To Die or Not to Die: The History and Future of Assisted Suicide Laws in the U.S.

Throughout United States history, society has viewed assisted suicide unfavorably. Recently, however, Americans seem to be more accepting of the controversial procedure. Although assisted suicide is legal in only three states, it appears that as society grows increasingly comfortable with regulation of the issue, it may be more inclined to allow the practice

A Systematic Review of Music Therapy Practice and Outcomes with Acute Adult Psychiatric In-Patients

PMCID: PMC3732280This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited

Synthesis of quaternary aryl phosphonium salts: photoredox-mediated phosphine arylation

We report a synthesis method for the construction of quaternary aryl phoshonium salts at ambient temperature. The regiospecific reaction invovles the coupling of phosphines with aryl radicals derived from diaryliodonium salts under photoredox conditions

Recovery from COVID-19 and Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome: The Potential Role of an Intensive Care Unit Recovery Clinic: A Case Report

Background In this case report, we describe the trajectory of recovery of a young, healthy patient diagnosed with coronavirus disease 2019 who developed acute respiratory distress syndrome. The purpose of this case report is to highlight the potential role of intensive care unit recovery or follow-up clinics for patients surviving acute hospitalization for coronavirus disease 2019. Case Presentation Our patient was a 27-year-old Caucasian woman with a past medical history of asthma transferred from a community hospital to our medical intensive care unit for acute hypoxic respiratory failure due to bilateral pneumonia requiring mechanical ventilation (ratio of arterial oxygen partial pressure to fraction of inspired oxygen, 180). On day 2 of her intensive care unit admission, reverse transcription–polymerase chain reaction confirmed coronavirus disease 2019. Her clinical status gradually improved, and she was extubated on intensive care unit day 5. She had a negative test result for coronavirus disease 2019 twice with repeated reverse transcription–polymerase chain reaction before being discharged to home after 10 days in the intensive care unit. Two weeks after intensive care unit discharge, the patient returned to our outpatient intensive care unit recovery clinic. At follow-up, the patient endorsed significant fatigue and exhaustion with difficulty walking, minor issues with sleep disruption, and periods of memory loss. She scored 10/12 on the short performance physical battery, indicating good physical function. She did not have signs of anxiety, depression, or post-traumatic stress disorder through self-report questionnaires. Clinically, she was considered at low risk of developing post–intensive care syndrome, but she required follow-up services to assist in navigating the healthcare system, addressing remaining symptoms, and promoting return to her pre–coronavirus disease 2019 societal role. Conclusion We present this case report to suggest that patients surviving coronavirus disease 2019 with subsequent development of acute respiratory distress syndrome will require more intense intensive care unit recovery follow-up. Patients with a higher degree of acute illness who also have pre-existing comorbidities and those of older age who survive mechanical ventilation for coronavirus disease 2019 will require substantial post–intensive care unit care to mitigate and treat post–intensive care syndrome, promote reintegration into the community, and improve quality of life

Are sciences essential and humanities elective? Disentangling competing claims for humanities research public value

[EN] Recent policy discourse suggests that arts and humanities research is seen as being less useful to society than other disciplines, notably in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. The paper explores how this assumption s construction has been built and whether it is based upon an unfair prejudice: we argue for a prima facie case to answer in assuming that arts and humanities research s lower societal value. We identify a set of claims circulating in policy circles regarding science, technology, engineering and math- ematics research and arts and humanities research s differences. We find two groups: arts and humanities research is less useful than science, technology, engineering and mathematics, and arts and humanities research is merely differently useful. We argue that empirical analysis is necessary to disentangle which ones are true to assess whether policy-making is being based on rational and evidence-based claims. We argue that debates about public research value should recognise that humanities have different (but equally valid) kinds of societal value.This work was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Education, which funded the PhD research fellowship of Julia Olmos Peñuela through the F.P.U program [AP2007- 01850]. The research fellowship took place in the framework of the HERAVALUE project, Measuring the public value of arts and humanities research, financially supported by the HERA Joint Research Programme, cofunded by AHRC, AKA, DASTI, ETF, FNR, FWF, HAZU, IRCHSS, MHEST, NWO, RANNIS, RCN, VR and The European Community FP7 2007-2013, under the Socio-economic Sciences and Humanities programme. The authors would like to thank the editors and two anonymous referees for their invaluable comments. Any errors or omissions remain the authors’ responsibilitieOlmos-Peñuela, J.; Benneworth, P.; Castro-Martínez, E. (2015). Are sciences essential and humanities elective? Disentangling competing claims for humanities research public value. Arts and Humanities in Higher Education. 14(1):61-78. https://doi.org/10.1177/1474022214534081S617814

