The effects of selenium supplementation on clinical outcomes in mechanically ventilated, non-surgical/traumatic critically ill patients

Background: Selenium presents anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties which plays a critical role in nutrition of patients following devastating conditions. Furthermore, several lines of evidence reported that most of patients who admitted to intensive care unit (ICU) have lower plasma levels of selenium. Therefore, this study was designed to define the impact of selenium supplementation on clinical outcomes of mechanically ventilated non-surgical/traumatic critically ill patients.Materials and Methods: This study was conducted on 105 subjects hospitalized in ICU of Shohadaye Haft-e Tir Hospital, Tehran, Iran. Here the acute physiologic assessment and chronic health evaluation (APACHE) II score of patients was documented on the day of their ICU admission. The patients were divided to two groups based on block randomization technique and were assigned to receive selenium or placebo. Then the effect of selenium supplementation was evaluated based on the APACHE II score, the occurrence of ventilator associated pneumonia (VAP), length of ICU stay and the rate of mortality.Results: The acquired data revealed no significant difference between two experimental groups based on the demographical information. Also it was demonstrated that selenium supplementation of critically ill patients was associated with better APACHE II score, fewer length of ICU stay and fewer mortality rate. Incidence of VAP indicated no significant difference between groups.Conclusion: The obtained data of this single center clinical trial showed that selenium supplementation could improve clinical outcomes of critically ill patients.Keywords: Selenium supplementation; APACHE II score; ventilator associated pneumonia; mortality rate; length of ICU sta

A Study of Dog Bites and their Prevention

Previous studies have suggested that children are more at risk of suffering from serious dog bite injuries than adults. In order to generate an overview of characteristics of dog bite victims in Europe, different organisations collecting data on injuries at a national level were contacted in a number of European countries. The incidence of child victims was found to be higher than that of adults. A study was undertaken, at European level, to investigate whether the reason why children are more at risk is due to their poor ability to interpret the behaviour of dogs and therefore to appropriately interact with them. Children aged 4 - 10 years old (n=430) and university students (mean age= 21.3 years, n=120) in Milan, Barcelona, and Edinburgh, were shown videos of dogs performing simple behaviours (friendliness, fear, aggression) and asked to interpret the state of dogs (happy, sad, scared, angry). The participants were also asked to describe which features of the dogs they were attending to in order to interpret the state of the dog. The ability to correctly interpret the state of dogs was found to increase with age. Moreover, older children and adults reported looking at the dog features necessary to make a correct judgement on the dog state more than younger children. There were no differences in the performances of the participants in the different countries. Two short questionnaires were created, one to evaluate children’s attitudes to dogs and another one for adults. These were distributed to the participants of the experiment described above. Pet owners had more positive attitudes to dogs independently of age and country. Surprisingly, victims of dog bites had a more positive attitude to dogs. Overall, and independently of the country, the participants had positive attitudes to dogs, suggesting that banning dogs may not be an appropriate solution to the problem of dog bites. A short educational intervention was created to teach young children how to interpret the state of dogs. The aim was to train children before they are most at risk of suffering dog bites in order to prevent accidents. The intervention was therefore aimed at educating 4 year old children because they were found to have the lowest ability to correctly interpret dog states and previous studies had suggested that children are most at risk of suffering from dog bites between the ages of 7 and 9 years old. The intervention was successful in increasing the children’s ability to interpret the state of dogs and to attend to the appropriate dog features in order to evaluate the state of the dog. These results suggest that prevention programmes aimed at preschool children may be an effective way to reduce dog bite accidents. Moreover, the same programme could be used in several European countries since children and adults in Italy, Scotland and Spain appear to have very similar attitudes to dogs

A wavelet-based tool for studying non-periodicity

This paper presents a new numerical approach to the study of non-periodicity in signals, which can complement the maximal Lyapunov exponent method for determining chaos transitions of a given dynamical system. The proposed technique is based on the continuous wavelet transform and the wavelet multiresolution analysis. A new parameter, the \textit{scale index}, is introduced and interpreted as a measure of the degree of the signal's non-periodicity. This methodology is successfully applied to three classical dynamical systems: the Bonhoeffer-van der Pol oscillator, the logistic map, and the Henon map.Comment: 14 pages, 6 figure

