Tire/wheel concept

A tire and wheel assembly is disclosed in which a low profile pneumatic tire (having sidewalls which deflect inwardly under load) and a wheel (having a rim featuring a narrow central channel and extended rim flanges) form the combination. The extended rim flanges support the tire sidewalls under static and dynamic loading conditions to produce a combination particularly suited to aircraft applications

A web-based appointment system to reduce waiting for outpatients: A retrospective study

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Long waiting times for registration to see a doctor is problematic in China, especially in tertiary hospitals. To address this issue, a web-based appointment system was developed for the Xijing hospital. The aim of this study was to investigate the efficacy of the web-based appointment system in the registration service for outpatients.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Data from the web-based appointment system in Xijing hospital from January to December 2010 were collected using a stratified random sampling method, from which participants were randomly selected for a telephone interview asking for detailed information on using the system. Patients who registered through registration windows were randomly selected as a comparison group, and completed a questionnaire on-site.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>A total of 5641 patients using the online booking service were available for data analysis. Of them, 500 were randomly selected, and 369 (73.8%) completed a telephone interview. Of the 500 patients using the usual queuing method who were randomly selected for inclusion in the study, responses were obtained from 463, a response rate of 92.6%. Between the two registration methods, there were significant differences in age, degree of satisfaction, and total waiting time (<it>P </it>< 0.001). However, gender, urban residence, and valid waiting time showed no significant differences (<it>P </it>> 0.05). Being ignorant of online registration, not trusting the internet, and a lack of ability to use a computer were three main reasons given for not using the web-based appointment system. The overall proportion of non-attendance was 14.4% for those using the web-based appointment system, and the non-attendance rate was significantly different among different hospital departments, day of the week, and time of the day (<it>P </it>< 0.001).</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Compared to the usual queuing method, the web-based appointment system could significantly increase patient's satisfaction with registration and reduce total waiting time effectively. However, further improvements are needed for broad use of the system.</p

Involving people with diabetes and the wider community in diabetes research: a realist review protocol.

BACKGROUND: Patient and public involvement in diabetes research is now actively encouraged in different countries because it is believed that involving people with experience of the condition will improve the quality and relevance of the research. However, reviews of patient involvement have noted that inadequate resources, patients' and communities' lack of research knowledge, and researchers' lack of skills to involve patients and communities in research may present significant contextual barriers. Little is known about the extent of patient/community involvement in designing or delivering interventions for people with diabetes. A realist review of involvement will contribute to assessing when, how and why involvement works, or does not work, to produce better diabetes interventions. METHODS/DESIGN: This protocol outlines the process for conducting a realist review to map how patients and the public have been involved in diabetes research to date. The review questions ask the following: How have people with diabetes and the wider community been involved in diabetes research? What are the characteristics of the process that appear to explain the relative success or failure of involvement? How has involvement (or lack of involvement) in diabetes research influenced the development and conduct of diabetes research? The degree of support in the surrounding context will be assessed alongside the ways in which people interact in different settings to identify patterns of interaction between context, mechanisms and outcomes in different research projects. The level and extent of the involvement will be described for each stage of the research project. The descriptions will be critically reviewed by the people with diabetes on our review team. In addition, researchers and patients in diabetes research will be asked to comment. Information from researcher-patient experiences and documents will be compared to theories of involvement across a range of disciplines to create a mid-range theory describing how involvement (or lack of involvement) in diabetes research influences the development and conduct of diabetes research

Microencapsulated foods as a functional delivery vehicle for omega-3 fatty acids: a pilot study

It is well established that the ingestion of the omega-3 (N3) fatty acids docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) and eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) positively benefit a variety of health indices. Despite these benefits the actual intake of fish derived N3 is relatively small in the United States. The primary aim of our study was to examine a technology capable of delivering omega-3 fatty acids in common foods via microencapsulation (MicroN3) in young, healthy, active participants who are at low risk for cardiovascular disease. Accordingly, we randomized 20 participants (25.4 ± 6.2 y; 73.4 ± 5.1 kg) to receive the double blind delivery of a placebo-matched breakfast meal (~2093 kJ) containing MicroN3 (450–550 mg EPA/DHA) during a 2-week pilot trial. Overall, we observed no differences in overall dietary macronutrient intake other than the N3 delivery during our treatment regimen. Post-test ANOVA analysis showed a significant elevation in mean (SE) plasma DHA (91.18 ± 9.3 vs. 125.58 ± 11.3 umol/L; P < 0.05) and a reduction in triacylglycerols (89.89 ± 12.8 vs. 80.78 ± 10.4 mg/dL; P < 0.05) accompanying the MicroN3 treatment that was significantly different from placebo (P < 0.05). In post study interviews, participants reported that the ingested food was well-tolerated, contained no fish taste, odor or gastrointestinal distress accompanying treatment. The use of MicroN3 foods provides a novel delivery system for the delivery of essential fatty acids. Our study demonstrates that MicroN3 foods promote the absorption of essential N3, demonstrate bioactivity within 2 weeks of ingestion and are well tolerated in young, active participants who are at low risk for cardiovascular disease

