558 research outputs found
Coupling computer-interpretable guidelines with a drug-database through a web-based system â The PRESGUID project
BACKGROUND: Clinical Practice Guidelines (CPGs) available today are not extensively used due to lack of proper integration into clinical settings, knowledge-related information resources, and lack of decision support at the point of care in a particular clinical context. OBJECTIVE: The PRESGUID project (PREScription and GUIDelines) aims to improve the assistance provided by guidelines. The project proposes an online service enabling physicians to consult computerized CPGs linked to drug databases for easier integration into the healthcare process. METHODS: Computable CPGs are structured as decision trees and coded in XML format. Recommendations related to drug classes are tagged with ATC codes. We use a mapping module to enhance computerized guidelines coupling with a drug database, which contains detailed information about each usable specific medication. In this way, therapeutic recommendations are backed up with current and up-to-date information from the database. RESULTS: Two authoritative CPGs, originally diffused as static textual documents, have been implemented to validate the computerization process and to illustrate the usefulness of the resulting automated CPGs and their coupling with a drug database. We discuss the advantages of this approach for practitioners and the implications for both guideline developers and drug database providers. Other CPGs will be implemented and evaluated in real conditions by clinicians working in different health institutions
Evolutionary and pulsational properties of white dwarf stars
Abridged. White dwarf stars are the final evolutionary stage of the vast
majority of stars, including our Sun. The study of white dwarfs has potential
applications to different fields of astrophysics. In particular, they can be
used as independent reliable cosmic clocks, and can also provide valuable
information about the fundamental parameters of a wide variety of stellar
populations, like our Galaxy and open and globular clusters. In addition, the
high densities and temperatures characterizing white dwarfs allow to use these
stars as cosmic laboratories for studying physical processes under extreme
conditions that cannot be achieved in terrestrial laboratories. They can be
used to constrain fundamental properties of elementary particles such as axions
and neutrinos, and to study problems related to the variation of fundamental
constants.
In this work, we review the essentials of the physics of white dwarf stars.
Special emphasis is placed on the physical processes that lead to the formation
of white dwarfs as well as on the different energy sources and processes
responsible for chemical abundance changes that occur along their evolution.
Moreover, in the course of their lives, white dwarfs cross different
pulsational instability strips. The existence of these instability strips
provides astronomers with an unique opportunity to peer into their internal
structure that would otherwise remain hidden from observers. We will show that
this allows to measure with unprecedented precision the stellar masses and to
infer their envelope thicknesses, to probe the core chemical stratification,
and to detect rotation rates and magnetic fields. Consequently, in this work,
we also review the pulsational properties of white dwarfs and the most recent
applications of white dwarf asteroseismology.Comment: 85 pages, 28 figures. To be published in The Astronomy and
Astrophysics Revie
Asteroseismology
Asteroseismology is the determination of the interior structures of stars by
using their oscillations as seismic waves. Simple explanations of the
astrophysical background and some basic theoretical considerations needed in
this rapidly evolving field are followed by introductions to the most important
concepts and methods on the basis of example. Previous and potential
applications of asteroseismology are reviewed and future trends are attempted
to be foreseen.Comment: 38 pages, 13 figures, to appear in: "Planets, Stars and Stellar
Systems", eds. T. D. Oswalt et al., Springer Verla
Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) Fail a What-Where-When Task but Find Rewards by Using a Location-Based Association Strategy
Recollecting the what-where-when of an episode, or episodic-like memory, has been established in corvids and rodents. In humans, a linkage between remembering the past and imagining the future has been recognised. While chimpanzees can plan for the future, their episodic-like memory has hardly been investigated. We tested chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) with an adapted food-caching paradigm. They observed the baiting of two locations amongst four and chose one after a given delay (15 min, 1 h or 5 h). We used two combinations of food types, a preferred and a less preferred food that disappeared at different rates. The subjects had to base their choices on the time elapsed since baiting, and on their memory of which food was where. They could recover either their preferred food or the one that remained present. All animals failed to obtain the preferred or present foods above chance levels. They were like-wise unsuccessful at choosing baited cups above chance levels. The subjects, thus, failed to use any feature of the baiting events to guide their choices. Nonetheless, their choices were not random, but the result of a developed location-based association strategy. Choices in the second half of the study correlated with the rewards obtained at each location in the first half of the study, independent from the choices made for each location in the first half of the study. This simple location-based strategy yielded a fair amount of food. The animals' failure to remember the what-where-when in the presented set-up may be due to the complexity of the task, rather than an inability to form episodic-like memories, as they even failed to remember what was where after 15 minutes
