CYP2D6 variants and the prediction of tamoxifen response in randomized patients: author response

and letter by Rae et al. onlin

Economic review of point-of-care EEG.

Aims: Point-of-care electroencephalogram (POC-EEG) is an acute care bedside screening tool for the identification of nonconvulsive seizures (NCS) and nonconvulsive status epilepticus (NCSE). The objective of this narrative review is to describe the economic themes related to POC-EEG in the United States (US). Materials and methods: We examined peer-reviewed, published manuscripts on the economic findings of POC-EEG for bedside use in US hospitals, which included those found through targeted searches on PubMed and Google Scholar. Conference abstracts, gray literature offerings, frank advertisements, white papers, and studies conducted outside the US were excluded. Results: Twelve manuscripts were identified and reviewed; results were then grouped into four categories of economic evidence. First, POC-EEG usage was associated with clinical management amendments and antiseizure medication reductions. Second, POC-EEG was correlated with fewer unnecessary transfers to other facilities for monitoring and reduced hospital length of stay (LOS). Third, when identifying NCS or NCSE onsite, POC-EEG was associated with greater reimbursement in Medical Severity-Diagnosis Related Group coding. Fourth, POC-EEG may lower labor costs via decreasing after-hours requests to EEG technologists for conventional EEG (convEEG). Limitations: We conducted a narrative review, not a systematic review. The studies were observational and utilized one rapid circumferential headband system, which limited generalizability of the findings and indicated publication bias. Some sample sizes were small and hospital characteristics may not represent all US hospitals. POC-EEG studies in pediatric populations were also lacking. Ultimately, further research is justified. Conclusions: POC-EEG is a rapid screening tool for NCS and NCSE in critical care and emergency medicine with potential financial benefits through refining clinical management, reducing unnecessary patient transfers and hospital LOS, improving reimbursement, and mitigating burdens on healthcare staff and hospitals. Since POC-EEG has limitations (i.e. no video component and reduced montage), the studies asserted that it did not replace convEEG

QKD in Standard Optical Telecommunications Networks

To perform Quantum Key Distribution, the mastering of the extremely weak signals carried by the quantum channel is required. Transporting these signals without disturbance is customarily done by isolating the quantum channel from any noise sources using a dedicated physical channel. However, to really profit from this technology, a full integration with conventional network technologies would be highly desirable. Trying to use single photon signals with others that carry an average power many orders of magnitude bigger while sharing as much infrastructure with a conventional network as possible brings obvious problems. The purpose of the present paper is to report our efforts in researching the limits of the integration of QKD in modern optical networks scenarios. We have built a full metropolitan area network testbed comprising a backbone and an access network. The emphasis is put in using as much as possible the same industrial grade technology that is actually used in already installed networks, in order to understand the throughput, limits and cost of deploying QKD in a real network

Crowdsourcing Linked Data on listening experiences through reuse and enhancement of library data

Research has approached the practice of musical reception in a multitude of ways, such as the analysis of professional critique, sales figures and psychological processes activated by the act of listening. Studies in the Humanities, on the other hand, have been hindered by the lack of structured evidence of actual experiences of listening as reported by the listeners themselves, a concern that was voiced since the early Web era. It was however assumed that such evidence existed, albeit in pure textual form, but could not be leveraged until it was digitised and aggregated. The Listening Experience Database (LED) responds to this research need by providing a centralised hub for evidence of listening in the literature. Not only does LED support search and reuse across nearly 10,000 records, but it also provides machine-readable structured data of the knowledge around the contexts of listening. To take advantage of the mass of formal knowledge that already exists on the Web concerning these contexts, the entire framework adopts Linked Data principles and technologies. This also allows LED to directly reuse open data from the British Library for the source documentation that is already published. Reused data are re-published as open data with enhancements obtained by expanding over the model of the original data, such as the partitioning of published books and collections into individual stand-alone documents. The database was populated through crowdsourcing and seamlessly incorporates data reuse from the very early data entry phases. As the sources of the evidence often contain vague, fragmentary of uncertain information, facilities were put in place to generate structured data out of such fuzziness. Alongside elaborating on these functionalities, this article provides insights into the most recent features of the latest instalment of the dataset and portal, such as the interlinking with the MusicBrainz database, the relaxation of geographical input constraints through text mining, and the plotting of key locations in an interactive geographical browser

Bromidebalansberekeningen voor het Hoogheemraadschap van Delfland voor de periode september 1979 tot en met augustus 1980

Tussen mei 1979 en oktober 1980 is een onderzoek gedaan naar de bromidehuishouding van het gebied, dat onder beheer van Hoogheemraadschap Delfland valt. Het onderzoek had primair ten doel de invloed van het gebruik van methylbromide als grondontsmettingsmiddel in de glastuinbouw op de bromideconcentraties in het oppervlaktewater van het gebied te bepalen. Daartoe werden polder- en boezemwateren in zowel specifieke glastuinbouwgebieden als in graslandgebieden regelmatig bemonsterd. In deze nota volgt een kwantificering van de bromidehuishouding

Relapse to opioid use in opioid-dependent individuals released from compulsory drug detention centres compared with those from voluntary methadone treatment centres in Malaysia: a two-arm, prospective observational study

Background Detention of people who use drugs into compulsory drug detention centres (CDDCs) is common throughout East and Southeast Asia. Evidence-based pharmacological therapies for treating substance use disorders, such as opioid agonist treatments with methadone, are generally unavailable in these settings. We used a unique opportunity where CDDCs coexisted with voluntary drug treatment centres (VTCs) providing methadone in Malaysia to compare the timing and occurrence of opioid relapse (measured using urine drug testing) in individuals transitioning from CDDCs versus methadone maintenance in VTCs. Methods We did a parallel, two-arm, prospective observational study of opioid-dependent individuals aged 18 years and older who were treated in Malaysia in the Klang Valley in two settings: CDDCs and VTCs. We used sequential sampling to recruit individuals. Assessed individuals in CDDCs were required to participate in services such as counselling sessions and manual labour. Assessed individuals in VTCs could voluntarily access many of the components available in CDDCs, in addition to methadone therapy. We undertook urinary drug tests and behavioural interviews to assess individuals at baseline and at 1, 3, 6, 9, and 12 months post-release. The primary outcome was time to opioid relapse post-release in the community confi rmed by urinary drug testing in individuals who had undergone baseline interviewing and at least one urine drug test (our analytic sample). Relapse rates between the groups were compared using time-to-event methods. This study is registered at ClinicalTrials.gov (NCT02698098). Findings Between July 17, 2012, and August 21, 2014, we screened 168 CDDC attendees and 113 VTC inpatients; of these, 89 from CDDCs and 95 from VTCs were included in our analytic sample. The baseline characteristics of the two groups were similar. In unadjusted analyses, CDDC participants had signifi cantly more rapid relapse to opioid use post-release compared with VTC participants (median time to relapse 31 days [IQR 26–32] vs 352 days [256–unestimable], log rank test, p<0·0001). VTC participants had an 84% (95% CI 75–90) decreased risk of opioid relapse after adjustment for control variables and inverse propensity of treatment weights. Time-varying eff ect modelling revealed the largest hazard ratio reduction, at 91% (95% CI 83–96), occurs during the fi rst 50 days in the community. Interpretation Opioid-dependent individuals in CDDCs are signifi cantly more likely to relapse to opioid use after release, and sooner, than those treated with evidence-based treatments such as methadone, suggesting that CDDCs have no role in the treatment of opioid-use disorders