BACKGROUND & AIMS: :We have proposed a transdermal biolistic method to accelerate a powder formulation of drugs to penetrate human skin for the treatment of a range of diseases. One of the key issues for designing and evaluating transdermal biolistic system is ensuing that the powder drugs are delivered into the skin with a controllable velocity range and spatial distribution. The aerodynamics of supersonic nozzles and performance of the delivery system were initially studied, mainly analytically and experimentally. In this paper, computational fluid dynamics is utilized to characterize two existing prototype devices, in order to further investigate the transient gas and particle dynamics in their supersonic nozzles. To validate the implemented numerical approach, calculated pressure histories, two-dimensional flow structures and particle velocity distributions are made and compared with the reported experimental measurements. The key features of gas dynamics, gas-particle interaction and performance of the prototype transdermal biolistics are discussed and interpreted.

背景与目标： : 我们提出了一种经皮生物注射方法，以加速药物的粉末制剂渗透人体皮肤以治疗一系列疾病。设计和评估透皮生物成像系统的关键问题之一是，将粉末药物以可控的速度范围和空间分布输送到皮肤中。初步研究了超音速喷嘴的空气动力学和输送系统的性能，主要是通过分析和实验进行了研究。本文利用计算流体动力学来表征两个现有的原型设备，以便进一步研究其超音速喷嘴中的瞬态气体和颗粒动力学。为了验证所实施的数值方法，计算了压力历史，二维流动结构和颗粒速度分布，并与报告的实验测量值进行了比较。讨论并解释了气体动力学，气体-颗粒相互作用和原型透皮生物技术性能的关键特征。

BACKGROUND & AIMS: INTRODUCTION:The aim of the study was to compare the visual performance of LASIK eyes measured using high-contrast logMAR letter charts under bright (photopic) and dim (mesopic) conditions. MATERIALS AND METHODS:A total of 46 subjects (35 +/- 8 years of age) undergoing LASIK procedures were recruited for the study. The best spectacle-corrected visual acuity (BSCVA) of each subject was measured using the high-contrast ETDRS logMAR chart under photopic and mesopic conditions at 3 visits: preoperative (Pre), 1 month postoperative (Post1) and 3 months postoperative (Post3). The differences in logMAR scores for the right eyes only were analysed for the Pre-Post1 (n = 46), Pre-Post3 (n = 18) and Post1-Post3 (n = 16) comparisons. RESULTS:The logMAR scores of subjects were worse at the 1-month postoperative visit than preoperatively, and improvement in visual performance was seen at the 3-month postoperative visit. These changes in visual performance became more evident under mesopic conditions. The means and standard errors of the differences in logMAR scores for the Pre-Post3 (0.097 +/- 0.020) were slightly larger than those of the Pre-Post1 (-0.067 +/- 0.019) and Post1-Post3 (0.031 +/- 0.012) comparisons. Under mesopic conditions, the visual performance of the subjects was statistically significant for the 3 comparisons, but not under photopic conditions. CONCLUSION:High-contrast logMAR chart performed under mesopic conditions has the potential to replace visual acuity measured under photopic conditions in providing more reliable representation of postoperative visual outcomes of LASIK eyes. Eye doctors should consider performing this vision test routinely to gauge the success of LASIK surgery.

背景与目标：

BACKGROUND & AIMS: :Finding work and/or re-entering the workforce can be extremely challenging for persons living with HIV/AIDS. Also difficult is assisting them in the process, mostly because there is little documentation or resources about programs that provide vocational services specifically for this population. In response to this dilemma and because it was perceived as a win/win situation, three urban residential community organizations serving the HIV/AIDS population, decided independently to create in-house work opportunities for their clients. All of these organizations are a variation of the same theme: transitional/supportive housing for persons with HIV/AIDS that were formerly homeless and are now interested in becoming increasingly self-sufficient. This article will present a program description that addresses unique manner in which these three sites created in-house job programs in the areas of receptionist, kitchen, and maintenance work. More specifically, this paper will address the strengths, limitations, and ethical considerations that guided program development.

