Community-level characteristics of high infant mortality: A tool to identify at-risk communities

Infant mortality (IM) rate is a key indicator of population health and has been gradually improving in the United States. However, it is still a public health problem among minority and low-income communities. Maternal factors explain some of the variation, but community-level factors may also be a contributor. This study examines measures to identify a set of indicators that explain variations in IM at the community-level. Data for 77 communities in a city were obtained from local health databases. We used multivariable linear regression models to examine the strength of the association between IM and maternal, population, community wealth, and social capital characteristics. Community-level IM rates ranged from 2.1 – 25.6 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2000-2002. The final model explained 75% of the variation in IM rates at the community-level (R2=0.75). The model included a high percentage of low birth weight babies, a decline in mothers who began prenatal care in the second trimester, an increase in the percentage of Hispanics, increased unemployment rates, an increase in the percentage of veterans, an increased rate of foreign-born residents, and smaller average family sizes. Social capital variables, homicide rate and vacant housing, were also significant in the final model. Identifying communities at risk for high IM rates is imperative to improve maternal and child health outcomes because of shortages in public health resources. The development of a parsimonious set of community-level indicators can assist public health practitioners in targeting their resources to prevent infant mortality in high-risk communities

On cross-language communications management in international projects

This paper reviews the state of cross-language communications (CLC) management problem in international projects ted. The need for CLC management organization and the criticality of this issue are discussed. The results of bibliometric analysis and studies of world literature on project management are shown.В статье рассматривается степень изученности вопроса об управлении межъязыковыми коммуникациями (МК) в международных проектах. Обсуждается необходимость и значимость организации управления МК. Приведены результаты библиометрического анализа и изучения мировой литературы по управлению проектами

Self-assembling nanoparticles containing dexamethasone as a novel therapy in allergic airways inflammation.

Nanocarriers can deliver a wide variety of drugs, target them to sites of interest, and protect them from degradation and inactivation by the body. They have the capacity to improve drug action and decrease undesirable systemic effects. We have previously developed a well-defined non-toxic PEG-dendritic block telodendrimer for successful delivery of chemotherapeutics agents and, in these studies, we apply this technology for therapeutic development in asthma. In these proof-of-concept experiments, we hypothesized that dexamethasone contained in self-assembling nanoparticles (Dex-NP) and delivered systemically would target the lung and decrease allergic lung inflammation and airways hyper-responsiveness to a greater degree than equivalent doses of dexamethasone (Dex) alone. We found that ovalbumin (Ova)-exposed mice treated with Dex-NP had significantly fewer total cells (2.78 ± 0.44 × 10(5) (n = 18) vs. 5.98 ± 1.3 × 10(5) (n = 13), P<0.05) and eosinophils (1.09 ± 0.28 × 10(5) (n = 18) vs. 2.94 ± 0.6 × 10(5) (n = 12), p<0.05) in the lung lavage than Ova-exposed mice alone. Also, lower levels of the inflammatory cytokines IL-4 (3.43 ± 1.2 (n = 11) vs. 8.56 ± 2.1 (n = 8) pg/ml, p<0.05) and MCP-1 (13.1 ± 3.6 (n = 8) vs. 28.8 ± 8.7 (n = 10) pg/ml, p<0.05) were found in lungs of the Dex-NP compared to control, and they were not lower in the Dex alone group. In addition, respiratory system resistance was lower in the Dex-NP compared to the other Ova-exposed groups suggesting a better therapeutic effect on airways hyperresponsiveness. Taken together, these findings from early-stage drug development studies suggest that the encapsulation and protection of anti-inflammatory agents such as corticosteroids in nanoparticle formulations can improve efficacy. Further development of novel drugs in nanoparticles is warranted to explore potential treatments for chronic inflammatory diseases such as asthma

Numerical Assessment on Fatigue Failure of Castellated Steel Beams under Sinusoidal Vibration

Increase cost of material in the construction industry has led to the adoption of castellated steel beam as an alternative to substitute conventional steel rolled beam. However, the presence of web opening has resulted to various structural behaviour under static action and uncertainties under dynamic loading, especially fatigue failure. Therefore, this paper presents the numerical assessment on fatigue failure of castellated steel beams. The design of castellated steel beam was based on the parent steel beam of UKB 254 x 102 x 28. Meanwhile, various shapes of web opening (hexagonal, circular and rectangular) with size of 0.75D were considered. The finite-discrete element method program was used as a platform of numerical modelling. The stress range was analysed at 3 Hz of different load amplitudes of sinusoidal vibration. The fatigue life was compared among each shape of web opening at detail categories 90 and 160. At the initial load, the stress range reaches 65 MPa to 150 MPa. When the load increased, the stress range changes diminutively around 240 MPa to 280 MPa. The fatigue life attains at plateau value of 108 cycles, where circular castellated steel beams showed the best performance

Emotional Faces Capture Spatial Attention in 5-Year-Old Children

Emotional facial expressions are important social cues that convey salient affective information. Infants, younger children, and adults all appear to orient spatial attention to emotional faces with a particularly strong bias to fearful faces. Yet in young children it is unclear whether or not both happy and fearful faces extract attention. Given that the processing of emotional faces is believed by some to serve an evolutionarily adaptive purpose, attentional biases to both fearful and happy expressions would be expected in younger children. However, the extent to which this ability is present in young children and whether or not this ability is genetically mediated is untested. Therefore, the aims of the current study were to assess the spatial-attentional properties of emotional faces in young children, with a preliminary test of whether this effect was influenced by genetics. Five-year-old twin pairs performed a dot-probe task. The results suggest that children preferentially direct spatial attention to emotional faces, particularly right visual field faces. The results provide support for the notion that the direction of spatial attention to emotional faces serves an evolutionarily adaptive function and may be mediated by genetic mechanisms

Association between Electronic Medical Record Implementation of Default Opioid Prescription Quantities and Prescribing Behavior in Two Emergency Departments

Setting a low quantity of opioid tablets as the default option in electronic medical record prescribing orders may “nudge” clinicians to prescribe fewer opioids. When two emergency departments implemented a 10-tablet default instead of a manual entry, the proportion of 10-tablet prescriptions written more than doubled, from 20.6% to 43.3%. Conversely, 20-tablet prescriptions decreased from 22.8% to 16.1%, and prescriptions for 11-19 tablets decreased from 33.5% to 20.1%