RISK OF SLEEP DISORDERS IN PATIENTS WITH DECOMPRESSION SICKNESS: A NATIONWIDE, POPULATION-BASED STUDY IN TAIWAN

Background: Decompression sickness (DCS) primarily manifests musculoskeletal pain, cutaneous manifestations, lymphatic symptoms, and neurological symptoms. DCS might affect the central nervous system and induce the stress in the patients, but few studies about the psychiatric morbidity after DCS have been conducted. This study aimed to investigate the association between DCS and the risk of developing psychiatric disorders. Subjects and methods: This study was a population-based, matched cohort design. A total of 738 enrolled patients, with 123 study subjects who had suffered from DCS, and 615 controls matched for sex and age, from the Longitudinal Health Insurance Databank from 2000-2010 in Taiwan, and selected from the National Health Insurance Research Database. After adjusting for the confounding factors, Cox proportional hazards analysis was used to compare the risk of developing psychiatric disorders during the 10 years of follow-up period. Results: Of the study subjects, 10 (8.13%) developed psychiatric disorders when compared to 35 (5.69%) in the control group. The study subjects were more likely to develop psychiatric disorders (crude hazard ratio [HR]: 2.79 (95% CI=1.37-5.69, P<0.01). After adjusting for sex, age, monthly income, urbanization level, geographic region, and comorbidities, the adjusted HR was 3.83 (95% CI=1.60-9.16, P<0.01). Sleep disorders was associated with DCS with the adjusted HR as 5.74 (95% CI=1.04-31.56, P<0.01). Hyperbaric oxygenation therapy was not associated with a lower risk of psychiatric disorders. Conclusions: Patients who suffered from DCS have a 3.8-fold risk of developing psychiatric disorders, and a 5.7-fold risk of sleep disorders. This finding is a reminder for the clinicians that a regular psychiatric follow-up might well be needed for these patients

Microstructure and superelastic properties of FeNiCoAlTi single crystals with the <100> orientation under tension

The microstructure and superelastic response of an Fe41 Ni28 Co17 Al11.5 Ti2.5 (at.%) single crystal along the [removed] orientation was investigated under tension at room temperature after aging at 600◦ C for 24 h. From the superelastic results, the samples aged at 600◦ C for 24 h exhibited 4.5% recoverable strain at room temperature. The digital image correlation (DIC) method was used to observe the strain distribution during the 6.5% applied strain loading. The DIC results showed that the strain was uniformly distributed during the loading and unloading cycles. Only one martensite variant was observed from the DIC results. This was related to the aging heat treatment times. The martensite morphology became a single variant with a longer aging time. The thermo-magnetization results indicated that the phase transformation and temperature hysteresis was around 36◦ C. Increasing the magnetic field from 0.05 to 7 Tesla, the transformation temperatures increased. The maximum magnetization was 160 emu/g under the magnetic field of 7 Tesla. From the transmission electron microscopy results, the L12 precipitates were around 10 nm in size, and they were high in Ni content and low in Fe content

Study of Z boson production in pPb collisions at √sNN=5.02 TeV

The production of Z bosons in pPb collisions at root S-NN = 5.02 TeV is studied by the CMS experiment via the electron and muon decay channels. The inclusive cross section is compared to pp collision predictions, and found to scale with the number of elementary nucleon-nucleon collisions. The differential cross sections as a function of the Z boson rapidity and transverse momentum are measured. Though they are found to be consistent within uncertainty with theoretical predictions both with and without nuclear effects, the forward-backward asymmetry suggests the presence of nuclear effects at large rapidities. These results provide new data for constraining nuclear parton distribution functions

Excellent adherence and no contamination by physiotherapists involved in a randomized controlled trial on reactivation of COPD patients: a qualitative process evaluation study

Contains fulltext : 107813.pdf (publisher's version ) (Open Access)OBJECTIVE: To assess the adherence of physiotherapists to the study protocol and the occurrence of contamination bias during the course of a randomized controlled trial with a recruitment period of 2 years and a 1-year follow-up (COPE-II study). STUDY DESIGN AND SETTING: In the COPE-II study, intervention patients received a standardized physiotherapeutic reactivation intervention (COPE-active) and control patients received usual care. The latter could include regular physiotherapy treatment. Information about the adherence of physiotherapists with the study protocol was collected by performing a single interview with both intervention and control patients. Patients were only interviewed when they were currently receiving physiotherapy. Interviews were performed during two separate time periods, 10 months apart. Nine characteristics of the COPE-active intervention were scored. Scores were converted into percentages (0%, no aspects of COPE-active; 100%, full implementation of COPE-active). RESULTS: Fifty-one patients were interviewed (first period: intervention n = 14 and control n = 10; second period: intervention n = 18 and control n = 9). Adherence with the COPE-active protocol was high (median scores: period 1, 96.8%; period 2, 92.1%), and large contrasts in scores between the intervention and control group were found (period 1: 96.8% versus 22.7%; period 2: 92.1% versus 25.0%). The scores of patients treated by seven physiotherapists who trained patients of both study groups were similar to the scores of patients treated by physiotherapists who only trained patients of one study group. CONCLUSION: The adherence of physiotherapists with the COPE-active protocol was high, remained unchanged over time, and no obvious contamination bias occurred

