Cross-sectional survey of Good Samaritan behaviour by physicians in North Carolina

ObjectiveTo assess the responses of physicians to providing emergency medical assistance outside of routine clinical care. We assessed the percentage who reported previous Good Samaritan behaviour, their responses to hypothetical situations, their comfort providing specific interventions and the most likely reason they would not intervene.SettingPhysicians residing in North Carolina.ParticipantsConvenience sample of 1000 licensed physicians.InterventionMailed survey.DesignCross-sectional study conducted May 2015 to September 2015.Main outcome and measuresWillingness of physicians to act as Good Samaritans as determined by the last opportunity to intervene in an out-of-office emergency.ResultsThe adjusted response rate was 26.1% (253/970 delivered). 4 out of 5 physicians reported previous opportunities to act as Good Samaritans. Approximately, 93% reported acting as a Good Samaritan during their last opportunity. There were no differences in this outcome between sexes, practice setting, specialty type or experience level. Doctors with greater perceived knowledge of Good Samaritan law were more likely to have intervened during a recent opportunity (p=0.02). The most commonly cited reason for potentially not intervening was that another health provider had taken charge.ConclusionsWe found the frequency of Good Samaritan behaviour among physicians to be much higher than reported in previous studies. Greater helping behaviour was exhibited by those who expressed more familiarity with Good Samaritan law. These findings suggest that physicians may respond to legal protections

Patterns of Oral Microbiota Diversity in Adults and Children: A Crowdsourced Population Study.

Oral microbiome dysbiosis has been associated with various local and systemic human diseases such as dental caries, periodontal disease, obesity, and cardiovascular disease. Bacterial composition may be affected by age, oral health, diet, and geography, although information about the natural variation found in the general public is still lacking. In this study, citizen-scientists used a crowdsourcing model to obtain oral bacterial composition data from guests at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science to determine if previously suspected oral microbiome associations with an individual's demographics, lifestyle, and/or genetics are robust and generalizable enough to be detected within a general population. Consistent with past research, we found bacterial composition to be more diverse in youth microbiomes when compared to adults. Adult oral microbiomes were predominantly impacted by oral health habits, while youth microbiomes were impacted by biological sex and weight status. The oral pathogen Treponema was detected more commonly in adults without recent dentist visits and in obese youth. Additionally, oral microbiomes from participants of the same family were more similar to each other than to oral microbiomes from non-related individuals. These results suggest that previously reported oral microbiome associations are observable in a human population containing the natural variation commonly found in the general public. Furthermore, these results support the use of crowdsourced data as a valid methodology to obtain community-based microbiome data

Analogy Training Multilingual Encoders

Language encoders encode words and phrases in ways that capture their local semantic relatedness, but are known to be globally inconsistent. Global inconsistency can seemingly be corrected for, in part, by leveraging signals from knowledge bases, but previous results are partial and limited to monolingual English encoders. We extract a large-scale multilingual, multi-word analogy dataset from Wikidata for diagnosing and correcting for global inconsistencies and implement a four-way Siamese BERT architecture for grounding multilingual BERT (mBERT) in Wikidata through analogy training. We show that analogy training not only improves the global consistency of mBERT, as well as the isomorphism of language-specific subspaces, but also leads to significant gains on downstream tasks such as bilingual dictionary induction and sentence retrieval

Automated genome mining for natural products

Abstract Background Discovery of new medicinal agents from natural sources has largely been an adventitious process based on screening of plant and microbial extracts combined with bioassay-guided identification and natural product structure elucidation. Increasingly rapid and more cost-effective genome sequencing technologies coupled with advanced computational power have converged to transform this trend toward a more rational and predictive pursuit. Results We have developed a rapid method of scanning genome sequences for multiple polyketide, nonribosomal peptide, and mixed combination natural products with output in a text format that can be readily converted to two and three dimensional structures using conventional software. Our open-source and web-based program can assemble various small molecules composed of twenty standard amino acids and twenty two other chain-elongation intermediates used in nonribosomal peptide systems, and four acyl-CoA extender units incorporated into polyketides by reading a hidden Markov model of DNA. This process evaluates and selects the substrate specificities along the assembly line of nonribosomal synthetases and modular polyketide synthases. Conclusion Using this approach we have predicted the structures of natural products from a diverse range of bacteria based on a limited number of signature sequences. In accelerating direct DNA to metabolomic analysis, this method bridges the interface between chemists and biologists and enables rapid scanning for compounds with potential therapeutic value.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/112362/1/12859_2008_Article_2915.pd

