Risk factors for race-day fatality, distal limb fracture and epistaxis in Thoroughbreds racing on all-weather surfaces in Great Britain (2000 to 2013)

The incidence of race-day injuries in Great Britain (GB) is higher on all-weather (AW) surfaces than on turf. However, to date no studies have focused on identifying risk factors for injury specific to AW racing. Therefore, the objective of the current study was to determine risk factors for fatality, distal limb fracture (DLF) and episodes of epistaxis in flat racing Thoroughbreds racing on AW surfaces in GB. Data included all flat racing starts on AW surfaces (n = 258,193) and race-day veterinary events recorded between 2000 and 2013. Information on additional course-level variables was gathered during face-to-face interviews with racecourse clerks. Horse-, race- and course-level risk factors for each outcome were assessed using mixed-effects multivariable logistic regression including horse as a random effect. A classification tree method was used to identify potential interaction terms for inclusion in the models. During the study period, there were 233 fatalities resulting in a fatality incidence of 0.90 per 1000 starts; 245 DLF with a resultant DLF incidence of 0.95 per 1000 starts and 410 episodes of epistaxis resulting in an epistaxis incidence of 1.59 per 1000 starts. Risk factors varied for each outcome, although some factors were similar across models including the going, racing intensity, horse age, age at first race start, horse and trainer performance variables. Generally, older horses and those that had started racing at an older age were at higher risk of an adverse outcome, albeit with an interaction between the two variables in the fatality model. Faster going increased the odds of epistaxis and DLF but not fatality. Increasing race distance increased the odds of fatality but reduced the odds of epistaxis. Epistaxis was associated with type of AW surface (Fibresand versus Polytrack®), but DLF and fatality were not. This study provides further evidence of the association between the risk of race-day injuries and fatalities and current age, age at first start, race distance, going and horse performance. These findings provide the racing industry with information to develop strategies to reduce the occurrence of race-day events on AW surfaces

Simulations of Large-scale WiFi-based Wireless Networks: Interdisciplinary Challenges and Applications

Wireless Fidelity (WiFi) is the fastest growing wireless technology to date. In addition to providing wire-free connectivity to the Internet WiFi technology also enables mobile devices to connect directly to each other and form highly dynamic wireless adhoc networks. Such distributed networks can be used to perform cooperative communication tasks such ad data routing and information dissemination in the absence of a fixed infrastructure. Furthermore, adhoc grids composed of wirelessly networked portable devices are emerging as a new paradigm in grid computing. In this paper we review computational and algorithmic challenges of high-fidelity simulations of such WiFi-based wireless communication and computing networks, including scalable topology maintenance, mobility modelling, parallelisation and synchronisation. We explore similarities and differences between the simulations of these networks and simulations of interacting many-particle systems, such as molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. We show how the cell linked-list algorithm which we have adapted from our MD simulations can be used to greatly improve the computational performance of wireless network simulators in the presence of mobility, and illustrate with an example from our simulation studies of worm attacks on mobile wireless adhoc networks.Comment: Future Generation Computer Systems, Article in Pres

Risk factors for race-day fatality in flat racing Thoroughbreds in Great Britain (2000 to 2013)

A key focus of the racing industry is to reduce the number of race-day events where horses die suddenly or are euthanased due to catastrophic injury. The objective of this study was therefore to determine risk factors for race-day fatalities in Thoroughbred racehorses, using a cohort of all horses participating in flat racing in Great Britain between 2000 and 2013. Horse-, race- and course-level data were collected and combined with all race-day fatalities, recorded by racecourse veterinarians in a central database. Associations between exposure variables and fatality were assessed using logistic regression analyses for (1) all starts in the dataset and (2) starts made on turf surfaces only. There were 806,764 starts in total, of which 548,571 were on turf surfaces. A total of 610 fatalities were recorded; 377 (61.8%) on turf. In both regression models, increased firmness of the going, increasing racing distance, increasing average horse performance, first year of racing and wearing eye cover for the first time all increased the odds of fatality. Generally, the odds of fatality also increased with increasing horse age whereas increasing number of previous starts reduced fatality odds. In the ‘all starts’ model, horses racing in an auction race were at 1.46 (95% confidence interval (CI) 1.06–2.01) times the odds of fatality compared with horses not racing in this race type. In the turf starts model, horses racing in Group 1 races were at 3.19 (95% CI 1.71–5.93) times the odds of fatality compared with horses not racing in this race type. Identification of novel risk factors including wearing eye cover and race type will help to inform strategies to further reduce the rate of fatality in flat racing horses, enhancing horse and jockey welfare and safety

RegAnalyst: a web interface for the analysis of regulatory motifs, networks and pathways

RegAnalyst is a user-friendly web interface that integrates MoPP (Motif Prediction Program), MyPatternFinder (pattern detection tool) and MycoRegDB (mycobacterial promoter and regulatory elements database). Since motif discovery is a challenging task, numerous tools have been developed over the past few years. Strikingly, the existing programs were not successful in detecting the known consensus in all mycobacterial (epitomizing degenerate) datasets even in the absence of noise and their performance was further reduced in the presence of noise. Consequently, MoPP, a de novo and greedy (for degeneracy) ‘inexact’ word-based tool that is tailored to enumerate significantly conserved degenerate oligonucleotide motifs was developed. Benchmarking on datasets from MycoRegDB and SCPD (http://rulai.cshl.edu/SCPD/) indicate that MoPP (i) consistently outperforms other motif discovery tools on highly degenerate as well as less degenerate datasets and (ii) successfully detects completely degenerate motifs (with no two instances of a pattern being exactly the same) even in the presence of noise. We have also developed another accessory program, MyPatternFinder, that scans a given sequence or genome to find exact or approximate matches to a query motif of any length identified by MoPP or any other user-defined motif. RegAnalyst will be a valuable tool for in silico analysis of regulatory networks and can be accessed at http://www.nii.ac.in/~deepak/RegAnalyst

