Mayhew v. Hickox: Balancing Maine\u27s Public\u27s Health with Personal Liberties During the Ebola Crisis

By the 1960s, methods in the detection and treatment (and consequently improvements in the survival rates) of infectious diseases had advanced so significantly that [d]iseases seemed destined to all but disappear. But the reemergence of previously eradicated diseases, and the emergence of new diseases that seemed all-but-untreatable, such as Ebola virus, soon put to rest the euphoria of medical advancement. Ebola virus is one of the most dangerous infectious diseases to emerge in the twentieth century, and through media sources, including movies, television shows, and new reporting, has become one of the most feared. Despite public misunderstanding regarding the causes, symptoms, and treatment of the virus, and some political exaggeration of the dangers, these fears are not without merit, as Ebola virus is life-threatening and difficult to diagnose. The disease is a real and recurring threat to public safety, especially in particular African countries: the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has said that the 2014 Ebola epidemic is the largest Ebola epidemic in history. Ebola poses a very difficult public health problem partly because there is no known cure. Though oral or intravenous rehydration and symptom-specific treatment improves he infected individual\u27s chances for survival, the disease has a very low survival rate. It is also extremely infectious, and while primarily spread through contact with blood or bodily fluids, has been known to infect through skin-to-skin contact. Thus, the only sure method to prevent the spread of the disease is to prevent exposure through direct contact with infected individuals.1

Mayhew v. Hickox: Balancing Maine\u27s Public\u27s Health with Personal Liberties During the Ebola Crisis

By the 1960s, methods in the detection and treatment (and consequently improvements in the survival rates) of infectious diseases had advanced so significantly that [d]iseases seemed destined to all but disappear. But the reemergence of previously eradicated diseases, and the emergence of new diseases that seemed all-but-untreatable, such as Ebola virus, soon put to rest the euphoria of medical advancement. Ebola virus is one of the most dangerous infectious diseases to emerge in the twentieth century, and through media sources, including movies, television shows, and new reporting, has become one of the most feared. Despite public misunderstanding regarding the causes, symptoms, and treatment of the virus, and some political exaggeration of the dangers, these fears are not without merit, as Ebola virus is life-threatening and difficult to diagnose. The disease is a real and recurring threat to public safety, especially in particular African countries: the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has said that the 2014 Ebola epidemic is the largest Ebola epidemic in history. Ebola poses a very difficult public health problem partly because there is no known cure. Though oral or intravenous rehydration and symptom-specific treatment improves he infected individual\u27s chances for survival, the disease has a very low survival rate. It is also extremely infectious, and while primarily spread through contact with blood or bodily fluids, has been known to infect through skin-to-skin contact. Thus, the only sure method to prevent the spread of the disease is to prevent exposure through direct contact with infected individuals.1

The Last Cherokee of Blue Ridge

This work is an exploration into the life of a young queer man in the United States Army charged with aiding in the removal of the Cherokee Native Americans during the 1830s Indian Removal. It is my hope that my characters and setting bring attention to the politics of queerness and nativism in a way that has not been allowed by mainstream fiction

Body mass index and incident coronary heart disease in women: a population-based prospective study

BACKGROUND A high body mass index (BMI) is associated with an increased risk of mortality from coronary heart disease (CHD); however, a low BMI may also be associated with an increased mortality risk. There is limited information on the relation of incident CHD risk across a wide range of BMI, particularly in women. We examined the relation between BMI and incident CHD overall and across different risk factors of the disease in the Million Women Study. METHODS 1.2 million women (mean age=56 years) participants without heart disease, stroke, or cancer (except non-melanoma skin cancer) at baseline (1996 to 2001) were followed prospectively for 9 years on average. Adjusted relative risks and 20-year cumulative incidence from age 55 to 74 years were calculated for CHD using Cox regression. RESULTS After excluding the first 4 years of follow-up, we found that 32,465 women had a first coronary event (hospitalization or death) during follow-up. The adjusted relative risk for incident CHD per 5 kg/m2 increase in BMI was 1.23 (95% confidence interval (CI) 1.22 to 1.25). The cumulative incidence of CHD from age 55 to 74 years increased progressively with BMI, from 1 in 11 (95% CI 1 in 10 to 12) for BMI of 20 kg/m2, to 1 in 6(95% CI 1 in 5 to 7) for BMI of 34 kg/m2. A 10 kg/m2 increase in BMI conferred a similar risk to a 5-year increment in chronological age. The 20 year cumulative incidence increased with BMI in smokers and non-smokers, alcohol drinkers and non-drinkers, physically active and inactive, and in the upper and lower socioeconomic classes. In contrast to incident disease, the relation between BMI and CHD mortality (n=2,431) was J-shaped. For the less than 20 kg/m2 and ≥35 kg/m2 BMI categories, the respective relative risks were 1.27 (95% CI 1.06 to 1.53) and 2.84 (95% CI 2.51 to 3.21) for CHD deaths, and 0.89 (95% CI 0.83 to 0.94) and 1.85 (95% CI 1.78 to 1.92) for incident CHD. CONCLUSIONS CHD incidence in women increases progressively with BMI, an association consistently seen in different subgroups. The shape of the relation with BMI differs for incident and fatal disease.The Million Women Study is funded by Cancer Research UK, the Medical Research Council, and the NHS Breast Screening Programme. The funding organizations were not involved in the study design or conduct, data analysis or interpretation, manuscript preparation or review, final version approval, or decision to submit the manuscript

