Construction and testing of self-drilled soil nails

Current standards and best practice guidance recognise that testing of self-drilled hollow bar soil nails can be problematic as conventional packers and debonded lengths cannot be constructed. As a result, this causes difficulty in testing and confirming the ultimate bond resistance within the passive zone of a soil-nailed slope, and thus the design soil nail lengths. This paper provides a summary and review of the various testing procedures adopted for a soil nail construction project in Scotland. The practical design considerations, and their validation through the installation and testing of 49 sacrificial test nails, are detailed. The construction issues associated with the nail installation and testing are also outlined and discussed in light of the results obtained using different testing approaches. The aim of this case study is to report on the experiences with installation and testing of hollow bar soil nails. The objectives are to develop an initial data base of available soil–grout bond strength of hollow bar soil nails based on the several practical installation procedures used in this project and to establish areas for improvement of installation, testing and quality control in order to perform comparable pullout tests on self-drilled hollow bar soil nails. </jats:p

Preference and Motivation Testing

Since the early 1970s, scientists have used preference tests (tests that require animals to choose between two or more different options or environments) as a means of answering questions about animal welfare. Preference tests have been used to establish animals\u27 preferences for common housing options such as ambient temperature, illumination and preferred types of bedding and flooring; to improve the effectiveness of devices such as loading ramps and nest boxes; and to clarify how strongly animals avoid various aspects of confinement and methods of restraint. To use preference research to answer questions about animal welfare, three issues need to be addressed. First, we must ensure that experiments do adequately reflect the animals\u27 preferences. The preferences of an animal are likely to vary with the animal\u27s age and experience, the time of day, environmental conditions, and the animal\u27s on-going behaviour; therefore, preference experiments must be comprehensive enough to identify the relevant sources of variation. Experiments must also avoid confounding preference with familiarity, and avoid spurious results arising from the use of particular testing procedures and response measures. Second, to draw inferences about animal welfare from preference research requires that we establish how strongly an animal prefers a chosen option, avoids an unpref erred one, or is motivated to perform a certain behaviour (nest-building, exploration) that is prevented in some environments. Various methods to assess preference and motivation strength have been proposed. Third, the environments preferred by an animal will often, but not always, promote its welfare in the sense of health and psychological well-being. However, preferences may not correspond to welfare if the choices fall outside the animals\u27 sensory, cognitive and affective capacities, or if animals are required to choose between short- and long-term benefits. Future priorities for preference testing include more emphasis on identifying the factors underlying animals\u27 preferences, greater integration of preference research with other indicators of animal well-being, more reliance on the natural history of the species as a source of hypotheses about environmental preferences, and greater use of preference research in the design of animal environments

Role of the scf/kit signalling pathway in embryonic stem cells

Murine embryonic stem (ES) cells are derived from the inner cell mass of the developing embryonic blastocyst. These cells can self renew which allows them to be propagated indefinitely in the laboratory and they can differentiate into cell types derived from all three germ layers. Manipulation of the mouse genome using gene targeting techniques in conjunction with ES cell technology has provided valuable insights into embryonic development and cell lineage specification. KIT is a trans-membrane receptor tyrosine kinase (RTK) that dimerises upon binding to its ligand, stem cell factor (SCF) resulting in the auto-phosphorylation of intracellular kinase domains. This activity is crucial for the transmission of signals from the cell surface to the nucleus. KIT is expressed on stem and progenitor cells of many lineages and defects in the SCF/KIT signaling pathway causes detrimental effects at both the cellular and physiological level. This project aimed to investigate the role of the SCF/KIT signalling pathway during murine ES cell differentiation and survival. To assess the role of SCF/KIT signalling in ES cell proliferation and survival, we knocked out the c-kit gene in mouse ES cells to produce heterozygous (KitW-lacZ/+) and KIT Null (KitW-lacZ/W-lacZ) cell lines. The self renewal and differentiation profile of these cell lines revealed an auxiliary role for SCF/KIT during ES cell self renewal and an absolute role in survival upon in vitro differentiation. This phenotype of apoptosis upon differentiation was recapitulated in wild type E14 ES cells treated with a KIT neutralising antibody (ACK2). Wild type cells that were treated with the JNK inhibitor, SP600125 had a comparable phenotype to KIT null cells indicating that this could be one of the mediators of KIT signalling that has a protective role in the survival of differentiating ES cells. We hypothesised that blocking classical apoptotic pathways might prevent the death on differentiation observed in KIT null cells. However, neither blocking the pro-apoptotic P38 pathway with the chemical inhibitor PD169316 nor over-expressing the pro-survival protein BCL2 in KIT Null cells could prevent their apoptosis upon differentiation phenotype. This strongly suggests that these pathways are not involved in KIT mediated survival of differentiating ES cells. Although compensatory mechanisms are thought to exist for defective KIT signaling in vivo, an absolute role is assigned to KIT during ES cell differentiation. Further analysis of micro array data comparing gene expression from wild type E14 and KIT Null cell lines may reveal the specific mechanisms of KIT mediated survival during differentiation onset

