Experimental Predictions of The Functional Response of A Freshwater Fish

The functional response is the relationship between the feeding rate of an animal and its food density. It is reliant on two basic parameters; the volume searched for prey per unit time (searching rate) and the time taken to consume each prey item (handling time). As fish functional responses can be difficult to determine directly, it may be more feasible to measure their underlying behavioural parameters in controlled conditions and use these to predict the functional response. Here, we tested how accurately a Type II functional response model predicted the observed functional response of roach Rutilus rutilus, a visually foraging fish, and compared it with Type I functional response. Foraging experiments were performed by exposing fish in tank aquaria to a range of food densities, with their response captured using a two-camera videography system. This system was validated and was able to accurately measure fish behaviour in the aquaria, and enabled estimates of fish reaction distance, swimming speed (from which searching rate was calculated) and handling time to be measured. The parameterised Type II functional response model accurately predicted the observed functional response and was superior to the Type I model. These outputs suggest it will be possible to accurately measure behavioural parameters in other animal species and use these to predict the functional response in situations where it cannot be observed directly

Pathways to professionalism? Quality improvement, care pathways, and the interplay of standardisation and clinical autonomy.

Care pathways are a prominent feature of efforts to improve healthcare quality, outcomes and accountability, but sociological studies of pathways often find professional resistance to standardisation. This qualitative study examined the adoption and adaptation of a novel pathway as part of a randomised controlled trial in an unusually complex, non-linear field - emergency general surgery - by teams of surgeons and physicians in six theoretically sampled sites in the UK. We find near-universal receptivity to the concept of a pathway as a means of improving peri-operative processes and outcomes, but concern about the impact on appropriate professional judgement. However, this concern translated not into resistance and implementation failure, but into a nuancing of the pathways-as-realised in each site, and their use as a means of enhancing professional decision-making and inter-professional collaboration. We discuss our findings in the context of recent literature on the interplay between managerialism and professionalism in healthcare, and highlight practical and theoretical implications

Oceanic Sharks Clean at Coastal Seamount

Interactions between pelagic thresher sharks (Alopias pelagicus) and cleaner wrasse were investigated at a seamount in the Philippines. Cleaning associations between sharks and teleosts are poorly understood, but the observable interactions seen at this site may explain why these mainly oceanic sharks regularly venture into shallow coastal waters where they are vulnerable to disturbance from human activity. From 1,230 hours of observations recorded by remote video camera between July 2005 and December 2009, 97 cleaner-thresher shark events were analyzed, 19 of which were interrupted. Observations of pelagic thresher sharks interacting with cleaners at the seamount were recorded at all times of day but their frequency declined gradually from morning until evening. Cleaners showed preferences for foraging on specific areas of a thresher shark's body. For all events combined, cleaners were observed to conduct 2,757 inspections, of which 33.9% took place on the shark's pelvis, 23.3% on the pectoral fins, 22.3% on the caudal fin, 8.6% on the body, 8.3% on the head, 2.1% on the dorsal fin, and 1.5% on the gills respectively. Cleaners did not preferentially inspect thresher sharks by time of day or by shark sex, but there was a direct correlation between the amount of time a thresher shark spent at a cleaning station and the number of inspections it received. Thresher shark clients modified their behavior by “circular-stance-swimming,” presumably to facilitate cleaner inspections. The cleaner-thresher shark association reflected some of the known behavioral trends in the cleaner-reef teleost system since cleaners appeared to forage selectively on shark clients. Evidence is mounting that in addition to acting as social refuges and foraging grounds for large visiting marine predators, seamounts may also support pelagic ecology by functioning as cleaning stations for oceanic sharks and rays

Adjunctive granulocyte colony-stimulating factor for treatment of septic shock due to melioidosis

1427 E 60TH ST, CHICAGO, USA, IL, 60637-295

Mining and analysis of audiology data to find significant factors associated with tinnitus masker