Study of Z boson production in pPb collisions at √sNN=5.02 TeV

The production of Z bosons in pPb collisions at √sNN=5.02 TeV is studied by the CMS experiment via the electron and muon decay channels. The inclusive cross section is compared to pp collision predictions, and found to scale with the number of elementary nucleon–nucleon collisions. The differential cross sections as a function of the Z boson rapidity and transverse momentum are measured. Though they are found to be consistent within uncertainty with theoretical predictions both with and without nuclear effects, the forward–backward asymmetry suggests the presence of nuclear effects at large rapidities. These results provide new data for constraining nuclear parton distribution functions

OPTIMAL SELECTION OF PROGRAM SUPPLIERS FOR TV COMPANIES USING AN ANALYTIC NETWORK PROCESS (ANP) APPROACH

In today's increasingly competitive business world, selecting and evaluating the suppliers is one of the most important activities of a company. In the Taiwanese TV industry, selecting optimal suppliers of programs is also vital. But few attempts have so far been made to address this specific point. After reviewing the literature, we collect criteria for the selection of a program supplier. Considering the interdependence among the selection criteria, the analytic network process (ANP) is applied to help Taiwanese TV companies to effectively select optimal program suppliers. To avoid the complicated computing process from additional pairwise comparisons of the ANP, we retain the 12 critical criteria according to the opinions of the 44 senior executives about the importance of criteria: Quality, On-time, Marketability, Reputation, Rating, Finance, Relationship, Attitude, Communication, Creativity, Price and Time. Subsequently, we discuss with senior executives to group these criteria into 4 perspectives to structure the hierarchy for the selection of program suppliers. According to the hierarchy based on 4 perspectives and 12 vital criteria, Taiwanese TV companies could select optimal program suppliers more effectively. Moreover, the practical application of the ANP presented in Section 4 is generic and also suitable to be exploited for Taiwanese TV companies.Analytic network process, supplier selection, TV industry

Magnetic Properties of FeNiCoAlTiNb Shape Memory Alloys

The magnetic properties of the new Fe41Ni28Co17Al11.5(Ti+Nb)2.5 (at. %) shape memory alloy system were studied in this work. The magnetic properties were characterized by thermo-magnetization and a vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM). In iron-based shape memory alloys, aging heat treatment is crucial for obtaining the properties of superelasticity and shape memory. In this study, we focus on the magnetization, martensitic transformation temperatures, and microstructure of this alloy during the aging process at 600 °C. From the X-ray diffraction (XRD) results, the new peak γ’ is presented during the aging process. The intensity of this new peak (γ’) increases with the aging time, while the intensity of the FCC (111) austenite peak decreases with aging time. Transmission electron microscope (TEM) results show that the size of the precipitate increases with increasing the aging times from 24 to 72 h. Thermo-magnetization results show that: (1) phase transformation is observed when the aging time is at least 24 h, (2) the transformation temperature increases with the aging time, (3) transformation temperatures tend to increase while the magnetic field increases from 0.05 to 7 Tesla, and (4) the magnetization saturates after aging time reaches 24 h. Vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM) results show that thermal process was found to significantly affect the magnetic properties of this alloy, especially on saturated magnetic magnetization and magnetic moment reversal behavior

RISK OF SLEEP DISORDERS IN PATIENTS WITH DECOMPRESSION SICKNESS: A NATIONWIDE, POPULATION-BASED STUDY IN TAIWAN

Background: Decompression sickness (DCS) primarily manifests musculoskeletal pain, cutaneous manifestations, lymphatic symptoms, and neurological symptoms. DCS might affect the central nervous system and induce the stress in the patients, but few studies about the psychiatric morbidity after DCS have been conducted. This study aimed to investigate the association between DCS and the risk of developing psychiatric disorders. Subjects and methods: This study was a population-based, matched-cohort design. A total of 738 enrolled patients, with 123 study subjects who had suffered from DCS, and 615 controls matched for sex and age, from the Longitudinal Health Insurance Databank from 2000-2010 in Taiwan, and selected from the National Health Insurance Research Database. After adjusting for the confounding factors, Cox proportional hazards analysis was used to compare the risk of developing psychiatric disorders during the 10 years of follow-up period. Results: Of the study subjects, 10 (8.13%) developed psychiatric disorders when compared to 35 (5.69%) in the control group. The study subjects were more likely to develop psychiatric disorders (crude hazard ratio [HR]: 2.79 (95% CI=1.37-5.69, P&lt;0.01). After adjusting for sex, age, monthly income, urbanization level, geographic region, and comorbidities, the adjusted HR was 3.83 (95% CI=1.60-9.16, P&lt;0.01). Sleep disorders was associated with DCS with the adjusted HR as 5.74 (95% CI=1.04-31.56, P&lt;0.01). Hyperbaric oxygenation therapy was not associated with a lower risk of psychiatric disorders. Conclusions: Patients who suffered from DCS have a 3.8-fold risk of developing psychiatric disorders, and a 5.7-fold risk of sleep disorders. This finding is a reminder for the clinicians that a regular psychiatric follow-up might well be needed for these patients