Debatable issues in automated ECG reporting

Although automated ECG analysis has been available for many years, there are some aspects which require to be re-assessed with respect to their value while newer techniques which are worthy of review are beginning to find their way into routine use. At the annual International Society of Computerized Electrocardiology conference held in April 2017, four areas in particular were debated. These were a) automated 12 lead resting ECG analysis; b) real time out of hospital ECG monitoring; c) ECG imaging; and d) single channel ECG rhythm interpretation. One speaker presented the positive aspects of each technique and another outlined the more negative aspects. Debate ensued. There were many positives set out for each technique but equally, more negative features were not in short supply, particularly for out of hospital ECG monitoring

The "price-tag" of foot health in infancy and early childhood : a cross sectional survey of UK parents

Children's feet are complex structures and strategies for supporting good foot health throughout childhood can be challenging. Greater awareness of the contemporary factors influencing decisions, such as footwear purchases, is needed to inform health narratives which are more closely aligned to parents' attitude and behaviours. The aim of this study was to explore parent's knowledge of children's foot health, understand the common foot health concerns and experiences with footcare services. A purposeful sampling approach was used to recruit parents of children aged 5 years and under. Participants completed a self-administered, online survey which consisted of 39 questions across six sections: (1) Participant demographics; (2) Developmental events (milestones such as crawling and walking); (3) Foot health concerns; (4) Developmental aids (products such as baby bouncers and baby walkers); (5) Footwear; and (6) Foot health information. Both adaptive and mandatory questions were used. Descriptive statistics were used to summarise closed-ended questions, and a summative content analysis was adopted to draw inferences from the text data. Two-hundred thirty-nine parents completed the survey, and this represented female participants (n = 213) aged between the ages 34-42 (n = 126) or 25-34 (n = 83) years of age. The survey generated responses from a wide geographical spread across the UK, but the majority of these were from the North West of England (n = 75) and South East of England (n = 46). Four main themes were drawn from the content analysis: (1) foot health concerns and seeking advice; (2) information and advice; (3) how parents support infant milestone events; and (4) footwear.Conclusion: This work provides insight into parents' perspective on the broad topics of children's foot health, identifying common experiences and concerns about their children's foot health and the factors which influence decision making. Understanding more about these issues will help health professionals support parents during infancy and early years. What is Known: • Maintaining good foot health throughout childhood is important and many factors influence decision making. • There is little understanding about how parents care for their children feet and their understanding of good foot health practices and services. What is New: • Insight into the common factors which influence parents' approaches to supporting early development and the typical concerns that parents encountered about their children's overall foot health and footwear. • Identifies areas of children's foot health for health professionals to target when developing information sources for parents

Penetration enhancers in ocular drug delivery

There are more than 100 recognized disorders of the eye. This makes the development of advanced ocular formulations an important topic in pharmaceutical science. One of the ways to improve drug delivery to the eye is the use of penetration enhancers. These are defined as compounds capable of enhancing drug permeability across ocular membranes. This review paper provides an overview of anatomical and physiological features of the eye and discusses some common ophthalmological conditions and permeability of ocular membranes. The review also presents the analysis of literature on the use of penetration-enhancing compounds (cyclodextrins, chelating agents, crown ethers, bile acids and bile salts, cell-penetrating peptides, and other amphiphilic compounds) in ocular drug delivery, describing their properties and modes of action

Presumptive self-diagnosis of malaria and other febrile illnesses in Sierra Leone.

INTRODUCTION The objective of this study was to evaluate the prevalence of self-diagnosis of malaria and other febrile illnesses in Bo, Sierra Leone. METHODS All households in two neighboring sections of Bo were invited to participate in a cross-sectional survey. RESULTS A total of 882 households (an 85% participation rate) that were home to 5410 individuals participated in the study. Of the 910 individuals reported to have had what the household considered to be malaria in the past month, only 41% were diagnosed by a healthcare professional or a laboratory test. Of the 1402 individuals reported to have had any type of febrile illness within the past six months, only 34% had sought a clinical or laboratory diagnosis. Self-diagnosis of influenza, yellow fever, typhoid, and pneumonia was also common. CONCLUSION Self-diagnosis and presumptive treatment with antimalarial drugs and other antibiotic medications that are readily available without a prescription may compromise health outcomes for febrile adults and children

Neutrino physics and the mirror world: how exact parity symmetry explains the solar neutrino deficit, the atmospheric neutrino anomaly and the LSND experiment

Evidence for $\bar \nu_{\mu} \rightarrow \bar \nu_e$ oscillations has been reported at LAMPF using the LSND detector. Further evidence for neutrino mixing comes from the solar neutrino deficit and the atmospheric neutrino anomaly. All of these anomalies require new physics. We show that all of these anomalies can be explained if the standard model is enlarged so that an unbroken parity symmetry can be defined. This explanation holds independently of the actual model for neutrino masses. Thus, we argue that parity symmetry is not only a beautiful candidate for a symmetry beyond the standard model, but it can also explain the known neutrino physics anomalies.Comment: 27 pages, LaTeX, no figures, additional discussion on big bang nucleosynthesis, some additional references, to appear in Phys. Rev.

Nuclear dependence of the transverse single-spin asymmetry in the production of charged hadrons at forward rapidity in polarized p+pp+p, p+p+Al, and p+p+Au collisions at sNN=200\sqrt{s_{_{NN}}}=200 GeV

We report on the nuclear dependence of transverse single-spin asymmetries (TSSAs) in the production of positively-charged hadrons in polarized $p^{\uparrow}+p$, $p^{\uparrow}+$Al and $p^{\uparrow}+$Au collisions at $\sqrt{s_{_{NN}}}=200$ GeV. The measurements have been performed at forward rapidity ($1.4<\eta<2.4$) over the range of $1.8<p_{T}<7.0$ GeV$/c$ and $0.1<x_{F}<0.2$. We observed a positive asymmetry $A_{N}$ for positively-charged hadrons in \polpp collisions, and a significantly reduced asymmetry in $p^{\uparrow}$+$A$ collisions. These results reveal a nuclear dependence of charged hadron $A_N$ in a regime where perturbative techniques are relevant. These results provide new opportunities to use \polpA collisions as a tool to investigate the rich phenomena behind TSSAs in hadronic collisions and to use TSSA as a new handle in studying small-system collisions.Comment: 303 authors from 66 institutions, 9 pages, 2 figures, 1 table. v1 is version accepted for publication in Physical Review Letters. Plain text data tables for the points plotted in figures for this and previous PHENIX publications are (or will be) publicly available at http://www.phenix.bnl.gov/papers.htm