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Objective: Indocyanine green has been used in the assessment of the gastric conduit perfusion in thoracoscopic esophagectomy to prevent malperfusion-associated anastomotic leak. This study aims to evaluate the initial results of investigating the gastric conduit perfusion with indocyanine green in the surgical treatment of esophageal cancer., Patients and Methods: This cross-sectional descriptive study was carried out on 54 esophageal cancer patients undergoing thoracoscopic esophagectomy and gastric conduit reconstruction. The blood flow in the gastric conduit was observed using an infrared camera and indocyanine green after completion of the conduit and after tunneling the conduit through the mediastinum to the neck., Results: The gastric conduit width and length were 5.2 ± 0.3 cm, and 31.5 ± 1.6 cm, respectively. The length of the gastric conduit from the junction between the right and left gastroepiploic to the point where the distal end of the gastric conduit still has a vascular pulse was 11.9 ± 4.3 cm. Seventeen patients (31.5%) had poor blood supply at the distal end of the gastric conduit, with indocyanine green appearance time ⩾ 60 s, in whom anastomotic leaks occurred in five patients (9.3%). The lack of connection between the right and left gastroepiploic vessels was associated with poor blood supply of the distal gastric conduit ( p  = 0.04). Multivariable logistic regression analysis showed association between the time of indocyanine green appearance at the distal gastric conduit and the risk of anastomotic leak (OR = 1.99, 95% CI = 1.10-3.60, p  = 0.02)., Conclusion: Investigation of gastric conduit perfusion using indocyanine green in gastric conduit reconstruction detected 31.5% of patients with poor blood supply at the distal end of the conduit, in whom 9.3% had anastomotic leak. The longer indocyanine green appearance time in the distal gastric conduit (segment BC), was associated with the higher rate of the anastomotic leak., Competing Interests: The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article., (© The Author(s) 2024.)

Objective: For adolescents, DSM-5 differentiates anorexia nervosa (AN) and atypical AN with the 5th BMI-centile-for-age. We hypothesized that the diagnostic weight cut-off yields (i) lower weight loss in atypical AN and (ii) discrepant premorbid BMI distributions between the two disorders. Prior studies demonstrate that premorbid BMI predicts admission BMI and weight loss in patients with AN. We explore these relationships in atypical AN., Method: Based on admission BMI-centile < or ≥5th, participants included 411 female adolescent inpatients with AN and 49 with atypical AN from our registry study. Regression analysis and t-tests statistically addressed our hypotheses and exploratory correlation analyses compared interrelationships between weight loss, admission BMI, and premorbid BMI in both disorders., Results: Weight loss in atypical AN was 5.6 kg lower than in AN upon adjustment for admission age, admission height, premorbid weight and duration of illness. Premorbid BMI-standard deviation scores differed by almost one between both disorders. Premorbid BMI and weight loss were strongly correlated in both AN and atypical AN., Discussion: Whereas the weight cut-off induces discrepancies in premorbid weight and adjusted weight loss, AN and atypical AN overall share strong weight-specific interrelationships that merit etiological consideration. Epidemiological and genetic associations between AN and low body weight may reflect a skewed premorbid BMI distribution. In combination with prior findings for similar psychological and medical characteristics in AN and atypical AN, our findings support a homogenous illness conceptualization. We propose that diagnostic subcategorization based on premorbid BMI, rather than admission BMI, may improve clinical validity., Public Significance: Because body weights of patients with AN must drop below the 5th BMI-centile per DSM-5, they will inherently require greater weight loss than their counterparts with atypical AN of the same sex, age, height and premorbid weight. Indeed, patients with atypical AN had a 5.6 kg lower weight loss after controlling for these variables. In comparison to the reference population, we found a lower and higher mean premorbid weight in patients with AN and atypical AN, respectively. Considering previous psychological and medical comparisons showing little differences between AN and atypical AN, we view a single disorder as the most parsimonious explanation. Etiological models need to particularly account for the strong relationship between weight loss and premorbid body weight., (© 2024 The Authors. International Journal of Eating Disorders published by Wiley Periodicals LLC.)

The Eighth Asian National Control Laboratory (NCL) Network meeting, entitled "Biological Products Quality Control and Self-Sufficiency Strategy focusing on plasma-derived medicinal products (PDMPs)" was held in Seoul on 31 August 2023. The participants were NCL experts from Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam, and the Republic of Korea. Special lectures included the PDMPs self-sufficiency strategies of the World Health Organization (WHO) and Indonesian Food and Drug Authority, and a case study on Global Benchmarking Tool (GBT) assessment for vaccines by the Korea Ministry of Food and Drug Safety. The NCL delegates shared their current experiences with national lot releases and biological standardisation. The meeting contributed to a mutual understanding of the progress of the PDMPs self-sufficiency among Asian countries, the WHO's support strategies, and the NCL's plan for the preparation of the WHO GBT assessment. In the panel discussion, all participants agreed that building capacity in blood safety in the Asian region and harmonisation of relevant international regulatory requirements will support appropriate emergency preparedness, particularly source materials in the region, and will build the foundation for resolving the PDMPs supply insecurity that has worsened after the COVID-19 pandemic in some countries., (Copyright © 2024. Published by Elsevier Ltd.)

