Pneumotachograph

A pneumotachograph suitable for measuring flow rates of respiratory gases in small animals and comprising essentially a flow-resisting element which can be placed in series with a subject\u27\u27s airway. The pressure drop across the resistive element is proportional to the rate of airflow and is linear over the range of flows which one normally would expect to encounter in small animals (0-2 liters/min.)

Documenting and Understanding Workplace injuries among Latino Day Laborers

BACKGROUND: Latino day laborers face substantial injuries at work. We present a comprehensive assessment of their injury experience and explore the predictors of selfreported injuries. METHODS: Worker and injury characteristics were collected from 331 day laborers using an innnovative injury assessment tool. The odds of injury were estimated using a logistic regression. RESULTS: Participants were foreign-born, Spanish monolingual, and employed in construction. Sixty-seven individuals reported 88 past-year injuries, mostly involving the upper or lower extremities. Injuries were caused by moving heavy objects, falling, or being struck an object. Of the documented injuries, 24% were not reported at work due to fear of being fired; 64.4% resulted in missed workdays, 54.0% in temporary incapacitation, and 34.5% in permanent incapacitation. Being married significantly reduced the odds of reporting an injury. DISCUSSION: Better documentation can inform the development of better policy protections that ameliorate injuries experienced by Latino day laborers at the workplace

Comprehensive Evidence-Based Assessment and Prioritization of Potential Antidiabetic Medicinal Plants: A Case Study from Canadian Eastern James Bay Cree Traditional Medicine

Canadian Aboriginals, like others globally, suffer from disproportionately high rates of diabetes. A comprehensive evidence-based approach was therefore developed to study potential antidiabetic medicinal plants stemming from Canadian Aboriginal Traditional Medicine to provide culturally adapted complementary and alternative treatment options. Key elements of pathophysiology of diabetes and of related contemporary drug therapy are presented to highlight relevant cellular and molecular targets for medicinal plants. Potential antidiabetic plants were identified using a novel ethnobotanical method based on a set of diabetes symptoms. The most promising species were screened for primary (glucose-lowering) and secondary (toxicity, drug interactions, complications) antidiabetic activity by using a comprehensive platform of in vitro cell-based and cell-free bioassays. The most active species were studied further for their mechanism of action and their active principles identified though bioassay-guided fractionation. Biological activity of key species was confirmed in animal models of diabetes. These in vitro and in vivo findings are the basis for evidence-based prioritization of antidiabetic plants. In parallel, plants were also prioritized by Cree Elders and healers according to their Traditional Medicine paradigm. This case study highlights the convergence of modern science and Traditional Medicine while providing a model that can be adapted to other Aboriginal realities worldwide

Population genomics of domestic and wild yeasts

The natural genetics of an organism is determined by the distribution of sequences of its genome. Here we present one- to four-fold, with some deeper, coverage of the genome sequences of over seventy isolates of the domesticated baker's yeast, _Saccharomyces cerevisiae_, and its closest relative, the wild _S. paradoxus_, which has never been associated with human activity. These were collected from numerous geographic locations and sources (including wild, clinical, baking, wine, laboratory and food spoilage). These sequences provide an unprecedented view of the population structure, natural (and artificial) selection and genome evolution in these species. Variation in gene content, SNPs, indels, copy numbers and transposable elements provide insights into the evolution of different lineages. Phenotypic variation broadly correlates with global genome-wide phylogenetic relationships however there is no correlation with source. _S. paradoxus_ populations are well delineated along geographic boundaries while the variation among worldwide _S. cerevisiae_ isolates show less differentiation and is comparable to a single _S. paradoxus_ population. Rather than one or two domestication events leading to the extant baker's yeasts, the population structure of _S. cerevisiae_ shows a few well defined geographically isolated lineages and many different mosaics of these lineages, supporting the notion that human influence provided the opportunity for outbreeding and production of new combinations of pre-existing variation

Two-Level Proportional Hazards Models

We extend the proportional hazards model to a two-level model with a random intercept term and random coefficients. The parameters in the multilevel model are estimated by a combination of EM and Newton-Raphson algorithms. Even for samples of 50 groups, this method produces estimators of the fixed effects coefficients that are approximately unbiased and normally distributed. Two different methods, observed information and profile likelihood information, will be used to estimate the standard errors. This work is motivated by the goal of understanding the determinants of contraceptive use among Nepalese women in the Chitwan Valley Family Study (Axinn, Barber, and Ghimire, 1997). We utilize a two-level hazard model to examine how education and access to education for children covary with the initiation of permanent contraceptive use.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/65551/1/j.0006-341X.2002.00754.x.pd

Pelvic adhesions and pelvic pain: opinions on cause and effect relationship and when to surgically intervene

ABSTRACT Objective In the absence of definitive data, we sought to determine the consensus on the contribution of adhesions to pelvic pain. Methods Impressions about the role of adhesion location, extent, and severity of pelvic pain, were surveyed among 13 gynaecological surgeons. They were asked whether adhesions covering specific organs to a varying extent would be likely to cause pain significant enough to require pain medication, or to lead a woman to alter her normal activities, and when they would recommend surgery to reduce pelvic pain. Results Women with dense vascular adhesions covering all of the uterus but not the bowel or adnexal structures were thought to have a 49^9% likelihood of having pelvic pain; this fell to a 34^7% and 18^5% likelihood of pain if 60% or 20%, respectively, of the uterus was involved with adhesions. Similar observations were made for adhesions involving the posterior cul-de-sac and large bowel. However, adhesions involving the anterior cul-de-sac were thought to be less likely to cause pain. Women with total involvement of both tubes and ovaries with dense, vascularadhesionswerethoughttobe60^9%likelytohavepelvicpain;reduction in extent of adhesions to 50% or 25% reduced the prediction of pain to 38^5% and 21^3%, respectively. In contrast, filmy adhesions to both tubes and ovaries, were thought to cause pain in 46^9%, 26^5%, and 13^3% of women, respectively, according to extent. Half the surgeons said they would recommend surgery for patients with pain and dense adhesions involving 15% of both tubes and ovaries; 10 recommended surgery if it was known that adhesions involved 100% of bothovariesandtubes.Surgeonswereonlyslightlylesslikelytorecommendsurgery for pain relief for adhesions involving either both tubes or both ovaries or for pain associated with unilateral tubal and ovarian adhesions. For bilateral tube and ovary adhesions, surgery was equally likely to be recommended for relief of pain when adhesions were cohesive and dense; for adhesions which were filmy, surgery was less likely to be recommended. For dense adhesions involving 20%, 40%, 60%, and 80% of the uterine surface, surgery was recommended by 42%, 58%, 83% and 92% of surgeons, respectively. Posterior cul-de-sac involvement resulted in recommendation of surgery by 50%, 83%, 92%, and 100% of surgeons, respectively; however, for corresponding amounts of anterior cul-de-sac adhesions, surgery was recommended by only 17%, 33%, 67%, and 75% of surgeons. Conclusions (1) Adhesions are frequently considered to be a cause of pelvic pain; (2) the likelihood of discomfort is related to location, extent, and to a lesser degree, the severity of adhesions, and (3) adhesiolysis is thought to provide the potential for pain relief