A case study on agreement between self-reported bicycle accidents and hospital and police records

A self-report questionnaire on bicycle accidents was distributed to 6,793 respondents every month for one year (2012/2013). This paper evaluates the agreement between hospital data, police data, and self-reports concerning the number of accidents, as well as the information recorded regarding each accident. Six hundred and ninety-four accidents were self-reported by 6,793 respondents. In 99 cases, the respondents reported getting medical care at a hospital. Of these self-reported contacts, 74 could be matched to a hospital record, but only 53 of the 74 were registered in the hospital records as traffic accidents. Information on the primary opposite party in the 53 accidents was compared, and moderate agreement was found between self-reports and hospital records (κ=0.63). In 23 of the self-reported accidents, it was stated that a police report had been recorded, but only 6 accidents could be located in the police records. The sample size was too small to calculate statistical agreement between police records and self-reports. These findings are relevant to discuss of the level of underreporting of bicycle accidents in Denmark because they indicate that there could be substantially more accidents than noted in official records. Furthermore, this paper provides insight into methodological issues associated with self-reporting of traffic accidents

A case study on agreement between self-reported bicycle accidents and hospital and police records

A self-report questionnaire on bicycle accidents was distributed to 6,793 respondents every month for one year (2012/2013). This paper evaluates the agreement between hospital data, police data, and self-reports concerning the number of accidents, as well as the information recorded regarding each accident. Six hundred and ninety-four accidents were self-reported by 6,793 respondents. In 99 cases, the respondents reported getting medical care at a hospital. Of these self-reported contacts, 74 could be matched to a hospital record, but only 53 of the 74 were registered in the hospital records as traffic accidents. Information on the primary opposite party in the 53 accidents was compared, and moderate agreement was found between self-reports and hospital records (κ=0.63). In 23 of the self-reported accidents, it was stated that a police report had been recorded, but only 6 accidents could be located in the police records. The sample size was too small to calculate statistical agreement between police records and self-reports. These findings are relevant to discuss of the level of underreporting of bicycle accidents in Denmark because they indicate that there could be substantially more accidents than noted in official records. Furthermore, this paper provides insight into methodological issues associated with self-reporting of traffic accidents

The High A(V) Quasar Survey: Reddened quasi-stellar objects selected from optical/near-infrared photometry - II

Quasi-stellar objects (QSOs) whose spectral energy distributions (SEDs) are reddened by dust either in their host galaxies or in intervening absorber galaxies are to a large degree missed by optical color selection criteria like the one used by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). To overcome this bias against red QSOs, we employ a combined optical and near-infrared color selection. In this paper, we present a spectroscopic follow-up campaign of a sample of red candidate QSOs which were selected from the SDSS and the UKIRT Infrared Deep Sky Survey (UKIDSS). The spectroscopic data and SDSS/UKIDSS photometry are supplemented by mid-infrared photometry from the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer. In our sample of 159 candidates, 154 (97%) are confirmed to be QSOs. We use a statistical algorithm to identify sightlines with plausible intervening absorption systems and identify nine such cases assuming dust in the absorber similar to Large Magellanic Cloud sightlines. We find absorption systems toward 30 QSOs, 2 of which are consistent with the best-fit absorber redshift from the statistical modeling. Furthermore, we observe a broad range in SED properties of the QSOs as probed by the rest-frame 2 {\mu}m flux. We find QSOs with a strong excess as well as QSOs with a large deficit at rest-frame 2 {\mu}m relative to a QSO template. Potential solutions to these discrepancies are discussed. Overall, our study demonstrates the high efficiency of the optical/near-infrared selection of red QSOs.Comment: 64 pages, 18 figures, 16 pages of tables. Accepted to ApJ

Продукты ограниченного протеолиза: подходы к обнаружению и диагностические возможности в оценке тяжести патологии при эндогенной интоксикации

