Morus rubra L.

https://thekeep.eiu.edu/herbarium_specimens_byname/20060/thumbnail.jp

Evaluation of homelessness services to adults in the secure estate

This evaluation aimed to assess how changes to legislative duties towards those leaving custody since 2015 had been implemented by local authorities, prisons and probation providers; what impact the changes had on housing prison leavers; and to identify areas of good practice in meeting the housing needs of prison leavers. Chapter 1 provide some understanding the policy context for the development and implementation of the National Pathway for Homelessness Services to Adults in the Secure Estate. Chapter 2 briefly covers the existing delivery arrangements for the pathway. A background paper accompanies this report and provides more in depth exploration of both these issues. Chapter 3 describes the methodology adopted to undertake the evaluation. In turn thereafter, chapters 4, 5 and 6 respectively present the findings in relation to the operation of the National Pathway at the reception, prerelease and community stages of a prisoner’s journey into and out of custody. In Chapter 7, better practices in relation to implementing the National Pathway are discussed. Finally in chapter 8 the evaluation findings are summarised and recommendations for improving practices are identified

A sampling method for quantifying the information content of IASI channels

There is a vast amount of information about the atmosphere available from instruments on board satellites. One example is the Infrared Atmospheric Sounding Interferometer (IASI) instrument, which measures radiances emitted from Earth’s atmosphere and surface in 8461 channels. It is difficult to transmit, store, and assimilate such a large amount of data. A practical solution to this has been to select a subset of a few hundred channels based on those that contain the most useful information. Different measures of information content for objective channel selection have been suggested for application to variational data assimilation. These include mutual information and the degrees of freedom for signal. To date, the calculation of these measures of information content has been based on the linear theory that is at the heart of operational variational data assimilation. However, the retrieval of information about the atmosphere from the satellite radiances can be highly nonlinear. Here, a sampling method for calculating the mutual information that is free from assumptions about the linearity of the relationship between the observed radiances and the state variables is examined. It is found that large linearization errors can indeed lead to large discrepancies in the value of mutual information. How this new estimate of information content can be used in channel selection is addressed, with particular attention given to the efficiency of the new method. It is anticipated that accounting for the nonlinearity in the channel selection will be beneficial when using nonlinear data assimilation methods currently in development

Student Understanding, Participation and Engagement: A Small Scale Quantitative Study

Within the current Higher Education focus on the student experience, this study explores the possible relationship between the three issues of participation, engagement and understanding. The study emerged from a conversation between colleagues about student evaluation of taught sessions. From this, a diagram outlining sectors of participation, engagement and understanding was constructed and a minute paper style instrument developed for easy implementation in large classes. The evaluation instrument was utilised with one class over a period of eight weeks involving four lectures, each utilising think/pair/share exercises to a different degree. The results show different levels of self-reported participation, engagement and understanding related to the frequency and occurrence of the think/pair/share exercises

A study to examine the relationship between uterine pathology and depletion of oxytetracycline in plasma and milk after intrauterine infusion

Citation: Gorden, P. J., Ydstie, J., Kleinhenz, M. D., Wulf, L. W., Gehring, R., Wang, C., & Coetzee, J. F. (2016). A study to examine the relationship between uterine pathology and depletion of oxytetracycline in plasma and milk after intrauterine infusion. Journal of Animal Science, 94, 30-30. doi:10.2527/msasas2016-065Metritis is a frequent problem in postpartum dairy cows. Intrauterine therapy with oxytetracycline (OTC) is often used to improve therapeutic outcomes, although efficacy data supporting this therapy are ambiguous. Several manuscripts describe the depletion of OTC from milk following intrauterine therapy. However, none of these studies have correlated uterine severity scores with milk OTC concentrations using highly sensitive detection systems. Our objective was to do this to test the hypothesis that cows with more severe uterine severity would have higher OTC residues in milk following intrauterine therapy. Thirty-two cows received a single treatment of 4 g of OTC via intrauterine infusion. Blood and milk samples were collected before intrauterine therapy and throughout the trial period of 96 h after infusion. Uterine severity scores were assigned at initiation of therapy and every 24 h throughout the remainder of the trial. Plasma and milk samples were analyzed for OTC concentrations using liquid chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry. Following treatment, OTC rapidly diffused from the uterus to plasma and from plasma to milk. Maximum concentration in plasma and milk occurred within 24 h following intrauterine infusion and 18 of the cows still had detectable levels of OTC in milk 4 d after intrauterine infusion. Greater uterine severity score at the initiation of treatment showed a significant positively correlation with higher milk OTC concentration at the second milking following treatment (R2 = 0.46, P = 0.01) but there was no correlation between initial uterine severity score and OTC concentration at the conclusion of the study (R2 = ?0.06, P = 0.75). In the United States, intrauterine administration of OTC is considered to be an extra-label therapy. The use of uterine severity score can be used to predict OTC concentration in the first day following therapy but should not be used as a predictor of OTC concentrations 96 h after treatment. Dairy producers should consult with their veterinarian to develop strategies that will prevent the presence of violative residues of OTC in bulk tank milk following intrauterine therapy