背景与目标： : 对于艾滋病毒/艾滋病感染者来说，找到工作和/或重新进入劳动力队伍可能极具挑战性。协助他们的过程也很困难，主要是因为关于专门为该人群提供职业服务的计划的文档或资源很少。为了应对这一困境，并因为这被认为是双赢的局面，为艾滋病毒/艾滋病人口服务的三个城市居民社区组织独立决定为其客户创造内部工作机会。所有这些组织都是同一主题的变体: 为以前无家可归的艾滋病毒/艾滋病患者提供过渡/支持性住房，现在对变得越来越自给自足感兴趣。本文将介绍一个程序描述，该程序描述了这三个站点在接待员，厨房和维护工作领域创建内部工作程序的独特方式。更具体地说，本文将讨论指导计划开发的优势，局限性和道德考虑因素。

BACKGROUND & AIMS: STUDY OBJECTIVE:To assess the prognostic performance of general severity systems (APACHE II [acute physiology and chronic health evaluation], simplified acute physiology score [SAPS II], and mortality probability models [MPM II]) in coronary patients and to derive new customized indexes for coronary patients using a reduced number of variables.

DESIGN:Inception cohort.

SETTING:Adult medical and surgical ICUs in 17 hospitals in Catalonia and the Balearic Islands.

PATIENTS:Four hundred fifty-six patients with acute myocardial infarction.

MEASUREMENTS AND RESULTS:The APACHE II, SAPS II, and MPM II variables and survival status at hospital discharge have been collected. Performance of the severity systems was assessed by evaluating calibration and discrimination. Logistic regression was used to customize the MPM II(24) and SAPS II indexes. Discrimination was high enough for all of the models. However, calibration of the MPM II(24) was not as satisfactory as for the other models. The MPM II(24) and SAPS II were both reduced to five variables (MPM II(24 cor:) age, PaO2, continuous vasoactive drugs, urinary output, and mechanical ventilation; SAPS II(cor:) age, PaO2/FI(O2) ratio, systolic BP, Glasgow coma score, and urinary output). Both models showed better calibration and discrimination than the original ones.

CONCLUSIONS:Prognostic indexes developed for multidisciplinary patients show good performance when applied to patients with acute myocardial infarction, but customization can reduce the number of variables necessary to compute them without a loss of, and a possible improvement in, prognostic accuracy.

背景与目标： 研究目标 : 评估一般严重程度系统 (APACHE II [急性生理学和慢性健康评估]，简化的急性生理学评分 [SAPS II]，和冠心病患者的死亡率概率模型 [MPM II])，并使用减少的变量数量为冠心病患者推导新的定制指标。
设计 : 初始队列。
设置 : 加泰罗尼亚和巴利阿里群岛17家医院的成人医疗和外科重症监护医师。
患者 : 456例急性心肌梗死患者。
测量和结果 : 已收集APACHE II，SAPS II和MPM II变量以及出院时的生存状态。通过评估校准和判别来评估严重性系统的性能。Logistic回归用于定制MPM II(24) 和SAPS II指数。歧视对于所有模型来说都足够高。但是，MPM II(24) 的校准不如其他模型令人满意。MPM II(24) 和SAPS II均降低为五个变量 (MPM II(24 cor :) 年龄，PaO2，持续血管活性药物，尿量和机械通气; SAPS II(cor :) 年龄，PaO2/FI(O2) 比，收缩压，格拉斯哥昏迷评分，和尿量)。两种模型均显示出比原始模型更好的校准和区分度。
结论 : 为多学科患者开发的预后指标在应用于急性心肌梗死患者时显示出良好的表现，但是，自定义可以减少计算它们所需的变量数量，而不会损失预后准确性，并可能提高预后准确性。

BACKGROUND & AIMS: Visual optics is taking on new clinical significance. Given that current refractive procedures can and do induce large amounts of higher order ocular aberration that often affects the patient's daily visual function and quality of life, we can no longer relegate the considerations of ocular aberrations to academic discussions. Instead, we need to move toward minimizing (not increasing) the eye's aberrations at the same time we are correcting the eye's spherical and cylindrical refractive error. These are exciting times in refractive surgery, which need to be tempered by the fact that after all the research, clinical, and marketing dust settles, the level to which we improve the quality of the retinal image will be guided by the trade-off between cost and the improvement in the quality of life that refractive surgery offers.

