The Effect of Increasing Donor Age on Myocardial Ischemic Tolerance in a Rodent Model of Donation After Circulatory Death.

Hearts from older donors or procured via donation after circulatory death (DCD) can alleviate transplant waitlist; however, these hearts are particularly vulnerable to injury caused by warm ischemic times (WITs) inherent to DCD. This study investigates how the combination of increasing donor age and pharmacologic supplementation affects the ischemic tolerance and functional recovery of DCD hearts and how age impacts cardiac mitochondrial respiratory capacity and oxidative phosphorylation.MethodsWistar rats (12-, 18-, and 24-mo-old) were subjected to DCD with 20-min fixed WIT. Hearts were procured, instrumented onto a Langendorff perfusion circuit, flushed with Celsior preservation solution with or without supplementation (glyceryl trinitrate [GTN]/erythropoietin [EPO]/zoniporide [Z]) and perfused (Krebs-Henseleit buffer, 37°C Langendorff 30-min, working 30-min). Cardiac functional recovery of aortic flow (AF), coronary flow (CF), cardiac output (CO), and lactate dehydrogenase release were measured. Native heart tissue (3-, 12-, and 24-mo) were assessed for mitochondrial respiratory capacity.ResultsUnsupplemented 18- and 24-month DCD hearts showed a 6-fold decrease in AF recovery relative to unsupplemented 12-month DCD hearts. GTN/EPO/Z supplementation significantly increased AF and CO recovery of 18-month DCD hearts to levels comparable to supplemented 12-month hearts; however, GTN/EPO/Z did not improve 24-month DCD heart recovery. Compared to 12-month heart tissue, 24-month hearts exhibited significantly impaired mitochondrial oxygen flux at complex I, II, and uncoupled maximal respiration stage.ConclusionsReduced ischemic tolerance after DCD was associated with increasing age. Pharmacologic supplementation improves functional recovery of rat DCD hearts but only up to age 18 months, possibly attributed to a decline in mitochondrial respiratory capacity with increasing age

The regional economic impact of more graduates in the labour market: a “micro-to-macro” analysis for Scotland

This paper explores the system-wide impact of graduates on the regional economy. Graduates enjoy a significant wage premium, often interpreted as reflecting their greater productivity relative to non-graduates. If this is so there is a clear and direct supply-side impact of HEI activities on regional economies. We use an HEI-disaggregated computable general equilibrium model of Scotland to estimate the impact of the growing proportion of graduates in the Scottish labour force that is implied by the current participation rate and demographic change, taking the graduate wage premium in Scotland as an indicator of productivity enhancement. While the detailed results vary with alternative assumptions about the extent to which wage premia reflect productivity, they do suggest that the long-term supply-side impacts of HEIs provide a significant boost to regional GDP. Furthermore, the results suggest that the supply-side impacts of HEIs are likely to be more important than the expenditure impacts that are the focus of most HEI impact studies

Metrics to evaluate research performance in academic institutions: A critique of ERA 2010 as applied in forestry and the indirect H2 index as a possible alternative

Excellence for Research in Australia (ERA) is an attempt by the Australian Research Council to rate Australian universities on a 5-point scale within 180 Fields of Research using metrics and peer evaluation by an evaluation committee. Some of the bibliometric data contributing to this ranking suffer statistical issues associated with skewed distributions. Other data are standardised year-by-year, placing undue emphasis on the most recent publications which may not yet have reliable citation patterns. The bibliometric data offered to the evaluation committees is extensive, but lacks effective syntheses such as the h-index and its variants. The indirect H2 index is objective, can be computed automatically and efficiently, is resistant to manipulation, and a good indicator of impact to assist the ERA evaluation committees and to similar evaluations internationally.Comment: 19 pages, 6 figures, 7 tables, appendice

