Regular expressions as violin bowing patterns

String players spend a significant amount of practice time creating and learning bowings. These may be indicated in the music using up-bow and down-bow symbols, but those traditional notations do not capture the complex bowing patterns that are latent within the music. Regular expressions, a mathematical notation for a simple class of formal languages, can describe precisely the bowing patterns that commonly arise in string music. A software tool based on regular expressions enables performers to search for passages that can be handled with similar bowings, and to edit them consistently. A computer-based music editor incorporating bowing patterns has been implemented, using Lilypond to typeset the music. Our approach has been evaluated by using the editor to study ten movements from six violin sonatas by W. A. Mozart. Our experience shows that the editor is successful at finding passages and inserting bowings; that relatively complex patterns occur a number of times; and that the bowings can be inserted automatically and consistently

DEVELOPMENT OF AN OPTIMAL PATIENT TRANSFER TASK SET AND SIMULATION-BASED INTERVENTION TO REDUCE MUSCULOSKELETAL INJURY IN HEALTHCARE WORKERS

Introduction: Occupational injury is recognized as a key attrition factor in nursing with musculoskeletal injury the most common cause. Nurses, nurse aides and orderly injury rates are consistently listed in the top ten US occupations in terms of total numbers of injuries with patient transfer a primary etiologic factor. Patient transfer education for trainees as well as employees remains inconsistent and non-standardized. Legislative and policy efforts have not been effective.Methods: Two methods are combined in this paper to approach the problem: hierarchical task analysis and a simulation educational intervention. Hierarchical task analysis has been used to solve industrial process problems for more than three decades and simulation education methods have been used in aviation since the 1920's. The hierarchical task analysis process is used to develop an optimal task set which was used to frame and implement a healthcare simulationtraining intervention.Results: Performance evaluation tools for patient transfer were developed based on the optimum task set. Transfer of simulation training outcomes to the clinical setting was demonstrated on pilot study intervention and control units. The program was implemented in a community hospital with sustained improvement in transfer skill and reduction of injury rates and lost work days.Conclusion: Because patient safety and improved outcomes are linked to adequate levels of nurse staffing, the public health implications of this project are significant. If nursing injury can be avoided using these methods then true progress can be made in arresting the injury epidemic with resultant reduction of nursing workforce losses with consequent healthcare system benefits

TB/HIV: an orphan disease?

No abstract available

Preferential Generation of 15-HETE-PE Induced by IL-13 Regulates Goblet Cell Differentiation in Human Airway Epithelial Cells

Type 2–associated goblet cell hyperplasia and mucus hypersecretion are well known features of asthma. 15-Lipoxygenase-1 (15LO1) is induced by the type 2 cytokine IL-13 in human airway epithelial cells (HAECs) in vitro and is increased in fresh asthmatic HAECs ex vivo. 15LO1 generates a variety of products, including 15-hydroxyeicosatetraenoic acid (15-HETE), 15-HETE-phosphatidylethanolamine (15-HETE-PE), and 13-hydroxyoctadecadienoic acid (13-HODE). In this study, we investigated the 15LO1 metabolite profile at baseline and after IL-13 treatment, as well as its influence on goblet cell differentiation in HAECs. Primary HAECs obtained from bronchial brushings of asthmatic and healthy subjects were cultured under air–liquid interface culture supplemented with arachidonic acid and linoleic acid (10 μM each) and exposed to IL-13 for 7 days. Short interfering RNA transfection and 15LO1 inhibition were applied to suppress 15LO1 expression and activity. IL-13 stimulation induced expression of 15LO1 and preferentially generated 15-HETE-PE in vitro, both of which persisted after removal of IL-13. 15LO1 inhibition (by short interfering RNA and chemical inhibitor) decreased IL-13–induced forkhead box protein A3 (FOXA3) expression and enhanced FOXA2 expression. These changes were associated with reductions in both mucin 5AC and periostin. Exogenous 15-HETE-PE stimulation (alone) recapitulated IL-13–induced FOXA3, mucin 5AC, and periostin expression. The results of this study confirm the central importance of 15LO1 and its primary product, 15-HETE-PE, for epithelial cell remodeling in HAEC

Pion-nucleus elastic scattering on 12C, 40Ca, 90Zr, and 208Pb at 400 and 500 MeV

Pion-nucleus elastic scattering at energies above the Delta(1232) resonance is studied using both pi+ and pi- beams on 12C, 40Ca, 90Zr, and 208Pb. The present data provide an opportunity to study the interaction of pions with nuclei at energies where second-order corrections to impulse approximation calculations should be small. The results are compared with other data sets at similar energies, and with four different first-order impulse approximation calculations. Significant disagreement exists between the calculations and the data from this experiment

Do patients with femoroacetabular impingement syndrome who undergo hip arthroscopy display improved alpha angle (magnetic resonance imaging) and radiographic hip morphology?

AIMS To compare (a) the change in radiological bony morphology between participants with femoroacetabular impingement (FAI) syndrome who underwent arthroscopic hip surgery compared to physiotherapist-led non-surgical care and (b) the change in radiological bony morphology between participants with FAI syndrome who underwent arthroscopic hip surgery involving cam resection or acetabular rim trimming or combined cam resection and acetabular rim trimming. METHODS Maximum alpha angle measurements on magnetic resonance imaging and Hip2 Norm standardized hip measurements on radiographs were recorded at baseline and at 12 months postoperatively. One-way analysis of covariance and independent T tests were conducted between participants who underwent arthroscopic hip surgery and physiotherapist-led non-surgical care. Independent T tests and analysis of variance were conducted between participants who underwent the 3 different arthroscopic hip procedures. RESULTS Arthroscopic hip surgery resulted in significant improvements to mean alpha angle measurements (decreased from 70.8° to 62.1°) (P value < .001, 95% CI -11.776, -4.772), lateral center edge angle (LCEA) (P value = .030, 95% CI -3.403, -0.180) and extrusion index (P value = 0.002, 95% CI 0.882, 3.968) compared to physiotherapist-led management. Mean maximum 1-year postoperative alpha angle was 59.0° (P value = .003, 95% CI 4.845, 18.768) for participants who underwent isolated cam resection. Measurements comparing the 3 different arthroscopic hip procedures only differed in total femoral head coverage (F[2,37] = 3.470, P = .042). CONCLUSION Arthroscopic hip surgery resulted in statistically significant improvements to LCEA, extrusion index and alpha angle as compared to physiotherapist-led management. Measured outcomes between participants who underwent cam resection and/or acetabular rim trimming only differed in total femoral head coverage