背景与目标： 视觉光学具有新的临床意义。鉴于当前的屈光手术可以并且确实会引起大量的高阶眼像差，这些像差通常会影响患者的日常视觉功能和生活质量，因此我们不能再将眼像差的考虑因素置于学术讨论中。相反，我们需要在校正眼睛的球形和圆柱形屈光不正的同时，朝着最小化 (不增加) 眼睛的像差的方向发展。在屈光手术中，这是激动人心的时刻，需要通过以下事实来缓解: 在所有研究，临床和营销尘埃落定之后，我们提高视网膜图像质量的水平将取决于成本与屈光手术提供的生活质量之间的权衡。

BACKGROUND & AIMS: The relationship between preferred objects associated with stereotypy, stereotypic behavior, and accuracy of responding during a counting task by a child with autism was analyzed. Object preference was determined by presenting the child with different sets of objects and asking him to choose one. His choices were then rank ordered into three groupslow, medium, and high preference objects. Counting performance within each of the three object groups was then analyzed in a multi-element design, alternating preference groups. Teaching with high-preference objects occasioned more stereotypic behavior and less accurate counting than teaching with medium- and low-preference objects. Thus, there exists the possibility that teaching may be less successful with certain teaching materials, especially if those materials evoke high rates of incompatible behaviors.

背景与目标： 分析了与自闭症儿童在计数任务中与刻板印象相关的首选对象，刻板行为和响应准确性之间的关系。对象偏好是通过向孩子展示不同的对象集并要求他选择一个来确定的。然后将他的选择排序为三个慢，中和高偏好对象。然后，在多元素设计 (交替的偏好组) 中分析了三个对象组中每个对象组的计数性能。与中低偏好对象的教学相比，高偏好对象的教学产生了更多的刻板行为和更不准确的计数。因此，存在使用某些教材进行教学可能不太成功的可能性，尤其是如果这些教材引起高度的不相容行为。

BACKGROUND & AIMS: :The effects of temporal variation in the quality of short-lived annual plants on oviposition preference and larval performance of insect herbivores has thus far received little attention. This study examines the effects of plant age on female oviposition preference and offspring performance in the large cabbage white butterfly Pieris brassicae. Adult female butterflies lay variable clusters of eggs on the underside of short-lived annual species in the family Brassicaceae, including the short-lived annuals Brassica nigra and Sinapis arvensis, which are important food plants for P. brassicae in The Netherlands. Here, we compared oviposition preference and larval performance of P. brassicae on three age classes (young, mature, and pre-senescing) of B. nigra and S. arvensis plants. Oviposition preference of P. brassicae declined with plant age in both plant species. Whereas larvae performed similarly on all three age classes in B. nigra, preference and performance were weakly correlated in S. arvensis. Analysis of primary (sugars and amino acids) and secondary (glucosinolates) chemistry in the plant shoots revealed that differences in their quality and quantity were more pronounced with respect to tissue type (leaves vs. flowers) than among different developmental stages of both plant species. Butterflies of P. brassicae may prefer younger and smaller plants for oviposition anticipating that future plant growth and size is optimally synchronized with the final larval instar, which contributes >80% of larval growth before pupation.

背景与目标： : 到目前为止，短命一年生植物质量的时间变化对昆虫食草动物的产卵偏好和幼虫表现的影响很少受到关注。这项研究研究了植物年龄对大型白菜白蝴蝶粉蝶的雌性产卵偏好和后代表现的影响。成年雌蝶在十字花科的短寿命一年生物种的下侧产下可变的卵簇，包括短寿命的一年生芸苔和Sinapis arvensis，它们是荷兰十字花科的重要食用植物。在这里，我们比较了三个年龄类别 (年轻，成熟和衰老前) 的芸苔属植物的产卵偏好和幼虫表现。在两种植物中，芸苔属的产卵偏好均随植物年龄而下降。尽管幼虫在黑质B. nigra的所有三个年龄段的表现相似，但在S. arvensis中，偏好和表现之间的相关性较弱。对植物芽中初级 (糖和氨基酸) 和次级 (硫代葡萄糖苷) 化学的分析表明，在组织类型 (叶与花) 方面，其质量和数量的差异比在不同发育阶段之间更为明显。两种植物物种。芸苔属的蝴蝶可能更喜欢年轻和较小的植物进行产卵，以预期未来的植物生长和大小与最终的幼虫最佳地同步，这在化P之前有助于幼虫生长的80%。

