Alcohol use disorders represent a heterogeneous spectrum of clinical manifestations that have been defined by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-5. Excessive alcohol intake can lead to damage of...Alcohol use disorders represent a heterogeneous spectrum of clinical manifestations that have been defined by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-5. Excessive alcohol intake can lead to damage of various organs, including the liver. Alcoholic liver disease includes different injuries ranging from steatosis to cirrhosis and implicates a diagnostic assessment of the liver disease and of its possible complications. There is growing interest in the possible different tools for assessing previous alcohol consumption and for establishing the severity of liver injury, especially by noninvasive methods.展开更多
Background: Proton pump inhibitors (PPIs) are drugs that reduce the production of acid in the stomach. Recently, the use of PPI has been increasing among communities, whether with or without prescription. As a part of...Background: Proton pump inhibitors (PPIs) are drugs that reduce the production of acid in the stomach. Recently, the use of PPI has been increasing among communities, whether with or without prescription. As a part of the healthcare team, the pharmacist should not only dispense medications but also ensure the appropriate use of these medications. Studies conducted within 16 countries showed substantial variation in the appropriateness of the use of PPI drugs. Aim: To evaluate the appropriateness of PPIs use in Sharjah, UAE based on surveys answered by pharmacists, physicians, and patients. Methods: A cross-sectional survey study was conducted on December 2017 at Sharjah, UAE as an example of information obtained from the Middle East. Two different surveys were conducted on physicians and pharmacists. Both Physicians and Pharmacists were chosen randomly from Yellow Pages. The results obtained from both studies were used to develop a patient’s survey, which was distributed among University of Sharjah students, their families and random people at Shopping Malls and Clinics. Results: The results obtained from the patients’ survey showed that ~39% of PPI users from the region of Sharjah are 25 - 44 years old. Approximately 79% are using PPI according to physicians’ prescriptions. Prescriptions’ duration is varied between 1 month (39%) and 6 months (22%), where 52% of PPI users ask their physicians to prescribe PPIs when needed. Suggested reasons for the use of PPI included inappropriate food habits (52%), use of other medications (16%) or bacterial infection (13%). Around 52% of the patients did not receive any recommendations regarding the deprescribing of PPIs. According to the pharmacists’ surveys, an average sale of 5 - 10 PPI packages is reported per day, and around 50% are sold without a prescription. Most pharmacists were not fully aware of the health conditions and side effects of PPI drugs. On the other hand, physicians’ surveys showed that PPIs were mainly prescribed in the case of GERD and ulcer and for a maximum of 2 - 4 weeks. Approximately 75% of physicians recommend changing regimen by reducing the dose and stopping in case of chronic use of PPIs. Conclusion: The results from this survey study indicated that even though most PPI consumers at Sharjah, UAE are well aware of the use of PPI drugs and they follow the instructions given by the Physicians’, there is some discrepancy in the information obtained by the physicians, pharmacists, and patients. The reason for this discrepancy may be attributed to the missing role of the pharmacists which is currently just dispensing the medications without appropriate counseling. Thus the appropriate role of the pharmacists should be implemented according to the known international guidelines.展开更多
Based on digital land use data from 1995 to 2000 and road data, the land use and landscape changes of Golmud, Qumaleb and Zhidoi are studied on a macro-scale. Land use and landscape changes in highway buffer zones and...Based on digital land use data from 1995 to 2000 and road data, the land use and landscape changes of Golmud, Qumaleb and Zhidoi are studied on a macro-scale. Land use and landscape changes in highway buffer zones and city expansion are special subjects. A new formula is used to define the exact degree of dynamic land use. To adequately define land use and landscape pattern changes, the buffer zones, illustrating the changes at different distances from the road, are recognized with ArcGIS 8.1 software. Prominent changes took place in land use and landscape patterns from 1995 to 2000, and the area of built-up land increased by 323.8%. The comprehensive degree of dynamic land use is 2.25, and the degree of dynamic land use of built-up land is the highest, followed by cultivated land. Woodland has the lowest value. The used degree index of land resources declined by 38.8 from 1995 to 2000. Landscape changed dramatically which influenced ecological processes immensely. Different from the corridor effect of other traffic routes, the corridor effect of this section of road is not obvious and its “point” radiation effect can be easily seen. The expanding range of Golmud City is confined to a 3 km buffer, while for Wudaoliang, it is 1 km. No land use change happened in the Nanshankou buffer.展开更多