Designing multiplayer games to facilitate emergent social behaviours online

This paper discusses an exploratory case study of the design of games that facilitate spontaneous social interaction and group behaviours among distributed individuals, based largely on symbolic presence 'state' changes. We present the principles guiding the design of our game environment: presence as a symbolic phenomenon, the importance of good visualization and the potential for spontaneous self-organization among groups of people. Our game environment, comprising a family of multiplayer 'bumper-car' style games, is described, followed by a discussion of lessons learned from observing users of the environment. Finally, we reconsider and extend our design principles in light of our observations

Genome-wide transcriptional response of an avian pathogenic Escherichia coli (APEC) pst mutant

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Avian pathogenic <it>E</it>. <it>coli </it>(APEC) are associated with extraintestinal diseases in poultry. The <it>pstSCAB</it>-<it>phoU </it>operon belongs to the Pho regulon and encodes the phosphate specific transport (Pst) system. A functional Pst system is required for full virulence in APEC and other bacteria and contributes to resistance of APEC to serum, to cationic antimicrobial peptides and acid shock. The global mechanisms contributing to the attenuation and decreased resistance of the APEC <it>pst </it>mutant to environmental stresses have not been investigated at the transcriptional level. To determine the global effect of a <it>pst </it>mutation on gene expression, we compared the transcriptomes of APEC strain χ7122 and its isogenic <it>pst </it>mutant (K3) grown in phosphate-rich medium.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Overall, 470 genes were differentially expressed by at least 1.5-fold. Interestingly, the <it>pst </it>mutant not only induced systems involved in phosphate acquisition and metabolism, despite phosphate availability, but also modulated stress response mechanisms. Indeed, transcriptional changes in genes associated with the general stress responses, including the oxidative stress response were among the major differences observed. Accordingly, the K3 strain was less resistant to reactive oxygen species (ROS) than the wild-type strain. In addition, the <it>pst </it>mutant demonstrated reduced expression of genes involved in lipopolysaccharide modifications and coding for cell surface components such as type 1 and F9 fimbriae. Phenotypic tests also established that the <it>pst </it>mutant was impaired in its capacity to produce type 1 fimbriae, as demonstrated by western blotting and agglutination of yeast cells, when compared to wild-type APEC strain χ7122.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Overall, our data elucidated the effects of a <it>pst </it>mutation on the transcriptional response, and further support the role of the Pho regulon as part of a complex network contributing to phosphate homeostasis, adaptive stress responses, and <it>E. coli </it>virulence.</p

Interaction of eddies and mean zonal flow on Jupiter as inferred from Voyager 1 and 2 images

Voyager 1 and 2 narrow-angle frames were used to obtain displacements of features at resolutions of 130 km over time intervals of 1 Jovian rotation. The zonal velocity ū was constant to 1.5% during the 4 months between the Voyager 1 and 2 encounters. The latitudes of the zonal jet maxima (extrema of ū) are the same as inferred from earth-based observations extending over the past 80 years. The curvature of the velocity profile d²ū/dy² varies with latitudinal coordinate y in the range from −3β to +2β, where β is the planetary vorticity gradient. The barotropic stability criterion is violated at about 10 latitudes between ±60°. The eddy momentum flux variation with latitude (u'ν')(overbar) is positively correlated with dū/dy for both Voyager 1 and 2 data. The rate of conversion {K'K(overbar)} of eddy kinetic energy into zonal mean kinetic energy is in the range 1.5–3.0 Wm^(−2), for a layer 2.5 bar deep. The time constant for resupply of zonal mean kinetic energy by eddies is in the range 2–4 months, less than the interval between Voyager encounters. The rate of energy conversion is more than 10% of the total infrared heat flux for Jupiter, in contrast with earth where it is only 0.1% of the infrared heat flux. This hundred-fold difference suggests that the thermomechanical energy cycles are very different on the two planets

Transcriptional Robustness Complements Nonsense-Mediated Decay in Humans

In eukaryotes, gene expression is a complex, multi-step process involving transcription, splicing, translation, and post-translational modifications. At each individual step, errors can occur that lead to nonfunctional and potentially toxic proteins. Therefore, eukaryotes have evolved a wide array of solutions to minimize the risk of error.This work was supported by NIH grant R01 GM088344 to COW. The funder had no role in the preparation of the article.Cellular and Molecular Biolog

Everything Is Science: A Free City-Wide Science Festival

A week-long, city-wide science festival called Everything is Science (EiS) was developed to educate the community in an informal manner. The festival serves as a platform for presenters from diverse professions to give engaging talks (without PowerPoint slides) to the public, free of charge, in restaurants and bars around town. Over 350 people attended the events over 5 days with 33 presenters. Surveys completed by attendees and session coordinators indicate strong support for this festival. Altogether, the EiS festival serves as a no-cost method to engage with the community and improve science literacy with potential for adoption in other cities