Rights and Liabilities for Personal Injuries on the Well Site

This paper considers three basic areas of law which may become involved when a person suffers a physical injury on an oil or gas well site. The first area considers the basic tort liabilities and defenses which may arise. But parties involved in the drilling and operating end of the oil and gas business frequently carry liability insurance to protect against tort claims. The second portion of this paper therefore considers issues which may arise relating to insurance coverage of claims. Finally, usually the direct employer of the injured person is immune from tort liability and the employee’s remedy is limited to workers’ compensation. That is the last major topic

Pregnancy Rates, Metabolites and Metabolic Hormones in Bighorn Sheep During and After the Breeding Season

Wildlife managers routinely draw blood and harvest serum when bighorn sheep (Ovis canadensis) and other ungulates are captured for management and research purposes.  Serum samples are routinely submitted to state livestock labs that perform a panel of assays to access exposure to a variety of important pathogens that cause disease, providing managers important insights.  Wildlife managers would also benefit from similar procedures that could provide assessments of reproduction, nutrition, and physiological status.  The objectives of this preliminary study were to evaluate pregnancy rates, energy-related metabolites and hormones among herds of Montana and Wyoming bighorn sheep during and after the breeding season in order to assess the general ‘health’ of herds. Metabolites and metabolic hormones are frequently used in domestic animals to evaluate nutrition, reproduction and energy balance, and potentially may provide the same insights in wildlife for managers. A total of 240 bighorn ewes were sampled from 13 herds between December 2014 and March 2015.  Samples were assayed for progesterone (P4) and pregnancy specific protein B (PSPBs) to assess reproductive cycling and pregnancy. Assays were also performed for non-esterified fatty acid, insulin, triiodothyronine and thyroxine which are metabolites and metabolic hormones that indicate nutritional and energy states of animals. We will be presenting the results of this preliminary study and discussing the relationship between pregnancy rates, energy-related metabolites and hormones and how they might be used to inform wildlife management

Usability Testing of an Electronic Patient-Reported Outcome System for Survivors of Critical Illness

BACKGROUND: Web-based electronic patient-reported outcomes (ePRO) measures are increasingly used to facilitate patient-centered health assessments. However, it is unknown if ePRO completion is feasible for recently ill intensive care unit (ICU) survivors and their families. OBJECTIVE: To develop and evaluate the usability of a novel ePRO system (ePRO to Support People and Enhance Recovery [ePROSPER]) among ICU survivors and their families within an ongoing clinical trial. METHODS: Paper-based PROs were iteratively adapted to electronic forms (ePROs). Then, the usability of ePROSPER was assessed among 60 patients, their family members, and PRO and programming experts via questionnaires (eg, Systems Usability Scale), "think aloud" open-ended feedback, task completion times, and error rates. RESULTS: Input from patients and their families was used to incorporate user-experience modifications into ePROSPER. This feedback also led to inclusion of automated reminders for questionnaire completion and real-time alerts for staff triggered by high symptom levels. Median usability scores increased over testing cycles from 40 to 73 to 95, nearing the maximum score and showing excellent usability. All users completed ePROSPER within 20 minutes; 87% preferred it to a written version. ePROSPER was then implemented in a clinical trial without data errors. CONCLUSIONS: Automated ePRO systems can be successfully integrated in a post-ICU clinical trial setting. The value of integrating such systems in direct clinical care should be assessed in future studies

Developing Physiological Profiles using Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy to Inform Bighorn Sheep Management

This study employs new techniques using nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) to assess the relative health, physiological condition, and reproductive function of wild bighorn sheep (Ovis canadensis)  in Montana and Wyoming. Ongoing bighorn studies in Montana and the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem are focused on herd attributes and the population dynamics which are affected by disease, climate, habitat and physiology. Indices of herd health and physiological status are typically obtained through expensive and time consuming lab assays and field measurements. Recently, NMR spectroscopy has been used to revolutionize the assessment of human metabolic health, and we expect that there is similar potential for studies of wildlife populations. Using NMR spectroscopy to assess metabolites associated with disease, nutrition and stress may eliminate the need for many traditional assays and techniques used today. NMR can be used to evaluate a large suite of metabolites associated with a variety of physiological functions from as little as 500 ?L of serum or plasma. Blood samples from 242 sheep from 13 different herds were collected during the winters of 2013-14 and 2014-15 to develop a comprehensive metabolite panel for bighorn sheep. We have used a recently developed statistical program known as MetaboAnalyst™ to begin to analyze and evaluate differences in NMR metabolic profiles among herds and across the fall-winter season when nutritional and physiological stress is expected to be acute. We will be presenting the results of this preliminary study and discussing the potential for application in wildlife management