AIM: To investigate if there is a correlation between electrical activity measured by electrogastrography (EGG) and contractile activity of the stomach as measured by antroduodenal manometry (ADM). We also studied whe...AIM: To investigate if there is a correlation between electrical activity measured by electrogastrography (EGG) and contractile activity of the stomach as measured by antroduodenal manometry (ADM). We also studied whether the underlying motility disorder could be predicted from EGG parameters. METHODS: We compared 21 parameters measured from EGG with 8 parameters measured from ADM. The ability of EGG to identify the underlying diagnosis was tested by comparing EGG parameters for each diagnosis group against other patients. The study comprised recordings from 148 patients and 125 females. Their median age was 45 (range 17-76) years. RESULTS: We found few and weak correlations between EGG and ADM. Specifically the correlation between parameters reflecting the response to meal was poor (r = -0.07, P = 0.39). The discriminatory power of EGG for underlying motility disorder was also low. Patients with slow transit constipation (STC) showed a lower postprandial power in normogastric (3.7 ± 0.5 vs 4.0 ± 0.5) and tachygastric (3.5 ± 0.4 vs 3.7 ± 0.4) regions, a lower percentage of time with normogastria [87.2 (56.5-100)% vs 95.7 (0-100)%], and a higher percentage of time with tachygastria [9.3 (0-33)% vs 3.5 (0-100)%] and bradygastria [1.8 (0-20)% vs 0 (0-17.1)%]. Patients with irritable bowel syndrome had a higher percentage of time with normogastria [96.5 (62.5-100)% vs 93.3 (0-100)%] and a less unstable dominant frequency as measured by the instability coefficient [15 (3-77) vs 24 (2-72)]. CONCLUSION: EGG and ADM seem to measure different aspects of gastric motor activity but cannot show a spatial correlation. The diagnostic value of EGG is poor, but EGG may have some value for the identification of patients with STC.展开更多
A prototype of a laser driven proton accelerator is built at Peking University. Protons exceeding IOMeV are accelerated from micrometer-thick aluminum targets irradiated by tightly focused laser pulse with 1.8 J energ...A prototype of a laser driven proton accelerator is built at Peking University. Protons exceeding IOMeV are accelerated from micrometer-thick aluminum targets irradiated by tightly focused laser pulse with 1.8 J energy and 30fs duration. The beam energy spectrum and charge distribution are measured by a Thomson parabola spectrometer and radiochromic fihn stacks. The sensitivity of proton cut-off energy to the focusing of the laser beam, the pulse duration, and the foil thickness are systematically investigated in the experiments. Stable proton beams have been produced with an optimized parameter set, providing a cornerstone for the future applications of laser accelerated protons.展开更多
Charged particle diagnostics is one of the required techniques for implosion areal density diagnostics at the SG-III facility.Several proton spectrometers are under development, and some preliminary areal density diag...Charged particle diagnostics is one of the required techniques for implosion areal density diagnostics at the SG-III facility.Several proton spectrometers are under development, and some preliminary areal density diagnostics have been carried out. The response of the key detector, CR39, to charged particles was investigated in detail. A new track profile simulation code based on a semi-empirical model was developed. The energy response of the CR39 detector was calibrated with the accelerator protons and alphas from a241 Am source. A proton spectrometer based on the filtered CR39 detector was developed, and D–D primary proton measurements were implemented. A step range filter spectrometer was developed,and preliminary areal density diagnostics was carried out. A wedged range filter spectrometer array made of Si with a higher resolution was designed and developed at the SG-III facility. A particle response simulation code by the Monte Carlo method and a spectra unfolding code were developed. The capability was evaluated in detail by simulations.展开更多
Laser plasma accelerators(LPAs)enable the generation of intense and short proton bunches on a micrometre scale,thus offering new experimental capabilities to research fields such as ultra-high dose rate radiobiology o...Laser plasma accelerators(LPAs)enable the generation of intense and short proton bunches on a micrometre scale,thus offering new experimental capabilities to research fields such as ultra-high dose rate radiobiology or material analysis.Being spectrally broadband,laser-accelerated proton bunches allow for tailored volumetric dose deposition in a sample via single bunches to excite or probe specific sample properties.The rising number of such experiments indicates a need for diagnostics providing spatially resolved characterization of dose distributions with volumes of approximately 1 cm^(3) for single proton bunches to allow for fast online feedback.Here we present the scintillator-based miniSCIDOM detector for online single-bunch tomographic reconstruction of dose distributions in volumes of up to approximately 1 cm^(3).The detector achieves a spatial resolution below 500μm and a sensitivity of 100 mGy.The detector performance is tested at a proton therapy cyclotron and an LPA proton source.The experiments’primary focus is the characterization of the scintillator’s ionization quenching behaviour.展开更多
