Equine peripheral caries can be a significant welfare issue in affected horses. Recent work has shown that complete reversal of the condition may be possible if the primary risk factor can be identified and corrected. Determining whether caries are active (deteriorating) or inactive (improving) is of vital importance when formulating a management and treatment plan. A new grading system is proposed that looks at whether caries are likely active or inactive to assist clinicians deciding whether intervention is required.
 
  To examine the reliability of an alternative grading method for equine peripheral caries.
 
  Online survey of veterinary surgeons.
 
  Reviewers (n=22) graded images of peripheral caries using three methods the traditional grading system, a new research grading system and a new clinical grading system. Percentage agreement and Fleiss' kappa were used to examine the participant's agreement of the severity of caries.
 
  All percentage agreements and Fleiss' kappa values were significantly greaternactive'. This is likely to be very useful clinically to assist practitioners to determine whether intervention is required.
  Research suggests that neonatal morbidity differs by maternal region of birth at different gestational ages. This study aimed to determine the overall and gestation-specific risk of neonatal morbidity by maternal region of birth, after adjustment for maternal, infant and birth characteristics, for women giving birth in New South Wales, Australia, from 2003 to 2016.
 
  The study utilized a retrospective cohort study design using linked births, hospital and deaths data. Modified Poisson regression was used to determine risk with 95% confidence intervals (95% CI) of neonatal morbidity by maternal region of birth, overall and at each gestational age, compared with Australian or New Zealand-born women giving birth at 39weeks.
 
  There were 1074930 live singleton births ≥32weeks' gestation that met the study inclusion criteria, and 44394 of these were classified as morbid, giving a neonatal morbidity rate of 4.13 per 100 live births. The gestational age-specific neonatal morbidity rate declined from 32weeks' gestation, reaching a minimum at 39weeks in all maternal regions of birth. The unadjusted neonatal morbidity rate was highest in South Asian-born women at most gestations. Adjusted rates of neonatal morbidity between 32 and 44weeks were significantly lower for babies born to East (adjusted relative risk [aRR] 0.65, 95% CI 0.62-0.68), South-east (aRR 0.76, 95% CI 0.73-0.79) and West Asian-born (aRR 0.93, 95% CI 0.88-0.98) mothers, and higher for babies of Oceanian-born (aRR 1.11, 95% CI 1.04-1.18) mothers, compared with Australian or New Zealand-born mothers. Babies of African, Oceanian, South Asian and West Asian-born women had a lower adjusted risk of neonatal morbidity than Australian or New Zealand-born women until 37 or 38weeks' gestation, and thereafter an equal or higher risk in the term and post-term periods.
 
  Maternal region of birth is an independent risk factor for neonatal morbidity in New South Wales.
 Maternal region of birth is an independent risk factor for neonatal morbidity in New South Wales.The impact of androgens on the thyroid in women is poorly understood. The aim of the present study was to investigate whether vitamin D/dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) combination therapy is superior to vitamin D alone in affecting thyroid autoimmunity and hypothalamic-pituitary-thyroid axis activity in young women with autoimmune thyroid disease. The study included 35 euthyroid women with untreated Hashimoto's thyroiditis and reduced sexual drive, allocated to one of two treatment groups.  https://www.selleckchem.com/products/l-ornithine-l-aspartate.html  The first group (n = 19) received both vitamin D and DHEA, while the second (n = 16) was treated with only vitamin D. Serum thyroid antibody titres and concentrations of thyrotropin, free thyroid hormones, dehydroepiandrosterone-sulphate (DHEA-S), 25-hydroxyvitamin D, testosterone and estradiol were measured at baseline and 6 months later. Vitamin D administered alone or in combination with DHEA decreased serum titres of thyroid peroxidase and thyroglobulin antibodies, which correlated with baseline antibody titres, baseline 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels and treatment-induced increase in 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels. Apart from a stronger effect on antibody titres, vitamin D/DHEA combination therapy slightly decreased thyrotropin levels, as well as increased DHEA-S and testosterone levels. In this group of women, treatment-induced changes in antibody titres and thyrotropin levels correlated with the impact on DHEA-S and testosterone. The obtained results suggest that vitamin D/DHEA combination therapy may be a better treatment option for euthyroid women with Hashimoto's thyroiditis than vitamin D alone.
  Ultrasound image segmentation is a challenging task due to a low signal-to-noise ratio and poor image quality. Although several approaches based on the convolutional neural network (CNN) have been applied to ultrasound image segmentation, they have weak generalization ability. We propose an end-to-end, multiple-channel and atrous CNN designed to extract a greater amount of semantic information for segmentation of ultrasound images.
 
  A multiple-channel and atrous convolution network is developed, referred to as MA-Net. Similar to U-Net, MA-Net is based on an encoder-decoder architecture and includes five modules the encoder, atrous convolution, pyramid pooling, decoder, and residual skip pathway modules. In the encoder module, we aim to capture more information with multiple-channel convolution and use large kernel convolution instead of small filters in each convolution operation. In the last layer, atrous convolution and pyramid pooling are used to extract multi-scale features. The architecture of the decnd images with high generalization, and therefore, it offers a useful tool for diagnostic application in ultrasound images.
  To estimate the association of smoking status with rates of (i) infection, (ii) hospitalization, (iii) disease severity and (iv) mortality from SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19 disease.
 
  Living rapid review of observational and experimental studies with random-effects hierarchical Bayesian meta-analyses. Published articles and pre-prints were identified via MEDLINE and medRxiv.
 
  Community or hospital, no restrictions on location.
 
  Adults who received a SARS-CoV-2 test or a COVID-19 diagnosis.
 
  Outcomes were SARS-CoV-2 infection, hospitalization, disease severity and mortality stratified by smoking status. Study quality was assessed (i.e. 'good', 'fair' and 'poor').
 
  Version 7 (searches up to 25 August 2020) included 233 studies with 32 'good' and 'fair' quality studies included in meta-analyses. Fifty-seven studies (24.5%) reported current, former and never smoking status. Recorded smoking prevalence among people with COVID-19 was generally lower than national prevalence. Current compared with never smokers were at reduced risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection [relative risk (RR)=0.