Formal total synthesis of (±)-conduramine E utilising the Bryce-Smith-Gilbert photoamination reaction

Utilising a Bryce-Smith-Gilbert photoamination of benzene as a key step, a synthesis of ()-conduramine E was carried out. A highly regioselective dihydroxylation of a cyclic diene was effected utilising Sharpless AD-mix-b

Circumstellar Disks in the Orion Nebula Cluster

We combine our previous optical spectroscopic and photometric analysis of ~1600 stars located in the Orion Nebula Cluster (ONC) with our own and published near-infrared photometric surveys of the region in order to investigate the evidence for and properties of circumstellar disks. We use the near-infrared continuum excess as our primary disk diagnostic, although we also study sources with Ca II triplet emission and those designated as "proplyds." The measured near-infrared excess is influenced by (1) the presence or absence of a circumstellar disk, (2) the relative importance of disk accretion and inner disk holes, (3) the relative contrast between photospheric and disk emission, and (4) system inclination. After attempting to understand the effects of these influences, we estimate the frequency of circumstellar disks and discuss the evidence for trends in the disk frequency with stellar mass (over the mass range <0.1–50 M_⊙), stellar age (over the age range <0.1–2 Myr), and projected cluster radius (over the radial range 0–3 pc). We find that the fraction of stars retaining their inner (<0.1 AU) circumstellar disks to the present time is at least 55% and probably no more than 90%, averaged over the entire range in stellar mass and stellar age represented in the ONC and over the entire area of our survey. We find no trend in the disk fraction with stellar age, at least not over the limited age range of the cluster. We find that more massive stars are less likely to have disks, consistent with a scenario in which the evolutionary timescales are more rapid for disks surrounding more massive stars than for disks surrounding less massive stars. We also find that the disk frequency begins to decrease toward the lowest masses, although objects of all masses (including those that appear to be substellar) can have disks. We find that the disk frequency increases toward the cluster center. We then argue, using several lines of evidence, that a large fraction of the disks associated with stars in the ONC are accretion disks. The observed trends with stellar age, stellar mass, and projected cluster radius in the disk frequency may, in fact, be driven primarily by trends in the disk accretion properties. From the magnitude of the near-infrared excess above that expected from pure irradiation disks, we find an accretion disk fraction among the stars identified as having disks of 61%–88%. In addition, approximately 20% of the stars in our optical spectroscopic sample show broad (several hundred km s^(-1) FWHM) Ca II emission lines, which are features often associated with accretion disk/wind phenomena; another 50% of the sample have Ca II lines that (at our spectral resolution) are "filled in," indicating an independently derived accretion disk frequency of ~70%. Finally, we discuss the near-infrared and optical emission-line properties of that portion of our sample identified from Hubble Space Telescope imaging as having a dark silhouette or an externally ionized structure. This sample, proposed in the literature to have accretion disks, appears to be no different in terms of its stellar or circumstellar properties from the rest of the ONC population. The only feature distinguishing these objects from their ONC siblings thus may be their current (but short-lived) proximity to the massive stars near the cluster center

The Building Blocks of Interoperability. A Multisite Analysis of Patient Demographic Attributes Available for Matching.

BackgroundPatient matching is a key barrier to achieving interoperability. Patient demographic elements must be consistently collected over time and region to be valuable elements for patient matching.ObjectivesWe sought to determine what patient demographic attributes are collected at multiple institutions in the United States and see how their availability changes over time and across clinical sites.MethodsWe compiled a list of 36 demographic elements that stakeholders previously identified as essential patient demographic attributes that should be collected for the purpose of linking patient records. We studied a convenience sample of 9 health care systems from geographically distinct sites around the country. We identified changes in the availability of individual patient demographic attributes over time and across clinical sites.ResultsSeveral attributes were consistently available over the study period (2005-2014) including last name (99.96%), first name (99.95%), date of birth (98.82%), gender/sex (99.73%), postal code (94.71%), and full street address (94.65%). Other attributes changed significantly from 2005-2014: Social security number (SSN) availability declined from 83.3% to 50.44% (p&lt;0.0001). Email address availability increased from 8.94% up to 54% availability (p&lt;0.0001). Work phone number increased from 20.61% to 52.33% (p&lt;0.0001).ConclusionsOverall, first name, last name, date of birth, gender/sex and address were widely collected across institutional sites and over time. Availability of emerging attributes such as email and phone numbers are increasing while SSN use is declining. Understanding the relative availability of patient attributes can inform strategies for optimal matching in healthcare