Imperfect Tests, Pervasive Pathogens, and Variable Demographic Performance: Thoughts on Managing Bighorn Sheep Respiratory Disease

Respiratory disease (pneumonia) has been a persistent challenge for bighorn sheep (Ovis canadensis) conservation and its cause has been attributed to numerous bacteria including Mycoplasma ovipneumoniae and several Pasteurellaceae family species. This study sought to investigate efficacy of diagnostic protocols in detecting Pasteurellaceae and Mycoplasma ovipneumoniae, generate sampling recommendations for different protocols, assess the distribution of these disease agents among 17 bighorn sheep populations in Montana and Wyoming, and evaluate what associations existed between detection of these agents and demographic performance of bighorn sheep populations. Analysis of replicate samples from individual bighorn sheep revealed that detection probability for regularlyused diagnostic protocols was generally low (<50%) for Pasteurellaceae and was high (>70%) for Mycoplasma ovipneumoniae, suggesting that routine pathogen sampling likely mischaracterizes respiratory pathogen communities. Power analyses found that most pathogen species could be detected with 80% confidence at the population-level by conducting regularly-used protocols multiple times per animal. Each pathogen species was detected in over half of the study populations, but after accounting for detection probability there was low confidence in negative test results for populations where Pasteurellaceae species were not detected. Seventy-six percent of study populations hosted both Mycoplasma ovipneumoniae and Pasteurellaceae pathogens, yet a number of these populations were estimated to have positive population growth rates and recruitment rates greater than 30%. Overall, the results of this work suggest that bighorn sheep respiratory disease may be mitigated by manipulating population characteristics and respiratory disease epizootics could be caused by pathogens already resident in bighorn sheep population

A multicenter mortality prediction model for patients receiving prolonged mechanical ventilation*

Significant deficiencies exist in the communication of prognosis for patients requiring prolonged mechanical ventilation after acute illness, in part because of clinician uncertainty about long-term outcomes. We sought to refine a mortality prediction model for patients requiring prolonged ventilation using a multicentered study design

Reverberation Mapping of the Kepler-Field AGN KA1858+4850

KA1858+4850 is a narrow-line Seyfert 1 galaxy at redshift 0.078 and is among the brightest active galaxies monitored by the Kepler mission. We have carried out a reverberation mapping campaign designed to measure the broad-line region size and estimate the mass of the black hole in this galaxy. We obtained 74 epochs of spectroscopic data using the Kast Spectrograph at the Lick 3-m telescope from February to November of 2012, and obtained complementary V-band images from five other ground-based telescopes. We measured the H-beta light curve lag with respect to the V-band continuum light curve using both cross-correlation techniques (CCF) and continuum light curve variability modeling with the JAVELIN method, and found rest-frame lags of lag_CCF = 13.53 (+2.03, -2.32) days and lag_JAVELIN = 13.15 (+1.08, -1.00) days. The H-beta root-mean-square line profile has a width of sigma_line = 770 +/- 49 km/s. Combining these two results and assuming a virial scale factor of f = 5.13, we obtained a virial estimate of M_BH = 8.06 (+1.59, -1.72) x 10^6 M_sun for the mass of the central black hole and an Eddington ratio of L/L_Edd ~ 0.2. We also obtained consistent but slightly shorter emission-line lags with respect to the Kepler light curve. Thanks to the Kepler mission, the light curve of KA1858+4850 has among the highest cadences and signal-to-noise ratios ever measured for an active galactic nucleus; thus, our black hole mass measurement will serve as a reference point for relations between black hole mass and continuum variability characteristics in active galactic nuclei

Development and Validation of a Mortality Prediction Model for Patients Receiving 14 Days of Mechanical Ventilation

The existing risk prediction model for patients requiring prolonged mechanical ventilation is not applicable until after 21 days of mechanical ventilation. We sought to develop and validate a mortality prediction model for patients earlier in the ICU course using data from day 14 of mechanical ventilation

Development and preliminary evaluation of a telephone-based coping skills training intervention for survivors of acute lung injury and their informal caregivers

Survivors of acute lung injury (ALI) and their informal caregivers have difficulty coping with the physical and emotional challenges of recovery from critical illness. We aimed to develop and pilot test a telephone-based coping skills training intervention for this population