General Surgery Mobile Procedure Cart: Providing Safe and Efficient Procedure Based Care to the Bedside

Objective To create a mobile supply cart with all necessary supplies needed for the most common general surgery bedside procedures in order to decrease the amount of times residents need to “shop” for supplies from other locations and prevent delays in procedures to get supplies that are not available. In turn, this will increase patient safety and quality of procedure-based care delivered

Climate Science, Development Practice, and Policy Interactions in Dryland Agroecological Systems

The literature on drought, livelihoods, and poverty suggests that dryland residents are especially vulnerable to climate change. However, assessing this vulnerability and sharing lessons between dryland communities on how to reduce vulnerability has proven difficult because of multiple definitions of vulnerability, complexities in quantification, and the temporal and spatial variability inherent in dryland agroecological systems. In this closing editorial, we review how we have addressed these challenges through a series of structured, multiscale, and interdisciplinary vulnerability assessment case studies from drylands in West Africa, southern Africa, Mediterranean Europe, Asia, and Latin America. These case studies adopt a common vulnerability framework but employ different approaches to measuring and assessing vulnerability. By comparing methods and results across these cases, we draw out the following key lessons: (1) Our studies show the utility of using consistent conceptual frameworks for vulnerability assessments even when quite different methodological approaches are taken; (2) Utilizing narratives and scenarios to capture the dynamics of dryland agroecological systems shows that vulnerability to climate change may depend more on access to financial, political, and institutional assets than to exposure to environmental change; (3) Our analysis shows that although the results of quantitative models seem authoritative, they may be treated too literally as predictions of the future by policy makers looking for evidence to support different strategies. In conclusion, we acknowledge there is a healthy tension between bottom-up/ qualitative/place-based approaches and top-down/quantitative/generalizable approaches, and we encourage researchers from different disciplines with different disciplinary languages, to talk, collaborate, and engage effectively with each other and with stakeholders at all levels

50,000 People a Day: The Use of Federally Funded Services for Intimate Partner Violence

Intimate partner violence is a serious and preventable health problem affecting more than 30 million Americans each year. We use an innovative new research design to describe the frequency and correlates of emergency and crisis intervention services provided by domestic violence programs using safe, non-invasive collection methods. During the 24-hour survey period, 48,350 individuals used the services of primary purpose domestic violence programs, corresponding to a population rate of 16 per 100,000 people. Of these individuals, 14,518 required emergency shelter, 7,989 required transitional housing and 25,843 were provided with non-residential services. Seven times more individuals are served by domestic violence programs than are served in emergency rooms in the US on an average day. The results show unmet demand for services provided by domestic violence programs with 10 percent victims (5,183 requests) seeking services at a domestic violence provider unable to be served daily due to resource constraints. Although DV costs $5.8 billion annually, 70$126 million annually. Thus greater funding of domestic violence programs is likely to be a cost-effective investment.

