Multiple Sclerosis and the Implications of Anesthesia

Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is an autoimmune process characterized by inflammation and demyelination of axons in the brain and spinal cord (Schneider, 2005). According to Maclean (2010), MS is one of the most common debilitating neurological disorders in young adults. My intent of this research project is to explain the pathophysiological process and become familiar with the implications of anesthesia related to MS. This research will enable me to prepare a safe, individualized anesthetic plan, taking all essential precautions when caring for a patient with multiple sclerosis

Extending Agile Processes with Creativity Techniques

Agile processes seek just-enough requirements. However, this focus on simple software solutions can be at the expense of ones that meet more creative requirements. To explore alternatives, this paper reports the extension of one agile process with creativity techniques in a project in a large media organization. Domain experts ranked the requirements generated with the process as more novel than baseline epics from the product backlog of the same project, while usefulness of the requirements increased overall after incubation over the duration of a sprint

Digital Creativity Support for Original Journalism

The decline in circulations and revenues resulting from the digitalization of news production and consumption has led to a crisis in journalism.Journalists have less time to research, investigate and write original stories, leading to problems for our democratic processes and holding the powerful to account. This paper reports the architecture, features and rationale for new digital creativity support designed to support journalists to discover more original angles onstories. It also summarises the evaluation of the tool’s use in 3 newsrooms

A gene-by-gene population genomics platform: de novo assembly, annotation and genealogical analysis of 108 representative Neisseria meningitidis genomes

Background: Highly parallel,‘second generation’ sequencing technologies have rapidly expanded the number of bacterial whole genome sequences available for study, permitting the emergence of the discipline of population genomics. Most of these data are publically available as unassembled short-read sequence files that require extensive processing before they can be used for analysis. The provision of data in a uniform format, which can be easily assessed for quality, linked to provenance and phenotype and used for analysis, is therefore necessary. Results: The performance of de novo short-read assembly followed by automatic annotation using the pubMLST. orgNeisseriadatabase was assessed and evaluated for 108 diverse, representative, and well-characterisedNeisseria meningitidisisolates. High-quality sequences were obtained for >99% of known meningococcal genes among the de novoassembled genomes and four resequenced genomes and less than 1% of reassembled genes had sequence discrepancies or misassembled sequences. A core genome of 1600 loci, present in at least 95% of the population, was determined using the Genome Comparator tool. Genealogical relationships compatible with, but at a higher resolution than, those identified by multilocus sequence typing were obtained with core genome comparisons and ribosomal protein gene analysis which revealed a genomic structure for a number of previously described phenotypes. This unified system for cataloguing Neisseria genetic variation in the genome was implemented and used for multiple analyses and the data are publically available in the PubMLST Neisseria database. Conclusions: The de novo assembly, combined with automated gene-by-gene annotation, generates high quality draft genomes in which the majority of protein-encoding genes are present with high accuracy. The approach catalogues diversity efficiently, permits analyses of a single genome or multiple genome comparisons, and is a practical approach to interpreting WGS data for large bacterial population samples. The method generates novel insights into the biology of the meningococcus and improves our understanding of the whole population structure, not just disease causing lineages.</p

StreetWise: A valid ecology for a serious game in a secure forensic mental health setting

To ascertain their readiness to be discharged from care, secure forensic mental health service users are often given restricted access to their local communities. However, this can be stressful for the service user and expose the public to potential risks. Therefore, new research was undertaken to explore whether a computer-based serious game could enable service users to explore their responses to community based risk situations in a safe environment. Creating a serious game for use in a secure forensic mental health setting is itself both novel and problematic, and the initial research sought to test the feasibility and acceptance of the game. This paper reports first results from working with service users to develop a prototype game that accurately describes their experiences and expectations to lay the foundations for a clinically effective tool and achieve acceptance

StreetWise: developing a serious game to support forensic mental health service users’ preparation for discharge: a feasibility study

Forensic Mental Health [FMH] services are tasked with ensuring public safety whilst supporting service user recovery and reintegration into wider society. Due to past histories of offending behaviour, FMH service users are often detained under the Mental Health Act (2007) within secure settings where they are monitored and their freedom and self-governance is limited. Restricted community access makes risk assessment and skill development for community living problematic. The measures of control and security inherent within FMH services pose a challenge to social integration and recovery, whereby users feel empowered with self-efficacy to work towards their own goals with hope and optimism (Simpson & Penney, 2011). Additionally, detention in secure services leads to isolation from the community which adds risk and stigma to the complexity of the service users’ journey of recovery. This feasibility study explores how new technologies may be used to support FMH service users on their journey to recovery. A prototype serious game was co-produced with FMH service users with the aim of enabling service users to engage safely with community based scenarios and begin to develop skills for community living and consider self-management in risky situations whilst detained within a secure environment

