Provision of trauma teams in Scotland: a national survey

<b>Background and Aims:</b> Trauma is still the leading cause of mortality in the first four decades of life. Despite multiple reports on how trauma care could be improved in the UK, treatment has been shown to be inconsistent and of poor quality. Trauma teams have been shown to have a positive effect on outcome. We aimed to determine the prevalence of trauma teams in Scotland. <b>Methods:</b> We performed a telephone survey of 24 hospitals with Emergency Departments and spoke to the senior clinician regarding provision of trauma teams. <b>Results:</b> 5 (21%) of the hospitals questioned had trauma teams. The most common reasons for not having one were: no problem with current system 8 (44%) and inability to include senior enough staff on the team 6 (24%). <b>Conclusions:</b> There are few trauma teams in Scottish acute hospitals. There was little enthusiasm for introducing them for a variety of reasons. Local evidence of benefit is likely needed before their adoption becomes widespread

Do actions occur inside the body?

The paper offers a critical examination of Jennifer Hornsby's view that actions are internal to the body. It focuses on three of Hornsby's central claims: (P) many actions are bodily movements (in a special sense of the word “movement”) (Q) all actions are tryings; and (R) all actions occur inside the body. It is argued, contra Hornsby, that we may accept (P) and (Q) without accepting also the implausible (R). Two arguments are first offered in favour of the thesis (Contrary-R): that no actions occur inside the body. Three of Hornsby's arguments in favour of R are then examined. It is argued that we need to make a distinction between the causes and the causings of bodily movements (in the ordinary sense of the word “movement”) and that actions ought to be identified with the latter rather than the former. This distinction is then used to show how Hornsby's arguments for (R) may be resisted

A biomechanical model for fibril recruitment: Evaluation in tendons and arteries

Simulations of soft tissue mechanobiological behaviour are increasingly important for clinical prediction of aneurysm, tendinopathy and other disorders. Mechanical behaviour at low stretches is governed by fibril straightening, transitioning into load-bearing at recruitment stretch, resulting in a tissue stiffening effect. Previous investigations have suggested theoretical relationships between stress-stretch measurements and recruitment probability density function (PDF) but not derived these rigorously nor evaluated these experimentally. Other work has proposed image-based methods for measurement of recruitment but made use of arbitrary fibril critical straightness parameters. The aim of this work was to provide a sound theoretical basis for estimating recruitment PDF from stress-stretch measurements and to evaluate this relationship using image-based methods, clearly motivating the choice of fibril critical straightness parameter in rat tail tendon and porcine artery. Rigorous derivation showed that the recruitment PDF may be estimated from the second stretch derivative of the first Piola-Kirchoff tissue stress. Image-based fibril recruitment identified the fibril straightness parameter that maximised Pearson correlation coefficients (PCC) with estimated PDFs. Using these critical straightness parameters the new method for estimating recruitment PDF showed a PCC with image-based measures of 0.915 and 0.933 for tendons and arteries respectively. This method may be used for accurate estimation of fibril recruitment PDF in mechanobiological simulation where fibril-level mechanical parameters are important for predicting cell behaviour

Simplifying External Load Data in NCAA Division-I Men\u27s Basketball Competitions: A Principal Component Analysis

The primary purpose was to simplify external load data obtained during Division-I (DI) basketball competitions via principal component analysis (PCA). A secondary purpose was to determine if the PCA results were sensitive to load demands of different positional groups (POS). Data comprised 229 observations obtained from 10 men\u27s basketball athletes participating in NCAA DI competitions. Each athlete donned an inertial measurement unit that was affixed to the same location on their shorts prior to competition. The PCA revealed two factors that possessed eigenvalues \u3e1.0 and explained 81.42% of the total variance. The first factor comprised total decelerations (totDEC, 0.94), average speed (avgSPD, 0.90), total accelerations (totACC, 0.85), total mechanical load (totMECH, 0.84), and total jump load (totJUMP, 0.78). Maximum speed (maxSPD, 0.94) was the lone contributor to the second factor. Based on the PCA, external load variables were included in a multinomial logistic regression that predicted POS (Overall model, p \u3c 0.0001; AUCcenters = 0.93, AUCguards = 0.88, AUCforwards = 0.80), but only maxSPD, totDEC, totJUMP, and totMECH were significant contributors to the model\u27s success (p \u3c 0.0001 for each). Even with the high significance, the model still had some issues differentiating between guards and forwards, as in-game demands often overlap between the two positions. Nevertheless, the PCA was effective at simplifying a large external load dataset collected on NCAA DI men\u27s basketball athletes. These data revealed that maxSPD, totDEC, totJUMP, and totMECH were the most sensitive to positional differences during competitions. To best characterize competition demands, such variables may be used to individualize training and recovery regimens most effectively

Xenia Mission: Spacecraft Design Concept

The proposed Xenia mission will, for the first time, chart the chemical and dynamical state of the majority of baryonic matter in the universe. using high-resolution spectroscopy, Xenia will collect essential information from major traces of the formation and evolution of structures from the early universe to the present time. The mission is based on innovative instrumental and observational approaches: observing with fast reaction gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) with a high spectral resolution. This enables the study of their (star-forming) environment from the dark to the local universe and the use of GRBs as backlight of large-scale cosmological structures, observing and surveying extended sources with high sensitivity using two wide field-of-view x-ray telescopes - one with a high angular resolution and the other with a high spectral resolution