Objectives: The objective of this research is to find the factors associated with tinnitus masker from the literature, and by using the large amount of audiology data available from a large NHS (National Health Services, UK) hearing aid clinic. The factors evaluated were hearing impairment, age, gender, hearing aid type, mould and clinical comments. Design: The research includes literature survey for factors associated with tinnitus masker, and performs the analysis of audiology data using statistical and data mining techniques. Setting: This research uses a large audiology data but it also faced the problem of limited data for tinnitus. Participants: It uses 1,316 records for tinnitus and other diagnoses, and 10,437 records of clinical comments from a hearing aid clinic. Primary and secondary outcome measures: The research is looking for variables associated with tinnitus masker, and in future, these variables can be combined into a single model to develop a decision support system to predict about tinnitus masker for a patient. Results: The results demonstrated that tinnitus maskers are more likely to be fit to individuals with milder forms of hearing loss, and the factors age, gender, type of hearing aid and mould were all found significantly associated with tinnitus masker. In particular, those patients having Age<=55 years were more likely to wear a tinnitus masker, as well as those with milder forms of hearing loss. ITE (in the ear) hearing aids were also found associated with tinnitus masker. A feedback on the results of association of mould with tinnitus masker from a professional audiologist of a large NHS (National Health Services, UK) was also taken to better understand them. The results were obtained with different accuracy for different techniques. For example, the chi-squared test results were obtained with 95% accuracy, for Support and Confidence only those results were retained which had more than 1% Support and 80% Confidence. Conclusions: The variables audiograms, age, gender, hearing aid type and mould were found associated with the choice of tinnitus masker in the literature and by using statistical and data mining techniques. The further work in this research would lead to the development of a decision support system for tinnitus masker with an explanation that how that decision was obtained

Non-equilibrium Condensation Process in a Holographic Superconductor

We study the non-equilibrium condensation process in a holographic superconductor. When the temperature T is smaller than a critical temperature T_c, there are two black hole solutions, the Reissner-Nordstrom-AdS black hole and a black hole with a scalar hair. In the boundary theory, they can be regarded as the supercooled normal phase and the superconducting phase, respectively. We consider perturbations on supercooled Reissner-Nordstrom-AdS black holes and study their non-linear time evolution to know about physical phenomena associated with rapidly-cooled superconductors. We find that, for T<T_c, the initial perturbations grow exponentially and, eventually, spacetimes approach the hairy black holes. We also clarify how the relaxation process from a far-from-equilibrium state proceeds in the boundary theory by observing the time dependence of the superconducting order parameter. Finally, we study the time evolution of event and apparent horizons and discuss their correspondence with the entropy of the boundary theory. Our result gives a first step toward the holographic understanding of the non-equilibrium process in superconductors.Comment: 20 pages, 7 figure

International variation in prescribing antihypertensive drugs: Its extent and possible explanations

BACKGROUND: Inexpensive antihypertensive drugs are at least as effective and safe as more expensive drugs. Overuse of newer, more expensive antihypertensive drugs is a poor use of resources. The potential savings are substantial, but vary across countries, in large part due to differences in prescribing patterns. We wanted to describe prescribing patterns of antihypertensive drugs in ten countries and explore possible reasons for inter-country variation. METHODS: National prescribing profiles were determined based on information on sales and indications for prescribing. We sent a questionnaire to academics and drug regulatory agencies in Canada, France, Germany, UK, US and the Nordic countries, asking about explanations for differences in prescribing patterns in their country compared with the other countries. We also conducted telephone interviews with medical directors of drug companies in the UK and Norway, the countries with the largest differences in prescribing patterns. RESULTS: There is considerable variation in prescribing patterns. In the UK thiazides account for 25% of consumption, while the corresponding figure for Norway is 6%. In Norway alpha-blocking agents account for 8% of consumption, which is more than twice the percentage found in any of the other countries. Suggested factors to explain inter-country variation included reimbursement policies, traditions, opinion leaders with conflicts of interests, domestic pharmaceutical production, and clinical practice guidelines. The medical directors also suggested hypotheses that: Norwegian physicians are early adopters of new interventions while the British are more conservative; there are many clinical trials conducted in Norway involving many general practitioners; there is higher cost-awareness among physicians in the UK, in part due to fund holding; and there are publicly funded pharmaceutical advisors in the UK. CONCLUSION: Two compelling explanations the variation in prescribing that warrant further investigation are the promotion of less-expensive drugs by pharmaceutical advisors in UK and the promotion of more expensive drugs through "seeding trials" in Norway