Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take X-4

Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take X-4 is a zine that analyzes and responds to William Greaves’s 1968 experimental documentary film titled Symbiopscyhotaxiplasm: Take One, in which Greaves performs the role of a bad director in order to compel his film crew into rebelling against him. As a Civil Rights Activist, Greaves was interested in exploring the relationship between authority figures and the oppressed, particularly how this dynamic operates on a film set. The film consists of three channels of footage: the fictional script being filmed; footage of the film being filmed; and footage of everything else occurring on the set. The fictional channel consists of a pair of actors performing the same, awful dialogue between Freddie and Alice. The film crew and audience remain unaware that Greaves intended for the bad script and multi-channel action to frustrate and provoke the crew and audience. The film crew ultimately rebels against their director, by stealing film equipment to film their own conversations about Greaves and his lack of adequate direction. X-4 is designed to represent and address the various themes of the film in printed form and address the various themes of the film. My own personal response to the film is also incorporated in X-4, to mirror the film crew’s recording of their private reactions to Greaves and the film, and as a response to Greaves’s insistence that everyone should express their opinion on how structures of power operate in society. X-4 is a zine that currently exists in a printed run of 50 copies and is distributed for free

Rebuilding the Namibian hake fishery: a case for collaboration between scientists and fishermen

One of the most important fisheries in the northern Benguela is the Namibian hake fishery, which targets both Merluccius capensis and Merluccius paradoxus. In spite of attempts to rebuild the hake stocks that were severely depleted by distant-water fleets before Namibia's independence in 1990, stocks have failed to recover. Because the ecological goal of stock rebuilding competes with social and economic objectives on the political stage, the ability to make accurate abundance estimates is important. However, the precision of abundance estimates is impeded by lack of understanding of hake behavior and of the effects of environmental factors. Furthermore, at present both species of hake are assessed and managed as one Namibian stock. We present qualitative information derived from interviews that we conducted with Namibian hake trawl and longline fishers during the 2009 and 2010 fishing seasons, and information gleaned from analyzing logbook data. We contextualize both types of data within the scientific literature on Namibian hakes and the Namibian hake fishery. Fishers monitor sea surface and bottom temperature, water quality, currents, and weather, and they have detailed knowledge about the behavior and habitat of hakes. Fishers differentiate between three different types of M. capensis, which they associate with different fishing areas. They also describe innovations that have taken place over the past 20 years, which are of relevance to the assessment of fishing efficiency and effort, but have not been taken into account in the stock assessments. Our analysis of logbook data supports the increase in efficiency. The results show that closer collaboration between scientists and fishers has the potential to improve the accuracy of survey estimates and stock assessments, and thus is important for rebuilding of hake stocks and the hake fishery

The U.S. Law of Client Confidentiality: Framework for an International Perspective

In this Article, I will consider two general areas of the U.S. law of confidentiality. In Part I, I will reflect briefly upon what I call “the U.S. culture of lawyer-client confidentiality.” I say “culture” rather than “cult,” and one must guard against temptations to confuse those concepts. Those reflections will serve as background—by way of both match and contrast—to my sketch of the U.S. law of confidentiality in Part II

Lighting and perceptual cues: Effects on gait measures of older adults at high and low risk for falls

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The visual system plays an important role in maintaining balance. As a person ages, gait becomes slower and stride becomes shorter, especially in dimly lighted environments. Falls risk has been associated with reduced speed and increased gait variability.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Twenty-four older adults (half identified at risk for falls) experienced three lighting conditions: pathway illuminated by 1) general ceiling-mounted fixtures, 2) conventional plug-in night lights and 3) plug-in night lights supplemented by laser lines outlining the pathway. Gait measures were collected using the GAITRite^©walkway system.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Participants performed best under the general ceiling-mounted light system and worst under the night light alone. The pathway plus night lights increased gait velocity and reduced step length variability compared to the night lights alone in those at greater risk of falling.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Practically, when navigating in more challenging environments, such as in low-level ambient illumination, the addition of perceptual cues that define the horizontal walking plane can potentially reduce falls risks in older adults.</p

Magnetothermal properties of molecule-based materials

We critically review recent results obtained by studying the low-temperature specific heat of some of the most popular molecular magnets. Perspectives of this field are discussed as well.Comment: 12 pages text + 14 pages figures, Submitted as "feature article" to Journal of Materials Chemistr

