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Intraoperative neuromuscular blockade affects the resting tension between the vocal cords. We assessed the effect of neuromuscular blockade on postoperative sore throat and hoarseness following tracheal intubation in patients undergoing lumbar spinal surgery in the prone position. Altogether, 99 patients were included; 50 patients did not receive neuromuscular blockade, and 49 patients received moderate neuromuscular blockade during the maintenance of anesthesia. Neuromuscular blockade was performed depending on the use of intraoperative neurophysiological monitoring. The number of intubation attempts, time to achieve tracheal intubation, and duration of intubation were recorded accordingly. The incidence and severity of postoperative sore throat and hoarseness was assessed at 1, 6, and 24 h after surgery. The overall cumulative incidence of postoperative sore throat (60% vs. 59%, respectively; P  = 1.000) and postoperative hoarseness (68% vs. 61%, respectively; P  = 0.532) did not differ between the no neuromuscular blockade and moderate neuromuscular blockade. The incidence and severity of postoperative sore throat and hoarseness was also not different between the moderate and no neuromuscular blockade at each time point after surgery. Nevertheless, the incidences of postoperative sore throat and hoarseness were quite high. Further studies investigating strategies to alleviate them are warranted accordingly.

AMoRE is to search for neutrinoless double beta decay using Mo-100 enriched crystal scintillators at an ultra-low temperature. We have understood the major background sources and how they can be reduced from a pilot stage run in the Yangyang underground laboratory. AMoRE-I is currently running with twelve 48depl Ca 100 MoO 4 and five Li 2 100 MoO 4 crystals with a total mass of enriched 100 Mo 2.8 kg. The detector design for the main stage of the experiment, AMoRE-II, has been finalized and the detector is under construction in YemiLab, a new underground laboratory located in an iron mine with an average depth 2500 meter of water equivalent.

Unexpected cardiorespiratory compromise has been reported during ophthalmic arterial chemotherapy in pediatric patients with retinoblastoma. Although the underlying mechanisms remain unclear, autonomic responses are presumed to contribute to these events. We hypothesized that periprocedural heart rate variability would differ between patients with and without events. Between April 2018 and September 2019, 38 patients (age under 7 years) were included. Heart rate variability was analyzed using electrocardiogram, and oxygen reserve index was also monitored. Cardiorespiratory events were defined as > 30% changes in blood pressure or heart rate, > 20% changes in end-tidal carbon dioxide, > 40% changes in peak inspiratory pressure, or pulse oxygen saturation < 90% during ophthalmic artery catheterization. Heart rate variability and oxygen reserve index were compared between patients with and without cardiorespiratory events. Cardiorespiratory events occurred in 13/38 (34%) patients. During the events, end-tidal carbon dioxide was significantly lower (median difference [95% CI], − 2 [− 4 to − 1] mmHg, p = 0.006) and the maximum peak inspiratory pressure was higher (30 [25–37] vs. 15 [14–16] hPa, p < 0.001), compared to patients without events. Standard deviation of normal-to-normal R–R interval, total power, and very low-frequency power domain increased during selection of the ophthalmic artery in patients with events (all adjusted p < 0.0001), without predominancy of specific autonomic nervous alterations. Oxygen reserve index was significantly lower in patients with events than those without throughout the procedure (mean difference [95% CI], − 0.19 [− 0.32 to − 0.06], p = 0.005). Enhanced compensatory autonomic regulation without specific autonomic predominancy, and reduced oxygen reserve index was observed in patients with cardiorespiratory events than in patients without events.

Numbers of experiments are trying to measure an active-to-sterile neutrino oscillation using nuclear reactors. A precise measurement of the energy spectrum is also important to understand the reactor neutrinos and for their applications. The NEOS experiment is being conducted at 24 meter distance from a 2.8 gigawatt thermal power nuclear reactor core. It aims at finding a short baseline oscillation due to an eV scale sterile neutrino, and to provide a reactor neutrino energy spectrum with a high resolution and a high signal-to-background ratio.

Maxillary nerve block is widely used for treating trigeminal neuralgia. Common complications of the procedure include bleeding and sensory abnormalities, but ophthalmic complications have been rarely reported. A 60-year-old woman underwent maxillary nerve block for refractory trigeminal neuralgia. Ten minutes after the procedure had ended, the patient reported double vision when she tried to turn the left eye outward. After examination, the patient was presumed to have diplopia due to the abducens nerve block. However, the symptom disappeared approximately 30 minutes later without any treatment. Thus, to prevent diplopia, the dose of local anesthetics should be reduced. Moreover, negative blood aspiration should be confirmed during the injection. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first case to report diplopia after maxillary nerve block without neurolysis through the lateral infrazygomatic approach.

