Software fault tree analysis tool user's manual

The Software Fault Tree Analysis Tool allows the user to interactively modify the graphic representation of a fault tree. This manual describes the user interface of the tool. The tool is currently available only for Sun-2 workstations running 4.2 BSD Unix

Treatment of Hereditary Angioedema: items that need to be addressed in practice parameter

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Hereditary Angioedema (HAE) is a rare, autosomal dominant (AD) disorder caused by a C1 esterase inhibitor (C1-inh) deficiency or qualitative defect. Treatment of HAE in many parts of the world fall short and certain items need to be addressed in future guidelines.</p> <p>Objective</p> <p>To identify those individuals who should be on long-term prophylaxis for HAE. Additionally, to determine if prodromal symptoms are sensitive and specific enough to start treatment with C-1 INH and possibly other newly approved therapies. Also, to discuss who is appropriate to self-administer medications at home and to discuss training of such patients.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A literature review (PubMed and Google) was performed and articles published in peer-reviewed journals, which addressed HAE prophylaxis, current HAE treatments, prodromal symptoms of HAE and self-administration of injected home medications were selected, reviewed and summarized.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Individuals whom have a significant decrease in QOL or have frequent or severe attacks and who fail or are intolerant to androgens should be considered for long-term prophylaxis with C1INH. Prodromal symptoms are sensitive, but non-specific, and precede acute HAE attacks in the majority of patients. Although the treatment of prodromal symptoms could lead to occasional overtreatment, it could be a viable option for those patients able to adequately predict their attacks. Finally, self-administration, has been shown to be feasible, safe and effective for patients who require IV therapy for multiple other diseases to include, but not limited to, hemophilia.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Prophylactic therapy, treatment at the time of prodromal symptoms and self-administration at home all should allow a reduction in morbidity and mortality associated with HAE.</p

The use of spirometry in a primary care setting

Elizabeth A Blain, Timothy J CraigPenn State Hershey Medical Center, Hershey, PA, USAObjective: To determine the use of spirometry in family practice, internal medicine, and pediatric outpatient settings.Methods: Data were collected from 45 outpatient offices in the central Pennsylvania area via phone survey that asked a set of four questions: 1) Do you have spirometry in your office? 2) Do you use spirometry for asthma patients? 3) In what situation do you use spirometry for? 4) Do you use spirometry more for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) or asthma? Results: It was found that pediatricians used spirometry 66% of the time, family practitioners 47% of the time, and internal medicine practitioners 60% of the time. Of those who did not use spirometry, 94% stated that they refer to a hospital if they required spirometry and 6% referred to subspecialists if the patient required spirometry. 10% of pediatricians performed the test on each asthma visit, otherwise the others used it only for exacerbations or as a baseline. No internists used spirometry regularly for asthma patients, and 22% used it more for COPD. In family practice only 14% used spirometry routinely at each visit for asthma patients.Conclusions: Pediatricians used spirometry more often in the outpatient setting than other specialists, followed closely by internal medicine physicians. Family practice physicians were the least likely to use spirometry. Multiple barriers seemed to prevent routine use of spirometry, but no one barrier accounted for the majority.Keywords: spirometry, asthma, primary car

Treatment of hereditary angioedema with plasma-derived C1 inhibitor

Michael J Prematta, Tracy Prematta, Timothy J CraigSection of Allergy and Immunology, Penn State University, Milton S. Hershey Medical Center, PA, USABackground: Plasma-derived C1 inhibitor (C1-INH) concentrate is a treatment option for acute hereditary angioedema (HAE) attacks and is considered the standard-of-care in many countries, although it is not yet available in the United States. Studies are still being conducted to establish its safety and efficacy as required by the FDA.Objective: To review the medical literature to determine if C1-INH concentrate is a safe and effective treatment for acute HAE attacks.Methods: The following keywords were searched in PubMed and OVID: C1 esterase inhibitor, C1-inhibitor, C1 inhibitor, and hereditary angioedema treatment. English-language articles were searched from 1966 to the present to look for studies demonstrating the efficacy and the safety of C1-INH concentrate.Results: The English-language literature search revealed several studies showing significantly improved relief of HAE symptoms with the administration of C1-INH concentrate &amp;ndash; many studies demonstrated some improvement of symptoms within 30 minutes. Side effects have been similar to placebo, and no proven cases of viral transmission have occurred in over 20 years.Conclusion: C1-INH concentrate appears to be a very safe and effective treatment option for HAE.Keywords: hereditary angioedema, c1 inhibitor, c1 esterase inhibitor, hereditary angioedema treatmen