This paper reports a study of complex focussing acoustic fields of a convex phased array probe widely used in ultrasonic diagnostic B-scanner. The time delay necessary for electronic focussing and for geometric focuss...This paper reports a study of complex focussing acoustic fields of a convex phased array probe widely used in ultrasonic diagnostic B-scanner. The time delay necessary for electronic focussing and for geometric focussing of complex focussing is given. By means of Helmholtz's integral formula, the expressions of acoustic fields were obtained for the electronic focussing and complex focussing.With Simpson's numerical integral, a great deal of computations was carried out with an 86 / 330 computer. By means of using different parameters, an optimum focal range and beam width of a 4 sequences electronic and complex focussing acoustic system was selected. With an EUB-40 ultrasound diagnostic B-scanner produced by the Hitachi company, the lateral focussing acoustic field and lateral resolution in an echoic tank were photographed by latticing method and the experimental result is consistent with the theory.展开更多
Objective To compare the diagnostic efficiency of the thyroid imaging reporting and data system(TIRADS),the Bethesda system for reporting thyroid cytopathology(BSRTC)and BRAFV600Edetection,and their combined use in th...Objective To compare the diagnostic efficiency of the thyroid imaging reporting and data system(TIRADS),the Bethesda system for reporting thyroid cytopathology(BSRTC)and BRAFV600Edetection,and their combined use in the differentiation between benign and malignant thyroid nodules.Methods One hundred展开更多
文摘Alcohol use disorders represent a heterogeneous spectrum of clinical manifestations that have been defined by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-5. Excessive alcohol intake can lead to damage of various organs, including the liver. Alcoholic liver disease includes different injuries ranging from steatosis to cirrhosis and implicates a diagnostic assessment of the liver disease and of its possible complications. There is growing interest in the possible different tools for assessing previous alcohol consumption and for establishing the severity of liver injury, especially by noninvasive methods.
文摘Background: Proton pump inhibitors (PPIs) are drugs that reduce the production of acid in the stomach. Recently, the use of PPI has been increasing among communities, whether with or without prescription. As a part of the healthcare team, the pharmacist should not only dispense medications but also ensure the appropriate use of these medications. Studies conducted within 16 countries showed substantial variation in the appropriateness of the use of PPI drugs. Aim: To evaluate the appropriateness of PPIs use in Sharjah, UAE based on surveys answered by pharmacists, physicians, and patients. Methods: A cross-sectional survey study was conducted on December 2017 at Sharjah, UAE as an example of information obtained from the Middle East. Two different surveys were conducted on physicians and pharmacists. Both Physicians and Pharmacists were chosen randomly from Yellow Pages. The results obtained from both studies were used to develop a patient’s survey, which was distributed among University of Sharjah students, their families and random people at Shopping Malls and Clinics. Results: The results obtained from the patients’ survey showed that ~39% of PPI users from the region of Sharjah are 25 - 44 years old. Approximately 79% are using PPI according to physicians’ prescriptions. Prescriptions’ duration is varied between 1 month (39%) and 6 months (22%), where 52% of PPI users ask their physicians to prescribe PPIs when needed. Suggested reasons for the use of PPI included inappropriate food habits (52%), use of other medications (16%) or bacterial infection (13%). Around 52% of the patients did not receive any recommendations regarding the deprescribing of PPIs. According to the pharmacists’ surveys, an average sale of 5 - 10 PPI packages is reported per day, and around 50% are sold without a prescription. Most pharmacists were not fully aware of the health conditions and side effects of PPI drugs. On the other hand, physicians’ surveys showed that PPIs were mainly prescribed in the case of GERD and ulcer and for a maximum of 2 - 4 weeks. Approximately 75% of physicians recommend changing regimen by reducing the dose and stopping in case of chronic use of PPIs. Conclusion: The results from this survey study indicated that even though most PPI consumers at Sharjah, UAE are well aware of the use of PPI drugs and they follow the instructions given by the Physicians’, there is some discrepancy in the information obtained by the physicians, pharmacists, and patients. The reason for this discrepancy may be attributed to the missing role of the pharmacists which is currently just dispensing the medications without appropriate counseling. Thus the appropriate role of the pharmacists should be implemented according to the known international guidelines.