Hermite interpolant multiscaling functions for numerical solution of the convection diffusion equations

A numerical technique based on the Hermite interpolant multiscaling functions is presented for the solution of Convection-diusion equations. The operational matrices of derivative, integration and product are presented for multiscaling functions and are utilized to reduce the solution of linear Convection-diusion equation to the solution of algebraic equations. Because of sparsity of these matrices, this method is computationally very attractive and reduces the CPU time and computer memory. Illustrative examples are included to demonstrate the validity and applicability of the new technique

Semiorthogonal spline wavelets approximation for Fredholm integro-differential equations

A method for solving the nonlinear second-order Fredholm integro-differential equations is presented. The approach is based on a compactly supported linear semiorthogonal B-spline wavelets. The operational matrices of derivative for B-spline scaling functions and wavelets are presented and utilized to reduce the solution of Fredholm integro-differential to the solution of algebraic equations. Illustrative examples are included to demonstrate the validity and applicability of the technique

A Systematic Scoping Review: What is the Risk from Child-Dog Interactions to Dog Quality of Life?

There is growing interest in the value of assistance dogs, therapy dogs, and untrained pet dogs, for supporting children with specific needs. Research in this area focuses almost exclusively on the effect of dogs on child well-being and quality of life. The lack of research reporting the role of dog quality of life in this dynamic limits the development of best practice guidelines. Little attention has been paid to the risk from structured and unstructured exposures to children for dog quality of life to best protect the well-being of both parties and maximize the quality of interactions to enhance therapeutic effects. This systematic scoping review searched five databases to address the question ‘what is the risk from child-dog interactions to the quality of life of assistance, therapy and pet dogs?’ The review identified that there is limited specific scientific investment in understanding the relationship between child-dog interactions and dog quality of life. Of the five relevant articles that were identified specifically addressing this issue, two looked at aspects relating to quality of life of dogs living in family homes, (1=pet dogs, 1=trained assistance dogs). The remaining three papers reported factors relevant to quality of life of trained dogs working in structured therapy sessions. Specific child-dog interactions may be important risk factors to consider in relation to dog quality of life, specifically interactions involving unprovoked child attention (e.g., rough contact), interactions and environmental predictability (e.g., meltdowns and recreation time) and child initiated games (e.g., ‘dress up’). Identifying and monitoring the intensity and frequency of these interactions may be important for protecting dog quality of life in the therapeutic and home environment

Dog bite prevention:Effect of a short educational intervention for preschool children

This study aimed to investigate whether preschool children can learn how to interpret dogs' behaviours, with the purpose of helping avoid dog bites. Three- to five-year-old children (N = 70) were tested on their ability to answer questions about dogs' emotional states before and after participating in either an educational intervention about dog behaviour (intervention group) or an activity about wild animals (control group). Children who had received training about dog behaviour (intervention group) were significantly better at judging the dogs' emotional states after the intervention compared to before. The frequency with which they referred to relevant behaviours in justifying their judgements also increased significantly. In contrast, the control group's performance did not differ significantly between the two testing times. These results indicate that preschool children can be taught how to correctly interpret dogs' behaviours. This implies that incorporating such training into prevention programmes may contribute to reducing dog bite incidents

Teaching Children and Parents to Understand Dog Signaling

Safe human-dog relationships require understanding of dogs' signaling. As children are at particularly high risk of dog bites, we investigated longitudinally how children from 3 to 5 years and parents perceive and interpret dogs' distress signaling gestures. All participants were then taught how to link their perception of the dog with the correct interpretation of dogs' behavioral signals and tested again. Results show a significant increase in learning for children and adults, with them showing greater understanding of dogs' signaling after intervention. Better learning effects were found with increasing age and depended on the type of distress signaling of the dogs. Effects endured over time and it can be concluded that children and adults can be taught to interpret dogs' distress signaling more correctly. Awareness and recognition of dogs' stress signaling can be seen as an important first step in understanding the dog's perspective and are vital to enable safe interactions