Bottom mixed layer oxygen dynamics in the Celtic Sea

The seasonally stratified continental shelf seas are highly productive, economically important environments which are under considerable pressure from human activity. Global dissolved oxygen concentrations have shown rapid reductions in response to anthropogenic forcing since at least the middle of the twentieth century. Oxygen consumption is at the same time linked to the cycling of atmospheric carbon, with oxygen being a proxy for carbon remineralisation and the release of CO2. In the seasonally stratified seas the bottom mixed layer (BML) is partially isolated from the atmosphere and is thus controlled by interplay between oxygen consumption processes, vertical and horizontal advection. Oxygen consumption rates can be both spatially and temporally dynamic, but these dynamics are often missed with incubation based techniques. Here we adopt a Bayesian approach to determining total BML oxygen consumption rates from a high resolution oxygen time-series. This incorporates both our knowledge and our uncertainty of the various processes which control the oxygen inventory. Total BML rates integrate both processes in the water column and at the sediment interface. These observations span the stratified period of the Celtic Sea and across both sandy and muddy sediment types. We show how horizontal advection, tidal forcing and vertical mixing together control the bottom mixed layer oxygen concentrations at various times over the stratified period. Our muddy-sand site shows cyclic spring-neap mediated changes in oxygen consumption driven by the frequent resuspension or ventilation of the seabed. We see evidence for prolonged periods of increased vertical mixing which provide the ventilation necessary to support the high rates of consumption observed

Nanometric diamond delta doping with boron

Diamond is desired for active semiconducting device because of it high carrier mobility, high voltage breakdown resistance, and high thermal diffusivity. Exploiting diamond as a semiconductor is hampered by the lack of shallow dopants to create sufficient electronic carriers at room temperature. In this work, nanometer thick, heavily boron doped epitaxial diamond ‘delta doped’ layers have been grown on ultra smooth diamond surfaces which demonstrate p type conduction with enhanced Hall mobilities of up to 120 cm2/Vs and sheet carrier concentrations to 6 × 1013 cm–2, thus enabling a new class of active diamond electronic devices

Perceived feasibility, facilitators and barriers to incorporating point-of-care testing for SARS-CoV-2 into emergency medical services by ambulance service staff: a survey-based approach

Objectives This body of work aimed to elicit ambulance service staff’s perceptions on the barriers and facilitators to adoption, and clinical utility of incorporating rapid SARS-CoV-2 testing during ambulance assessments. Design A mixed-methods survey-based project using a framework analysis method to organise qualitative data. Setting Emergency and non-emergency care ambulatory services in the UK were approached to take part. Participants Current, practising members of the UK ambulance service (paramedics, technicians, assistants and other staff) were included in this body of work. Results Survey 1: 226 responses were collected between 3 December 2020 and 11 January 2021, 179 (79.2%) of which were completed in full. While the majority of respondents indicated that an ambulance-based testing strategy was feasible in concept (143/190, 75.3%), major barriers to adoption were noted. Many open-ended responses cited concerns regarding misuse of the service by the general public and other healthcare services, timing and conveyance issues, and increased workloads, alongside training and safety concerns. Survey 2: 26 responses were received between 8 February 2021 and 22 February 2021 to this follow-up survey. Survey 2 revealed conveyance decision-making, and risk stratification to be the most frequently prioritised use cases among ambulance service staff. Optimal test characteristics for clinical adoption according to respondents were; accuracy (above 90% sensitivity and specificity), rapidity (<30 min time to results) and ease of sample acquisition. Conclusions The majority of commercially available lateral flow devices are unlikely to be supported by paramedics as their duty of care requires both rapid and accurate results that can inform clinical decision making in an emergency situation. Further investigation is needed to define acceptable test characteristics and criteria required for ambulance service staff to be confident and supportive of deployment of a SARS-CoV-2 test in an emergency care setting

