At what peak velocity ratio value should duplex-detected infrainguinal vein graft stenoses be revised?

Objectives:To determine the peak velocity ratio (PVR) threshold at which to intervene and correct duplex detected vein graft stenoses.Design:Prospective study.Materials:Infrainguinal vein grafts in patients attending the vascular studies for routine postoperative surveillance.Methods:Colour duplex detected stenotic vein graft lesions with a peak velocity ratio (PVR) between 2.0 and 2.9 were identified and monitored by serial duplex scans performed monthly for 3 months and then at 3-monthly intervals thereafter. At the end of the study period, the outcome of these lesions were analysed.Results:Thirty-eight lesions were identified from 32 grafts. Of these lesions, sixteen (42%) resolved, 11 (29%) remained stable and 11 (29%) progressed to a PVR of ≥3.0 and underwent angioplasty. There were no occlusions in any of the grafts during the period of study.Conclusion:Colour duplex detected vein graft stenoses with a PVR of less than 3.0 can be treated expectantly if grafts with stenoses with a PVR 2.0–2.9 are scanned every month for at least 3 months after detection

Predictors of free sugars intake trajectories across early childhood – results from the SMILE birth cohort study

Foods and beverages high in free sugars can displace healthier choices and increase the risk of weight gain, dental caries, and noncommunicable diseases. Little is known about the intake of free sugars across early childhood. This study aimed to examine the longitudinal intake from 1 to 5 years of free sugars and identify the independent maternal and child-related predictors of intake in a cohort of Australian children participating in the Study of Mothers’ and Infants’ Life Events Affecting Oral Health (SMILE). Free sugars intake (FSI) was previously estimated at 1, 2, and 5 years of age, and three distinct FSI trajectories were determined using group-based trajectory modelling analysis. This study utilized multinomial logistic regression to identify the maternal and child-related predictors of the trajectories. The risk of following the ‘high and increasing’ trajectory of FSI compared to the ‘low and fast increasing’ trajectory was inversely associated with socio-economic disadvantage (aRRR 0.83; 95% CI 0.75–0.92; p < 0.001), lower for females (aRRR 0.56; 95% CI 0.32–0.98; p = 0.042), and higher in children with two or more older siblings at birth (aRRR 2.32; 95% CI 0.99–5.42; p = 0.052). Differences in trajectories of FSI were evident from an early age and a high trajectory of FSI was associated primarily with socio-economic disadvantage, providing another example of diet quality following a social gradient

Transcranial Doppler Directed Dextran Therapy in the Prevention of Carotid Thrombosis: Three Hour Monitoring is as Effective as Six Hours

AbstractBackgroundsix hours» monitoring by transcranial Doppler (TCD) has been successful in directing Dextran therapy in patients at high risk of thrombotic stroke after carotid endarterectomy (CEA).Objectivesis 3 h of routine monitoring as effective as 6 h in the prevention of early postoperative thrombotic stroke?Designprospective, consecutive study in all patients with an accessible cranial window.Methodsone hundred and sixty-six patients undergoing CEA underwent 3 h of postoperative monitoring by TCD. Any patient with >25 emboli detected in any 10 min period or those with emboli that distorted the arterial waveform were commenced on an incremental infusion of dextran 40.Resultsthe majority of patients destined to embolise will do so within the first 2 postoperative hours. Dextran therapy was instituted in nine patients (5%) and rapidly controlled this phase of embolisation although the dose had to be increased in three (33%). No patient suffered a postoperative carotid thrombosis but one suffered a minor stroke on day 5 and was found to have profuse embolisation on TCD; high dose dextran therapy was again instituted, the embolus count rate fell rapidly and he made a good recovery thereafter. Overall, the death and disabling stroke rate was 1.2% and the death/any stroke rate was 2.4%.Conclusionthree hours of postoperative TCD monitoring is as effective as 6 h in the prevention of postoperative carotid thrombosis

Founding quantum theory on the basis of consciousness

In the present work, quantum theory is founded on the framework of consciousness, in contrast to earlier suggestions that consciousness might be understood starting from quantum theory. The notion of streams of consciousness, usually restricted to conscious beings, is extended to the notion of a Universal/Global stream of conscious flow of ordered events. The streams of conscious events which we experience constitute sub-streams of the Universal stream. Our postulated ontological character of consciousness also consists of an operator which acts on a state of potential consciousness to create or modify the likelihoods for later events to occur and become part of the Universal conscious flow. A generalized process of measurement-perception is introduced, where the operation of consciousness brings into existence, from a state of potentiality, the event in consciousness. This is mathematically represented by (a) an operator acting on the state of potential-consciousness before an actual event arises in consciousness and (b) the reflecting of the result of this operation back onto the state of potential-consciousness for comparison in order for the event to arise in consciousness. Beginning from our postulated ontology that consciousness is primary and from the most elementary conscious contents, such as perception of periodic change and motion, quantum theory follows naturally as the description of the conscious experience.Comment: 41 pages, 3 figures. To be published in Foundations of Physics, Vol 36 (6) (June 2006), published online at http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10701-006-9049-

Pairwise approach for analysis and reporting of child’s free sugars intake from a birth cohort study

Objectives: The prospective cohort design is an important research design, but a common challenge is missing data. The purpose of this study is to compare three approaches to managing missing data, the pairwise (n = 1386 children), the partial or modified pairwise (n = 1019) and the listwise (n = 546), to characterize the trajectories of children's free sugars intake (FSI) across early childhood. Methods: By applying the Group-based Trajectory Model Technique to three waves of data collected from a prospective cohort study of South Australian children, this study examined the three approaches in managing missing data to validate and discuss children's FSI trajectories. Results: Each approach identified three distinct trajectories of child's FSI from 1 to 5 years of age: (1) ‘low and fast increasing’, (2) ‘moderate and increasing’ and (3) ‘high and increasing’. The trajectory memberships were consistent across the three approaches, and were for the pairwise scenario (1) 15.1%, (2) 68.3% and (3) 16.6%; the partial or modified pairwise (1) 15.9%, (2) 64.1% and (3) 20.0%; and the listwise (1) 14.9%, (2) 64.9% and (3) 20.2% of children. Conclusions: Given the comparability of the findings across the analytical approaches and the samples' characteristics between baseline and across different data collection waves, it is recommended that the pairwise approach be used in future analyses to optimize the sample size and statistical power when examining the relationship between FSI in the first years of life and health outcome such as dental caries

Future Directions in Parity Violation: From Quarks to the Cosmos

I discuss the prospects for future studies of parity-violating (PV) interactions at low energies and the insights they might provide about open questions in the Standard Model as well as physics that lies beyond it. I cover four types of parity-violating observables: PV electron scattering; PV hadronic interactions; PV correlations in weak decays; and searches for the permanent electric dipole moments of quantum systems.Comment: Talk given at PAVI 06 workshop on parity-violating interactions, Milos, Greece (May, 2006); 10 page

'Support our networking and help us belong!': listening to beginning secondary school science teachers

This study, drawing on the voice of beginning teachers, seeks to illuminate their experiences of building professional relationships as they become part of the teaching profession. A networking perspective was taken to expose and explore the use of others during the first three years of a teacher’s workplace experience. Three case studies, set within a wider sample of 11 secondary school science teachers leaving one UK university’s PostGraduate Certificate in Education, were studied. The project set out to determine the nature of the networks used by teachers in terms of both how they were being used for their own professional development and perceptions of how they were being used by others in school. Affordances and barriers to networking were explored using notions of identity formation through social participation. The focus of the paper is on how the teachers used others to help shape their sense of belonging to this, their new workplace. The paper develops ideas from network theories to argue that membership of the communities are a subset of the professional inter‐relationships teachers utilise for their professional development. During their first year of teaching, eight teachers were interviewed, completing 13 semi‐structured interviews. This was supplemented in Year 2 by a questionnaire survey of their experiences. In the third year of the programme, 11 teachers (including the original sample of eight) were surveyed using a network mapping tool in which they represented their communications with people, groups and resources. Finally, three of the teachers (common to both samples) were then interviewed specifically about their networking practices and experiences using the generation of their network map as a stimulated recall focus. The implications of the analysis of these accounts are that these beginning teachers did not perceive of themselves wholly as novices and that their personal aspirations to increase participation in practical science, develop a career or work for pupils holistically did not always sit comfortably with the school communities into which they were being accommodated. While highlighting the importance of trust and respect in establishing relationships, these teachers’ accounts highlight the importance of finding ‘peers’ from whom they can find support and with whom they can reflect and potentially collaborate towards developing practice. They also raise questions about who these ‘peers’ might be and where they might be found

1D Frustrated Ferromagnetic Model with Added Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya Interaction

The one-dimensional (1D) isotropic frustrated ferromagnetic spin-1/2 model is considered. Classical and quantum effects of adding a Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya (DM) interaction on the ground state of the system is studied using the analytical cluster method and numerical Lanczos technique. Cluster method results, show that the classical ground state magnetic phase diagram consists of only one single phase: "chiral". The quantum corrections are determined by means of the Lanczos method and a rich quantum phase diagram including the gapless Luttinger liquid, the gapped chiral and dimer orders is obtained. Moreover, next nearest neighbors will be entangled by increasing DM interaction and for open chains, end-spins are entangled which shows the long distance entanglement (LDE) feature that can be controlled by DM interaction.Comment: 8 pages, 9 figure

Technology-Supported Storytelling (TSST) Strategy in Virtual World for Multicultural Education

Learning culture through stories is an effective way for multicultural education, since stories are one of the most powerful and personal ways that we learn about the world. Storytelling, the process of telling stories, is a form of communication and a universal expression of culture. With the development of technology, storytelling emerges out of diverse ways. This study explores the storytelling in virtual worlds for multicultural education, and devises a Technology-Supported storytelling (TSST) strategy by examining and considering the characteristics of virtual worlds which could be incorporated into the storytelling, and then uses this strategy to teach Korean culture to students with different culture background. With this innovative TSST strategy in virtual world, this study expects to provide a guide to practice for teaching multicultural in digital era

A thermodynamic motivation for dark energy

It is argued that the discovery of cosmic acceleration could have been anticipated on thermodynamic grounds, namely, the generalized second law and the approach to equilibrium at large scale factor. Therefore, the existence of dark energy -or equivalently, some modified gravity theory- should have been expected. In general, cosmological models that satisfy the above criteria show compatibility with observational data.Comment: 22 pages, 7 eps figures; Key words: dark energy, thermodynamics, modified gravity. Comments added and arguments sharpene