The effects of biological decontamination on the recovery of critical forensic evidence

University of Technology, Sydney. Faculty of Science.The principle objectives of this research were: (i) to investigate gamma irradiation and formaldehyde gas as successful decontamination options for the destruction of bacterial spores; (ii) determine their impact, within the context of a biological crime, on the recovery of selected evidence types; and (iii) develop triage systems for contaminated evidence. Substrates including paper, plastic, glass, electronic devices and firearms were contaminated with viable bacterial spores, and subjected to the decontamination methods developed. The effects of these methods were tested by comparing evidence recovered both pre and post decontamination. Evidence types recovered included; latent fingermarks, DNA, electronic data and firearm related toolmarks. An exposure range of between 40-90 minutes for formaldehyde gas was determined effective compared to the standard 12-hour, laboratory based procedure. Experiments determined a detrimental interaction between formaldehyde gas and amino acids, with a reduction in recovery rates for latent fingermarks and DNA from porous items. Formaldehyde did not however affect the recovery of electronic data or firearm markings. Based on the collective results formaldehyde gas decontamination is recommended for use on non-porous items such as glass, plastic and metal, with emphasis on electronics and weaponry, yet would not be recommended for use as a primary decontaminant for porous items or items where DNA evidence is required. Test items were also subjected to a range of gamma doses to determine the effective kill curves based on log reductions. Successful decontamination was achieved between 5-10 kGy, depending on the sample type. Gamma irradiation did not affect the recovery of latent fingermarks, firearm comparisons or DNA from paper. Significant damage to electronic devices was observed at the levels required for bacterial spore death; therefore, gamma irradiation is not recommended where data is the primary evidentiary concern. This research has explored the notion that no one biological decontamination option is suitable for all substrates or all evidence types. It has demonstrated, through the development and validation of specific decontamination methods, that both formaldehyde gas and gamma irradiation can be applied successfully to certain substrates prior to recovering forensic evidence. The ability to recover vital evidence from the scene of a biologically contaminated crime scene, be it through an act of terrorism or inadvertent release, is a valuable tool to the forensic analyst and an emerging concept in the field of forensic microbiology

Mozambique: resistance and freedom

The subject of this study was the Resistência Nacional Moçambicana (Renamo) movement, its involvement in the Mozambican civil war, and the way in which Renamo was presented to the outside world. Renamo began fighting against the Marxist Frelimo government in Mozambique in 1977, receiving limited Rhodesian and subsequently South African assistance. Renamo was the subject of an almost unprecedented propaganda war, and labelled a foreign proxy. The work examines the shortcomings of media and academic coverage of the Mozambican civil war in general and Renamo in particular. The study attempts to explain the ·silccess· of the Renamo insurgency, suggesting that much of Renamo' s support was the result of ingrained rural and regional opposition to the Frelimo government. The study traces the intellectual origins of Renamo back to Frelimo itself, examining how Frelimo had earlier been split between Marxist and nationalist tendencies. The study examines how Frelimo managed to portray Renamo as a terrorist organisation without popular support, contrasting this image with the markedly different first-hand observations of over twenty independent visitors to Renamo-controlled parts of Mozambique. The study examines how it was possible for virtually every branch of informed opinion to have misjudged the forces at play within the Mozambican civil war. The work argues that Renamo was a genuinely Mozambican phenomena and should be seen as having enjoyed considerably more popular support than had hitherto been accepted. Much of the thesis outlined in the work was borne out by both the 1994 and 1999 election results, in which Renamo won 112 and 117 out of 250 Parliamentary seats

Fat and carbohydrate intake over three generations modify growth, metabolism and cardiovascular phenotype in female mice in an age-related manner

Environmental challenges such as a high fat diet during pregnancy can induce changes in offspring growth, metabolism and cardiovascular function. However, challenges that are sustained over several generations can induce progressive compensatory metabolic adjustments in young adults. It is not known if such effects persist during ageing. We investigated whether diets with different fat and carbohydrate contents over three generations modifies markers of ageing. Female C57BL/6 F0 mice were fed diets containing 5% or 21% fat (w/w) throughout pregnancy and lactation. Female offspring were fed the same diet as their dams until the F3 generation. In each generation, body weight, 24-hour food intake were recorded weekly, and plasma metabolites were measured by colorimetric assays, blood pressure by tail cuff plethysmography and vasoconstriction by myography on postnatal day 90 or 456. There was little effect of diet or generation on phenotypic markers in day 90 adults. There was a significant increase in whole body, liver and heart weight with ageing (d456) in the F3 21% fat group compared to the F1 and F3 5% groups. Fasting plasma glucose concentration was significantly increased with ageing in the 5% group in the F3 generation and in the 21% group in both generations. There was a significant effect of diet and generation on ex-vivo vasoconstriction in ageing females. Differences in dietary fat may induce metabolic compensation in young adults that persist over three generations. However, such compensatory effects decline during ageing

