The sensitivity of a neck CT scan in detecting pneumothoraces in nonpenetrating trauma.

BACKGROUND: The trauma-related pneumothorax is a common intrathoracic injury and can go undetected with detrimental outcomes. Chest computed tomography (CT) investigation in low- to middle-income countries (LMIC) is not always readily available during emergency situations and increased workloads. However, alternative investigations all have limitations in including pneumothoraces. Patients may have trauma indications for CT of the head and neck. The neck CT scan may hold an extra potential advantage in pneumothorax detection. This study aimed to assess its sensitivity in pneumothorax detection in nonpenetrating trauma. METHODS: A retrospective study was conducted from 1 January 2016 to 31 December 2021. All adult patients sustaining nonpenetrating injuries, and investigated with chest and neck CT scans were included. The chest CT scan was the gold standard against,which the neck CT scan was compared to determine the accuracy of pneumothorax detection. Stata version 16 was used for descriptive statistical analysis, and a p-value of 0.05 was considered statistically significant. RESULTS: One thousand ninety three were eligible for evaluation; 204 (18.66%) pneumothoraces were detected on chest CT scans, 200 (98.0%) of which were also detected on the neck CT scan, producing a sensitivity of 98.0% (95% CI 95.1-99.5%) and a specificity of 100% (95% CI 99.6-100%). Most pneumothoraces were detected at T1 level (45.09%), followed by T2 (43.62%). CONCLUSION: The neck CT scan has demonstrated high sensitivity and specificity in pneumothorax detection. Thus, it may be used as an additional tool for those who could not receive or do not need a formal chest CT but have an indication for neck CT scans.

An internet of things labelled dataset for aquaponics fish pond water quality monitoring system.

Aquaculture, which is the breeding of fishes in artificial ponds, seems to be gaining popularity among urban and sub-urban dwellers in Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia. Tenant aquaculture enables individuals irrespective of their profession to grow fishes locally in a little space. However, there are challenges facing aquaculture such as the availability of water, how to monitor and manage water quality, and more seriously, the problem of absence of dataset with which the farmer can use as a guide for fish breeding. Aquaponics is a system that combines conventional aquaculture with hydroponics (the method of growing plants in water i.e. soilless farming of crops). It uses these two technologies in a symbiotic combination in which the plant uses the waste from the fish as food while at the same time filtering the water for immediate re-use by the fish. This helps to solve the problem of frequent change of water. An Internet of Things (IoT) system consisting of an ESP-32 microcontroller which controls water quality sensors in aquaponics fish ponds was designed and developed for automatic data collection. The sensors include temperature, pH, dissolved oxygen, turbidity, ammonia and nitrate sensors. The IoT system reads water quality data and uploads the same to the cloud in real time. The dataset is visualized in the cloud and downloaded for the purposes of data analytics and decision-making. We present the dataset in this paper. The dataset will be very useful to the agriculture, aquaculture, data science and machine learning communities. The insights such dataset will provide when subjected to machine learning and data analytics will be very useful to fish farmers, informing them when to change the pond water, what stocking density to apply, provide knowledge about feed conversion ratios, and in predict the growth rate and patterns of their fishes.

Targeting gallbladder cancer: a pathway based perspective.

Gallbladder cancer (GBC) has a poor prognosis with a 5-year survival rate suggesting the need for more effective treatment strategies. Studying the cross-talk of several pathways involved in crucial cellular and biological processes such as cell growth, proliferation, migration and apoptosis would prove beneficial in identifying key players of GBC progression and targeting them. This review highlights several pathways known to be dysregulated in GBC onset and progression and describes known and potential targets. Within these pathways, there are proteins involved in the signalling cascade, which may be targeted as potential biomarkers and drug targets. Furthermore, the cross-talk of these pathways is investigated in the context of GBC and the implications thereof. A better understanding of the pathways involved in GBC pathogenesis will aid clinicians in the prognosis, diagnosis and treatment of patients. There are significant clinical implications of GBC pathway-based studies as they permit the understanding of onset and progression of the disease.

A climatology of 7Be in surface air in European Union.

This study presents a European-wide analysis of the spatial and temporal distribution of the cosmogenic isotope (7)Be in surface air. This is the first time that a long term database of 34 sampling sites that regularly provide data to the Radioactivity Environmental Monitoring (REM) network, managed by the Joint Research Centre (JRC) in Ispra, is used. While temporal coverage varies between stations, some of them have delivered data more or less continuously from 1984 to 2011. The station locations were considerably heterogeneous, both in terms of latitude and altitude, a range which should ensure a high degree of representativeness of the results. The mean values of (7)Be activity concentration presented a spatial distribution value ranging from 2.0 to 5.4 mBq/m(3) over the European Union. The results of the ANOVA analysis of all (7)Be data available indicated that its temporal and spatial distributions were mainly explained by the location and characteristic of the sampling sites rather than its temporal distribution (yearly, seasonal and monthly). Higher (7)Be concentrations were registered at the middle, compared to high-latitude, regions. However, there was no correlation with altitude, since all stations are sited within the atmospheric boundary layer. In addition, the total and yearly analyses of the data indicated a dynamic range of (7)Be activity for each solar cycle and phase (maximum or minimum), different impact on stations having been observed according to their location. Finally, the results indicated a significant seasonal and monthly variation for (7)Be activity concentration across the European Union, with maximum concentrations occurring in the summer and minimum in the winter, although with differences in the values reached. The knowledge of the horizontal and vertical distribution of this natural radionuclide in the atmosphere is a key parameter for modelling studies of atmospheric processes, which are important phenomena to be taken into account in the case of a nuclear accident.