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A new ion-exchange resin was obtained by incorporating a tripropylamine group into a tamarind polysaccharide resin (TTA). The TTA resin was characterized by FTIR, elemental analysis, and other physicochemical properties. The influence of pH, treatment time and resin concentration on the adsorption of metal ions from industrial wastewater was investigated. It was found that the obtained TTA resin effectively removes heavy metal ions in the following order: Fe2+> Cu2+> Zn2+> Cd2+> Pb2+.

Preemptive kidney transplant (PKT) is recognized as the most beneficial and cost-effective form of renal replacement therapy among patients with end-stage renal disease. Despite optimal outcomes and improved quality of life associated with PKT, its use as a first renal replacement therapy remains low among patients with end-stage renal disease. The goal of this retrospective cohort study was to compare, among adult kidney transplant recipients, characteristics across PKT status.We compared the characteristics of patients who did and did not have a PKT over 5 years, from 2010 to 2014, using the electronic health records of Kaiser Permanente Mid-Atlantic States.A total of 233 patients received a kidney-alone transplant, and, of these, 44 patients (19%) were PKT and 189 patients (81%) were non-PKT. Of the patients in the PKT group, 43% received a kidney from a deceased donor. PKT recipients were more often White, had polycystic kidney disease or glomerulonephritis, received a living donor organ, and were transplanted at certain transplant centers. Estimated glomerular filtration rate on listing for those who received a deceased donor transplant was higher in PKT than non-PKT patients listed pre-dialysis.PKT was associated with having a living kidney donor and with having a higher estimated glomerular filtration rate at listing for deceased donor recipients.

At Kaiser Permanente Mid-Atlantic States, we designed a 3-anatomic-site panel (urine, oropharynx, and rectum) with a self-collect feature for rectal sites. We compared the proportion tested at each anatomic site, demographic factors, and HIV status between those who received the 3-site panel versus usual care.Patients entered our laboratories without a prior appointment and underwent urine (usual care [patient collected]), oropharynx (laboratory technician collected), and rectal site (patient collected) testing. Providers recommended the panel to their patients. Patients then had the choice to accept or to reject the panel. Multivariate and logistic regressions were conducted to explore the relationship of age, sex, race, and HIV status with Neisseria gonorrhoeae (GC) and Chlamydia trachomatis (CT) test results as well as the type of testing (3-site panel vs. usual care testing) received.A total of 145,854 patients received usual care testing as compared with 9227 who received the panel. For those who underwent usual care testing, 4.0% tested positive for CT and 0.85% for GC. For those who received the panel, 9.1% tested positive for CT and 6.4% for GC. Those who received the 3-site panel were more likely to test positive for CT (odds ratio [OR], 2.70; confidence interval [CI], 2.46-2.97) and GC (OR, 4.00; CI, 3.59-4.64). White patients were the most likely to receive the panel compared with Black patients (OR, 3.14; CI, 2.96-3.33). Patients with HIV had greater odds of undergoing the panel (OR, 15.62; CI, 14.67-16.64) and of testing positive for CT (OR, 1.27; CI, 1.07-1.51) and GC (OR, 1.39; CI, 1.14-1.68).Patients who received the panel had higher odds of testing positive for CT and GC compared with patients with usual testing. Physician training may address the racial and sex differences observed in the panel enrollment and increase utilization. Self-collection for rectal sites should lead to higher detection of CT and GC.

Toxic metal ions present in environmental water samples and other samples need to be detected for their removal. The detection of trace metal ions using an ion selective electrode (ISE) holds great significance in analytical chemistry. A 4-vinyl pyridine-ethyl acrylate copolymer-polyvinyl chloride (VE-PVC) based polymeric matrix (electrode) has been fabricated by free radical bulk polymerization method which is an example of a green and sustainable method capable of detecting Ni2+ ions even in trace amounts. To fabricate the polymeric matrix (electrode) (PME), VE has been used as an ionophore. Further, the effectiveness of Ni2+ ion ISE has also been investigated in the presence of surfactants and detergents. Its performance has also been analyzed in the presence of plasticizers. The electrode is found to be very useful for the estimation of Ni2+ ions using ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid by potentiometric titration and also in the estimation of presence of Ni2+ ions in water. Compared to other metal ions, the fabricated membrane electrode developed in this work has been found to show efficient and better selectivity towards Ni2+ ions.