Influence of parental employment status on Dutch and Slovak adolescents' health
BACKGROUND: Recent research shows the possibility that the link between parental employment status and children's health can be affected by different cultural or societal settings. The aim of this study was to explore whether the effect of father's and mother's employment status on several aspects of adolescents' health differs between Slovakia and the Netherlands. METHODS: Two data sets were used: 2616 Slovak adolescents (mean age 14.9) and 2054 Dutch adolescents (mean age 16.3). Self-rated health, GHQ-12, long-term well-being and Rosenberg self-esteem scale were used to assess the health of adolescents. Parental employment status was classified into the following categories: employed, unemployed, disabled, housewife (among mothers only). Logistic regression analyses were done separately for males and females. RESULTS: Results indicate that having an unemployed father negatively influences self-rated health and long-term well-being of Slovak male adolescents, but has no effect on the health of Dutch adolescents. Secondly, having a disabled father has a negative effect on the psychological well-being of Dutch males and the self-rated health of females, but does not influence the health of Slovak adolescents. Thirdly, having a mother who is disabled, unemployed or a housewife has a negative effect on the self-esteem of Slovak adolescents. Fourthly, Dutch males whose mother was a housewife had worse long-term well-being than those with an unemployed mother, whereas Dutch females whose mother was a housewife reported better psychological well-being than those with an employed mother. CONCLUSION: To conclude briefly our results, father's unemployment seems to be a better predictor of health for Slovak adolescents, father's disablement of health for Dutch ones. Mother's employment status seemed to be important for the self-esteem of Slovak adolescents and mother as a housewife for the health of Dutch ones. This suggests that the link between parental employment status and the health of their children may vary between countries, and therefore further studies involving various cultures are needed
Bacteriological etiology and treatment of mastitis in Finnish dairy herds
Background: The Finnish dairy herd recording system maintains production and health records of cows and herds. Veterinarians and farmers register veterinary treatments in the system. Milk samples for microbiological analysis are routinely taken from mastitic cows. The laboratory of the largest dairy company in Finland, Valio Ltd., analyzes most samples using real-time PCR. This study addressed pathogen-specific microbiological data and treatment and culling records, in combination with cow and herd characteristics, from the Finnish dairy herd recording system during 2010-2012. Results: The data derived from 240,067 quarter milk samples from 93,529 dairy cows with mastitis; 238,235 cows from the same herds served as the control group. No target pathogen DNA was detected in 12% of the samples. In 49% of the positive samples, only one target species and in 19%, two species with one dominant species were present. The most common species in the samples with a single species only were coagulase-negative staphylococci (CNS) (43%), followed by Staphylococcus aureus (21%), Streptococcus uberis (9%), Streptococcus dysgalactiae (8%), Corynebacterium bovis (7%), and Escherichia coli (5%). On average, 36% of the study cows and 6% of the control cows had recorded mastitis treatments during lactation. The corresponding proportions were 16 and 6% at drying-off. For more than 75% of the treatments during lactation, diagnosis was acute clinical mastitis. In the milk samples from cows with a recorded mastitis treatment during lactation, CNS and S. aureus were most common, followed by streptococci. Altogether, 48% of the cows were culled during the study. Mastitis was reported as the most common reason to cull; 49% of study cows and 18% of control cows were culled because of mastitis. Culling was most likely if S. aureus was detected in the milk sample submitted during the culling year. Conclusions: The PCR test has proven to be an applicable method also for large-scale use in bacterial diagnostics. In the present study, microbiological diagnosis was unequivocal in the great majority of samples where a single species or two species with one dominating were detected. Coagulase-negative staphylococci and S. aureus were the most common species. S. aureus was also the most common pathogen among the culled cows, which emphasizes the importance of preventive measures.Peer reviewe
Locating the Binding Sites of Pb(II) Ion with Human and Bovine Serum Albumins
