Avian GIS models signal human risk for West Nile virus in Mississippi

BACKGROUND: West Nile virus (WNV) poses a significant health risk for residents of Mississippi. Physicians and state health officials are interested in new and efficient methods for monitoring disease spread and predicting future outbreaks. Geographic Information Systems (GIS) models have the potential to support these efforts. Environmental conditions favorable for mosquito habitat were modeled using GIS to derive WNV risk maps for Mississippi. Variables important to WNV dissemination were selected and classified as static and dynamic. The static variables included road density, stream density, slope, and vegetation. The dynamic variable represented seasonal water budget and was calculated using precipitation and evaporation estimates. Significance tests provided deterministic evidence of variable importance to the models. RESULTS: Several models were developed to estimate WNV risk including a landscape-base model and seasonal climatic sub-models. P-values from t-tests guided variable importance ranking. Variables were ranked and weights assigned as follows: road density (0.4), stream density (0.3), slope (0.2) and vegetation (0.1). This landscape-base model was modified by climatic conditions to assess the importance of climate to WNV risk. Human case data at the zip code level were used to validate modeling results. All models were summarized by zip codes for interpretation and model validation. For all models, estimated risk was higher for zip codes with at least one human case than for zip codes where no human cases were recorded. Overall median measure of risk by zip code indicated that 67% of human cases occurred in the high-risk category. CONCLUSION: Modeling results indicated that dead bird occurrences are correlated with human WNV risk and can facilitate the assessment of environmental variables that contribute to that risk. Each variable's importance in GIS-based risk predictions was assigned deterministically. Our models indicated non-uniform distribution of risk across the state and showed elevated risk in urban and as well as rural areas. Model limitations include resolution of human data, zip code aggregation issues, and quality/availability of vegetation and stream density layers. Our approach verified that WNV risk can be modeled at the state level and can be modified for risk predictions of other vector-borne diseases in varied ecological regions

A system analysis of a suboptimal surgical experience

© 2009 Lee et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Licens

The 2012 Lyrids from Non-traditional Observing Platforms

The NASA Meteoroid Environment Office (MEO) observed meteors during the Lyrid meteor shower peak on 22 April 2012 from three different observing platforms: the ground, a helium-filled balloon, and from the International Space Station (ISS). Even though the Lyrids are not noted for spectacular rates, the combination of New Moon and a favorable viewing geometry from ISS presented a unique opportunity to simultaneously image shower meteors from above the atmosphere and below it. In the end, however, no meteors were observed simultaneously, and it was impossible to identify Lyrids with 100% confidence among the 155 meteors observed from ISS and the 31 observed from the balloon. Still, this exercise proved successful in that meteors could be observed from a simple and inexpensive balloon-based payload and from less-than-optimal cameras on ISS

Dissociation of the diurnal variation of aldosterone and cortisol in anephric subjects

Dissociation of the diurnal variation of aldosterone and cortisol in anephric subjects. Diurnal variation of plasma aldosterone and cortisol concentration in man was studied in 13 anephric subjects and 7 normal subjects. All subjects were ambulatory and active throughout the study except during an 8-hour sleep period. Six anephric subjects received Kayexalate® (sodium polystyrene sulfonate) during the studies to prevent potassium accumulation and increase in plasma potassium concentration. Diurnal variation of plasma aldosterone concentration with peak and nadir concentrations at 12:00 noon and 12:00 midnight respectively was demonstrated in the studies on normal subjects. Changes in plasma aldosterone concentration were not significantly correlated with changes in plasma cortisol concentration but were highly correlated with changes in PRA (P < 0.001). There was a highly significant correlation between plasma aldosterone and potassium concentration in the anephric subjects studied without Kayexalate® administration (P < 0.001). In the anephric subjects who received Kayexalate®, plasma aldosterone and potassium concentration remained stable, and no correlation could be demonstrated. No diurnal variation of plasma aldosterone concentration could be demonstrated in either group of anephric subjects, whereas plasma cortisol concentration varied as in the studies on normal subjects. Conclusion. Diurnal variation of plasma aldosterone concentration is dependent on continued stimulation by the renin-angiotensin system. Loss of this stimulation has no demonstrable effect on the diurnal variation of plasma cortisol concentration.Dissociation des variations nycthémérales de l'aldostérone et du cortisol chez les sujets anéphriques. Les variations nycthémérales de l'aldostérone et du cortisol plasmatiques chez l'homme ont été étudiées chez 13 sujets anéphriques et 7 sujets normaux. Tous les sujets étaient ambulatoires excepté pendant une période de sommeil de 8 heures. Six sujets anéphriques receivaient du Kayexalate® (sodium polystyrene sulfonate) afin d'empêcher une accumulation de potassium et une augmentation de la kaliémie. Des variations nycthémérales de l'aldostéronémie avec un pic et un nadir à midi et minuit, respectivement, ont été observées chez les sujets normaux. Les modifications de l'aldostéronémie ne sont pas significativement corrélées avec les modifications du cortisol plasmatique mais très corrélées avec celles de PRA (P < 0,001). Il existe une corrélation très significative entre l'aldostéronémie et la kaliémie chez les sujets anéphriques étudiés en dehors de l'administration de Kayexalate (P < 0,001). Chez les sujets anéphriques recevant du Kayexalate l'aldostéronémie et la kaliémie sont stables et aucune corrélation n'est obtenue. Aucune variation nycthémérale de l'aldostéronémie n'a été observé dans les groupes de sujets anéphriques alors que la concentration de cortisol plasmatique varie comme chez les sujets normaux. Il peut être conclu de ces études que les variations nycthémérales de l'aldostéronémie dépendent de la stimulation par le système rénine-angiotensine. La perte de cette stimulation n'a pas d'effet sur la cortisolémie