To build a model of local hospital utilization resulting from SARS-CoV-2 and to continuously update it with new data.Retrospective analysis of real performance resulting from a model deployed in a major regional health system.Using hospitalization data from the Kaiser Permanente Mid-Atlantic States integrated care system during the period from March 10, 2020, through December 31, 2020, and a custom-developed genetic particle filtering algorithm, we modeled the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak in the mid-Atlantic region. This model produced weekly forecasts of COVID-19-related hospital admissions, which we then compared with actual hospital admissions over the same period.We found that the model was able to accurately capture the data-generating process (weekly mean absolute percentage error, 10.0%-48.8%; Anderson-Darling P value of .97 when comparing percentiles of observed admissions with the uniform distribution) once the effects of social distancing could be accurately measured in mid-April. We also found that our estimates of key parameters, including the reproductive rate, were consistent with consensus literature estimates.The genetic particle filtering algorithm that we have proposed is effective at modeling hospitalizations due to SARS-CoV-2. The methods used by our model can be reproduced by any major health care system for the purposes of resource planning, staffing, and population care management to create an effective forecasting regimen at scale.

Objective To construct and publicly release a set of medical concept embeddings for codes following the ICD-10 coding standard which explicitly incorporate hierarchical information from medical codes into the embedding formulation. Materials and Methods We trained concept embeddings using several new extensions to the Word2Vec algorithm using a dataset of approximately 600,000 patients from a major integrated healthcare organization in the Mid-Atlantic US. Our concept embeddings included additional entities to account for the medical categories assigned to codes by the Clinical Classification Software Revised (CCSR) dataset. We compare these results to sets of publicly released pretrained embeddings and alternative training methodologies. Results We found that Word2Vec models which included hierarchical data outperformed ordinary Word2Vec alternatives on tasks which compared naïve clusters to canonical ones provided by CCSR. Our Skip-Gram model with both codes and categories achieved 61.4% normalized mutual information with canonical labels in comparison to 57.5% with traditional Skip-Gram. In models operating on two different outcomes, we found that including hierarchical embedding data improved classification performance 96.2% of the time. When controlling for all other variables, we found that co-training embeddings improved classification performance 66.7% of the time. We found that all models outperformed our competitive benchmarks. Discussion We found significant evidence that our proposed algorithms can express the hierarchical structure of medical codes more fully than ordinary Word2Vec models, and that this improvement carries forward into classification tasks. As part of this publication, we have released several sets of pretrained medical concept embeddings using the ICD-10 standard which significantly outperform other well-known pretrained vectors on our tested outcomes.

Modifications taking place in ultrahigh molecular weight polyethylene (UHMWPE) films due to gamma ray radiation-induced and investigated in correlation with the applied doses. Films were irradiated in a vacuum at room temperature by a 1.25 MeV Co60 a source with doses ranging from 0 to 300 kGg. The optical, chemical, structural, and surface morphological properties of the irradiated and unirradiated UHMWPE films were investigated by UV-Visible, FTIR, XRD, and SEM, respectively. The band gap E g decreases with increasing radiation dose and coloration effects have been seen at higher doses. FTIR spectra show an oscillatory behavior in the transmittance intensities without affecting in their peak positions. Number of small absorption peaks can be seen clearly which may be due to the cross-linking of the polymeric chain. No significant change in crystalline peak has been found in the X-ray diffraction pattern indicating the structural stability of the polymer. The morphology of the smooth topography of the polymer samples to change rougher one polymeric sample shows the formation of microvoids on the surface of the polymeric materials with the increase of the doses from 0 to 300 kGy.

A Lactobacillus sp. isolated from soil and capable of growing on xylose-containing medium exhibited high glucose isomerase activity. The enzyme was thermostable, stable toward dialysis, and activated by heat treatment. It did not show the presence of xylose or ribose isomerase activities; the Km for glucose and xylose substrates were 0.48M and 0.513M, respectively. The heat treatment of ultrasonic crude extract gave insoluble fixed active glucose isomerase enzyme. The properties of free and immobilized enzyme in heat-fixed whole cells differed in many respects. The optimum temperature for enzyme activity changed from 70 to 85°C, the optimum substrate concentration changed from 1.0M to 2.4M, and the optimum pH from 7.4 to 6.0. Co2+ and Mg2+ ions activated the enzyme when used singly, but in combination they inhibited the enzyme and Mn2+ had no effect on the enzyme. Free and immobilized enzymes, when used in the used in the conversions of corn and bagasse hydrolysates to fructose, gave 58, 25.6%, and 50, 27.6% conversions, respectively. Immobilized enzyme retained a significant activity for more than 30 hr and was able to operate at higher glucose concentrations showing less products inhibition effect as compared to free enzyme. In the batch process it was able to operate for about eight cycles.