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The constant increase in global energy demand makes it inevitable to find clean means of energy production. Among renewable energy sources, the Sun is the most available source which makes it a versatile solution for energy needs. Tremendous efforts are made to invent and develop new materials for light to energy conversion. The main question is how the newly developed materials react to light and
Objectives: The primary aim was to examine how event-related potentials (ERPs) and mismatch negativity (MMN) change and develop over time among children with hearing loss (HL) using hearing aids (HAs) or cochlear implants (CIs). Children with normal hearing (NH) were tested as a reference group. Methods: This three-year follow-up study included 13 children with sensorineural HL (SNHL); 7 children
Background: Surgery is the curative therapy for patients with medullary thyroid carcinoma (MTC). In determining the extent of surgery, the risk of complications should be considered. The aim of this study was to assess procedure-specific outcomes and risk factors for complications after surgery for MTC. Methods: Patients who underwent thyroid surgery for MTC were identified in two European prospec
Objective: To estimate chances of potential look-alike, sound-alike and read-alike (LASARA) errors in secondary-care hospital pharmacies through prescriptions screening. Design: Cross-sectional, prospective study. Place and duration of study: Al-Khidmat Hospital Pharmacy, Karachi, Pakistan from August to October, 2016. Methodology: Dispensed medicine data was collected from three pharmacies of a s
Background & Aims: Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) has been associated with multiple metabolic abnormalities. By applying a non-targeted metabolomics approach, we aimed at investigating whether serum metabolite profile that associates with NAFLD would differ in its association with NAFLD-related metabolic risk factors. Methods & Results: A total of 233 subjects (mean ± SD: 48.3 ±
Paracetamol, one of the most widely used pain-relieving drugs, is deacetylated to 4-aminophenol (4-AP) that undergoes fatty acid amide hydrolase (FAAH)-dependent biotransformation into N-arachidonoylphenolamine (AM404), which mediates TRPV1-dependent antinociception in the brain of rodents. However, paracetamol is also converted to the liver-toxic metabolite N-acetyl-p-benzoquinone imine already a
Introduction: For patients with advanced wrist osteoarthritis (OA), total wrist fusion (TWF) is the standard surgical treatment, although total wrist arthroplasty (TWA) has become a plausible motion-preserving alternative. Purpose: To explore patients' experiences of living with advanced wrist OA before and after surgery with either a TWF or a TWA. Furthermore, we wanted to explore the expectation
Objective: The optimal duration of venoarterial extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (VA-ECMO) in patients affected by postcardiotomy cardiogenic shock (PCS) remains controversial. The present study was conducted to investigate the effect of VA-ECMO duration on hospital outcomes. Design: Retrospective analysis of an international registry. Setting: Multicenter study including 19 tertiary university
The establishment of introduced species in new environments is today widely acknowledged as a potential threat to biodiversity, and many plants that are known to be invasive have obviously spread from gardens. Thus, in the context of biosecurity, we need to consider how contemporary gardeners think about which plants and animals are welcome in their gardens. In this chapter we look at vegetation i
Brain activation mapping using functional MRI (fMRI) based on blood oxygenation level-dependent (BOLD) contrast has been conventionally focused on probing gray matter, the BOLD contrast in white matter having been generally disregarded. Recent results have provided evidence of the functional significance of the white matter BOLD signal, showing at the same time that its correlation structure is hi
This study aims to identify obstacles and barriers to achieving quality distance learning and the use of electronic exams, comparing them to pursue success in the distance education system during the coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19). It also aimed to determine the similarity and differences between the two main components of distance education. This is based on a sample of evaluations from professo
The human cortical layer exhibits a convoluted morphology that is unique to each individual. Conventional volumetric fMRI processing schemes take for granted the rich information provided by the underlying anatomy. We present a method to study fMRI data on subject-specific cerebral hemisphere cortex (CHC) graphs, which encode the cortical morphology at the resolution of voxels in 3-D. Using graph
Irreversible shifts of large-scale components of the Earth system (so-called ‘tipping elements’) on policy-relevant timescales are a major source of uncertainty for projecting the impacts of future climate change. The high latitudes are particularly vulnerable to positive feedbacks that amplify change through atmosphere-ocean-ice interactions. Unfortunately, the short instrumental record does not
Summary: In this population-based study, we compared the incidence of distal radius fracture in 2016 with that in the same region’s adult general population in 2001 using radiographs to identify fracture cases. We showed that the incidence decreased by 24% in 2016 compared with 2001 indicating an important development. Introduction: We conducted an epidemiological study on residents of northeaster
This letter is the result of a collaborative process within the degrowth international network. It has been endorsed by more than 2,000 signatories and over 70 organizations from more than 60 countries. All the people whose names are listed have been part the working group writing it. The letter has been published in outlets such as OpenDemocracy (UK), Information (Denmark), Mediapart (France), Th
The delivery of bio-active molecules through the skin is challenging given the complex structure of its outer layer, the stratum corneum. Here we explore the possibility to encapsulate natural compounds into nanocarriers containing permeation enhancers that can affect the fluidity of the stratum corneum lipids. This approach is expected to facilitate dermal or transdermal release. For this purpose
Younger Dryas ice-marginal (‘hummocky’) moraines in Scotland represent valuable terrestrial archives that can be used to obtain important information on ice-marginal dynamics and glacier thermal regimes during a period of rapid climatic change. In this paper, we present detailed sedimentological studies of Younger Dryas ice-marginal moraines in the Gaick, central Scotland, the former site of a spa
Objectives: To prospectively evaluate the performance of a pre-specified statistical model based on four kallikrein markers in blood (total prostate-specific antigen [PSA], free PSA, intact PSA, and human kallikrein-related peptidase 2), commercially available as the 4Kscore, in predicting Gleason Grade Group (GG) ≥2 prostate cancer at biopsy in an international multicentre study at three academic