Synthesis and characterisation of novel nopyl-derived phosphonium ionic liquids

A series of novel nopyl-derived chiral phosphonium ionic liquids have been successfully synthesised and characterised. Analysis of each novel ionic liquid was conducted in order to confirm structure, purity and thermal stability

Tixagevimab–cilgavimab for treatment of patients hospitalised with COVID-19: a randomised, double-blind, phase 3 trial

Background: Tixagevimab–cilgavimab is a neutralising monoclonal antibody combination hypothesised to improve outcomes for patients hospitalised with COVID-19. We aimed to compare tixagevimab–cilgavimab versus placebo, in patients receiving remdesivir and other standard care. Methods: In a randomised, double-blind, phase 3, placebo-controlled trial, adults with symptoms for up to 12 days and hospitalised for COVID-19 at 81 sites in the USA, Europe, Uganda, and Singapore were randomly assigned in a 1:1 ratio to receive intravenous tixagevimab 300 mg–cilgavimab 300 mg or placebo, in addition to remdesivir and other standard care. Patients were excluded if they had acute organ failure including receipt of invasive mechanical ventilation, extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, vasopressor therapy, mechanical circulatory support, or new renal replacement therapy. The study drug was prepared by an unmasked pharmacist; study participants, site study staff, investigators, and clinical providers were masked to study assignment. The primary outcome was time to sustained recovery up to day 90, defined as 14 consecutive days at home after hospital discharge, with co-primary analyses for the full cohort and for participants who were neutralising antibody-negative at baseline. Efficacy and safety analyses were done in the modified intention-to-treat population, defined as participants who received a complete or partial infusion of tixagevimab–cilgavimab or placebo. This study is registered with ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT04501978 and the participant follow-up is ongoing. Findings: From Feb 10 to Sept 30, 2021, 1455 patients were randomly assigned and 1417 in the primary modified intention-to-treat population were infused with tixagevimab–cilgavimab (n=710) or placebo (n=707). The estimated cumulative incidence of sustained recovery was 89% for tixagevimab–cilgavimab and 86% for placebo group participants at day 90 in the full cohort (recovery rate ratio [RRR] 1·08 [95% CI 0·97–1·20]; p=0·21). Results were similar in the seronegative subgroup (RRR 1·14 [0·97–1·34]; p=0·13). Mortality was lower in the tixagevimab–cilgavimab group (61 [9%]) versus placebo group (86 [12%]; hazard ratio [HR] 0·70 [95% CI 0·50–0·97]; p=0·032). The composite safety outcome occurred in 178 (25%) tixagevimab–cilgavimab and 212 (30%) placebo group participants (HR 0·83 [0·68–1·01]; p=0·059). Serious adverse events occurred in 34 (5%) participants in the tixagevimab–cilgavimab group and 38 (5%) in the placebo group. Interpretation: Among patients hospitalised with COVID-19 receiving remdesivir and other standard care, tixagevimab–cilgavimab did not improve the primary outcome of time to sustained recovery but was safe and mortality was lower. Funding: US National Institutes of Health (NIH) and Operation Warp Speed

Search for continuous gravitational waves from known pulsars in the first part of the fourth LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA observing run

Continuous gravitational waves (CWs) emission from neutron stars carries information about their internal structure and equation of state, and it can provide tests of general relativity. We present a search for CWs from a set of 45 known pulsars in the first part of the fourth LIGO–Virgo–KAGRA observing run, known as O4a. We conducted a targeted search for each pulsar using three independent analysis methods considering single-harmonic and dual-harmonic emission models. We find no evidence of a CW signal in O4a data for both models and set upper limits on the signal amplitude and on the ellipticity, which quantifies the asymmetry in the neutron star mass distribution. For the single-harmonic emission model, 29 targets have the upper limit on the amplitude below the theoretical spin-down limit. The lowest upper limit on the amplitude is 6.4 × 10−27 for the young energetic pulsar J0537−6910, while the lowest constraint on the ellipticity is 8.8 × 10−9 for the bright nearby millisecond pulsar J0437−4715. Additionally, for a subset of 16 targets, we performed a narrowband search that is more robust regarding the emission model, with no evidence of a signal. We also found no evidence of nonstandard polarizations as predicted by the Brans–Dicke theory