Biomarkers in bronchiectasis

Bronchiectasis is a heterogeneous disease with multiple aetiologies and diverse clinical features. There is a general consensus that optimal treatment requires precision medicine approaches focused on specific treatable disease characteristics, known as treatable traits. Identifying subtypes of conditions with distinct underlying biology (endotypes) depends on the identification of biomarkers that are associated with disease features, prognosis or treatment response and which can be applied in clinical practice. Bronchiectasis is a disease characterised by inflammation, infection, structural lung damage and impaired mucociliary clearance. Increasingly there are available methods to measure each of these components of the disease, revealing heterogeneous inflammatory profiles, microbiota, radiology and mucus and epithelial biology in patients with bronchiectasis. Using emerging biomarkers and omics technologies to guide treatment in bronchiectasis is a promising field of research. Here we review the most recent data on biomarkers in bronchiectasis.</p

Artificial Brains and Hybrid Minds

The paper develops two related thought experiments exploring variations on an ‘animat’ theme. Animats are hybrid devices with both artificial and biological components. Traditionally, ‘components’ have been construed in concrete terms, as physical parts or constituent material structures. Many fascinating issues arise within this context of hybrid physical organization. However, within the context of functional/computational theories of mentality, demarcations based purely on material structure are unduly narrow. It is abstract functional structure which does the key work in characterizing the respective ‘components’ of thinking systems, while the ‘stuff’ of material implementation is of secondary importance. Thus the paper extends the received animat paradigm, and investigates some intriguing consequences of expanding the conception of bio-machine hybrids to include abstract functional and semantic structure. In particular, the thought experiments consider cases of mind-machine merger where there is no physical Brain-Machine Interface: indeed, the material human body and brain have been removed from the picture altogether. The first experiment illustrates some intrinsic theoretical difficulties in attempting to replicate the human mind in an alternative material medium, while the second reveals some deep conceptual problems in attempting to create a form of truly Artificial General Intelligence

The Enhancon, Multimonopoles and Fuzzy Geometry

The presentation at Strings 2000 was intended to be in two main parts, but there was only time for part one. However both parts appeared on the online proceedings, and are also included in this document. The first part concerns an exploration of the connection between the physics of the `enhancon' geometry arising from wrapping N D6-branes on the K3 manifold in Type IIA string theory and that of a charge N BPS multi-monopole. This also relates to the physics of 2+1 dimensional SU(N) gauge theory with eight supercharges. The main results uncovered by this exploration are: a) better insight into the non-perturbative geometry of the enhancon; b) the structure of the moduli space geometry, and its characterisation in terms of generalisations of an Atiyah-Hitchin-like manifold; c) the use of Nahm data to describe aspects of the geometry, showing that the enhancon locus itself has a description as a fuzzy sphere. Part two discusses the addition of extra D2-branes into the geometry. Two probe computations show the difference between the geometry as seen by D2-branes and that seen by wrapped D6-branes, and the accompanying gauge theory interpretations are discussed.Comment: 10 pages. Two figures. LaTeX, IJMP style. Contribution to proceedings of Strings 2000, held at Michigan

Gauge Theory and the Excision of Repulson Singularities

We study brane configurations that give rise to large-N gauge theories with eight supersymmetries and no hypermultiplets. These configurations include a variety of wrapped, fractional, and stretched branes or strings. The corresponding spacetime geometries which we study have a distinct kind of singularity known as a repulson. We find that this singularity is removed by a distinctive mechanism, leaving a smooth geometry with a core having an enhanced gauge symmetry. The spacetime geometry can be related to large-N Seiberg-Witten theory.Comment: 31 pages LaTeX, 2 figures (v3: references added

Somali women and their pregnancy outcomes postmigration: data from six receiving countries

Objective: This study aimed to investigate pregnancy outcomes in Somali-born women compared with those women born in each of the six receiving countries: Australia, Belgium, Canada, Finland, Norway and Sweden. Design: Meta-analyses of routinely collected data on confinements and births. Setting: National or regional perinatal datasets spanning 3-6 years between 1997 and 2004 from six countries. Sample: A total of 10 431 Somali-born women and 2 168 891 receiving country-born women. Methods: Meta-analyses to compare outcomes for Somali-born and receiving country-born women across the six countries. Main outcome measures: Events of labour (induction, epidural use and proportion of women using no analgesia), mode of birth (spontaneous vaginal birth, operative vaginal birth and caesarean section) and infant outcomes (preterm birth, birthweight, Apgar at 5 minutes, stillbirths and neonatal deaths). Results: Compared with receiving country-born women, Somali-born women were less likely to give birth preterm (pooled OR 0.72, 95% CI 0.64-0.81) or to have infants of low birthweight (pooled OR 0.89, 95% CI 0.82-0.98), but there was an excess of caesarean sections, particularly in first births (pooled OR 1.41, 95% CI 1.25-1.59) and an excess of stillbirths (pooled OR 1.86, 95% CI 1.38-2.51). Conclusions: This analysis has identified a number of disparities in outcomes between Somali-born women and their receiving country counterparts. The disparities are not readily explained and they raise concerns about the provision of maternity care for Somali women postmigration. Review of maternity care practices followed by implementation and careful evaluation of strategies to improve both care and outcomes for Somali women is needed. © 2008 The Authors.SCOPUS: ar.jFLWOASCOPUS: ar.jinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishe

Opinions of dentists and directors of nursing concerning dental care provision for Adelaide nursing homes

The document attached has been archived with permission from the Australian Dental Association (7th Jan 2007). An external link to the publisher’s copy is included.Background: The complex oral health problems of nursing home residents have been well documented. However, the influences on residents’ oral health status, including opinions and experiences of dental professionals and nursing home staff, have not yet been adequately investigated. Methods: The baseline questionnaire component of this longitudinal study was mailed to all registered dentists practising in Adelaide and Adelaide nursing home directors of nursing (DONs). Results: 413 dentists and 97 DONs indicated that Adelaide dentists’ interest and training in nursing home dentistry was low. Dental service provision for nursing home residents was very low and dentists preferred to provide treatment at their dental practices. Few dental hygienists were working in nursing homes and dental professionals provided little educational assistance for nursing home staff. Dentists and DONs held several common and many varying perceptions of the problems associated with dental care provision in nursing homes. Both identified a group of nursing home environmental constraints and a lack of portable dental equipment. DONs further identified a group of resident related problems, and dentists a group of dental practicerelated problems. Conclusions: These study results provide important information concerning problems with nursing home dentistry for dental service providers, educators, policy-makers, administrators and nursing home staff.JM Chalmers, C Hodge, JM Fuss, AJ Spencer, KD Carter and R Mathe