The flute as imitator and as the most imitated of instruments

Thesis (M.M.)--Boston Universit

LTC Interface

A portion of a four-year study concentrating on the design and implementation of long-term care service arrays and peer-support mechanisms

Meningeal carcinomatosis diagnosed during stroke evaluation in the emergency department

A 70-year-old female presented to the emergency department with a 3-day history of intermittent dysphasia and right facial droop. Computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) were obtained, and the patient was found to have meningeal carcinomatosis, also known as leptomeningeal metastases. Meningeal carcinomatosis is a rare metastatic complication of some solid tumors and hematopoietic neoplasms, and has a median survival rate of 2.4 months. The role of the emergency physician is to appropriately diagnose this condition, treat emergent side effects, provide symptomatic relief, and ensure multi-disciplinary management

Integrating Viral and Nonviral Vectors for Cystic Fibrosis Gene Therapy in the Airways

An important goal for cystic fibrosis (CF) gene therapy is to achieve long-term functional correction. While many vector options have been evaluated, integrating vectors have the greatest potential to maintain stable expression over time without a requirement for repeated administration. In this chapter, we discuss the importance of correcting the appropriate cell types, options for integrating vectors, animal models for CF gene therapy, and clinically relevant endpoint measurements. Lentiviral vectors are a promising option for CF gene therapy, as they integrate into the host genome and persistently express a transgene of interest. Airway cell tropism can be conferred by pseudotyping. Nonviral vectors such as DNA transposons can also integrate into the genome. Recent advances in hybrid viral/transposon vector technology improve the ability to deliver transposons to the airways in vivo. Integrating vector technology and new animal models have allowed considerable progress toward the goal of using gene therapy to correct life-long genetic diseases such as CF

Joint system quantum descriptions arising from local quantumness

Bipartite correlations generated by non-signalling physical systems that admit a finite-dimensional local quantum description cannot exceed the quantum limits, i.e., they can always be interpreted as distant measurements of a bipartite quantum state. Here we consider the effect of dropping the assumption of finite dimensionality. Remarkably, we find that the same result holds provided that we relax the tensor structure of space-like separated measurements to mere commutativity. We argue why an extension of this result to tensor representations seems unlikely

Characterisation of the bacterial and fungal communities associated with different lesion sizes of Dark Spot Syndrome occurring in the Coral Stephanocoenia intersepta

The number and prevalence of coral diseases/syndromes are increasing worldwide. Dark Spot Syndrome (DSS) afflicts numerous coral species and is widespread throughout the Caribbean, yet there are no known causal agents. In this study we aimed to characterise the microbial communities (bacteria and fungi) associated with DSS lesions affecting the coral Stephanocoenia intersepta using nonculture molecular techniques. Bacterial diversity of healthy tissues (H), those in advance of the lesion interface (apparently healthy AH), and three sizes of disease lesions (small, medium, and large) varied significantly (ANOSIM R = 0.052 p,0.001), apart from the medium and large lesions, which were similar in their community profile. Four bacteria fitted into the pattern expected from potential pathogens; namely absent from H, increasing in abundance within AH, and dominant in the lesions themselves. These included ribotypes related to Corynebacterium (KC190237), Acinetobacter (KC190251), Parvularculaceae (KC19027), and Oscillatoria (KC190271). Furthermore, two Vibrio species, a genus including many proposed coral pathogens, dominated the disease lesion and were absent from H and AH tissues, making them candidates as potential pathogens for DSS. In contrast, other members of bacteria from the same genus, such as V. harveyii were present throughout all sample types, supporting previous studies where potential coral pathogens exist in healthy tissues. Fungal diversity varied significantly as well, however the main difference between diseased and healthy tissues was the dominance of one ribotype, closely related to the plant pathogen, Rhytisma acerinum, a known causal agent of tar spot on tree leaves. As the corals’ symbiotic algae have been shown to turn to a darker pigmented state in DSS (giving rise to the syndromes name), the two most likely pathogens are R. acerinum and the bacterium Oscillatoria, which has been identified as the causal agent of the colouration in Black Band Disease, another widespread coral disease