A practical Java tool for small-molecule compound appraisal

The increased use of small-molecule compound screening by new users from a variety of different academic backgrounds calls for adequate software to administer, appraise, analyse and exchange information obtained from screening experiments. While software and spreadsheet solutions exist, there is a need for software that can be easily deployed and is convenient to use.The Java application cApp addresses this need and aids in the handling and storage of information on small-molecule compounds. The software is intended for the appraisal of compounds with respect to their physico-chemical properties, analysis in relation to adherence to likeness rules as well as recognition of pan-assay interference components and cross-linking with identical entries in the PubChem Compound Database. Results are displayed in a tabular form in a graphical interface, but can also be written in an HTML or PDF format. The output of data in ASCII format allows for further processing of data using other suitable programs. Other features include similarity searches against user-provided compound libraries and the PubChem Compound Database, as well as compound clustering based on a MaxMin algorithm.cApp is a personal database solution for small-molecule compounds which can handle all major chemical formats. Being a standalone software, it has no other dependency than the Java virtual machine and is thus conveniently deployed. It streamlines the analysis of molecules with respect to physico-chemical properties and drug discovery criteria; cApp is distributed under the GNU Affero General Public License version 3 and available from http://www.structuralchemistry.org/pcsb/. To download cApp, users will be asked for their name, institution and email address. A detailed manual can also be downloaded from this site, and online tutorials are available at http://www.structuralchemistry.org/pcsb/capp.php

The Role of CT Scanning in Multidimensional Phenotyping of COPD

BackgroundCOPD is a heterogeneous disease characterized by airflow obstruction and diagnosed by lung function. CT imaging is emerging as an important, noninvasive tool in phenotyping COPD. However, the use of CT imaging in defining the disease heterogeneity above lung function is not fully known.MethodsSeventy-five patients with COPD (58 men, 17 women) were studied with CT imaging and with measures of airway inflammation. Airway physiology and health status were also determined.ResultsThe presence of emphysema (EM), bronchiectasis (BE), and bronchial wall thickening (BWT) was found in 67%, 27%, and 27% of subjects, respectively. The presence of EM was associated with lower lung function (mean difference % FEV1, −20%; 95% CI, −28 to −11; P < .001). There was no difference in airway inflammation, exacerbation frequency, or bacterial load in patients with EM alone or with BE and/or BWT ± EM. The diffusing capacity of the lung for carbon monoxide/alveolar volume ratio was the most sensitive and specific parameter in identifying EM (area under the receiver operator characteristic curve, 0.87; 95% CI, 0.79-0.96). Physiologic cluster analysis identified three clusters, two of which were EM predominant and the third characterized by a heterogeneous combination of EM and BE.ConclusionsThe application of CT imaging can be useful as a tool in the multidimensional approach to phenotyping patients with COPD

Human Cell Chips: Adapting DNA Microarray Spotting Technology to Cell-Based Imaging Assays

Here we describe human spotted cell chips, a technology for determining cellular state across arrays of cells subjected to chemical or genetic perturbation. Cells are grown and treated under standard tissue culture conditions before being fixed and printed onto replicate glass slides, effectively decoupling the experimental conditions from the assay technique. Each slide is then probed using immunofluorescence or other optical reporter and assayed by automated microscopy. We show potential applications of the cell chip by assaying HeLa and A549 samples for changes in target protein abundance (of the dsRNA-activated protein kinase PKR), subcellular localization (nuclear translocation of NFκB) and activation state (phosphorylation of STAT1 and of the p38 and JNK stress kinases) in response to treatment by several chemical effectors (anisomycin, TNFα, and interferon), and we demonstrate scalability by printing a chip with ∼4,700 discrete samples of HeLa cells. Coupling this technology to high-throughput methods for culturing and treating cell lines could enable researchers to examine the impact of exogenous effectors on the same population of experimentally treated cells across multiple reporter targets potentially representing a variety of molecular systems, thus producing a highly multiplexed dataset with minimized experimental variance and at reduced reagent cost compared to alternative techniques. The ability to prepare and store chips also allows researchers to follow up on observations gleaned from initial screens with maximal repeatability

Reversible ligand-centered reduction in low- coordinate iron formazanate complexes

Coordination of redox‐active ligands to metals is a compelling strategy for making reduced complexes more accessible. In this work, we explore the use of redox‐active formazanate ligands in low‐coordinate iron chemistry. Reduction of an iron(II) precursor occurs at milder potentials than analogous non‐redox‐active β‐diketiminate complexes, and the reduced three‐coordinate formazanate‐iron compound is characterized in detail. Structural, spectroscopic, and computational analysis show that the formazanate ligand undergoes reversible ligand‐centered reduction to form a formazanate radical dianion in the reduced species. The less negative reduction potential of the reduced low‐coordinate iron formazanate complex leads to distinctive reactivity with formation of a new N−I bond that is not seen with the β‐diketiminate analogue. Thus, the storage of an electron on the supporting ligand changes the redox potential and enhances certain reactivity