Laser-Induced Plasma Atomic and Ionic Emission During Target Ablation

This paper investigates the spectroscopy of plasma that resulted from the bombardment of ZnSe by using the optical emission spectroscopic (OES) technique. The plasma can be generated by the reaction between an Nd:YAG laser, with a wavelength of 1064[Formula: see text]nm with a repeat rate of 6[Formula: see text]Hz (as well as 9[Formula: see text]ns pulse duration), and a solid target, where the density of the electron (ne), the temperature of the electron ([Formula: see text]), the frequency of the plasma ([Formula: see text]) and the Debye length ([Formula: see text]) as plasma parameters, in addition to the particles’ number of Debye ([Formula: see text]) and plasma parameter ([Formula: see text]) have been calculated by picking up the spectrum of plasma at different energies (100, 200, 300, 400, 500) mj using Selenium (Se), Zinc (Zn) and the mixture (ZnSe) at ([Formula: see text]). It is found that the electron temperatures of Zn and Se ranged between (0.257–0.267)[Formula: see text]eV and (1.036–1.055) eV, respectively, while that of ZnSe ranged between (1.15–1.28)[Formula: see text]eV. This indicates that the electron temperature of ZnSe is higher than the temperatures of each Zn and Se.

1321 Repeat Colonoscopy: Incidence, Etiology, And Suggestions for Improvement

Aim Colonoscopy is an invasive procedure. Repeating such a procedure has many implications in terms of risks, costs, increased workload and strains on hospital resources. The current study reports the incidence and aetiology of repeat colonoscopies and provides recommendations for improvement. Method The current study was conducted at North Cumbria Integrated Care (NCIC) hospitals over a period of 1 year (January 1st to December 31st, 2019). All patients with a label of “Repeat” by JAG software system, were included in the primary analysis. Patients with colonoscopy after 52 weeks of the index procedure, were excluded. Two authors manually assessed the validity of the data and determined “True repeat rate” and aetiology. Results During the study period, 4717 colonoscopies were performed, where 187 were recorded as a repeat. Manual validation showed that true repeat cases were 355/4717 (7.52%). Moreover, 5% of the system labelled cases where not true repeats rather were escalated from sigmoidoscopy to colonoscopy. Analysis of the first 1000 colonoscopies detected 72 cases. Male to female ratio was 47:25 with a mean age of 66.26 ± 11.75(SD). The causes included further management of polyps (n = 30); poor bowel preparation(n = 22); inability to proceed (n = 9); anticoagulation (n = 8) and others (n = 3). Subgroup analyses of the polyp group showed that the reasons for repeating colonoscopy in such cases were appropriate. Conclusions An operational definition of the ‘Repeat coloscopy’ should be clearly established. Although most of the repeat colonoscopies for “further management of polyps” are appropriate, repeat due to poor bowel preparation and anticoagulation are clearly preventable.

Genomic characteristics of critically endangered Chimonobambusa hirtinoda C.S. Chao & K.M. Lan

With its unique square-shaped culm, Chimonobambusa hirtinoda C.S. Chao & K.M. Lan is a critically endangered species, and its natural habitat is solely restricted to Doupeng Mountain in Guizhou, China. Two small-insert libraries from C. hirtinoda were constructed and sequenced. Approximately 127.83 Gb of highquality reads were generated and assembled into 9,320,997 contigs with a N50 length of 213bp, thereby producing 8,867,344 scaffolds with total length of 2.01 Gb. An estimated genome size of C. hirtinode was 2.86 Gb on the basis of k-mer frequency analysis, with the GC content of 45.40%. The repeat rate and heterozygous ratio were 74.11 and 1.48% in C. hirtinoda genome, respectively. Finally, 65,398 SSR loci were identified in the assembled contigs, including 58.66% tri-nucleotide, 27.42% di-nucleotide, 7.94% tetranucleotide, 3.67% penta-nucleotide, and 2.31% hexa-nucleotide. Results of this study are useful not only for ecological conservation of C. hirtinoda, but also for phylogenetic studies.

