Vision-related quality of life and psychosocial well-being of patients with episcleritis and scleritis: a neglected essence?

Background To assess the change in vision-related quality of life and psychosocial well-being of the patients with episcleritis and scleritis patients before and after treatment. Results This one-and-a-half-year prospective study was conducted among 76 eyes of 71 new patients of episcleritis and scleritis. A structured questionnaire was used to assess the visual and to analyze the change in effect size. The male-to-female ratio was 1:1.536. Episcleritis was seen in 41 cases (57.7%) while scleritis was seen in 30 cases (42.3%). Patients with episcleritis had statistically significant improvement in general function score (GF) (p < 0.05) using paired t-test. The effect size showed medium improvement (approximately 0.5). Whereas there was no statistically significant change in psychosocial impact (PI), visual symptoms (VS) scoring, and a total score (p < 0.05) using paired t-test. The effect size showed no improvement for PI and total score and small improvement for VS score. Patients with scleritis had statistically significant improvement in general function score (GF), visual symptoms (VS) scoring and total score (p < 0.05) using paired-t-test. The effect size showed medium improvement (approximately 0.5) for general function score (GF) and total score. However, the effect size showed only a small improvement (approximately 0.2) for psychosocial impact (PI) score. Conclusions VisionRelated Quality of Life of patients with scleritis showed significant improvement following treatment unlike episcleritis indicating scleritis more adversely affecting psychosocial well-being.

Medical Cannabis and Cannabinoids for Impaired Sleep: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Randomized Clinical Trials

Study Objectives We conducted a systematic review to explore the effectiveness of medical cannabis for impaired sleep. Methods We searched MEDLINE, EMBASE, CENTRAL and PsychINFO to January 2021 for randomized trials of medical cannabis or cannabinoids for impaired sleep vs. any non-cannabis control. When possible, we pooled effect estimates for all patient-important sleep-related outcomes and used the GRADE approach to appraise the certainty of evidence. Results Thirty-nine trials (5,100 patients) were eligible for review, of which 38 evaluated oral cannabinoids and 1 administered inhaled cannabis. The median follow-up was 35 days, and most trials (33 of 39) enrolled patients living with chronic cancer or noncancer chronic pain. Among patients with chronic pain, moderate certainty evidence found that medical cannabis probably results in a small improvement in sleep quality versus placebo (modeled risk difference [RD] for achieving the minimally important difference [MID], 8% [95% CI, 3 to 12]). Moderate to high certainty evidence shows that medical cannabis vs. placebo results in a small improvement in sleep disturbance for chronic non-cancer pain (modeled RD for achieving the MID, 19% [95% CI, 11 to 28]) and a very small improvement in sleep disturbance for chronic cancer pain (WMD of -0.19cm [95%CI, -0.36 to -0.03cm]; interaction p=0.03). Moderate to high certainty evidence shows medical cannabis, versus placebo, results in a substantial increase in the risk of dizziness (RD 29% [95%CI, 16 to 50], for trials with ≥3 months follow-up), and a small increase in the risk of somnolence, dry mouth, fatigue, and nausea (RDs ranged from 6% to 10%). Conclusion Medical cannabis and cannabinoids may improve impaired sleep among people living with chronic pain, but the magnitude of benefit is likely small.

Medical cannabis or cannabinoids for chronic non-cancer and cancer related pain: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomised clinical trials

Objective To determine the benefits and harms of medical cannabis and cannabinoids for chronic pain. Design Systematic review and meta-analysis. Data sources MEDLINE, EMBASE, AMED, PsycInfo, CENTRAL, CINAHL, PubMed, Web of Science, Cannabis-Med, Epistemonikos, and trial registries up to January 2021. Study selection Randomised clinical trials of medical cannabis or cannabinoids versus any non-cannabis control for chronic pain at ≥1 month follow-up. Data extraction and synthesis Paired reviewers independently assessed risk of bias and extracted data. We performed random-effects models meta-analyses and used GRADE to assess the certainty of evidence. Results A total of 32 trials with 5174 adult patients were included, 29 of which compared medical cannabis or cannabinoids with placebo. Medical cannabis was administered orally (n=30) or topically (n=2). Clinical populations included chronic non-cancer pain (n=28) and cancer related pain (n=4). Length of follow-up ranged from 1 to 5.5 months. Compared with placebo, non-inhaled medical cannabis probably results in a small increase in the proportion of patients experiencing at least the minimally important difference (MID) of 1 cm (on a 10 cm visual analogue scale (VAS)) in pain relief (modelled risk difference (RD) of 10% (95% confidence interval 5% to 15%), based on a weighted mean difference (WMD) of −0.50 cm (95% CI −0.75 to −0.25 cm, moderate certainty)). Medical cannabis taken orally results in a very small improvement in physical functioning (4% modelled RD (0.1% to 8%) for achieving at least the MID of 10 points on the 100-point SF-36 physical functioning scale, WMD of 1.67 points (0.03 to 3.31, high certainty)), and a small improvement in sleep quality (6% modelled RD (2% to 9%) for achieving at least the MID of 1 cm on a 10 cm VAS, WMD of −0.35 cm (−0.55 to −0.14 cm, high certainty)). Medical cannabis taken orally does not improve emotional, role, or social functioning (high certainty). Moderate certainty evidence shows that medical cannabis taken orally probably results in a small increased risk of transient cognitive impairment (RD 2% (0.1% to 6%)), vomiting (RD 3% (0.4% to 6%)), drowsiness (RD 5% (2% to 8%)), impaired attention (RD 3% (1% to 8%)), and nausea (RD 5% (2% to 8%)), but not diarrhoea; while high certainty evidence shows greater increased risk of dizziness (RD 9% (5% to 14%)) for trials with <3 months follow-up versus RD 28% (18% to 43%) for trials with ≥3 months follow-up; interaction test P=0.003; moderate credibility of subgroup effect). Conclusions Moderate to high certainty evidence shows that non-inhaled medical cannabis or cannabinoids results in a small to very small improvement in pain relief, physical functioning, and sleep quality among patients with chronic pain, along with several transient adverse side effects, compared with placebo. The accompanying BMJ Rapid Recommendation provides contextualised guidance based on this body of evidence. Systematic review registration https://osf.io/3pwn2

