Variability in spawning frequency and reproductive development of the narrow-barred Spanish mackerel (Scomberomorus commerson) along the west coast of Australia

The narrow-barred Spanish mackerel (Scomberomorus commerson) is widespread throughout the Indo-West Pacific region. This study describes the reproductive biology of S. commerson along the west coast of Australia, where it is targeted for food consumption and sports fishing. Development of testes occurred at a smaller body size than for ovaries, and more than 90% of males were sexually mature by the minimum legal length of 900 mm TL compared to 50% of females. Females dominated overall catches although sex ratios within daily catches vary considerably and females were rarely caught when spaw n ing. Scomberomorus commerson are seasonally abundant in coastal waters and most of the commercial catch is taken prior to the reproductive season. Spawning occurs between about August and November in the Kimberley region and between October and January in the Pilbara region. No spawning activity was recorded in the more southerly West Coast region, and only in the north Kimberley region were large numbers of fish with spawning gonads collected. Catches dropped to a minimum when spawning began in the Pilbara region, when fish became less abundant in inshore waters and inclement weather conditions limited fishing on still productive offshore reefs. Final maturation and ovulation of oocytes took place within a 24-hour period, and females spawned in the afternoon-evening every three days. A third of these spawning females released batches of eggs on consecutive days. Relationships between length, weight, and batch fecundity are presented

Findings from Year Two of the External Evaluation of the Healthy & Active Communities Initiative

The Missouri Foundation for Health has funded 33 projects under its Healthy & Active Communities (H&AC) Initiative in two-year funding cycles. A set of 15 projects was funded beginning in 2005 while a set of 18 was funded starting in 2006. This report is the second of three annual reports that assess the extent to which the H&AC Initiative is achieving its objectives. The report builds upon the findings described in “Findings from Year One of the External Evaluation of the Healthy & Active Communities Initiative.” The Missouri Foundation for Health contracted with the Institute of Public Policy, Truman School of Public Affairs at the University of Missouri to provide an evaluation of the success of the Initiative as a whole. This focus differs from the typical evaluation where evaluators are assessing and reporting on the success of individual funded projects. Instead, the evaluation looked across the funded projects to identify common factors of success. Continuing from the framework established in 2006, the evaluation team worked from a socio-ecological model. This model assumes that complex prevention programs such as the H&AC projects must use a multi-faceted approach in order to change behavior on individual, organizational and community levels simultaneously. To evaluate programs with multiple approaches such as these, the evaluators determined that cluster evaluation, a strategy developed by the Kellogg Foundation, could be used to identify successful features of the Initiative as a whole. This method enables the evaluators to identify successful program and community conditions that transcend the individual projects

Identification of Novel Androgen-Regulated Pathways and mRNA Isoforms through Genome-Wide Exon-Specific Profiling of the LNCaP Transcriptome

Androgens drive the onset and progression of prostate cancer (PCa) by modulating androgen receptor (AR) transcriptional activity. Although several microarray-based studies have identified androgen-regulated genes, here we identify in-parallel global androgen-dependent changes in both gene and alternative mRNA isoform expression by exon-level analyses of the LNCaP transcriptome. While genome-wide gene expression changes correlated well with previously-published studies, we additionally uncovered a subset of 226 novel androgen-regulated genes. Gene expression pathway analysis of this subset revealed gene clusters associated with, and including the tyrosine kinase LYN, as well as components of the mTOR (mammalian target of rapamycin) pathway, which is commonly dysregulated in cancer. We also identified 1279 putative androgen-regulated alternative events, of which 325 (similar to 25%) mapped to known alternative splicing events or alternative first/last exons. We selected 30 androgen-dependent alternative events for RT-PCR validation, including mRNAs derived from genes encoding tumour suppressors and cell cycle regulators. Of seven positively-validating events (similar to 23%), five events involved transcripts derived from alternative promoters of known AR gene targets. In particular, we found a novel androgen-dependent mRNA isoform derived from an alternative internal promoter within the TSC2 tumour suppressor gene, which is predicted to encode a protein lacking an interaction domain required for mTOR inhibition. We confirmed that expression of this alternative TSC2 mRNA isoform was directly regulated by androgens, and chromatin immunoprecipitation indicated recruitment of AR to the alternative promoter region at early timepoints following androgen stimulation, which correlated with expression of alternative transcripts. Together, our data suggest that alternative mRNA isoform expression might mediate the cellular response to androgens, and may have roles in clinical PCa

