BACKGROUND: The incidence of incisional hernia after major abdominal surgery via a midline laparotomy is 20-41 per cent with short-term follow-up, and over 50 per cent in those surviving an abdominal catastrophe. Abdominal wall reconstruction (AWR) requires complex operations, often involving mesh resection, management of scarred skin, fistula takedown, component separation or flap reconstruction.

Background Most health service utilisation studies are of people with specific diagnoses or demographic characteristics, and rarely of specific chronic symptoms. The aim of this study was to establish whether population-level health service utilisation increases in people with chronic breathlessness. Methods A cross-sectional analysis was carried out of the South Australian Health Omnibus Survey 2

BACKGROUND: Meal-induced metabolic changes trigger an acute inflammatory response, contributing to chronic inflammation and associated diseases. OBJECTIVES: We aimed to characterize variability in postprandial inflammatory responses using traditional (IL-6) and novel [glycoprotein acetylation (GlycA)] biomarkers of inflammation and dissect their biological determinants with a focus on postprandial

BACKGROUND: Risk factors for, and long-term outcomes following, detection of varicella zoster virus (VZV) DNA in the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) are unknown. METHODS: We performed a nationwide population-based cohort study of all Danish residents who had VZV DNA detected in the CSF by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) between 1 January 1997 and 1 March 2016 (VZV cohort; n = 517) and an age- and sex- m

OBJECTIVE: In light of reports of de novo LN during belimumab (BLM) treatment, we sought to determine its frequency and contributing or protective factors in a real-life setting. METHODS: Patients with SLE who received BLM between 2011 and 2017 at five European academic practices were enrolled (n = 95) and followed longitudinally for a median time of 13.1 months [interquartile range (IQR): 6.0-34.

Importance: Supplementing preterm infants with long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids (LC-PUFA) has been inconsistent in reducing the severity and incidence of retinopathy of prematurity (ROP). Furthermore, few studies have measured the long-term serum lipid levels after supplementation. Objective: To assess whether ROP severity is associated with serum levels of LC-PUFA, especially docosahexaenoi

The natriuretic peptide system (NPS) plays a fundamental role in maintaining cardiorenal homeostasis, and its potent filling pressure-regulated diuretic and vasodilatory effects constitute a beneficial compensatory mechanism in heart failure (HF). Leveraging the NPS for therapeutic benefit in HF has been the subject of intense investigation during the last three decades and has ultimately reached

Objective Transthyretin amyloid cardiomyopathy (ATTR-CM) is a rare, progressive and fatal condition caused by deposition of transthyretin amyloid fibrils in the heart. This study aims to identify all patients diagnosed with ATTR-CM in Sweden, estimate the prevalence of ATTR-CM, describe patient characteristics and mortality, assess the importance of early symptoms (red flags) for identification of

Research has demonstrated an unwillingness among travelers to reduce their holiday flying. Recently, however, a movement with people avoiding and problematizing flying has emerged in Sweden and spread internationally. This paper explores how the rising problematization of flying changes the meanings of holiday air travel in a carbon-constrained world. Using travel magazines and digital media sourc

OBJECTIVE: This study used meta-analysis to assess disparities in cardiovascular disease (CVD) screening and treatment in people with mental disorders, a group that has elevated CVD incidence and mortality. METHODS: The authors searched PubMed and PsycInfo through July 31, 2020, and conducted a random-effect meta-analysis of observational studies comparing CVD screening and treatment in people wit

Detecting the entire repertoire of tumor-specific reactive tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) is essential for investigating their immunological functions in the tumor microenvironment. Current in vitro assays identifying tumor-specific functional activation measure the upregulation of surface molecules, de novo production of antitumor cytokines, or mobilization of cytotoxic granules following

The thesis studies the use of cloud native software and platforms to implement critical closed loop control. It considers technologies that provide low latency and reliable wireless communication, in terms of edge clouds and massive MIMO, but also approaches industrial IoT and the services of a distributed cloud, as an extension of commercial-of-the-shelf software and systems.First, the thesis defThe thesis studies the use of cloud native software and platforms to implement critical closed loop control. It considers technologies that provide low latency and reliable wireless communication, in terms of edge clouds and massive MIMO, but also approaches industrial IoT and the services of a distributed cloud, as an extension of commercial-of-the-shelf software and systems.First, the thesis def

Alzheimer´s disease (AD) is the most common human neuro-degenerative disease characterized by the formation of cerebral plaques. Several are the amyloid-beta (Aβ) variants found in the brain of healthy individuals. Among them, the Aβ40 variant is predominantly found in the cerebrospinal fluid while the Aβ42 variant appears as fibrillar aggregates in the brain of AD patients. In vitro studies confi

THRUSH begins with my reinterpretation of the same audio that Messiaen used for his transcriptions of the North American Songbirds, blackbird and wood thrush. These audio samples were digitized and analysed using PRAAT and C-Speech, from which I made new transcriptions that were more accurate representations of the physical acoustical signal. Of course, a temporal framework had to be established f

Spatially-coupled serially concatenated codes (SC-SCCS) are a class of turbo-like codes constructed by interconnecting a sequence of SCCS using a set of block permutors. At short block lengths, however, the bit-error-rate (BER) performance of SC-SCCS constructed by independent block permutors exhibits a high error floor. In this paper, we propose an alternative method for constructing SC-SCCS to m

Excited states in 56Zn were populated following one-neutron removal from a 57Zn beam impinging on a Be target at intermediate energies in an experiment conducted at the Radioactive Isotope Beam Factory at RIKEN. Three γ rays were observed and tentatively assigned to the 6+ → 4+ → 2+ → 0+ yrast sequence. This turns 56Zn into the heaviest Tz=−2 nucleus in which excited states are known. The excitati