Lead is a potent environmental toxin that has accumulated above its natural level as a result of human activity. Pb cation shows major affinity towards protein complexation and it has been used as modulator of protein-membrane interactions. We located the binding sites of Pb(II) with human serum (HSA) and bovine serum albumins (BSA) at physiological conditions, using constant protein concentration and various Pb contents. FTIR, UV-visible, CD, fluorescence and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopic (XPS) methods were used to analyse Pb binding sites, the binding constant and the effect of metal ion complexation on HSA and BSA stability and conformations. Structural analysis showed that Pb binds strongly to HSA and BSA via hydrophilic contacts with overall binding constants of KPb-HSAâ=â8.2 (±0.8)Ă104 Mâ1 and KPb-BSAâ=â7.5 (±0.7)Ă104 Mâ1. The number of bound Pb cation per protein is 0.7 per HSA and BSA complexes. XPS located the binding sites of Pb cation with protein N and O atoms. Pb complexation alters protein conformation by a major reduction of α-helix from 57% (free HSA) to 48% (metal-complex) and 63% (free BSA) to 52% (metal-complex) inducing a partial protein destabilization
Jet energy measurement with the ATLAS detector in proton-proton collisions at root s=7 TeV
The jet energy scale and its systematic uncertainty are determined for jets measured with the ATLAS detector at the LHC in proton-proton collision data at a centre-of-mass energy of âs = 7TeV corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 38 pb-1. Jets are reconstructed with the anti-kt algorithm with distance parameters R=0. 4 or R=0. 6. Jet energy and angle corrections are determined from Monte Carlo simulations to calibrate jets with transverse momenta pTâ„20 GeV and pseudorapidities {pipe}η{pipe}<4. 5. The jet energy systematic uncertainty is estimated using the single isolated hadron response measured in situ and in test-beams, exploiting the transverse momentum balance between central and forward jets in events with dijet topologies and studying systematic variations in Monte Carlo simulations. The jet energy uncertainty is less than 2. 5 % in the central calorimeter region ({pipe}η{pipe}<0. 8) for jets with 60â€pT<800 GeV, and is maximally 14 % for pT<30 GeV in the most forward region 3. 2â€{pipe}η{pipe}<4. 5. The jet energy is validated for jet transverse momenta up to 1 TeV to the level of a few percent using several in situ techniques by comparing a well-known reference such as the recoiling photon pT, the sum of the transverse momenta of tracks associated to the jet, or a system of low-pT jets recoiling against a high-pT jet. More sophisticated jet calibration schemes are presented based on calorimeter cell energy density weighting or hadronic properties of jets, aiming for an improved jet energy resolution and a reduced flavour dependence of the jet response. The systematic uncertainty of the jet energy determined from a combination of in situ techniques is consistent with the one derived from single hadron response measurements over a wide kinematic range. The nominal corrections and uncertainties are derived for isolated jets in an inclusive sample of high-pT jets. Special cases such as event topologies with close-by jets, or selections of samples with an enhanced content of jets originating from light quarks, heavy quarks or gluons are also discussed and the corresponding uncertainties are determined. © 2013 CERN for the benefit of the ATLAS collaboration
Measurement of the inclusive and dijet cross-sections of b-jets in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV with the ATLAS detector
The inclusive and dijet production cross-sections have been measured for jets
containing b-hadrons (b-jets) in proton-proton collisions at a centre-of-mass
energy of sqrt(s) = 7 TeV, using the ATLAS detector at the LHC. The
measurements use data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 34 pb^-1.
The b-jets are identified using either a lifetime-based method, where secondary
decay vertices of b-hadrons in jets are reconstructed using information from
the tracking detectors, or a muon-based method where the presence of a muon is
used to identify semileptonic decays of b-hadrons inside jets. The inclusive
b-jet cross-section is measured as a function of transverse momentum in the
range 20 < pT < 400 GeV and rapidity in the range |y| < 2.1. The bbbar-dijet
cross-section is measured as a function of the dijet invariant mass in the
range 110 < m_jj < 760 GeV, the azimuthal angle difference between the two jets
and the angular variable chi in two dijet mass regions. The results are
compared with next-to-leading-order QCD predictions. Good agreement is observed
between the measured cross-sections and the predictions obtained using POWHEG +
Pythia. MC@NLO + Herwig shows good agreement with the measured bbbar-dijet
cross-section. However, it does not reproduce the measured inclusive
cross-section well, particularly for central b-jets with large transverse
momenta.Comment: 10 pages plus author list (21 pages total), 8 figures, 1 table, final
version published in European Physical Journal
Observation of associated near-side and away-side long-range correlations in âsNN=5.02ââTeV proton-lead collisions with the ATLAS detector
Two-particle correlations in relative azimuthal angle (ÎÏ) and pseudorapidity (Îη) are measured in âsNN=5.02ââTeV p+Pb collisions using the ATLAS detector at the LHC. The measurements are performed using approximately 1ââÎŒb-1 of data as a function of transverse momentum (pT) and the transverse energy (ÎŁETPb) summed over 3.1<η<4.9 in the direction of the Pb beam. The correlation function, constructed from charged particles, exhibits a long-range (2<|Îη|<5) ânear-sideâ (ÎÏâŒ0) correlation that grows rapidly with increasing ÎŁETPb. A long-range âaway-sideâ (ÎÏâŒÏ) correlation, obtained by subtracting the expected contributions from recoiling dijets and other sources estimated using events with small ÎŁETPb, is found to match the near-side correlation in magnitude, shape (in Îη and ÎÏ) and ÎŁETPb dependence. The resultant ÎÏ correlation is approximately symmetric about Ï/2, and is consistent with a dominant cosâĄ2ÎÏ modulation for all ÎŁETPb ranges and particle pT
- âŠ