Osteosarcoma of the Breast

We present a case report of a rare malignancy, primary osteosarcoma of the breast

Generation Z and their managers : experiences and expectations of interactions in contemporary workplaces.

Generation Z are the latest cohort to join the workforce, presenting managers with the challenge of managing four generations simultaneously. A growing body of literature has identified the defining characteristics of Gen Z and the appropriate management styles for successfully engaging them. While the workplace expectations of Gen Z employees have been identified, the relational aspect between their expectations and managers’ observations of how these play out in practice has been overlooked. This exploratory interpretive study sought to understand the expectations of Gen Z subordinates with respect to their interactions with managers, managers observations of how these inform behaviors and experience. To do this, a qualitative, interpretivist research design was employed. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 15 Gen Z participants, and five managers. Five organisations drawn from the banking, law and accounting, and local authority sectors in New Zealand were selected to take part in the research. Using a thematic analysis, an empirically-based conceptual framework was created. This captures how the relationship between Gen Z subordinates’ expectations, and their managers’ observations of these shaped how the subordinates’ made sense of their workplace experiences, as they journeyed from newcomers towards fully-fledged professionals. This finding highlights the interconnectivity of expectations and interactions, and how this influences Gen Z’s perceptions of the support (i.e., scaffolding) they received from managers. Expectations and learning were shown to be mutually constitutive in a socially distributed manner (i.e., across managers, learners and their peers). This model and these findings contribute new insights. Firstly, they reveal the degree to which expectations are met and comparisons of experiences with peers, shape the interactions between managers and subordinates. Secondly, they extend the theory of the zone of proximal development by capturing how expectations inform the learning process. Finally, the model represents a new adaption of the 3-P model of learning, which integrates the concepts of the zone of proximal development, scaffolding, and legitimate peripheral participation to produce a conceptual framework for studying workplace interaction between Generation Z subordinates and their managers and how this contributes to professional learning

Long-lasting Effects of Perinatal Exposure to Brominated Flame Retardant on Male Reproductive Outcomes in Rat Model

Meta-analysis of 101 studies published between 1934 and 1996 indicates that mean sperm concentration decreased around 50% during this period. More recent studies have found alarmingly poor semen quality in the general population of Northern Europe. Additional adverse trends include increased incidence of testicular cancer, and congenital malformations such as cryptorchidism and hypospadias. Testicular germ cell cancers increased by about 400% over the period of 50 years in industrialized countries. Decreased quality of male reproductive health has been linked to environmental endocrine disruptors exposure. However, the ability of xenobiotics to produce long-lasting effects and mechanisms of perturbation of the male reproductive system following developmental exposures are not well understood. Both animal experiments and human studies show male reproductive toxicity to polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDE), a group of ubiquitous, persistent, and bioaccumulative environmental xenobiotics. Here we report the result of experiment in which pregnant Wistar rats were fed 0.2 mg/kg body weight BDE-47 (the most ubiquitous PBDE congener) daily starting from the eighth day of pregnancy until weaning. Multiple endpoints of male reproductive health were assessed in offspring on postnatal week 20: testis size, sperm production, morphology, motility, circulating testosterone, select gene expression in prostate (qRT-PCR) and all-genome gene expression in testis (RNA-seq). Seventeen weeks after exposure was abolished testis size was significantly smaller in adult rats and genes of inflammatory response were significantly upregulated in testis tissue among other results. Our findings confirm male-reproductive toxicity of PBDE and identify inflammatory response as a long lasting mechanism of repro-toxicity triggered by perinatal exposure

The Need for Laboratory Measurements and Ab Initio Studies to Aid Understanding of Exoplanetary Atmospheres