The European Network for Translational Research in Atrial Fibrillation (EUTRAF): objectives and initial results

Atrial fibrillation (AF) is the most common sustained arrhythmia in the general population. As an age-related arrhythmia AF is becoming a huge socio-economic burden for European healthcare systems. Despite significant progress in our understanding of the pathophysiology of AF, therapeutic strategies for AF have not changed substantially and the major challenges in the management of AF are still unmet. This lack of progress may be related to the multifactorial pathogenesis of atrial remodelling and AF that hampers the identification of causative pathophysiological alterations in individual patients. Also, again new mechanisms have been identified and the relative contribution of these mechanisms still has to be established. In November 2010, the European Union launched the large collaborative project EUTRAF (European Network of Translational Research in Atrial Fibrillation) to address these challenges. The main aims of EUTRAF are to study the main mechanisms of initiation and perpetuation of AF, to identify the molecular alterations underlying atrial remodelling, to develop markers allowing to monitor this processes, and suggest strategies to treat AF based on insights in newly defined disease mechanisms. This article reports on the objectives, the structure, and initial results of this networ

An angiopoietin 2, FGF23, and BMP10 biomarker signature differentiates atrial fibrillation from other concomitant cardiovascular conditions

Abstract Early detection of atrial fibrillation (AF) enables initiation of anticoagulation and early rhythm control therapy to reduce stroke, cardiovascular death, and heart failure. In a cross-sectional, observational study, we aimed to identify a combination of circulating biomolecules reflecting different biological processes to detect prevalent AF in patients with cardiovascular conditions presenting to hospital. Twelve biomarkers identified by reviewing literature and patents were quantified on a high-precision, high-throughput platform in 1485 consecutive patients with cardiovascular conditions (median age 69 years [Q1, Q3 60, 78]; 60% male). Patients had either known AF (45%) or AF ruled out by 7-day ECG-monitoring. Logistic regression with backward elimination and a neural network approach considering 7 key clinical characteristics and 12 biomarker concentrations were applied to a randomly sampled discovery cohort (n = 933) and validated in the remaining patients (n = 552). In addition to age, sex, and body mass index (BMI), BMP10, ANGPT2, and FGF23 identified patients with prevalent AF (AUC 0.743 [95% CI 0.712, 0.775]). These circulating biomolecules represent distinct pathways associated with atrial cardiomyopathy and AF. Neural networks identified the same variables as the regression-based approach. The validation using regression yielded an AUC of 0.719 (95% CI 0.677, 0.762), corroborated using deep neural networks (AUC 0.784 [95% CI 0.745, 0.822]). Age, sex, BMI and three circulating biomolecules (BMP10, ANGPT2, FGF23) are associated with prevalent AF in unselected patients presenting to hospital. Findings should be externally validated. Results suggest that age and different disease processes approximated by these three biomolecules contribute to AF in patients. Our findings have the potential to improve screening programs for AF after external validation

On the reproducibility of extrusion-based bioprinting: round robin study on standardization in the field

The outcome of three-dimensional (3D) bioprinting heavily depends, amongst others, on the interaction between the developed bioink, the printing process, and the printing equipment. However, if this interplay is ensured, bioprinting promises unmatched possibilities in the health care area. To pave the way for comparing newly developed biomaterials, clinical studies, and medical applications (i.e. printed organs, patient-specific tissues), there is a great need for standardization of manufacturing methods in order to enable technology transfers. Despite the importance of such standardization, there is currently a tremendous lack of empirical data that examines the reproducibility and robustness of production in more than one location at a time. In this work, we present data derived from a round robin test for extrusion-based 3D printing performance comprising 12 different academic laboratories throughout Germany and analyze the respective prints using automated image analysis (IA) in three independent academic groups. The fabrication of objects from polymer solutions was standardized as much as currently possible to allow studying the comparability of results from different laboratories. This study has led to the conclusion that current standardization conditions still leave room for the intervention of operators due to missing automation of the equipment. This affects significantly the reproducibility and comparability of bioprinting experiments in multiple laboratories. Nevertheless, automated IA proved to be a suitable methodology for quality assurance as three independently developed workflows achieved similar results. Moreover, the extracted data describing geometric features showed how the function of printers affects the quality of the printed object. A significant step toward standardization of the process was made as an infrastructure for distribution of material and methods, as well as for data transfer and storage was successfully established