7,559 research outputs found
Formal ontology for biomedical knowledge systems integration
The central hypothesis of the collaboration between Language and Computing (L&C) and the Institute for Formal Ontology and Medical Information Science (IFOMIS) is that the methodology and conceptual rigor of a philosophically inspired formal ontology will greatly benefit software application ontologies. To this end LinKBase®, L&C’s ontology, which is designed to integrate and reason across various external databases simultaneously, has been submitted to the conceptual demands of IFOMIS’s Basic Formal Ontology (BFO). With this, we aim to move beyond the level of controlled vocabularies to yield an ontology with the ability to support reasoning applications
Standards and separatism: the discursive construction of gender in English soccer coach education
Affirmative action is a problematic, but common,
organizational approach to redressing gender discrimination
as it fails to address discourses underlying organizational
definitions and practices in highly masculinized sites like
English football. Unstructured interviews with 27 key
personnel and participants in coach education in the north
of England within a regional “division” of the organization
regulating English football (“The FA”) were conducted to
explore the gendered construction and enactment of football
and coaching, and the framing of women-only (separatist)
coaching courses. Critical discourse analysis identified the
deployment of discourses concerning the undermining of
standards and the privileging of women as strategies used
to neutralize the significance of gender and previous gender
discrimination, while re/producing the centrality of masculinity for key definitions and identities
Public health and the economy could be served by reallocating medical expenditures to social programs.
As much as 30% of US health care spending in the United States does not improve individual or population health. To a large extent this excess spending results from prices that are too high and from administrative waste. In the public sector, and particularly at the state level, where budget constraints are severe and reluctance to raise taxes high, this spending crowds out social, educational, and public-health investments. Over time, as spending on medical care increases, spending on improvements to the social determinants of health are starved. In California the fraction of General Fund expenditures spent on public health and social programs fell from 34.8% in fiscal year 1990 to 21.4% in fiscal year 2014, while health care increased from 14.1% to 21.3%. In spending more on healthcare and less on other efforts to improve health and health determinants, the state is missing important opportunities for health-promoting interventions with a strong financial return. Reallocating ineffective medical expenditures to proven and cost-effective public health and social programs would not be easy, but recognizing its potential for improving the public's health while saving taxpayers billions of dollars might provide political cover to those willing to engage in genuine reform. National estimates of the percent of medical spending that does not improve health suggest that approximately $5 billion of California's public budget for medical spending has no positive effect on health. Up to 10,500 premature deaths could be prevented annually by reallocating this portion of medical spending to public health. Alternatively, the same expenditure could help an additional 418,000 high school students to graduate
Political Violence and Excess Liquidity in Egypt
In this article we estimate a time-series model of excess liquidity in the Egyptian banking sector. While financial liberalisation and financial stability are found to have reduced excess liquidity, these effects have been offset by an increase in the number of violent political incidents arising from conflict between radical Islamic groups and the Egyptian state. The link between political events and financial outcomes provides a rationale for economic policy interventions by the international community in response to increases in political instability
Prevention of osteoporotic refractures in regional Australia
Objective: Clinical guidelines recommend that patients who sustain a minimal trauma fracture (MTF) should receive a bone mineral density (BMD) scan and bisphosphonate (or equivalent) therapy if diagnosed with osteoporosis. A pilot fracture liaison service (FLS) was implemented in regional NSW to improve adherence to the guidelines.
Design: Prospective cohort study with an historical control.
Setting: Primary care.
Participants: Control (n = 47) and cohort (n = 93) groups comprised patients consenting to interview who presented with a MTF to the major referral hospital 4 months before and 12 months after FLS implementation respectively.
Main outcome measures: Primary outcome measures were the rates of BMD scans and anti-osteoporotic medication initiation/review after MTF. Hospital admission data were also examined to determine death and refracture rates for all patients presenting during the study period with a primary diagnosis of MTF within 3 years of their initial fracture.
