Surviving physiological stress: Can insights into human adaptation to austere environments be applied to the critical care unit?

The harshest environment that many people will ever face is the critical care unit, where pathology can stress homeostatic mechanisms beyond their limits, leading to multiple organ failure and death. Our understanding of the biology that underlies this catastrophic process remains limited. There is significant variation in survival between individuals with apparently similar severity of organ dysfunction and it is difficult to predict which patients will weather the storm. Survival may be influenced by as yet undiscovered innate adaptive mechanisms that determine an individual's ability to tolerate physiological stress. Identifying favourable phenotypes, and the molecular machinery underlying them, could yield new therapeutic targets to improve outcome in life-threatening illness. Unfortunately, the complexity of critical illness makes it difficult to elucidate subtle adaptive mechanisms that could favour survival during stress. However, comparisons can be drawn between the stress of critical illness and that imposed by austere environments. The Earth is comprised of a wide range of different physical environments, each of which challenges homeostasis. Whilst technological advances have played a significant role in our capacity to survive in austere environments, biological adaptation and evolutionary change have been crucial. Studying human responses to environmental stressors such as heat, cold, hypoxia and microgravity has taught us a great deal about innate human adaptation, from the system to the cellular level, and the field continues to expand. Translating this to the pathophysiological stress of critical illness could offer alternative approaches to the current practice of intensive care medicine

Land vehicle antennas for satellite mobile communications

The RF performance, size, pointing system, and cost were investigated concepts are: for a mechanically steered 1 x 4 tilted microstrip array, a mechanically steered fixed-beam conformal array, and an electronically steered conformal phased array. Emphasis is on the RF performance of the tilted 1 x 4 antenna array and methods for pointing the various antennas studied to a geosynchronous satellite. An updated version of satellite isolations in a two-satellite system is presented. Cost estimates for the antennas in quantities of 10,000 and 100,000 unites are summarized

Performance analysis of a parallel, multi-node pipeline for DNA sequencing

Post-sequencing DNA analysis typically consists of read mapping followed by variant calling and is very time-consuming, even on a multi-core machine. Recently, we proposed Halvade, a parallel, multi-node implementation of a DNA sequencing pipeline according to the GATK Best Practices recommendations. The MapReduce programming model is used to distribute the workload among different workers. In this paper, we study the impact of different hardware configurations on the performance of Halvade. Benchmarks indicate that especially the lack of good multithreading capabilities in the existing tools (BWA, SAMtools, Picard, GATK) cause suboptimal scaling behavior. We demonstrate that it is possible to circumvent this bottleneck by using multiprocessing on high-memory machines rather than using multithreading. Using a 15-node cluster with 360 CPU cores in total, this results in a runtime of 1 h 31 min. Compared to a single-threaded runtime of similar to 12 days, this corresponds to an overall parallel efficiency of 53%

Developing Interventions for Children's Exercise (DICE): a pilot evaluation of school-based exercise interventions for primary school children aged 7 to 8 years.

BACKGROUND: Developing Interventions for Children's Exercise (DICE) is an initiative aimed at determining effective school-based exercise programs. To assess feasibility, we conducted a pilot study of exercise sessions which varied in duration and frequency. METHODS: Exercise interventions were delivered to Year 3 pupils (age 7-8 years; n = 73) in primary schools within Yorkshire, UK. Evaluations were conducted using focus group sessions, questionnaires and observations. RESULTS: The study revealed positive aspects of all interventions, including favorable effects on children's concentration during lessons and identified the value of incorporation of the DICE concept into curriculum lessons. Children appeared enthused and reported well-being and enjoyment. Areas requiring attention were the need for appropriate timetabling of sessions and ensuring the availability of space. CONCLUSION: The concept and sessions were well-accepted by teachers who confirmed their full support of any future implementation There appears to be potential for the encouragement and empowerment of teachers to support physical activity and healthy school environments, and to take an interest in the health of their pupils. Ultimately, these findings should assist in the design of successful exercise interventions in the school setting

Observed acoustic and aeroelastic spectral responses of a MOD-2 turbine blade to turbulence excitation

Early results from a recent experiment designed to directly evaluate the aeroacoustic/elastic spectral responses of a MOD-2 turbine blade to turbulence-induced unsteady blade loads are discussed. The experimental procedure consisted of flying a hot-film anemometer from a tethered balloon in the turbine inflow and simultaneously measuring the fluctuating airload and aeroelastic response at two blade span stations (65% and 87% spans) using surface-mounted, subminiature pressure transducers and standard strain gage instrumentation. The radiated acoustic pressure field was measured with a triad of very-low-frequency microphones placed at ground level, 1.5 rotor diameters upwind of the disk. Initial transfer function estimates for acoustic radiation, blade normal forces, flapwise acceleration/displacement, and chord/flapwise moments are presented

Tackling delirium: a crucial target for improving clinical outcomes

Delirium is a common and debilitating syndrome in hospitalized patients, and its impact on mortality, morbidity and duration of hospital admission is increasingly apparent. Delirium is a complex phenomenon, for which there is no specific treatment, but research over the last decade has revealed contributing factors, many of which are modifiable, and preventative strategies have demonstrated benefit. This review highlights the importance of reducing the impact of delirium on hospitalized patients, and summarizes the current evidence for strategies to achieve this. Current recommendations focus on the pre-emptive implementation of multi-modal non-pharmacological interventions to reduce the occurrence of delirium in the first place, and routine monitoring using validated tools to identify delirious patients early. Potential therapies for established delirium remain controversial