35 research outputs found

    Best evidence osteoarthritis care: What are the recommendations and what Is needed to improve practice?

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    This article provides an overview of osteoarthritis (OA) management recommendations and strategies to improve clinical practice concordance with clinical guidelines. In many countries, the primary point of care for a person with OA is typically general practitioners and physiotherapists. Optimal primary care focuses on core OA treatments, namely education for self-management and lifestyle interventions encompassing increased physical activity, therapeutic exercise, and weight loss (if indicated). Quality indicators are used in clinical practice and research to determine the quality of care and in some settings, are used as knowledge translation tools to address existing evidence-to-practice gaps

    The taming of an impossible child: a standardized all-in approach to the phylogeny of Hymenoptera using public database sequences

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    <p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Enormous molecular sequence data have been accumulated over the past several years and are still exponentially growing with the use of faster and cheaper sequencing techniques. There is high and widespread interest in using these data for phylogenetic analyses. However, the amount of data that one can retrieve from public sequence repositories is virtually impossible to tame without dedicated software that automates processes. Here we present a novel bioinformatics pipeline for downloading, formatting, filtering and analyzing public sequence data deposited in GenBank. It combines some well-established programs with numerous newly developed software tools (available at <url>http://software.zfmk.de/</url>).</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We used the bioinformatics pipeline to investigate the phylogeny of the megadiverse insect order Hymenoptera (sawflies, bees, wasps and ants) by retrieving and processing more than 120,000 sequences and by selecting subsets under the criteria of compositional homogeneity and defined levels of density and overlap. Tree reconstruction was done with a partitioned maximum likelihood analysis from a supermatrix with more than 80,000 sites and more than 1,100 species. In the inferred tree, consistent with previous studies, "Symphyta" is paraphyletic. Within Apocrita, our analysis suggests a topology of Stephanoidea + (Ichneumonoidea + (Proctotrupomorpha + (Evanioidea + Aculeata))). Despite the huge amount of data, we identified several persistent problems in the Hymenoptera tree. Data coverage is still extremely low, and additional data have to be collected to reliably infer the phylogeny of Hymenoptera.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>While we applied our bioinformatics pipeline to Hymenoptera, we designed the approach to be as general as possible. With this pipeline, it is possible to produce phylogenetic trees for any taxonomic group and to monitor new data and tree robustness in a taxon of interest. It therefore has great potential to meet the challenges of the phylogenomic era and to deepen our understanding of the tree of life.</p

    Skeletal Morphology of Opius dissitus and Biosteres carbonarius (Hymenoptera: Braconidae), with a Discussion of Terminology

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    The Braconidae, a family of parasitic wasps, constitute a major taxonomic challenge with an estimated diversity of 40,000 to 120,000 species worldwide, only 18,000 of which have been described to date. The skeletal morphology of braconids is still not adequately understood and the terminology is partly idiosyncratic, despite the fact that anatomical features form the basis for most taxonomic work on the group. To help address this problem, we describe the external skeletal morphology of Opius dissitus Muesebeck 1963 and Biosteres carbonarius Nees 1834, two diverse representatives of one of the least known and most diverse braconid subfamilies, the Opiinae. We review the terminology used to describe skeletal features in the Ichneumonoidea in general and the Opiinae in particular, and identify a list of recommend terms, which are linked to the online Hymenoptera Anatomy Ontology. The morphology of the studied species is illustrated with SEM-micrographs, photos and line drawings. Based on the examined species, we discuss intraspecific and interspecific morphological variation in the Opiinae and point out character complexes that merit further study

    A proposed taxonomy of media collections and its implications for design and management of multimedia databases.

