Estimation of respiratory rate from motion contaminated photoplethysmography signals incorporating accelerometry.

Estimation of respiratory rate (RR) from photoplethysmography (PPG) signals has important applications in the healthcare sector, from assisting doctors onwards to monitoring patients in their own homes. The problem is still very challenging, particularly during the motion for large segments of data, where results from different methods often do not agree. The authors aim to propose a new technique which performs motion reduction from PPG signals with the help of simultaneous acceleration signals where the PPG and accelerometer sensors need to be embedded in the same sensor unit. This method also reconstructs motion corrupted PPG signals in the Hilbert domain. An auto-regressive (AR) based technique has been used to estimate the RR from reconstructed PPGs. The proposed method has provided promising results for the estimation of RRs and their variations from PPG signals corrupted with motion artefact. The proposed platform is able to contribute to continuous in-hospital and home-based monitoring of patients using PPG signals under various conditions such as rest and motion states

Digital technologies for bowel management: A scoping review

The use of digital technologies in managing bowel conditions has been a topic of interest among healthcare practitioners. The objectives of this paper were to provide information about the types of digital technologies that have been used for bowel management and the context of the studies; identify the gaps and challenges in digital technologies for bowel management and propose new methods and techniques for the application of digital technologies in bowel management. A scoping review was conducted following the principles of Preferred Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR). A search was conducted on six academic databases. 1891 papers were retrieved from the initial search; however, 6 papers were included based on the inclusion and exclusion criteria. The findings suggest that published work focused mainly on a research context and with a narrow focus targeting sub-categories of bowel conditions and not implemented in the context of everyday use. The findings also illustrate the variety of early-stage developments focused on increasing support for severe bowel dysfunction, for example, through biofeedback to aid muscle control training, or the placement of artificial anal sphincters to increase rectal perception. However, technology to support bowel management for broader populations with less severe or variable symptoms appears limited. Future work would be to conduct empirical research in the application of advanced technologies such as on-organ sensors in managing bowel conditions.Output status: forthcomin

word~river literary review (2009)

wordriver is a literary journal dedicated to the poetry, short fiction and creative nonfiction of adjuncts and part-time instructors teaching in our universities, colleges, and community colleges. Our premier issue was published in Spring 2009. We are always looking for work that demonstrates the creativity and craft of adjunct/part-time instructors in English and other disciplines. We reserve first publication rights and onetime anthology publication rights for all work published. We define adjunct instructors as anyone teaching part-time or full-time under a semester or yearly contract, nationwide and in any discipline. Graduate students teaching under part-time contracts during the summer or who have used up their teaching assistant time and are teaching with adjunct contracts for the remainder of their graduate program also are eligible.https://digitalscholarship.unlv.edu/word_river/1002/thumbnail.jp

Digital technologies for bowel management: A scoping review

The use of digital technologies in managing bowel conditions has been a topic of interest among healthcare practitioners. The objectives of this paper were to provide information about the types of digital technologies that have been used for bowel management and the context of the studies; identify the gaps and challenges in digital technologies for bowel management and propose new methods and techniques for the application of digital technologies in bowel management. A scoping review was conducted following the principles of Preferred Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR). A search was conducted on six academic databases. 1891 papers were retrieved from the initial search; however, 6 papers were included based on the inclusion and exclusion criteria. The findings suggest that published work focused mainly on a research context and with a narrow focus targeting sub-categories of bowel conditions and not implemented in the context of everyday use. The findings also illustrate the variety of early-stage developments focused on increasing support for severe bowel dysfunction, for example, through biofeedback to aid muscle control training, or the placement of artificial anal sphincters to increase rectal perception. However, technology to support bowel management for broader populations with less severe or variable symptoms appears limited. Future work would be to conduct empirical research in the application of advanced technologies such as on-organ sensors in managing bowel conditions

A pleurocidin analogue with greater conformational flexibility, enhanced antimicrobial potency and in vivo therapeutic efficacy.

Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) are a potential alternative to classical antibiotics that are yet to achieve a therapeutic breakthrough for treatment of systemic infections. The antibacterial potency of pleurocidin, an AMP from Winter Flounder, is linked to its ability to cross bacterial plasma membranes and seek intracellular targets while also causing membrane damage. Here we describe modification strategies that generate pleurocidin analogues with substantially improved, broad spectrum, antibacterial properties, which are effective in murine models of bacterial lung infection. Increasing peptide-lipid intermolecular hydrogen bonding capabilities enhances conformational flexibility, associated with membrane translocation, but also membrane damage and potency, most notably against Gram-positive bacteria. This negates their ability to metabolically adapt to the AMP threat. An analogue comprising D-amino acids was well tolerated at an intravenous dose of 15 mg/kg and similarly effective as vancomycin in reducing EMRSA-15 lung CFU. This highlights the therapeutic potential of systemically delivered, bactericidal AMPs

An Intraocular Pressure Polygenic Risk Score Stratifies Multiple Primary Open-Angle Glaucoma Parameters Including Treatment Intensity

Purpose: To examine the combined effects of common genetic variants associated with intraocular pressure (IOP) on primary open-angle glaucoma (POAG) phenotype using a polygenic risk score (PRS) stratification. Design: Cross-sectional study. Participants: For the primary analysis, we examined the glaucoma phenotype of 2154 POAG patients enrolled in the Australian and New Zealand Registry of Advanced Glaucoma, including patients recruited from the United Kingdom. For replication, we examined an independent cohort of 624 early POAG patients. Methods Using IOP genome-wide association study summary statistics, we developed a PRS derived solely from IOP-associated variants and stratified POAG patients into 3 risk tiers. The lowest and highest quintiles of the score were set as the low- and high-risk groups, respectively, and the other quintiles were set as the intermediate risk group. Main Outcome Measures: Clinical glaucoma phenotype including maximum recorded IOP, age at diagnosis, number of family members affected by glaucoma, cup-to-disc ratio, visual field mean deviation, and treatment intensity. Results: A dose–response relationship was found between the IOP PRS and the maximum recorded IOP, with the high genetic risk group having a higher maximum IOP by 1.7 mmHg (standard deviation [SD], 0.62 mmHg) than the low genetic risk group (P = 0.006). Compared with the low genetic risk group, the high genetic risk group had a younger age of diagnosis by 3.7 years (SD, 1.0 years; P < 0.001), more family members affected by 0.46 members (SD, 0.11 members; P < 0.001), and higher rates of incisional surgery (odds ratio, 1.5; 95% confidence interval, 1.1–2.0; P = 0.007). No statistically significant difference was found in mean deviation. We further replicated the maximum IOP, number of family members affected by glaucoma, and treatment intensity (number of medications) results in the early POAG cohort (P ≤ 0.01). Conclusions: The IOP PRS was correlated positively with maximum IOP, disease severity, need for surgery, and number of affected family members. Genes acting via IOP-mediated pathways, when considered in aggregate, have clinically important and reproducible implications for glaucoma patients and their close family members

Multitrait analysis of glaucoma identifies new risk loci and enables polygenic prediction of disease susceptibility and progression

Glaucoma, a disease characterized by progressive optic nerve degeneration, can be prevented through timely diagnosis and treatment. We characterize optic nerve photographs of 67,040 UK Biobank participants and use a multitrait genetic model to identify risk loci for glaucoma. A glaucoma polygenic risk score (PRS) enables effective risk stratification in unselected glaucoma cases and modifies penetrance of the MYOC variant encoding p.Gln368Ter, the most common glaucoma-associated myocilin variant. In the unselected glaucoma population, individuals in the top PRS decile reach an absolute risk for glaucoma 10 years earlier than the bottom decile and are at 15-fold increased risk of developing advanced glaucoma (top 10% versus remaining 90%, odds ratio = 4.20). The PRS predicts glaucoma progression in prospectively monitored, early manifest glaucoma cases (P = 0.004) and surgical intervention in advanced disease (P = 3.6 × 10). This glaucoma PRS will facilitate the development of a personalized approach for earlier treatment of high-risk individuals, with less intensive monitoring and treatment being possible for lower-risk groups