Assessment of Physician's Knowledge of Potential Drug-Drug Interactions: An Online Survey in China.

Background: Drug interactions are the most common preventable cause of adverse drug reaction, which may result in drug toxicity or undesired therapeutic effect with harmful outcomes to patients. Given the rising use of combination therapies, the main objectives of this study were to estimate the degree to which physicians can identify potential drug-drug interactions (PDDIs) correctly and to describe the common source of information used by physicians when they need to check PDDIs. Methods: A cross-sectional survey utilizing a self-administered online questionnaire was conducted among physicians in China. Participants were asked to classify 20 drug pairs as "no interaction," "may be used together with monitoring," "contraindication," and "not sure." We also collected data on the physician's source of information and altitude toward the PDDIs. An ordinary least square regression model was performed to investigate the potential predictors of PDDI knowledge. Results: Eligible questionnaires were obtained from 618 physicians. The respondents classified correctly 6.7 out of 20 drug pairs, or 33.4% of the drug interactions investigated. The number of drug pairs recognized by respondents was ranged from 0 to 16. The percentage of physicians who recognized specific drug pairs ranged from 8.3% for no interactions between conjugated estrogens and raloxifene, to 64.0% for the interaction between dopamine and phenytoin. When the respondents want to check PDDI information, the most commonly used source of information was package inserts (n = 572, 92.6%), followed by the Internet or mobile Apps (n = 424, 68.6%), consultation with clinical pharmacists (n = 384, 62.1%), medical textbooks (n = 374, 60.5%), knowledge base in Chinese (n = 283, 45.8%), and other physicians (n = 366, 59.2%). In the multiple regression analysis, the significant predictors of a higher number of recognized drug pairs were years of practice and altitudes toward PDDIs. Conclusion: In this online survey accessing physician's ability to detect PDDIs, less than half of the drug pairs were recognized, indicating unsatisfactory level of knowledge about the clinically significant drug interactions. Continuing education and accessible electronic database can help physicians detecting PDDIs and improve drug safety.

Conditional Random Fields with Least Absolute Shrinkage and Selection Operator to Classifying the Barley Genes Based on Expression Level Affected by the Fungal Infection.

The classical methods for the classification problem include hypothesis test with the Benjamini-Hochberg method, hidden Markov chain model, and support vector machine. One major application of the classification problem is gene expression analysis, for example, detecting the host genes having interaction with pathogen. The classical methods can be applied and have a good performance when the number of genes having interaction with the pathogen is not sparse with respect to the candidate genes. However, conditional random field (CRF), with an appropriate design, can be applied and have good performance even when it is sparse. In this work, we proposed a modified CRF with a baseline to reduce the number of parameters in CRF. Moreover, we show an application of CRF with the least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) to classifying barley genes of its reaction to the pathogen.

[Classification for retrognathism malocclusions and its predictive assessment of progressive growth patterns].

Classification for retrognathism malocclusions, assessed and determined by facial concavity, dento-basal compensation, skeletal discrepancy and mandibular morphology, includes dento-alveolar, mandibular positioning and skeletal categories. The skeletal category further consists of 3 subtypes, namely, maxillary originated, mandibular originated and maxillo-mandibular originated. The inspection of cephalometric images reveals that the mandibular contours in dento-alveolar, mandibular positioning and skeleto-maxillary originated categories present with flat and rectangular shapes; and in skeleto-mandibular originated and maxillo-mandibular originated subtypes, massive triangular shapes are distinctive. A longitudinal observation indicates that, spanning the course from the onset to the cessation of pubertal growth spurt, the prognosis of growth patterns remains stable and relatively favorable in dento-alveolar, mandibular positioning and skeleto-maxillary originated categories, but deteriorates and becomes unfavorable in skeleto-mandibular originated and maxillo-mandibular originated subtypes. The skeletal categories with triangle mandible coupled with deep curvature of symphysis hold high likelihood of relapse and are expected to achieve optimal correction by surgical interventions，although the orthopedic therapies are still advisable in the early stage.

NanoCOT: Low-Cost Nanostructured Electrode Containing Carbon, Oxygen, and Titanium for Efficient Oxygen Evolution Reaction.

Developing high-efficiency, durable, and low-cost catalysts based on earth-abundant elements for the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) is essential for renewable energy conversion and energy storage devices. In this study, we report a highly active nanostructured electrode, NanoCOT, which contains carbon, oxygen, and titanium, for efficient OER in alkaline solution. The NanoCOT electrode is synthesized from carbon transformation of TiO2 in an atmosphere of methane, hydrogen, and nitrogen at a high temperature. The NanoCOT exhibits enhanced OER catalytic activity in alkaline solution, providing a current density of 1.33 mA/cm(2) at an overpotential of 0.42 V. This OER current density of a NanoCOT electrode is about 4 times higher than an oxidized Ir electrode and 15 times higher than a Pt electrode because of its nanostructured high surface area and favorable OER kinetics. The enhanced catalytic activity of NanoCOT is attributed to the presence of a continuous energy band of the titanium oxide electrode with predominantly reduced defect states of Ti (e.g., Ti(1+), Ti(2+), and Ti(3+)) formed by chemical reduction with hydrogen and carbon. The OER performance of NanoCOT can also be further enhanced by decreasing its overpotential by 150 mV at a current density of 1.0 mA/cm(2) after coating its surface electrophoretically with 2.0 nm IrOx nanoparticles.

Key techniques and risk management for the application of the Pile-Beam-Arch (PBA) excavation method: a case study of the Zhongjie subway station.

The design and construction of shallow-buried tunnels in densely populated urban areas involve many challenges. The ground movements induced by tunneling effects pose potential risks to infrastructure such as surface buildings, pipelines, and roads. In this paper, a case study of the Zhongjie subway station located in Shenyang, China, is examined to investigate the key construction techniques and the influence of the Pile-Beam-Arch (PBA) excavation method on the surrounding environment. This case study discusses the primary risk factors affecting the environmental safety and summarizes the corresponding risk mitigation measures and key techniques for subway station construction using the PBA excavation method in a densely populated urban area.

Reliability assessment and correlation analysis of evaluating orthodontic treatment outcome in Chinese patients.

This study aimed to assess the reliability of experienced Chinese orthodontists in evaluating treatment outcome and to determine the correlations between three diagnostic information sources. Sixty-nine experienced Chinese orthodontic specialists each evaluated the outcome of orthodontic treatment of 108 Chinese patients. Three different information sources: study casts (SC), lateral cephalometric X-ray images (LX) and facial photographs (PH) were generated at the end of treatment for 108 patients selected randomly from six orthodontic treatment centers throughout China. Six different assessments of treatment outcome were made by each orthodontist using data from the three information sources separately and in combination. Each assessment included both ranking and grading for each patient. The rankings of each of the 69 judges for the 108 patients were correlated with the rankings of each of the other judges yielding 13 873 Spearman rs values, ranging from -0.08 to +0.85. Of these, 90% were greater than 0.4, showing moderate-to-high consistency among the 69 orthodontists. In the combined evaluations, study casts were the most significant predictive component (R(2)=0.86, P<0.000 1), while the inclusion of lateral cephalometric films and facial photographs also contributed to a more comprehensive assessment (R(2)=0.96, P<0.000 1). Grading scores for SC+LX and SC+PH were highly significantly correlated with those for SC+LX+PH (r(SC+LX)vs.(SC+LX+PH)=0.96, r(SC+PH)vs.(SC+LX+PH)=0.97), showing that either SC+LX or SC+PH is an excellent substitute for all three combined assessment.