This article reports the experimental data on the adsorption and photocatalytic degradation-reduction properties of pure boron nitride (BN), cadmium aluminate (CdAl2O4) and boron nitride/cadmium aluminate (BN/CdAl2O4) composite for the hexavalent chromium (Cr(VI)) and cefoxitin sodium (CFT) in aqueous solution under the ultraviolet (UV) and visible light irradiation. This work evaluates the adsorption and photocatalytic efficiency of the 0.2g BN coupled with the CdAl2O4 in BN-0.2/CdAl2O4 composite for Cr(VI) and CFT. The experiments were performed by mixing the 0.025 material with 50 mL solution of known concentration (15 mg/L) at pH 3 for Cr(VI) and pH 7 for CFT. The obtained data can be valuable to select the proper light source (UV or visible) and pollutant to investigate the application of BN-0.2/CdAl2O4 composite. Moreover, presented data can help identify the equilibrium time for the adsorption process and to recognize the best process for the removal of the pollutants from wastewaters. A comparison of the obtained data with previously reported works has been conducted for the understanding of the adsorption and photocatalysis of Cr(VI) and CFT using various materials under the different experimental conditions.

Objective To determine the location of the motor endplate zones (MoEPs) for the three heads of the triceps brachii muscles during cadaveric dissection and estimate the safe injection zone using ultrasonography. Methods We studied 12 upper limbs of 6 fresh cadavers obtained from body donations to the medical school anatomy institution in Seoul, Korea. The locations of MoEPs were expressed as the percentage ratio of the vertical distance from the posterior acromion angle to the midpoint of the olecranon process. By using the same reference line as that used for cadaveric dissection, the safe injection zone away from the neurovascular bundle was identified in 6 healthy volunteers via ultrasonography. We identified the neurovascular bundle and its location with respect to the distal end of the humerus and measured its depth from the skin surface. Results The MoEPs for the long, lateral, and medial heads were located at a median of 43.8%, 54.8%, and 60.4% of the length of the reference line in cadaver dissection. The safe injection zone of the medial head MoEPs corresponded to a depth of approximately 3.5 cm from the skin surface and 1.4 cm away from the humerus, as determined by sonography. Conclusion Correct identification of the motor points for each head of the triceps brachii would increase the precision and efficacy of motor point injections to manage elbow extensor spasticity.

Objective Stable patients with chronic conditions could be appropriately cared for at family medicine clinics (FMC) and discharged from hospital specialist outpatient clinics (SOCs). The Right-Site Care Programme with Frontier FMC emphasised care organised around patients in community rather than hospital-based providers, with one identifiable primary provider. This study evaluated impact of this programme on mortality and healthcare utilisation. Design A retrospective study without randomisation using secondary data analysis of patients enrolled in the intervention matched 1:1 with unenrolled patients as controls. Setting Programme was supported by the Ministry of Health in Singapore, a city-state nation in Southeast Asia with 5.6 million population. Participants Intervention group comprises patients enrolled from January to December 2014 (n=684) and control patients (n=684) with at least one SOC and no FMC attendance during same period. Interventions Family physician in Frontier FMC managed patients in consultation with relevant specialist physicians or fully managed patients independently. Care teams in SOCs and FMC used a common electronic medical records system to facilitate care coordination and conducted regular multidisciplinary case conferences. Primary outcome measures Deidentified linked healthcare administrative data for time period of January 2011 to December 2017 were extracted. Three-year postenrolment mortality rates and utilisation frequencies and charges for SOC, public primary care centres (polyclinic), emergency department attendances and emergency, non-day surgery inpatient and all-cause admissions were compared. Results Intervention patients had lower mortality rate (HR=0.37, p<0.01). Among those with potential of postenrolment polyclinic attendance, intervention patients had lower frequencies (incidence rate ratio (IRR)=0.60, p<0.01) and charges (mean ratio (MR)=0.51, p<0.01). Among those with potential of postenrolment SOC attendance, intervention patients had higher frequencies (IRR=2.06, p<0.01) and charges (MR=1.86, p<0.01). Conclusions Intervention patients had better survival, probably because their chronic conditions were better managed with close monitoring, contributing to higher total outpatient attendance frequencies and charges.

The clinical significance of anti-neuronal antibodies for psychiatric disorders is controversial. We investigated if a positive anti-neuronal antibody status at admission to acute psychiatric inpatient care was associated with a more severe neuropsychiatric phenotype and more frequent abnormalities during clinical work-up three years later. Patients admitted to acute psychiatric inpatient care who tested positive for N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor (NMDAR), contactin-associated protein 2 (CASPR2) and/or glutamic acid decarboxylase 65 (GAD65) antibodies (n = 24) were age – and sex matched with antibody-negative patients (1:2) from the same cohort (n = 48). All patients were invited to follow-up including psychometric testing (e.g. Symptom Checklist-90-Revised), serum and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) sampling, EEG and 3 T brain MRI. Twelve antibody-positive (ab+) and 26 antibody-negative (ab−) patients consented to follow-up. Ab+ patients had more severe symptoms of depression (p = 0.03), psychoticism (p = 0.04) and agitation (p = 0.001) compared to ab− patients. There were no differences in CSF analysis (n = 6 ab+/12 ab−), EEG (n = 7 ab+/19 ab−) or brain MRI (n = 7 ab+/17 ab−) between the groups. In conclusion, anti-neuronal ab+ status during index admission was associated with more severe symptoms of depression, psychoticism and agitation at three-year follow-up. This supports the hypothesis that anti-neuronal antibodies may be of clinical significance in a subgroup of psychiatric patients.