The economic and innovation contribution of universities: a regional perspective

Universities and other higher education institutions (HEIs) have come to be regarded as key sources of knowledge utilisable in the pursuit of economic growth. Although there have been numerous studies assessing the economic and innovation impact of HEIs, there has been little systematic analysis of differences in the relative contribution of HEIs across regions. This paper provides an exploration of some of these differences in the context of the UK’s regions. Significant differences are found in the wealth generated by universities according to regional location and type of institution. Universities in more competitive regions are generally more productive than those located in less competitive regions. Also, traditional universities are generally more productive than their newer counterparts, with university productivity positively related to knowledge commercialisation capabilities. Weaker regions tend to be more dependent on their universities for income and innovation, but often these universities under-perform in comparison to counterpart institutions in more competitive regions. It is argued that uncompetitive regions lack the additional knowledge infrastructure, besides universities, that are more commonly a feature of more competitive regions

nAChRs Mediate Human Embryonic Stem Cell-Derived Endothelial Cells: Proliferation, Apoptosis, and Angiogenesis

Many patients with ischemic heart disease have cardiovascular risk factors such as cigarette smoking. We tested the effect of nicotine (a key component of cigarette smoking) on the therapeutic effects of human embryonic stem cell-derived endothelial cells (hESC-ECs).To induce endothelial cell differentiation, undifferentiated hESCs (H9 line) underwent 4-day floating EB formation and 8-day outgrowth differentiation in EGM-2 media. After 12 days, CD31(+) cells (13.7+/-2.5%) were sorted by FACScan and maintained in EGM-2 media for further differentiation. After isolation, these hESC-ECs expressed endothelial specific markers such as vWF (96.3+/-1.4%), CD31 (97.2+/-2.5%), and VE-cadherin (93.7+/-2.8%), form vascular-like channels, and incorporated DiI-labeled acetylated low-density lipoprotein (DiI-Ac-LDL). Afterward, 5x10(6) hESC-ECs treated for 24 hours with nicotine (10(-8) M) or PBS (as control) were injected into the hearts of mice undergoing LAD ligation followed by administration for two weeks of vehicle or nicotine (100 microg/ml) in the drinking water. Surprisingly, bioluminescence imaging (BLI) showed significant improvement in the survival of transplanted hESC-ECs in the nicotine treated group at 6 weeks. Postmortem analysis confirmed increased presence of small capillaries in the infarcted zones. Finally, in vitro mechanistic analysis suggests activation of the MAPK and Akt pathways following activation of nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs).This study shows for the first time that short-term systemic administrations of low dose nicotine can improve the survival of transplanted hESC-ECs, and enhance their angiogenic effects in vivo. Furthermore, activation of nAChRs has anti-apoptotic, angiogenic, and proliferative effects through MAPK and Akt signaling pathways

A unified machine learning approach to time series forecasting applied to demand at emergency departments

There were 25.6 million attendances at Emergency Departments (EDs) in England in 2019 corresponding to an increase of 12 million attendances over the past ten years. The steadily rising demand at EDs creates a constant challenge to provide adequate quality of care while maintaining standards and productivity. Managing hospital demand effectively requires an adequate knowledge of the future rate of admission. Using 8 years of electronic admissions data from two major acute care hospitals in London, we develop a novel ensemble methodology that combines the outcomes of the best performing time series and machine learning approaches in order to make highly accurate forecasts of demand, 1, 3 and 7 days in the future. Both hospitals face an average daily demand of 208 and 106 attendances respectively and experience considerable volatility around this mean. However, our approach is able to predict attendances at these emergency departments one day in advance up to a mean absolute error of +/- 14 and +/- 10 patients corresponding to a mean absolute percentage error of 6.8% and 8.6% respectively. Our analysis compares machine learning algorithms to more traditional linear models. We find that linear models often outperform machine learning methods and that the quality of our predictions for any of the forecasting horizons of 1, 3 or 7 days are comparable as measured in MAE. In addition to comparing and combining state-of-the-art forecasting methods to predict hospital demand, we consider two different hyperparameter tuning methods, enabling a faster deployment of our models without compromising performance. We believe our framework can readily be used to forecast a wide range of policy relevant indicators

Did Ebola emerge in West Africa by a policy-driven phase change in agroecology? Ebola's social context

SCOPUS: no.jinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishe