Data from the US suggest that chronic hepatitis B (CHB) patients have aged in the past decade. click here However, the burden of non-liver comorbidities have not been well characterized in Taiwan, where CHB is very prevalent.
Our study examined this issue as it presented between 2001 and 2011in Taiwan.
This study identified adult patients (≥18 years) who were diagnosed with CHB in 2001, 2006, and 2011, from the Taiwan National Health Insurance Research Database (NHIRD). Changes in demographic characteristics, prevalence of non-liver comorbidities, and medication usage over the decade were examined. Non-CHB controls were adults without CHB diagnosis from the Longitudinal Health Insurance Database 2000 (LHID2000).
A total of 102,158, 252,809, and 338,200 eligible patients were identified in 2001, 2006, and 2011, respectively. The mean age significantly advanced from 45.4 to 52.3 years over the decade (P<0.001). The prevalence of comorbidities, including diabetes mellitus, hypertension, stroke, chronic kidney disease, and bone fracture all significantly increased between 2001 and 2011 (all P<0.001), as so were medication usage (all P<0.001). Moreover, within each study period, compared to non-CHB controls, CHB patients were also older and more likely to have metabolic and cardiovascular comorbidities (all P<0.001). In addition, the annual non-liver mortality in the CHB population significantly increased from 2001 to 2011.
Over a decade, the CHB population in Taiwan has aged with a higher non-liver comorbidity burden and increasing non-liver mortality. These findings may provide information to care providers in the monitoring and management of CHB patients.
Over a decade, the CHB population in Taiwan has aged with a higher non-liver comorbidity burden and increasing non-liver mortality. These findings may provide information to care providers in the monitoring and management of CHB patients.
Spontaneous intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH) is a frequent cerebrovascular disorder and still associated with high mortality and poor clinical outcomes. The purpose of this review was to update a 15-year-old former meta-analysis on randomized clinical trials (RCTs) addressing the question of whether ICH patients treated with dexamethasone have better outcomes than controls.
The electronic databases PubMed, SCOPUS, and Cochrane as well as web platforms on current clinical trials were searched for the years 1970-2020 without constriction on language. Data were extracted and outcomes were pooled for conventional and cumulative meta-analysis using a commercial software program (www.Meta-Analysis.com).
Finally, 7 RCTs were identified and analyzed including 248 participants in the dexamethasone groups and 242 in the control groups. Five studies showed a high risk of bias. The overall relative risk (RR) for death was 1.32 (95% confidence interval [CI] 0.99-1.76; p = 0.06) and did not differ significantly betweene is still lacking. Modern RCTs or observational studies with propensity design are necessary to evaluate the efficacy and safety of treatment with dexamethasone in patients with ICH.In this work the possibility of synthesizing in situ silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) on graphene oxide (GO) surfaces without commonly used additional reducing or alkalizing agents or increased temperature was investigated. Using diverse microscopic (atomic force microscopy, transmission electron microscopy) and spectroscopic methods, it was proved that very small AgNPs were formed on GO by simple incubation for 2 h in a mixture of GO dispersion and AgNO3. The prepared nanomaterial (GO_Ag) was also assessed using electrochemical methods, and it exhibited electrochemical behavior similar to the GO_Ag nanomaterial prepared with a help of citric acid as a reducing agent. Furthermore, it was found that (i) the electrochemical reduction of the GO_Ag on the electrode surface decreased the voltammetric response even though this step increased the surface conductivity and (ii) GO_Ag can be employed for the sensing of chlorides with a detection limit of 79 μM and a linear range of up to 10 mM. It could also provide an electrochemical response toward the chloroacetanilide herbicide metazachlor. Hence, the reducing capabilities of GO were proved to be applicable for in situ synthesis of metal nanoparticles with the highest possible simplification, and the as-prepared nanomaterials could be employed for fabrication of different electrochemical sensors.Using electron beam manipulation, we enable deterministic motion of individual Si atoms in graphene along predefined trajectories. Structural evolution during the dopant motion was explored, providing information on changes of the Si atom neighborhood during atomic motion and providing statistical information of possible defect configurations. The combination of a Gaussian mixture model and principal component analysis applied to the deep learning-processed experimental data allowed disentangling of the atomic distortions for two different graphene sublattices. This approach demonstrates the potential of e-beam manipulation to create defect libraries of multiple realizations of the same defect and explore the potential of symmetry breaking physics. The rapid image analytics enabled via a deep learning network further empowers instrumentation for e-beam controlled atom-by-atom fabrication. The analysis described in the paper can be reproduced via an interactive Jupyter notebook at https//git.io/JJ3Bx.Development an alternative approach to efficiently and economically produce hydrogen from water to replace non-renewable fossil fuels is one of the great challenges in the energy field. In this paper, a Co foam (CF) with 90% porosity and pore size of a few tens of micrometers was prepared, on which FeCoP nanoflowers were in-situ formed. Such a combination was used as a new electrocatalyst/self-supporting electrode for high efficiency hydrogen evolution reaction. Thanks to the larger surface area (and thus many more active sites), and quicker mass transfer through the porous structure, the CF supported FeCoP electrode exhibited much better hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) performance than the commercial Ni foam supported counterpart prepared under identical conditions. In the case of the former, only -44 mV overpotential was required to achieve a geometric current density of -10 mA cm-2, and the electrode showed a high stability at a current density less then -500 mA cm-2. The electrode developed in this work could be potentially used as a novel electrode for future large-scale production of hydrogen.click here
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