This manuscript investigates the system performance of hybrid wireless and power line communication networks for indoor Internet of Things applications. Differentiating itself from the existing literature, the performance of the direct link and dual-hop energy harvesting relay-aided links is analyzed under the condition of indoor fading modeled by log-normal distribution. Moreover, the manuscript presents the analytical expressions of the successful transmission probability of the deployed opportunistic decode-and-forward and amplify-and-forward relay selection scheme, and validates them with Monte Carlo simulations. Moreover, the impact of different system parameters on the successful transmission probability is revealed. For the considered hybrid system, in general, the opportunistic decode-and-forward relaying scheme outperforms the opportunistic amplify-and-forward relaying scheme. As importantly, increasing the source to relay distance and power splitting ratio over certain limits significantly deteriorates the system performance, indicated by the decrease in the successful transmission probability.

A binary mixture of droplets and patchy colloids, where patches are arranged in tetrahedral symmetry, is studied with Metropolis Monte Carlo simulations. The colloidal patches attract droplets, while both the colloid-colloid and the droplet-droplet interactions are hard sphere like. We find stable crystal structures with atomic analogs ZnS, CaF&#95;{2}, and fcc or hcp (face centered cubic or hexagonal close packed) of the droplets coexisting with a dispersed fluid of the colloids. The simulated crystal structures agree well with those predicted by close-packing calculations for an intermediate range of droplet-colloid size ratios. A discrepancy between the simulations and theoretical predictions occurs at low and high size ratios. The results of the simulations for mixtures with anisotropic colloid-droplet interactions reveal a richer phase diagram, with ZnS-gas and ZnS-fluid coexistence, as compared to the isotropic case. For the example of a square planar patch arrangement, we find a particular crystal structure, consisting of two interpenetrating fcc or hcp lattices with right bond angles. Such a structure has no known atomic analog. Our study of generic models of anisotropic colloid-droplet mixtures could provide a promising way towards the fabrication of novel and complex colloidal structures.

We study the cluster structures of one-patch colloidal particles generated by droplet evaporation using Monte Carlo simulations. The addition of anisotropic patch-patch interaction between the colloids produces different cluster configurations. We find a well-defined category of sphere packing structures that minimize the second moment of mass distribution when the attractive surface coverage of the colloids χ is larger than 0 . 3 . For χ < 0 . 3 , the uniqueness of the packing structures is lost, and several different isomers are found. A further decrease of χ below 0 . 2 leads to formation of many isomeric structures with less dense packings. Our results could provide an explanation of the occurrence of uncommon cluster configurations in the literature observed experimentally through evaporation-driven assembly.

The occurrence of ergot bodies (sclerotia of Claviceps purpurea) in cereals presents a high toxicity risk for animals and humans due to the alkaloid content. To reduce this risk, the European Commission fixed an ergot concentration limit of 0.1% in all feedstuffs containing unground cereals, and a limit of 0.05% in 'intervention' cereals destined for humans. This study sought to develop a procedure based on near infrared hyperspectral imaging and multivariate image analysis to detect and quantify ergot contamination in cereals. Hyperspectral images were collected using an NIR hyperspectral line scan combined with a conveyor belt. All images consisted of lines of 320 pixels that were acquired at 209 wavelength channels (1100-2400 nm). To test the procedure, several wheat samples with different levels of ergot contamination were prepared. The results showed a correlation higher than 0.99 between the predicted values obtained using chemometric tools such as partial least squares discriminant analysis or support vector machine and the reference values. For a wheat sample with a level of ergot contamination as low as 0.01 %, it was possible to identify groups of pixels detected as ergot to conclude that the sample was contaminated. In addition, no false positives were obtained with non-contaminated samples. The limit of detection was found to be 145 mg/kg and the limit of quantification 341 mg/kg. The reproducibility tests of the measurements performed over several weeks showed that the results were always within the limits allowed. Additional studies were done to optimise the parameters in terms of number of samples analysed per unit of time or conveyor belt speed. It was shown that ergot can be detected using a speed of 1-100 mm/s and that a sample of 250 g can be analysed in 1 min.

