Milton and the Early Modern Culture of Devotion: Bodies at Prayer

Milton and the Early Modern Culture of Devotion: Bodies at Prayer urges scholars to pay closer attention to the ways in which Milton connects bodies to faith, suggesting that the body at prayer both expresses internal devotion and produces and embodies that devotion itself

Computational approaches for metagenomic analysis of high-throughput sequencing data

High-throughput DNA sequencing has revolutionised microbiology and is the foundation on which the nascent field of metagenomics has been built. This ability to cheaply sample billions of DNA reads directly from environments has democratised sequencing and allowed researchers to gain unprecedented insights into diverse microbial communities. These technologies however are not without their limitations: the short length of the reads requires the production of vast amounts of data to ensure all information is captured. This “data deluge” has been a major bottleneck and has necessitated the development of new algorithms for analysis. Sequence alignment methods provide the most information about the composition of a sample as they allow both taxonomic and functional classification but algorithms are prohibitively slow. This inefficiency has led to the reliance on faster algorithms which only produce simple taxonomic classification or abundance estimation, losing the valuable information given by full alignments against annotated genomes. This thesis will describe k-SLAM, a novel ultra-fast method for the alignment and taxonomic classification of metagenomic data. Using a k -mer based method k-SLAM achieves speeds three orders of magnitude faster than current alignment based approaches, allowing a full taxonomic classification and gene identification to be tractable on modern large datasets. The alignments found by k-SLAM can also be used to find variants and identify genes, along with their nearest taxonomic origins. A novel pseudo-assembly method produces more specific taxonomic classifications on species which have high sequence identity within their genus. This provides a significant (up to 40%) increase in accuracy on these species. Also described is a re-analysis of a Shiga-toxin producing E. coli O104:H4 isolate via alignment against bacterial and viral species to find antibiotic resistance and toxin producing genes. k-SLAM has been used by a range of research projects including FLORINASH and is currently being used by a number of groups.Open Acces

Prospectus for Improving Measure II Scores of Hospice Visits when Death is Imminent in the Hospice Item Set

Abstract Problem: Center for Medicare Services (CMS) created a new quality measure pair to collect data on hospice visit patterns by a registered nurse in the last three days of life (Measure I), and at least two visits by a social worker, home health aide, licensed vocational nurse or spiritual counselor in the last seven days of life (Measure II). A hospital-based hospice organization created a quality improvement project to address this problem and improve both parts of the measure pair, but special emphasis was placed on improving Measure II, as initial data revealed the team met the goal only 41% of the time (Jan 2017, n=34). Context: The organizational hospice must rely on non-LVN staff members to meet Measure II scores, such as home health aides, medical social workers and/or spiritual counselors. As a result, RN staff increase their visit frequencies as death nears. The unintended, but positive effect is it helps to meet Hospice Item Set (HIS) Measure I. One could argue it also improves the overall patient and family care experience. Interventions: Interventions include creating a team secure text messaging for coordination of care, utilizing an imminence filter in the electronic medical record and creating a new report to utilize the imminent filter to track imminent patients daily. Interventions are organized through Plan/Do/Study/Act (PDSA) cycles. Measures: Three main measures were created. Firstly, we measured least two visits by non-RN clinician in the last seven days of life, using a monthly run chart. Secondly, we reviewed the percent number of patients with \u3e2 visits scheduled prior to death, measured with a daily imminent report. Finally, we created a spreadsheet to measure how often the clinicians were notifying each other that a patient was imminent. Results: The project showed dramatic improvement in meeting visit metrics, reaching 80.77% for Measure II. Equally dramatic improvement was seen in patient satisfaction scores from 72.7% (Q2, 2017) to 80% (Q1, 2018), with Q2, 2018 scores increasing to 83%, an ~11% increase. Conclusions: Measure II improved via new workflow to track visits and report on imminent patients. HIS visit frequency improvement was tied to increases in patient satisfaction. The sustainability plan includes ensuring hard-wiring of imminent workflow tracking for clinical, clerical and supervisory staff

Murphy\u27s Law: The Pan Am Corollary

The venerable tension between marine protection and indemnity underwriters and marine cargo risk underwriters has increased materially as the result of a 1977 decision by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in Pan American World Airways, Inc. v. California Stevedore and Ballast Co. (Pan Am). This decision is already breeding litigation, and there will certainly be more to come. Unfortunately, due to a scholastically and technically erroneous reading of the case by some members of the admiralty bar and bench, it is also causing practical problems for carriers and cargo interests alike

Milton and the Early Modern Culture of Devotion: Bodies at Prayer

Milton and the Early Modern Culture of Devotion: Bodies at Prayer urges scholars to pay closer attention to the ways in which Milton connects bodies to faith, suggesting that the body at prayer both expresses internal devotion and produces and embodies that devotion itself

Tentative Evidence for Relativistic Electrons Generated by the Jet of the Young Sun-like Star DG Tau

Synchrotron emission has recently been detected in the jet of a massive protostar, providing further evidence that certain jet formation characteristics for young stars are similar to those found for highly relativistic jets from AGN. We present data at 325 and 610 MHz taken with the GMRT of the young, low-mass star DG Tau, an analog of the Sun soon after its birth. This is the first investigation of a low-mass YSO at at such low frequencies. We detect emission with a synchrotron spectral index in the proximity of the DG Tau jet and interpret this emission as a prominent bow shock associated with this outflow. This result provides tentative evidence for the acceleration of particles to relativistic energies due to the shock impact of this otherwise very low-power jet against the ambient medium. We calculate the equipartition magnetic field strength (0.11 mG) and particle energy (4x10^40 erg), which are the minimum requirements to account for the synchrotron emission of the DG Tau bow shock. These results suggest the possibility of low energy cosmic rays being generated by young Sun-like stars.Comment: 19 pages, 2 figures, accepted for publication in ApJ Letter

Physical Activity among Older American Indians and Alaska Natives

Introduction: Life style behaviors contribute to poor health among older Americans Indians/Alaska Native (AI/AN) in the United States, with low levels of physical activity (PA) particularly tied to the chronic disease profile of this population. Searched reviews of physical activity among AI/ANs are limited in assessing prevalence and correlates to PA among older adults \u3e 40 years. Methods: A literature search of reported physical activity studies among older AI/AN was assessed for prevalence and predictive factors associated with levels of physical activity. Results: Fourteen studies were included in this review that either specifically quantified the amount of physical activity among older adult AI/ANs or discussed factors that were associated with physical activity. Being younger, employed, male, perceiving social support are associated with higher levels of physical activity. Urban versus rural living shows varying effects, possibly due to different types of activities not represented on standard physical activity reporting tools. Discussion: There is a trend for physical activity levels among older AI/ANs to be less than the recommended levels. Reports of physical activity across a wide range of tribes and localities vary with measurement methods contributing to the unevenness in reporting. Conclusion: Findings may serve to guide physical activity research toward more localized and culturally relevant assessment and inform practice agendas among older AI/AN

Effects of the Cle Elum Reservoir on the Ephemeroptera (Mayflies) of the Cle Elum River

The purpose of this study was to determine the physical and chemical effects of the Cle Elum Reservoir on the Cle Elum River and to evaluate these effects in respect to the Ephemeroptera of the Cle Elum River. Specific objectives were: (1) To determine the effects of the reservoir on current velocity, volume of flow, turbidity, and temperature. (2) To determine the effects of the reservoir on alkalinity, hardness, dissolved oxygen, and pH. (3) To evaluate the effects of the reservoir on the Ephemeroptera of the Cle Elum River