BACKGROUND About 98% of plasma propofol is bound to albumin. We investigated if severe hypoalbuminaemia may affect the accuracy of a target-controlled infusion (TCI) device, the Diprifusor, during sedation in critically ill patients. METHODS Ten critically ill hypoalbuminaemic patients (<24 g litre(-1)) and 10 critically ill normoalbuminaemic patients (>32 g litre(-1)) were included in this s...

BACKGROUND We investigated the correction methods following wrong-settings of emulsion concentrations of propofol as a countermeasure against erroneous target-controlled infusions (TCI). METHODS TCIs were started with targeting 4.0 µg/ml of effect-site concentration (Ceff) of propofol, and the emulsion concentrations were selected for 2.0% instead of 1.0% (FALSE1-2, n = 24), or 1.0% instead o...

Volunteers who help with online crowdsourcing such as citizen science tasks typically make only a few contributions before exiting. We propose a computational approach for increasing users’ engagement in such settings that is based on optimizing policies for displaying motivational messages to users. The approach, which we refer to as Trajectory Corrected Intervention (TCI), reasons about the t...

PURPOSE Traumatic cardiac injury (TCI) is a challenge for trauma surgeons as it provides a short thera- peutic window and the management is often dictated by the underlying mechanism and hemodynamic status. The current study is to evaluate the factors influencing the outcome of TCI. METHODS Prospectively maintained database of TCI cases admitted at a Level-1 trauma center from July 2008 to Ju...

OBJECTIVE Numerous studies have reported association of the serotonin transporter gene (5-HTT) polymorphisms and neuroticism and traits characterizing sociability and activity. This study aimed to define a single genotype effect of three polymorphic markers in the 5-HTT gene (5-HTTLPR, A/G SNP in 5-HTTLPR and STin2 VNTR) and to check possible association of the 5-HTT haplotypes and personality ...

Trypanosoma cruzi, the causative agent of Chagas disease, is subdivided into six discrete typing units (DTUs; TcI-TcVI) of which TcI is ubiquitous and genetically highly variable. While clonality is the dominant mode of propagation, recombinant events play a significant evolutive role. Recently, foci of wild Triatoma infestans have been described in Bolivia, mainly infected by TcI. Hence, for t...

BACKGROUND Radiation therapy requires the patient to remain immobile for a long time, which is challenging in children. This study therefore aimed to determine the adequate target concentration and dosage of propofol in target-controlled infusion (TCI) and manual infusion (MI) in children requiring sedation for proton radiation therapy. Our hypothesis is that the adequate dose of propofol sedat...

Trypanosoma cruzi the agent of Chagas disease is a monophyletic but heterogeneous group conformed by several Discrete Typing Units (DTUs) named TcI to TcVI characterized by genetic markers. The trans-sialidase (TS) is a virulence factor involved in cell invasion and pathogenesis that is differentially expressed in aggressive and less virulent parasite stocks. Genes encoding TS-related proteins ...

Remote sensing is used for monitoring the impacts of meteorological drought on ecosystems, but few large-scale comparisons of the response timescale to drought of different vegetation remote sensing products are available. We correlated vegetation health products derived from polar-orbiting radiometer observations with a meteorological drought indicator available at different aggregation timesc...

BACKGROUND The start-up behavior of syringe and syringe pump is known to be one of the causes of inaccurate intravenous infusion. This study evaluated the method of priming the infusion system (PRIMING), and its impact on the target-controlled infusion (TCI) of two remifentanil diluents. METHODS PRIMING was performed using an evacuation of 2.0 ml to the atmosphere prior to TCI. Forty-eight TC...