Using marketing theory to inform strategies for recruitment : a recruitment optimisation model and the txt2stop experience

Background: Recruitment is a major challenge for many trials; just over half reach their targets and almost a third resort to grant extensions. The economic and societal implications of this shortcoming are significant. Yet, we have a limited understanding of the processes that increase the probability that recruitment targets will be achieved. Accordingly, there is an urgent need to bring analytical rigour to the task of improving recruitment, thereby increasing the likelihood that trials reach their recruitment targets. This paper presents a conceptual framework that can be used to improve recruitment to clinical trials. Methods: Using a case-study approach, we reviewed the range of initiatives that had been undertaken to improve recruitment in the txt2stop trial using qualitative (semi-structured interviews with the principal investigator) and quantitative (recruitment) data analysis. Later, the txt2stop recruitment practices were compared to a previous model of marketing a trial and to key constructs in social marketing theory. Results: Post hoc, we developed a recruitment optimisation model to serve as a conceptual framework to improve recruitment to clinical trials. A core premise of the model is that improving recruitment needs to be an iterative, learning process. The model describes three essential activities: i) recruitment phase monitoring, ii) marketing research, and iii) the evaluation of current performance. We describe the initiatives undertaken by the txt2stop trial and the results achieved, as an example of the use of the model. Conclusions: Further research should explore the impact of adopting the recruitment optimisation model when applied to other trials

Identifying undetected dementia in UK primary care patients: a retrospective case-control study comparing machine-learning and standard epidemiological approaches

Background Identifying dementia early in time, using real world data, is a public health challenge. As only two-thirds of people with dementia now ultimately receive a formal diagnosis in United Kingdom health systems and many receive it late in the disease process, there is ample room for improvement. The policy of the UK government and National Health Service (NHS) is to increase rates of timely dementia diagnosis. We used data from general practice (GP) patient records to create a machine-learning model to identify patients who have or who are developing dementia, but are currently undetected as having the condition by the GP. Methods We used electronic patient records from Clinical Practice Research Datalink (CPRD). Using a case-control design, we selected patients aged >65y with a diagnosis of dementia (cases) and matched them 1:1 by sex and age to patients with no evidence of dementia (controls). We developed a list of 70 clinical entities related to the onset of dementia and recorded in the 5 years before diagnosis. After creating binary features, we trialled machine learning classifiers to discriminate between cases and controls (logistic regression, naïve Bayes, support vector machines, random forest and neural networks). We examined the most important features contributing to discrimination. Results The final analysis included data on 93,120 patients, with a median age of 82.6 years; 64.8% were female. The naïve Bayes model performed least well. The logistic regression, support vector machine, neural network and random forest performed very similarly with an AUROC of 0.74. The top features retained in the logistic regression model were disorientation and wandering, behaviour change, schizophrenia, self-neglect, and difficulty managing. Conclusions Our model could aid GPs or health service planners with the early detection of dementia. Future work could improve the model by exploring the longitudinal nature of patient data and modelling decline in function over time

Death, time and commerce: innovation and conservatism in styles of funerary material culture in 18th-19th century London

This thesis explores the development of coffin furniture, the inscribed plates and other metal objects used to decorate coffins, in eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century London. It analyses this material within funerary and non-funerary contexts, and contrasts and compares its styles, production, use and contemporary significance with those of monuments and mourning jewellery. Over 1200 coffin plates were recorded for this study, dated 1740 to 1853, consisting of assemblages from the vaults of St Marylebone Church and St Bride’s Church and the lead coffin plates from Islington Green burial ground, all sites in central London. The production, trade and consumption of coffin furniture are discussed in Chapter 3. Chapter 4 investigates coffin furniture as a central component of the furnished coffin and examines its role within the performance of the funeral. Multiple aspects of the inscriptions and designs of coffin plates are analysed in Chapter 5 to establish aspects of change and continuity with this material. In Chapter 6 contemporary trends in monuments are assessed, drawing on a sample recorded in churches and a burial ground, and the production and use of this above-ground funerary material culture are considered. In Chapter 7 a dated sample of mourning jewellery is explored in order to place the funerary objects of this study within a broader contemporary context. Limited innovation is identified in coffin furniture, in contrast with monuments and mourning jewellery, and it is suggested that its conservatism relates to the role of undertakers in its selection, as well as to the particular circumstances of its use. It is argued that coffin furniture was an important aspect of funerary rituals of this period and can be interpreted as one aspect of a broader emphasis on commemoration and the use of objects to materialise and manage experiences of separation and loss

