Focus Issue: Neck Dissection for Oropharyngeal Squamous Cell Carcinoma

The staging and prognosis of oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma is intimately tied to the status of the cervical lymph nodes. Due to the high risk for occult nodal disease, most clinicians recommend treating the neck for these primary tumors. While there are many modalities available, surgical resection of nodal disease offers both a therapeutic and a diagnostic intervention. We review the relevant anatomy, nodal drainage patterns, clinical workup, surgical management and common complications associated with neck dissection for oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma

Defining Quality of Life in the Children of Parents with Severe Mental Illness: A Preliminary Stakeholder-Led Model

Severe parental mental illness poses a challenge to quality of life (QoL) in a substantial number of children and adolescents, and improving the lives of these children is of urgent political and public health concern. This study used a bottom-up qualitative approach to develop a new stakeholder-led model of quality of life relevant to this population. Qualitative data were collected from 19 individuals participating in focus groups or individual interviews. Participants comprised 8 clinical academics, health and social care professionals or voluntary agency representatives; 5 parents and 6 young people (aged 13–18 yrs) with lived experience of severe parental mental illness. Data underwent inductive thematic analysis for the purposes of informing a population-specific quality of life model. Fifty nine individual themes were identified and grouped into 11 key ‘meta-themes’. Mapping each meta-theme against existing child-centred quality of life concepts revealed a multi-dimensional model that endorsed, to a greater or lesser degree, the core domains of generic quality of life models. Three new population-specific priorities were also observed: i) the alleviation of parental mental health symptoms, ii) improved problem-based coping skills and iii) increased mental health literacy. The identification of these priorities raises questions regarding the validity of generic quality of life measures to monitor the effectiveness of services for families and children affected by severe mental illness. New, age-appropriate instruments that better reflect the life priorities and unique challenges faced by the children of parents with severe mental illness may need to be developed. Challenges then remain in augmenting and adapting service design and delivery mechanisms better to meet these needs. Future child and adult mental health services need to work seamlessly alongside statutory education and social care services and a growing number of relevant third sector providers to address fully the quality of life priorities of these vulnerable families

Macaw Cam: Exploratory Camera Trap Techniques for Monitoring and Conservation of Scarlet Macaw (Ara macao) Nests

In this study, we explored new, low-cost camera trap techniques to monitor Scarlet Macaws in one of their last two self-sustaining habitats in Costa Rica. Camera trap monitors have begun to produce new insights in avian research and we use them not only because Macaws are threatened, but their imagery can be used to enhance the public’s understanding of the connections between science and conservation efforts. We mounted camera units on two trees with nesting Macaws in Costa Rica’s Carara National Park and monitored one nest remotely for seven consecutive months

A Longitudinal Assessment of Change in Blood Pressure Among Participants in the Heart Smarts Program

Many low-income areas of the United States are considered food deserts because people living in those communities have limited access to fresh fruits and vegetables (FFV); lack of FFV is tied to numerous health issues, including cardiovascular disease and obesity. The Heart Smarts Program (HSP) provides increased access to FFV in food deserts, as well as providing participants with nutrition education courses and health screenings, including blood pressure. The purpose of this study is to examine HSP participants who have been with the program for differing lengths of time in order to determine if length of participation has an impact on magnitude of change in blood pressure. Participants are self-selected members of the community who frequent the corner stores in which the HSP operates and who have chosen to participate in health screenings. The blood pressure readings of participants who had two or more screenings with the HSP were analyzed to determine the longitudinal impact of participation in the HSP on change in blood pressure. Analysis of the average change in both systolic and diastolic blood pressures between four groups of participants who had taken part in the HSP for differing lengths of time showed no significant difference (p=0.625, p=0.259). This indicates that increased length of participation in the HSP is not associated with a larger drop in blood pressure when compared to those who have participated for a shorter time. However, this study does not examine changes in weight, eating habits, and level of nutrition education, and therefore it is unable to determine the longitudinal effects of the HSP as a whole

Intelligence in offspring born to women exposed to intimate partner violence: a population-based cohort study