ПРОДУКТЫ ОГРАНИЧЕННОГО ПРОТЕОЛИЗАПРОТЕИНАЗО-ИНГИБИТОРНАЯ СИСТЕМАОТРАВЛЕНИЕ /ДИАГН /ОСЛЭНДОГЕННАЯ ИНТОКСИКАЦИЯ /ДИАГН /ОСЛСРЕДНЕМОЛЕКУЛЯРНАЯ ПЕПТИДНАЯ ФРАКЦИЯПАТОЛОГИЧЕСКИЕ ПРОЦЕССЫЛАБОРАТОРНЫЕ МЕТОДЫ И ПРОЦЕДУРЫБЕЛКОВО-ПЕПТИДНЫЕ КОМПОНЕНТ

The nature of z ~ 2.3 Lyman-alpha emitters

We study the multi-wavelength properties of a set of 171 Ly-alpha emitting candidates at redshift z = 2.25 found in the COSMOS field, with the aim of understanding the underlying stellar populations in the galaxies. We especially seek to understand what the dust contents, ages and stellar masses of the galaxies are, and how they relate to similar properties of Ly-alpha emitters at other redshifts. The candidates here are shown to have different properties from those of Ly-alpha emitters found at higher redshift, by fitting the spectral energy distributions (SEDs) using a Monte-Carlo Markov-Chain technique and including nebular emission in the spectra. The stellar masses, and possibly the dust contents, are higher, with stellar masses in the range log M_* = 8.5 - 11.0 M_sun and A_V = 0.0 - 2.5 mag. Young population ages are well constrained, but the ages of older populations are typically unconstrained. In 15% of the galaxies only a single, young population of stars is observed. We show that the Ly-alpha fluxes of the best fit galaxies are correlated with their dust properties, with higher dust extinction in Ly-alpha faint galaxies. Testing for whether results derived from a light-weighted stack of objects correlate to those found when fitting individual objects we see that stellar masses are robust to stacking, but ages and especially dust extinctions are derived incorrectly from stacks. We conclude that the stellar properties of Ly-alpha emitters at z = 2.25 are different from those at higher redshift and that they are diverse. Ly-alpha selection appears to be tracing systematically different galaxies at different redshifts.Comment: 15 pages, 11 figures, 8 tables, accepted in A&A. Table 6 available in full from the author

Why do earlier-arriving migratory birds have better breeding success?

In migratory birds, early arrival on breeding sites has been widely associated with greater breeding success, but the mechanisms driving these benefits are rarely known. Acquisition of higher quality territories or carry-over effects of better non-breeding season conditions are frequently cited as possible mechanisms through which early-arrivers can achieve greater reproductive output. However, benefits of early arrival could also result from increased time available for breeding, independent of variation in territory quality and associated fitness. Increased time available for breeding among early arrivers could directly influence reproductive success through the time available for replacement clutches following nest loss. However, the benefits of replacement clutches may also depend on seasonal variation in nest survival, and the consequences for juvenile recruitment of hatching at different times in the season. Here we construct a simulation model to explore the potential for time-constrained capacity for replacement clutches to drive relationships between timing of arrival and reproductive success in avian migratory systems, and the influence of seasonal variation in both nest survival and subsequent offspring recruitment probability on these relationships. We show that positive relationships between arrival timing and reproductive success can arise solely through the greater time capacity for replacement clutches among early-arrivers, even when juvenile recruitment declines seasonally and thus later re-nesting attempts contribute fewer recruits to the population. However, these relationships vary depending on the seasonal pattern of nest survival. The benefits of early arrival are greatest when nest survival rates are constant or decline seasonally, and early arrival is least beneficial when nest success rates increase over the breeding season, although re-nesting capacity can mitigate this effect. The time benefits of early arrival facilitating replacement clutches following nest loss may therefore be an important source of selection on migratory timings, and empirical measures of seasonal variation in nest survival, re-nesting and juvenile recruitment rates are needed in order to identify the costs and benefits associated with individual migration phenology and the selection pressures influencing migratory timings

Field collections and environmental DNA surveys reveal topographic complexity of coral reefs as a predictor of cryptobenthic biodiversity across small spatial scales