Objective: To find out whether the new FIGO staging system (introduced 2009) indeed leads to a more specific prediction of the survival for patients with vulvar SCC., Methods: A retrospective study of 269 patients with vulvar SCC from 1988 to 2009. All patients were staged according the old and revised FIGO staging system by histopathological data. Overall survival (OS) and disease specific survival (DSS) were calculated., Results: Of all 269 patients, a total number of 113 patients (42.4%) was restaged according to the new FIGO staging, mainly downstaged. In patients with negative nodes, tumor size was not predictive for OS (p = 0.475) and DSS (p = 0.915). Patients of old FIGO stage III and negative node status showed no difference in survival with the group mentioned above (OS p = 0.105 and DSS p = 0.743, respectively). An increasing number of positive lymph nodes (range 1-9) led to a decrease in survival in OS and DSS (p = 0.022 and p = 0.004 respectively). When corrected for the number of positive nodes, there was no difference in survival between patients with unilateral or bilateral lymph nodes. In patients with positive nodes, extranodal growth showed a significant worse survival compared to patients without extranodal growth (OS p < 0.001 and DSS p = 0.004)., Conclusion: The new FIGO staging system provides indeed a better reflection of prognosis for patients with vulvar SCC. An accurate description of clinical and histopathological data combined with information about which FIGO classification has been used is necessary to interpret the literature correctly and to keep the possibility to compare data of different studies., (Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Objective: To systematically review the effectiveness of workplace interventions for reducing sitting., Methods: Studies published up to April 2009 were identified by literature searches in multiple databases. Studies were included if they were interventions to increase energy expenditure (increase physical activity or decrease sitting); were conducted in a workplace setting; and specifically measured sitting as a primary or secondary outcome. Two independent reviewers assessed methodological quality of the included studies, and data on study design, sample, measures of sitting, intervention and results were extracted., Results: Six studies met the inclusion criteria (five randomised trials and one pre-post study). The primary aim of all six was to increase physical activity; all had reducing sitting as a secondary aim. All used self-report measures of sitting; one specifically assessed occupational sitting time; the others used measures of general sitting. No studies showed that sitting decreased significantly in the intervention group, compared with a control or comparison group., Conclusion: Currently, there is a dearth of evidence on the effectiveness of workplace interventions for reducing sitting. In light of the growing body of evidence that prolonged sitting is negatively associated with health, this highlights a gap in the scientific literature that needs to be addressed., (Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Gel layer based sensors are increasingly employed for dynamic trace metal speciation analysis in aquatic and soil media, in which humic and fulvic acid species are generally known to be relevant. In DGT (diffusive gradient in thin film), polyacrylamide hydrogels are commonly used for the diffusive gel layer. Various effects of the presence of humic species on the amount of metal detected by DGT have been observed, but the role of the different metal/humic species is still unknown. Recently it was shown that in the absence of metal, humic acid accumulates significantly in the polyacrylamide hydrogel. Here we analyze the extent of this accumulation in the presence of cadmium under various conditions of ionic strength and total humic and fulvic acid concentrations. At millimolar ionic strength level, DET data show significant accumulation of cadmium(II) in the gel phase, on top of some Donnan enrichment. The results are essential for the interpretation of DGT/DET data on metals in the presence of humics, especially in freshwaters.

Gel layer based sensors are increasingly employed for dynamic trace metal speciation analysis in aquatic and soil media. In DGT (Diffusive Gradient in Thin film), polyacrylamide hydrogels are commonly used for the diffusive gel layer. While some effects of humic and fulvic acids on the DGT detection of metal species have been observed, the gel permeation properties of the actual humic and fulvic acid compounds themselves have not been analyzed thus far. Here we show with DET (Diffusive Equilibrium in Thin film) that these natural complexing agents do enter the gel layer, and that humic acids even appear to accumulate in the gel, with enrichment factors typically on the order of 10. The results have consequences for the interpretation of DGT-data on metal fluxes from aquatic media containing humics and fulvics.

The impact of ligand protonation on the complexation kinetics of higher-order complexes is quantitatively described. The theory is formulated on the basis of the usual situation for metal complex formation in aqueous systems in which the exchange of water for the ligand in the inner coordination sphere is rate-determining (Eigen mechanism). We derive expressions for the general case of lability of ML(n) species that account for the contributions from all outer-sphere complexes to the rate of complex formation. For dynamic complexes, dissociation of ML is usually the rate-determining step in the overall process ML(n) --> M. Under such conditions, it is the role of ligand protonation in the step ML --> M that is relevant for the kinetic flux. 1:2 complexes of Cd(II) with pyridine-2,6-dicarboxylic acid fall into this category, and their lability at a microelectrode is reasonably well predicted by the differentiated approach. For non-dynamic systems, the kinetic flux arising from dissociation of higher-order complexes contributes to the rate-determining step. In this case, the weighted contribution of protonated and unprotonated outer-sphere complexes in all contributing dissociation reactions must be taken into account. The kinetic flux arising from the dissociation of 1:2 complexes of Ni(II) with bicine at a conventional electrode was quite well described by this combined approach. The results establish the generic role of ligand protonation within the overall framework of metal complexation kinetics in which complexes may be dynamic to an extent that depends on the operational time scale of the measurement technique.