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Objective To summarise the process of conversion of epidural labour analgesia to anaesthesia for caesarean delivery and explore the relationship between duration of labour analgesia and conversion.Methods Parturients who underwent conversion from epidural labour analgesia to anaesthesia for caesarean delivery between May 2019 and April 2020 at the Chengdu Women’s and Children’s Central Hospital, Sichuan Maternal and Child Health Hospital, and Jinjiang District Maternal and Child Health Hospital were selected. If the position of the epidural catheter was correct and the effect was good, patients were converted to epidural surgical anaesthesia. If epidural labour analgesia was ineffective, spinal anaesthesia (SA) was administered immediately. For category-1 emergency caesarean sections, general anaesthesia (GA) was administered.Results A total of 1084 parturients underwent conversion. Of these, 19 (1.9%) received GA due to the initiation of category-1 emergency caesarean section. 704 (64.9%) were converted to epidural surgical anaesthesia, 2 (0.2%) had failed conversions and were administered GA before delivery, and 357 (32.9%) were converted to SA. Logistic regression analysis showed that prolonged duration of epidural labour analgesia ([Crude odds ratio (OR)=1.065; 95% confidence interval (CI), 1.037–1.094; p 8 h is associated with conversion failure.If it is impossible to judge whether the conversion is successful immediately, spinal anaesthesia should be administered to minimise complications.

Hazardous materials (a.k.a. hazmats) are transported by containers with special equipment in transportation engineering but must be declared prior to shipment. Some shippers deliberately conceal hazmat information in their container bookings to gain a higher profit, which has potentially serious consequences. To reduce such risk, the inspection office selects a part of the containers for hazmat concealment inspection, but the efficiency is low. In this study, a data-driven inspection method is proposed for identifying container bookings with concealed hazmats by exploring the relationship between inspection results and items in the container booking information profile filled by shippers. A tailored cost-sensitive loss function is designed to address the class imbalance issue. The application of the proposed method is validated by case studies based on the hazmat inspection database from Ningbo Ocean Shipping Company. The findings provide instructive implications on the identification of subsequent container bookings that are of high interest for inspection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Author(s): Menghao Ren [sup.1] , Shengqi Zou [sup.1] [sup.2] , Siying Zhu [sup.1] , Mengjie Shi [sup.1] , Weiwei Li [sup.1] [sup.2] , Daoqun Ding [sup.1] [sup.3] Author Affiliations: (1) [...]

Background: Little s antigen is mainly defined by a single nucleotide polymorphism at c.143C (p.Thr48) on the GYPB gene. Several variants on GYPB can alter the expression of s antigen. The aim of this study was to investigate the molecular basis of variant s antigen expression in the Chinese population. Study Design and Methods: A total of 4983 whole blood samples were collected to screen the individuals with discrepant s typing results using two different monoclonal anti‐s. Then, the sequence of GYPB exon 4 was analyzed by Sanger sequencing. Flow cytometry analysis was performed to quantify s antigen expression on red blood cells (RBCs). In vitro expression study was performed to verify the effect of the GYPB variants identified on the expression of s antigen. Results: Four donors were identified to have discrepant s typing results. Sanger sequencing showed that three donors carried the c.173C > G variant (p.Pro58Arg) specific for sD antigen, the other one carried a novel GYPB (c.160C > T, p.Arg54Cys) variant. Flow cytometry identified a partial and weak expression of s antigen on the RBCs of the four donors. Furthermore, in vitro expression study confirmed the effect of the two variants on the s antigen expression. Conclusion: The results demonstrated that in addition to p.Thr48, the two extra amino acids p.Arg54 and p.Pro58 are also important for full expression of s antigen. Since the individuals with partial s antigen are at risk for the development of alloanti‐s, it is important to select at least two different monoclonal anti‐s for correct s typing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Parkinson's disease (PD) has been regarded as a disconnection syndrome with functional and structural disturbances. However, as the anatomic determinants, the structural disconnections in PD have yet to be fully elucidated. Purpose: To non-invasively construct structural networks based on microstructural complexity and to further investigate their potential topological abnormalities in PD given the technical superiority of diffusion kurtosis imaging (DKI) to the quantification of microstructure. Material and Methods: The microstructural data of gray matter in both the PD group and the healthy control (HC) group were acquired using DKI. The structural networks were constructed at the group level by a covariation approach, followed by the calculation of topological properties based on graph theory and statistical comparisons between groups. Results: A total of 51 patients with PD and 50 HCs were enrolled. Individuals were matched between groups with respect to demographic characteristics (P >0.05). The constructed structural networks in both the PD and HC groups featured small-world properties. In comparison with the HC group, the PD group exhibited significantly altered global properties, with higher normalized characteristic path lengths, clustering coefficients, local efficiency values, and characteristic path lengths and lower global efficiency values (P <0.05). In terms of nodal centralities, extensive nodal disruptions were observed in patients with PD (P <0.05); these disruptions were mainly distributed in the sensorimotor network, default mode network, frontal-parietal network, visual network, and subcortical network. Conclusion: These findings contribute to the technical application of DKI and the elucidation of disconnection syndrome in PD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to investigate and identify the contributing factors to long-duration streetcar incident delay, where contingency plan could be activated. For comparative study, the performance of eight statistical and machine learning methods, including logistic regression model, Bayesian logit regression model, classification and regression tree model, K-nearest neighbours model, random forest model, gradient boosting model and artificial neural network model, have been compared and analysed based on the Toronto streetcar incident dataset in 2019 with 11418 streetcar incident records. The comparative study results show that the random forest method has the best performance, whose marginal effect analysis further demonstrates that the most significant contributing factors to streetcar incident delay duration are the morning peak period, the streetcar incidents types including mechanical failure, held by, diversion and late leaving the garage, as well as the month and weekday. The result of the paper could provide policy implication on timely streetcar incident clearance and contingency plan implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following the bike-sharing system, the shared e-bike becomes increasingly popular due to the advantage in speed, trip distance, and so forth. However, limited research has investigated the impact of the introduction of shared e-bikes on the existing bike-sharing systems. This paper aims to study the effect of shared e-bikes on the traditional bike-sharing system and determine the optimal fleet deployment strategy under a bimodal transportation system. A stochastic multiperiod optimisation model is formulated to capture the demand uncertainty of travelers. The branch-and-bound algorithm is applied to solve problem. A 15-station numerical example is applied to examine the validity of the model and the effectiveness of the solution algorithm. The performance of integrated e-bike and bike-sharing system has been compared with the traditional bike-sharing system. The impacts of the charging efficiency, fleet size, and pricing strategy of e-bike-sharing system on the traditional bike-sharing system have been examined., Author(s): Siying Zhu (corresponding author) [1] 1. Introduction In recent years, bike-sharing systems (BSSs) have significantly grown in prevalence and popularity in the urban environment, providing a healthy, low-cost, and [...]