The AFLOW Fleet for Materials Discovery

The traditional paradigm for materials discovery has been recently expanded to incorporate substantial data driven research. With the intent to accelerate the development and the deployment of new technologies, the AFLOW Fleet for computational materials design automates high-throughput first principles calculations, and provides tools for data verification and dissemination for a broad community of users. AFLOW incorporates different computational modules to robustly determine thermodynamic stability, electronic band structures, vibrational dispersions, thermo-mechanical properties and more. The AFLOW data repository is publicly accessible online at aflow.org, with more than 1.7 million materials entries and a panoply of queryable computed properties. Tools to programmatically search and process the data, as well as to perform online machine learning predictions, are also available.Comment: 14 pages, 8 figure

Knowledge, attitudes and practice of healthcare ethics and law among doctors and nurses in Barbados

BACKGROUND: The aim of the study is to assess the knowledge, attitudes and practices among healthcare professionals in Barbados in relation to healthcare ethics and law in an attempt to assist in guiding their professional conduct and aid in curriculum development. METHODS: A self-administered structured questionnaire about knowledge of healthcare ethics, law and the role of an Ethics Committee in the healthcare system was devised, tested and distributed to all levels of staff at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Barbados (a tertiary care teaching hospital) during April and May 2003. RESULTS: The paper analyses 159 responses from doctors and nurses comprising junior doctors, consultants, staff nurses and sisters-in-charge. The frequency with which the respondents encountered ethical or legal problems varied widely from 'daily' to 'yearly'. 52% of senior medical staff and 20% of senior nursing staff knew little of the law pertinent to their work. 11% of the doctors did not know the contents of the Hippocratic Oath whilst a quarter of nurses did not know the Nurses Code. Nuremberg Code and Helsinki Code were known only to a few individuals. 29% of doctors and 37% of nurses had no knowledge of an existing hospital ethics committee. Physicians had a stronger opinion than nurses regarding practice of ethics such as adherence to patients' wishes, confidentiality, paternalism, consent for procedures and treating violent/non-compliant patients (p = 0.01) CONCLUSION: The study highlights the need to identify professionals in the workforce who appear to be indifferent to ethical and legal issues, to devise means to sensitize them to these issues and appropriately training them

Translating the Dutch walking stairs, walking ability and rising and sitting questionnaires into German and assessing their concurrent validity with VAS measures of pain and activities in daily living

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The Dutch Walking Stairs, Walking Ability and Rising and Sitting Questionnaires are three validated instruments to measure physical activity and limitations in daily living in patients with lower extremity disorders living at home of which no German equivalents are available. Our scope was to translate the Walking Stairs, Walking Ability and Rising and Sitting Questionnaires into German and to verify its concurrent validity in the two domains pain and activities in daily living by comparing them with the corresponding measures on the Visual Analogue Scale.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We translated the Walking Stairs, Walking Ability and Rising and Sitting Questionnaires according to published guidelines. Demographic data and validity were assessed in 52 consecutive patients with Complex Regional Pain Syndrome 1 of the lower extremity. Information on age, duration of symptoms, type of Complex Regional Pain Syndrome 1 and type of initiating event were obtained. We assessed the concurrent validity in the two domains pain and activities in daily living by comparing them with the corresponding measures on the Visual Analogue Scale.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We found that variability in the German Walking Stairs, Walking Ability and Rising and Sitting Questionnaires was largely explained by measures of pain and activities in daily living on the Visual Analogue Scale.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Our study shows that the domains pain and activities in daily living are properly represented in the German versions of the Walking Stairs, Walking Ability and Raising and Sitting Questionnaires. We would like to propagate their use in clinical practice and research alike.</p

GMOs: Non-Health Issues

The controversy over genetically modified [GM] organisms is often framed in terms of possible hazards for human health. Articles in a previous volume of this *Encyclopedia* give a general overview of GM crops [@Mulvaney2014] and specifically examine human health [@Nordgard2014] and labeling [@Bruton2014] issues surrounding GM organisms. This article explores several other aspects of the controversy: environmental concerns, political and legal disputes, and the aim of "feeding the world" and promoting food security. Rather than discussing abstract, hypothetical GM organisms, this article explores the consequences of the GM organisms that have actually been deployed in the particular contexts that they have been deployed, on the belief that there is little point in discussing GM organisms in an idealized or context-independent way