System and market failures: the unavailability of magnesium sulphate for the treatment of eclampsia and pre-eclampsia in Mozambique and Zimbabwe.

Low cost and effective drugs, such as magnesium sulphate, need to be included in initiatives to improve access to essential medicines in Afric

Prediction and measurement of radiation damage to CMOS devices on board spacecraft

The CMOS Radiation Effects Measurement (CREM) experiment is presently being flown on the Explorer-55. The purpose of the experiment is to evaluate device performance in the actual space radiation environment and to correlate the respective measurements to on-the-ground laboratory irradiation results. The experiment contains an assembly of C-MOS and P-MOS devices shielded in front by flat slabs of aluminum and by a practically infinite shield in the back. Predictions of radiation damage to C-MOS devices are based on standard environment models and computational techniques. A comparison of the shifts in CMOS threshold potentials, that is, those measured in space to those obtained from the on-the-ground simulation experiment with Co-60, indicates that the measured space damage is smaller than predicted by about a factor of 2-3 for thin shields, but agrees well with predictions for thicker shields

Design of Rail Instrumentation for Wind Tunnel Sonic Boom Measurements and Computational-Experimental Comparisons

An innovative pressure rail concept for wind tunnel sonic boom testing of modern aircraft configurations with very low overpressures was designed with an adjoint-based solution-adapted Cartesian grid method. The computational method requires accurate free-air calculations of a test article as well as solutions modeling the influence of rail and tunnel walls. Specialized grids for accurate Euler and Navier-Stokes sonic boom computations were used on several test articles including complete aircraft models with flow-through nacelles. The computed pressure signatures are compared with recent results from the NASA 9- x 7-foot Supersonic Wind Tunnel using the advanced rail design

Pox proteomics: mass spectrometry analysis and identification of Vaccinia virion proteins

BACKGROUND: Although many vaccinia virus proteins have been identified and studied in detail, only a few studies have attempted a comprehensive survey of the protein composition of the vaccinia virion. These projects have identified the major proteins of the vaccinia virion, but little has been accomplished to identify the unknown or less abundant proteins. Obtaining a detailed knowledge of the viral proteome of vaccinia virus will be important for advancing our understanding of orthopoxvirus biology, and should facilitate the development of effective antiviral drugs and formulation of vaccines. RESULTS: In order to accomplish this task, purified vaccinia virions were fractionated into a soluble protein enriched fraction (membrane proteins and lateral bodies) and an insoluble protein enriched fraction (virion cores). Each of these fractions was subjected to further fractionation by either sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electophoresis, or by reverse phase high performance liquid chromatography. The soluble and insoluble fractions were also analyzed directly with no further separation. The samples were prepared for mass spectrometry analysis by digestion with trypsin. Tryptic digests were analyzed by using either a matrix assisted laser desorption ionization time of flight tandem mass spectrometer, a quadrupole ion trap mass spectrometer, or a quadrupole-time of flight mass spectrometer (the latter two instruments were equipped with electrospray ionization sources). Proteins were identified by searching uninterpreted tandem mass spectra against a vaccinia virus protein database created by our lab and a non-redundant protein database. CONCLUSION: Sixty three vaccinia proteins were identified in the virion particle. The total number of peptides found for each protein ranged from 1 to 62, and the sequence coverage of the proteins ranged from 8.2% to 94.9%. Interestingly, two vaccinia open reading frames were confirmed as being expressed as novel proteins: E6R and L3L

From social contract to 'social contrick' : the depoliticisation of economic policy-making under Harold Wilson, 1974–75

The 1974-79 Labour Governments were elected on the basis of an agreement with the TUC promising a redistribution of income and wealth known as the Social Contract. However, the Government immediately began to marginalise these commitments in favour of preferences for incomes policy and public expenditure cuts, which has led the Social Contract to be described as the 'Social Contrick'. These changes were legitimised through a process of depoliticisation, and using an Open Marxist framework and evidence from the National Archives, the paper will show that the Treasury's exchange rate strategy and the need to secure external finance placed issues of confidence at the centre of political debate, allowing the Government to argue there was no alternative to the introduction of incomes policy and the reduction of public expenditure

Q-Strategy: A Bidding Strategy for Market-Based Allocation of Grid Services

The application of autonomous agents by the provisioning and usage of computational services is an attractive research field. Various methods and technologies in the area of artificial intelligence, statistics and economics are playing together to achieve i) autonomic service provisioning and usage of Grid services, to invent ii) competitive bidding strategies for widely used market mechanisms and to iii) incentivize consumers and providers to use such market-based systems. The contributions of the paper are threefold. First, we present a bidding agent framework for implementing artificial bidding agents, supporting consumers and providers in technical and economic preference elicitation as well as automated bid generation by the requesting and provisioning of Grid services. Secondly, we introduce a novel consumer-side bidding strategy, which enables a goal-oriented and strategic behavior by the generation and submission of consumer service requests and selection of provider offers. Thirdly, we evaluate and compare the Q-strategy, implemented within the presented framework, against the Truth-Telling bidding strategy in three mechanisms – a centralized CDA, a decentralized on-line machine scheduling and a FIFO-scheduling mechanisms