Background: Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a risk factor for developmental problems in offspring. Despite a high prevalence of IPV in the UK and elsewhere, the longer-term outcomes of offspring born to exposed mothers remain under-researched. Methods: Population-based cohort study. We assessed IPV prevalence by type and timing for 3,153 mother-child pairs with complete data within our study population and examined associations between IPV and offspring IQ. We used multiple-imputation to evaluate bias due to our exclusion of observations with missing covariate data. Results: Nearly one in five mothers reported IPV during the study period, with 17.6% reporting emotional violence and 6.8% reporting physical violence. Taking into account potential confounders, the IQ scores of children born to mothers exposed to physical violence remained lower than those of maternally unexposed children (full-scale IQ = −2.8 points [95%CI −4.9 to −0.7], verbal IQ = −2.2 [95%CI −4.4 to −0.1], performance IQ = −2.7 [95%CI  −5.0 to −0.5]) and odds of below-average intelligence (IQ<90) remained increased for full-scale (OR 1.48 [95%CI 1.03 to 2.14] and performance IQ (OR 1.48 [95%CI 1.08 to 2.04]) but not verbal IQ (OR 1.06 [95%CI 0.69 to 1.64]). Most physical violence occurred postnatally, and relative odds were most substantial when mothers were exposed to violence across pre-/perinatal and postnatal study periods (OR performance IQ<90 = 2.97 [95%CI 1.30 to 6.82]). Conclusions: Maternal exposure to physical IPV is associated with lower offspring IQ at age 8. Associations persisted after adjusting for potential confounders and were driven by violence occurring postnatally

Factors That Impact Student Performance in a Course Sequence

On-line courses have become an important component of the delivery of courses in all areas of education. The validity of online delivery is challenged if Web students perform poorly in subsequent major courses. This paper investigates the effect of mode of delivery and other factors on the level of success, failure, potential, and limitations of web delivery in course sequences. This study was conducted on a two-course sequence in the Computer Information Systems Department at Metropolitan State College of Denver. The result of this research identifies important factors impacting student success in this two course sequence

An Exploration Of The Impact Of Online Delivery In Prerequisite Courses On CIS Majors Course Sequence

On-line courses have become an important component of the delivery of courses in all areas of education. The validity of online delivery is challenged if Web students perform poorly in subsequent major courses. This paper investigates the level of success, failure, potential, and limitation of on-line delivery in the CIS area at MSCD. The result of this research will provide a framework for developing a methodology for this kind of study, allowing academic institutions to evaluate the success and utility of online courses

Finding Nature in Your Neighborhood: A Field Mapping Protocol for Community Based Assessment of Greenspace Access

The Audubon Society of Portland and PSU Capstone students developed the Greenspace Access Point Field Mapping Protocol during the summer of 2013. The protocol was developed as a tool for a community-based approach to inventorying open space access points and to generate more accurate information on open space access in the Portland-Metro region

eHive: An Artificial Intelligence workflow system for genomic analysis

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The Ensembl project produces updates to its comparative genomics resources with each of its several releases per year. During each release cycle approximately two weeks are allocated to generate all the genomic alignments and the protein homology predictions. The number of calculations required for this task grows approximately quadratically with the number of species. We currently support 50 species in Ensembl and we expect the number to continue to grow in the future.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We present eHive, a new fault tolerant distributed processing system initially designed to support comparative genomic analysis, based on blackboard systems, network distributed autonomous agents, dataflow graphs and block-branch diagrams. In the eHive system a MySQL database serves as the central blackboard and the autonomous agent, a Perl script, queries the system and runs jobs as required. The system allows us to define dataflow and branching rules to suit all our production pipelines. We describe the implementation of three pipelines: (1) pairwise whole genome alignments, (2) multiple whole genome alignments and (3) gene trees with protein homology inference. Finally, we show the efficiency of the system in real case scenarios.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>eHive allows us to produce computationally demanding results in a reliable and efficient way with minimal supervision and high throughput. Further documentation is available at: <url>http://www.ensembl.org/info/docs/eHive/</url>.</p