The Use of University Research in Planning Decision Making in Jordanian Municipalities

• the first Jordanian study to examine the use of academic research for planning decision making • presents evidence of how Jordanian municipal laws and practices act as barriers to engagement with academic researchers • Statistical analysis of how key issues (centralization, finance, self-efficacy, administrative culture) affect the use of research in decision making processes. • Makes recommendations on how many of the problems identified can be mitigate

Incidence, aetiology and outcomes of obstetric-related acute kidney injury in Malawi: a prospective observational study

BACKGROUND: Obstetric-related acute kidney injury (AKI) is thought to be a key contributor to the overall burden of AKI in low resource settings, causing significant and preventable morbidity and mortality. However, epidemiological data to corroborate these hypotheses is sparse. This prospective observational study aims to determine the incidence, aetiology and maternal-fetal outcomes of obstetric-related AKI in Malawi. METHODS: Women greater than 20 weeks gestation or less than 6 weeks postpartum admitted to obstetric wards at a tertiary hospital in Blantyre, Malawi, and at high-risk of AKI were recruited between 21st September and 11th December 2015. All participants had serum creatinine tested at enrolment; those with creatinine above normal range (> 82 μmol/L) underwent serial measurement, investigations to determine cause of kidney injury, and were managed by obstetric and nephrology teams. AKI was diagnosed and staged by Kidney Disease Improving Global Outcomes (KDIGO) criteria. Primary outcomes were the incidence proportion and aetiology of AKI. Secondary outcomes were in-hospital maternal mortality, need for dialysis, renal recovery and length of stay; in-hospital perinatal mortality, gestational age at delivery, birthweight and Apgar score. RESULTS: 354 patients were identified at risk of AKI from the approximate 2300 deliveries that occurred during the study period. Three hundred twenty-two were enrolled and 26 (8.1%) had AKI (median age 27 years; HIV 3.9%). The most common primary causes of AKI were preeclampsia/eclampsia (n = 19, 73.1%), antepartum haemorrhage (n = 3, 11.5%), and sepsis (n = 3, 11.5%). There was an association between preeclampsia spectrum and AKI (12.2% AKI incidence in preeclampsia spectrum vs. 4.3% in other patients, p = 0.015). No women with AKI died or required dialysis and complete renal recovery occurred in 22 (84.6%) cases. The perinatal mortality rate across all high-risk admissions was 13.8%. AKI did not impact on maternal or fetal outcomes. CONCLUSIONS: The incidence of AKI in high-risk obstetric admissions in Malawi is 8.1% and preeclampsia was the commonest cause. With tertiary nephrology and obstetric care the majority of AKI resolved with no effect on maternal-fetal outcomes. Maternal-fetal outcomes in Sub-Saharan Africa may be improved with earlier detection of hypertensive disease in pregnancy

Addressing the unmet clinical need for low-volume assays in early diagnosis of pancreatic cancer

The incidental detection of pancreatic cysts, an opportunity for the early detection of pancreatic cancer, is increasing, owing to an aging population and improvements in imaging technology. The classification of pancreatic cystic precursors currently relies on imaging and cyst fluid evaluations, including cytology and protein and genomic analyses. However, there are persistent limitations that obstruct the accuracy and quality of information for clinicians, including the limited volume of the complex, often acellular, and proteinaceous milieu that comprises pancreatic cyst fluid. The constraints of currently available clinical assays lead clinicians to the subjective and inconsistent application of diagnostic tools, which can contribute to unnecessary surgery and missed pancreatic cancers. Herein, we describe the pathway toward pancreatic cyst classification and diagnosis, the volume requirements for several clinically available diagnostic tools, and some analytical and diagnostic limitations for each assay. We then discuss current and future work on novel markers and methods, and how to expand the utility of clinical pancreatic cyst fluid samples. Results of ongoing studies applying SERS as a detection mode suggest that 50 µL of pancreatic cyst fluid is more than sufficient to accurately rule out non-mucinous pancreatic cysts with no malignant potential from further evaluation. This process is expected to leave sufficient fluid to analyze a follow-up, rule-in panel of markers currently in development that can stratify grades of dysplasia in mucinous pancreatic cysts and improve clinical decision-making

Colour cosmetics consumption among Moroccan women: Examining the Nexus of Attitudes, Religion, and The media