Conceptualisation and Annotation of Drug Nonadherence Information for Knowledge Extraction from Patient-Generated Texts

Approaches to knowledge extraction (KE) in the health domain often start by annotating text to indicate the knowledge to be extracted, and then use the annotated text to train systems to perform the KE. This may work for annotating named entities or other contiguous noun phrases (drugs, some drug effects), but be- comes increasingly difficult when items tend to be expressed across multiple, possibly non- contiguous, syntactic constituents (e.g. most descriptions of drug effects in user-generated text). Other issues include that it is not al- ways clear how annotations map to actionable insights, or how they scale up to, or can form part of, more complex KE tasks. This paper reports our efforts in developing an approach to extracting knowledge about drug nonadherence from health forums which led us to conclude that development cannot proceed in separate steps but that all aspects—from conceptualisation to annotation scheme development, annotation, KE system training and knowledge graph instantiation—are interdependent and need to be co-developed. Our aim in this paper is two-fold: we describe a generally applicable framework for developing a KE approach, and present a specific KE approach, developed with the framework, for the task of gathering information about antidepressant drug nonadherence. We report the conceptualisation, the annotation scheme, the annotated corpus, and an analysis of annotated texts

Экспериментальное исследование по механизму образования нестационарного тока в бетатроне

Исследование нестационарного тока, возникающего во время инжекции, показало, что решающую роль в процессе его образования может играть резонансное затухание амплитуд колебаний электронов, возникающее при взаимодействии циркулирующих электронов с током эмиссии из инжектора. Это означает, что при определенных условиях, когда для большей части электронов происходит уменьшение их амплитуд колебаний, должно происходить сжатие всего пучка электронов, образующих нестационарный ток. Такое явление должно происходить при образовании нестационарного тока на фронтах импульса инжекции малой длительности, когда происходит однократное образование нестационарного тока. Экспериментальное исследование поведения нестационарного тока во времени, проведенное в бетатроне 15 Мэв с помощью системы электрических электродов, показало, что действительно при образовании нестационарного тока на фронтах импульса инжекции происходит сжатие пучка электронов. Таким образом, обнаружение изменения поперечных размеров пучка во время инжекции является прямым подтверждением резонансного механизма образования нестационарного тока

Gene novelty and gene family expansion in the early evolution of Lepidoptera

Background Almost 10% of all known animal species belong to Lepidoptera: moths and butterflies. To understand how this incredible diversity evolved we assess the role of gene gain in driving early lepidopteran evolution. Here, we compared the complete genomes of 115 insect species, including 99 Lepidoptera, to search for novel genes coincident with the emergence of Lepidoptera. Results We find 217 orthogroups or gene families which emerged on the branch leading to Lepidoptera; of these 177 likely arose by gene duplication followed by extensive sequence divergence, 2 are candidates for origin by horizontal gene transfer, and 38 have no known homology outside of Lepidoptera and possibly arose via de novo gene genesis. We focus on two new gene families that are conserved across all lepidopteran species and underwent extensive duplication, suggesting important roles in lepidopteran biology. One encodes a family of sugar and ion transporter molecules, potentially involved in the evolution of diverse feeding behaviours in early Lepidoptera. The second encodes a family of unusual propeller-shaped proteins that likely originated by horizontal gene transfer from Spiroplasma bacteria; we name these the Lepidoptera propellin genes. Conclusion We provide the first insights into the role of genetic novelty in the early evolution of Lepidoptera. This gives new insight into the rate of gene gain during the evolution of the order as well as providing context on the likely mechanisms of origin. We describe examples of new genes which were retained and duplicated further in all lepidopteran species, suggesting their importance in Lepidoptera evolution