Gauge Thresholds and Kaehler Metrics for Rigid Intersecting D-brane Models

The gauge threshold corrections for globally consistent Z2 x Z2' orientifolds with rigid intersecting D6-branes are computed. The one-loop corrections to the holomorphic gauge kinetic function are extracted and the Kaehler metrics for the charged chiral multiplets are determined up to two constants.Comment: 22 pages, 1 figure; v2: minor modifications, version to appear in JHE

'StreetWise: a valid ecology for a serious game in a secure forensic mental health setting'

To ascertain their readiness to be discharged from care, secure forensic mental health service users are often given restricted access to their local communities. However, this can be stressful for the service user and expose the public to potential risks. Therefore, new research was undertaken to explore whether a computer-based serious game could enable service users to explore their responses to community based risk situations in a safe environment. Creating a serious game for use in a secure forensic mental health setting is itself both novel and problematic, and the initial research sought to test the feasibility and acceptance of the game. This paper reports first results from working with service users to develop a prototype game that accurately describes their experiences and expectations to lay the foundations for a clinically effective tool and achieve acceptance

Bacteriocin-mediated competition in cystic fibrosis lung infections

Bacteriocins are toxins produced by bacteria to kill competitors of the same species. Theory and laboratory experiments suggest that bacteriocin production and immunity play a key role in the competitive dynamics of bacterial strains. The extent to which this is the case in natural populations, especially human pathogens, remains to be tested. We examined the role of bacteriocins in competition using Pseudomonas aeruginosa strains infecting lungs of humans with cystic fibrosis (CF). We assessed the ability of different strains to kill each other using phenotypic assays, and sequenced their genomes to determine what bacteriocins (pyocins) they carry. We found that (i) isolates from later infection stages inhibited earlier infecting strains less, but were more inhibited by pyocins produced by earlier infecting strains and carried fewer pyocin types; (ii) this difference between early and late infections appears to be caused by a difference in pyocin diversity between competing genotypes and not by loss of pyocin genes within a lineage over time; (iii) pyocin inhibition does not explain why certain strains outcompete others within lung infections; (iv) strains frequently carry the pyocin-killing gene, but not the immunity gene, suggesting resistance occurs via other unknown mechanisms. Our results show that, in contrast to patterns observed in experimental studies, pyocin production does not appear to have a major influence on strain competition during CF lung infections

Development of the Pneumococcal Genome Library, a core genome multilocus sequence typing scheme, and a taxonomic life identification number barcoding system to investigate and define pneumococcal population structure

Investigating the genomic epidemiology of major bacterial pathogens is integral to understanding transmission, evolution, colonisation, disease, antimicrobial resistance, and vaccine impact. Furthermore, the recent accumulation of large numbers of whole genome sequences for many bacterial species enhances the development of robust genome-wide typing schemes to define the overall bacterial population structure and lineages within it. Using previously published data, we developed the Pneumococcal Genome Library (PGL), a curated dataset of 30,976 genomes and contextual data for carriage and disease pneumococci recovered between 1916-2018 in 82 countries. We leveraged the size and diversity of the PGL to develop a core genome multilocus sequence typing (cgMLST) scheme comprised of 1,222 loci. Finally, using multilevel single-linkage clustering, we stratified pneumococci into hierarchical clusters based on allelic similarity thresholds, and defined these with a taxonomic life identification number (LIN) barcoding system. The PGL, cgMLST scheme, and LIN barcodes represent a high-quality genomic resource and fine-scale clustering approaches for the analysis of pneumococcal populations, which support the genomic epidemiology and surveillance of this leading global pathogen. Impact statement Many thousands of pneumococcal genomes are available in the public domain, and this creates opportunities for the scientific community to re-use existing data; however, these data are most useful when the contextual data (provenance and phenotype) are also linked to the genomes. Therefore, we created a curated, open-access database in PubMLST that contained nearly 31,000 published pneumococcal genomes and the corresponding contextual data for each genome. This large and diverse pneumococcal database was used to create a novel cgMLST scheme and multilevel clustering method to define genetic lineages with high resolution and a standardised nomenclature. These are open-access resources for all to use and provide a unified framework for the characterisation of global pneumococcal populations