Coral reefs represent some of the most biodiverse ecosystems in the world but are currently undergoing large-scale degradation due to anthropogenic stressors. Such degradation usually begins with coral bleaching, and if the stress condition is inflicted for too long may eventually result in loss of structural complexity (or “flattening”) of the reef, dramatically changing habitat availability for reef-associated fauna. Despite having been linked to important ecosystem functions, cryptobenthic organisms are often overlooked in ecological monitoring programs, and their microhabitat dependencies are poorly understood. Here, we combined collection-based biodiversity monitoring techniques with five different environmental DNA (eDNA) sampling techniques (Reef water, sediment, crevice water, slurp gun, and bulk sediment) to survey cryptobenthic fishes and annelids on a Maldivian fringing coral reef. Collectively, 176 fish and 140 annelid taxa were detected with eDNA across 14 surveyed sites, more than doubling the reported annelid taxa in the region with 88 new occurrences. Water filtered near the reef structure revealed the highest species richness out of the five eDNA sampling techniques tested. Furthermore, we found correlations between fish species richness and topographic complexity for both collection- and eDNA-based techniques. This suggests that detection by eDNA may be linked to site-specific predictors and reveal community differences across small spatial scales (tens of meters). We also report that reef flattening (going from structural complex to less complex sites) can cause a 50% reduction in fish diversity and that cryptobenthic fish species richness was highly associated with branching corals. In contrast, annelid communities showed no clear correlations with environmental predictors, but co-amplification of non-target, non-annelid taxa may have distorted such correlations if present. This suggest that the predictive powers of eDNA for environmental gradients may be dependent on the targeted taxa

Conservation laws for vacuum tetrad gravity

Ten conservation laws in useful polynomial form are derived from a Cartan form and Exterior Differential System (EDS) for the tetrad equations of vacuum relativity. The Noether construction of conservation laws for well posed EDS is introduced first, and an illustration given, deriving 15 conservation laws of the free field Maxwell Equations from symmetries of its EDS. The Maxwell EDS and tetrad gravity EDS have parallel structures, with their numbers of dependent variables, numbers of generating 2-forms and generating 3-forms, and Cartan character tables all in the ratio of 1 to 4. They have 10 corresponding symmetries with the same Lorentz algebra, and 10 corresponding conservation laws.Comment: Final version with additional reference

VLT/X-shooter spectroscopy of the afterglow of the Swift GRB 130606A: Chemical abundances and reionisation at z∼6z\sim6

The reionisation of the Universe is thought to have ended around z~6, as inferred from spectroscopy of distant bright background sources, such as quasars (QSO) and gamma-ray burst (GRB) afterglows. Furthermore, spectroscopy of a GRB afterglow provides insight in its host galaxy, which is often too dim and distant to study otherwise. We present the high S/N VLT/X-shooter spectrum of GRB130606A at z=5.913. We aim to measure the degree of ionisation of the IGM between 5.02<z<5.84 and to study the chemical abundance pattern and dust content of its host galaxy. We measured the flux decrement due to absorption at Ly$\alpha$, $\beta$ and $\gamma$ wavelength regions. The hydrogen and metal absorption lines formed in the host galaxy were fitted with Voigt profiles to obtain column densities. Our measurements of the Ly$\alpha$-forest optical depth are consistent with previous measurements of QSOs, but have a much smaller uncertainty. The analysis of the red damping wing yields a neutral fraction $x_{HI}<0.05$ (3$\sigma$). We obtain column density measurements of several elements. The ionisation corrections due to the GRB is estimated to be negligible (<0.03 dex), but larger corrections may apply due to the pre-existing radiation field (up to 0.4 dex based on sub-DLA studies). Our measurements confirm that the Universe is already predominantly ionised over the redshift range probed in this work, but was slightly more neutral at z>5.6. GRBs are useful probes of the ionisation state of the IGM in the early Universe, but because of internal scatter we need a larger statistical sample to draw robust conclusions. The high [Si/Fe] in the host can be due to dust depletion, alpha-element enhancement, or a combination of both. The very high value of [Al/Fe]=2.40+/-0.78 might connected to the stellar population history. We estimate the host metallicity to be -1.7<[M/H]<-0.9 (2%-13% of solar). (trunc.)Comment: 15 pages, 12 figure