An assessment of a portable cyanoacrylate fuming system (LumiFume™) for the development of latent fingermarks

The effectiveness and suitability of a portable cyanoacrylate fuming system (LumiFume™) with Lumicyano™ at detecting latent fingermarks was assessed. The first phase of the study compared the LumiFume™ system with traditional cabinet fuming and black/white powder suspension for the development of latent fingermarks on a variety of surfaces (glass, plastic bin bag, laminated wood and tile) by means of depletion series’ from 10 donors and four ageing periods (1, 7, 14 and 28 days). The portable fuming system provided superior quality of developed marks on glass and laminated wood whereas powder suspension was better on bin bags and all three techniques were comparable on tile. A decrease in mark quality was recorded from 1-14 days for the fuming techniques before an increase at 28 days. Lumicyano™ fluorescence stability studies over a 28 day period by means of depletion series’ on glass slides and plastic bin bags revealed better quality marks for the portable system LumiFume™; however, storing marks under light conditions expedited deterioration for both systems. All marks developed with Lumicyano™ were subsequently treated with BY40 resulting in further improvement in mark quality for all substrates and ageing periods, with the exception of laminated wood which absorbed the fluorescent stain reducing the contrast in the process. The second phase of the study consisted of a pseudo-operational trial on 300 various substrates (e.g. glass bottles, aluminium cans, plastic bags) recovered from recycling bins. LumiFume™ and Lumicyano™ yielded 1,469 marks whereas Lumicyano™ cabinet fuming and powder suspension yielded 1,026 and 641 marks respectively. Similar to the first phase of the study, further treatment of the Lumicyano™ treated marks with BY40 resulted in further quality improvement as well as additional new marks. The LumiFume™ system produced results at least equivalent to the traditional cabinet fuming with Lumicyano™ highlighting its potential for implementation into casework to process crime scenes

Reviews

Behaviour of the Human Ureter in Health and Disease James Ross / Peter Edmond / Ian Kirkland Churchill-Livingstone 1972. £3.50Medical Treatment, a Textbook of Therapy in Four Volumes Volume VI. K. Maclean &amp; G. Scott J. &amp; A. Churchill, London 1971. £2.25.Proceedings of the Symposium on Epidural Analgesia in Obstetrics1972, London Editor, Andrew Doughty, M.B., B.S., F.F.A.R.C.S. Published by H. K. Lewis &amp; Co. Ltd. London. Price £1.5

Genetic testing and personalized ovarian cancer screening: a survey of public attitudes

Background Advances in genetic technologies are expected to make population-wide genetic testing feasible. This could provide a basis for risk stratified cancer screening; but acceptability in the target populations has not been explored. Methods We assessed attitudes to risk-stratified ovarian cancer (OC) screening based on prior genetic risk assessment using a survey design. Home-based interviews were carried out by the UK Office of National Statistics in a population-based sample of 1095 women aged 18–74. Demographic and personal correlates of attitudes to risk-stratified OC screening based on prior genetic risk assessment were determined using univariate analyses and adjusted logistic regression models. Results Full data on the key analytic questions were available for 829 respondents (mean age 46 years; 27 % ‘university educated’; 93 % ‘White’). Relatively few respondents felt they were at ‘higher’ or ‘much higher’ risk of OC than other women of their age group (7.4 %, n = 61). Most women (85 %) said they would ‘probably’ or ‘definitely’ take up OC genetic testing; which increased to 88 % if the test also informed about breast cancer risk. Almost all women (92 %) thought they would ‘probably’ or ‘definitely’ participate in risk-stratified OC screening. In multivariate logistic regression models, university level education was associated with lower anticipated uptake of genetic testing (p = 0.009), but with more positive attitudes toward risk-stratified screening (p <0.001). Perceived risk was not significantly associated with any of the outcome variables. Conclusions These findings give confidence in taking forward research on integration of novel genomic technologies into mainstream healthcare