We are now on a clear trajectory for improvements in exoplanet observations that will revolutionize our ability to characterize their atmospheric structure, composition, and circulation, from gas giants to rocky planets. However, exoplanet atmospheric models capable of interpreting the upcoming observations are often limited by insufficiencies in the laboratory and theoretical data that serve as critical inputs to atmospheric physical and chemical tools. Here we provide an up-to-date and condensed description of areas where laboratory and/or ab initio investigations could fill critical gaps in our ability to model exoplanet atmospheric opacities, clouds, and chemistry, building off a larger 2016 white paper, and endorsed by the NAS Exoplanet Science Strategy report. Now is the ideal time for progress in these areas, but this progress requires better access to, understanding of, and training in the production of spectroscopic data as well as a better insight into chemical reaction kinetics both thermal and radiation-induced at a broad range of temperatures. Given that most published efforts have emphasized relatively Earth-like conditions, we can expect significant and enlightening discoveries as emphasis moves to the exotic atmospheres of exoplanets.Comment: Submitted as an Astro2020 Science White Pape

The Canadian context for evidence-based conservation and environmental management

Canada has strong institutional capacity for science-based decision-making related to natural resource conservation and environmental management. Yet, the concept of using systematic reviews (conducted in accordance with established guidelines) to support evidence-based conservation and environmental management in Canada is in its infancy. Here we discuss the Canadian context for implementing more rigorous evidence-based approaches using systematic reviews. Of particular relevance to Canada is its vast size, broad diversity of ecosystems and heavy economic reliance on natural resources that vary widely in the type and scale of their environmental effects. These factors result in a wide variety of environmental monitoring needs over an extensive area that pose challenges to the scientific community charged with overseeing wise use of the environment. In addition, there are diverse and engaged user groups (e.g., hunters, trappers, fishers, bird watchers, foresters) and indigenous peoples that have constitutional rights to their natural resources. Traditional environmental knowledge is a complementary source of evidence in the Canadian environmental impact assessment process and therefore must be a part of evidence synthesis. Systematic reviews are not intended to replace local field studies, but rather have the opportunity to draw upon a broader suite of evidence that can be interfaced with local perspectives. The existing institutional structures in Canada could easily incorporate systematic reviews into their science advice and decision-making frameworks but to date, there are few examples of where this has occurred. Drawing on the expertise of a growing global collaboration for environmental evidence synthesis, Canadian institutions (federal, provincial and NGO) are poised to more broadly incorporate systematic reviews once their benefits are fully realized and the capacity to undertake such systematic reviews is fully developed. Systematic reviews offer a consolidated view of the available scientific literature on a given question. The results may offer significant value when working with stakeholders and decision makers contributing other sources of information to the question. For example, mechanisms to capture and integrate scientific knowledge with stakeholder and traditional knowledge may benefit from the scientific sources being filtered, interpreted and summarized for discussion. In other cases, wher

Building Disease-Specific Drug-Protein Connectivity Maps from Molecular Interaction Networks and PubMed Abstracts

The recently proposed concept of molecular connectivity maps enables researchers to integrate experimental measurements of genes, proteins, metabolites, and drug compounds under similar biological conditions. The study of these maps provides opportunities for future toxicogenomics and drug discovery applications. We developed a computational framework to build disease-specific drug-protein connectivity maps. We integrated gene/protein and drug connectivity information based on protein interaction networks and literature mining, without requiring gene expression profile information derived from drug perturbation experiments on disease samples. We described the development and application of this computational framework using Alzheimer's Disease (AD) as a primary example in three steps. First, molecular interaction networks were incorporated to reduce bias and improve relevance of AD seed proteins. Second, PubMed abstracts were used to retrieve enriched drug terms that are indirectly associated with AD through molecular mechanistic studies. Third and lastly, a comprehensive AD connectivity map was created by relating enriched drugs and related proteins in literature. We showed that this molecular connectivity map development approach outperformed both curated drug target databases and conventional information retrieval systems. Our initial explorations of the AD connectivity map yielded a new hypothesis that diltiazem and quinidine may be investigated as candidate drugs for AD treatment. Molecular connectivity maps derived computationally can help study molecular signature differences between different classes of drugs in specific disease contexts. To achieve overall good data coverage and quality, a series of statistical methods have been developed to overcome high levels of data noise in biological networks and literature mining results. Further development of computational molecular connectivity maps to cover major disease areas will likely set up a new model for drug development, in which therapeutic/toxicological profiles of candidate drugs can be checked computationally before costly clinical trials begin

