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This study presents a new landslide monitoring system, which is designed to be cost-effective, robust, flexible, and scalable, aiming for long-term and real-time monitoring and large-scale deployment in harsh and remote environments. This wireless monitoring system consists of the hybrid sensor node (including the GNSS receiver and MEMS accelerometer), the GNSS antenna, the power supply system, and the data center with a big-data infrastructure. The system was deployed at Songmao and Lushan landslide-prone sites, Taiwan, and its effectiveness was also examined through monitoring real landslide events. It was found that continuous monitoring, combining displacement and vibration data, enables us to see how and when the landslide is triggered by the rainfall, together with the potential sliding direction, and the associated aftermath behavior, even after the rainfall stops. The entire landslide movement, from initiation to the subsequent continuous movement, can be captured in detail through the DGNSS analyses. The potential landslide direction is derived based on the directivity from the Horizontal to Vertical Spectral Ratio (HVSR) analyses on the seismic measurements by the 3-axis accelerometers. The monitoring results also agree with other measurements from the borehole inclinometer/extensometer and total station. At these two sites, the groundwater level exhibited a distinct time lag in rising after the rainfall started and the subsequent sudden increase triggered the landslides. On the contrary, the drawdown of the groundwater level was relatively slow, which is due to the anisotropic permeability of the slate, and therefore promotes the continued slope movement even after the rainfall ceased. Water-softening on the slate along the sliding surface, which was just fractured by landslide movement, could be one of the associated underlying mechanisms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To assess cognitive performance in elderly depressed patients following treatment for 6 months. Remission rate of depression after 6 months of treatment was calculated. Methods: The study was performed in a consecutive group of patients aged > 65 years with late-onset depression. Severity of depression was assessed by the Hamilton Depression Scale, cognitive performance by the Hong Kong Montreal Cognitive Assessment, and functional level by the Instrumental Activities of Daily Living Scale. Results: A total of 52 patients were recruited. In all, 28 (53.8%) were found to have cognitive impairment at baseline and 8 (28.6%) of them had improvement after 6 months. This cognitively impaired group was older and had a lower Instrumental Activities of Daily Living Scale score. The remission rate of depression was 61.5%. Conclusions: Cognitive impairment constituted a stable feature in a considerable number of elderly patients with depression. About two-thirds of patients achieved remission of depression after 6 months of treatment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To examine the risk factors for suicide in elderly Hong Kong Chinese. Methods: Case notes, mortality reports and hospital records of all the patients, who committed suicide from 1 July 2002 to 31 March 2010 whilst under the active care of the Elderly Suicide prevention Programme of the Castle Peak Hospital in Hong Kong, were reviewed. Results: A total of 1230 elderly with high risk of suicide were assessed and treated from 1 July 2002 to March 2010. A total of 8 patients in this programme who committed suicide during this period were identified, of whom 63% were male and the most frequent method employed was jumping from a height.All the suicides ensued within the first 6 weeks of treatment under the programme. All these patients were diagnosed to have a depressive illness, and all but 1 had an associated physical illness that possibly precipitated the suicide. They had all been admitted to either a mental or general hospital, about 1 month before committing suicide. Conclusions: The first 2 months of treatment is associated with the highest risk of suicide. Intensive care and support with proper education about effects of antidepressants, and the building-up of a trusted therapeutic alliance with close relatives are particularly important in this vulnerable period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background Neutrophil-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) and platelet-lymphocyte ratio (PLR) have been shown to be prognostic in various cancers. Prior reports of this in sarcomas have predominantly been made through smaller cohorts from single institutions. We investigated the prognostic implications of these indices in patients with soft-tissue (STS) and bone sarcomas using a large population-based database. Methods A population-based retrospective database was assembled to extract pts with sarcoma, as defined as ICD-9-CM codes of bone (170.x) or/and soft tissue (171.x) who have attended clinics or hospitals of the Hong Kong Hospital Authority between Jan 2004 and Mar 2018. Eligible patients (pts) with index presentation of bone sarcoma or/and STS on or after Jan 2005 were analysed to allow 1-year window. The most recent documented lymphocyte, neutrophil, and platelet counts from the index date of sarcoma diagnosis were retrieved, and the neutrophil-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) and platelet lymphocyte ratio (PLR) were correlated with survival. Abnormal (abn) NLR and abn PLR are defined as NLR≥2.5 and PLR≥182 respectively. Restricted cubic spline plots were used to explore the shape of association between baseline NLR and PLR and all-cause mortality, fitting a restricted cubic spline function with four knots (5th, 35th, 65th, and 95th centiles). Results Of 3746 pts identified, 3358 pts satisfied eligibility: bone n = 661, STS n = 2576, both n = 121. NLR and PLR is available for 89.93% (n = 3020) of eligible pts, amongst which 65.9% (n = 1989) had abn NLR while 47.6% (n = 1438) had abn PLR. Abn NLR and abn PLR are each associated with higher all-cause mortality (abn NLR: HR 1.698, p < 0.001, 95% CI 1.424-2.025; abn PLR: HR 1.346, p < 0.001, 95%CI 1.164-1.555) and cancer-related mortality (abn NLR: HR 1.648, p < 0.001, 95% CI 1.341-2.024; abn PLR: HR 1.430, p < 0.001, 95% CI 1.205-1.697). Conclusions This is the largest assembled population-based sarcoma cohort in Asia. We show that NLR and PLR are robust prognostic factors, and abn NLR and PLR have negative effects on survival. More importantly, the relationship between NLR and PLR and mortality is shown to be non-linear. Legal entity responsible for the study The authors. Funding Has not received any funding. Disclosure All authors have declared no conflicts of interest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]