Genomic characteristics and profile of microsatellite primers for Acanthogobius ommaturus by genome survey sequencing

Acanthogobius ommaturus is one of the suitable species to study the genetic mechanism of adaptive evolution, but there are few reports on its genetics. In the present study, the genomic survey sequencing method was used to analyze the genome characters of A. ommaturus. A total of 50.50 G high-quality sequence data were obtained in the present study. From the 19-mer distribution frequency, the estimated genome size was 928.01 Mb. The calculated sequence repeat rate was about 38.31%, the heterozygosity was approximately 0.17%, and the GC% content was approximately 40.88%. Moreover, 475,724 simple sequence repeats (SSRs) were identified. Among them, dinucleotide repeats were the most (53.70% of the total SSRs), followed by tri- (35.36%), hexa- (4.59%), tetra- (4.57%) and penta- (1.77%) nucleotide repeats type. This is the first genome-wide feature of this species to be reported.

Repeat Rate Analysis Of Lower Limb Radiograph For Digital Radiography In General Radiography At Pantai Klang Hospital Selangor

Introduction: Assessing the repeat rate is crucial to reduce unnecessary dose to the patient by identifying the major cause for repeating the x-rays exposure to the patient and apply corrective measures Aim: to analyse the repeat rate of routine lower limb projections in direct digital radiography (DR) from general radiology department of Pantai Klang Hospital. Methods: 26 months retrospective repeated radiograph was acquired from Picture Archiving and Communication System (PACS) at Hospital Pantai Klang. The retrieved radiographs were grouped based on the reason for the i radiographs being rejected which are incorrect positioning, incorrect collimation, patient movement, incorrect exposure factors, artefact, and other reasons. Results: Total repeated radiographs retrieved for basic lower limbs projections were 13616. Knee was the highest repeted examination and the lowest repeat rate was tibia fibula. (repeat rate: knee = 1.04%, tibia fibula = 0.57%). incorrect positioning is the major causes for repeat exposure for all examinations type, followed by incorrect collimation, other categories, centring ray error, incorrect exposure factors and artifact.

A Rapid LC–MS-MS Method for the Quantitation of Antiepileptic Drugs in Urine

Epilepsy is a common neurologic disease that requires treatment with one or more medications. Due to the polypharmaceutical treatments, potential side effects, and drug-drug interactions associated with these medications, therapeutic drug monitoring is important. Therapeutic drug monitoring is typically performed in blood due to established clinical ranges. While blood provides the benefit of determining clinical ranges, urine requires a less invasive collection method, which is attractive for medication monitoring. As urine does not typically have established clinical ranges, it has not become a preferred specimen for monitoring medication adherence. Thus, large urine clinical data sets are rarely published, making method development that addresses reasonable concentration ranges difficult. An initial method developed and validated in-house utilized a universal analytical range of 50–5,000 ng/mL for all antiepileptic drugs and metabolites of interest in this work, namely carbamazepine, carbamazepine-10,11-epoxide, eslicarbazepine, lamotrigine, levetiracetam, oxcarbazepine, phenytoin, 4-hydroxyphenytoin, and topiramate. This upper limit of the analytical range was too low leading to a repeat rate of 11.59% due to concentrations >5,000 ng/mL. Therefore, a new, fast liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry (LC–MS-MS) method with a run time under 4 minutes was developed and validated for the simultaneous quantification of the previously mentioned nine antiepileptic drugs and their metabolites. Urine samples were prepared by solid-phase extraction and analyzed using a Phenomenex Phenyl-Hexyl column with an Agilent 6460 LC–MS-MS instrument system. During method development and validation, the analytical range was optimized for each drug to reduce repeat analysis due to concentrations above the linear range and for carryover. This reduced the average daily repeat rate for antiepileptic testing from 11.59% to 4.82%. After validation, this method was used to test and analyze patient specimens over the course of approximately one year. The resulting concentration data were curated to eliminate specimens that could indicate an individual was noncompliant with their therapy (i.e., positive for illicit drugs) and yielded between 20 and 1,700 concentration points from the patient specimens, depending on the analyte. The resulting raw quantitative urine data set is presented as preliminary reference ranges to assist with interpreting urine drug concentrations for the nine aforementioned antiepileptic medications and metabolites.