Deep radio observations of the radio halo of the bullet cluster 1E 0657-55.8

We present deep 1.1-3.1 GHz Australia Telescope Compact Array observations of the radio halo of the bullet cluster, 1E 0657-55.8. In comparison to existing images of this radio halo the detection in our images is at higher significance. The radio halo is as extended as the X-ray emission in the direction of cluster merger but is significantly less extended than the X-ray emission in the perpendicular direction. At low significance we detect a faint second peak in the radio halo close to the X-ray centroid of the smaller sub-cluster (the bullet) suggesting that, similarly to the X-ray emission, the radio halo may consist of two components. Finally, we find that the distinctive shape of the western edge of the radio halo traces out the X-ray detected bow shock. The radio halo morphology and the lack of strong point-to-point correlations between radio, X-ray and weak-lensing properties suggests that the radio halo is still being formed. The colocation of the X-ray shock with a distinctive radio brightness edge illustrates that the shock is influencing the structure of the radio halo. These observations support the theory that shocks and turbulence influence the formation and evolution of radio halo synchrotron emission.Comment: 15 pages, 16 figures, 3 tables. Accepted by MNRA

The White/Black Educational Gap, Stalled Progress, and the Long Term Consequences of the Crack Epidemic

We propose the rise of crack cocaine as an explanation for the end to the convergence in black-white educational outcomes beginning in the mid-1980s. After constructing a measure of the arrival of crack arrival in cities and states, we first show there are large increases in incarceration and murder rates after the arrival of the drug. We show that the emergence of crack accounts for between 39 and 71 percent of the fall in black male high school graduation rates. The results suggest that, in line with human capital theory, educational investments declined in response to decreased returns to schooling

Study and Simulation of Enhancements for TCP (Transmission Control Protocol) Performance Over Noisy, High-Latency Links

The designers of the TCP/IP protocol suite explicitly included support of satellites in their design goals. The goal of the Internet Project was to design a protocol which could be layered over different networking technologies to allow them to be concatenated into an internet. The results of this project included two protocols, IP and TCP. IP is the protocol used by all elements in the network and it defines the standard packet format for IP datagrams. TCP is the end-to-end transport protocol commonly used between end systems on the Internet to derive a reliable bi-directional byte-pipe service from the underlying unreliable IP datagram service. Satellite links are explicitly mentioned in Vint Cerf's 2-page article which appeared in 1980 in CCR [2] to introduce the specifications for IP and TCP. In the past fifteen years, TCP has been demonstrated to work over many differing networking technologies, including over paths including satellites links. So if satellite links were in the minds of the designers from the beginning, what is the problem? The problem is that the performance of TCP has in some cases been disappointing. A goal of the authors of the original specification of TCP was to specify only enough behavior to ensure interoperability. The specification left a number of important decisions, in particular how much data is to be sent when, to the implementor. This was deliberately' done. By leaving performance-related decisions to the implementor, this would allow the protocol TCP to be tuned and adapted to different networks and situations in the future without the need to revise the specification of the protocol, or break interoperability. Interoperability would continue while future implementations would be allowed flexibility to adapt to needs which could not be anticipated at the time of the original protocol design

Soil nitrogen affects phosphorus recycling: foliar resorption and plant–soil feedbacks in a northern hardwood forest

Previous studies have attempted to link foliar resorption of nitrogen and phosphorus to their respective availabilities in soil, with mixed results. Based on resource optimization theory, we hypothesized that the foliar resorption of one element could be driven by the availability of another element. We tested various measures of soil N and P as predictors of N and P resorption in six tree species in 18 plots across six stands at the Bartlett Experimental Forest, New Hampshire, USA. Phosphorus resorption efficiency (P , 0.01) and proficiency (P ¼ 0.01) increased with soil N content to 30 cm depth, suggesting that trees conserve P based on the availability of soil N. Phosphorus resorption also increased with soil P content, which is difficult to explain based on single-element limitation, but follows from the correlation between soil N and soil P. The expected single-element relationships were evident only in the O horizon: P resorption was high where resin-available P was low in the Oe (P , 0.01 for efficiency, P , 0.001 for proficiency) and N resorption was high where potential N mineralization in the Oa was low (P , 0.01 for efficiency and 0.11 for proficiency). Since leaf litter is a principal source of N and P to the O horizon, low nutrient availability there could be a result rather than a cause of high resorption. The striking effect of soil N content on foliar P resorption is the first evidence of multiple-element control on nutrient resorption to be reported from an unmanipulated ecosystem