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    The extension of the principles of database management to encompass collections of media artefacts has led to a new range of solutions, and a matching extensive literature covering both research (including content-based retrieval, metadata standards and cataloguing, best practices for media acquisition, and digital preservation) and implementation (from web page content management to online museums, digital libraries, media archives and satellite and medical imaging). To make use of, and contribute to, this literature (whether by further research, design or new implementations) there must first be an overview of the domain. There are two ways in which this overview can be attained: one is to have a continual survey of what exists, and the other is to establish a comprehensive system of classification. Surveys are found either as enumerative assessment of problem domains, or as justification for comprehensive general solutions. The former (such as Martinez and Mouaddib, 1999; Ozden et al., 1997; Vogel et al., 1995; Yoshitaka and Ichikawa, 1999), while invaluable when published, cannot hope to be exhaustive, and rapidly become obsolete; and we are still left with the (recursive) problem of referencing the surveys themselves. Moreover, we can have no reason to expect that a set of general principles will emerge from these efforts (Quicke. 1993). Even where such surveys begin with a checklist in the form of a taxonomy (such as Martinez and Mouaddib, 1999) the result is still an enumeration with regularised attributes rather than a classification proper. On the other hand, surveys that are made for the purposes of justifying general solutions (e.g. Del Bimbo, 1996; (Grosky, 1997) cannot necessarily be treated as comprehensive coverage of the domain, nor will a collection of such surveys ever amount to a complete coverage. Classifications of multimedia collections should begin with an a priori taxonomy informed by surveys of the literature, but with the intent to comprehensively map out the entire multimedia domain. Such approaches have proved successful in the fields of visual programming (Burnett and Baker. 1994), data visualisation (Schneiderman, 1996) and media immersion interfaces (Gabbard and Hix, 2003). Taxonomies have the advantage that while the systems that are classified may become obsolete, the framework can deal with new examples and still serve its purpose. This paper proposes such a taxonomy, and describes its implications for design and management of multimedia databases

    Wasp-inspired needle insertion with low net push force

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    This paper outlines the development of a four-part needle prototype inspired by the ovipositor of parasitic wasps. In the wasp ovipositor, three longitudinal segments called valves move reciprocally to gain depth in the substrate. It has been suggested that serrations located along the wasp ovipositor induce a friction difference between moving and anchoring valves that is needed for this reciprocal motion. Such an anchoring mechanism may not be desired in a medical setting, as serrations can induce tissue damage. Our aim was to investigate whether a multipart needle can penetrate tissue phantom material with near-zero net push force while using needle parts devoid of surface gripping textures or serrations. Accordingly, a four-part needle prototype was developed and tested in gelatine substrates. The performance of the prototype was assessed in terms of the degree of slipping of the needle with respect to the gelatine, with less slip implying better performance. Slip decreased with decreasing gelatine concentration and increasing offset between the needle parts. Motion through gelatine was achieved with a maximum push force of 0.035 N. This study indicates the possibility of needle propagation into a substrate with low net push force and without the need of serrations on the needle surface.Accepted Author ManuscriptMedical Instruments & Bio-Inspired Technolog

    Strong phylogenetic constraint on transition metal incorporation in the mandibles of the hyper-diverse Hymenoptera (Insecta)

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    In several groups of insects, body structures related to feeding and oviposition are known to have a hardened cuticle by incorporation of transition metals. However, a functional link between metal enrichment and ecological pressures (i.e., adaptation) has been only rarely shown, opening the possibility that in some lineages, the evolutionary history may account for most of the observed variation (i.e., phylogenetic constraint). Here, we addressed this question in the hyper-diverse Hymenoptera (bees, wasps, ants, and sawflies), in which Zn and/or Mn have been found enriching the mandibles of a number of species. Across 87 species spanning most of the extant superfamilies, we found Zn enrichment to be widespread (57 species). Although lacking in the most primitive “Symphyta”, our ancestral state reconstruction was not conclusive in determining whether Zn enrichment was a derived state for the complete order, but it was clearly the ancestral state for the Apocrita, where it was lost in few lineages, notably in Aculeata (where it was then reacquired at least three times). Mn, on the other hand, occurred very rarely in mandibles (10 species). Our comparative analysis revealed a strong phylogenetic effect explaining most Zn % and Mn % variation in mandibles. Additionally, species with herbivorous larvae were less prone to have Zn (but not Mn) than those with carnivorous larvae, although a causal effect of diet on this trait was unlikely. Furthermore, species emerging from concealed vs. unconcealed development sites have similar likelihood to have metal-enriched mandibles. Evolutionary history seems to constrain metal enrichment in hymenopteran mandibles, yet the few observed losses and regains of this trait during evolution claim for deeper investigations on the role of alternative, here untested, ecological pressures
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