Genome sequencing survey and identification of SSR of Lycium ruthenicum

Background Lycium ruthenicum had high economic and ecological role in western China due to the high content of active substances and tolerance to drought and salinity stress. But its genomic information was lack, which seriously affected the next breeding and forestation. We surveyed the genomic size and developed SSRs of L. ruthenicum based on the next generation sequencing technology to lay a theoretical foundation for next genomic research in this study. Results Totally 451,721,828 bp raw data were generated, 4,596,439 scaffolds were obtained after assembly. The estimated genome size of L. ruthenicum was 3,249.33 Mb, the heterozygosity rate was 1.13%, and repeat rate was 73.13%. Totally 958,619 SSRs were identified. The average SSRs density were 163.95 SSRs/Mb, the dinucleotide repeat motif accounted for larger proportion in all motifs, the AT/AT, AC/GT and AG/CT are dominant repeat motifs in L. ruthenicum genome. Conclusion These results could lay a foundation for next genome sequencing. And SSR data could alarge the molecular resources for L. ruthenicum and relatives, such as genetic mapping, QTL and population genetic study.

The “power few” of missing persons’ cases

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to test the “power few” concept in relation to missing persons and the locations from which they are reported missing.Design/methodology/approachData on missing persons’ cases (n = 26,835) were extracted from the record management system of a municipal Canadian police service and used to create data sets of all of the reports associated with select repeat missing adults (n = 1943) and repeat missing youth (n = 6,576). From these sources, the five locations from which repeat missing adults and youth were most commonly reported missing were identified (“power few” locations). The overall frequency of reports generated by these locations was then assessed by examining all reports of both missing and repeat missing cases, and demographic and incident factors were also examined.FindingsThis study uncovers ten addresses (five for adults; five for youths) in the City from which this data was derived that account for 45 percent of all adults and 52 percent of all youth missing person reports. Even more striking, the study data suggest that targeting these top five locations for adults and youths could reduce the volume of repeat missing cases by 71 percent for adults and 68.6 percent for youths. In relation to the demographic characteristics of the study’s sample of adults and youths who repeatedly go missing, the authors find that female youth are two-thirds more likely to go missing than male youth. Additionally, the authors find that Aboriginal adults and youths are disproportionately represented among the repeat missing. Concerning the incident factors related to going missing repeatedly, the authors find that the repeat rate for going missing is 63.2 percent and that both adults and youths go missing 3–10 times on average.Practical implicationsThe study results suggest that, just as crime concentrates in particular spaces among specific offenders, repeat missing cases also concentrate in particular spaces and among particular people. In thinking about repeat missing persons, the present research offers support for viewing these concerns as a behavior setting issue – that is, as a combination of demographic factors of individuals, as well as factors associated with particular types of places. Targeting “power few” locations for prevention efforts, as well as those most at risk within these spaces, may yield positive results.Originality/valueVery little research has been conducted on missing persons and, more specifically, on how to more effectively target police initiatives to reduce case volumes. Further, this is the first paper to successfully apply the concept of the “power few” to missing persons’ cases.

Patient Dose Estimation from Digital Radiography Repeat Rate

Purpose: This research aimed at estimating the patient effective dose from digital radiography repeat rateand evaluating the factors that contribute to the repetition of radiographic procedures in two referral hospitals in Sari, Iran. Materials and Methods: Entrance skin dose and effective dose per common radiography procedures in digital radiography were measured. 1724 X-ray exposures were investigated prospectively. The annual number of each radiography procedure was obtained from the archives of the digital radiography department. The patient cumulative dose was the calculation from annual exposures Repeat Rate (RR) and effective dose per digital radiography procedures. Results: The mean exposure RR per examination was 1.12% and the total percentage of a repeat of all examination was 8.9%. Annual cumulative dose (man-mSivert) resulted from radiographic RR was 449.2.The chest and lumbar spine radiography had the highest annual number and the highest radiation dose, respectively; therefore, these procedures transfer the largest annual dose from repeated radiographic images to the patients. The factors leading to the repetition included the radiographer error (69%), the X-ray tube and equipment error (10.4%), the patient related error (16.1%) and other cases (4.1%). The average effective dose for each examination was 0.36 mSv. Conclusion: Digital radiographic repeat rate increases a 1.1 % annual patient effective dose from the base level that receives from the current radiographic examination. Inconsistency of the center of the digital panel and the central axis of the X-ray beam and error in the selection of the upright or table digital panel are among the most important factors in the repetition of digital radiography.