Bostonia: The Boston University Alumni Magazine. Volume 20

Founded in 1900, Bostonia magazine is Boston University's main alumni publication, which covers alumni and student life, as well as university activities, events, and programs

Euler and Potential Experiment/CFD Correlations for a Transport and Two Delta-Wing Configurations

A selection of successes and failures of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) is discussed. Experiment/CFD correlations involving full potential and Euler computations of the aerodynamic characteristics of four commercial transport wings and two low aspect ratio, delta wing configurations are shown. The examples consist of experiment/CFD comparisons for aerodynamic forces, moments, and pressures. Navier-Stokes equations are not considered

Predictability in a highly stochastic system: final size of measles epidemics in small populations.

To access publisher's full text version of this article, please click on the hyperlink in Additional Links field or click on the hyperlink at the top of the page marked Files. This article is open access.A standard assumption in the modelling of epidemic dynamics is that the population of interest is well mixed, and that no clusters of metapopulations exist. The well-known and oft-used SIR model, arguably the most important compartmental model in theoretical epidemiology, assumes that the disease being modelled is strongly immunizing, directly transmitted and has a well-defined period of infection, in addition to these population mixing assumptions. Childhood infections, such as measles, are prime examples of diseases that fit the SIR-like mechanism. These infections have been well studied for many systems with large, well-mixed populations with endemic infection. Here, we consider a setting where populations are small and isolated. The dynamics of infection are driven by stochastic extinction-recolonization events, producing large, sudden and short-lived epidemics before rapidly dying out from a lack of susceptible hosts. Using a TSIR model, we fit prevaccination measles incidence and demographic data in Bornholm, the Faroe Islands and four districts of Iceland, between 1901 and 1965. The datasets for each of these countries suffer from different levels of data heterogeneity and sparsity. We explore the potential for prediction of this model: given historical incidence data and up-to-date demographic information, and knowing that a new epidemic has just begun, can we predict how large it will be? We show that, despite a lack of significant seasonality in the incidence of measles cases, and potentially severe heterogeneity at the population level, we are able to estimate the size of upcoming epidemics, conditioned on the first time step, to within reasonable confidence. Our results have potential implications for possible control measures for the early stages of new epidemics in small populations.US Department of Homeland Security HSHQDC-12-C-00058 Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development 5R24HD047879 National Institutes of Health 5T32HD007163 Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation RAPIDD program of the Science and Technology Directorate, Department of Homeland Security Fogarty International Center, National Institutes of Healt

Influence of \u3cem\u3eβ\u3c/em\u3e-Lactam Infusion Strategy on Acute Kidney Injury

Limited literature is available assessing nephrotoxicity with prolonged β-lactam infusions. This study compared the incidence of acute kidney injury (AKI) associated with a prolonged β-lactam infusion or an intermittent infusion. This was a retrospective, matched-cohort study at an academic medical center from July 2006 to September 2015. Adult patients who received piperacillin-tazobactam (TZP), cefepime (FEP), or meropenem (MEM) for at least 48 h were evaluated. Patients were excluded for preexisting renal dysfunction or pregnancy. The primary outcome was difference in incidence of AKI evaluated using the RIFLE (risk, injury, failure, loss, and end-stage) criteria. Patients in the intermittent group were matched 3:1 to patients in the prolonged-infusion group based on the following: β-lactam agent, age, gender, Charlson comorbidity index, baseline creatinine clearance, hypotension, receipt of vancomycin, and treatment in an intensive care unit. A total of 2,390 patients were included in the matched analysis, with 1,700 receiving intermittent infusions and 690 receiving prolonged infusion. The incidence of AKI was similar in the prolonged-infusion group to that in the intermittent-infusion group (21.6% versus 18.6%; P = 0.1). After multivariate regression, prolonged infusion was not associated with increased odds of AKI (odds ratio [OR], 1.07; 95% confidence interval [95% CI], 0.83 to 1.39). Independent predictors of AKI included TZP therapy, concomitant nephrotoxins, hypotension, and heart failure. Although AKIs were numerically more common in patients receiving prolonged β-lactam infusions than those receiving intermittent infusions, prolonged infusion was not an independent risk factor for AKI