Skeletal muscle channelopathies: a guide to diagnosis and management

Skeletal muscle channelopathies are a group of rare episodic genetic disorders comprising the periodic paralyses and the non-dystrophic myotonias. They may cause significant morbidity, limit vocational opportunities, be socially embarrassing, and sometimes are associated with sudden cardiac death. The diagnosis is often hampered by symptoms that patients may find difficult to describe, a normal examination in the absence of symptoms, and the need to interpret numerous tests that may be normal or abnormal. However, the symptoms respond very well to holistic management and pharmacological treatment, with great benefit to quality of life. Here, we review when to suspect a muscle channelopathy, how to investigate a possible case and the options for therapy once a diagnosis is made

Pilot, Rollout and Monte Carlo Tree Search Methods for Job Shop Scheduling

Greedy heuristics may be attuned by looking ahead for each possible choice, in an approach called the rollout or Pilot method. These methods may be seen as meta-heuristics that can enhance (any) heuristic solution, by repetitively modifying a master solution: similarly to what is done in game tree search, better choices are identified using lookahead, based on solutions obtained by repeatedly using a greedy heuristic. This paper first illustrates how the Pilot method improves upon some simple well known dispatch heuristics for the job-shop scheduling problem. The Pilot method is then shown to be a special case of the more recent Monte Carlo Tree Search (MCTS) methods: Unlike the Pilot method, MCTS methods use random completion of partial solutions to identify promising branches of the tree. The Pilot method and a simple version of MCTS, using the $\varepsilon$-greedy exploration paradigms, are then compared within the same framework, consisting of 300 scheduling problems of varying sizes with fixed-budget of rollouts. Results demonstrate that MCTS reaches better or same results as the Pilot methods in this context.Comment: Learning and Intelligent OptimizatioN (LION'6) 7219 (2012

Addressing health information privacy with a novel cloud-based PHR system architecture

Patient Health Records (PHRs) shift the ownership of health data from health providers to patients. Such a shift poses important challenges from the data privacy point of view. Patients would like to be able to selectively reveal information to other stakeholders and, at the same time, be assured that their health information will not be used improperly once shared. Current PHR systems partially fail to satisfy these requirements. In this paper, we show that both requirements can be satisfied fully when adopting a novel cloud-based PHR system architecture.We expain the role of remote virtual machines in this architecture and use interaction models to reason about privacy implications. Finally, we evaluate MyPHRMachines, a prototypical implementation of the architecture: we demonstrate that the system enables the execution of third party genome analysis services on patientowned genome data while ensuring that (1) such services cannot maliciously store this data and (2) patients can show the analysis results to experts without sharing along their full genome

Carbon sequestration and nutrient reserves under different land use systems.

ABSTRACT-This study evaluated the contribution of agroforestry (AFS) and traditional systems to carbon sequestration and nutrient reserves in plants, litter and soil. The study was carried out in the semiarid region of Brazil in a long-term experiment on an experimental farm of the goat and sheep section of the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (Embrapa). Two agroforestry systems were investigated: agrosilvopastoral (ASP) and forest-pasture areas (SP) as well as traditional agriculture management (TM), two areas left fallow after TM (six fallow years - F6 and nine fallow years - F9) and one area of preserved Caatinga vegetation (CAT). Soil, litter and plants were sampled from all areas and the contents of C, N, P, K, Ca and Mg per compartment determined. The AFS (ASP and SP) had higher nutrient stocks than the traditional and intermediate stocks compared to the preserved Caatinga. In the ASP, a relevant part of the nutrients extracted by crops is returned to the system by constant inputs of litter, weeding of herbaceous vegetation and cutting of the legume crops. After fallow periods of six and nine years, carbon and nutrient stocks in the compartments soil, litter and herbaceous plants were similar to those of the preserved Caatinga (CAT), but still lower than under natural conditions in the woody vegetation. RESUMO-Objetivou-se conhecer a contribuição de sistemas agroflorestais (SAFs) e tradicionais para o sequestro de carbono e a reserva de nutrientes presentes nas plantas, serrapilheira e solo. O estudo foi realizado na região semiárida brasileira, em experimento de longa duração realizado na Fazenda Experimental da Embrapa Caprinos e Ovinos. Estudaram-se dois sistemas agroflorestais: agrossilvipastoril (ASP) e silvipastoril (SP) e um tradicional (AG), sendo também utilizadas duas áreas sob pousio após o manejo tradicional (seis anos - F6 e nove anos F9) e uma área de Caatinga conservada (CAT). Nessas áreas, foram realizadas coletas de solo, serrapilheira e plantas, sendo os teores de C, N, P, K, Ca e Mg quantificados em cada um desses compartimentos. Os SAFs (ASP e SP) apresentaram estoques de nutrientes superiores ao tradicional e intermediários em relação à Caatinga conservada. No ASP, grande parte dos nutrientes extraídos pelas colheitas volta ao sistema por meio das entradas via serrapilheira, capinas das herbáceas e poda das leguminosas. Os estoques no solo, na serrapilheira e nas plantas herbáceas após os períodos de pousio de seis e nove anos foram semelhantes à Caatinga conservada, porém os estoques do estrato arbóreo foram inferiores à condição natural

Contribuição para a construção de um modelo matemático da produção da pêra "Rocha"

Trabalho apresentado no 1.º Simpósio Nacional de Fruticultura que decorreu em Alcobaça de 12 a 13 de Outubro de 2006 e que foi organizado pela Associação Portuguesa de Horticultura.Neste trabalho, apresentam-se resultados preliminares relativos a alguns sub-modelos da produção de pêra ‘Rocha’: crescimento do fruto, relação entre a carga de frutos e a produção da árvore, influência do volume da copa (compasso de plantação, idade) na produtividade de árvores e pomares

Método para comparar curvas de produção de ovos usando um modelo matemático.

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Quando usar cama de aviário para suínos.

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Influência da quantidade de ração sobre o desempenho reprodutivo de leitoas do primeiro o terceiro cio.

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The challenge of ensuring affordability, sustainability, consistency, and adaptability in the common metrics agenda

Summary Mental health research grapples with research waste and stunted field progression caused by inconsistent outcome measurement across studies and clinical settings, which means there is no common language for considering findings. Although recognising that no gold standard measures exist and that all existing measures are flawed in one way or another, anxiety and depression research is spearheading a common metrics movement to harmonise measurement, with several initiatives over the past 5 years recommending the consistent use of specific scales to allow read-across of measurements between studies. For this approach to flourish, however, common metrics must be acceptable and adaptable to a range of contexts and populations, and global access should be as easy and affordable as possible, including in low-income countries. Within a measurement landscape dominated by fixed proprietary measures and with competing views of what should be measured, achieving this goal poses a range of challenges. In this Personal View, we consider tensions between affordability, sustainability, consistency, and adaptability that, if not addressed, risk undermining the common metrics agenda. We outline a three-pronged way forward that involves funders taking more direct responsibility for measure development and dissemination; a move towards managing measure dissemination and adaptation via open-access measure hubs; and transitioning from fixed questionnaires to item banks. We argue that now is the time to start thinking of mental health metrics as 21st century tools to be co-owned and co-created by the mental health community, with support from dedicated infrastructure, coordinating bodies, and funders