Railway Safety and Security using Image Processing and IOT

The railways have become the primary form of transportation because of their capability and speed. Even a small improvement in this sector will aid the overall development of a nation. There are various reasons for abnormalities that occur on railway tracks which result in breakdowns and accidents. The poor maintenance of the railway tracks will also result in accidents. The important aspect we are considering in this paper is to avoid the crowd of passengers in each compartment considering the Covid-19 situation. Other aspects are avoiding accidents in foggy conditions, obstacles in front of railways, due to track faults. Comparative studies of different methods used in these aspects of railways are made and the best which gives better accuracy is considered for Implementation.

Vision-Related Quality of Life and Psychosocial Well-Being of Patients with Episcleritis and Scleritis: A Neglected Essence ?

Background: To assess the change in vision-related quality of life and psychosocial well-being of the patients with episcleritis and scleritis patients before and after treatment.Results: This one-and-a-half-year prospective study was conducted among 76 eyes of 71 new patients of episcleritis and scleritis. A structured questionnaire was used to assess the visual and to analyze the change in effect size. The male-to-female ratio was 1:1.536. Episcleritis was seen in 41 cases (57.7%) while scleritis was seen in 30 cases (42.3%). Patients with episcleritis had statistically significant improvement in general function score (GF) (p<0.05) using paired t-test. The effect size showed medium improvement (approximately 0.5). Whereas there was no statistically significant change in psychosocial impact (PI), visual symptoms (VS) scoring, and a total score (p<0.05) using paired t-test. The effect size showed no improvement for PI and total score and small improvement for VS score. Patients with scleritis had statistically significant improvement in general function score (GF), visual symptoms (VS) scoring and total score (p<0.05) using paired-t-test. The effect size showed medium improvement (approximately 0.5) for general function score (GF) and total score. However, the effect size showed only a small improvement (approximately 0.2) for psychosocial impact (PI) score.Conclusions: Vision Related Quality of Life of patients with scleritis showed significant improvement following treatment unlike episcleritis indicating scleritis more adversely affecting psychosocial well-being.

Inhaled nitric oxide improves the hepatopulmonary syndrome: a physiologic analysis

The hepatopulmonary syndrome (HPS) is defined by liver dysfunction, intrapulmonary vasodilatation and abnormal oxygenation. Hypoxaemia is progressive and liver transplant is the only effective treatment. Severe hypoxaemia is a life-threatening HPS complication, particularly after transplant. We evaluated gas-exchange and haemodynamic effects of invasive therapies in a consecutive sample of 26 pre-transplant patients. Inhaled nitric oxide significantly improved partial pressure of oxygen (12.4 mm Hg; p=0.001) without deleterious effects on cardiac output. Trendelenburg positioning resulted in a small improvement, and methylene blue did not, though individual responses were variable. Future studies should prospectively evaluate these strategies in severe post-transplant hypoxaemia.

Scale-Adaptive KCF Mixed with Deep Feature for Pedestrian Tracking

Pedestrian tracking is an important research content in the field of computer vision. Tracking is achieved by predicting the position of a specific pedestrian in each frame of a video. Pedestrian tracking methods include neural network-based methods and traditional template matching-based methods, such as the SiamRPN (Siamese region proposal network), the DASiamRPN (distractor-aware SiamRPN), and the KCF (kernel correlation filter). The KCF algorithm has no scale-adaptive capability and cannot effectively solve the occlusion problem, and because of many defects of the HOG (histogram of oriented gradient) feature that the KCF uses, the tracking target is easy to lose. For those defects of the KCF algorithm, an improved KCF model, the SKCFMDF (scale-adaptive KCF mixed with deep feature) algorithm was designed. By introducing deep features extracted by a newly designed neural network and by introducing the YOLOv3 (you only look once version 3) object detection algorithm, which was also improved for more accurate detection, the model was able to achieve scale adaptation and to effectively solve the problem of occlusion and defects of the HOG feature. Compared with the original KCF, the success rate of pedestrian tracking under complex conditions was increased by 36%. Compared with the mainstream SiamRPN and DASiamRPN models, it was still able to achieve a small improvement.

