35 research outputs found
Self-selected walking speeds as a function of load in reproductive age women carrying an indigenous pack basket.
Keywords: Women, locomotion, loads
Almost universally, females from indigenous populations walk long distances carrying heavy loads; these loads include infants and toddlers, food, water, firewood, and household belongings. The purpose of our research was to determine how different levels of load carried in an indigenous pack basket affect the speeds selected by free-walking reproductive age women given qualitative speed directives. The study involved 14 women between 18 and 30 y who were in the luteal phase of their menstrual cycle or taking oral contraceptives. Subjects carried three different load amounts in an indigenous style pack basket -- 0 kg (an empty pack), 10 kg, and 20 kg -- while walking around a gym perimeter at four different walking speed directives (âslow walkâ, âwalk all dayâ, âbrisk walkâ, âfast walkâ). During each of two testing days, 12 trials (all combinations of 3 loads, 4 speed directives) were performed in a random order. Each trial consisted of six minutes walking followed by four minutes resting. Average selected walking speed for each trial was determined from video tape recordings on each side of the gym. Actual walking speed increased curvilinearly with speed directive. For a given speed directive, selected speeds dropped significantly from 0 to 20 kg loads at all but the âslow walkâ directive, with the amount of the speed drop increasing at faster speed directives. Such load-related modulation of walking speed could limit daily foraging range, as well as increase the frequency of camp moves, potentially influencing the mobility of the entire population
Blood ties: ABO is a trans-species polymorphism in primates
The ABO histo-blood group, the critical determinant of transfusion
incompatibility, was the first genetic polymorphism discovered in humans.
Remarkably, ABO antigens are also polymorphic in many other primates, with the
same two amino acid changes responsible for A and B specificity in all species
sequenced to date. Whether this recurrence of A and B antigens is the result of
an ancient polymorphism maintained across species or due to numerous, more
recent instances of convergent evolution has been debated for decades, with a
current consensus in support of convergent evolution. We show instead that
genetic variation data in humans and gibbons as well as in Old World Monkeys
are inconsistent with a model of convergent evolution and support the
hypothesis of an ancient, multi-allelic polymorphism of which some alleles are
shared by descent among species. These results demonstrate that the ABO
polymorphism is a trans-species polymorphism among distantly related species
and has remained under balancing selection for tens of millions of years, to
date, the only such example in Hominoids and Old World Monkeys outside of the
Major Histocompatibility Complex.Comment: 45 pages, 4 Figures, 4 Supplementary Figures, 5 Supplementary Table
Linking Symptom Inventories using Semantic Textual Similarity
An extensive library of symptom inventories has been developed over time to
measure clinical symptoms, but this variety has led to several long standing
issues. Most notably, results drawn from different settings and studies are not
comparable, which limits reproducibility. Here, we present an artificial
intelligence (AI) approach using semantic textual similarity (STS) to link
symptoms and scores across previously incongruous symptom inventories. We
tested the ability of four pre-trained STS models to screen thousands of
symptom description pairs for related content - a challenging task typically
requiring expert panels. Models were tasked to predict symptom severity across
four different inventories for 6,607 participants drawn from 16 international
data sources. The STS approach achieved 74.8% accuracy across five tasks,
outperforming other models tested. This work suggests that incorporating
contextual, semantic information can assist expert decision-making processes,
yielding gains for both general and disease-specific clinical assessment
Temporal changes in the epidemiology, management, and outcome from acute respiratory distress syndrome in European intensive care units: a comparison of two large cohorts
Background: Mortality rates for patients with ARDS remain high. We assessed temporal changes in the epidemiology and management of ARDS patients requiring invasive mechanical ventilation in European ICUs. We also investigated the association between ventilatory settings and outcome in these patients. Methods: This was a post hoc analysis of two cohorts of adult ICU patients admitted between May 1â15, 2002 (SOAP study, n = 3147), and May 8â18, 2012 (ICON audit, n = 4601 admitted to ICUs in the same 24 countries as the SOAP study). ARDS was defined retrospectively using the Berlin definitions. Values of tidal volume, PEEP, plateau pressure, and FiO2 corresponding to the most abnormal value of arterial PO2 were recorded prospectively every 24 h. In both studies, patients were followed for outcome until death, hospital discharge or for 60 days. Results: The frequency of ARDS requiring mechanical ventilation during the ICU stay was similar in SOAP and ICON (327[10.4%] vs. 494[10.7%], p = 0.793). The diagnosis of ARDS was established at a median of 3 (IQ: 1â7) days after admission in SOAP and 2 (1â6) days in ICON. Within 24 h of diagnosis, ARDS was mild in 244 (29.7%), moderate in 388 (47.3%), and severe in 189 (23.0%) patients. In patients with ARDS, tidal volumes were lower in the later (ICON) than in the earlier (SOAP) cohort. Plateau and driving pressures were also lower in ICON than in SOAP. ICU (134[41.1%] vs 179[36.9%]) and hospital (151[46.2%] vs 212[44.4%]) mortality rates in patients with ARDS were similar in SOAP and ICON. High plateau pressure (> 29 cmH2O) and driving pressure (> 14 cmH2O) on the first day of mechanical ventilation but not tidal volume (> 8 ml/kg predicted body weight [PBW]) were independently associated with a higher risk of in-hospital death. Conclusion: The frequency of and outcome from ARDS remained relatively stable between 2002 and 2012. Plateau pressure > 29 cmH2O and driving pressure > 14 cmH2O on the first day of mechanical ventilation but not tidal volume > 8 ml/kg PBW were independently associated with a higher risk of death. These data highlight the continued burden of ARDS and provide hypothesis-generating data for the design of future studies