Exploring data provenance in handwritten text recognition infrastructure:Sharing and reusing ground truth data, referencing models, and acknowledging contributions. Starting the conversation on how we could get it done

This paper discusses best practices for sharing and reusing Ground Truth in Handwritten Text Recognition infrastructures, and ways to reference and acknowledge contributions to the creation and enrichment of data within these Machine Learning systems. We discuss how one can publish Ground Truth data in a repository and, subsequently, inform others. Furthermore, we suggest appropriate citation methods for HTR data, models, and contributions made by volunteers. Moreover, when using digitised sources (digital facsimiles), it becomes increasingly important to distinguish between the physical object and the digital collection. These topics all relate to the proper acknowledgement of labour put into digitising, transcribing, and sharing Ground Truth HTR data. This also points to broader issues surrounding the use of Machine Learning in archival and library contexts, and how the community should begin toacknowledge and record both contributions and data provenance

Exploring Data Provenance in Handwritten Text Recognition Infrastructure: Sharing and Reusing Ground Truth Data, Referencing Models, and Acknowledging Contributions. Starting the Conversation on How We Could Get It Done

This paper discusses best practices for sharing and reusing Ground Truth in Handwritten Text Recognition infrastructures, as well as ways to reference and acknowledge contributions to the creation and enrichment of data within these systems. We discuss how one can place Ground Truth data in a repository and, subsequently, inform others through HTR-United. Furthermore, we want to suggest appropriate citation methods for ATR data, models, and contributions made by volunteers. Moreover, when using digitised sources (digital facsimiles), it becomes increasingly important to distinguish between the physical object and the digital collection. These topics all relate to the proper acknowledgement of labour put into digitising, transcribing, and sharing Ground Truth HTR data. This also points to broader issues surrounding the use of machine learning in archival and library contexts, and how the community should begin to acknowledge and record both contributions and data provenance

Implementation of corticosteroids in treating COVID-19 in the ISARIC WHO Clinical Characterisation Protocol UK:prospective observational cohort study

BACKGROUND: Dexamethasone was the first intervention proven to reduce mortality in patients with COVID-19 being treated in hospital. We aimed to evaluate the adoption of corticosteroids in the treatment of COVID-19 in the UK after the RECOVERY trial publication on June 16, 2020, and to identify discrepancies in care. METHODS: We did an audit of clinical implementation of corticosteroids in a prospective, observational, cohort study in 237 UK acute care hospitals between March 16, 2020, and April 14, 2021, restricted to patients aged 18 years or older with proven or high likelihood of COVID-19, who received supplementary oxygen. The primary outcome was administration of dexamethasone, prednisolone, hydrocortisone, or methylprednisolone. This study is registered with ISRCTN, ISRCTN66726260. FINDINGS: Between June 17, 2020, and April 14, 2021, 47 795 (75·2%) of 63 525 of patients on supplementary oxygen received corticosteroids, higher among patients requiring critical care than in those who received ward care (11 185 [86·6%] of 12 909 vs 36 415 [72·4%] of 50 278). Patients 50 years or older were significantly less likely to receive corticosteroids than those younger than 50 years (adjusted odds ratio 0·79 [95% CI 0·70–0·89], p=0·0001, for 70–79 years; 0·52 [0·46–0·58], p80 years), independent of patient demographics and illness severity. 84 (54·2%) of 155 pregnant women received corticosteroids. Rates of corticosteroid administration increased from 27·5% in the week before June 16, 2020, to 75–80% in January, 2021. INTERPRETATION: Implementation of corticosteroids into clinical practice in the UK for patients with COVID-19 has been successful, but not universal. Patients older than 70 years, independent of illness severity, chronic neurological disease, and dementia, were less likely to receive corticosteroids than those who were younger, as were pregnant women. This could reflect appropriate clinical decision making, but the possibility of inequitable access to life-saving care should be considered. FUNDING: UK National Institute for Health Research and UK Medical Research Council