Spatiotemporal patterns of population in mainland China, 1990 to 2010

According to UN forecasts, global population will increase to over 8 billion by 2025, with much of this anticipated population growth expected in urban areas. In China, the scale of urbanization has, and continues to be, unprecedented in terms of magnitude and rate of change. Since the late 1970s, the percentage of Chinese living in urban areas increased from ~18% to over 50%. To quantify these patterns spatially we use time-invariant or temporally-explicit data, including census data for 1990, 2000, and 2010 in an ensemble prediction model. Resulting multi-temporal, gridded population datasets are unique in terms of granularity and extent, providing fine-scale (~100 m) patterns of population distribution for mainland China. For consistency purposes, the Tibet Autonomous Region, Taiwan, and the islands in the South China Sea were excluded. The statistical model and considerations for temporally comparable maps are described, along with the resulting datasets. Final, mainland China population maps for 1990, 2000, and 2010 are freely available as products from the WorldPop Project website and the WorldPop Dataverse Repository

Addressing Inequities in Urban Health: Do Decision-Makers Have the Data They Need? Report from the Urban Health Data Special Session at International Conference on Urban Health Dhaka 2015

Rapid and uncontrolled urbanisation across low and middle-income countries is leading to ever expanding numbers of urban poor, defined here as slum dwellers and the homeless. It is estimated that 828 million people are currently living in slum conditions. If governments, donors and NGOs are to respond to these growing inequities they need data that adequately represents the needs of the urban poorest as well as others across the socio-economic spectrum. We report on the findings of a special session held at the International Conference on Urban Health, Dhaka 2015. We present an overview of the need for data on urban health for planning and allocating resources to address urban inequities. Such data needs to provide information on differences between urban and rural areas nationally, between and within urban communities. We discuss the limitations of data most commonly available to national and municipality level government, donor and NGO staff. In particular we assess, with reference to the WHO’s Urban HEART tool, the challenges in the design of household surveys in understanding urban health inequities. We then present two novel approaches aimed at improving the information on the health of the urban poorest. The first uses gridded population sampling techniques within the design and implementation of household surveys and the second adapts Urban HEART into a participatory approach which enables slum residents to assess indicators whilst simultaneously planning the response. We argue that if progress is to be made towards inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable cities, as articulated in Sustainable Development Goal 11, then understanding urban health inequities is a vital pre-requisite to an effective response by governments, donors, NGOs and communities

