The Grizzly, September 20, 2018

Changes to Faculty Parking Disgruntle Students • Berman Opens Two New Exhibits for the Fall Semester • Inclusive Community Fellowships and Grants • Healing Hurt People at the Parlee Center • Two-Legged Dog Runs Away Then Finally Finds Forever Home: Meet Deuce, Professor Scudera\u27s Newest Dog • Help Wanted: UCARE Fall Volunteering Opportunities • Opinions: Greek Life at Ursinus is Dying; Anonymous New York Times Op-Ed is Cowardly • Football Dominates in First Three Games • UC Gymnastics has New Coach in Valentihttps://digitalcommons.ursinus.edu/grizzlynews/1602/thumbnail.jp

Mitigating Mismatch Compression in Differential Local Field Potentials

Bidirectional deep brain stimulation (bdDBS) devices capable of recording differential local field potentials (dLFP) enable neural recordings alongside clinical therapy. Efforts to identify objective signals of various brain disorders, or disease readouts, are challenging in dLFP, especially during active DBS. In this report we identified, characterized, and mitigated a major source of distortion in dLFP that we introduce as mismatch compression (MC). MC occurs secondary to impedance mismatches across the dLFP channel resulting in incomplete rejection of artifacts and downstream amplifier gain compression. Using in silico and in vitro models we demonstrate that MC accounts for impedance-related distortions sensitive to DBS amplitude. We then use these models to develop and validate a mitigation strategy for MC that is provided as an opensource library for more reliable oscillatory disease readouts.Comment: 9 pages, 9 figure

Laparoscopy in management of appendicitis in high-, middle-, and low-income countries: a multicenter, prospective, cohort study.

BACKGROUND: Appendicitis is the most common abdominal surgical emergency worldwide. Differences between high- and low-income settings in the availability of laparoscopic appendectomy, alternative management choices, and outcomes are poorly described. The aim was to identify variation in surgical management and outcomes of appendicitis within low-, middle-, and high-Human Development Index (HDI) countries worldwide. METHODS: This is a multicenter, international prospective cohort study. Consecutive sampling of patients undergoing emergency appendectomy over 6 months was conducted. Follow-up lasted 30 days. RESULTS: 4546 patients from 52 countries underwent appendectomy (2499 high-, 1540 middle-, and 507 low-HDI groups). Surgical site infection (SSI) rates were higher in low-HDI (OR 2.57, 95% CI 1.33-4.99, p = 0.005) but not middle-HDI countries (OR 1.38, 95% CI 0.76-2.52, p = 0.291), compared with high-HDI countries after adjustment. A laparoscopic approach was common in high-HDI countries (1693/2499, 67.7%), but infrequent in low-HDI (41/507, 8.1%) and middle-HDI (132/1540, 8.6%) groups. After accounting for case-mix, laparoscopy was still associated with fewer overall complications (OR 0.55, 95% CI 0.42-0.71, p < 0.001) and SSIs (OR 0.22, 95% CI 0.14-0.33, p < 0.001). In propensity-score matched groups within low-/middle-HDI countries, laparoscopy was still associated with fewer overall complications (OR 0.23 95% CI 0.11-0.44) and SSI (OR 0.21 95% CI 0.09-0.45). CONCLUSION: A laparoscopic approach is associated with better outcomes and availability appears to differ by country HDI. Despite the profound clinical, operational, and financial barriers to its widespread introduction, laparoscopy could significantly improve outcomes for patients in low-resource environments. TRIAL REGISTRATION: NCT02179112

Detection of Epidemic Scarlet Fever Group A Streptococcus in Australia.