BACKGROUND & AIMS: BACKGROUND:The proximal ends of internal mammary (IM) vessels are now the most common recipient vessels for breast reconstruction. On the other hand, bilateral deep inferior epigastric artery perforator (DIEP) flaps are often needed according to the territory and the volume required for reconstruction. The usefulness of retrograde IM vessels as second recipients has recently been reported, but there are very few quantitative studies on the hydrodynamics of the retrograde IM vessels. Because the flow is dependent on the pressure differential, the blood pressures of the antegrade IM artery (AIMA), antegrade IM vein (AIMV), retrograde IM artery (RIMA), retrograde IM vein (RIMV), and recirculated intraflap vein (FV) were investigated to solve this question and to confirm the reliability and usefulness of the retrograde IM vessels. METHODS:Ten free flap breast reconstructions were included in this study. The IM vessels were exposed, and the pressures were measured. After recirculation, the FV pressures were measured when the flap was not ischemic or congestive. Systemic blood pressure was also recorded during the whole measurement period. RESULTS:The AIMA and RIMA pressures were 70.4 ± 8.2 mmHg and 54.0 ± 8.6 mmHg (p = 0.000003), respectively, while the systemic pressure was 65.1 ± 10.0 mmHg. The AIMV pressure was always smaller than the RIMV pressure; the mean AIMV pressure was 5.3 ± 1.6 mmHg. In addition, the FV pressure was greater (p = 0.03) than the RIMV pressure (17.7 ± 9.9 mmHg), while the RIMV pressure was 8.7 ± 2.0 mmHg. CONCLUSIONS:Both the RIMA and RIMV are useful and reliable as second recipients for bipedicled free flap transfers. This is a great benefit because it would provide two recipients in one surgical site and would be especially useful in thin patients or patients with previous abdominal scars requiring double pedicled DIEP flaps. LEVEL OF EVIDENCE:Therapeutic Study, Level IV.

背景与目标：

BACKGROUND & AIMS: OBJECTIVES:To evaluate and assess the impact of pharmacy students' electronic device (e-device) use during a lecture-based pharmacotherapeutics sequence. METHODS:A validated survey instrument to assess e-device use was e-mailed to 238 second- (P2) and third-year (P3) pharmacy students. Grades were reviewed retrospectively and correlated with e-device use to determine its impact on academic performance. RESULTS:Of 140 responding students (59% response rate), 106 reported using e-devices during class for course-related (91.5%) and non-course-related (81.1%) activities. When P2 and P3 students were combined, e-device use was not associated with academic performance (p = 0.70). Academic performance was not impacted among P3 students (p = 0.86), but P2 students performed better academically if they refrained from using e-devices during class (mean grade = 88.5% vs. 83.3%; p=0.019). CONCLUSIONS:The impact of e-device use on overall academic performance was negligible. Use of e-devices by students enrolled in their first pharmacotherapeutics course may negatively impact academics.

背景与目标：

BACKGROUND & AIMS: :This study aimed to investigate the prevalence of oral health impact on daily performance in Brazilian adults. 276 civil servants 35 to 44 years of age from the Public Works and Waste Disposal Department of Porto Alegre, in southern Brazil, were interviewed and clinically examined. Oral Impacts on Daily Performance (OIDP) was used to evaluate the impact of oral health status on daily performance. 73.6% of all subjects had at least one daily performance affected by an oral impact in the previous six months. The most commonly affected performance was eating (48.6%), while the most common symptoms were discomfort (40.6%) and dissatisfaction with one's appearance (31.5%). Missing teeth (21.7%) and toothache (20.7%) were recognized as the main causes of oral impacts on daily performance. OIDP was useful for measuring (physically, psychologically, and socially) the oral impacts on daily performance.