基金The National Key Basic Research Special Fund, No.Gl 998040800 The Core Project of Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research of CAS for Knowledge Innovation, No. CXIOG-E01-01,No.CXIOG-A00-03-02.
文摘Based on digital land use data from 1995 to 2000 and road data, the land use and landscape changes of Golmud, Qumaleb and Zhidoi are studied on a macro-scale. Land use and landscape changes in highway buffer zones and city expansion are special subjects. A new formula is used to define the exact degree of dynamic land use. To adequately define land use and landscape pattern changes, the buffer zones, illustrating the changes at different distances from the road, are recognized with ArcGIS 8.1 software. Prominent changes took place in land use and landscape patterns from 1995 to 2000, and the area of built-up land increased by 323.8%. The comprehensive degree of dynamic land use is 2.25, and the degree of dynamic land use of built-up land is the highest, followed by cultivated land. Woodland has the lowest value. The used degree index of land resources declined by 38.8 from 1995 to 2000. Landscape changed dramatically which influenced ecological processes immensely. Different from the corridor effect of other traffic routes, the corridor effect of this section of road is not obvious and its “point” radiation effect can be easily seen. The expanding range of Golmud City is confined to a 3 km buffer, while for Wudaoliang, it is 1 km. No land use change happened in the Nanshankou buffer.
基金Supported by funds from the Swedish Research Council (grant 2002-5489) and the Swedish Society of Medicine (Ihre’s fond)
文摘AIM: To investigate if there is a correlation between electrical activity measured by electrogastrography (EGG) and contractile activity of the stomach as measured by antroduodenal manometry (ADM). We also studied whether the underlying motility disorder could be predicted from EGG parameters. METHODS: We compared 21 parameters measured from EGG with 8 parameters measured from ADM. The ability of EGG to identify the underlying diagnosis was tested by comparing EGG parameters for each diagnosis group against other patients. The study comprised recordings from 148 patients and 125 females. Their median age was 45 (range 17-76) years. RESULTS: We found few and weak correlations between EGG and ADM. Specifically the correlation between parameters reflecting the response to meal was poor (r = -0.07, P = 0.39). The discriminatory power of EGG for underlying motility disorder was also low. Patients with slow transit constipation (STC) showed a lower postprandial power in normogastric (3.7 ± 0.5 vs 4.0 ± 0.5) and tachygastric (3.5 ± 0.4 vs 3.7 ± 0.4) regions, a lower percentage of time with normogastria [87.2 (56.5-100)% vs 95.7 (0-100)%], and a higher percentage of time with tachygastria [9.3 (0-33)% vs 3.5 (0-100)%] and bradygastria [1.8 (0-20)% vs 0 (0-17.1)%]. Patients with irritable bowel syndrome had a higher percentage of time with normogastria [96.5 (62.5-100)% vs 93.3 (0-100)%] and a less unstable dominant frequency as measured by the instability coefficient [15 (3-77) vs 24 (2-72)]. CONCLUSION: EGG and ADM seem to measure different aspects of gastric motor activity but cannot show a spatial correlation. The diagnostic value of EGG is poor, but EGG may have some value for the identification of patients with STC.