Sentinel hospital surveillance was instituted in Australia to detect the presence of pandemic group A Streptococcus strains causing scarlet fever. Genomic and phylogenetic analyses indicated the presence of an Australian GAS emm12 scarlet fever isolate related to United Kingdom outbreak strains. National surveillance to monitor this pandemic is recommended

An examination of inpatient ward and secondary community care stay costs for individuals with complex mental health needs in the UK

Copyright: © 2025 Saini et al.Some people with mental health problems have such high levels of complex clinical and/or risk needs that those needs cannot be adequately met within generic mental health services. To design health and social provisions to better serve these people’s needs, it is necessary to first characterise the current provision. This study examines the cost element of this provision. This retrospective observational cohort study examined routinely collected healthcare service administrative data from a large UK-based NHS provider of community and hospital-based mental health services. Data were collected from medical records of individuals with complex mental health (CMH) needs aged ≥18 years old who had an inpatient ward stay between February 2000 until August 2021. Predictors of annual inpatient ward and secondary community care stay (residential/supported living/independent) costs were estimated using generalised linear models. Mean (median) annual total healthcare costs for 185 included adults were £106,847 (£109,651), comprising 16.4% from inpatient ward stay costs of £17,512 (£10,723) and 83.6% from secondary community care stay costs of £89,336 (£97,739). Associations varied across care context. Key predictors of inpatient stay cost included age, deprivation, and substance abuse. The primary diagnostic group of schizophrenia, schizotypal and delusional disorders (ICD10 codes: F20-F29) was found to be a predictor of greater secondary community care stay costs. Inpatient ward and secondary community care stay costs varied across patient characteristics. Additional research is warranted to further explore predictors identified in this study to prevent, promote, and monitor activities for individuals with differing CMH needs.Wirral Borough Council; Grant(s): 1582 CW

Enhancing infectious intestinal disease diagnosis through metagenomic and metatranscriptomic sequencing of 1000 human diarrhoeal samples.

BackgroundCurrent surveillance of diarrhoeal disease is hindered by limitations of traditional diagnostic approaches, which often fail to identify the causative organism, particularly for novel or hard-to-culture bacterial pathogens. Sequencing nucleic acids directly from stool can overcome such constraints, but such approaches need to reliably detect pathogens identifiable by conventional methods.MethodsAs part of the INTEGRATE study, we analysed stool microbiomes from 1067 patients with gastroenteritis symptoms using direct sequencing, and compared findings with standard diagnostic techniques (culture, immunoassay, microscopy, and single-target PCR) and molecular assays (Luminex xTAG GPP) for detection of bacterial and viral pathogens in the UK.ResultsWe found strong positive correlations between metatranscriptomic reads and traditional diagnostics for six out of 15 pathogens. The metatranscriptomic data were highly correlated with the Luminex assay for eight out of 14 pathogens. In contrast, metagenomic sequencing only showed a strong positive correlation with traditional diagnostics for three of 15 pathogens, and with Luminex for four of 14 pathogens. Compared with metagenomics, metatranscriptomics had increased sensitivity of detection for four pathogens, while metagenomics was more effective for detecting five pathogens. Metatranscriptomics gave near-complete transcriptome coverage for Human mastadenovirus F and detected Cryptosporidium via identification of Cryptosporidium parvum virus (CSpV1). A comprehensive transcriptomic profile of Salmonella enterica serovar Enteritidis was recovered from the stool of a patient with a laboratory-confirmed Salmonella infection. Furthermore, comparison of RNA/DNA ratios between pathogen-positive and pathogen-negative samples demonstrated that metatranscriptomics can distinguish pathogen-positive/negative samples and provide insights into pathogen biology. Higher RNA/DNA ratios were observed in samples that tested positive via gold-standard diagnostics.ConclusionsThis study highlights the power of directly sequencing nucleic acids from human samples to augment gastrointestinal pathogen surveillance and clinical diagnostics. Metatranscriptomics was most effective for identifying a wide range of pathogens and showed superior sensitivity. We propose that metatranscriptomics should be considered for future diagnosis and surveillance of gastrointestinal pathogens. We assembled a rich data resource of paired metagenomic and metatranscriptomic datasets, direct from patient stool samples, and have made these data publicly available to enhance the understanding of pathogens associated with infectious intestinal diseases