背景与目标： : 这项研究旨在调查巴西成年人口腔健康对日常表现的影响。来自巴西南部阿雷格里港公共工程和废物处理部门的276名35至44岁的公务员接受了采访和临床检查。口腔对日常表现的影响 (OIDP) 用于评估口腔健康状况对日常表现的影响。在过去的六个月中，所有受试者的73.6% 至少有一个每日表现受到口腔影响的影响。最常见的影响表现是进食 (48.6%)，而最常见的症状是不适 (40.6%) 和对自己的外表不满意 (31.5%)。牙齿缺失 (21.7%) 和牙痛 (20.7%) 被认为是口腔影响日常表现的主要原因。OIDP可用于测量 (身体，心理和社交) 口头对日常表现的影响。

BACKGROUND & AIMS: Importance:Individuals with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are at greater risk for academic problems. Pharmacologic treatment is effective in reducing the core symptoms of ADHD, but it is unclear whether it helps to improve academic outcomes. Objective:To investigate the association between the use of ADHD medication and performance on higher education entrance tests in individuals with ADHD. Design, Setting, and Participants:This cohort study observed 61 640 individuals with a diagnosis of ADHD from January 1, 2006, to December 31, 2013. Records of their pharmacologic treatment were extracted from Swedish national registers along with data from the Swedish Scholastic Aptitude Test. Using a within-patient design, test scores when patients were taking medication for ADHD were compared with scores when they were not taking such medication. Data analysis was performed from November 24, 2015, to November 4, 2016. Exposures:Periods with and without ADHD medication use. Main Outcomes and Measures:Scores from the higher education entrance examination (score range, 1-200 points). Results:Among 930 individuals (493 males and 437 females; mean [SD] age, 22.2 [3.2] years) who had taken multiple entrance tests (n = 2524) and used ADHD medications intermittently, the test scores were a mean of 4.80 points higher (95% CI, 2.26-7.34; P < .001) during periods they were taking medication vs nonmedicated periods, after adjusting for age and practice effects. Similar associations between ADHD medication use and test scores were detected in sensitivity analyses. Conclusions and Relevance:Individuals with ADHD had higher scores on the higher education entrance tests during periods they were taking ADHD medication vs nonmedicated periods. These findings suggest that ADHD medications may help ameliorate educationally relevant outcomes in individuals with ADHD.

背景与目标：

BACKGROUND & AIMS: :Glutamate (GLU) and gamma-amino butyric acid (GABA) are essential amino acids (AA) for brain function serving as excitatory and inhibitory neurotransmitter respectively. Their tablets are available in market for improving gut function and muscle performance. Despite of having a major role during memory formation and processing, effects of these tablets on brain functioning like learning and memory have not been investigated. Therefore, present study is aimed to investigate the effects of orally supplemented GLU and GABA on learning and memory performance and further to monitor related effects of these orally supplemented GLU and GABA on brain levels of these AA. Three groups of rats were supplemented orally with drinking water (control group) or suspension of tablets of GABA and Glutamate, respectively for four weeks. Cognitive performance was determined using behavioral tests (Novel object recognition test, Morris water maze, Passive avoidance test) measuring recognition, spatial reference and aversive memory. Levels of GLU, GABA and acetylcholine (ACh) were estimated in rat hippocampus. Results showed that chronic oral administration of GLU and GABA tablets has a significant impact on brain function and can alter GLU and GABA content in rat hippocampus. Compared to GABA, GLU supplementation specifically enhances memory performance via increasing ACh. Thus, GLU can be suggested as a useful supplement for improving learning and memory performance and neurochemical status of brain and in future could be effective in the treatment of neurological disorders affecting learning and memory performance.