Authorship Trends Over the Past 30-Years in the Annals of Biomedical Engineering

In academia, manuscripts serve as an important component of career development. The past several years have seen heightened evaluation of the role of the gender gap in career advancement, as well as other bibliometric changes in publications. We therefore analyzed authorship and publication trends in the Annals of Biomedical Engineering over the past three decades (one complete year of manuscripts for each decade; 1986, 1996, 2006, and 2016). The variables analyzed were number of authors per manuscript, numerical position of the corresponding author, number of collaborating institutions and countries, number of references, and number of citations per manuscript. The gender of both the first and corresponding authors was identified and analyzed over time and by region. Globally, the percentage of female first and corresponding authors significantly increased from 0% in 1986 to 28.6% (p = 0.003) and 20.4% (p = 0.0009), respectively, in 2016. Although there were significant differences regarding female first and corresponding author over time, they did not vary by region of origin (p = 0.5 and 0.2, respectively). Overall, these findings highlight the improvements made and the challenges that still exist related to publishing within the bioengineering field

Is metal theft committed by organized crime groups, and why does it matter?

Using the example of metal theft in the United Kingdom, this study used mixed methods to evaluate the accuracy of police estimates of the involvement of organised crime groups (OCGs) in crime. Police estimate that 20-30% of metal theft is committed by OCGs, but this study found that only 0.5% of metal thieves had previous convictions for offences related to OCGs, that only 1.3% were linked to OCGs by intelligence information, that metal thieves typically offended close to their homes and that almost no metal thefts involved sophisticated offence methods. It appears that police may over-estimate the involvement of OCGs in some types of crime. The reasons for and consequences of this over-estimation are discussed

Electronic Medical Record Inaccuracies: Multicenter Analysis of Challenges with Modified Lung Cancer Screening Criteria.

The National Comprehensive Cancer Network expanded their lung cancer screening (LCS) criteria to comprise one additional clinical risk factor, including chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). The electronic medical record (EMR) is a source of clinical information that could identify high-risk populations for LCS, including a diagnosis of COPD; however, an unsubstantiated COPD diagnosis in the EMR may lead to inappropriate LCS referrals. We aimed to detect the prevalence of unsubstantiated COPD diagnosis in the EMR for LCS referrals, to determine the efficacy of utilizing the EMR as an accurate population-based eligibility screening trigger using modified clinical criteria. We performed a multicenter review of all individuals referred to three LCS programs from 2012 to 2015. Each individual\u27s EMR was searched for COPD diagnostic terms and the presence of a diagnostic pulmonary functionality test (PFT). An unsubstantiated COPD diagnosis was defined by an individual\u27s EMR containing a COPD term with no PFTs present, or the presence of PFTs without evidence of obstruction. A total of 2834 referred individuals were identified, of which 30% (840/2834) had a COPD term present in their EMR. Of these, 68% (571/840) were considered unsubstantiated diagnoses: 86% (489/571) due to absent PFTs and 14% (82/571) due to PFTs demonstrating no evidence of postbronchodilation obstruction. A large proportion of individuals referred for LCS may have an unsubstantiated COPD diagnosis within their EMR. Thus, utilizing the EMR as a population-based eligibility screening tool, employing expanded criteria, may lead to individuals being referred, potentially, inappropriately for LCS

Poly-Thymidine Oligonucleotides Mediate Activation of Murine Glial Cells Primarily Through TLR7, Not TLR8

The functional role of murine TLR8 in the inflammatory response of the central nervous system (CNS) remains unclear. Murine TLR8 does not appear to respond to human TLR7/8 agonists, due to a five amino acid deletion in the ectodomain. However, recent studies have suggested that murine TLR8 may be stimulated by alternate ligands, which include vaccinia virus DNA, phosphothioate oligodeoxynucleotides (ODNs) or the combination of phosphothioate poly-thymidine oligonucleotides (pT-ODNs) with TLR7/8 agonists. In the current study, we analyzed the ability of pT-ODNs to induce activation of murine glial cells in the presence or absence of TLR7/8 agonists. We found that TLR7/8 agonists induced the expression of glial cell activation markers and induced the production of multiple proinflammatory cytokines and chemokines in mixed glial cultures. In contrast, pT-ODNs alone induced only low level expression of two cytokines, CCL2 and CXCL10. The combination of pT-ODNs along with TLR7/8 agonists induced a synergistic response with substantially higher levels of proinflammatory cytokines and chemokines compared to CL075. This enhancement was not due to cellular uptake of the agonist, indicating that the pT-ODN enhancement of cytokine responses was due to effects on an intracellular process. Interestingly, this response was also not due to synergistic stimulation of both TLR7 and TLR8, as the loss of TLR7 abolished the activation of glial cells and cytokine production. Thus, pT-ODNs act in synergy with TLR7/8 agonists to induce strong TLR7-dependent cytokine production in glial cells, suggesting that the combination of pT-ODNs with TLR7 agonists may be a useful mechanism to induce pronounced glial activation in the CNS