The Large Area Radio Galaxy Evolution Spectroscopic Survey (LARGESS): survey design, data catalogue and GAMA/WiggleZ spectroscopy

© 2016 The Authors. We present the Large Area Radio Galaxy Evolution Spectroscopic Survey (LARGESS), a spectroscopic catalogue of radio sources designed to include the full range of radio AGN populations out to redshift z ~ 0.8. The catalogue covers ~800 deg 2 of sky, and provides optical identifications for 19 179 radio sources from the 1.4 GHz Faint Images of the Radio Sky at Twenty-cm (FIRST) survey down to an optical magnitude limit of i mod < 20.5 in Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) images. Both galaxies and point-like objects are included, and no colour cuts are applied. In collaboration with the WiggleZ and Galaxy And Mass Assembly (GAMA) spectroscopic survey teams, we have obtained new spectra for over 5000 objects in the LARGESS sample. Combining these new spectra with data from earlier surveys provides spectroscopic data for 12 329 radio sources in the survey area, of which 10 856 have reliable redshifts. 85 per cent of the LARGESS spectroscopic sample are radio AGN (median redshift z = 0.44), and 15 per cent are nearby star-forming galaxies (median z = 0.08). Low-excitation radio galaxies (LERGs) comprise the majority (83 per cent) of LARGESS radio AGN at z < 0.8, with 12 per cent being high-excitation radio galaxies (HERGs) and 5 per cent radioloud QSOs. Unlike the more homogeneous LERG and QSO sub-populations, HERGs are a heterogeneous class of objects with relatively blue optical colours and a wide dispersion in mid-infrared colours. This is consistent with a picture in which most HERGs are hosted by galaxies with recent or ongoing star formation as well as a classical accretion disc

Phylogeography of Rattus norvegicus in the South Atlantic Ocean

Acknowledgments Funding for sample collection was provided by the Shackleton Scholarship Fund, Antarctic Research Trust, the Wyoming Biodiversity Institute, PVE/CAPES (Proposal 235453) and Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (SFRH/BPD/88854/2012). Thanks to Martin Collins, Andy Black, Darren Christie and the Government of South Georgia and South Sandwich Islands for the provision of samples from South Georgia, Annalea Beard for providing the rat sample from St Helena Island, Joaquim Tapisso, Rita Monarca and Ana Cerveira for samples from Portugal, and Emily Puckett for help validating South American SNP haplotypes. Funding for DNA sequencing was provided by Island LandCare, the University of Auckland. Thanks to two anonymous reviewers for the constructive comments.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction with bone-patellar tendon-bone autograft versus allograft in young patients