背景与目标： 谷氨酸 (GLU) 和 γ-氨基丁酸 (GABA) 是脑功能必需氨基酸 (AA)，分别作为兴奋性和抑制性神经递质。他们的片剂可用于改善肠道功能和肌肉性能。尽管在记忆形成和处理过程中起着重要作用，但尚未研究这些片剂对大脑功能 (如学习和记忆) 的影响。因此，本研究旨在研究口服补充的GLU和GABA对学习和记忆性能的影响，并进一步监测这些口服补充的GLU和GABA对这些AA的大脑水平的相关影响。三组大鼠分别口服补充饮用水 (对照组) 或GABA和谷氨酸混悬剂，持续4周。使用行为测试 (新颖物体识别测试，莫里斯水迷宫，被动回避测试) 来确定认知能力，以测量识别，空间参考和厌恶记忆。估计大鼠海马中GLU，GABA和乙酰胆碱 (ACh) 的水平。结果表明，长期口服GLU和GABA片对大鼠脑功能有明显影响，可改变大鼠海马GLU和GABA的含量。与GABA相比，补充GLU通过增加ACh来特别增强记忆性能。因此，GLU可以被建议作为改善学习和记忆性能以及大脑神经化学状态的有用补充，并且将来可以有效地治疗影响学习和记忆性能的神经系统疾病。

BACKGROUND & AIMS: :Maternal health services continue to favour the wealthiest in lower and middle income countries. Debate about the potential of performance-based financing (PBF) to address these disparities continues. As PBF is adopted by countries, it is critical to understand the equity effects for maternal services. The aim of this study is to examine the effects of PBF on equity in maternal health service use when no specific provisions target the poorest in the population. In Rwanda, PBF was designed to increase health service use, which was universally low. Paired districts were randomly assigned to intervention and control for PBF implementation. Using Rwanda's Demographic Health Survey data from 2005 (pre-intervention) and 2007-8 (post-intervention), a cluster-level panel dataset of 7899 women 15-49 years of age from intervention (4477) and control districts (3422) was created. The impact of PBF on reported use of facility deliveries, antenatal care (ANC) and modern contraceptive use was estimated using a difference-in-differences model with community fixed effects. Interaction terms between wealth quintiles and PBF were estimated to identify the differential effect of PBF among poorer women. The probability of a facility delivery increased by 10 percentage points in the intervention when compared with the control districts (P = 0.014), while no significant effects were noted for ANC visits or modern contraceptive use. Service use increased for intervention and control populations and across all wealth quintiles from 2005 to 2007, with no evidence that PBF was a pro-poor or a pro-rich strategy. Insurance remained a positive predictor of service use. This research suggests that if service use is uniformly low then a PBF programme that incentivizes select services, such as facility deliveries, may improve service use overall. However, if the equity gap is extreme, then a PBF programme without equity targets will do little to alleviate disparities.

背景与目标： : 孕产妇保健服务继续有利于中低收入国家的最富有的人。关于基于绩效的融资 (PBF) 解决这些差距的潜力的辩论仍在继续。随着PBF被各国采用，了解孕产妇服务的公平效应至关重要。这项研究的目的是在没有针对最贫困人口的具体规定的情况下，研究PBF对孕产妇保健服务使用公平性的影响。在卢旺达，PBF旨在增加普遍较低的卫生服务使用。成对的地区被随机分配到PBF实施的干预和控制中。使用卢旺达的人口健康调查数据2005年 (干预前) 和2007-8 (干预后)，创建了来自干预 (4477) 和控制区 (3422) 的7899名15-49岁妇女的集群级面板数据集。使用具有社区固定效应的差异差异模型估算了PBF对报告的设施分娩使用，产前护理 (ANC) 和现代避孕药具使用的影响。估计了财富五分位数与PBF之间的相互作用项，以确定PBF在较贫穷妇女中的不同作用。与对照地区相比，干预措施中提供设施的可能性增加了10个百分点 (P = 0.014)，而对ANC就诊或使用现代避孕药具没有显着影响。干预和控制人群以及所有财富五分之一2005年2007年的服务使用有所增加，没有证据表明PBF是扶贫或致富战略。保险仍然是服务使用的积极预测因素。这项研究表明，如果服务使用率一直很低，那么激励特定服务 (例如设施交付) 的PBF计划可能会总体上改善服务使用率。但是，如果股权差距是极端的，那么没有股权目标的PBF计划将对缓解差距无济于事。