基金Supported by the National Basic Research Program of China under Grant No 2013CBA01502the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant Nos 11475010,11575011 and 11535001the National Grand Instrument Project under Grant No 2012YQ030142
文摘A prototype of a laser driven proton accelerator is built at Peking University. Protons exceeding IOMeV are accelerated from micrometer-thick aluminum targets irradiated by tightly focused laser pulse with 1.8 J energy and 30fs duration. The beam energy spectrum and charge distribution are measured by a Thomson parabola spectrometer and radiochromic fihn stacks. The sensitivity of proton cut-off energy to the focusing of the laser beam, the pulse duration, and the foil thickness are systematically investigated in the experiments. Stable proton beams have been produced with an optimized parameter set, providing a cornerstone for the future applications of laser accelerated protons.
基金supported by the Open Project of the State Key Laboratory of Nuclear Physics and Technology at Peking University(No.2014-02)
文摘Charged particle diagnostics is one of the required techniques for implosion areal density diagnostics at the SG-III facility.Several proton spectrometers are under development, and some preliminary areal density diagnostics have been carried out. The response of the key detector, CR39, to charged particles was investigated in detail. A new track profile simulation code based on a semi-empirical model was developed. The energy response of the CR39 detector was calibrated with the accelerator protons and alphas from a241 Am source. A proton spectrometer based on the filtered CR39 detector was developed, and D–D primary proton measurements were implemented. A step range filter spectrometer was developed,and preliminary areal density diagnostics was carried out. A wedged range filter spectrometer array made of Si with a higher resolution was designed and developed at the SG-III facility. A particle response simulation code by the Monte Carlo method and a spectra unfolding code were developed. The capability was evaluated in detail by simulations.
基金partially supported by H2020 Laserlab Europe V (PRISES, Contract No. 871124)the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme Impulse (Grant agreement No. 871161)the support of the Weizmann-Helmholtz Laboratory for Laser Matter Interaction (WHELMI)
文摘Laser plasma accelerators(LPAs)enable the generation of intense and short proton bunches on a micrometre scale,thus offering new experimental capabilities to research fields such as ultra-high dose rate radiobiology or material analysis.Being spectrally broadband,laser-accelerated proton bunches allow for tailored volumetric dose deposition in a sample via single bunches to excite or probe specific sample properties.The rising number of such experiments indicates a need for diagnostics providing spatially resolved characterization of dose distributions with volumes of approximately 1 cm^(3) for single proton bunches to allow for fast online feedback.Here we present the scintillator-based miniSCIDOM detector for online single-bunch tomographic reconstruction of dose distributions in volumes of up to approximately 1 cm^(3).The detector achieves a spatial resolution below 500μm and a sensitivity of 100 mGy.The detector performance is tested at a proton therapy cyclotron and an LPA proton source.The experiments’primary focus is the characterization of the scintillator’s ionization quenching behaviour.
文摘This paper reports a study of complex focussing acoustic fields of a convex phased array probe widely used in ultrasonic diagnostic B-scanner. The time delay necessary for electronic focussing and for geometric focussing of complex focussing is given. By means of Helmholtz's integral formula, the expressions of acoustic fields were obtained for the electronic focussing and complex focussing.With Simpson's numerical integral, a great deal of computations was carried out with an 86 / 330 computer. By means of using different parameters, an optimum focal range and beam width of a 4 sequences electronic and complex focussing acoustic system was selected. With an EUB-40 ultrasound diagnostic B-scanner produced by the Hitachi company, the lateral focussing acoustic field and lateral resolution in an echoic tank were photographed by latticing method and the experimental result is consistent with the theory.
文摘Objective To compare the diagnostic efficiency of the thyroid imaging reporting and data system(TIRADS),the Bethesda system for reporting thyroid cytopathology(BSRTC)and BRAFV600Edetection,and their combined use in the differentiation between benign and malignant thyroid nodules.Methods One hundred
