Management of refined and personalized newborn blood specimen collection.

Background: Iatrogenic blood loss is an important cause of neonatal anemia. In this study, a spreadsheet tool was developed to reduce blood collection, providing a new idea for the prevention of iatrogenic blood loss in newborns. Methods: Based on hematocrit, minimum test volume and dead volume, a new tool was to calculate the minimum blood collection volume and the number of containers required for the test portfolio. We collected data from October 2022 to October 2023 from Xiamen Maternal and Child Health Hospital for analysis and validation. Results: During this year, there were 16,434 patients and 13,696 plasma/serological samples in the neonatology department. Among them, there were 8 test combinations of greater than 1%, and 9490 samples in total. According to the hospital manual, the recommended amount of blood collection is 27,534 ml and 9490 containers. Through the analysis of this tool, total blood collection was 8864.77 ml, marked qnantity of upward containers (closest level to the calculated blood collection volume) was 10301 ml, and the amount of containers was 8835, which decreased by 67.8%, 62.58% and 6.9% respectively. Besides, if the hematocrit information cannot be obtained in advance and the high hematocrit is calculated as 0.8, the recommended amount of blood collection is 14334.3 ml, and the marked amount of the upward container markering is 17340 ml, decreasing by 47.9% and 37.02% respectively. Conclusion: We have developed an auxiliary tool that can manage neonatal blood specimen collection in a fine and personalized way and can be applied among different laboratory instruments by parameters modification.

Development and Validation of a Prediction Model for Venous Thrombus Embolism (VTE) in Patients With Colorectal Cancer.

Cancer patients are at high risk of developing venous thromboembolism (VTE). The risk of VTE could be mitigated with the administration of prophylactic anticoagulants. Therefore, risk assessment models would be a useful tool in order to identify those patients who are at higher risk and will be benefited more by prophylactic anticoagulants. This study retrospectively examined 528 newly diagnosed colorectal cancer patients from January 2019 to January 2021. Specified logistic regression models were employed to screen the factors and establish prediction tools based on nomograms according to the final included variables. Discrimination, calibration, and clinical applicability were used to assess the performance of screening tools. In addition, internal verifications were conducted through 10-fold cross-verification, leave-one-out cross-validation, and Bootstrap verification. Four risk factors, closely related to the occurrence of VTE in colorectal cancer patients, were identified after univariate and multivariate logistic regression, including age, body mass index, activated partial thromboplastin time, and D-Dimer value. Besides, the risk assessment model named ABAD was built on the basis, displaying good discriminations and calibrations. The area under the curve was 0.705 (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.644 to 0.766). According to Hosmer-Lemeshow goodness-of-fit test, a good agreement between the predicted and observed VTE events in patients with newly-diagnosed gastrointestinal cancer was observed for χ2 = 6.864, P = .551. Internal validation was applied with a C-index of 0.669 in the 10-fold cross-verification, 0.658 in the leave-one-out cross verification and 0.684 in the bootstrap verification. We developed a prediction model called ABAD for newly diagnosed colorectal cancer patients, which can be used to predict the risk of VTE. After evaluation and internal verification, we believe that ABAD exhibited high predictive performance and availability and could be recommended.

Programmable ExG biopotential front-end IC for wearable applications.

This paper presents a configurable CMOS integrated circuit front-end for the recording of a wide range of biopotentials (ExG). The system offers a choice between a single-differential or double-differential recording channel topology, wide continuously adjustable gain range (37-66 dB), selectable CMOS or BJT input stages, offset compensation, differential and buffered single-ended voltage output. Measured results from a prototype manufactured in 0.35 µm CMOS technology are presented. Practical recording examples of the electrocardiogram (ECG) and electromyogram (EMG) confirm its operation. The chip consumes between 110 and 324 µW depending on configuration, occupies a core area of 0.16 mm(2), achieves a CMRR > 97 dB , and 21 nV/√Hz input-referred noise. The chip is suited for combination with a microcontroller in long-term wearable physiological sensing applications.

[Determination of Pb and Cd in atomospheric particulates by flame atomic absorption spectrometry coupled with on-line flow injection pretreatment with ultrasonic leaching].

In this paper, the method for extracting the metals from the filter membrane of the atomospheric particulates with ultrasonic leaching was reported. The dissolution conditions of kinds and acidity as well as the interference conditions were studied. The method of determination Pb and Cd of the atomospheric particulates by flame atomic absorption spectrometry coupled with on-line flow injection preconcentration was proved to be rapid and accuracy. The recoveries are more than 97%. The relative standard deviation of six samples are less than 2.6%.