The Australian Incident Monitoring Study in intensive care: AIMS-ICU. An analysis of the first year of reporting.

Publisher's copy made available with the permission of the publisher Copyright © 1996 Australian Society of AnaesthetistsThe AIMS-ICU project is a national study set up to develop, introduce and evaluate an anonymous voluntary incident reporting system for intensive care. ICU staff members reported events which could have reduced, or did reduce, the safety margin for the patient. Seven ICUs contributed 536 reports, which identified 610 incidents involving the airway (20%), procedures (23%), drugs (28%), patient environment (21%), and ICU management (9%). Incidents were detected most frequently by rechecking the patient or the equipment, or by prior experience. No ill effects or only minor ones were experienced by most patients (short-term 76%, long-term 92%) as a result of the incident. Multiple contributing factors were identified, 33% system-based and 66% human factor-based. Incident monitoring promises to be a useful technique for improving patient safety in the ICU, when sufficient data have been collected to allow analysis of sets of incidents in defined “clinical situations”.U. Beckmann, I. Baldwin, G.K. Hart, W.B. Runcima

A Reciprocity Theorem for Monomer-Dimer Coverings

The problem of counting monomer-dimer coverings of a lattice is a longstanding problem in statistical mechanics. It has only been exactly solved for the special case of dimer coverings in two dimensions. In earlier work, Stanley proved a reciprocity principle governing the number $N(m,n)$ of dimer coverings of an $m$ by $n$ rectangular grid (also known as perfect matchings), where $m$ is fixed and $n$ is allowed to vary. As reinterpreted by Propp, Stanley's result concerns the unique way of extending $N(m,n)$ to $n < 0$ so that the resulting bi-infinite sequence, $N(m,n)$ for $n \in {Z}$, satisfies a linear recurrence relation with constant coefficients. In particular, Stanley shows that $N(m,n)$ is always an integer satisfying the relation $N(m,-2-n) = \epsilon_{m,n}N(m,n)$ where $\epsilon_{m,n} = 1$ unless $m\equiv$ 2(mod 4) and $n$ is odd, in which case $\epsilon_{m,n} = -1$. Furthermore, Propp's method is applicable to higher-dimensional cases. This paper discusses similar investigations of the numbers $M(m,n)$, of monomer-dimer coverings, or equivalently (not necessarily perfect) matchings of an $m$ by $n$ rectangular grid. We show that for each fixed $m$ there is a unique way of extending $M(m,n)$ to $n < 0$ so that the resulting bi-infinite sequence, $M(m,n)$ for $n \in {Z}$, satisfies a linear recurrence relation with constant coefficients. We show that $M(m,n)$, a priori a rational number, is always an integer, using a generalization of the combinatorial model offered by Propp. Lastly, we give a new statement of reciprocity in terms of multivariate generating functions from which Stanley's result follows.Comment: 13 pages, 12 figures, to appear in the proceedings of the Discrete Models for Complex Systems (DMCS) 2003 conference. (v2 - some minor changes

The natural history of model organisms: New opportunities at the wild frontier

A better understanding of the natural history of model organisms will increase their value as model systems and also keep them at the forefront of research. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.06956.00

Training molecularly enabled field biologists to understand organism-level gene function

A gene's influence on an organism's Darwinian fitness ultimately determines whether it will be lost, maintained or modified by natural selection, yet biologists have few gene expression systems in which to measure whole-organism gene function. In the Department of Molecular Ecology at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology we are training "molecularly enabled field biologists" to use transformed plants silenced in the expression of environmentally regulated genes and the plant's native habitats as "laboratories." Research done in these natural laboratories will, we hope, increase our understanding of the function of genes at the level of the organism. Examples of the role of threonine deaminase and RNA-directed RNA polymerases illustrate the process

Anomaly of Film Porosity Dependence on Deposition Rate

This Letter reports an anomaly of film porosity dependence on deposition rate during physical vapor deposition - the porosity increases as deposition rate decreases. Using glancing angle deposition of Cu on SiO2 substrate, the authors show that the Cu film consists of well separated nanorods when the deposition rate is 1 nm/second, and that the Cu films consists of a more uniform (or lower porosity) film when the deposition rate is 6 nm/second; all other deposition conditions remain the same. This anomaly is the result of interplay among substrate non-wetting, density of Cu nuclei on the substrate, and the minimum diameter of nanorods

Electrovac pppp-waves

New exact solutions of the Einstein-Maxwell field equations that describe $pp$-waves are presented

Algas marinhas do litoral das Ilhas do Corvo e Flores.

IV Expedição Científica do Departamento de Biologia – Flores 1989.Desde há muito que o estudo sistemático das algas do litoral açoreano tem sido objecto de interesse de muitos cientistas. 0s estudos realizados até há data nas ilhas do grupo ocidental [Drouet, 1866; Trelease, 1897; Gain, 1914; Schmidt, 1929, 1931; Fralick & Hehre, no prelo), revelam-se, no entanto, bastante incompletos no aspecto da diversidade florística, uma vez que só estão citados 14 taxa para o Corvo (Chlorophyta - 4, Phaeophyta - 5 e Rhodophyta - 5) e 30 para as Flores (Chlorophyta - 9, Phaeophyta - 11 e Rhodophyta - 10). Este trabalho surge assim com o objectivo de fazer uma actualização e eventual confirmação dos registos algológicos existentes para as ilhas das Flores e Corvo, contribuindo simultaneamente para um conhecimento mais profundo da flora algológica marinha das ilhas dos Açores