Lower right internal jugular vein (RIJ) stenosis has been reported as a common cause of RIJ catheterization failure. However, the risk factors for lower RIJ stenosis in patients undergoing cardiac surgery is unclear. We reviewed the electronic medical records of all adult patients who had undergone cardiac operations in a single tertiary university hospital from January 2014 to January 2016. Patients were excluded if they were lack of preoperative contrast-enhanced chest computed tomography (CT) studies. Lower RIJ stenosis was defined as a ratio of cross-sectional area at the smallest level to cross-sectional area at the largest level less than 25%. Multivariable logistic regression analyses were used to investigate the risk factors for lower RIJ stenosis. A sensitivity analysis was also conducted using a cross-sectional area ratio of under 20%. The analysis included 889 patients, and the incidence of lower RIJ stenosis was 3.9%. The multivariable logistic regression analyses revealed that hemodialysis was an independent risk factor for lower RIJ stenosis (OR, 3.54; 95% CI, 1.472–8.514). Sensitivity analysis provided that hemodialysis (OR, 10.842; 95% CI, 3.589–32.75) was a significant predictor of cross-sectional area ratio <20%. Preoperative hemodialysis are significantly associated with an increased risk of lower RIJ stenosis in patients undergoing cardiac surgery. Extra care is needed during central venous catheterization in hemodialysis patients undergoing cardiac surgery.

The NEON experiment, situated at the Hanbit Nuclear Power Plant, is designed to observe coherent neutrinonucleus scattering (CE{\\nu}NS) and search for dark sector particle such as axion-like particles (ALPs). Using six NaI(Tl) detector modules, data were collected during both reactor-on and reactor-off periods between April 2022 and June 2023, providing a total exposure of 1596 kg{\\cdot}days and 1467 kg{\\cdot}days, respectively. The search for ALPs leverages the difference between reactor-on and reactor-off datasets. A thorough understanding of time-dependent backgrounds, including cosmogenic activation and seasonal variations of radon contamination, is essential to the analysis. This paper presents detailed modeling of these backgrounds, identifying their contributions across different energy ranges and detector modules. Systematic uncertainties arising from energy resolution, background shape, and rate variations are considered in the final analysis. The results provide insights into the future potential of ALP searches in short-baseline reactor experiments and demonstrate the efficacy of background reduction techniques in the NEON experiment.

A precision measurment of inclusive electron scattering cross sections was carried out at Jefferson Lab in the quasi-elastic region for \\({^4}\\)He, \\({^{12}}\\)C, \\({^{56}}\\)Fe and \\({^{208}}\\)Pb targets. Longitudinal (\\(R_{L}\\)) and transverse (\\(R_{T}\\)) response functions of nucleon were extracted in the momentum transfer range 0.55 GeV/c$\\le$$|q|$$\\le\\(1.0 GeV/c. To achieve the above goal, a NaI (Tl) calorimeter was used to distinguish good electrons from background including pions and low energy electrons rescattered from walls of the spectrometer magnets. Due to a large set of kinematics and changes in HV settings, a number of calibrations were performed for the NaI (Tl) detector. Corrections for a few blocks of NaI (Tl) with bad or no signal were applied. The resolution of NaI (Tl) detector after calibration reached \\)\\frac{\\delta E}{\\sqrt{E}} \\approx 3\\%$ at E=1 GeV. The performance of NaI (Tl) detector was compared with a simulation.

A new experiment, which is called as NEOS (NEutrino Oscillation at Short baseline), is proposed on the site of Hanbit reactors at Yonggwang, South Korea, to investigate a reactor antineutrino anomaly. A homogeneous NEOS detector having a 1000-L target volume has been constructed and deployed at the tendon gallery ~25 m away from the reactor core. A linear alkylbenzene (LAB) is used as a main base solvent of the NEOS detector. Furthermore, a di-isopropylnaphthalene (DIN) is added to improve the light output and pulse shape discrimination (PSD) ability. The ratio of LAB to DIN is 90:10. PPO (3 g/L) and bis-MSB (30 mg/L) are dissolved to formulate the mixture of LAB- and DIN-based liquid scintillator (LS). Then, ~0.5% gadolinium (Gd) is loaded into the LS by using the solvent-solvent extraction technique. In this paper, we report the characteristics of Gd-loaded LS (GdLS) for the NEOS detector and the handling during mass production.