Results: Although there was no improvement in BMD scanning rates, the reported rate of medication initiation/review after fracture was significantly higher (P \u3c 0.05) in the FLS cohort. However, once adjusted for age, this association was not significant (P = 0.086). There was a lower refracture rate during the cohort period (P = 0.013), however, there were significantly more deaths (P = 0.035) within 3 years of initial fracture. When deaths were taken into account via competing risk regression, patients in the cohort period were significantly less likely to refracture than those in the control period (Hazard ratio = 0.576, P = 0.032).
Conclusions: A rurally based nurse-led FLS was associated with modest improvement after MTF. Consideration should be given to ways to strengthen the model of care to improve outcomes
Germ-line and somatic EPHA2 coding variants in lens aging and cataract
Rare germ-line mutations in the coding regions of the human EPHA2 gene (EPHA2) have been associated with inherited forms of pediatric cataract, whereas, frequent, non-coding, single nucleotide variants (SNVs) have been associated with age-related cataract. Here we sought to determine if germ-line EPHA2 coding SNVs were associated with age-related cataract in a case-control DNA panel (> 50 years) and if somatic EPHA2 coding SNVs were associated with lens aging and/or cataract in a post-mortem lens DNA panel (> 48 years). Micro-fluidic PCR amplification followed by targeted amplicon (exon) next-generation (deep) sequencing of EPHA2 (17-exons) afforded high read-depth coverage (1000x) for > 82% of reads in the cataract case-control panel (161 cases, 64 controls) and > 70% of reads in the post-mortem lens panel (35 clear lens pairs, 22 cataract lens pairs). Novel and reference (known) missense SNVs in EPHA2 that were predicted in silico to be functionally damaging were found in both cases and controls from the age-related cataract panel at variant allele frequencies (VAFs) consistent with germ-line transmission (VAF > 20%). Similarly, both novel and reference missense SNVs in EPHA2 were found in the post-mortem lens panel at VAFs consistent with a somatic origin (VAF > 3%). The majority of SNVs found in the cataract case-control panel and post-mortem lens panel were transitions and many occurred at di-pyrimidine sites that are susceptible to ultraviolet (UV) radiation induced mutation. These data suggest that novel germ-line (blood) and somatic (lens) coding SNVs in EPHA2 that are predicted to be functionally deleterious occur in adults over 50 years of age. However, both types of EPHA2 coding variants were present at comparable levels in individuals with or without age-related cataract making simple genotype-phenotype correlations inconclusive
A large advanced freight aircraft: F-81
Commercial air freight operations have grown in importance in
recent years, due mainly to cost reductions caused by increasing aircraft
and freight-terminal efficiencies. The bulk of this traffic is carried
in the underfloor holds of wide-body passenger aircraft, but there is
a significant sector of the market served by 'dedicated' freighters
such as the 747F and DC8-63F. These aircraft are often equipped with
standard containers and pallets which are loaded at factories or freight
depots. The largest and most efficient container is the 8 ft x 8 ft x 20 ft
size
NASA felt the need to study the air-freight market and commissioned
the extensive C.L.A.S.S. study (Ref.1). This report suggested that
significant operating cost savings would be required, together with
improved ground interfaces, to make more inroads into the surface transport
market.
It studied the economics of aircraft derived from current types,
together with new designs. The former was more immediately attractive,
but a market existed for new aircraft from the mid 1990's.
The most attractive new type would be a long range aircraft with
payload in the 75 to 165 ton range. The lower size aircraft was
slightly more economic, but would pose grave airport frequency
saturation problems and therefore a larger aircraft was preferable. Aircraft
much above the 165 ton class however, would lead to development
costs higher than the market could stand.
An aircraft of about 165 tons payload seemed to be a good solution
which could be made more attractive if it were designed to satisfy both
civil and military requirements, thus spreading development costs. This
philosophy was aimed at during the design of the Lockheed C-141 but
too much emphasis was placed on military properties and no civil versions
were sold. This should be avoided on a new design which should be capable
of augmenting and partially replacing current fleets of 747F, DC10 CF
and Lockheed C-5A aircraft … [cont.]
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