Disseminated Gonorrhea

Sexually transmitted infections have risen sharply over the last decade in the United States. The incidence of gonorrhea has risen to 172 reported cases per 100,000 people over the past year. This likely represents an under-representation due to many cases going unreported. Disseminated gonorrhea can present with nonspecific symptoms including arthralgia, cutaneous lesions, or tenosynovitis. Diagnosis is based upon a degree of high clinical suspicion and serology. Emergency department treatment includes ceftriaxone and azithromycin

Optical trapping using ultrashort 12.9fs pulses

We demonstrate stable three-dimensional optical trapping of 780nm silica particles using a dispersion-compensated 12.9fs infrared pulsed laser and a trapping microscope system with 1.40NA objective. To achieve these pulse durations we use the Multiphoto

Assets and Needs Assessment of Senior Residents in the West Bloomington Neighborhood

The experience and process of aging has become a prominent topic of discussion nationwide and Central Illinois is no exception, due to the rapid growth within the senior population in the area. The 60 and over population of Illinois is projected to grow by 87% during the next 30 years (The Maturing of Illinois). An initiative has been developed to evaluate how prepared local communities are for older adults by conducting needs assessments, which can also serve as vital tools for those who plan and provide human services in communities. Often community leaders will form policies and allocate limited resources based on assumptions about the needs of the senior population and outdated information (Parsons and Higley 1995). This report is part of a larger needs assessment that will serve as a resource for community leaders to use in future policies and projects that will involve senior West Bloomington residents. This report examines needs of the senior population of West Bloomington as well as how organizations provide for those needs as evaluated by the senior population themselves. Based on our findings and recognizing the limitations of the study, we make recommendations for action and future research

Luciano Floridi and contemporary art practice

This article examines how the thinking of Luciano Floridi, especially his emphasis on information, could affect the way we approach art practice. It aims to situate art practice in relation to contemporary informational theories and suggests that the way we view contemporary art practice needs to move beyond existing theories. Key components to Floridi’s philosophy are introduced with relevance to art practice, followed by an analysis of these concepts with examples from the history of art. It is hoped that, by clarifying some of the more complex terms and concepts, readers will form a better understanding of the connections and potential synergy between art practice and the sciences of information, through the philosophy of Floridi

Machine Learning Education for Artists, Musicians, and Other Creative Practitioners

This article aims to lay a foundation for the research and practice of machine learning education for creative practitioners. It begins by arguing that it is important to teach machine learning to creative practitioners and to conduct research about this teaching, drawing on related work in creative machine learning, creative computing education, and machine learning education. It then draws on research about design processes in engineering and creative practice to motivate a set of learning objectives for students who wish to design new creative artifacts with machine learning. The article then draws on education research and knowledge of creative computing practices to propose a set of teaching strategies that can be used to support creative computing students in achieving these objectives. Explanations of these strategies are accompanied by concrete descriptions of how they have been employed to develop new lectures and activities, and to design new experiential learning and scaffolding technologies, for teaching some of the first courses in the world focused on teaching machine learning to creative practitioners. The article subsequently draws on data collected from these courses—an online course as well as undergraduate and masters-level courses taught at a university—to begin to understand how this curriculum supported student learning, to understand learners’ challenges and mistakes, and to inform future teaching and research

Impact of opioid-free analgesia on pain severity and patient satisfaction after discharge from surgery: multispecialty, prospective cohort study in 25 countries

Background: Balancing opioid stewardship and the need for adequate analgesia following discharge after surgery is challenging. This study aimed to compare the outcomes for patients discharged with opioid versus opioid-free analgesia after common surgical procedures.Methods: This international, multicentre, prospective cohort study collected data from patients undergoing common acute and elective general surgical, urological, gynaecological, and orthopaedic procedures. The primary outcomes were patient-reported time in severe pain measured on a numerical analogue scale from 0 to 100% and patient-reported satisfaction with pain relief during the first week following discharge. Data were collected by in-hospital chart review and patient telephone interview 1 week after discharge.Results: The study recruited 4273 patients from 144 centres in 25 countries; 1311 patients (30.7%) were prescribed opioid analgesia at discharge. Patients reported being in severe pain for 10 (i.q.r. 1-30)% of the first week after discharge and rated satisfaction with analgesia as 90 (i.q.r. 80-100) of 100. After adjustment for confounders, opioid analgesia on discharge was independently associated with increased pain severity (risk ratio 1.52, 95% c.i. 1.31 to 1.76; P < 0.001) and re-presentation to healthcare providers owing to side-effects of medication (OR 2.38, 95% c.i. 1.36 to 4.17; P = 0.004), but not with satisfaction with analgesia (beta coefficient 0.92, 95% c.i. -1.52 to 3.36; P = 0.468) compared with opioid-free analgesia. Although opioid prescribing varied greatly between high-income and low- and middle-income countries, patient-reported outcomes did not.Conclusion: Opioid analgesia prescription on surgical discharge is associated with a higher risk of re-presentation owing to side-effects of medication and increased patient-reported pain, but not with changes in patient-reported satisfaction. Opioid-free discharge analgesia should be adopted routinely

Optical micromanipulation using dispersion-compensated and phase-shaped ultrashort pulsed lasers

Ultrashort pulsed lasers offer high peak powers at low average powers, making them ideal for maximising the efficiency of nonlinear excitation. Their broad bandwidths make it possible to tailor the pulse's temporal profile for advanced control of multiphoton excitation, techniques known as pulse shaping. This thesis represents the first combination of ultrashort pulse shaping with optical trapping and axicon dispersion compensation. We construct an optical trapping system which incorporates a 12fs duration pulsed laser, the shortest duration used to date in optical trapping. To achieve 12fs pulse durations at the sample, we must first eliminate temporal dispersion, which stretches and distorts pulses as they travel through microscope systems. We use the Multiphoton Intrapulse Interference Phase Scan (MIIPS) method to measure and compensate all orders of dispersion in our optical trapping system, verifying 12-13fs pulses at the sample. We use the dispersion-compensated optical trapping system to investigate the effects of pulse duration on optical trapping. Our theoretical arguments show that trap stiffness is independent of pulse duration. For experimental verification, we measure the trap stiffness of trapped 780nm silica spheres with back focal plane interferometry as we change pulse duration by more than an order of magnitude using quadratic pulse shaping. We find the trap stiffness unchanged within 9%. We also use quadratic pulse shaping to control two-photon fluorescence in optically trapped fluorescent polymer spheres. Next, we demonstrate two methods for producing selective two-photon excitation in trapped particles: amplitude shaping and 3rd order pulse shaping. Finally, we compensate dispersion in an axicon system, producing a non-diffracting ultrashort Bessel beam with controllable dispersion. This forms the basis for ongoing experiments exploring ultrashort Bessel beams in cellular transfection (photoporation), and examining the spatial profile of the Bessel beam as a function of the pulse's temporal profile