El papel de la natación y las actividades acuáticas para la mejora de la escoliosis idiopática

Antecedentes: La escoliosis idiopática es una desviación lateral de la columna, con rotación de los cuerpos vertebrales, es deorigen desconocido. Desde hace muchos años se viene recomendando la natación para la mejora de esta patología, perorealmente no existe una evidencia científica clara.Objetivos: El propósito de esta revisión ha sido realizar una síntesis de información para conocer cómo afecta el ejercicio en elmedio acuático a la escoliosis.Método: Se ha llevado a cabo una revisión de artículos científicos, capítulos y libros sobre la escoliosis en la base de datos PubMedy Google Académico.Resultados: Los resultados no parecen ser muy claros, existiendo diversas metodologías de estudio; aunque sí se muestra unapequeña mejora.Conclusiones: A pesar de la gran controversia, parece ser que el medio acuático puede ser útil en la mejora de la calidad de vidade las personas que padecen esta patología. Resulta necesario individualizar la prescripción de ejercicio. AbstractIntroduction: Idiopathic scoliosis is a lateral deviation of the spine, with rotation of the vertebral bodies, is of unknown origin. For many years swimming has been recommended for the improvement of this pathology, but there is really no clear scientific evidence.Objectives: The purpose of this review was to perform a synthesis of information to know how the exercise in the aquatic environment affects scoliosis.Method: A review of scientific articles, chapters and books on scoliosis in the PubMed and Google Scholar database has been carried out.Results: The results do not seem to be very clear, having several methodologies of study; Although a small improvement is shown.Conclusions: Despite the great controversy, it seems that the aquatic environment can be useful in improving the quality of life of people suffering from this pathology. It is necessary to separate the exercise prescription.Key words: treatment, quality of life improvement, deviations column, water activities, back, spine, exercise, prevention. ResumoIntrodução: idiopática escoliose é uma curvatura lateral da coluna vertebral, com a rotação dos corpos vertebrais, é de origem desconhecida. Por muitos anos, tem vindo a recomendar nadar para melhorar esta condição, mas realmente não há nenhuma evidência científica clara.Objetivos: O objetivo desta revisão foi realizar uma síntese de informações para saber como o exercício afeta na escoliose ambiente aquático.Método: Foi realizada uma revisão de artigos científicos, capítulos e livros sobre escolisis na base de dados PubMed e Google Scholar.Resultados: Os resultados não parecem ser muito claro, e existem vários métodos de estudo; embora uma pequena melhora mostrado.Conclusões: Apesar da controvérsia, parece que o ambiente aquático pode ser útil na melhoria da qualidade de vida das pessoas que sofrem desta doença. É necessário individualizar a prescrição de exercícios.Palavras-chave: tratamento, melhora a qualidade de vida, desvios de coluna, esportes aquáticos, costas, coluna vertebral, exercício, prevenção.

The COVID States Project #12: Executive approval update

The August wave of our COVID States survey indicates a continued gradual decline in approval of governors’ management of COVID-19, and a small improvement in President Trump’s management of COVID-19. The average governor saw their approval slip another 3 points in the last month, to 48% approval (versus 63% in late April). President Trump, who started from a much lower point, rebounded slightly from his low point of approval of 32% in July to 34% in August. See Figure 1 and Table 1 for trends in approval for governors by state, and Figure 1 and Table 2 for trends in approval for President Trump. The governors of Maryland, Massachusetts, and Connecticut are all at 65% approval or above. States with governors that have notably low approval ratings (below 40%) include Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Hawaii, Idaho, Mississippi, Oregon, Oklahoma, Missouri, South Carolina, and Texas. Governors who have suffered particularly precipitous drops in the last month include the governors of California (Newsom), Virginia (Northam), and Florida (DeSantis). Newsom dropped from 58% approval to 47%, Northam from 59% to 46%, and DeSantis from an already low 40% to 29%. Notably, despite the general stability in presidential approval, Trump’s approval in Florida of his management of COVID-19 also dropped sharply, from 39% to 29%.

NNrepair: Constraint-Based Repair of Neural Network Classifiers

We present NNrepair, a constraint-based technique for repairing neural network classifiers. The technique aims to fix the logic of the network at an intermediate layer or at the last layer. NNrepair first uses fault localization to find potentially faulty network parameters (such as the weights) and then performs repair using constraint solving to apply small modifications to the parameters to remedy the defects. We present novel strategies to enable precise yet efficient repair such as inferring correctness specifications to act as oracles for intermediate layer repair, and generation of experts for each class. We demonstrate the technique in the context of three different scenarios: (1) Improving the overall accuracy of a model, (2) Fixing security vulnerabilities caused by poisoning of training data and (3) Improving the robustness of the network against adversarial attacks. Our evaluation on MNIST and CIFAR-10 models shows that NNrepair can improve the accuracy by 45.56% points on poisoned data and 10.40% points on adversarial data. NNrepair also provides small improvement in the overall accuracy of models, without requiring new data or re-training.