Formal Reports: Robotic Mouse Group

The purpose of this project is to design an autonomous robotic mouse that is able to navigate through a maze, locate a doll, and transport the doll to the beginning of the maze. This opportunity will provide students an application in everthing they have learned in their electrical, mechanical, and computer engineering courses. The concept for this project was originally taken from the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineering) robotic mouse competition held ammally in Japan, which is a competition in how quickly a robotic mouse can solve a maze. We decided to add a realistic component to the design and simulate a search and rescue mission, hence including the need to rescue a doll and return it to the start of the maze. This project will also lay a foundation for fuhu-e Trinity engineers who wish to compete in IEEE Micromouse Competitions or in developing similar projects. The Micromouse itself is a three-tiered, circular robot (about 10 centimeters to a side) with two wheels on both sides and a single ball bearing located towards the back of the body which provides balance for the robot. The chassis is made of 118th inch Plexiglas and is cut into two tiered sheets in order to provide a body for the robot. The major hardware components of our design include sensors, servo motors, DC motors, encoders, wheels, a microcontroller, chassis, battery and a gripper. Three sensors are attached to the front of the robot in order to help locate the walls of the maze and orient the robot. The DC motors are tucked within the body of the robot and are used to power the wheels. The battery is stored within the body of the mouse and is positioned by the Plexiglas columns connecting the three tiers of the chassis. A project control board (PCB) is located in the middle tier and contains all of the electrical components that are necessary to complete our design. Encoders are located on either side of the middle tier and are also used to help the robot determine how far it has travelled in order to navigate the maze. The gripper will be attached to the top tier of the Micromouse and will rotate downwards to pick up the doll when it is within a certain range. Four prototypes have been developed in order to reach our final design. A wall follower was developed as the first prototype and worked properly. The second prototype failed because the hand soldered board was causing issues when all the components were co1mected to each other. Prototype #3 included a gripper circuit as well as a robotic circuit that was supposed to navigate the maze. The gripper circuit was developed and worked properly, but similar issues that had occurred with Prototype #2 were apparent within the robotic circuit of Prototype #3. These issues were eventually fixed by including encoders which would help the robot trace how far it has travelled while navigating the maze. Multiple microcontrollers were also destroyed in the process of developing prototype #3. It was determined that by hooking the motors up to the same power source as the microcontroller, a back-EMF voltage was being applied, which was causing the microcontroller to stop working. By isolating the power sources using two individual batteries, this problem was solved. After testing our final design, the robot was able to navigate the maze, locate the doll, pick up the doll and then return it to the start of the maze within 15 minutes. It was able to this autonomously without leaving any parts behind. Unfortunately, our design was not as robust as we would have liked. On average, the robot was able to complete the objective perfectly every fifth time it was tested. Because of this, we were not able to complete the objective three times in a row without fail. Nevertheless, our robot was able to accomplish four out of the five objectives that we initially stated in our project charter while adhering to all of the project constraints

Hospital Trusts productivity in the English NHS : Uncovering possible drivers of productivity variations

Background: Health care systems in OECD countries are increasingly facing economic challenges and funding pressures. These normally demand interventions (political, financial and organisational) aimed at improving the efficiency of the health system as a whole and its single components. In 2009, the English NHS Chief Executive, Sir David Nicholson, warned that a potential funding gap of £20 billion should be met by extensive efficiency savings by March 2015. Our study investigates possible drivers of differential Trust performance (productivity) for the financial years 2010/11-2012/13. Methods: Following accounting practice, we define Productivity as the ratio of Outputs over Inputs. We analyse variation in both Total Factor and Labour Productivity using ordinary least squares regressions. We explicitly included in our analysis factors of differential performance highlighted in the Nicholson challenge as the sources were the efficiency savings should come from. Explanatory variables include efficiency in resource use measures, Trust and patient characteristics, and quality of care. Results: We find that larger Trusts and Foundation Trusts are associated with lower productivity, as are those treating a greater proportion of both older and/or younger patients. Surprisingly treating more patients in their last year of life is associated with higher Labour Productivity

The true cost to the State of maternity services in Ireland

Accounting for the cost of delivery of maternity services in Ireland ignores the cost of claims settlements caused by negligence in delivery. We show that the true cost of maternity services is more than double the generally reported cost when proper account is taken of the associated cost of maternity claims. There must come a tipping point, if it is not already exceeded, when the sums paid out by way of settlements for mismanagement of maternity services become larger than the additional costs of operating a sound service

The Impact of Heat Load on Cattle

Heat stress and cold stress have a negative influence on cattle welfare and productivity. There have been some studies investigating the influence of cold stress on cattle, however the emphasis within this review is the influence of heat stress on cattle. The impact of hot weather on cattle is of increasing importance due to the changing global environment. Heat stress is a worldwide phenomenon that is associated with reduced animal productivity and welfare, particularly during the summer months. Animal responses to their thermal environment are extremely varied, however, it is clear that the thermal environment influences the health, productivity, and welfare of cattle. Whilst knowledge continues to be developed, managing livestock to reduce the negative impact of hot climatic conditions remains somewhat challenging. This review provides an overview of the impact of heat stress on production and reproduction in bovines