe anterior capsular contraction associated with secondary intraocular lens (IOL) dislocation following cataract surgery in a patient with unspecified rod-cone dystrophy. Case Report: A 68-year-old woman with a history of uncharacterized bilateral rod-cone dystrophy presented with blurry vision 1 month after cataract surgery. Best corrected visual acuity was 20/40 in the operative eye. Slit-lamp exam showed severe anterior capsular phimosis limiting view of the fundus...

Deep learning has become a widely used powerful tool in many research fields, although not much so yet in agriculture technologies. In this work, two deep convolutional neural networks (CNN), viz. Residual Network (ResNet) and its improved version named ResNeXt, are used to detect internal mechanical damage of blueberries using hyperspectral transmittance data. The original structure and size of hypercubes are adapted for the deep CNN training. To ensure that the models are applicable to hypercube, we adjust the number of filters in the convolutional layers...

BACKGROUND: The "two-bag method" of management of diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA) allows for titration of dextrose delivery by adjusting the infusions of two i.v. fluid bags of varying dextrose concentrations while keeping fluid, electrolyte, and insulin infusion rates constant. OBJECTIVE: We aimed to evaluate the feasibility and potential benefits of this strategy in adult emergency department (ED) patients with DKA. METHODS: This is a before-and-after comparison of a protocol using the two-bag method operationalized in our adult ED in 2015...

Cheminformatics datasets used in classification problems, especially those related to biological or physicochemical properties, are often imbalanced. This presents a major challenge in development of in silico prediction models, as the traditional machine learning algorithms are known to work best on balanced datasets. The class imbalance introduces a bias in the performance of these algorithms due to their preference towards the majority class. Here, we present a comparison of the performance of seven different meta-classifiers for their ability to handle imbalanced datasets, whereby Random Forest is used as base-classifier...

INTRODUCTION: In 2011, the anticancer preparation unit in a teaching hospital implemented a circuit for batch preparation of anticancer drugs. In this circuit, a manual and a semi-automatic production process coexist. The aim of the study is to describe the circuit in 2016 and to assess the impact of batch preparation in a anticancer preparation unit. MATERIAL AND METHODS: Eligible anticancer drugs for batch preparation satisfy two conditions: solution stability up to 28 days, prescription frequency up to one every two days...

Learning from label proportions (LLP), in which the training data is in the form of bags and only the proportion of each class in each bag is available, has attracted wide interest in machine learning. However, how to solve high-dimensional LLP problem is still a challenging task. In this paper, we propose a novel algorithm called learning from label proportions based on random forests (LLP-RF), which has the advantage of dealing with high-dimensional LLP problem. First, by defining the hidden class labels inside target bags as random variables, we formulate a robust loss function based on random forests and take the corresponding proportion information into LLP-RF by penalizing the difference between the ground truth and estimated label proportion...

Despite the development of conventional therapies, include surgery, radiotherapy, chemotherapy and hyperthermia, the prognosis remains very poor. Recently, integration of conventional therapy and multifunctional nanoparticles have attracted a lot of attention because it produces a synergistic effect and better diagnostic and therapeutic efficiency. OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to investigate the uptake and cytotoxic effects of polycaprolactone (PCL)/chitosan (CHI)-coated superparamagnetic iron oxide nano-graphene oxide (SPION-NGO) as a carrier of 5-fluorouracil (5-Fu) and radiofrequency (RF) hyperthermia using an alternate magnetic field (AMF) with 13...

Over the past few decades, studies have demonstrated that the gut microbiota strongly influences the physiology, behavior, and fitness of its host. Such studies have been conducted primarily in humans and model organisms under controlled laboratory conditions. More recently, researchers have realized the importance of placing host-associated microbiota studies into a more ecological context; however, few non-destructive methods have been established to collect fecal samples from wild birds. Here, we present an inexpensive and easy-to-use kit for the non-invasive collection of feces from small birds...

Recently, we have presented a method of probabilistic prediction of chaotic time series. The method employs learning machines involving strong learners capable of making predictions with desirably long predictable horizons, where, however, usual ensemble mean for making representative prediction is not effective when there are predictions with shorter predictable horizons. Thus, the method selects a representative prediction from the predictions generated by a number of learning machines involving strong learners as follows: first, it obtains plausible predictions holding large similarity of attractors with the training time series and then selects the representative prediction with the largest predictable horizon estimated via LOOCV (leave-one-out cross-validation)...

Sialadenitis is among the most common conditions that affect the salivary glands. Inflammation of the salivary glands occurs as the end result of a variety of pathologic conditions, including infectious, autoimmune, and idiopathic causes. Clinically, inflammation of the salivary gland causes pain and localized swelling. The presentation may be acute or chronic, and can be recurrent. Because there is significant overlap of underlying disease mechanisms and clinical presentations, radiologic evaluation often plays a significant role in evaluation...

BACKGROUND: Sleep-related eating disorder is characterized by parasomnia with recurrent episodes of nocturnal eating or drinking during the main sleep period. Several drugs, including atypical antipsychotics, induce sleep-related eating disorder. However, aripiprazole has not previously been associated with sleep-related eating disorder. CASE PRESENTATION: A 41-year-old Japanese man visited our clinic complaining of depression. The patient was treated with sertraline, which was titrated up to 100 mg for 4 weeks...

BACKGROUND: In a previous proof of concept study, transhiatal pleural drain has been shown to be safe and effective after hybrid Ivor Lewis esophagectomy. Aim of this study was to compare the short-term outcomes of transhiatal and intercostal pleural drainage. PATIENTS AND METHODS: This is an observational retrospective cohort study. Two methods of pleural drainage were compared in patients undergoing hybrid Ivor Lewis esophagectomy. Patients treated with a transhiatal drain connected to a vacuum bag were compared to a historical cohort of patients treated with the conventional intercostal drain connected to underwater seal and suction...

BACKGROUND: Muay Thai fighters strongly rely on the use of the roundhouse kick due to its effectiveness (i.e. power) and implications on the final score. Therefore, different striking tempos at full power are used during training as a method to enhance kicking power. However, the neuromuscular responses are unknown. Thus, the goal of this study was to investigate neuromuscular responses to a single bout of shorter (every second = H1) and longer (every 3s = H3) kick striking time intervals, measured with the countermovement jump (CMJ)...