Mandibular myiasis: A case report

Myiasis is a condition characterised by the infestation of live vertebrates with dipterous larvae. Myiasis is derived from the Greek word mya, meaning fly. Dipterans, (order Diptera), are two-winged insects known as true flies. Myiasis tends to occur in cutaneous, necrotic lesions of patients who have weak immune systems, who inhabit unhygienic environments. Maggot Debridement Therapy is an uncommon treatment of debriding necrotic tissue, with some utility. A case of mandibular myiasis involving a malignant mandibular lesion that was colonised by maggots is discussed

Stratigraphic interpretation of the Tohogne borehole (province de Luxembourg). Devonian - Carbinoferous transition

The Tohogne borehole section, from the Lower Tournaisian into the Upper Famennian, has a remarkable micropalaeontological content (conodonts, foraminifers, spores) which enabled a detailed subdivision of these strata. New data in biostratigraphy and systematic palaeontology and palaeogeographic implications are presented, as well as correlations with reference sections

Taking Care of Policy in Times of Crisis: Comparative Lessons from Belgium's Longest Caretaker Government

When the financial crisis hit the Eurozone, Belgium, along with several other countries, postponed its consolidation policies until after the general elections. What followed was the longest caretaker rule that any stable democracy had ever experienced. This article analyses the phenomenon of policy continuity and change during this double crisis. It illustrates how the exogenous economic crisis overrode the endogenous political crisis, showing the extent to which international policy determinants expanded the remit of caretaker policy-making. At the same time, our analysis of the nature of caretaker conventions, the nature of multi-level governance, the permanence of administrative personnel, and the re-invention of parliament offers opportunities to draw lessons and deepen comparative research on policy termination and maintenance in the face of crisis

The relationship between the mechanism of injury and mandibular fractures

This prospective study describes the mechanism of injury, patient demographics and clinical presentation of 100 consecutive patients encountered in the patient population served by the Department of Maxillofacial and Oral Surgery at the Sefako Makgatho Health Sciences University. To determine the demographics, presentation and mechanism of injury of patients presenting with mandibular fractures in the patient population served by Sefako Makgatho Health Sciences University. Seventy percent of mandibular fractures were secondary to assault. Although this was high in comparison to other studies, it was similar to studies performed in London and other regions of South Africa. Mandibular fractures resulting from MVA (motor vehicle accidents), falls and sports were found to be less than the norm. The high percentage of mandibular fractures due to assault concurs with similar studies previously conducted in South Africa. With some variables similar to international trends, while others are not; certain salient results highlight the need for interventional campaigns

Bayesian Phylogenetic Estimation of Clade Ages Supports Trans-Atlantic Dispersal of Cichlid Fishes

Divergence-time estimation based on molecular phylogenies and the fossil record has provided insights into fundamental questions of evolutionary biology. In Bayesian node dating, phylogenies are commonly time calibrated through the specification of calibration densities on nodes representing clades with known fossil occurrences. Unfortunately, the optimal shape of these calibration densities is usually unknown and they are therefore often chosen arbitrarily, which directly impacts the reliability of the resulting age estimates. As possible solutions to this problem, two nonexclusive alternative approaches have recently been developed, the "fossilized birth-death" (FBD) model and "total-evidence dating." While these approaches have been shown to perform well under certain conditions, they require including all (or a random subset) of the fossils of each clade in the analysis, rather than just relying on the oldest fossils of clades. In addition, both approaches assume that fossil records of different clades in the phylogeny are all the product of the same underlying fossil sampling rate, even though this rate has been shown to differ strongly between higher level taxa. We here develop a flexible new approach to Bayesian age estimation that combines advantages of node dating and the FBD model. In our new approach, calibration densities are defined on the basis of first fossil occurrences and sampling rate estimates that can be specified separately for all clades. We verify our approach with a large number of simulated data sets, and compare its performance to that of the FBD model. We find that our approach produces reliable age estimates that are robust to model violation, on par with the FBD model. By applying our approach to a large data set including sequence data from over 1000 species of teleost fishes as well as 147 carefully selected fossil constraints, we recover a timeline of teleost diversification that is incompatible with previously assumed vicariant divergences of freshwater fishes. Our results instead provide strong evidence for transoceanic dispersal of cichlids and other groups of teleost fishes. [Bayesian inference; calibration density; Cichlidae; fossil record; marine dispersal; phylogeny; relaxed molecular clock]

Information sharing and credit : firm-level evidence from transition countries

We investigate whether information sharing among banks has affected credit market performance in the transition countries of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, using a large sample of firm-level data. Our estimates show that information sharing is associated with improved availability and lower cost of credit to firms. This correlation is stronger for opaque firms than transparent ones and stronger in countries with weak legal environments than in those with strong legal environments. In cross-sectional estimates, we control for variation in country-level aggregate variables that may affect credit, by examining the differential impact of information sharing across firm types. In panel estimates, we also control for the presence of unobserved heterogeneity at the firm level, as well as for changes in macroeconomic variables and the legal environment

Trust in the public sector: Is there any evidence for a long-term decline?

Concerns with declining public trust in government have become a permanent element of the contemporary political discourse. This concern also extends to levels of citizens’ trust in the public administration and public services. Trust is said to be declining, and this decline is generally seen as detrimental to public service delivery. In this article, we examine the main elements in this discussion, review the existing international survey data and summarise the main findings for OECD countries. Citizens’ trust in the public sector is found to fluctuate, and the data generally do not show consistently declining levels of trust. Furthermore, in some countries there simply is insufficient data to come to any conclusions at all about time trends in citizen trust in the public sector. Points for practitioners This article summarises some of the survey material on citizens’ trust in the public administration. It allows practitioners to compare trends in public trust in their country across time and space. The findings lead us to reject the hypothesis of a universal decline of trust in the public sector. The article warns against using opinion poll results without considering context. The long-term and comparative perspective on citizens’ trust in the public sector is all too often absent from the policy discourse that is frequently based on assumptions and ad-hoc approaches

Localized Basis for Effective Lattice Hamiltonians: Lattice Wannier Functions

A systematic method is presented for constructing effective Hamiltonians for general phonon-related structural transitions. The key feature is the application of group theoretical methods to identify the subspace in which the effective Hamiltonian acts and construct for it localized basis vectors, which are the analogue of electronic Wannier functions. The results of the symmetry analysis for the perovskite, rocksalt, fluorite and A15 structures and the forms of effective Hamiltonians for the ferroelectric transition in $PbTiO_3$ and $BaTiO_3$, the oxygen-octahedron rotation transition in $SrTiO_3$, the Jahn-Teller instability in $La_{1-x}(Ca,Sr,Ba)_xMnO_3$ and the antiferroelectric transition in $PbZrO_3$ are discussed. For the oxygen- octahedron rotation transition in $SrTiO_3$, this method provides an alternative to the rotational variable approach which is well behaved throughout the Brillouin zone. The parameters appearing in the Wannier basis vectors and in the effective Hamiltonian, given by the corresponding invariant energy expansion, can be obtained for individual materials using first- principles density-functional-theory total energy and linear response techniques, or any technique that can reliably calculate force constants and distortion energies. A practical approach to the determination of these parameters is presented and the application to ferroelectric $PbTiO_3$ discussed.Comment: extensive revisions in presentation, 32 pages, Revtex, 7 Postscript figure