Search

Quantitative RT-PCR (qRT-PCR) has been commonly used for IAV detection in influenza surveillance and disease diagnosis because of its high sensitivity, specificity, and high throughput. A number of HA subtype specific qRT-PCR methods have been developed, including H5, H7, and H9 (Monne et al., 2008). However, there is still lack of a specific qRT-PCR method for detecting the emerging H10N8 IAVs. In this study, a Eurasian-lineage H10 specific qRT-PCR is developed and validated.

Objective To develop an understanding of women's lived experience of compassionate midwifery Design A qualitative study using the principles of Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). Data was collected during interviews with 17 women who identified themselves as having received compassionate midwifery care. Findings Women participants' experience of compassionate care from midwives was experienced through a sense of a midwife Being With them, Being in Relationship with them and Empowerment. Women were also aware of the way midwives were able to Balance potentially conflicting aspects of their work, in order to provide compassionate care. Two other themes which emerged through extensive analysis of the data related to how women set their experience of compassion in the context of their personal suffering and that compassion made a difference. These themes will be reported separately. Conclusion and implications for practice The unique contribution of this study was to provide a window into the nature of women's lived experiences of compassionate midwifery and thus building, understanding around the qualities of compassionate midwifery and its impact on women. The findings are important because they challenge assumptions that compassion is ill-defined and therefore difficult to teach. On the contrary, compassionate midwifery was easily identified by women participants and had the features of an effective intervention for relieving their suffering. A dynamic model of Compassionate Midwifery in Balance has been proposed, providing a much-needed tool to inform practice, education and policy. Further research will build on this work by focussing on women in varied circumstances, environments and cultures and on understanding the lived experience of compassionate midwifery from the midwife's perspective.

The impacts of heat on human health has sparked research on different approaches to measure, map, and predict heat exposure at more accurate and precise spatiotemporal scales. Personal heat sensor studies rely on small sensors that can continuously measure ambient temperatures as individuals move through time and space. The comparison between different types of sensors and sensor placements have yet to be fully researched. The objective of this study is to assess the validity of personal ambient temperature sensors. To accomplish this objective, we evaluated the performance of multiple low-cost wearable sensors (HOBOs, iButton Thermochrons, iButton Hygrochrons, and Kestrel DROP D3FW Fire) for measuring ambient temperature in a (1) field exposure study by varying the placement on human subjects and in a (2) field calibration study by co-locating sensors with fixed site weather station monitors. A secondary aim involved investigating consensus between validation metrics that can be used in future sensor comparison studies. Bland-Altman analysis, correlation coefficients, and index of agreement statistics were used to quantify the difference between sensor and weather station ambient temperature measurements. Results demonstrated significant differences in measured temperatures for sensors based on sensor type and placement on participants. Future research should account for the differences in personal ambient temperature readings based on sensor type and placement.

Rationale and Objectives Lymphoscintigraphy may be used for diagnosing secondary lymphedema. Dermal backflow, the presence of radiotracer in dermal lymphatics, is a key clinical feature. Although often reported as present or absent, a scale that assesses the severity of dermal backflow has been previously developed. The aim of this study was to determine the reliability of these two methods of assessment. Materials and Methods Sixteen experienced nuclear medicine physicians assessed the quantity of dermal backflow of 57 lymphoscintigraphy scans using a 4-point descriptive scale that was dichotomized for secondary analysis. Each scan included images from four time points for women previously diagnosed with secondary lymphedema (n = 47) and controls (n = 5); five scans were presented twice to examine intraobserver reliability. This was further investigated as 13 physicians viewed the scans again on an Apple iPad2. The physicians rated their confidence in their scoring. Readers were blinded to clinical history. Results Although both the 2- and 4-point scale had moderate interobserver reliability, the reliability of the 2-point scale was slightly higher (4-point: Fleiss κ = .418, standard error [SE] = .008); 2-point: Fleiss κ = .574, SE = .013). Low interobserver reliability was found when only control subjects were considered (Fleiss κ = 0.055, SE = 0.034). Intraobserver reliability of the five repeated images varied from poor to perfect (Cohen κ = .063 to 1.00), whereas moderate to substantial intraobserver reliability (Cohen's κ = .342 to .752) was found when comparing devices. The readers were highly confident of their scores. Conclusions Overall, moderate intraobserver and interobserver reliability was found for quantifying dermal backflow with both the 2- and 4-point scale.

Plastic resin pellets collected from remote islands in the Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian Oceans and the Caribbean Sea were analyzed for polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), dichloro-diphenyltrichloroethane and its degradation products (DDTs), and hexachlorocyclohexanes (HCHs). Concentrations of PCBs (sum of 13 congeners) in the pellets were 0.1-9.9 ng/g-pellet. These were 1-3 orders of magnitude smaller than those observed in pellets from industrialized coastal shores. Concentrations of DDTs in the pellets were 0.8-4.1 ng/g-pellet. HCH concentrations were 0.6-1.7 ng/g-pellet, except for 19.3 ng/g-pellet on St. Helena, where current use of lindane is likely influence. This study provides background levels of POPs (PCBs

Combining the functional data provided by single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) with the anatomical information provided by CT has been shown to improve overall diagnostic accuracy in many areas of nuclear medicine. Although planar lung scans have often relied on correlation with a chest x-ray to help optimize scan interpretation, the advent of 3D lung imaging with SPECT provides the opportunity to combine lung perfusion data with CT images. This can be done by performing the study on a hybrid SPECT/CT scanner, with the CT acquisition typically performed with the use of low-dose parameters, rather than full diagnostic quality settings, or by software fusion with a fully diagnostic CT or a contrast-enhanced CT pulmonary angiogram. Such an approach has been shown to improve specificity and overall accuracy of ventilation/perfusion scintigraphy as well as facilitating more accurate clot localization. With the increased availability of hybrid SPECT/CT scanners, such an approach can be implemented in most imaging departments with little additional acquisition time or radiation dose. Misregistration caused by respiratory motion can impact combined studies, although this can be minimized with attention to patient breathing patterns during image acquisition. For patients with lung cancer, ventilation/perfusion SPECT/CT may have a role in allowing the optimal selection of radiotherapy fields and can improve the preoperative quantification of lung function before resection.

In this article we review protocols for ventilation-perfusion (V/Q) imaging with current generation technology. Although many groups have expressed interest in moving from planar lung V/Q imaging to single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) methods, few resources or guidelines exist for suggested protocols. Here, we provide an introduction to help establish protocols for planar and SPECT V/Q imaging and display that should be readily transferable into a clinical department's routine practice. We emphasize, in particular, the need for a good ventilation study and that acquiring planar images as well as SPECT can be negated by producing acceptable planar-like images from the SPECT data.

Simple techniques are presented for rearrangement of an infinite series in a systematic way such that the convergence of the resulting expression is accelerated. These procedures also allow calculation of required boundary derivatives. Several examples of conduction and diffusion-reaction problems illustrate the methods.