Slower recovery in space before collapse of connected populations

Slower recovery from perturbations near a tipping point and its indirect signatures in fluctuation patterns have been suggested to foreshadow catastrophes in a wide variety of systems. Recent studies of populations in the field and in the laboratory have used time-series data to confirm some of the theoretically predicted early warning indicators, such as an increase in recovery time or in the size and timescale of fluctuations. However, the predictive power of temporal warning signals is limited by the demand for long-term observations. Large-scale spatial data are more accessible, but the performance of warning signals in spatially extended systems needs to be examined empirically. Here we use spatially extended yeast populations, an experimental system with a fold bifurcation (tipping point), to evaluate early warning signals based on spatio-temporal fluctuations and to identify a novel spatial warning indicator. We found that two leading indicators based on fluctuations increased before collapse of connected populations; however, the magnitudes of the increases were smaller than those observed in isolated populations, possibly because local variation is reduced by dispersal. Furthermore, we propose a generic indicator based on deterministic spatial patterns, which we call ‘recovery length’. As the spatial counterpart of recovery time, recovery length is the distance necessary for connected populations to recover from spatial perturbations. In our experiments, recovery length increased substantially before population collapse, suggesting that the spatial scale of recovery can provide a superior warning signal before tipping points in spatially extended systems.United States. National Institutes of Health (NIH R00 GM085279-02)United States. National Institutes of Health (NIH DP2)Alfred P. Sloan FoundationNational Science Foundation (U.S.

Budding yeast ATM/ATR control meiotic double-strand break (DSB) levels by down-regulating Rec114, an essential component of the DSB-machinery

An essential feature of meiosis is Spo11 catalysis of programmed DNA double strand breaks (DSBs). Evidence suggests that the number of DSBs generated per meiosis is genetically determined and that this ability to maintain a pre-determined DSB level, or "DSB homeostasis", might be a property of the meiotic program. Here, we present direct evidence that Rec114, an evolutionarily conserved essential component of the meiotic DSB-machinery, interacts with DSB hotspot DNA, and that Tel1 and Mec1, the budding yeast ATM and ATR, respectively, down-regulate Rec114 upon meiotic DSB formation through phosphorylation. Mimicking constitutive phosphorylation reduces the interaction between Rec114 and DSB hotspot DNA, resulting in a reduction and/or delay in DSB formation. Conversely, a non-phosphorylatable rec114 allele confers a genome-wide increase in both DSB levels and in the interaction between Rec114 and the DSB hotspot DNA. These observations strongly suggest that Tel1 and/or Mec1 phosphorylation of Rec114 following Spo11 catalysis down-regulates DSB formation by limiting the interaction between Rec114 and DSB hotspots. We also present evidence that Ndt80, a meiosis specific transcription factor, contributes to Rec114 degradation, consistent with its requirement for complete cessation of DSB formation. Loss of Rec114 foci from chromatin is associated with homolog synapsis but independent of Ndt80 or Tel1/Mec1 phosphorylation. Taken together, we present evidence for three independent ways of regulating Rec114 activity, which likely contribute to meiotic DSBs-homeostasis in maintaining genetically determined levels of breaks

Lead exposure in adult males in urban Transvaal Province, South Africa during the apartheid era

Human exposure to lead is a substantial public health hazard worldwide and is particularly problematic in the Republic of South Africa given the country’s late cessation of leaded petrol. Lead exposure is associated with a number of serious health issues and diseases including developmental and cognitive deficiency, hypertension and heart disease. Understanding the distribution of lifetime lead burden within a given population is critical for reducing exposure rates. Femoral bone from 101 deceased adult males living in urban Transvaal Province (now Gauteng Province), South Africa between 1960 and 1998 were analyzed for lead concentration by Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry (ICP-MS). Of the 72 black and 29 white individuals sampled, chronic lead exposure was apparent in nearly all individuals. White males showed significantly higher median bone lead concentration (ME = 10.04 µg·g−1), than black males (ME = 3.80 µg·g−1) despite higher socioeconomic status. Bone lead concentration covaries significantly, though weakly, with individual age. There was no significant temporal trend in bone lead concentration. These results indicate that long-term low to moderate lead exposure is the historical norm among South African males. Unexpectedly, this research indicates that white males in the sample population were more highly exposed to lead

Tamoxifen may prevent both ER+ and ER- breast cancers and select for ER- carcinogenesis: an alternative hypothesis

INTRODUCTION: Breast Cancer Prevention Trial (BCPT) and Multiple Outcomes of Raloxifene (MORE) data have been interpreted to indicate that tamoxifen reduces the risk of ER+ but not ER- breast carcinogenesis. We explored whether these data also support an alternative hypothesis, that tamoxifen influences the natural history of both ER+ and ER- cancers, that it may be equally effective in abrogating or delaying ER- and ER+ carcinogenesis, and place selection pressure, in some cases, for the outgrowth of ER- cancers. METHODS: BCPT and MORE data were used to investigate whether: first, tamoxifen could reduce equally the emergence of ER- and ER+ tumors; and second, tamoxifen could select a fraction of emerging ER+ cancers and promote their transformation to ER- cancers. Assuming that some proportion, Z, of ER+ tumors becomes ER- after tamoxifen exposure and that the risk reduction for both ER- and ER+ tumors is equal, we solved for both the transformation rate and the risk reduction rate. RESULTS: If tamoxifen equally reduces the incidence of ER+ and ER- tumors by 60%, the BCPT results are achieved with a transformation of approximately Z = 20% of ER+ to ER- tumors. Validation with MORE data using an equal risk reduction of 60% associated with tamoxifen produces an almost identical transformation rate Z of 23%. CONCLUSION: Data support an alternative hypothesis that tamoxifen may promote ER- carcinogenesis from a precursor lesion that would otherwise have developed as ER+ without tamoxifen selection