Reproductive Misconception: Why Cloning Is Not Just Another Assisted Reproductive Technology

Nowadays, many different efficient solutions are being studied to solve engineering problems. Inside this group of solutions we can find the Soil Steel Composite Bridges (SSCB) as an alternative to traditional bridges. SSCB are being used more often every day and they are showing themselves as competitive structures in terms of feasibility and constructability. This project was started to achieve two different goals. The first one was to create a general database of SSCB including few selected tests all around the world and the second one was to compare and discuss full scale tests using the Pettersson-Sundquist design method. To create the database and the following comparisons, twenty-five different full scale tests were used. From this tests all the necessary information was extracted and used to create the database. After creating the database, the project continued with the discussion and comparison of the full scale tests. Specifically those discussions and comparisons were related to the resistance of the soil (the soil modulus) used in the construction of the SSCB. All the values of the different soil modulus of each full scale test used in the comparisons were calculated using the Swedish Design Manual (SDM). Two different types of soil modulus were calculated in this project using SDM, ones are the soil modulus back calculated using the values reported from the live load tests performed on the culverts and the others are theoretical soil modulus calculated using the detailed information of the soil. The report continues with the explanation of the different conclusions ended up with during this project. It can be highlighted within this group of conclusions, the one related to the importance of reporting all the necessary information from the full scale tests including the soil parameters, the measures of the culvert, the cross sectional parameters and the vehicle dimensions among others. Another important conclusions are the effect of using the slabs over the top of the culvert and how it would effect to the sectional forces over the culvert and also the limitations using method B of the SDM regarding the type of soil used as backfilling Finally, the project finishes explaining some proposals for future research about other fields of the study of SSCB.

Contact dermatitis seen at the National Institute for Occupational Health (NIOH) dermatology clinic

MMed (Community Health), Faculty of Health Sciences, University of the WitwatersrandIntroduction Occupational contact dermatitis (OCD) is the most common occupational skin disease. OCD can be either due to irritants or allergens or a combination of these two agents. Irritant contact dermatitis (ICD) tends to be more common than allergic contact dermatitis (ACD). Skin diseases affect the financial, psychosocial and occupational lives of people. Productivity in the work place is detrimentally affected. OCD is regulated under the Compensation for Occupational Injuries and Disease Act (COID Act) which is administered by the Commissioner. The OCD cases seen at the dermatology clinic at the National Institute of Occupational Health (NIOH) sees a number of cases from a wide spectrum of industries with a variety of exposures but, these are not well described. Aims and objectives Aims: 1. To describe the cases seen at the occupational dermatology clinic at the National Institute for Occupational Health (NIOH). 2. To describe the industries and exposure agents of cases diagnosed with occupational contact dermatitis (OCD). 3. To describe the psychosocial, financial and occupational impact and compensation outcomes of cases diagnosed with OCD. Objectives: 1. To describe the age, sex, diagnosis, site of dermatosis and skin patch test results of cases seen at the occupational dermatology clinic from August 2005 to December 2007. 2. To describe the jobs, the industries and suspected exposure agents of cases with OCD and dermatosis not related to vocation. 3. To determine the duration of exposure to a suspected agent before a diagnosis was made. iv 4. To describe the psychosocial, financial and occupational impact of the skin conditions. 5. To describe compensation outcomes including claim status, outstanding documentation; the experience of claimants with the Commissioner’s office; the delay from submission to resolution. Methods Data were collected from the medical records of patients seen at the NIOH dermatology clinic from August 2005 to December 2007 (n=129). Telephone interviews were done with all participants that could be contacted (n=94). A questionnaire was administered by telephone enquiring about their current occupational status and occupational exposures; the impact of their skin disease on their finances, personal lives and vocation; and their experience with the Commissioner’s office. The status of claims submitted to the Commissioner’s office (n=64) was verified by reviewing the electronic records of the Commissioner’s office. Descriptive and analytical analysis was done using STATA 10. Multivariate analysis was done to examine factors that might determine the compensation outcome. Results One hundred and twenty eight medical records were reviewed. The mean age of OCD patients was 41.9 years and 48 (75%) were males. ACD was diagnosed in 35 OCD participants and ICD in 29 participants. The rash occurred on the hands in 36 (56.3%) of the 64 OCD patients. The median duration of exposure to a suspected agent was 96.8 months. The median duration from diagnosis to the visit to the Commissioner’s office was 19 months. Dermatosis on the hands had an odds ratio of 2.33 for loss of income. There was a greater chance of a claim being resolved if the skin patch test was positive. Only eight of the 64 cases were resolved at the time of the visit to the Commissioner’s office. v Discussion The impact of a skin dermatosis was similar in OCD and non OCD participants and impacted on their social lives and work performance. ICD and ACD were equally represented in the cohort. Workers generally reported a negative impression of the compensation process. There were many systems issues identified in the compensation process. This resulted in few cases being resolved. Many pieces of documentation required for the compensation process to be finalised were missing. Conclusion The financial, psychosocial and occupational impact of a skin disease was significant and similar between cases who were diagnosed with OCD and non OCD patients. The COID Act Commissioner had failed to administer the Compensation Fund effectively and to provide compensation to workers diagnosed with OCD