Preferential regulation of stably expressed genes in the human genome suggests a widespread expression buffering role of microRNAs

In this study, we comprehensively explored the stably expressed genes (SE genes) and fluctuant genes (FL genes) in the human genome by a meta-analysis of large scale microarray data. We found that these genes have distinct function distributions. miRNA targets are shown to be significantly enriched in SE genes by using propensity analysis of miRNA regulation, supporting the hypothesis that miRNAs can buffer whole genome expression fluctuation. The expression-buffering effect of miRNA is independent of the target site number within the 3'-untranslated region. In addition, we found that gene expression fluctuation is positively correlated with the number of transcription factor binding sites in the promoter region, which suggests that coordination between transcription factors and miRNAs leads to balanced responses to external perturbations

A stochastic model of hippocampal synaptic plasticity with geometrical readout of enzyme dynamics

Discovering the rules of synaptic plasticity is an important step for understanding brain learning. Existing plasticity models are either (1) top-­down and interpretable, but not flex- ible enough to account for experimental data, or (2) bottom-­up and biologically realistic, but too intricate to interpret and hard to fit to data. To avoid the shortcomings of these approaches, we present a new plasticity rule based on a geometrical readout mechanism that flexibly maps synaptic enzyme dynamics to predict plasticity outcomes. We apply this readout to a multi-­timescale model of hippocampal synaptic plasticity induction that includes electrical dynamics, calcium, CaMKII and calcineurin, and accurate representation of intrinsic noise sources. Using a single set of model parameters, we demonstrate the robustness of this plasticity rule by reproducing nine published ex vivo experiments covering various spike-­timing and frequency-­dependent plasticity induction proto- cols, animal ages, and experimental conditions. Our model also predicts that in vivo-­like spike timing irregularity strongly shapes plasticity outcome. This geometrical readout modelling approach can be readily applied to other excitatory or inhibitory synapses to discover their synaptic plasticity rules

Constraints on the Thermal Contents of the X-ray Cavities of Cluster MS 0735.6+7421 with Sunyaev-Zel'dovich Effect Observations

Outbursts from active galactic nuclei (AGN) can inflate cavities in the intracluster medium (ICM) of galaxy clusters and are believed to play the primary role in offsetting radiative cooling in the ICM. However, the details of how the energy from AGN feedback thermalizes to heat the ICM is not well understood, partly due to the unknown composition and energetics of the cavities. The Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (SZ) effect, a measure of the integrated pressure along the line of sight, provides a means of measuring the thermal contents of the cavities, to discriminate between thermal, nonthermal, and other sources of pressure support. Here we report measurements of the SZ effect at 30 GHz toward the galaxy cluster MS 0735.6+7421 (MS0735), using the Combined Array for Research in Millimeter-wave Astronomy (CARMA). MS0735 hosts the most energetic AGN outburst known and lobes of radio synchrotron emission coincident with a pair of giant X-ray cavities $\sim 200$ across. Our CARMA maps show a clear deficit in the SZ signal coincident with the X-ray identified cavities, when compared to a smooth X-ray derived pressure model. We find that the cavities have very little SZ-contributing material, suggesting that they are either supported by very diffuse thermal plasma with temperature in excess of hundreds of keV, or are not supported thermally. Our results represent the first detection (with $4.4 \sigma$ significance) of this phenomenon with the SZ effect.Comment: 15 pages, 9 figures, submitted to ApJ Jun 2018, Accepted Dec 2018, Published Jan 2019. This is the version of the article before editing, as submitted by an author to ApJ. IOP Publishing Ltd is not responsible for any errors or omissions in this version of the manuscript or any version derived from it. The Version of Record is available online at https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/aaf88

Relationship of Auditory Electrophysiological Responses to Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy Metabolites in Early Phase Psychosis

Both auditory evoked responses and metabolites measured by magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) are altered in schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders, but the relationship between electrophysiological and metabolic changes are not well characterized. We examined the relation of MRS metabolites to cognitive and electrophysiological measures in individuals during the early phase of psychosis (EPP) and in healthy control subjects. The mismatch negativity (MMN) of the auditory event-related potential to duration deviant tones and the auditory steady response (ASSR) to 40 Hz stimulation were assessed. MRS was used to quantify glutamate+glutamine (Glx), N-Acetylasparate (NAA), creatine (Cre), myo-inositol (Ins) and choline (Cho) at a voxel placed medially in the frontal cortex. MMN amplitude and ASSR power did not differ between groups. The MRS metabolites Glx, Cre and Cho were elevated in the psychosis group. Partial least squares analysis in the patient group indicated that elevated levels of MRS metabolites were associated with reduced MMN amplitude and increased 40 Hz ASSR power. There were no correlations between the neurobiological measures and clinical measures. These data suggest that elevated neurometabolites early in psychosis are accompanied by altered auditory neurotransmission, possibly indicative of a neuroinflammatory or excitotoxic disturbance which disrupts a wide range of metabolic processes in the cortex