BACKGROUND & AIMS: BACKGROUND & AIMS:In hospitalized patients, lack of appetite, i.e., disease-associated anorexia, is the main factor determining insufficient food intake and weight loss, which in turn increase morbidity and mortality. Controversies exist on which tool should be preferred when diagnosing anorexia. Aim of the study was to evaluate in hospitalized medical patients, the performance of 4 different tools [i.e., self-assessment of appetite, FAACT-ESPEN score, visual analog scale (VAS), and the Anorexia Questionnaire (AQ)] in assessing disease-associated anorexia and predicting nutritional and clinical variables. MATERIALS AND METHODS:Hospitalized patients consecutively admitted to the Internal Medicine ward at our institution were considered. After informed consent was obtained, patients were asked to self-assess their appetite vs the previous month. The VAS, the FAACT-ESPEN score and the Anorexia Questionnaire were also submitted. Food intake immediately following the interview was recorded. Nutritional (i.e., body weight, height), functional (i.e., handgrip strength) and clinical variables (i.e., length of stay) were registered upon admission and before discharge. RESULTS:We studied 105 patients (74M:31F; 66.2 ± 16.3 yrs). The prevalence of anorexia as assessed by patients' self assessment, FAACT-ESPEN score, and the Anorexia Questionnaire was 23%, 10% and 48%, respectively. VAS did not show any correlation with food intake. Anorexic patients as identified by the self assessment of appetite showed reduced food intake and weaker handgrip strength than non-anorexic. The FAACT-ESPEN score correlated with body weight, food intake and handgrip strength, but was not related with length of stay. Anorexic patients as identified by the Anorexia Questionnaire showed reduced food intake, lower body weight, weaker handgrip strength and longer hospital stay than non-anorexic patients. DISCUSSION:The prevalence of anorexia significantly varies according to the diagnostic tool used. Except for VAS, all the tested tools identify patients with impaired nutritional and functional variables. However, only the Anorexia Questionnaire identifies patients with longer hospital stay. Our results suggest that in clinical practice, modification of appetite reflects different underlying mechanisms whose impacts on clinical outcome measures may differ. Therefore, an ideal anorexia assessment tool does not appear to exist, but it should be chosen according to the outcome measures to be assessed (i.e., Anorexia Questionnaire to predict length of stay).

背景与目标：

BACKGROUND & AIMS: :In order to ascertain the effects of different carbon sources (methanol, glucose, starch and NaHCO(3)) on denitrification in BESs, the experiment was conducted in a constant current, 3.5 of chemical oxygen demand to nitrate ratio in a greenhouse. Among the four carbon sources investigated in BESs, NaHCO(3) showed the highest nitrite accumulation and the ratio of soluble microbial products to soluble chemical oxygen demand (SMP/SCOD) with a value of 3.68 ± 0.68 mg/L and 94%, respectively. And the addition of organic substrates could reduce SMP production and enhance the denitrification process. In the constant voltage experiment, it was observed that the organics could be used by microbes to generate electrons at the anode. And a maximal current value of 11.0 mA in the BESs fed with starch indicated that the complex carbon source was easier to be used by microorganisms to generate electricity than the simple carbon source.

背景与目标： : 为了确定不同碳源 (甲醇，葡萄糖，淀粉和NaHCO(3)) 对BESs反硝化的影响，该实验在恒定电流下进行，3.5温室中的化学需氧量与硝酸盐的比率。在BESs调查的四种碳源中，NaHCO(3) 显示出最高的亚硝酸盐积累和可溶性微生物产物与可溶性化学需氧量 (SMP/SCOD) 的比率，分别为3.68 ± 0.68 mg/L和94%。有机底物的添加可以减少SMP的产生并增强反硝化过程。在恒压实验中，观察到有机物可以被微生物用来在阳极产生电子。用淀粉喂养的贝斯中11.0 mA的最大电流值表明，复杂的碳源比简单的碳源更容易被微生物用来发电。