Assessing full thickness oral mucosal grafting: complications and postoperative outcomes in a broad collective of patients

Background: Conjunctival defects can be repaired with several mucosal tissues. The simplicity of harvesting oral mucosa and its wide availability makes it the preferred graft tissue for all indications requiring mucosal grafting. Through analysing the postsurgical outcomes and rate of revisions, this study explores the suitability of oral mucosa grafts, depending on the initial diagnosis. Methods: We reviewed all the files of patients with a history of oral mucosal graft surgery, performed at our clinic between 2012 and 2018, focusing on complications and revision rates. Results: In total, we analysed 173 oral mucosa grafts in 131 patients. The most common initial diagnosis was tumour resection, followed by surgical complications, postenucleation socket syndrome, trauma and ocular surface disorders. Complication and revision rates depended highly on the initial diagnosis. Revision rates were highest if the initial diagnosis included ocular surface disorders or chemical trauma. Conclusions: Oral mucosa grafting (OMG) is the most effective treatment for a wide range of ocular conditions involving conjunctival defects. Conjunctival defects that result from trauma or cicatricial surface diseases seem less suitable for OMG and may benefit from alternative graft tissue or treatment options

Analyzing Dataset Annotation Quality Management in the Wild

Data quality is crucial for training accurate, unbiased, and trustworthy machine learning models and their correct evaluation. Recent works, however, have shown that even popular datasets used to train and evaluate state-of-the-art models contain a non-negligible amount of erroneous annotations, bias or annotation artifacts. There exist best practices and guidelines regarding annotation projects. But to the best of our knowledge, no large-scale analysis has been performed as of yet on how quality management is actually conducted when creating natural language datasets and whether these recommendations are followed. Therefore, we first survey and summarize recommended quality management practices for dataset creation as described in the literature and provide suggestions on how to apply them. Then, we compile a corpus of 591 scientific publications introducing text datasets and annotate it for quality-related aspects, such as annotator management, agreement, adjudication or data validation. Using these annotations, we then analyze how quality management is conducted in practice. We find that a majority of the annotated publications apply good or very good quality management. However, we deem the effort of 30% of the works as only subpar. Our analysis also shows common errors, especially with using inter-annotator agreement and computing annotation error rates

Voluntary peer-led exam preparation course for international first year students: Tutees’ perceptions

Background: While the number of international students has increased over the last decade, such students face diverse challenges due to language and cultural barriers. International medical students suffer from personal distress and a lack of support. Their performance is significantly lower than non-international peers in clinical examinations. We investigated whether international students benefit from a peer-led exam preparation course. Methods: An exam preparation course was designed, and relevant learning objectives were defined. Two evaluations were undertaken: Using a qualitative approach, tutees (N = 10) were asked for their thoughts and comments in a semi-structured interview at the end of the semester. From a quantitative perspective, all participants (N = 22) were asked to complete questionnaires at the end of each course session. Results: International students reported a range of significant benefits from the course as they prepared for upcoming exams. They benefited from technical and didactic, as well as social learning experiences. They also considered aspects of the tutorial’s framework helpful. Conclusion: Social and cognitive congruence seem to be the key factors to success within international medical students’ education. If tutors have a migration background, they can operate as authentic role models. Furthermore, because they are still students themselves, they can offer support using relevant and understandable language

Assessing carbon dioxide emission reduction potentials of improved manufacturing processes using multiregional input output frameworks

Evaluating innovative process technologies has become highly important within the last decades. As standard tools different Life Cycle Assessment methods have been established, which are continuously improved. While those are designed for evaluating single processes they run into difficulties when it comes to assessing environmental impacts of process innovations at macroeconomic level. In this paper we develop a multi-step evaluation framework building on multi regional input–output data that allows estimating macroeconomic impacts of new process technologies, considering the network characteristics of the global economy. Our procedure is as follows: i) we measure differences in material usage of process alternatives, ii) we identify where the standard processes are located within economic networks and virtually replace those by innovative process technologies, iii) we account for changes within economic systems and evaluate impacts on emissions. Within this paper we exemplarily apply the methodology to two recently developed innovative technologies: longitudinal large diameter steel pipe welding and turning of high-temperature resistant materials. While we find the macroeconomic impacts of very specific process innovations to be small, its conclusions can significantly differ from traditional process based approaches. Furthermore, information gained from the methodology provides relevant additional insights for decision makers extending the picture gained from traditional process life cycle assessment.DFG, SFB 1026, Sustainable Manufacturing - Globale Wertschöpfung nachhaltig gestalte

Exploring the precision of femtosecond laser-assisted descemetorhexis in Descemet membrane endothelial keratoplasty

Objective Descemet membrane endothelial keratoplasty (DMEK) remains a challenging technique. We compare the precision of femtosecond laser-assisted DMEK to manual DMEK. Methods and Analysis A manual descemetorhexis (DR) of 8 mm diameter was compared with a femtosecond laser-assisted DR of the same diameter (femto-DR) in 22 pseudophakic patients requiring DMEK. We used OCT images with a centred xy-diagram to measure the postoperative precision of the DR and the amount of endothelial denuded area. Endothelial cell loss (ECL) and best corrected visual acuity were measured 3 months after surgery. Results In the manual group, the median error of the DR was 7% (range 3%-16%) in the x-diameter and 8% (range 2%-17%) in the y-diameter. In the femto group, the median error in the respective x and y-diameters was 1% (range 0.4%-3%) and 1% (range 0.006%-2.5%), smaller than in the manual group (p=0.001). Endothelial denuded areas were larger in the manual group (11.6 mm(2), range 7.6-18 mm(2)) than in the femto group (2.5 mm(2), range 1.25.9 mm(2)) (p<0.001). The ECL was 21% (range 5%-78%) in the manual DR and 17% (range 6%-38%) in the femto-DR group (p=0.351). The median visual acuity increased from 0.4 logMAR (range 0.6-0.4 logMAR) in both groups to 0.1 logMAR (range 0.4-0 logMAR) in the manual group and to 0.1 logMAR (range 0.3-0 logMAR) in the femto group (p=0.461). Three rebubblings were required in the manual group, whereas the femto group required only one. Conclusion The higher precision of the femto-DR bears the potential to improve DMEK surgery

Identification and Functional Characterization of Novel Phosphorylation Sites in TAK1-Binding Protein (TAB) 1

TAB1 was defined as a regulatory subunit of the protein kinase TAK1, which functions upstream in the pathways activated by interleukin (IL)-1, tumor necrosis factor (TNF), toll-like receptors (TLRs) and stressors. However, TAB1 also functions in the p38 MAPK pathway downstream of TAK1. We identified amino acids (aa) 452/453 and 456/457 of TAB1 as novel sites phosphorylated by TAK1 as well as by p38 MAPK in intact cells as well as in vitro. Serines 452/453 and 456/457 were phosphorylated upon phosphatase blockade by calyculin A, or in response to IL-1 or translational stressors such as anisomycin and sorbitol. Deletion or phospho-mimetic mutations of aa 452–457 of TAB1 retain TAB1 and p38 MAPK in the cytoplasm. The TAB1 mutant lacking aa 452–457 decreases TAB1-dependent phosphorylation of p38 MAPK. It also enhances TAB1-dependent CCL5 secretion in response to IL-1 and increases activity of a post-transcriptional reporter gene, which contains the CCL5 3′ untranslated region. These data suggest a complex role of aa 452–457 of TAB1 in controlling p38 MAPK activity and subcellular localization and implicate these residues in TAK1- or p38 MAPK-dependent post-transcriptional control of gene expression