Objectives: Traditionally, bone-patella tendon-bone (BTB) autograft has been the gold standard graft choice for younger, athletic patients requiring ACL reconstruction. However, donor site morbidity, post-operative patella fracture, and increased operative time have led many surgeons to choose BTB allograft for their reconstructions. Opponents of allografts feel that slower healing time, higher rate of graft failure, and potential for disease transmission makes them undesirable graft choices in athletic patients. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the clinical outcomes, both subjective and objective, of young patients that who have undergone either BTB autograft or allograft reconstructions with a minimum of 2-year follow-up. Methods: One hundred and twenty patients (60 autograft, 60 allograft), age 25 and below at time of surgery, were contacted after being retrospectively identified as patients having an ACL reconstruction with either a BTB allograft or autograft by one senior surgeon. Patients were administered the Lysholm Knee Scoring Scale and IKDC Subjective Knee Evaluation questionnaires. Fifty (25 BTB autograft and 25 BTB allograft) of the 120 returned for physical examination as well as completion of a single leg hop test and laxity evaluation using a KT-1000 arthrometer evaluation. Of the 120 patients contacted, there were a total of 7 failures (5.8%) requiring revision, 6 in the allograft group (86%) and 1 in the autograft group (14%). Results: The average Lysholm scores were 89.0 and 89.56 and the average IKDC scores were 90.8 and 92.1 in the autograft and allograft groups respectively. The differences in the Lysholm scores and the IKDC scores were not significant. The single leg hop and KT-1000 scores were also not significantly different. One autograft patient had a minor motion deficit. Three allograft patients had a grade 1 Lachman and pivot glide. One autograft patient and two allograft patients had mild patellafemoral crepitus. There was no significant difference in anterior knee pain between the two groups Conclusion: There is no significant difference in patient-rated outcome between ACL reconstructions using BTB autografts versus allografts. However, the overall study group did reveal an increased failure rate requiring revision in the allograft group. © The Author(s) 2015

AAPM medical physics practice guideline 10.a.: Scope of practice for clinical medical physics.

The American Association of Physicists in Medicine (AAPM) is a nonprofit professional society whose primary purposes are to advance the science, education, and professional practice of medical physics. The AAPM has more than 8000 members and is the principal organization of medical physicists in the United States. The AAPM will periodically define new practice guidelines for medical physics practice to help advance the science of medical physics and to improve the quality of service to patients throughout the United States. Existing medical physics practice guidelines will be reviewed for the purpose of revision or renewal, as appropriate, on their fifth anniversary or sooner. Each medical physics practice guideline (MPPG) represents a policy statement by the AAPM, has undergone a thorough consensus process in which it has been subjected to extensive review, and requires the approval of the Professional Council. The medical physics practice guidelines recognize that the safe and effective use of diagnostic and therapeutic radiation requires specific training, skills, and techniques as described in each document. As the review of the previous version of AAPM Professional Policy (PP)-17 (Scope of Practice) progressed, the writing group focused on one of the main goals: to have this document accepted by regulatory and accrediting bodies. After much discussion, it was decided that this goal would be better served through a MPPG. To further advance this goal, the text was updated to reflect the rationale and processes by which the activities in the scope of practice were identified and categorized. Lastly, the AAPM Professional Council believes that this document has benefitted from public comment which is part of the MPPG process but not the AAPM Professional Policy approval process. The following terms are used in the AAPM's MPPGs: Must and Must Not: Used to indicate that adherence to the recommendation is considered necessary to conform to this practice guideline. Should and Should Not: Used to indicate a prudent practice to which exceptions may occasionally be made in appropriate circumstances

Advancing functional connectivity research from association to causation

Cognition and behavior emerge from brain network interactions, such that investigating causal interactions should be central to the study of brain function. Approaches that characterize statistical associations among neural time series-functional connectivity (FC) methods-are likely a good starting point for estimating brain network interactions. Yet only a subset of FC methods ('effective connectivity') is explicitly designed to infer causal interactions from statistical associations. Here we incorporate best practices from diverse areas of FC research to illustrate how FC methods can be refined to improve inferences about neural mechanisms, with properties of causal neural interactions as a common ontology to facilitate cumulative progress across FC approaches. We further demonstrate how the most common FC measures (correlation and coherence) reduce the set of likely causal models, facilitating causal inferences despite major limitations. Alternative FC measures are suggested to immediately start improving causal inferences beyond these common FC measures

BMQ

BMQ: Boston Medical Quarterly was published from 1950-1966 by the Boston University School of Medicine and the Massachusetts Memorial Hospitals