Evaluating the longitudinal effect of colorectal surgery on health-related quality of life in patients with colorectal cancer.

Background and Objectives Surgery for colorectal cancer (CRC) negatively affects health-related quality of life (HRQoL). Addressing shortcomings in literature, the purpose of this study was to evaluate the impact of surgery for CRC on the course of HRQoL from baseline up to 2 years after diagnosis. Methods In this prospective, population-based study patients with newly diagnosed CRC were included between 2016 and 2019. HRQoL was assessed by the EORTC QLQ-C30 questionnaire over time both between and within subgroups of patients that underwent right-sided colonic, left-sided colonic, and rectal resection using linear mixed model analyses. Results The study included 415 patients of whom 148 patients underwent right-sided colonic (36%), 147 left-sided colonic (35%), and 120 rectal resection (29%). Overall, HRQoL scores restored to baseline level 1 year after diagnosis. Impact of surgery seems to be more prominent in patients who underwent rectal resection, as they experienced more pain and had worse role and social functioning scores 4 weeks after surgery. Finally, among patients who underwent left-sided and rectal resection, physical functioning did not return to baseline level during follow-up. Conclusion This study shows several differences (between-group and within-group) in HRQoL according to surgery type and offers perspective which patients may need additional support in the care pathway

Person-Specific Non-shared Environmental Influences in Intra-individual Variability : A Preliminary Case of Daily School Feelings in Monozygotic Twins

Most behavioural genetic studies focus on genetic and environmental influences on inter-individual phenotypic differences at the population level. The growing collection of intensive longitudinal data in social and behavioural science offers a unique opportunity to examine genetic and environmental influences on intra-individual phenotypic variability at the individual level. The current study introduces a novel idiographic approach and one novel method to investigate genetic and environmental influences on intra-individual variability by a simple empirical demonstration. Person-specific non-shared environmental influences on intra-individual variability of daily school feelings were estimated using time series data from twenty-one pairs of monozygotic twins (age = 10 years, 16 female pairs) over two consecutive weeks. Results showed substantial inter-individual heterogeneity in person-specific non-shared environmental influences. The current study represents a first step in investigating environmental influences on intra-individual variability with an idiographic approach, and provides implications for future behavioural genetic studies to examine developmental processes from a microscopic angle

The AARTFAAC 60 MHz transients survey

We report the experimental setup and overall results of the AARTFAAC wide-field radio survey, which consists of observing the sky within 50$^\circ$ of Zenith, with a bandwidth of 3.2$\,$MHz, at a cadence of 1$\,$s, for 545$\,$h. This yielded nearly 4 million snapshots, two per second, of on average 4800 square degrees and a sensitivity of around 60$\,$Jy. We find two populations of transient events, one originating from PSR$\,$B0950$+$08 and one from strong ionospheric lensing events, as well as a single strong candidate for an extragalactic transient, with a peak flux density of $80\pm30$$\,$Jy and a dispersion measure of $73\pm3\,\mathrm{~pc~cm^{-3}}$, We also set a strong upper limit of 1.1 all-sky per day to the rate of any other populations of fast, bright transients. Lastly, we constrain some previously detected types of transient sources by comparing our detections and limits with other low-frequency radio transient surveys.Comment: 10 pages, 8 figures. Published by MNRA

Equine atypical myopathy associated with sycamore seed ingestion in a Przewalski foal

One of the 172 UK cases of equine atypical myopathy (EAM) reported to the Atypical Myopathy Alert Group (AMAG) in 2014 was that of a five-month old male Przewalski horse (Equus ferus przewalskii), resident at ZSL Whipsnade Zoo, UK. The foal presented initially with sudden-onset and repeated stretching of the neck as if dysphagic, with progressive weakness (including lying down), sweating and an unresponsive demeanour. General anaesthesia, induced with a combination of etorphine, midazolam and hyaluronidase, was required for each examination and subsequent treatment of the foal. Initial biochemical analysis showed a markedly increased plasma creatine kinase (CK) activity of 105,001 U/L, an increased aspartate amino transferase (AST) activity of 4194 U/L and a mildly increased inorganic phosphorus concentration of 2.35 mmol/L. The foal was unresponsive to treatment and had to be euthanased. Skeletal musculature and the myocardium showed the most significant pathological changes, with histological evidence of rhabdomyolysis, whilst urine organic acid analysis and an abnormal organic acid serum profile were supportive of multiple acyl Co-A dehydrogenase deficiency typical of EAM. This is the first description of EAM in a non-domestic equid

Accurate evaluation of the interstitial KKR-Green function

It is shown that the Brillouin zone integral for the interstitial KKR-Green function can be evaluated accurately by taking proper care of the free-electron singularities in the integrand. The proposed method combines two recently developed methods, a supermatrix method and a subtraction method. This combination appears to provide a major improvement compared with an earlier proposal based on the subtraction method only. By this the barrier preventing the study of important interstitial-like defects, such as an electromigrating atom halfway along its jump path, can be considered as being razed.Comment: 23 pages, RevTe

Continuous twin screw rheo-extrusion of an AZ91D magnesium alloy

© The Minerals, Metals & Materials Society and ASM International 2012The twin screw rheo-extrusion (TSRE) is designed to take advantage of the nondendritc microstructure and thixotropic characterization of semisolid-metal slurries and produce simple metal profiles directly from melts. The extrusion equipment consists of a rotor-stator high shear slurry maker, a twin screw extruder, and a die assembly. The process is continuous and has a potential for significantly saving energy, manufacturing cost, and enhancing efficiency. The present investigation was carried out to study the process performance for processing rods of an AZ91D magnesium alloy and the microstructure evolution during processing. The semisolid slurry prepared by the process was characterized by uniformly distributed nondendritic granular primary phase particles. AZ91D rods with uniform and fine microstructures and moderate mechanical properties were produced. For the given slurry making parameters, decreasing extrusion temperature was found to improve microstructures and properties. The mechanisms of particle granulation and refinement and the effect of processing parameters on process performance and thermal management are discussed. © 2012 The Minerals, Metals & Materials Society and ASM International.EPSRC (UK) and Rautomead Lt