Automatic Labeling of Special Diagnostic Mammography Views from Images and DICOM Headers.

Applying state-of-the-art machine learning techniques to medical images requires a thorough selection and normalization of input data. One of such steps in digital mammography screening for breast cancer is the labeling and removal of special diagnostic views, in which diagnostic tools or magnification are applied to assist in assessment of suspicious initial findings. As a common task in medical informatics is prediction of disease and its stage, these special diagnostic views, which are only enriched among the cohort of diseased cases, will bias machine learning disease predictions. In order to automate this process, here, we develop a machine learning pipeline that utilizes both DICOM headers and images to predict such views in an automatic manner, allowing for their removal and the generation of unbiased datasets. We achieve AUC of 99.72% in predicting special mammogram views when combining both types of models. Finally, we apply these models to clean up a dataset of about 772,000 images with expected sensitivity of 99.0%. The pipeline presented in this paper can be applied to other datasets to obtain high-quality image sets suitable to train algorithms for disease detection

An Experimental Study of Applied Ground Loads in Landing

Results are presented of an experimental investigation made of the applied ground loads and the coefficient of friction between the tire and the ground during the wheel spin-up process in impacts of a small landing gear under controlled conditions on a concrete landing strip in the Langley impact basin. The basic investigation included three major phases: impacts with forward speed at horizontal velocities up to approximately 86 feet per second, impacts with forward speed and reverse wheel rotation to simulate horizontal velocities up to about 273 feet per second, and spin-up drop tests for comparison with the other tests. In addition to the basic investigation, supplementary tests were made to evaluate the drag-load alleviating effects of prerotating the wheel before impact so as to reduce the relative velocity between the tire and ground. In the presentation of the results, an attempt has been made to interpret the experimental data so as to obtain some insight into the physical phenomena involved in the wheel spin-up process

Vascular disease in women: comparison of diagnoses in hospital episode statistics and general practice records in England

BACKGROUND Electronic linkage to routine administrative datasets, such as the Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) in England, is increasingly used in medical research. Relatively little is known about the reliability of HES diagnostic information for epidemiological studies. In the United Kingdom (UK), general practitioners hold comprehensive records for individuals relating to their primary, secondary and tertiary care. For a random sample of participants in a large UK cohort, we compared vascular disease diagnoses in HES and general practice records to assess agreement between the two sources. METHODS Million Women Study participants with a HES record of hospital admission with vascular disease (ischaemic heart disease [ICD-10 codes I20-I25], cerebrovascular disease [G45, I60-I69] or venous thromboembolism [I26, I80-I82]) between April 1st 1997 and March 31st 2005 were identified. In each broad diagnostic group and in women with no such HES diagnoses, a random sample of about a thousand women was selected for study. We asked each woman's general practitioner to provide information on her history of vascular disease and this information was compared with the HES diagnosis record. RESULTS Over 90% of study forms sent to general practitioners were returned and 88% of these contained analysable data. For the vast majority of study participants for whom information was available, diagnostic information from general practice and HES records was consistent. Overall, for 93% of women with a HES diagnosis of vascular disease, general practice records agreed with the HES diagnosis; and for 97% of women with no HES diagnosis of vascular disease, the general practitioner had no record of a diagnosis of vascular disease. For severe vascular disease, including myocardial infarction (I21-22), stroke, both overall (I60-64) and by subtype, and pulmonary embolism (I26), HES records appeared to be both reliable and complete. CONCLUSION Hospital admission data in England provide diagnostic information for vascular disease of sufficient reliability for epidemiological analyses.The Million Women Study is funded by Cancer Research UK and the UK Medical Research Council. The study is registered with the NHS National Institute of Health Research Portfolio (study number 6862). General practices were reimbursed for conducting the data collection through NHS Service Support Cost funding of the National Institute of Health Research

NACA Research Memorandums

Report presenting information on landing gear applied drag loads and the nature of wheel spin-up in landing based on testing in the Langley impact basin. Particular attention is paid to the nature and variation of the coefficient of friction between the tire and runway during the wheel spin-up process. Results regarding the fundamentals of the process, comparison of maximum loads, variation of coefficient of friction, and effect of prerotation are provided