AbstractThis research work aims at providing a methodological approach tested on a real case study, where a public university applied guidelines to structure BIM and IMM procedures. The research allows the public client to procure works and services to manage the portfolio. The approach is initially tested on the ABC department to be gradually extended to the entire Politecnico di Milano.

The purpose of this study is to find out effective methodology of anatomical curriculum by comparing the education effects and satisfaction using different teaching tools, plastic model and three-dimensional (3D) application. A survey was conducted on the satisfaction level, understanding, and the usefulness of the tools used in the lectures of the two dental hygiene students groups who used the 3D application and the plastic model respectively. The interest in anatomical structure of the 3D App group was 4.20, which was significantly higher than that of the plastic model group 3.60, and the usefulness of the content of anatomy education was 4.31 in the 3D App group, significantly higher than the plastic model group (P<0.05). It was found that the interest in anatomical structure of students increased by 0.347 when using 3D applications compared to the case without the use (P=0.012) and understanding in anatomical structure and class concentration increased by 0.191, respectively, but these results were marginally significant. We expect that this study serves as a reference for the development and supplementation of anatomy teaching and learning method.

Given the ubiquity of handwritten documents in human transactions, Optical Character Recognition (OCR) of documents have invaluable practical worth. Optical character recognition is a science that enables to translate various types of documents or images into analyzable, editable and searchable data. During last decade, researchers have used artificial intelligence / machine learning tools to automatically analyze handwritten and printed documents in order to convert them into electronic format. The objective of this review paper is to summarize research that has been conducted on character recognition of handwritten documents and to provide research directions. In this Systematic Literature Review (SLR) we collected, synthesized and analyzed research articles on the topic of handwritten OCR (and closely related topics) which were published between year 2000 to 2018. We followed widely used electronic databases by following pre-defined review protocol. Articles were searched using keywords, forward reference searching and backward reference searching in order to search all the articles related to the topic. After carefully following study selection process 142 articles were selected for this SLR. This review article serves the purpose of presenting state of the art results and techniques on OCR and also provide research directions by highlighting research gaps.

The hippocampus is one of the most important brain areas of cognition. This region is particularly sensitive to hypoxia and ischemia. Neuregulin-1 (NRG1) has been shown to be able to protect against focal cerebral ischemia. The aim of the present study was to investigate the neuroprotective effect of NRG1 in primary hippocampal neurons and its underlying mechanism. Our data showed oxygen-glucose deprivation (OGD)-induced cytotoxicity and overexpression of ErbB4 in primary hippocampal neurons. Moreover, pretreatment with NRG1 could inhibit OGD-induced overexpression of ErbB4. In addition, NRG1 significantly attenuated neuronal death induced by OGD. The neuroprotective effect of NRG1 was blocked in ischemic neurons after pretreatment with AG1478, an inhibitor of ErbB4, but not after pretreatment with AG879, an inhibitor of ErbB2. These results indicate an important role of ErbB4 in NRG1-mediated neuroprotection, suggesting that endogenous ErbB4 might serve as a valuable therapeutic target for treating global cerebral ischemia.

For sequentially observed functional data exhibiting multiple change points in the mean function, we establish consistency results for the estimated number and locations of the change points based on the norm of the functional CUSUM process and standard binary segmentation. In addition to extending similar results in Venkatraman (1992) and Fryzlewicz (2014) for scalar data to the general Hilbert space setting, our main results are established without assuming the Gaussianity of the data, and under general linear process conditions on the model errors.

In this study we evaluated the effect of microwave vacuum plasma for the surface functionalization of graphitic fillers (graphite and graphene); we also showed the effect of the functionalization on the mechanical and electrical properties of epoxy composites. Optimized conditions of plasma treatment were defined to obtain high plasma density and increased surface hydrophilicity of the fillers, with high stability of functionalization over time and temperature. However, the extent of such treatments proved to be limited by the high temperatures involved in the curing process of the resin. The use of specific gas mixtures (He/O2) during functionalization and the use of a high surface filler (graphene) can partially limit these negative effects thanks to the higher thermal stability of the induced functionalization. As a consequence, mechanical tests on graphene filled epoxies showed limited improvements in flexural properties while electrical resistivity is slightly increased with a shift of the percolation threshold towards higher filler concentration.