Media coverage of violence against women in India: a systematic study of a high profile rape case.

BACKGROUND: On December 16, 2012 a 23 year old female was gang-raped on a bus in Delhi. We systematically reviewed professional online media sources used to inform the timing, breadth of coverage, opinions and consistency in the depiction of events surrounding the gang-rape. METHODS: We searched two news databases (LexisNexis Academic and Factivia) and individual newspapers for English-language published media reports covering the gang-rape. Two reviewers screened the media reports and extracted data regarding the time, location and content of each report. Results were summarized qualitatively. RESULTS: We identified 534 published media reports. Of these, 351 met our eligibility criteria. Based on a time chart, the total number of reports published increased steadily through December, but plateaued to a steady rate of articles per day by the first week of January. Content analysis revealed significant discrepancies between various media reports. From the 57 articles which discussed opinions about the victim, 56% applauded her bravery, 40% discussed outrage over the events and 11% discussed cases of victim-blaming. CONCLUSIONS: The global media response of the December 16th gang-rape in India resulted in highly inconsistent depiction of the events. These findings suggest that although the spread of information through media is fast, it has major limitations.

High yielding preparation of dicarba-closo-dodecaboranes using a silver(I) mediated dehydrogenative alkyne-insertion reaction.

The synthesis of 1,2-dicarba-closo-dodecaboranes (ortho-carboranes) is often low yielding which is a critical issue given the increasing use of boron clusters in material science and medicinal chemistry. To address this barrier, a series of Cu, Ag, and Au salts were screened to identify compounds that would enhance the yields of ortho-caboranes produced when treating alkynes with B10H12(CH3CN)2. Using a variety of functionalized ligands including mono- and polyfunctional internal and terminal alkynes, significant increases in yield were observed when AgNO3 was used in catalytic amounts. AgNO3 appears to prevent unwanted reduction/hydroboration of the alkyne prior to carborane formation, and the process is compatible with aryl, halo, hydroxy, nitrile, carbamate, and carbonyl functionalized alkynes.

A real world evaluation of the long-term efficacy of strategies to prevent chronic Pseudomonas aeruginosa pulmonary infection in children with cystic fibrosis.

BACKGROUND: Children with cystic fibrosis (CF) are susceptible to chronic Pseudomonas aeruginosa (PA) infection. Early eradication of PA has proven short-term efficacy. No studies have evaluated the long- term impact of early eradication for CF patients, particularly those diagnosed by newborn screening (NBS). Our objective was to quantify the long-term impact of early PA eradication on the risk of chronic PA infection in children (0-18 years old) with CF prior to and following the introduction of a province-wide NBS program. METHODS: This 20-year retrospective cohort study compared 94 patients eligible for treatment with inhaled tobramycin at first PA isolation ("recent cohort") with 27 historical controls ("historical cohort"). RESULTS: A smaller proportion of patients in the recent cohort developed chronic PA (24% versus 78%; P<0.001); the adjusted risk of chronic infection was 2.90 (95%CI 1.47, 5.76; P=0.002) in the historical vs recent cohort. However, NBS was not independently associated with the risk of chronic PA infection after its introduction. CONCLUSIONS: Early eradication of PA, irrespective of early diagnosis, is associated with reduced risk of chronic PA. However, concomitant improvements in medical care since the introduction of early eradication protocols may have contributed to these long-term observed benefits.

All grades of severity of postoperative adverse events are associated with prolonged length of stay after lung cancer resection.

OBJECTIVE: To determine whether all grades of severity of postoperative adverse events are associated with prolonged length of stay in patients undergoing pulmonary cancer resection. METHODS: This was a retrospective cohort study of all patients who underwent pulmonary resection with curative intent for malignancy at The Ottawa Hospital, Division of Thoracic Surgery (January 2008 to July 2015). Postoperative adverse events were collected prospectively with the Thoracic Morbidity & Mortality System, based on the Clavien-Dindo severity classification. Patient demographics, comorbidities, preoperative investigations, cardiopulmonary assessment, pathologic staging, operative characteristics, and length of stay were retrospectively reviewed. Prolonged hospital stay was defined as >75th percentile for each procedure performed (wedge resection 6 days, segmentectomy 6 days, lobectomy 7 days, extended lobectomy 8 days, pneumonectomy 10 days). Univariable and multivariable logistic regression analyses were conducted to identify factors associated with prolonged hospital stay. RESULTS: Of 1041 patients, 579 (55.6%) were female, 610 (58.1%) were >65 years old, 232 (22.3%) experienced prolonged hospital stay, and 416 (40.0%) patients had ≥1 postoperative adverse event. Multivariable analyses identified significant (P < .05) factors associated with prolonged hospital stay to be (odds ratio; 95% confidence interval): lower diffusion capacity of the lung for carbon monoxide (0.99; 0.98-0.99), surgical approach: open thoracotomy (1.8; 1.3-2.5), and presence of any postoperative adverse event: Grade I (5.8; 3.3-10.2), Grade II (6.0; 4.0-8.9), Grade III (11.4; 7.0-18.7), and Grade IV (19.40; 7.1-55.18). CONCLUSIONS: Lower diffusion capacity of the lung for carbon monoxide, open thoracotomy approach, and the development of any postoperative adverse event, including minor events that required no additional therapy, were factors associated with prolonged hospital stay.

Impact of Surgeon Self-evaluation and Positive Deviance on Postoperative Adverse Events After Non-cardiac Thoracic Surgery.

As an innovative approach to improve quality of surgical care, we combined surgeon self-assessment and anonymized peer comparison with continuous quality improvement seminars using positive deviance (CQI/PD) to identify surgeon(s) with the lowest rates of adverse events (AEs) to guide group practice recommendations. Our objective was to quantify the impact these interventions on postoperative AEs rates after major non-cardiac chest operations. All postoperative AEs after all thoracic operations (n = 1,084, March, 2013 to February, 2016, single-center) were prospectively collected using the thoracic morbidity and mortality system, based on Clavien-Dindo schema. Online software provided surgeons (n = 6) with self-evaluation and peer comparison at all times. In addition, quarterly CQI/PD seminars (n = 8, September, 2013 to December, 2015) focused on common impactful AEs: atrial fibrillation (AFIB), prolonged alveolar air leak (PAAL), and anastomotic leak (AL). Impact was analyzed using univariate statistics 6, 9, and 12 months before and after implementation. We observed reductions of postoperative AEs after CQI/PD: a decrease (all time periods) in AFIB, greatest at 6 months (10.1% vs. 6.7%; p = .36); a decrease (all time periods) in PAAL, greatest at 12 months (18.9% vs. 11.7%; p < .05); and decrease (6 and 9 months) in AL, greatest at 6 months (11.1% vs. 8.3%; p = .82). Improvements in AE rates after individual surgeon self-evaluation and CQI/PD seminars provide encouraging results that merit further investigation.