Action, Knowledge and Embodiment in Berkeley and Locke

Embodiment is a fact of human existence which philosophers should not ignore. They may differ to a great extent in what they have to say about our bodies, but they have to take into account that for each of us our body has a special status, it is not merely one amongst the physical objects, but a physical object to which we have a unique relation. While Descartes approached the issue of embodiment through consideration of sensation and imagination, it is more directly reached by consideration of action and agency: whenever we act upon the world, we act by moving our bodies. So if we can understand what an immaterialist such as Berkeley thinks about agency, we will have gone a fair way to understanding what he thinks about embodiment. §1 discusses a recent flurry of articles on the subject of Berkeley’s account of action. I choose to present Berkeley as a causal-volitional theorist (realist) not because I think it is the uniquely correct interpretation of the texts, but because I find it more philosophically interesting as a version of immaterialism. In particular, it raises the possibility of a substantive account of human embodiment which is completely unavailable to the occasionalist. §2 articulates an apparent philosophical problem for Berkeley qua causal-volitional theorist and show that Locke was aware of a related problem and had a solution of which Berkeley would have known. §3 distinguishes two interpretations of Berkeley’s famous denial of blind agency–as the assertion of a weak representational condition or a strong epistemic one–and provide evidence that there was a well-established debate about blind powers in the seventeenth century which took the metaphor of blindness as indicating an epistemic rather than merely representational failing. What remains to do in §4 is to consider whether Berkeley, with his own peculiar commitments, could in fact accept this account of agency

Reliability and Short-Term Intra-Individual Variability of Telomere Length Measurement Using Monochrome Multiplexing Quantitative PCR

Studies examining the association between telomere length and cancer risk have often relied on measurement of telomere length from a single blood draw using a real-time PCR technique. We examined the reliability of telomere length measurement using sequential samples collected over a 9-month period.Relative telomere length in peripheral blood was estimated using a single tube monochrome multiplex quantitative PCR assay in blood DNA samples from 27 non-pregnant adult women (aged 35 to 74 years) collected in 7 visits over a 9-month period. A linear mixed model was used to estimate the components of variance for telomere length measurements attributed to variation among women and variation between time points within women. Mean telomere length measurement at any single visit was not significantly different from the average of 7 visits. Plates had a significant systematic influence on telomere length measurements, although measurements between different plates were highly correlated. After controlling for plate effects, 64% of the remaining variance was estimated to be accounted for by variance due to subject. Variance explained by time of visit within a subject was minor, contributing 5% of the remaining variance.Our data demonstrate good short-term reliability of telomere length measurement using blood from a single draw. However, the existence of technical variability, particularly plate effects, reinforces the need for technical replicates and balancing of case and control samples across plates

Depression and Motivation

Among the characteristic features of depression is a diminishment in or lack of action and motivation. In this paper, I consider a dominant philosophical account which purports to explain this lack of action or motivation. This approach comes in different versions but a common theme is, I argue, an over reliance on psychologistic assumptions about action–explanation and the nature of motivation. As a corrective I consider an alternative view that gives a prominent place to the body in motivation. Central to the experience of depression are changes to how a person is motivated to act and, also as central, are changes to bodily feelings and capacities. I argue that broadly characterizing motivation in terms of bodily capacities can, in particular, provide a more compelling account of depressive motivational pathology

Utjecaj progesterona na toksičnost benzena u štakora

Benzene is a frequently used industrial solvent. Its toxic manifestations could be modified by sex hormones, but mechanisms of their action are poorly understood. We have examined the influence of progesterone on lipid peroxidation (malondialdehyde), reduced glutathione (GSH), and cytochrome P450 2E1 (CYP2E1) in the liver and kidneys of female rats. Progesterone applied to benzene-treated rats inhibited the formation of reactive oxygen species (ROS), but in ovariectomised benzene-treated rats it significantly increased GSH in the liver. No improvement in CYP2E1 activity was observed in progesterone treated rats. Our results evidence that progesterone changes benzene toxicity (generation of ROS, oxidative stress). However, the probable antioxidative effect of progesterone needs to be confirmed by further studies.Benzen se u industriji često rabi kao otapalo. Zna se da na njegovu toksičnost mogu utjecati spolni hormoni, ali su mehanizmi njihova djelovanja još uvijek slabo poznati. Ispitali smo utjecaj progesterona na peroksidaciju lipida (malondialdehida), pad razina glutationa te aktivnost citokroma P450 2E1 (CYP2E1) u jetri i bubrezima štakorica. Primjena progesterona u štakorica koje su prethodno primile benzen inhibirala je stvaranje reaktivnih molekula kisika (engl. reactive oxygen species, krat. ROS), ali je u štakorica s ovariektomijom koje su također primile benzen doveo do značajnoga rasta glutationa u jetri. U štakorica koje su primile progesteron nije zamijećena poboljšana aktivnost izoeznima CYP2E1. Naši rezultati potvrđuju da progesteron utječe na toksičnost benzena (stvaranje ROS-a i oksidativni stres). Međutim, tek u budućim istraživanjima valja potvrditi djeluje li progesteron antioksidativno

Cellulosic films obtained from the treatment of sugarcane bagasse fibers with N -methylmorpholine- N -oxide (NMMO)

Ethanol/water organosolv pulping was used to obtain sugarcane bagasse pulp that was bleached with sodium chlorite. This bleached pulp was used to obtain cellulosic films that were further evaluated by Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). A good film formation was observed when temperature of 74 °C and baths of distilled water were used, which after FTIR, TGA, and SEM analysis indicated no significant difference between the reaction times. The results showed this to be an interesting and promising process, combining the prerequisites for a more efficient utilization of agro-industrial residues.Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP), (CNPq), and Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES), Brazil; Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT) and CEMU