Up-beat UK: a programme of research into the relationship between coronary heart disease and depression in primary care patients.

Coronary heart disease and depression are both common health problems and by 2020 will be the two leading causes of disability worldwide. Depression has been found to be more common in patients with coronary heart disease but the nature of this relationship is uncertain. In the United Kingdom general practitioners are now being remunerated for case-finding for depression in patients with coronary heart disease, however it is unclear how general practitioners should manage these patients. We aim to explore the relationship between coronary heart disease and depression in a primary care population and to develop an intervention for patients with coronary heart disease and depression

A Phase 1 study of intravenous infusions of tigecycline in patients with acute myeloid leukemia.

Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) cells meet the higher energy, metabolic, and signaling demands of the cell by increasing mitochondrial biogenesis and mitochondrial protein translation. Blocking mitochondrial protein synthesis through genetic and chemical approaches kills human AML cells at all stages of development in vitro and in vivo. Tigecycline is an antimicrobial that we found inhibits mitochondrial protein synthesis in AML cells. Therefore, we conducted a phase 1 dose-escalation study of tigecycline administered intravenously daily 5 of 7 days for 2 weeks to patients with AML. A total of 27 adult patients with relapsed and refractory AML were enrolled in this study with 42 cycles being administered over seven dose levels (50-350 mg/day). Two patients experienced DLTs related to tigecycline at the 350 mg/day level resulting in a maximal tolerated dose of tigecycline of 300 mg as a once daily infusion. Pharmacokinetic experiments showed that tigecycline had a markedly shorter half-life in these patients than reported for noncancer patients. No significant pharmacodynamic changes or clinical responses were observed. Thus, we have defined the safety of once daily tigecycline in patients with refractory AML. Future studies should focus on schedules of the drug that permit more sustained target inhibition

Language Models as Critical Thinking Tools: A Case Study of Philosophers

Current work in language models (LMs) helps us speed up or even skip thinking by accelerating and automating cognitive work. But can LMs help us with critical thinking -- thinking in deeper, more reflective ways which challenge assumptions, clarify ideas, and engineer new concepts? We treat philosophy as a case study in critical thinking, and interview 21 professional philosophers about how they engage in critical thinking and on their experiences with LMs. We find that philosophers do not find LMs to be useful because they lack a sense of selfhood (memory, beliefs, consistency) and initiative (curiosity, proactivity). We propose the selfhood-initiative model for critical thinking tools to characterize this gap. Using the model, we formulate three roles LMs could play as critical thinking tools: the Interlocutor, the Monitor, and the Respondent. We hope that our work inspires LM researchers to further develop LMs as critical thinking tools and philosophers and other 'critical thinkers' to imagine intellectually substantive uses of LMs

Vaccine innovation, translational research and the management of knowledge accumulation

What does it take to translate research into socially beneficial technologies like vaccines? Current policy that focuses on expanding research or strengthening incentives overlooks how the supply and demand of innovation is mediated by problem-solving processes that generate knowledge which is often fragmented and only locally valid. This paper details some of the conditions that allow fragmented, local knowledge to accumulate through a series of structured steps from the artificial simplicity of the laboratory to the complexity of real world application. Poliomyelitis is used as an illustrative case to highlight the importance of experimental animal models and the extent of co-ordination that can be required if they are missing. Implications for the governance and management of current attempts to produce vaccines for HIV, TB and Malaria are discussed. Article Outlin

Authorship reflexivity statements: additional considerations.

Authorship of scientific publications is key currency in academic systems. It demonstrates scientific contribution and scholarship and is an important tangible output that can strongly influence career progression and access to important resources such as grant income. However, the integrity of authorship as an indicator of contribution is threatened by normalised unfair practices. One such unfair practice is parachute (or helicopter) research—a term used for research based in a host country, usually low-middle- income countries (LMICs), but conducted by external researchers, usually from high-income countries, with lack of appropriate inclusion of local staff as authors, or acknowledgement of the local populations, data or infrastructure on which such research relies