This paper examines colour cosmetic consumption of Morrocan women in relation to the influence of attitudes, religion, and the media. With data from 498 women and using the theory of planned behavior, this study shows that attitude and Perceived behavior control (PBC) affect positively consumer intention to buy colour cosmetics. It also shows that intrinsic or personal religiosity does not affect customer intention to purchase cosmetic products while extrinsic religiosity is negatively correlated to the intention to use these products. Besides, the study demonstrates how different types of media influence the respondents’ consumption of these products. For example, as respondents spend more time watching TF1- the first national French channel - where a more natural look is displayed, the intention to buy color cosmetics decreases by 41.6%. Concerning the socio-demographic factors, the study shows that older women mainly with high income are more likely to consider color cosmetics consumption. The implications of the study are highlighted in the paper

A high-throughput synthetic platform enables the discovery of proteomimetic cell penetrating peptides and bioportides

Collectively, cell penetrating peptide (CPP) vectors and intrinsically active bioportides possess tremendous potential for drug delivery applications and the discrete modulation of intracellular targets including the sites of protein–protein interactions (PPIs). Such sequences are usually relatively short (< 25 AA), polycationic in nature and able to access the various intracellular compartments of eukaryotic cells without detrimental influences upon cellular biology. The high-throughput platform for bioportide discovery described herein exploits the discovery that many human proteins are an abundant source of potential CPP sequences which are reliably predicted using QSAR algorithms or other methods. Subsequently, microwave-enhanced solid phase peptides synthesis provides a high-throughput source of novel proteomimetic CPPs for screening purposes. By focussing upon cationic helical domains, often located within the molecular interfaces that facilitate PPIs, bioportides which act by a dominant-negative mechanism at such sites can be reliably identified within small number libraries of CPPs. Protocols that employ fluorescent peptides, routinely prepared by N-terminal acylation with carboxytetramethylrhodamine, further enable both the quantification of cellular uptake kinetics and the identification of specific site(s) of intracellular accretion. Chemical modifications of linear peptides, including strategies to promote and stabilise helicity, are compatible with the synthesis of second-generation bioportides with improved drug-like properties to further exploit the inherent selectivity of biologics

Transparent Meta-Analysis of Prospective Memory and Aging

Prospective memory (ProM) refers to our ability to become aware of a previously formed plan at the right time and place. After two decades of research on prospective memory and aging, narrative reviews and summaries have arrived at widely different conclusions. One view is that prospective memory shows large age declines, larger than age declines on retrospective memory (RetM). Another view is that prospective memory is an exception to age declines and remains invariant across the adult lifespan. The present meta-analysis of over twenty years of research settles this controversy. It shows that prospective memory declines with aging and that the magnitude of age decline varies by prospective memory subdomain (vigilance, prospective memory proper, habitual prospective memory) as well as test setting (laboratory, natural). Moreover, this meta-analysis demonstrates that previous claims of no age declines in prospective memory are artifacts of methodological and conceptual issues afflicting prior research including widespread ceiling effects, low statistical power, age confounds, and failure to distinguish between various subdomains of prospective memory (e.g., vigilance and prospective memory proper)

The twilight of the Liberal Social Contract? On the Reception of Rawlsian Political Liberalism

This chapter discusses the Rawlsian project of public reason, or public justification-based 'political' liberalism, and its reception. After a brief philosophical rather than philological reconstruction of the project, the chapter revolves around a distinction between idealist and realist responses to it. Focusing on political liberalism’s critical reception illuminates an overarching question: was Rawls’s revival of a contractualist approach to liberal legitimacy a fruitful move for liberalism and/or the social contract tradition? The last section contains a largely negative answer to that question. Nonetheless the chapter's conclusion shows that the research programme of political liberalism provided and continues to provide illuminating insights into the limitations of liberal contractualism, especially under conditions of persistent and radical diversity. The programme is, however, less receptive to challenges to do with the relative decline of the power of modern states

Constitutivism

A brief explanation and overview of constitutivism

Time and Encoding Effects in the Concealed Knowledge Test

Although the traditional “lie detector” test is used frequently in forensic contexts, it has (like most test of deception) some limitations. The concealed knowledge test (CKT) focuses on participants’ recognition of privileged knowledge rather than lying per-se and has been studied extensively using a variety of measures. A “guilty” suspect’s interaction with and memory of crimescene items may vary. Furthermore, memory for crimescene items may diminish over time. The interaction of encoding quality and test delay on CKT efficiency has been previously implied, but not yet demonstrated. We used a response-time based CKT to detect concealed knowledge from shallow and deep study procedures after 10-min, 24-h, and 1-week delays. Results show that more elaborately encoded information afforded higher detection accuracy than poorly encoded items. Although classification accuracy following deep study was unaffected by delay, detection of poorly elaborated information was initially high, but compromised after 1 week. Thus, choosing optimal test items requires considering both test delay and initial encoding level